The Golden Age: Eden Disaster
by Maderfole
Summary: Book 2 of The Golden Age trilogy. If you had the ability... would you return Earth to Eden... against the will of its people? Is your Eden their Eden? What makes paradise be paradise? Sequel to Chaotic Cosmos, complete. Continued in The Reclamation War.
1. Introduction

Hello again, Gundam fans. This is Maderfole. Maybe you know me. Maybe you don't. Hopefully, if you don't, you're interested in correcting that. Or at least interested in enjoying some good Gundam SEED fanfiction... I suppose I can live with it if you ignore me completely, though I beg you please to not take that path. As many of us fanfiction writers know, its very lonely and cold and slow if you don't have people whispering encouragement to you in your review column. Its not much that we ask for... a few sentences. Maybe a paragraph if you're feeling brave or generous... a single phrase if need be. Humans can't live without food and drink. Fanfiction writers also need feedback, damn us for our neediness.

Enough about that though. This is my second story on . Hopefully, if you're reading this one, you've read that one. It's called Chaotic Cosmos (its LONG, I'm warning you now, so be ready). If you are reading this, and you HAVEN'T read that, then now would be the time to remedy that, and I'll see you in a bit. Otherwise, trying to dive straight into Eden Disaster is going to be very damn confusing for you, and you probably won't like the story at all because of that. There's all sorts of people, places, and events that will be constantly referenced or encountered in Eden Disaster that have their origins in Chaotic Cosmos, including the romantic pairing for at least one major canon character. So please, if you are a new reader, trolling the site looking for something good... don't start here. Start there. Then come here. Tossing a review or two my way along the road would give you lots of good karma too. Everyone needs karma.

Some things to note before you start reading. Like in Chaotic Cosmos, there will be war-like action in this story. What does that mean? Violence. Death. Pain. Fear. Gore, though not TOO excessive on that, usually. There's less actively psychotic villians in this story, though my insane pyscho killer villian was actually one of the most popular characters in Chaotic Cosmos. Other things, especially since the major characters in this story are in their low twenties now: Adult themes. That means implied sex, nudity (though since its all text anyway...) and the various acts of physical affection between youngish people deeply in love with each other. Also there is talk about sex, though not extremely implicit. It also means implied/actual drug use, implied/actual alcohol use and the consequences of both. I try and be realistic... ignoring the effects of drugs and alcohol on young people isn't very realistic... its part of our culture, if not always a savory part. Theres going to be a lot of swearing. People in the military swear, constantly. People in general swear. If swearing or anything else I've listed offends you, I apologize but you shouldn't read my stories, because I'd hate to offend you.

Eden Disaster represents my first major steps away from the old canon, in essence taking you, the reader, from a world that had been totally based in Gundam SEED as per the anime series, and expanded outwards from there, into a story that is more my take on the Gundam SEED world and how it evolves. That sounds weird when I read it. Don't take it the wrong way. This isn't a crossover fic, this isn't a paranormal, alternate reality (other than the standard fanfiction alternate reality), this isn't some weird thing where the world doesn't make any physical sense. I'm just saying... there's going to be events in this story that shake up my rendition of the Gundam SEED universe in extremely long term ways. Be prepared for a trip, and for... ahh, what the hell am I saying? Read the story. If you like it, so much the better. If not, my soul will weep, but at least you'll have tried. That's all I can ask. Reasonably ask anyway.

If you have an idea. If you see a mistake thats glaring. If you want to see something happen. If you want to make sure something doesn't happen. Tell me. Please. Theres not much I enjoy more than bringing you, the reader, as fully into my world as I can. If you have an idea and I like it, theres a very good chance it will end up in the story. Maybe not quite as fufilling as writing a story yourself... but a lot easier on you. I'll also ask you for specific feedback every so often. Take it or leave it, but really... I want your help in making my stories better. Inspire me, so that I can inspire you. Thank you, in advance. Now... for a brief recap and introduction...

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Its been five years since the end of the chaotic era of the two Valentine Wars in C.E. 73. Now the year C.E. 78, humanity has enjoyed an era of pece and prosperity unequalled since the very first years of the C.E. calender. With racial tensions much reduced after the dissolution of the Isolation and indeed many of the old Earth political empires, as well as the formation of the international governing body called The United Solar Nation, the transfer of ideas and technology has progressed in leaps and bounds. Money and raw materials flow up from Earth, stopping over on the Moon for prefabbing and banking, and are from there sent on to the PLANTS for final construction and investment. From the PLANTS industries all sorts of products that are unavailable or expensive to produce on Earth are sent back in large volumes, once more passing through the Moon first for consolidation and initial sale, then sent down to Earth to the final buyers. Other, secondary supply lines stretch directly from various nations of Earth to the PLANTS, or from the PLANTS to various orbital stations owned by Earth Governments, but the true life line and major artery of trade between those in space and those on Earth remains the Lunar cities and spaceports.

As a result of this economic shift, with most major heavy industries becoming spaceborn, there has come a dramatic shift in the political power that comes with economic viability. For the first time in hundreds of years, the nations making up the African Union have become truly wealthy and profitable, catapulting them from the dregs of second and third world status to the highest levels of first world lifestyles, seeing the blossoming of cities of skyscrapers where there had once been run down shanty towns, and sprawling technological or business centers crowding up alongside ritzy malls and world class hotels, where less than a half decade prior there had been only barely used farm or grazing land. Allied closely with the Lunar Cities, forming the Afro-Lunar Union, or ALU, the two former second or even third tier nations have become the new dominant economic power on Earth, taking a piece of over eighty percent of all trade profits between Earth and the PLANTS. If something is fashionable, expensive or desirable, then its a sure bet you'll find it in the ALU, a reborn merchantile empire in the modern era.

Of course, this shift in the balance of power does not sit well with everyone. Though peace and prosperity does reign throughout human space, for humanity to be ever fully content is quite impossible, and for someone's pie to get bigger, some else's must get smaller in return. The former superpowers of Earth, the Atlantic and Eurasian Federations, as well as the Republic of East Asia, had banded together after the fall of the Isolation, expecting to easily become the dominant partner of the USN, able to dictate terms and conditions basically as they saw fit, much like the old United States used to do to the United Nations in ancient times. However, with the advent of the Africa-Luna trade route, which handled more than eighty percent of all shipping from Earth's surface to space, and more than fifty percent of return traffic as well, turning the Victoria Spaceport into the largest such facility ever constructed, the Federated Nations of Earth, or FNE, found much of its economic might curtailed. Of course, they were still superpowers, and jointly possessed of a manufacturing base the PLANTS could not hope to match with a hundred years of expansion, but it was in the arena of quality, not quantity, that the PLANTS products defeated their own, much as the founders of Blue Cosmos had feared would happen.

This led to quite a bit of self righteous grumbling, about how things used to be better before, and how people "knew this would happen", even though, counter to Blue Cosmos claims, there was no widespread economic collapse on Earth. Quite the opposite really... it was just the super-rich and privileged nations that were suddenly falling out of the limelight a little, and the scale of their economic woe was actually much less than the wound done to their pride. Adding on to that was the reductions in military force across human space. The nations of the FNE were used to being the dominant military powers around, many of them had maintained standing armies sufficient to destroy any nation that wasn't also a superpower in a matter of days for centuries now, and now they no longer had that force at their disposal. There were strict limits in place that regulated how large an nation's armed forces were allowed to become, even limiting the number of expensive material assets, such as warships, vehicles and especially Mobile Suits, that each member state could have under its personal control. Of course, these numbers were based upon population, so the FNE still had the largest indiviudal army... it was just much, much smaller than they were used to... more a large security force than a real army, or so they were wont to complain.

Stringent regulations controlled many technologies, especially ones related to war. Nuclear powered Mobile Suits were limited to use by the USN forces only, and given the cost of miniaturizing and mass producing nuclear reactors, not to mention renewed environmental and political concerns, the USN employed very few nuclear Mobile Suits. Strategic weapons, whether they were nuclear, chemical, biological or EMP in nature, were all totally forbidden, and frequent inspections were carried out by USN inspectors to ensure that this most important of weapon bans was followed in both spirit and letter. The first step to preventing a war of mutual annihilation was removing the means to effect that annihilation in the first place. Policing the world peace situation was no particularly easy task... humans were by nature fracticious, and there were innumerable minor flare ups between nations large and small over the years that required the intervention of USN peacekeepers to maintain civility and keep people from thinking that they could get away with even minor expressions of war or hate mongering.

Taking recruits from all four major member states, regardless of Natural or Coordinator genetics, the USN forces also mixed men and women freely through all branches of service, a caveat demanded by the PLANTS and Orb and reluctantly agreed to by the ALU and FNE. There had been a few incidents... it would have been strange if there weren't, but by and large the USN was also a self policing force, and most such incidents were dealt with quickly and decisively enough. The day and age where women were seen as slightly lesser people to be coddled and protected was officially over, the USN declared through its policies. Having the standards be the same for men and women made many uncomfortable, but the USN's policy soon became that if you didn't want to serve within the rules, and couldn't put forth the effort required of you, then you were probably not USN military material in the first place. As a result of this unofficial attitude, there was a relatively higher concentration of Orb and PLANTS citizens in the USN military, as they came from cultures where gender and racial equality had been socially normal for decades or longer and hardly needed to adapt at all.

Each member state of course produced its own technologies and advancements, but each nation was also required to allocate a certain amount per year to maintaining and upgrading the USN forces a swell, ensuring that the USN remained at the very least technologically equal to the member states military's, at least on paper. Keeping up with Orb's rapid technological advancement was very difficult in reality, and more new technologies, of both military and civilian sorts, were coming out of the PLANTS than could be easily comprehended, but the leaders of the USN resolved not to fall into the mode of the old Earth Alliance, assuming that the gear it had used for decades would remain cutting edge... numbers mattered, but not nearly as much in the USN era as the quality of those numbers, and the quality of the equipment they had. Ten half trained men in Strike Daggers only barely equaled one well trained ZAFT Redcoat in an Elemental after all, and in some people's estimation that was an insult to the Redcoat. The production of "Gundams", i.e. highly advanced, semi-unique high performance Mobile Suits designed to be used by the most elite pilots a member state had to offer was strongly discouraged, but that stopped no one from attempting to build them anyway... and even succeeding in some cases.

Besides the always booming sector of military sciences, the new big thing to hit the technology markets of Earth and Space was Biotech... the manipulation of germs, viruses and the processes of life for all sorts of domestic and industrial applications. Largely a Coordinator dominated field, which surprised very few, given the genetic science steeped nature of their culture, various end products produced by the PLANTS included "Gunk Go Getter or G3", a widely popular engineered bacterial colony that consumed almost any sort of waste, whether it was chemical, medical, industrial or even human biological, and converted it to atmospheric friendly gases like oxygen and ozone, which of course had enormous environmental applications. Or the nigh fantastical medicine called "Curaga", after a magical healing spell from a popular video game series, which when applied as either a self salved cream or by immersion into a full body tank, promoted healing up to fifty times faster than could be achieved without it, including even nervous system damage or severe burns, assuming the treatment was applied before the body healed itself naturally. Curaga was astronomically expensive, as one might expect, and only the very wealthiest private citizens or major government organizations could afford to use it, and sparingly at that.

Outgrowths... or perhaps sidegrowths, depending on who you asked... of Biotech were more improvements in genetic science and the manipulation of the human genome, both before and after the womb. The rate of mishaps and miscarriages with regard to Coordinated pregnacies dropped by ninety percent over the course of the five years, and a "Coordinator Pill" was even developed that circumvented the usual strict personal regime of diet, exercise and outpatient treatments that had formerly characterized having a Coordinator baby. This made the process of having Coordinator children much cheaper and easier, with a resultant "baby boom" amongst Coordinators, though not everyone approved of the idea, and in some nations the "C-Pill" was made illegal to own, except with a medical waiver. Also often regulated to the grey or black markets were "Touch Ups", genetic manipulations of a person's genome when they were fully grown or otherwise beyond the state of the zygote and embryo. Touch Ups were mostly minor and cosmetic, little more than genetic tattoos... eye and hair color changes, skin color changes, even changing the shape of the eye or the feeling of one's skin was possible, assuming you paid enough money. Touch Ups were usually temporary, and could even be added or removed in as little as a few hours time, in an outpatient environment, adding a whole new variable to the fashion world, and one more thing for parents to disapprove of and forbid their children from trying, futiley.

Confined to the black market... and not the friendly one that tourists could sometimes access in the seedier parts of Earth, but the real, criminal black market, run for great profit by organized syndicates... were advancements in human cloning. Animal cloning was perfectly legal, and even starting to become widespread, as people use cloned meats to make up for food shortages, and wore or bought cloned leather clothing and furniture. However, religious groups, relaxed somewhat about the "Coordinator Issue", adamantly refused to budge on the idea of human clones, or even research into the idea, which some even called unholy or evil. But on the black market, assuming you knew the right people and had deep enough pockets, you could buy all sorts of byproducts of human cloning technology... replacement limbs, organs, even blood and reproductive tissue. One famous international incident revolved around someone who'd had the skin of a celebrity cloned and tried to replace his own with it... unsuccessfully, it was widely acknowledged. But the idea was there, and it was a well known fact about human nature that once something had been tried once, it was sure to be tried again... and again, and again, until eventually it would become commonplace, even if never accepted publicly by society.

Hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars were poured into the search for a cure to the Coordinator's ongoing infertility problems, but much like the search for the original cure for cancer or the persistent genetic diseases of several centuries ago, progress was painfully slow, almost nonexistant it seemed at times. Still, people doggedly held onto hope, aware that any problem could be solved, if you threw enough time, money and effort at it. Conspiracy rumors spread around constantly, saying that one government or another, even the PLANTS themselves, had actually secretly made breakthroughs that had fixed the problem and they were just hanging onto their solution to use as blackmail or to drain more money out of charities, but no one paid them much mind... such things were almost expected to be heard about any projects that ate up huge amounts of resources for little apparent result.

Another huge time and money sink that drew constant criticism was the renewal of the Space Race. Nowadays though it wasn't a race to see who could reach orbit first, or even set foot on the Moon... such feats having been long rendered obsolete. The modern Space Race revolved around Mars and the Asteroid Belt, as well as the closer and most stable moons of Jupiter. The PLANTS and indeed some Earth nations had been practicing the art of asteroid mining for some time now, but there was quite a bit of difference in peeling out a largish asteroid from the belt and returning it to a near Earth orbit, versus establishing long term mining and habitation centers in the Asteroid Belt itself, as well as on Mars. The first Martian cities were under construction, scientific and military enclaves much like their predecessors on the Moon had been. Funding was given out for projects focused on terraforming Mars, though such efforts were still in their infant stages... even for the PLANTS, there was a vast difference between constructing spaceborne self contained environments, even self sustaining ones, and changing the environment of an entire planet into something hospitable for unassisted human life.

Speaking of the PLANTS, they'd been expanding during the five years of peace. The increased demand for manufacturing and technological services from Earth, now that the PLANTS were finally their own sovereign nation, as well as the recent beginnings of a real population boom among Coordinators, both already living on the PLANTS and newly immigrating from Earth, had mandated the construcion of entirely new PLANTS, designated "E-PLANTS", for "Expanded Production Location Arcology for Natural and Technical Systems". Designated Centennial City, Epoch City and Millenium City, each of the first three E-PLANTS was almost seventy five percent bigger than the original version of the famed space hourglasses, and were designed for permanent populations reaching into the tens of millions, providing ample room for expansion of the PLANTS in decades to come.

Down on Earth, in Orb, colonization of another new frontier, long neglected since space travel became commonplace and the construction of space colonies became cost effective, was started up again, in response to a population and industrial/technological demand. Working closely with the PLANTS, borrowing heavily from the construction blueprints of the original PLANTS cities, Orb was well on its way to finishing the very first sub-oceanic city on Earth, known as Mare-Town, or more accurately Mare-Town Depths, for the actual underwater colony. Mare-Town on the surface was a seemingly man made island of a deep water harbor and support facility, which, like the tip of an iceberg, is really only a small part of the city itself. The Depths are connected to the Mare-Town harbor and support facility by multiple elevators almost identical in design to the main spine lifts on the PLANTS, leading down almost five hundred meters to a just starting to thrive city of 1.5 million citizens, mostly scientists and technicians, though everyday businesses are starting to creep in along with tourism. The entire city is surrounded by the trademark glass walls of the PLANTS, and the area around the city is kept brightly illuminated by spotlights during the day, allowing a breathtaking view of the ocean floor that few people would ordinarily be able to experience. Easily the most visible and well known Morganroete Armories project, Mare-Town and its Depths are watched closely by the entire Earth, as a possible solution to land mass population crowding may have finally presented itself.

Less visible, but no less well funded, was the Morganroete Armories Secure Testing Facility, buried a good hundred meters beneath the lowest levels of Mare-Town Depths. What better time or place to build a secret military testing ground than during the most massive construction project undertaken this century? Who was going to notice a few billions of extra dollars in construction costs on a project costing trillions? And it was hard to find a place more secure from survelliance, whether orbital or otherwise, than deep beneath a restricted access city that was itself a half kilometer below the ocean's surface. Thus it is to this facility, at this time and place, five years, plus or minus a few months, after the end of the Second Valentine War and the dissolution of the Isolation, that we return to the meat of our story and catch up with our favorite protagonists, reunited after almost a year apart, for a very special ceremony, courtesy of Dr. Erica Simmons, who was practically bursting at the seams with eagerness at the unveiling of her newest technological masterpieces.


	2. Glory Be, Gundam

Author's note: Well, here you guys go. Reviewers have been asking about, expecting, and even arguing for new Gundams ever since about halfway through Choatic Cosmos. Until now, I haven't obliged them, forcing my characters to rely mostly on ingenuinity, skill and teamwork to survive an increasing technological diversification among their foes. Well, like many things you wait a long time for, your patience is about to be rewarded, readers. Thanks to my fertile imagination... and a great deal of stuff from you guys as well... I'm about to present five SERIOUSLY bad ass Gundams. Course, I'm biased, since they're mine, but I think the reviews should be... interesting.

There are several reasons these new Gundams have been so long in coming. Plot inertia was too high, in my opinion, in the latter half of Chaotic Cosmos for me to introduce new machines. Also, I didn't have anything NEW to put in... it hadn't been that long since the end of Gundam SEED the anime, not enough time for technological innovation to come THAT far. I was stretching it with the Angel Halo, Vari-Camera, Photon Cloak and other goodies as it was, in my opinion. After that, most major technological advances came from groups other than Orb, so I didn't feel sanguine about incorporating them into the protagonist Gundams. I no longer have that self imposed restriction... its been five years of story down time, with Orb throwing a huge amount of money into Mobile Suit technology, just as Cagalli promised. Dr. Simmons has been working long shifts for more than four years of story time now, and she's finally ready to show off again. I must say, she's impressed even me.

Some readers will probably actually feel a twinge of concern... these Gundams are Powerful, with the capital P totally warrented. They have capabilities that make the Liberty and the Righteous look... wimpy. In their way, they're more on the Pulsar's level... though with vastly different technology. That is something I've tried to cleave to... different factions have different technology, have developed different strategies of research and different styles of applying existing technology to their Gundams. Orb for instance, has gone far down the road of DRAGOON type systems and is the banner leader in the manipulation of magnetic fields, while the USN machines are more... practical, for lack of a better term, focusing on increasing the versatility of a single machine... and the Brotherhood Gundams focus on outgrowths of the technologies that went into the Pulsar, and are more melee and special ability based than the full-scale war type Gundams from the other factions. I've tried to maintain balance of power, while also allowing lots of new kick ass abilities and technologies. So give me a chance, even if something seems just totally ridiculous about how strong something is. There's always a bigger fish, as they say... and I like think that I've got some pretty DAMN big fish waiting in the wings.

I also changed some of the names, because they were bothering me with the... unwieldiness, I guess... of how they sounded. Oh yes. If you are talented with graphics, by hand or by computer... pictures of these Gundam's would be cool. I know what they look like... but maybe your mental picture is cooler than mine? And thanks for the reviews... eight already when I'm writing this. You guys continue to make it all worthwhile. You make me smile with your plot predictions. Widely, though you haven't sunk any battleship's just yet, so to speak. Now, without further ado... Glory to the Gundams!

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"I think Dr. Simmons might have an annuerism if this elevator doesn't get started up again soon." Cagalli said in a sly mutter to Athrun, as they, along with Kira, waited for the elevator's motive power to come back on. Power outages and problems were common at the moment, as Mare-Town Depths was still being hooked into Orb's main power grid, and the solar and tidal generators it had in the meanwhile often struggled to consistently provide enough power for the city's needs, especially on days that were cloudy or waveless. Even the top secret MAST-F could not draw more power to its systems than there was available to draw upon, and so they'd been stuck in the elevator for about five minutes now, after receiving at last the all clear signal from Dr. Simmon telling them she wanted them to come down to the gargantuan hanger/testing range that took up most of a square kilometer of man made cavern under Mare-Town Depths.

"Something has to teach the woman patience, whether it be God, Fate or faulty electric power generators... I'm not going to be choosy." Athrun replied, with a smirk. "It used to be fun, getting ordered about constantly by her, working together to design the various subsystems... but I've got more important things to do, thank god, than design Gundam's all day long. I'm glad she's passionate about her work... but really, its just a Mobile Suit."

"I'd keep that opinion quiet, if I were you. I mentioned that to her once before, and had to endure a multiple hour long lecture on why the technological data we glean from designing and building cutting edge Gundams provides hundreds of millions of dollars in saved costs and second or third generation technological advantages that... blah, blah, blah... she really talked my ear off." Kira said with a wry smile of his own. "She never stopped working either. She's serious about her Gundams, is Dr. Simmons. Its a good thing she has her husband and child to look after too, or else she'd probably never leave the workshop or lab."

"She can't do that to me. I'm her boss." Cagalli said, smugly. She looked over at her brother, who looked a little lonely, since Lacus had, perhaps unsurprisingly, declined to come along for this particular event. Lacus really didn't like Mobile Suits on general principle, and she was even less fond of Gundams, since Kira was so often called on to help design, program, or worst of all, fight with them. No bipedal, humanoid war machine, no matter how technologically advanced and aesthetically pleasing its design and features, would Lacus ever view as beautiful. And since that was exactly what Dr. Simmons was planning on expounding on today, in no doubt excruitiating detail, Lacus had decided to go spend some time by herself. Cagalli had to remind herself that despite his lost dog look, Kira had come of his own free will... he didn't like Gundams for fighting, but he could definitely sign on to appreciation of the Gundam's as technological marvels. Cagalli's mind switched tracks, with her usual abruptness. "So, Lacus is turning twenty two soon, right Kira? What are you going to get her for her birthday, hmm?"

"Not quite sure. What do you get the girl who doesn't really WANT anything she doesn't already have, except more time for the two of us?" Kira asked, actually serious as he rubbed his jaw in contemplation, which Cagalli found annoying. Not the rubbing of his jaw, but the fact that Kira seemed to actually believe that Lacus didn't want anything but to spend more time with him.

"Okay... let me ask you again... and THINK this time, maybe real hard if you have to, before answering, so you don't come across as a stupid, insensitive geek... what are you getting Lacus for her birthday, Kira, hmm?" Cagalli said, gnashing her teeth sweetly at him. Seeing her Look, Athrun subtled distanced himself from Kira, sidling out of the direct line of approach from between the siblings. They hadn't been in the same room together for a while now... months even... and though Kira only lived a forty minute flight by personal transport away, he did have a tendency to forget to call, so Athrun knew that Cagalli had been missing her brother something fierce... even though she'd never admit it out loud.

Kira was saved the trial of answering by a sudden jerking of the elevator, followed rapidly thereafter by its continued smooth descent. Athrun smiled at the brief look of relief that passed over his friends face as he dodged the question, since knowing Kira he actually WAS having trouble thinking of what to get Lacus that she really wanted. Athrun's grin grew wider as Caglli silently jabbed her finger at her brother and indicated that he was far from off the hook. She'd be wanting an answer before they left Mare-Town. "What are you smirking about!? Something funny!? Do I need to re-administer my habitual domination of your soul, hmm!?" Cagalli asked him, taking his arm in hers in a manner that Athrun decided wasn't nearly as friendly as she made it look. He felt more like a hostage grabbed by a bank robber than a man being cuddled by his wife.

This time it was Athrun that was saved from having to answer a tough question, because the elevator slowed to a halt and the doors opened allowing them to step out into the cavernous space of the Main Testing Hanger. The roof of the MTH was at least fifty meters above them, and there were visible clouds of condensation forming among the support rafters. It even rained inside sometimes, which was startling the first few times, and never something you grew fully used to. Dr. Simmons was waiting for them in an electric conveyance... walking from place to place in the MTH took too long for her tastes, as it could take ten minutes for a person to walk from one wall to the other. She was tapping her foot rapidly on the reinforced floor, and there was a decided hint of white knuckles on her hands where she gripped the steering wheel. Dr. Simmons wasn't nearly as fanatical and obsessed as she sometimes appeared... she just loved her work, and put her all into it, and she did dearly love showing off the handiwork of her and her compatriots. She felt she had a reputation to maintain, as the premier Gundam designer in the world... discounting the odd aberration, like the Pulsar, which she'd actually never gotten to see in person, much to her everlasting disappointment.

"Athrun, Kira, Miss Cagalli... thanks for coming! Please, hop on... we've got a lot of ground to cover!" Dr. Simmons exhorted them. "Dearka, Miriallia, Ysak and Katie are already waiting for us. And you know how they hate waiting. Well, how Ysak hates waiting anyhow."

"Oh, I'd HATE to make Ysak unhappy by forcing him to wait on me. Just hate it." Athrun muttered sarcastically.

"Yes, he can get grouchy." Dr. Simmons replied, apparently having missed his tone. "Fortunately, Katie does a very good job of keeping him in line, and he's been... well, not a perfect dear, but at least workable with."

"Grouchy? Ysak? Any other understatements you'd like to make?" Cagalli asked with a chuckle. Dr. Simmons eyed her with a bright smile.

"Hundreds, Miss Cagalli. Hundreds. I don't think I can possibly describe the Gundams to you in normal, understandable, human terms, without using them." Dr. Simmons cheerfully pressed down on the accelerator, until the electric cart was moving at close to... if not a little beyond... its top speed of around thirty miles per hour. It doesn't sound very fast, but when the cart has no sides and no seat belts, and you're only about six inches off the floor when sitting down, it seems a lot faster than it is. Within a minute they'd reached the far wall of the MTH, against which were lined up five tall, currently shapeless forms. The curtains and shrouds covering the Gundams were affixed to pulley and trolly systems, so that with the press of a single button, Dr. Simmons could unveil her creations in the most literal sense, one at a time. Standing at the control and diagnostics station positioned midway down the line of concealed Gundams were Dearka, Miriallia, Ysak and Katie, along with a small group of engineers, technicians and mechanics, who were there to assist with the demonstrations of some of the Gundam's less massively destructive powers.

"About DAMN time!" Ysak yelled at them, as they got within hearing range. "What, did you stop for a little kiss and snuggle on the way down or something!? I know you two can't control yourselves when you're together, but I honestly thought you could manage a simple elevator ride!"

"I'd forgotten how much he makes me want to throw people down stairs." Cagalli commented, just barely above a whisper. "I can see why ZAFT keeps him in the field as much as possible."

"Caution tells me to shut up, but I can't resist the urge to point out that you're not exactly the most tactful person alive either, Cagalli. Which is why you made Athrun your ambassador, right?" Kira interjected as a reply.

"You really should learn to listen to Caution. He'll save you much grief." Cagalli retorted, hand starting to curl slightly.

"She will hit you, remember? Especially since Lacus isn't around to mke her feel guilty." Athrun reminded his friend. "It doesn't bother her, hitting people, in public. To the rest of us, it's assault and battery... to her its just another form of punctuation, like an exclaimation point, but even harder to ignore. You can't imagine how many times I've had to explain that at parties." As expected, Cagalli flushed and diverted her blow, punching Athrun on the shoulder, instead of Kira. "I'm used to it, though. You're welcome, by the way."

"Come on, Cagalli... you can beat them both into mewling pulps later... lets get this on with, so we can catch up properly!" Miriallia said, with a note of pleading in her voice. "I've got an entire year of wonderful stories to tell, and its eating me up inside waiting on the Gundam!"

"They're not all wonderful..." Dearka murmered, wincing at some sudden fragment of memory or other.

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"Well, then without further ado, I shall attempt to cheer you all up, and let you get on with your catching up!" Dr. Simmons said with a knowing smile. She gestured dramatically at the leftmost in the line of shrouded Gundams. "In deference to the august presence of our Commander in Chief, I will present her machine first. Feast your eyes upon the Dawn Goddess!" Dr. Simmons cast the shroud away with a whirr of pulley systems. The Gundam revealed was tall and staturesque, with a well rounded and almost smooth appearance to its outer surfaces. The chest was rather bulky compared to the limbs, except for the forearms, which were larger than one might expect, even for a twenty meter war machine. The head had a small crown of decorative armor spikes in the shape of a halo over the brow, though given Erica Simmons's penchant for gadgetry, they probably were anything but decorative. The base color of the machine was a warm amber-yellow, with any large protrusions, including all the detached weapon systems done in a darker orange hue. The highlights and edges of many of the armor plates and structural features were decorated with silver scrollwork or designs, some almost too faint to see, others bright and bold and eye catching. The joints of the machine, where visible, glowed a brilliant golden, the lustre of the precious metal. The main camera lenses were a bright yellow color, standing out even unlit like flares on a dawning sun.

"Twenty meters tall, eighty five tons of mass, making the Dawn... as we call her here for short, since Dawn Goddess is a bit much to repeat constantly... roughly twenty percent bigger all around than the Strike Rubicon, which may take some getting used too, though we've managed to retain all of the speed and maneuverability you're used to from the smaller machine. I can't really draw many more parallels to the Rubicon, because the Dawn is nothing at all like it, in fact. Whereas the Rubicon was a mere upgrade... a good upgrade, but just an upgrade... of the Strike Rouge, which was an upgrade tweak of the Strike Gundam, the Dawn is an entirely new Gundam, original and awesome. Where to begin, where to begin... ah!" Dr. Simmons pointed one hand at the elbow and knee joints, which flashed like gold coins in the hangar lighting. "You'll see joints like that on all of the new Gundams... and on the new mass production models as well, for that matter. Its a new alloy we've developed... I won't bore you with the chemical composition or the nigh unpronouncable latin name... we call it Ice-Gold. The metal experiences next to no friction at all, especially when rubbing against itself... unlike most such friction reducing materials though, it is just as strong as regular structural materials. The downside... its pretty expensive and time consuming to make or repair. The upside... it doesn't break down under normal wear or tear, and provides the smoothest flexibility you'll ever experience, all without flammable lubricants."

"Now getting into the Dawn itself. We've made some advances in power technologies in recent years, enabling us to make our nuclear reactors both smaller and more powerful, while retaining the same weight and cooling and shielding requirements. More power, less space, all good. All of the Gundams have these new reactors, which should result in you having about fifteen percent more power than you're used to... closer to two hundred percent more power for you, Miss Cagalli, since you're coming from a battery system. They also start up and shut down in about half the time as the old ones. Now, really, to the Dawn... the armor plates represent a significant departure from all previous Gundam defensive mechanisms. Reacting to the ever increasing presence of beam and plasma based weaponry on the battlefield, which of course Phase Shift Armor is quite limited against, we decided to create a new type of armor, based off the principles of the Photon Cloak we made for the old Duelist. We call this new armor Heat Absorbing Conductive, or HAC armor... never saw that coming, did you?" Dr. Simmons smiled at their patient groans. "True to its name, it absorbs heat and conducts it so that no one point on the armor's surface is any hotter than any other point. With a melting temperature in the ten thousand degree's plus range, and the capacity to radiate heat away at rates of several thousand degrees per second, the armor is basically impervious to heat and beam based weaponry, even beam melee weapons."

"Impervious to beams? Does that include hyper impulse weapons and positron or ion type emitters as well, or strictly pure heat based systems?" Athrun asked.

"Hyper-impulse, since that is supercharged and compressed plasma at heart, yes. Positron and other purely charged particle weapons, no. And I should modify the term impervious into extremely resistant... if you sit there and let a bunch of Mobile Suits or a couple warships blast you again and again and again with their beams, the armor will eventually melt away. But in any realistic battlefield sense, that's not likely to happen. It is also very hard, about twice as effective as regular armor against ballistic or explosive weapons. In essence, HAC armor is the opposite of PS armor. Why not put both? Particle interference and insulation, similar to the way Mirage Colloid interferes with PS armor, if you put HAC on top of PS... layering the armor with PS on top of HAC reduces the cooling efficiency of the HAC armor by several hundred percent, dramatically lowering the number of hits you can take, to the point where the extra cost and weight, and subsequent maneuvering and speed losses, compromise the rest of the design. World's not perfect, just yet... we're working on it though."

"Now on to the good part... the weapons you will use to decimate your hopefully few enemies. In the head, to either side of and just below the Halo you have another new advance that has been a long time in coming... the 15mm Beam CIWS. No more running out of ammunition in the middle of battle, forcing you to dodge or just take missile hits. They're not very good against Mobile Suits, but they're better than the old CIWS, and they do quite a number on most armored vehicles and especially on soldiers. 15mm Beam CIWS's are standard on all of the new Gundams and our new mass production Suits. Mounted on the back of each shoulder there, on a gimballed mount that acts like a turret with a 280 degree arc of fire, is a 150mm Beam Cannon. You can even fire each cannon in a different direction if you so choose. Mounted in each breast of the Gundam, to either side of the cockpit area, under semi-concealed hatches... see if you can spot them... are four 80mm gatling cannons, two per side. Though ammunition supplies are somewhat tight, they should provide an excellent back up weapon against overconfident enemies who charge in unexpectedly close."

"She's got machine guns for breasts? Thats awesom... OW!" Dearka's voice rose from a whisper as Miriallia cuffed him none too lightly on the side of his head.

Dr. Simmons went on as if there had not been an interruption. "The Dawn carries two large multiple missile launchers on its back, after firing two salvoes each, those launchers can be freely detached to reduce weight and increase maneuverability. The main weapon of the Dawn, which is carried and used with both hands for best results, though one handed use is possible, is called Hameya's Arbalest. For those of you unschooled in military history, an arbalest is a type of heavy crossbow or small ballista, which fired a heavy, armor piercing bolt long distances at high speeds using high tension wires or strings. Slow firing but wickedly deadly, arbalests were popular anti-armor weapons for the common soldier or smart commander. We've maintained the spirit of the arbalest with our version, and brought it up to modern standards. Hameya's Arbalest is actually a dual weapon... the top, larger barrel is a 125cm "Gottfried" class High Energy Beam Cannon. That's right, the same type of weapon as the Archangel uses, if only half the caliber and single barreled. Don't fret though... it can still destroy a pair of Strike Crusaders or a Nelson class destroyer in a single blast."

Dr. Simmons watched Cagalli's eyes light up a bit at the thought of firepower that heavy. It was a good thing Cagalli loved peace so much... she had an unhealthy interest in destructive weaponry. "The smaller muzzle belongs to a 120mm Recoilless Launcher. The Recoilless Launcher fires a type of missile I'm not ashamed to admit we copied from the Isolation. It's called an EARP... Enhanced ARmor Penetrator. It was designed to pierce Mobile Suit shields or other heavily armored structures and then explode, destroying them or dealing significant damage, though compared to the power of a regular missile it was only about seventy percent as strong. We've fixed that... our Arbalest launches direct fire, self propelled rockets that can penetrate up to two meters of solid armor plate before detonating, with a warhead strong enough to blow an Elemental in half. The rockets aren't too big, and the Dawn carries a generous supply of them. That's not all they can do either, but I'll get back to that later, as it wouldn't make sense to continue until I explain something else down the road first." Erica stopped to take a deep breath and a sip of water from a cup a technician handed her.

"So much to talk about... I guess thats what I get for building them mostly up from scratch this time..." Erica muttured, half to herself, before plunging back into her narration. "For those times when you can't or don't wish to use ranged weapons, the Dawn carries a twelve meter, magnetically sheathed, electrified, physically bladed lance. Though solid, the magnetic treatment, similar to that which was applied to the shields of the original Gundams, allows you to parry and block beam based melee weaponry, at least for a time. As for electrified... well, if you can imagine a taser baton, but designed to be used on a Mobile Suit, you'll start to get the idea. The lance also has another special property that I'll get into later. Now, you'll notice the lack of a physical shield. You can hurrah now... they are no longer in style! No more switching weapons and shields in and out... each forearm contains a field emitter that projects a Citadel type lightwave barrier in the shape and size of the shield's you're used to using. The shields aren't impenetrable... but they can absorb much more than your old shields, and they place hardly any limit on your mobility or dexterity. Similar shields are also standard on many of the other Gundams. Finally, rounding out the defensive systems, the Halo above her head has both Vari-Camera sensors and can project an Angel Halo effect, just like the Righteous and Liberty used to have. I don't think I'm exaggerating by much when I say that if Cagalli had had the Dawn back during the First Valentine War, she could have probably trashed both the Freedom and the Justice without too much effort."

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Erica gestured at Cagalli. "Be prepared to help assist me in a few demonstrations, but not just yet. We've got to explain Athrun's Mobile Suit first, for much of it to make any sense at all. And with that segue..." Erica hit her trolley control again, and the next Gundam's shroud was pulled away. Of a height with the Dawn Goddes, this new Gundam was even more massive, mostly due to the two HUGE wings folded with amazing delicacy, at least for a Mobile Suit, upon its back. Sharing the golden joints of the Dawn Goddess, what had to be Athrun's Gundam was a bright, fire engine red color for a base, with any prominent protrusions being bright orange, while every angled surface and edge... of which there were many and more, was highlighted in smoldering yellow. The Gundam looked very much like it was made of fire, at least if fire could be captured in freeze frame. Somber and noble, the rich purple lenses of the eyes seemed almost alive. Unlike the Dawn, this Gundam seemed to mount no external weaponry at all, not even the usual Beam Rifle or swords. Its every surface was streamlined, and despite its angularity, it suggested great speed, like a futristic race car on two legs.

"Meet the Phoenix King. If you recall Orb history, you may know that the people who first settled Orb in ancient times worshipped the volcano in the center of the main island, Mt. Hameya, as a Goddess. According to their legends, Hameya, in the few times when she was truly angry and would go to war against the Gods of other people, rode on the back of the king of all birds, a mighty eagle made entirely of volcanic fire... a phoenix. I took that legend to heart when I made this fiery bastard. God I hate him and love him... which I think is apt, given how the public has generally viewed its pilot, even these days." Erica smiled disarmingly at Athrun, whom she personally adored almost as much as Cagalli. Athrun was really hard not to adore, once you got to know him anyway. Erica got her mind back on track with a shrug. What she'd said was true... of all the Gundams, this one really touched her heart the most... but making it work had been HORRIBLE! She was NEVER going to do it again! Until next time...

"As you probably have observed by now, the Phoenix King seems rather lightly armed. And, in a traditional sense, that is even true. The Phoenix King though, is ANYTHING but traditional, let me assure you. For traditional ranged weapons, he carries two of the good old twin 57mm Beam Rifles that we pioneered on the Liberty and Righteous... you can't see them because they're carried under the wings when not in use. Also, each forearm mounts three plasma-flame projectors, with a range of about fifty meters in a cone or line shape, and there are two 15mm Beam CIWS in the head. That is it. No other traditional ranged weapons. No traditional melee weapons. Am I crazy? Debatable, perhaps... certainly no one believed I could possibly create the weapon systems I'd imagined for this bird... but, I did. Hah, hah! Not that I'm feeling supremely vindicated or anything. Anyhow, enough suspense and self congratualtion."

Erica pointed flamboyantly at the Phoenix King's wings. "See the wings? Can't miss them. Each of those wings is composed of a base support structure, and thirty six individual feathers made of the same magnetically treated alloy that the Dawn's lance is, each a meter and a half long by about a meter wide at the widest point, though of course they taper just like feathers. Each of those wings is a DRAGOON type system, fully wireless. When deployed from the wing supports, each feather heats itself to about twelve thousand degrees, and the edges are razor sharp too, I might add. If you broke an Armor Schnieder knife into pieces, added thrusters and a remote control good for up to a minute of individual flight at up to one hundred meters range, the capacity to target single feathers, groups of feathers or all feathers at the same target or up to 72 different targets, and heated those pieces to the previously stated temperature, you'd have the Phoenix Feathers Multiple Detached Weapon System. I can't even begin to tell you about the NIGHTMARE programming that system was! I HATE DRAGOON SYSTEMS! They're so useful! So powerful! SO GODDAMN COMPLEX!"

"Do you need... some time off, Dr. Simmons?" Cagalli asked, slightly concerned. Dr. Simmons was not usually anywhere close to this sort of half unhinged, bipolar woman in front of them.

"I need... to finish explaining all these wonderful Gundams that I have spent the last four years imagining, designing and constructing, because I won't be able to relax until I turn them over to their rightful owners. After that... yes... I will be taking a vacation, and will cease to think about anything related to Mobile Suits for at least a month or two! Don't worry about me too much, Miss Cagalli... not until after you see the bonus I signed for myself for these works of art. I'm no masochist. I'm just a bit giddy right now... no one... NO ONE... is going to be even able to TOUCH the technology advantage represented by these Gundams, not for DECADES! If anyone has made a Gundam more advanced than one of these five... I will eat my own blueprints, one forkful at a time!" Erica took several long, deep breaths, and then calmly went back to explaining the Phoenix King.

"When not being used as weapons, the thrusters on the feathers can be used to augment the thrusters of the Gundam itself, increasing your speed and maneuverability significantly, especially in the streamlined Mobile Armor form. The wings can also be used as shields or even improvised melee weapons while still attached to the wing supports, should you so desire it. You shouldn't need to though, because now let me get into the true super science. See the emitter type depressions in the palms of the Phoenix King's hands? Those are just the visible parts of what I have designated the "Vulcan's Forge" BGCS... for Beam Generation and Containment System. Vulcan was the Roman god of fire and blacksmithing, by the way. Simply put, what the BGCS does is create very strong, customizably shapable magnetic fields. Very similar to the magnetic fields used to contain the plasma within a beam weapon, but quite a bit stronger, if more short lived. Magnetic fields projected from the gauntlets capture plasma ejecta from the arm mounted flamethrowers and contain and focus it. You can just lock the flamethrowers on for a constant feed of raw plasma, or you can fill as you need and no more."

"The Vulcan's Forge BGCS is the ultimate expression of weapon versatility. Want a sword? All it takes is a pre-programmed command. Axe? Same thing. Staff? You betcha. You can form different weapons in each hand even. You can just amp up a huge ball of plasma and throw it, though the range is kinda crappy, or charge up a super-flame blast to scour the area in front of you. The magnetic fields created by the gauntlets only last for a few seconds without constant reinforcement, but that is usually far more than enough. Changing the shape of the fields takes hardly any time at all, and the process is so smooth that you have to see it to believe it. Not only all that, but the magnetic fields projected by the gauntlets form a sort of "catcher's glove" against magnetically sheathed beams or ionized particle beams that are fired at you. What does that mean? If someone tries to shoot you with a beam rifle, you can catch the beam, turn it into a dagger and throw it back at them. When combined, the fields from the gauntlets are even strong enough to turn back Lohengrin class weapons, at least one at a time. I don't think I need to tell you about the applications for this system, do I?"

"Now, as for defenses... the Phoenix King also has HAC armor, and arm mounted Citadel shield projectors. We also added a system that shunts all the waste heat from the weapon and gear systems into a sort of aura around the Gundam, rendering heat based sensor and targeting equipment useless against it and visually blurs the outline of the Gundam... we call it the Flame Mirage. You can't be stealthy with it on, as you might expect though. The sensor suite includes Vari-cameras, and the eyes have their deep purple color because of the extra polarized lenses they incorporate, this is to accomdate the Photonic grenade launcher built into either side of the torso. It's basically a big flare launcher... but these flares will illuminate a kilometer radius as bright as day,and can blind sensor systems and even human eyes if unprotected within fifty meters of inital detonation. Wrapping up, the Phoenix King has an avian-esque Mobile Armor form for travel, featuring greatly enhanced speed and maneuverability, at the cost of not being able to use weapons except for the Phoenix Feathers."

Erica paused, letting a smile creep well across her face. "I should amend that... YOU cannot use your weapons in Mobile Armor form. However, any specially modified Mobile Suit... aka the Dawn Goddess... that happens to be riding on your back... which is also what Mobile Armor form is designed for... can utilize the Vulcan's Forge, directing it with her lance or sending it spiralling behind her Arbalest rockets, since they incorporate short lived magnetic field generators into their tail stabilizers. You haven't seen devastation until you've seen an Arbalest bolt trailing a few hundred megajoules of plasma energy strike a warship head on. It is both beautiful and terrifying. Cagalli and Athrun will demonstrate it for us, later. One last note... the Dawn Goddess doesn't HAVE to be riding you to use the Vulcan's Forge... as long as she's within arms reach, she can use it no matter what form you're in. I'm sure you'll both find ways to exploit that."

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_This is completely unfair! Why does ATHRUN get something like that BGCS? Why not ME? Am I not worthy of such an awesome weapon's responsibility? Does she think Athrun is THAT much more skilled at melee combat than me!? He's been doing little besides talking and desk work since the last War... he's as rusty as the pipes on the back of Dearka's boat! _Ysak thought morosely, staring with naked envy at the Phoenix King. He tried to think of all the things he could possibly do with that BGCS system, and for one of the first times in his life, his imagination failed him... there were just too many possibilities! Talk about tactical flexibility! It was completely unfair! It was...

_Its what he deserves._ Katie's mind voice reminded him. _Jealousy aside, you have to admit its a Gundam that fits Athrun's personality extremely well. Creative, surprising, fast, agile, dedicated to working closely with a certain partner... she designed it with him specifically in mind, remember? Just like she designed ours with US in mind._

_Yes, but... _Over the years, Ysak had at long last learned to hold purely mental conversations, at least with Katie... with Lacus he still tended to talk out loud. Not that he and Lacus talked mind to mind very much, especially given how far away they lived from each other... Kira and Lacus on Earth just outside Orb, Ysak and Katie up in the PLANTS. _I just can't feel satisfied, knowing I'll never get to try out that system!_

_You could always ask him to let you do a little test piloting. Its not like he'd turn you down out of cold blood. He really doesn't have the sort of animosity for you that you pretend to have for him. In fact, if you offered to swap, and let him test drive OUR Gundam a few times, I bet he'd jump at the chance. I don't think I'd mind either... heh heh... though Cagalli might freak out a little. Prude that she is._

_Cagalli would be the least of his worries in that situation._ Ysak retorted grimly. _Because I would promptly murder him afterwards. No questions asked. No warning. No mercy._

_Jealous much, Ysak-y?_

_You have only the tiniest inkling, love. If you're in the Gundam... NO ONE but me will pilot it. That is final. Do NOT fuck with me on that!_

_Its physically impossible to fuck with you while you're piloting it... the cockpit system, unlike Dearka and Miriallia's, won't allow it for us. Which is really too bad but..._

_THAT IS NOT WHAT I... oh, screw it, you knew that. You sure know how to push my buttons. Push. Push. One of these days I'll push back, and make YOU jealous and wrong footed instead._

_Pigs may fly, that's true, Ysak-y. Anything can happen. In your dreams. Now hush... and watch Cagalli go absolutely RED with envy for us..._

"Now for Gundam number three!" Erica unveiled her middle masterpiece. Also of a height with the Dawn Goddess, the next Gundam massed as much as the Phoenix King, but lacked the wings, instead making up the bulky largely in the torso region, along with the trefoil shaped armored cluster of pentagrams that hove up over one shoulder. Unlike the previous two Gundams, this one carried a physical shield in its left hand. With a dark blue base paint scheme, grey equipment, silver highlighting on the classic lines of its form and the two bright blue lensed eyes, it was no hard guess as to who's Gundam this was. The red painted scar across the front of the Gundam's face, slanting down across the "nose" from cheek to forehead, was just belaboring the obvious. On the front of the shield was emblazoned an image of a sword cutting through the fabric of space, rampant over three widely open silver eyes, each staring in a different direction. The image was repeated on both of the Gundam's shoulderguards.

"It's called the Vorpal." Katie said, plucking the name from the front of Erica's mind. She was getting much better at affecting Stumps... at least when in close proximity to Ysak.

"Umm... its still my Gundam, so please, let me explain it? Thank you, Katie." Erica replied, somewhat stiffly, though her good humor returned almost at once. "As I was saying, it's called the Vorpal. Ancient legends of several cultures speak of a sword of such incredible sharpness that it could defeat any armor and hew off any foe's head with a single strike, no matter how strong they were. This was called a vorpal sword, and the principle of sharpness, both of body... and thought... is what provided me the basic ideas for this Gundam. A Gundam that is emminiently deadly in ALL aspects and can even cut to the quick of an enemy's heart and mind. I have to admit, before I go any further, that the Vorpal would not be half of what it is now if it wasn't for Katie pestering me and giving me all sorts of weird ideas because of her... special... nature."

"Unlike the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess, the Vorpal still uses Phase Shift armor, by Katie's request, and by Ysak's, or so I understand, though he never said anything to me. It also still has the physical shield, as you can all see. However, don't fool yourselves into thinking its a throwback model or primitive cousin to the others... very nearly the opposite. I'm a logical person. A scientist and an engineer. The Vorpal has the closest thing to a system that utilizes... allows to utilize would be a better way of saying it... what I would personally call "Magic", that I've ever had the misfortune of trying to design. I'll get to that presently... first, lets look at the NORMAL armaments. Two 15mm Beam CIWS in the head, a new twin 75mm rapidfire Linear Cannon on the left shoulder, an adapted 20mm FRALA... another great Isolation invention, I must admit... on the right shoulder, a 120mm automatic shotcannon in the right hand, and twin plasma-flamethrowers on the shield's front face. While the shotcannon itself is not anything too special, the ammunition it fires is. We call them "Hellgrape" rounds. The technical name is FIHR... Frictional Intensity Heated Rounds. Basically the shells are designed to create air friction when fired... lots of air friction. It dumps the range down dramatically, but with all the extra heat they absorb, the Hellgrapes can penetrate Phase Shift armor at close range... 50 meters or less, while also remaining a physical attack... making the weapon equally effective against Phase Shift and HAC armors."

"We kept the chainsaw edge on the shield, but ditched the grapples... they kept on getting dodged and cut off anyway. Instead we added a series of "beam spikes" on the front face that can be used to immensely enhance the effectiveness of the shield as an offensive slamming weapon. The shield itself is of the now standard Citadel Shield type, though it is significantly stronger than the baseline model... roughly three times as strong as the projector only shields the other Gundams have. Also, we see the return of the Photon Cloak from the Duelist and a Vari-Camera array in the eyes... don't fix what isn't broken, I say. Now, you see those three armored slabs, in the shape of pentagrams, on the Vorpal's back? Thats a "Minion" class wireless ADMS, pronounced just like the name. It stands for Attack/Defense/Maneuvering System. Each of the "pods"... thats what we call those five meter diameter pentagrams... can function as a weapons platform by itself, with a dual beam cannon turret and beam sword type edges, much like the Righteous's flyer packs, or they can be combined in one of two ways. The first way creates something familiar to all you ZAFT pilots... its a flying platform, much like the Guul's used by Ginns in the First Valentine War, allowing for extended air operation of the Gundam. The beam turrets and edges can still be used in platform mode."

"The second combined mode is shield mode, which creates a Citadel shield barrier eight meters wide by twenty meters tall... effectively giving the Vorpal a portable wall to hide behind, proof against even capital class ship weaponry... at least for a while. The weapons on the Minions can't be used in shield form, though that shouldn't be a surprise. Now, getting back to the weaponry side of things, we come to an item that contributes heavily to the name of the Gundam." Eric pointed at the sword the Vorpal Edge wore on its left hip. The hilt was full and relatively ornate, and the blade itself long and slender... too slender. Anything so slender of that size should shatter when it hit something, that was obvious. "That is Siegfried. Yes, it's named. Named after a legendary dragonslayer and hero. Siegfried is an OMMB... and thats not a curse. Except if you're his enemy. It stands for Opposed Monopole Magnetic Blade. Its a new type of sword. Doesn't use any heat at all, nor is it a physical blade. The "blade" you see is a blunt structural support, couldn't cut bread with it. Siegfried's edge is made from two opposed magnetic fields of truly staggering strength. Almost no range on them... the blade is only a foot wide, and less than an inch thick, even if it is twenty feet long... but here's the thing to remember about magnetism... it's one of the most primally powerful forces in the universe."

"Anything affected by magnetic fields... that is to say, pretty much everything... that encounters the "edge" of Siegfried, which is where the two magnetic fields meet, is pulled towards the two monopoles. Each monopole exerts an equal force, causing objects and forces to be ripped apart at a molecular level as the edge cuts through them. I say forces because Siegfried can cut through anything that is sheathed or controlled or contained by magnetic fields as well... including beam weapons, beam shots, Citadel Shields, Gesichmeidig-Panzer Shielding and pretty much any physical structure, including PS armor, though not a Quantum Crystal, which isn't a big deal since those are only used for computer memory chips. You CANNOT block Siegfried. It is a true vorpal sword. Its only weakness is its fragility... though proof against almost all beam or charged particle attacks, and almost impossible to damage edge on, a physical attack that catches Siegfried on the flat will easily shatter the sword. Which is bad, since we only have two of them. Monopoles aren't found on trees after all. Or anywhere else in the natural universe... they have to be manufactured. Which is time consuming, dangerous and expensive."

"Now for the part not even I understand fully. All I did was design the cockpit modifications... the rest is up to Katie to explain. The Vorpal, like the old Grand Buster, is a tandem Gundam, but with a twist. Instead of the copilot sitting in front of the pilot, this time she sits behind him. Right behind him. In a special environment tank built into the back of his seat, to be precise. Before deploying, the environment tank is filled with an aerated gel type substance that greatly reduces the stresses placed upon the body by high speed maneuvers, necessary because traditional restraints would be impossible to implement in a practical fasion. The pilot restraints are far bulkier than standard, and the pilot himself wears a specially designed flight suit that actually connects to the environment tank, with the restraints zipping onto... and into... the flight suit. The environment tank provides oxygen, intravenous sustenance and medical support for up to ten hours at a time, though Katie can leave the tank whenever she wants, as long as she doesn't mind getting gel all over the inside of Ysak's cockpit."

_Would serve you right for all those times you've "accidentally" gotten "gel" all over the inside of my..._

_HEY! Keep it PG13 in my head, thanks! Do you WANT to embarrass the life from me? Don't answer that!_

"As for the reasoning behind all of this preparation, I turn the floor over to Katie. I hope you guys understand what she has to say, cause I still don't." Erica said with something of a pout. She didn't like having bits of her Gundams she couldn't understand, not one bit.

"Well, actually I have to thank Kira and Lacus for the idea. I never would have thought to try it if I hadn't seen them do it first. I was impressed then, and I'm eagerly anticipating being able to impress the rest of you soon." Katie said. She took Ysak's hand in hers and turned a beautific smile on her friends. _Its amazing what a Newtype can do with an intimate bond between an Active and Latent, yes?_

"You just talked in my head." Dearka sputtered, after a long series of very shocked seconds. His jaw had just about hit the floor. Miriallia's hands had flown to her mouth, and she'd jumped quite a bit in a similar reaction. Cagalli and Athun were just staring at Katie, wide eyed. It was the first time any of them had actually been directly contacted by a Newtype, discounting Lacus's uses of her powers during the Isolation. Calling those experiences "contacts" was a little like being hit on the head with a sledgehammer and calling it "a nudge".

"I thought it was almost impossible to do that, without hurting yourself?" Athrun asked, putting his hands into his pockets to hide the slight shivers he was having. It was one thing to know his friends had what were basically psychic powers... to know that they could talk to each other, mind to mind, nearly regardless of distance and barriers between them, could influence each other's emotions and even actions in fundamental ways without even being near each other... it was still quite another to hear your friend talking to you inside your own mind.

"If I was alone, yes, that is true. If I'd tried to do that, just now, by myself, you'd be taking me to the hospital right now." Katie replied. She hugged Ysak's arm to her chest. _Let me explain a little bit more. Actives are Newtypes like me and Lacus, with the ability to proactively use our powers. Latents are like Kira and Ysak, who cannot consciously use their powers, and are usually very sensitive to an Active's powers. However, an Active who has forged an intimate bond with a Latent... not necessarily through sex and love, though that is what Lacus and I did... can project their power into their Latent and AMPLIFY it! As far as my research can say so far, the closer the intimacy between the Newtypes at the time of the power being used, the more power magnification you get. Physical intimacy is the easiest to accomplish... holding hands, hugs, etc... though it is fully possible, as Kira and Lacus proved, to use emotional or spiritual intimacy the same way._

"Could you... talk, please?" Miriallia asked, her voice shaky. "I know you're just trying to prove a point... but really... this is our first time. Its scary. You're my friend and I trust you... but its scary..."

"Its not that bad." Kira said, with a somewhat devilish grin... he wasn't too proud to take some comfort in his friends at long last getting a taste of what they had used to make fun of him for quite often. The look on Cagalli's face was, in his estimation, priceless. "Wait till she giggles. You never get used to that. Ever. And besides, its just like talking on a cell phone... its second nature after a while."

_Kira's right. I NEVER thought I'd get used to it... but now, I can't imagine not being able to do it. _Ysak added, with a broad smirk on his face as he looked at Dearka.

"YSAK IS IN MY HEAD! GOD SAVE ME!" Dearka physically leapt backwards a step, trying desperately not to think of all the uncomplimentary things he'd ever thought about Ysak, or all the practical jokes he'd pulled off on him that his friend hadn't managed to pin on him just yet.

_I can't read your mind, dipshit. Better for both of us that I can't, given how you reacted. Katie could, but I don't WANT her to read your mind... I prefer that she remain unpolluted._

"Un... u-unpolluted!? That is a..."

_Interesting challenge. But for another time. _Katie winked at Dearka, which drew a truly evil look from Ysak. Dearka swallowed, very hard and very slowly... for once not able to muster a witty comeback. "I call the whole kaboodle the "Mind's Eye System". Mir provides tactical support and communications services for you guys already... I'll do something similar to that, just without recourse to computers. Nobody can hide from me... well... very, very few people can hide from me. And think of the psychological advantages... you guys KNOW I'm a Newtype... the poor shmuck that we fight on some random battlefield is sure as hell not going to know what to do when I start talking to him. I can be very cruel with words. And good luck trying to catch Ysak by surprise. And the great upside to it all is that I get to snuggle with Ysak-y a lot more. I even get a special suit of my own, because the more bodily... skin to skin... contact I get with Ysak, the easier it is to use my power and the more powerful it is."

"Special suit?" Cagalli stammered, her first words in a long time.

Katie smirked fiendishly at the question she'd been fishing for. "Yep. It's called my birthday suit, and you should see Ysak-y BLUSH when it comes time for me to get into or out of my seat. It's like he's never seen me naked before or something. Even when he has, like the night before... or even more recently than that sometimes."

"It's not YOU... its EVERYONE ELSE!" Ysak yelled, blushing just as much as Katie had described. "BY GOD, I've gotten USED to you, somehow... but if you go parading around NUDE in PUBLIC... THAT gets to me! Am I so crazy that its unreasonable for me to feel that way? Huh!?"

"Its not parading. I can show you parading, if you really want to know the difference..."

"Can we... uh... move on?" Athrun cleared his throat as delicately as he could.

"OH! That reminds me, Athrun..." Katie said with a smile, which didn't make Athrun feel good at all. "Ysak-y really, really wants to try out that BGCS system Dr. Simmons put in your Gundam. He's positively blue with jealousy over it. I told him he should just ask you, and that you'd be sure to let him take the Phoenix King for a test flight or two. Especially if he offered to let you take the Vorpal out for a spin. I'd be amenable to that too, actually. So what do ya say, Athrun... wanna climb into the pilot's chair with me? I'm sure your mind has all sorts of interesting corners in it..." Katie could barely control the urge to laugh, seeing how red Athrun's face was.

"HELL NO!" Cagalli and Ysak shouted in unison.

"I won't allow it!" Ysak roared.

"If you even consider it, I'll kill you in your sleep!" Cagalli added fiercely. She didn't specify whom she was threatening, she wasn't fully sure herself. She could not banish the thought of Athrun sitting in the pilot's chair, with Katie sitting with her arms and legs wrapped around him from behind, na... Cagalli shook her head, not daring to think further lest she do something drastic to someone. It wasn't that she thought Athrun would fool around or anything... more that she was afraid Katie might not feel so inhibited, and Cagalli was nothing if not possessive of Athrun.

_Oh, I wouldn't hurt him any..._ Katie said, for Cagalli alone. _I'll even trade you Ysak-y as a hostage..._

"Only if you want him to fall down a flight of stairs. A long flight of stairs. Stone stairs. With a cannonball chained around his neck to keep him rolling." Cagalli retorted, nostrils flaring with indignation.

"You're such a graphically violent person, Cagalli. I'm just wondering if it might be worth it... kidding! Kidding! I'm just messing with you guys, sheesh." Katie held up her hands placatingly as Cagalli took a long, ominous step towards her. "Can't take a joke about men. You knew I wasn't serious, right Athrun?"

"I... prayed... that..." Athrun replied, with uneasy glances at Cagalli. He'd be busy soothing ruffled feathers for the next while. A joke in poor taste on Katie's part, though Cagalli was wont to take it more seriously than it warrented. "Maybe its best if Dr. Simmons were to move on to explain the next Gundam?" He suggested hopefully.

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"Of course. Only two more to go. Glory be. It feels like I'm putting members of my own family up for auction... but also like I'm being set free from a great responsibility." Erica sighed deeply, removing the shroud from the Gundam second to the rightmost. This Gundam was the largest of them all, standing head and shoulders above the other four, and massing almost twice as much as the Phoenix King or the Vorpal. Everything about this Gundam was massive, almost overstated. Its lines were blocky, almost crude, the overall effect being nigh monolithic, like looking up at some primeval god-totem or monster. The base paint scheme was a dark brown, with dark green equipment, of which there was a lot, with white edging that made the outlines of the Gundam stand out even more than they had before. Two eyes of sullen red peered out from beneath a pair of massive curving horns, further reinforcing the intimidating presence of the Gundam.

"What do you call this one? Mr. Don't Fuck With Me?" Dearka asked, only half joking. This looked more like a Blue Cosmos or Isolation designed Gundam, rather than the usually elegant works of Dr. Simmons.

"Close. This is the Warmaster. Why? Because he is the master of the essence of war... which I take to be destruction. War is about destruction... destroying your enemies before they destroy you. Its not pretty. Its not fun. Its not something everyone can handle. But its something that needs to be done... and done right the first time. The Warmaster gets it right the first time. It went against my grain, but after a while it was actually a lot of fun, creating a Gundam that went against the design principles I'd always held close to my heart, such as maneuverability and subtle technology. I must say, brute power, when done right... its heady. Of course, the Warmaster is far from just a dumb brute... war requires intelligence. Planning. Teamwork. But enough about the spiritual side of the Gundam... lets talk about his statistics."

"In keeping with my concept for the Warmaster, I erred on the side of strength and power. He has two nuclear reactors in him, and wears Phase Shift armor that is twice as thick as normal. Its still no garuantee against beam weaponry, but its more than you've had before. Twenty five meters tall, one hundred and eighty tons... he's the biggest Gundam I've ever built. Also easily the most heavily armed. It has four 15mm Beam CIWS in its head area, each shoulder has two seperate missile 20 racks, each side of the torso, as you can easily discern, mounts a pair of 375mm direct/indirect fire artillery cannons stacked vertically atop each other, those have a maximum range of around twenty kilometers and a rate of fire of around one round every six seconds per weapon. On the left arm we have the primary self defence weapons, mounted underneath a Citadel Shield similar to the Vorpal's, sans the beam spikes and chainsaw edges. The left arm holds a 325mm hyper impulse cannon paired with two 57mm Gatling Beam Cannons, for rapid, sustained anti-vehicle and anti-Mobile Suit firepower. The primary weapon of the right hand is an upgraded Earthshaker 200cm artillery cannon. The last version, as I'm sure you remember, was a single shot, breech loading contraption with a heavy recoil. We've fixed the recoil problem, reducing it by eighty percent. In addition, the new Earthshaker, the Magnus, is a semi-automatic weapon, with a six shell magazine, which can be emptied in roughly a minute and a half. Reloading the weapon takes about five minutes, but the Warmaster only carries a single reload on him due to weight and safety concerns."

"If you run out of Earthshaker shells... somehow using twelve in a single battle without annihilating your enemy, or if you get engaged by skirmishing enemies who close to within your minimum firing range, the right hand also wields a heavy anti-ship axe with both physical and beam blades. Don't be fooled by how he looks... the Warmaster is every bit as light on his feet as the original Buster Gundam. Not the Grand Buster, the Buster. Now, you may be thinking that the Buster wasn't very agile... but to make something twice the size keep the same speed and maneuvering ability is something of an accomplishment in my book. The Warmaster has the same tandem cockpit the Grand Buster did, though with even more room inside, so its slightly more comfortable for long term missions. We've kept all the the electronics you already know how to use, Miriallia... LRR, Vari-cameras, this time with remote controlled drone cameras as well for artillery spotting, upgraded CIC computers with databases on all known Mobile Suits in current use by all factions, including the other four Gundams and our new Dawndrake mass production models. We've also added a new electronic system, concealed in the horns on the head. Its a new breed of ECM called "Pandemonium", with an effective range of about a kilometer. Inside that range, if you don't have the Pandemonium password, you can kiss your targeting and sensor systems basically goodbye. The electronic jamming from the Pandemonium system is even strong enough to disrupt computer controlled passive systems like the Angel Halo, Mirage Colloid, Citadel Shields, the arming circuits on many types of missiles and shells, even Phase Shift Armor itself. Its as much a weapon as it is a defensive staple."

"Finally, let me tell you about the crowning glory of the Warmaster. It's not immediately obvious. In fact, for the moment anyway, until we resolve some further technical problems, the system cannot be used while in atmosphere. Which might even be for the better. What I'm talking about is something called a WIVAC-REMAD. It stands for Wireless Variable Construction Relativistic Mass Driver. Since both of those are huge mouthfuls, we just call it the "Spear of Ares"." Dr. Simmons fell silent, watching the crowd slowly work over what she'd said in their minds. Kira was the first one to speak up.

"Relativistic Mass Driver? Explain that, please."

"Gladly. We all know what a railgun or linear cannon does... uses electromagnets to propel either an explosive or solid state shell down a barrel at extremely high speeds, dealing damage primarily through kinetic impact. Such munitions are typically fired at speeds of around fifteen to twenty thousand miles per hour. What the Spear of Ares... who was the Greek God of War... does is sets up a "slingshot relay" of extremely powerful electromagnetic accelerators, through which is fired a specialty munition. The Warmaster has one hundred and twenty eight of these accelerators under its control. However, only thirty two are used for a "standard" shot. Each accelerator can only be discharged once every seventy two hours, due to the strain firing places upon them. And like I said, the system will not work in atmosphere, or really within a major gravity well. Why? Because when creating the slingshot relay, the accelerators are spaced out at distances of about one hundred meters from each other, in a straight line, and their thrusters aren't powerful enough to lift their own mass in gravity. And god help you if all the accelerators aren't lined up right when you fire... destroying a good bit of the system might be the least of your problems."

"You said something about a specialty munition? Is it some kind of super explosive or something?" Athrun asked, puzzled. This Spear of Ares sounded unwieldy in the extreme. What was the point of such a limited weapon?

"Here's a sample. Catch." Dr. Simmons replied, reaching into her pocket and withdrawing a golden hued ball bearing about the size of her thumb. Authrun caught the ball with ease as his friends crowded around. It was just a golden hued metal ball bearing. Weighed perhaps an eighth of a pound, certainly not much more. "It's Ice-Gold, the same friction-reduced stuff we use on the joints of the Gundams."

"I don't get it. Its just a ball bearing? And a tiny one too. Do you know how fast this would have to go before it did any sort of appreciable damage to a Mobile Suit?" Ysak asked, staring at the ball bearing with misgiving.

"Yes, I do. Do you?" Dr. Simmons replied casually. That caught their attention, and she smiled fiercely at them.

"You did say... relativistic... right?" Dearka asked, very slowly. "As in, has something to do with Einstein's Theory of General Relativity?"

"Wait a minute... what ARE you saying here!?" Cagalli demanded. Science wasn't her strongest suit.

"What some of you have already began to realize, and what I am actually saying here is that when you use the standard thirty two accelerators, assuming they are properly aligned and spaced... which does take some ten to fifteen minutes usually... that little ball bearing there gets hurled at your target at roughly 0.05C." Dr. Simmons said simply, and paused again, letting that sink in. Or fly over their heads, depending.

"Now I'm confused too. "C"?" Katie asked with a frown.

"Didn't you pay attention in high school physics?" Ysak asked, amazed.

"I shared that class with you, Ysak-y, how could I concentrate? Even Chanel couldn't take her eyes off you, and she was the academic one."

"C is a constant, used in the equation E = MC squared. C represents the speed of light. That is, one hundred and eighty six thousand miles per second." Athrun lectured. "E refers to energy. M refers to mass. The equation states that the amount of energy in an object is equal to the mass of the object multiplied by lightspeed squared. By finding out what percentage of lightspeed that your object is traveling at, and plugging that in as your value for C, you can determine how much kinetic energy will be created/imparted when that object strikes something."

"For the Spear of Ares, which fires an object massing one eighth of a pound, at five percent of the speed of light... which is more than thirty three million miles per hour by the way... the relatively tiny mass of the projectile is far outweighed by the speed at which it travels. I won't boggle your minds with the numbers, but suffice it to say that if the ball bearing were to hit something smaller than say... a PLANT... you probably wouldn't find much left of whatever got hit. The great speed is also why the system doesn't work in an atmosphere. Ice-Gold has very little friction. Thirty three million miles per hour and it would be ripped into stray atoms by air resistance before it even got out of the slingshot. A limited weapon, yes. But if you need someone dead in space, and they happen to be hiding in the middle of an asteroid base... you can get them. Just about the only thing that can stop it without collateral damage would be one of those Positron shields the Pulsar had. A Citadel Shield will stop the projectile... but will have the energy transferred into itself in the process... which probably won't be good for the area around it. For a goodly ways."

"This is a weapon of mass destruction, Erica!" Cagalli protested, eyes wide.

"Well, theoretically yes... I did say the Warmaster was about the essence of destruction, remember. It's more of a tactical class weapon though, rather than strategic. Better that we have it, and never use it, than someone else comes up with it first, cause they might use it. This is your ace in the hole, in case anyone tries to build another Judgement or Merciless, or tries to drop a colony onto Earth or something equally insane. Besides, though I hate to admit it, its actually still just a theoretical weapon... we built it, but we haven't been able to test it in real life. It might not even work."

"That doesn't make it better!" Cagalli insisted. "If the USN finds out about this..."

"If the USN finds out about these Gundams, the USN has bigger problems... such as a renewed world wide war or other crisis, because we won't take them out for anything less. At that point in time, I think they might be grateful for the help. And though its not my place to recommend policy, but having a super powerful weapon in your back pocket... even one you would never ever use... does make a good bargaining chip with people who don't realize that you wouldn't ever use it."

"We're going to have to talk about this later." Cagalli said, shaking her head in mingled shock and anger.

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"And now, the one you've all been waiting for." Dr. Simmons said, brushing her hand across her brow momentarily. She was tired. She'd been up all night getting these Gundams ready for this, and she was ready to go home to her husband and son. Just one more to go, she reminded herself. And it was impossible not to feel a little more energetic, seeing the expectant looks on everyone's faces. They'd covered Cagalli's Dawn, Athrun's Phoenix, Ysak and Katie's Vorpal, and Dearka and Miriallia's Warmaster. There was only one Gundam left to unveil, and one pilot left to bedazzle... and Erica knew there was onequestion burning brightly in everyone's mind. What sort of Gundam did you make for the Ultimate Coordinator? For the best Mobile Suit pilot alive, even if he didn't particularly like that title? Well, Erica knew, that she did. Few people had the perserverence to stick with the project to the level of perfection making a Mobile Suit specifically for Kira had demanded, but she did. Even the Liberty, though tweaked for Kira's use, had only been based on the Freedom, which had been built from the ground up for someone without Kira's rather unique philosophy on fighting. No so this Gundam. From the earliest drawings to the final paint touch ups, this Gundam was built soley for Kira to fly, hopefully never in earnest, but prepared for that eventuality too.

"It's black?" Kira asked, surprise evident in his voice. "That's not bad or anything... I'm just surprsied that you'd make MINE black. I'm usually a fan of brighter colors."

"The reason for the black base of the paint scheme is simple, Kira." Erica said, her voice soft and somber. "Black is the color of mourning and sadness. Black is the color most often worn by those who are accounted the shepards of humanity's souls and spiritual beliefs. I'm not comparing you to a priest or anything, and I wouldn't dare to hazard guesses on your religious beliefs... but black is a good color for a Gundam designed for you, Kira. You don't like Gundams as Gundams. To you, piloting a Gundam is a necessary sacrifice when the situation demands it. You don't love them for what they are. You are always saddened when a situation demands you utilize a Gundam to solve it. Thus, the color of mourning. Black is serious, is strong, it provides succor to those in need, and punishment to those who sin against others, though with a heavy heart even then. That's why I chose black." Dr. Simmons was quiet for a few moments as she searched for her previous exuberance again.

Kira looked at the Gundam. Black as space over most of its body, its arching wings and other accoutrements were stark white, shocking in the way they seemed to loom, larger than life, out of the background of the rest of the Gundam. The joints were the brilliant gold of all the Gundams. Thin bands of dark blue highlighted the edging and angles of the Gundam's body, softening them and making the Gundam appear more liquid, more poised and less visibly harsh. Blue traceries also picked out the patterns of feathers on the wings, and Kira could see blue tear drops painted on the blackness of the Gundam's cheeks, under the eyes, though they were almost impossible to see without a Coordinator's vision. Someone, or multiple somone's, looked to have been using the body and limbs of his Gundam as an art deco project, using silver to depict all sorts of astronomically accurate constellations of stars over most any surface of the Gundam that was flat enough to easily paint. The silver paint was only visible at certain angles, the rest of the time it looked as black as night, like when he'd first looked at it. "What's it called?"

"He..." Dr. Simmons made sure to stress the gender noun, since she viewed the Gundams much more as semi-living entities, extensions of their pilots, rather than just conglomerations of high technology. She wasn't sure one way or the other if non-living objects could have souls, and would have denied considering the possibility if asked about it... but a part of her, deep down, hoped that Gundams could have souls. They certainly seemed able to touch hers, almost like a child could his parent's. "Went through more names than I can easily remember, before we found one that stuck. We'd all known, pretty much since we first drew him up, that he was going to be angelic or heavenly. Pardon me for presuming to label you an Angel, Kira, but I don't think its too far short of the mark, regardless of whatever arguements you have against it. One more title for you to try and deny applies to you, I guess. Anyway, I'd like to introduce you all... to the Seraph Gundam. May he never have to take flight to protect us all."

"Twenty meters tall, one hundred tons, placing him at the standard size and weight for the custom structural frame that the Vorpal, Phoenix King and Seraph all share, which also cut down on the need for five different types of repair parts. Many of the interior, basic parts are actually interchangable between those three Gundams, and to a lesser extent within the Warmaster and Dawn Goddess as well. The Seraph wears Phase Shift armor, just like you've been used to since the very first time you piloted a Mobile Suit, Kira, so no need to adapt your defensive mindset on that account. As befitting a war-like angel, he has an Angel Halo, which you grew used to having from the Liberty no doubt. He also has Vari-cameras, to round out his senses and prevent supposedly invisible enemies from running or sneak attacking. He has twin 15mm Beam CIWS in his head for defensive armaments."

"For offense, the Seraph has twin 80mm autocannons. We went for ammunition based weapons in favor of the old beam rifle staple because of the inherent deadliness of beam weaponry... there are no "nonlethal" or "rubber" beam shots. Nor actually rubber shells for the 80mm cannons, but we made something else that is similar. We call them "Static" munitions. They detonate like regular munitions, but the force of the explosion is much reduced, since they are actually "imploders". The implosion creates a short ranged EMP blast that is effective against all sorts of delicate electronic systems, and is of course completely unaffected by armor or most defensive technologies. EMP shielding does exist, but the EMP blasts from Static shells are focused enough that they usually penetrate anyway. Three or four good hits will disable a standard Mobile Suit. It is almost impossible to deal more than minor damage to a Mobile Suit with Static shells, though you will have disabled it with ease. Of course, the downside to the autocannons is that they will eventually run out of ammo."

"When that happens, or if the need for melee combat presents itself, the Seraph carries two anti-ship swords, eight meters of physical blade apiece, electrified and made of the same material as the Dawn's lance, allowing you to parry and block beam based weaponry with them. They lack beam edges, so you'll have trouble cutting anyone with PS armor, though the fifty megavolt shock when the sword hits is usually enough to screw up something important anyway, sometimes even the enemy pilot themselves. It won't kill them unless they are very unlucky and are already badly injured or weakened, but they won't be a threat anymore either. Each forearm mounts a Citadel Shield projector as well, just like the Dawn or Phoenix King. In the palm of each hand the Seraph carries a new special weapon, called the "Tranquility". Its a DND... Directed Neutron Disabler. Its based off of N-Jammer technology. DND's project a field of energy in a cone about fifty meters long and thirty meters wide at the end... while within that field, and for some time afterwards, nuclear fission, of both the power and weaponized reaction types, ceases to function. Nuclear reactors won't generate power, nuclear weapons won't explode, neutron based radiation won't radiate... I'm sure you get the idea. The effects last for around thirty minutes after initial exposure... plenty of time for you to deal with whomever you've tranquilized. The energy field is intense enough to burn out most N-Jammer Cancelers within seconds, even the improved models carried by these Gundams won't last more than a minute or so, so be careful not to hit your friends too."

"The Seraph isn't toothless though. There are four 400mm hyper-impulse cannons mounted on the chest, two per side of the torso, for when you need to destroy something, for whatever reason. Mounting all the firepower in the chest would seem to limit your field of fire quite a bit, since you could only shoot what you were directly facing, or so common sense would dictate. However, the Seraph is anything but common. See his wings? They're similar to the Phoenix King's, though the Seraph's feathers are bigger and he only has thirty six of them that functionally detach, eighteen per wing spar. These thirty six detachable pods make up the Seraph's MDDS, Multiple Detached Defensive System, which we here call the "Fractal Wings". Each automated or remote controlled feather pod is capable of projecting either a Gesichmedig-Panzer field or a Citadel Shield around itself, one or the other, as the Pilot decides. The fields from multiple pods can be combined into increasingly stronger fields for added defense... with all thirty six feathers aligned together, you are basically invulnverable to attacks coming at you through the field, save for things like Siegfried or the Spear of Ares. Remember, for every defense there is an offensive counter designed to defeat it."

"A skilled pilot..." Erica continued, with a wink at Kira. "Such as Kira is generally supposed to be, can use the Fractal Wings to not only block attacks, but to redirect and even guide beam attacks through the use of the GP shields in concert. I got the idea from that Zacharis guy's Gundam, actually. Watching what he did to the Duel in Panama. With proper use of the Fractal Wings, you can shoot in any direction, even multiple directions at once, using the pods to guide your beams onto the correct trajectories. You can do the same with enemy beam attacks, bouncing them a few times before sending them directly back at the enemy who fired upon you. Mastering the system will take practice, I'm sure, but once you get it down, the Seraph will become all but unhittable to all but the best of pilots and machines. The Seraph might be able to go an entire battle without ever actually firing one of its own weapons, and still manage to defeat all comers. If that isn't the last word in passive resistance, I don't know what is. The Fractal Wings can be utilized while still attached to the wing spars, in fact there is an already loaded command prompt that enfolds the Seraph in his own wings, guarding against eighty five percent of attack angles from the front and sides, and twenty percent of attack angles from the top, bottom and back. Not a total shield, but it LOOKS incredible, and the Seraph is a pretty potent pyschological weapon as well, for that reason... he's just HARD to hurt. Its frustrating how easily he defends himself from multiple foes at once. Well, frustrating for them anyway..."

"I don't know what to say..." Kira trailed off, touched beyond rational thought for the moment. To think that Dr. Simmons would go so far out of her way to design a Gundam for him that revolved entirely around his principles of perserving life at all costs and defending those too weak to defend themselves... it was a HUGE honor! He was intruiged by the thought of all he could do with the Seraph. Almost intruiged enough to want to fly it sometime. But not, in the end, intruiged enough. The Seraph was wonderful, beautiful, and no doubt would be a pleasure for the pilot in him to fly. But it would be a pleasure he thought he could live without, in the balance of things. His appreciation for the Seraph was merely admiration for its potential, nothing more. If he never saw it again after today, he could live with that. He knew it wouldn't make Erica Simmons happy if he said that though, especially since she'd poured months and months of time into making it for him, so he just said. "Thank you."

"Work is its own reward, especially when you're working with Gundams. I wouldn't want to do anything else." Erica replied, with a heartfelt grin. She wasn't stupid, she knew Kira would probably never willingly sit in the Seraph's command chair... his views on Gundam's were fundamentally different from hers. Perhaps if she'd been forced to fight in one against her will too... but she hadn't had she? It was a gulf she'd probably never be able to cross with regards to Kira. It was too bad that someone with his talents was also someone who considered those talents to be unnecessary and even personally abhorrent, but the world had a pretty oddball sense of humor sometimes. But even if Kira never even looked at the Seraph again, she'd seen it at least once more. That light, shining in his eyes. The wonder and delight, brief though they had made their appearance. Kira had been touched and impressed and appreciative... that in itself was satisifaction enough for Erica. She watched the group of young adults talk excitedly amongst themselves for a while, as they basked in the delighted curiousity of the knowledgable counessiour who finds a unique new experience. It was the best gift she was able to give to them.

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Author note 2: Damn, I only thought of this after I posted. Please, if you could, tell me which of the Gundams you liked the most. Why is helpful too, but not mandatory. And which you didn't like, and maybe why for that as well. Did I go overboard with something? Let in a glaring flaw or included an impossibility you just can't ignore? Now's the time, to catch things early so they don't haunt the rest of the story.


	3. Freeze Frame Life Part 1

Author Note: A lot of the reviews generated from my question of last chapter have included the opinion that the Seraph gundam is "underpowered". I say that it is merely "underflashy" compared to the Vorpal, Warmaster or Phoenix King. I put this in some review replies, but do consider this... re-read, if you wish, the chapter in Chaotic Cosmos where Ysak faces off against the three BCPU's in Panaman, right after the escape from JIHAD. See what Frost does with only six shield pods, and wire limited ones at that. Now imagine what Kira can do with thirty six wireless pods. Underpowered? I was afraid to make it MORE powerful.

Another thing. If you ever want to use a creation of mine, whether it be event, Gundam, technology, Person, Place... whatever... in your own fiction, by all means, I would be honored if you do. Just tell me, so I can know to look forward to reading it in one of your own stories. I really should read stuff other than my own, buts its just hard to find the time, while also making progress that I want. I'll work on that.

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Kira had a call waiting for him on his cell phone when he returned to Mare-Town Upper, the harbor and support platform that served as the primary portal for people and imported supplies for Mare-Town Depths below. For security reasons, cell phones were not yet allowed in the Depths, and especially weren't allowed into the MAST-F facility below the town, no matter WHO you happened to be. Even Cagalli and Athrun had been forced to relinquish their cell phones. Not because someone thought they would take pictures and sell them to foriegn powers, but because cell phones were relatively easy to hack into, even with modern information security, and a competent hacker could turn on the speaker in someone's phone without them noticing and use it like a microphone to listen to conversations held nearby. Which could prove... problematic... especially if you were discussing the technical merits of five new Gundams, built in quasi-violation of standing USN law.

It wasn't a violation to build Gundams... everyone did it anyway, as much as they could afford to anyway... since no nation-state wanted to run the risk of being seen as technically backward by their peers and rivals. However, only the USN and USN sanctioned groups, were supposed to use nuclear powered Mobile Suits. Cagalli had of course applied for the permits pretty much as soon as the USN formed the laws, but the licensing process was extremely slow and difficult... especially when you refused to show your mobile suits to the inspectors, either because they had not yet been built, which had been the case before... or because you were afraid of causing a major incident, like Cagalli was now. The Spear of Ares had really bothered her... it was a point and click nuclear weapon, tactical or otherwise, in scope. Never mind that it couldn't be used on Earth, it was sure to make the PLANTS, if no one else, quite nervous. And since the PLANTS were Orb's closest allies in the USN... that was something she did not want at all.

Kira was also less than perfectly sanguine with the idea of the relativistic mass driver, but he had faith in Dr. Simmons... she wouldn't build a weapon like that unless she thought it might prove necessary, and could be tightly controlled and even circumvented if by some twist of fate it fell into the wrong hands. He was willing to let the situation play out some more, though he would be quite ready to step in if he was needed... or if he decided he was needed. Kira didn't have much official power in Orb... but people who did listened to him, which was often more than enough. After agreeing to meet up with everyone again later in the day, for an early dinner followed by a night out so that they could all catch up with each other, since it had been more than a year since they'd all been in the same place at the same time, Kira had caught a ride back to Orb's Capital, which had been reneamed Nara-Attha City during the reconstruction following Purgatory Day.

"Kira, I met a friend at the mall and went back to her place with her for tea and biscuits. Meet me at her address when you get done with your item appraisal? Love you, see you soon, bye." Kira checked the address Lacus had attached in text to the end of her typically brief phone message and consulted the map of the city he carried in his head. He could take public transit to a sea side park near the address, which was in the suburbs along the beach just outside the military harbor area. He could have borrowed any number of cars from Cagalli and Athrun, even Athrun's custom built sports car, which instantly belittled the ego of every other male on the road whenever it appeared, but that really wasn't his thing. He was used to walking everywhere on Serenity Island, where he lived with Lacus and the Malchio's and their orphange most of the time, and a walk outside in the pleasant afternoon would not trouble him in the slightest.

He took the time to admire the layout of Nara-Attha City, named for Cagalli's father, which had been redesigned almost from the ground up after so much of it had been heavily damaged during the Second Valentine War. It was a lot cleaner and neater than most cities of its size, almost eight million people, making it Orb's largest city, both because much of it was new construction and because much of the older buildings which grew like semi-rotten teeth in most major cities were almost non-existant. Instead of multiple city designs made by multiple people over multiple decades, almost the entirety of the city was built on the same plan, with four lane streets laid out in as much of a grid as the terrain allowed to ensure that traffic was almost never backed up except in the Harbor and Government Districts during rush hour. The city was comprised mostly of commercial skyscrapers and businesses in the downtown, with encircling rings of residential suburbs dotted with more commercial and business centers. The only industrial presence was down by either the commercial harbor or the Military Port. Located between downtown and the outskirts of the Harbor District was the Government District, where the new Orb National Palace was built, along with the Parliament Building and the Supreme Court.

Villa Terra, the traditional home of the current Orb monarch, was about a ten minute drive away from the Government District, though Cagalli and Athrun actually lived in the Palace itself as often as not, since the Villa Terra was open to the public twice a week as a museum. Kira had been forbidden by Cagalli to go there without her, since much of the displays were about Cagalli's younger years, and she didn't want the staff there, who were usually in awe of him, letting him dig around in her mementos without her permission. Not that he'd ever do that, but Cagalli wasn't always reasonable along those lines. Girls were still weird, even in their twenties, even if they were family, Kira felt. Lacus assured him that the opinion was felt mutually by girls with regards to guys. Kira reflected on that and other inconsequential thoughts as he strolled away from the Government District towards a bus stop. Again, he could have caught a bus directly from the heliport, but he was in no particular rush, and it was a beautiful day out.

Orb's architects had gone to great pains to make their capital feel more like a garden park, that just happened to have a city within it, rather than a city which tried to pretty itself up by having garden parks in it. Trees, whether they were palms along the beach roads, oaks and elms in the midtown residential areas, or conifers along the inland districts, were planted everywhere. Not just in ones or twos, but in lines and groves that broke up the visual outline of the city most spectacularly, especially in autumn months. Green grass grew almost year round, and businesses seemed to compete to have the largest lawns on their properties, along with the most flowers and ornamental greenery. Some buildings, even small skyscrapers, were almost entirely covered in such displays of environmental one-upmanship. Several large scale desalinization plants by the harbor provided all the fresh water the city could use and more, and much of the excess went into fountains, waterfalls and other decorative landmarks.

That was the other thing Kira had noticed, and noticed again as he walked. Orbites liked to remember things. Important events, important people, important times, dates, locations, changes... if it had in some way impacted the lives of even a small group or sect of people in Orb, there was bound to be a statue or monument or piece of dedicated outdoor artwork for it SOMEWHERE in Nara-Attha City. Unsurprisingly, many of these monuments were about the still recent Valentine Wars, and the people who fought and died, or fought and lived in them. Kira never failed to be embarassed when he would find himself admiring a new statue from a distance, only to realize that it was dedicated to him or Lacus or some of the things the Clyne Faction had done. Not that he wasn't proud of what he'd done, mostly... but to have statues made of him was a little more than his sense of humilty was comfortable with.

The bus wasn't crowded when it arrived, and Kira knew that it wouldn't become much busier for at least another few hours, which was good because it would otherwise be a considerable hassle getting back to their temporary quarters in the National Palace. Kira was recognized and approached more often than he was comfortable with when he was by himself... with Lacus in tow, he was always at the center of a near media frenzy. She was much too distinctive to go unnoticed long... even if you could hide the hair and change the clothing style, her voice was an instant giveaway. Everyone, or so it seemed, knew what Miss Lacus sounded like. It was annoying at the best of times, and could really ruin his day quickly if it was already headed that way. By traveling at a non-peak time, he hoped to avoid most of the headache for as long as he could, because he was certain tonight he would not be so lucky.

Kira took a seat near the front of the bus and stared out the side window, not really looking at or paying attention to anything, as he turned his mind back to the problem of what he was going to get Lacus for her birthday. He couldn't really turn his perceptions fully off... but he'd learned how to ignore the deeper depths of sensory imput his Ultimate Coordinator senses constantly bombarded him with. Really, if he could drop the Ultimate part off, he'd be willing to PAY to let it go. It was helpful in a very few, select situations, none of which he ever willingly wanted to be a part of ever again, and made regular life a constant battle against all sorts of problems. Such as maintenance... he needed to eat much more than other people, which was both time consuming and somewhat expensive. He didn't sleep very much, which was a stress on Lacus and other people who spent a lot of time around him. He was aware of EVERYTHING that happened within about twenty feet of him, whether he wanted to be or not.

A different problem was his libido. Before the traumatic experience with the Pulsar and Frost outside of Orb, five years and some months ago, he'd accounted himself as not particularly horny. Oh, he loved Lacus VERY much, and he had had absolutely no complaints about his sex life, which he knew was considered a dream by ninety nine percent of his male peers and men in general... but it had been something he was able to turn off then. Now it wasn't. He got pissed off and irritated if they didn't sleep together at least every few nights or so, and he didn't know why. Lacus never complained about it, though she sometimes did get sharp with him when he wanted to, and she didn't. He also couldn't stop himself from appraising other women. He had no intent behind it, but he just couldn't seem to stop himself from sizing up and admiring pretty much every girl or woman even CLOSE to his age, regardless of their marital status. God help him, but he'd had to concentrate at times, very hard, on not sizing up Katie and Miriallia earlier that day. Lacus was mostly understanding about this problem too... certainly more understanding than he could reasonably hope for, and probably more understanding than Kira would be if the problem was reversed.

He'd been surprised by one solution that Lacus had suggested to him some time back. Markov Ashino, the reformed BCPU that had proven to be a "friendly enemy" of theirs during much of the Second Valentine War, was also encountering many difficulties in adjusting to regular life after so long in thrall to the top secret Blue Cosmos experiment that he was a product of. Many of the things Kira was having problems with were also things Ashino found difficult, including diet, sleeping habits, sensory overload and even, to some extent, sex drive. Lacus had suggested that perhaps he and Ashino should trade correspondence, become "pen pals", as a sort of mutual therapy. The only problem was, Kira himself was not overly fond of Ashino, not least because of the several times they'd battled each other during that war. Ashino was working for the USN now, not the Isolationists, but he'd never been an actual ally to the Clyne Faction. Also, though Kira hated to admit it, the fact that Ashino was a BCPU, an artificially and chemically enhanced Natural designed to kill Coordinators, made Kira uncomfortable talking with him. Kira had had too many bad experiences with other BCPU's to want to socialize with one, even one Lacus vouched for.

But what to get Lacus for her birthday? Clothing was right out... he had some sense for Lacus's clothing tastes, but he didn't feel like dropping a few thousand dollars for one or two outfits, especially given that she already had more than she could easily wear anyway. Jewelry was also pointless, not to mention trite... anybody could buy jewelry, and Lacus had enough to fill a not too small safe in their house as it was. He wanted to do more than just take her out to eat at a nice resteraunt, or cook a special meal at home... he'd done that several times in recent years and it was losing its novelty. Haro didn't need any maintenance, if anything the blasted pink ball robot seemed to be running better than even Athrun had expected it too. And no matter how much Lacus loved them, he wasn't going to get Athrun to make another robotic pet... Birdy and Haro together was one more robot pet than he wanted as it was. They didn't have the time in their lives for a real pet either... though neither of them held an official job, they were rarely at loose ends.

Kira was on semi-constant call for his technical expertise at Morganroete Armories. Not always for projects related to Gundams or Mobile Suits... in fact more than seventy percent of the contract work he did for them had to do with electronic and internet security programs, rather than anything actually military. Information warfare and espionage were big worries at MA, since it was considered the top military technologies company on Earth, and maybe even the top such company in the entire USN, even beating out the PLANTS. The price of being the best though was that everyone wanted to copy or steal your work, so that they could be the best instead, without putting in all the time and money that you did. Preventing people from hacking into the MA systems was a full time job, though Kira was only called in for very specific, high priority threats. His computer skills were second to none, and though infrequent, such contracts paid extremely well, considering that they usually only took him a few hours to complete.

Lacus had her charity organization, The Clyne Foundation, to manage, and that was a huge workload because TCF was actually about two hundred smaller charities combined into one. The finances hurt Kira's head at times, keeping track of all the different donations from different people throughout the USN, dividing the money fairly as needs demanded, making sure everything was legal and accounted for and properly taxed... it ate time in big bites. Not to mention all the other personal stuff Lacus was required to do, like attending meetings, hosting fundraising events, meeting with the chairpeople of other major charities, and the few concerts or media events she was able to squeeze in as well. Lacus didn't make any money from most of her TCF activities, since it was a non-profit organization, though she did have a credit line she could use for travel arrangements when she needed to, which was rare... few people were anything but overjoyed to have Lacus Cylne herself come to visit them, and room and board was often free for her.

When they were not dealing with those "jobs", they helped out with the Malchio's orphanage and political retreat, teaching the children, repairing the buildings, tending the gardens and performing hundreds of other small daily tasks that the small time operation required in order to keep running smoothly. Their friends and most of the guests that stayed at the political retreat, often marveled that Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne could be so happy working as basically unpaid janitors, handypeople, schoolteachers and gardeners. Didn't they want anything "more" out of life, they were often asked? Their answer was almost always the same. "No". They had peace. They had satisifaction, with themselves, each other, and the course their lives were taking. What "more" could people ask for than the chance to be happy like that? They didn't care about money, they didn't care about being famous, except as either of those two things could help improve the lives of others... they knew what they wanted, achieved it... and that was that. Apparently that was strange, because very few people seemed to understand, despite polite pretence.

Kira got off the bus, flicking his eyes over a pair of girls about his own age as they boarded. They giggled at each other and eyed him back coyly, though he barely noticed. Young, fit, healthy, one short and blond, the other taller and redheaded... probably off duty military, headed out for the night. He put them out of his head as he strolled along the beach road. Just statistics, thats all. Just the primal, caveman side of him acting up again. It was such a lucky thing for him that Lacus could FEEL his emotions, because otherwise he'd probably be permanently injured in one way or another because of his wandering eye syndrome. He lost himself in his thoughts again, until his internal GPS monitor pinged at him and he realized that he'd almost walked past the address Lacus had given him. He wondered which friend it was... Lacus had a lot of friends, though not too many she'd feel comfortable just hopping over for tea and biscuits with. For that matter, not many of her friends were the tea and biscuits sort... Cagalli and Miriallia sure didn't socialize like that, and neither did Katie, and they'd all been with him all morning anyway. Murrue maybe, but this was not Murrue's house.

It was actually a pretty nondescript place. One of those places that seemed to blend in with the houses on either side of it, and the hillside behind it too for that matter. It didn't stand out... in fact it seemed almost deliberately designed, in terms of its landscaping, exterior decoration, and paint scheme, to not stand out. There was a single sedan in the drive, mid sized, mid priced, as bland in its dark brown color as the rest of the house was. The lawn was neither too long nor too short, the gardens just wild enough that you could notice where they had been tended... it was very serene, actually. Very calming. Meditative even, a study in Nature only frugally contained.

It was also highly secure, Kira noticed as he headed up the walkway towards the front door. He could not help but notice tiny optical and audio pickup devices hidden all over the front of the house and its grounds. They were all but invisible, and in the middle of the day even a trained professional would not likely see them... at night you'd probably never find them. Kira did his best not to look at them very directly... someone had gone to considerable time and expense to plant such an external security network, and exposing it would probably be impolite at the very least. He rapped his knuckles on the door once, and was just about to do so again when the door opened and the owner of the house looked out at him. Kira met the man's gaze and stiffened involuntarily.

"Mr. Yamato is here." Cyprus Finch called over his shoulder, speaking to people further inside the house. He returned his gaze to Kira, who hadn't moved to enter the house, still getting over his initial shock. Of the people whose houses he'd expected to find Lacus at, Lieutenant Finch's was just about the last. Cyprus had come to work for Orb about three years ago, showing up quite unexpectedly along with his two friends and subordinates Corporal Richard Ramierez and Sergeant-Major Thomas Glory, offering their services, such as they were. Disappointed with the political leadership of the FNE and ALU, and not particularly enamoured of the PLANTS, Cyprus and the other former Hellhounds had a choice between Orb and the USN, and Cyprus had indicated that he trusted Orb more than any joint multinational Government.

Which was all well and good, but Kira didn't particularly trust Cyprus! And he was far from the only one... no one had forgotten that these men used to be staunch Isolationists and direct enemies of theirs not too long ago! Not too many years ago Cyprus had held a gun to Kira's head in a hospital bed and used him as a hostage against Lacus... and now he was supposed to trust him to guard Cagalli and Athrun? Alkire had vouched for them, which hadn't meant much to Kira... it wasn't until Kisaka also gave his vote of approval that Kira grudgingly backed off. Kisaka could be relied upon to do what was best for Orb and for Cagalli... if he was okay with retaining the Hellhounds, Kira supposed he could try to ignore them. They were very good at remaining out of sight and mind... all part of their job, actually. Along with Alkire... who nowadays went by his original name, Robert Jones, as often as his alias... and Raine, Cyprus, Ramierez and Glory formed a new Orb special forces unit, responsible for Royal security and "diverse tasks". They were called the Stormhounds, after much clashing of wills between Cyprus and Alkire.

"Take off your shoes when you enter." Cyprus directed, his unreadable grey eyes delving deeply into Kira's. Kira had discovered, to his discomfort, that you could stare Cyprus in the eyes for as long as you wanted and the man wouldn't flinch. Or even blink, or so it seemed. And at the end of it, you still wouldn't have a better handle on him than before. He was a blank mask, as far as Kira could discern. Lacus couldn't tell much more than that... Cyprus was one of a very rare few who were for some reason, whether intentional or accidental, invisible to the extra senses of Newtypes. Cyprus wasn't immune to psychic influence, but he was very resistant, and "hitting" him with power in the first place was like trying to pick up a piece of greased ice with numb fingers, or so Lacus and Katie said. Maybe that was also why he was so hard to read normally... his mind was locked away where no one but him could reach it.

Kira complied, tearing his eyes away from Cyprus. He could still feel Cyprus studying him though, and he resolved not to let it bother him. Cyprus was like this all of the time. Intense. Focused. Directed. Dedicated. He was the only Natural Kira had ever observed displaying a SEED, and probably the most dangerous man Kira had ever sat down and had a cup of tea with. Kira did not delude himself into thinking that Cyprus couldn't kill him pretty much whenever he wanted... though Kira had defeated Cyprus in a brief physical altercation once before, and could probably do it again, Kira knew that it was a pointless example. Cyprus would, now that he knew of Kira's physical abilities, never strike at him from that angle. As he'd so much as said, one time when Cagalli had challenged him on what he would do if someone like Kira were ever to become a threat... "Even a so called Ultimate Coordinator can't do much against a supersonic sniper round, fired from a kilometer away at night. I'd like to see his metabolism regrow a decapitated head. I might be concerned then."... which was chilling, even now, to think about, because Kira realized that Cyprus was right. If he couldn't see the rifle aiming at him, or hear the bullet, there wasn't much he could do, regardless of his reaction time or physical strength.

The thing was though, that it was now part of Cyprus's mission to prevent exactly such things from happening to Kira. Or Lacus. Or Cagalli and Athrun and other major Orb Government figures. So far, his record was exemplary... if there even had been any attempts at assassination or kidnapping, Kira had never heard about them, though other governments, especially the ALU, had a real problem with "losing" various officials to radical groups, and often required USN assistance to recover them, which never failed to draw all sorts of unwelcome media attention. Still, that didn't mean Kira had to like the man, and he knew the feeling was mutual. Their philosophies were too different for them to get along. Neither could be happy with the other's lifestyle, and in fact was often bothered just thinking about living like that. Kira believed Cyprus to be a fanatic of sorts, dedicated to the point of obsession with being the best he could be always, with no breaks or time off, while Cyprus thought Kira was a lazy bum who was afraid to try and exercise his natural abilities until forced into action, content to just drift through life in a mediocre fashion. Both were right... and wrong... in their assumptions of each other.

Cyprus led Kira into a study like room deeper inside the house. Unlike the exterior, the interior was highly decorative and distinctive, with this particular room done in a traditional Japanese style, complete with hard wood floors covered with woven mats and several stands of authentic samurai armor placed around the room. Dozens of weapons, ranging from swords to spears to more exotic things like bladed chains and massive double headed axes hung on the walls, all brightly polished and maintained at the peak of performance. The martial decor wasn't to Kira's liking, but it fit for what he could see Cyprus wanting for a study... to be surrounded by tokens from the best and most dedicated of warriors from various cultures, all neat and orderly in their assigned places. Cyprus was an honorable man... if not a particularly moral one, in Kira's estimation.

Sitting in chairs obviously moved into the center of the room from the walls were Lacus and another woman, about five or six years older than Lacus. She seemed faintly familiar to Kira, with her black hair that was nearly as long as Lacus's and bright, cheerful eyes of silvery blue that contrasted with her nordic pale skin. Cyprus lifted and moved another chair over to where the other two chairs were, though he made no move to fetch a chair for himself. Kira bent over when he reached Lacus and kissed her, with great enjoyment, on the lips, placing one hand on her shoulder and giving her a hello squeeze in place of a hug before sitting down. He felt her mind envelop his in its uniquely warm embrace as Lacus re-opened her side of their pyschic link, which she had shut down to avoid intruding on his perceptions of the Gundams... she disliked them so much that she didn't even want to feel his admiration for them. "Mmm... hello to you to, Kira." Lacus said with a smile, her spirits lifted just a little bit higher than they had been previously, as was always the case when she and Kira were together. "Did you have a good morning too?"

"It wasn't bad." Kira replied with a shrug, knowing Lacus didn't want details. _Nothing I'm too eager to remember, at least with regards to the machines. It was good to see everyone again though, and I can't wait to go out tonight._

_Me either! Its been too long since we were last all together, and we have so MUCH to talk about!_ Lacus agreed with a wholehearted nod of her head. The woman with the dark hair and Cyprus watched the two of them nodding at each other silently, and traded a look of their own.

"You're right, Cy. It IS somewhat unsettling." The woman said with a grin to show that she wasn't being critical. "You two are really talking to each other inside your heads, aren't you?"

"Talking isn't quite the right term... OH, forgive my manners!" Lacus said, bowing her head slightly in apology. "Kira, meet my friend Wrenn. Wrenn, this is Kira... my..."

"Lover." Cyprus supplied dryly. He took a seat on the ground, a few feet away from the chairs but still within easy speaking range. He crossed his legs and laid his hands loosely upon each knee, closing his eyes and relaxing his muscles as he apparently went back into some sort of self meditation exercise.

"Significant other." Lacus replied, her cheeks coloring faintly. "We've never been married by an official ceremony but we're as good as..."

"I'm quite familiar with that situation, trust me." Wrenn rolled her eyes expressively at Cyprus, who may, maybe, grinned a fraction. "Nice to meet you at last, Kira. I'm Wrenn Nostaliviche. Lacus does little but talk about you, believe me. Even when she doesn't realize she's doing it. I can see that she has a lot to brag about."

"Oh, whatever!" Lacus did some eye rolling of her own, though Kira noticed her blush deepen, and he could feel her emotions twitter a bit in embarassment. "As I was saying though, talking isn't quite accurate. I suppose you could say that we... feel at each other... and have learned to interpret those feelings just about as easily as words."

"More easily in some cases." Kira added. He furrowed his brow in thought. "I've heard your name somewhere before, Wrenn."

"Not surprising. You ever listen to a rock and roll radio station?" Wrenn replied with a pleased smile on her face.

"Wrenn and I are both performing artists, Kira, which is how we first met. Although Wrenn is a lot more active than I am these days, and has a bigger fan base, if you can believe that." Lacus added. _Different music appeals these days. Pop songs aren't "in" nearly as much as the goth-induustrial scene, at least among people our age and younger. Wrenn and I actually have a lot in common, we've found, both on and especially off the stage. She has such a great sense of humor, and so much patience! I'm always impressed._

_She'd HAVE to have some serious patience, if she's with HIM! She must be some sort of saint or something, to put up with Cyprus Finch!_

_That's not very nice of you to say, Kira! Cyprus is... different from us in many ways... but he's not a bad man._

_He's not a very good man either! He's coldhearted, rabidly obsessive about his work and I still don't trust him farther than I can throw him, which isn't very far at all! He's everything Alkire is, but squared! He gives me the creeps. He really reminds me of a tiger or something... they say the animal is as afraid of you as you are of it... but when you actually face one down you find that the animal isn't afraid of you at all... just disinterested at the moment!_

_Kira! I'm disappointed in you! I know you two don't like each other, but Cyprus does respect you for what you've done, the least you can do is give him respect for what he does. I would personally prefer it if his worldview was more similar to ours, but I can't make up his mind for him or change the person that he is. And though he is, at times, creepy... I feel safer knowing he is watching out for Cagalli and Athrun. I would not want to be the terror group that thinks to cause trouble in Orb with Cyprus on watch._

"Maybe so, but I've hardly saved the world two or three times." Wrenn replied with a slightly embarrassed shrug. "Record sales don't give you happiness... just lots of money. Now, giving that money to worthy causes... that gives happiness. I've got another check for you, before you go, Lacus." Wrenn turned her head slightly at a slight grunt from Cyprus. "Oh stop showing off, Cy. From what I hear, Kira is a physical... dynamo, and your exercises won't impress him much." Wrenn smirked and winked at Lacus, while both Lacus and Kira blushed red.

As for Cyprus, his eyes were still closed, even as he put his hands on the floor and pushed up, gradually staightening his legs until they were held out in front of him about eight inches off the ground as he supported himself on his hands. Slowly, grunting with exertion and concentration every so often, Cyprus raised his legs still more, leaning back as he did so, until he was at last in a backwards facing handstand. He spread his legs slightly and adjusted his balance, then lifted his left hand from the floor and held it out at a right angle. Kira stared, impressed despite himself with the show of balance and strength.

"I am not showing off. I merely am." Cyprus replied, his pose rock steady, his breathing even, eyes still serenely closed. "Training of the mind and body and will never ceases. I am well aware that Mr. Yamato is my physical superior, even though appearances would not immediately suggest that. In all likelihood he is also my intellectual superior, judging from his school records, especially in technical matters. I decline to be discouraged or discomfited by these facts. If anything, Mr. Yamato is a source of constant motivation for me. His philosophic principles could use a great deal of real world adjustment, in my opinion, but then again he is very resistant to change, and I can respect a man who sticks to his ideals against all odds. If not like or particularly trust him."

"Cy, how could you say that!? They're guests in our house!" Wrenn reprimanded sharply. She leaned over and jabbed Cyprus in the side harshly with one fist. If this bothered him, he did not show it, other than through a slight wobble as he adjusted his balance. "You apologize or you're on the couch tonight!"

"What is, is." Cyprus replied calmly. "Sexual gratification is a reward made all the sweeter by delay and denial. Only through fasting can flavor be returned to the tasteless, only by sitting in the cold can one appreciate warmth fully. Desire is heightened by want, sharpened by need, controlled by will and expressed by love. In the proper time, at the proper place."

"DO NOT get philosophic with me, mister! I've heard THAT before! I KNOW you don't believe that! Denial is punishment by the self for weakness of the mind! And you, despite how you act sometimes, are NOT weak of mind! Lacus and Kira have sex almost every night and you don't hear them... oops, that slipped out." Wrenn trailed off, flushing with embarassment herself as Cyprus coughed to disguise a chuckle.

"Almost every night is... something of an exaggeration, perpetuated by people who don't know the full situation." Lacus said, shrugging as if it was nothing, but Kira could feel her embarassment roiling in her head. "Kira has... special needs, I guess is the best way to put it."

"Not to cause problems or anything, Lacus... but ALL men say they have special needs when it comes to sex. Or at least they do if they want to try something, shall we say, unconventional, yes? I really hadn't expected you and Kira to be into that sort of stuff... but who am I to judge, right?" Wrenn smiled at them, listening to more coughs from Cyprus.

'No, really, Kira actually has special needs. His body works..." Lacus tried to say.

"Believe me, dear, I KNOW how male bodies work. And minds too, for that matter. Don't mind me... I won't tell anyone. Cy and I have some fun with it too, sometimes. Most adults do, at one time or another. Its perfectly normal."

"WRENN!" Lacus hissed, squirming in her chair with embarassment. "Its not like that! Really! I mean, yes, we do some... creative things... but those aren't the special needs I'm trying to talk about!"

"Lacus!" Kira protested. "You know I hate it when you tell people about stuff like that! It's called private life for a reason!"

"The first rule of being a sucessful bodyguard is to never talk about your charges, to anyone. No matter what you learn or see." Cyprus said, by way of reassurance. "Guarding the Zala-Attha's for twenty four hours a day, I have seen many situations of which I can not ethically speak to others about that make this conversation seem tame. As it happens though, I already know about your problems, Mr. Yamato. It is my job to know, so that I can better protect you from those who may wish to do you harm. Intellectually, I wish them luck, because they will need it, with regards to you. You have the ideal human body, in the physical sense, Mr. Yamato... which is one reason why it upsets me that you will not put it to full use. You are a physical masterpiece left half unpainted." Cyprus opened his eyes to glare at Kira. "You honestly make my soul weep."

Kira didn't know what to say to that, and Lacus was currently too embroiled in trying to recover her poise from Wrenn's teasing to provide much in the way of support. "I'm sorry?" Kira said, lacking any sort of strong or witty comeback.

"Don't be. For one, you aren't, so don't dissemble in order to spare my feelings. For another, given who you are, you shouldn't be. Kira Yamato isn't the sort of man who changes his soul in order to spare others, despite what many believe. There is a great difference between being self sacrificing and sacrificing your self. In that difference lies much of your strength, I think." Cyprus slowly lowered himself to the floor, stretching his muscles as he ended his training for the moment. "We should talk again sometime... it makes for interesting training."

"Uhm. You're welcome?" Kira didn't know what to think. Was Cyprus criticizing him? Praising him? Both? This was way more than he was hoping for this early in the day... he'd geared himself to being intellectualy sharp tonight, because he'd be dealing with Ysak and Katie and Dearka and Cagalli in an unrestrained public forum... but he was still in "relax mode" right now, and this was complex at the best of times!

"Come with me a moment." Cyrpus asked. He nodded his head, just slightly, at Lacus and Wrenn. "You two should probably wrap things up as well. There is a long night ahead of all of us, and a longer day beyond that. There are some very important political events... the new USN appointments... taking place this afternoon and evening, the results of which could be of great concern to us all, if they go the way I'm expecting, if not hoping, them too." Cyprus led Kira back into the entrance hall. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper, which he proffered to Kira.

"What's this?"

"Your birthday present for Lacus." Cyprus replied, as if it was ordinary for him to provide it to Kira.

"Why did you get MY present for Lacus? I don't recall asking you to do something like that!"

"You didn't. If you don't like the arrangements I've made in your stead, feel free to ignore it. However, you seemed troubled when you arrived earlier, and I cannot think of anything else that would be weighing on a man like you. As it happens, Ms. Clyne has to travel to that area of the world soon anyway, for a conference with the European Red Cross organization. I took the liberty of making some lodging reservations and travel bookings to extend your visit beyond the business aspect. My sources tell me that the skiing is very nice in the Swiss Alps this time of year. Lacus does not ski... perhaps she will when you return?"

"You still didn't tell me WHY you'd do this." Kira pressed. "Thanks, I'm completely stunned and grateful... but why arrange for a vacation for us? Is this a trap?"

"It would be a poor one, since several people know I have made these arrangements, including Colonel Kisaka and Major Jones, neither of whom would be pleased with your elimination." Cyprus answered with a shrug. "If I was going to kill you, Mr. Yamato, I wouldn't need to do anything near as elaborate as this. I'm doing this because you needed help, and it is my job to help you, regardless of my personal feelings. And if you have to go to that part of the world, far from my legal purview anyway, then I'd prefer you to do it under my arrangements, which I know to be safe."

"Lacus hasn't even told ME about this meeting yet! How did you know!?" Kira was definitely perturbed by Cyprus knowing Lacus's schedule better than he himself did.

"It is my job to know. You don't want to know more than that, Mr. Yamato, I assure you."

"I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight, now!" Kira shivered, trying not to think of where or when Cyprus learned the advance plans of Lacus, or he knew he really WOULDN'T get to sleep tonight. He could have sworn Cyprus smiled at him when he said that, but when Kira looked again, his face was once again a blank mask. Ugh... Kira REALLY didn't care for Cyprus Finch. Not one bit.

---------------------------------------------------------

Athrun heard the door to the dressing closet open and close behind him, but he didn't open his eyes just yet. That would have ruined the whole point of the exercise, which was to induce calm in the body and mind by shutting away all distracting external stimuli. He concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths, trying to listen to the rythyms of his body and adjust them into a more relaxed state. He could feel his heart rate slowing down, as well as the number of breaths per ten seconds. After several minutes, during which he heard Cagalli moving around the room as she finished waking up from her nap before she returned to the bed and did not move further, Athrun opened his eyes. As he did so he began his warm up exercising, which was really just him going through a routine of forms... attacks, defenses, throws, locks, dodges... that he'd learned while going through the ZAFT Redcoat Academy. When he really wanted to get a workout he went through them at full speed, or even pushed himself faster than normal full speed. Today he was just stretching to make sure he was fully awake, so he went through them at one quarter speed, which in some ways was harder than doing them faster.

Cagalli lay on the bed, lying on her front, her chin propped on her hands as she slowly kicked her feet back and forth in the air behind her and watched Athrun work out. Her hair was still damp from the shower, her habit was to briefly towel it to get most of the water out, then let it air dry into her now trademark loose touseled hair. Making a trademark fashion out of pure laziness appealed to her, and she never failed to smile slightly when she saw some other young woman with artfully arranged messy hair that had probably taken her hours at a hairdresser to achieve, while Cagalli just took five minutes in the shower and a brief toweling. They weren't due to go out to meet up with everyone else for several hours yet, so she'd just thrown on some loose, comfortable lounging pants and a T-shirt for the meanwhile. Zim, the lifelike robotic white mouse Athrun had made for her, years ago now, perched sleepily on the crown of her head, likewise watching Athrun. He was definitely worth watching, clad in his workout sweats and not much else.

Athrun watched Cagalli's feet kicking through the air out of the corners of his eyes as he put himself through his paces, never leaving the five foot square of space he'd mentally marked out on the floor no matter what sort of twists, leaping spins or tumbling dodges he put himself through. Really working out required an actual gym with a big open floor, but warmup could be done pretty much anywhere. He didn't stop his motions, but they were almost automatic for him by now, and he focused most of his mind on other thoughts. Such as Cagalli. Her legs were kicking in the faster, jerky, bouncy way that suggested to him that she had a lot on her mind, even if she looked sleepy and lazy and relaxed. If she was just lazing, her legs would barely be moving at all as she luxuriated in the softness of the bed... instead she was practically flutter kicking at the air. He had a good idea what she was thinking about too, and he didn't even have to be a pyschic.

In truth, other parts of his mind were turning over the same thoughts and concerns that Cagalli was no doubt worrying at. The USN was announcing the pending appointment selections for several major posts within the international Government, including Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Public Works, and the one he and Cagalli were worried about, Secretary of Defense. The USN selected people from the governments of its four member-states every two years to fill positions within the international body, whether it was an honor to be selected for a USN post or not depended on the post, and on the person, since it was not legal to hold a USN post and a government job in a member-state at the same time. While working for the USN, your only concern was supposed to be for the USN, which meant for everyone equally. Of course, few people could avoid favoritism towards their member-state, since only a very few USN appointees had not already been long serving or prominent politicians in their home member-states prior to being appointed to the USN.

USN Secretary of Defense was one of the most highly sought after posts, since they were in charge of the USN armed forces, which was the largest armed force in Human Space. Nominally the best equipped too, though that was more a public facade than truth... the PLANTS and Orb had the most advanced militaries by several years of tech, but they didn't flaunt it nearly so much as the FNE or ALU tried to with their own military tech. In any case, the USN SecDef had enormous powers to regulate not only the USN forces, but also the militaries of the USN member-states, being able to control which nations could have nuclear powered Moile Suits, what weapon systems were considered legal for USN troops vs member-state troops, even how many ships or Mobile Suits the USN or member-states were allowed to have. The USN SecDef could commission new military units, could order the construction of new classes of warship or vehicles, including Mobile Suits and could even draft soldiers from member-state militaries into the USN as needed for "emergency situations", which weren't nearly defined enough for Cagalli or Athrun's tastes. USN SecDef was widely considered to be the second most powerful man or woman in the USN, and by extension, in Human Space.

The most popular canidate for the new USN SecDef was the one that Cagalli and Athrun, as well as moderate factions throughout the member-states, were hoping against hope wouldn't get appointed. He was a relatively new force in the politics of his member-state, the PLANTS, having ascended in a matter of a few years from the obscure position of Assistant Secretary of the Interior all the way up to Supreme Councilman, a process that normally took a decade or more. He was undoubtedly politically astute and charismatic, but he also seemed to be phenomenally lucky... every major political opponent he might have had was laid politically low by scandals or unfavorable media attention before they could really even contend with him. It had gotten to the point that people who were too vocal in their criticsms of him were sometimes politically shunned, so that when the axe inevitably fell on them it didn't hit "innocent" bystanders. No one had yet been able to prove that he was using dirty tactics or setting people up for falls, but no one was that lucky... he was just adept at not getting caught. And at staying in the good graces of the people while doing it.

His name was Gilbert Durandel. He'd only been on the PLANTS Supreme Council for a year, where he'd acquired a reputation for forging major alliances between the military and civilian business interests in the name of mutual strength. Gilbert Durandel was all about strength, and the supposed safety granted to everyone by having a strong military. His view was that a strong military trickled down into strengths throughout society... strong economy, strong morale, strong education, strong work ethic... basically a superior all around society. He felt that military science was the forefront for all other sciences, and his platform was built around increasing funding and benefits for people in the military, greatly expanding all current militaries and large scale economic stimulus packages coming in the form of business contracts for military technology firms. He advocated mandatory military training at the level of the Active Reserve for all people between high school senior and college sophmore ages, though he softened the blow by offering great pay scales at the same time, basically making being a Reservist an easy way to make a good bit of extra money each month and getting various sorts of on the job training experience, for only an extra weekend of work every month.

Cagalli agreed with Durandel on some points... the need for member-states to be able to adequately protect themselves without having to rely on USN peacekeeping forces for instance. However, her definition of "adequate" force levels and his were wildly different... almost orders of magnitude different. Durandel also advocated lessening the current restrictions on weapons and power technologies for non USN militaries, to a ridiculous degree in Cagalli's eyes. It was like the man was trying to restart the sort of arms race that the world had seen in the early stages of the Isolation. Another thing that made her suspicious was the fact that Durandel, despite his hugely pro-military stance, had never actually served in a military, not even for a little while. He knew his stuff when he talked about military matters, plainly he had good schooling or great advisors... but why would a career politician from the Department of the Interior of the PLANTS be such a rampaging Hawk? What was his goal? Where was he trying to go? Why did they need such a huge military force increase anyway... there was no war on, no common enemy that required such a buildup? Scaling up your military was a proven way to stimulate your economy... but historically, it was also only done just before a nation planned to go to war with someone. Too much military with no war never worked out well.

Cagalli and Athrun had done everything they could, politically speaking, to stall Durandel's advance towards the SecDef post, but he carried enormous popular weight, especially in the PLANTS. He was one of those people that could strike to the heart of every matter you asked him about, speaking knowledgeably about it and assuring you that he was deeply, deeply concerned about it. He could lie so smoothly and easily that even Lacus had trouble spotting when he wasn't being entirely truthful on TV. Cagalli didn't distrust him because he lied on TV... every politician lied on TV. She herself lied on TV when she deemed it necessary. She distrusted him because he didn't lie very much at all in person, yet she still couldn't, for the life of her, figure him out. It was just a gut feeling... something with Gilbert Durandel wasn't right. Cagalli had learned to trust those kind of gut feelings. Initially Athrun had been sceptical of her, mocking her gently for not being able to trust someone who was being refreshingly honest after their first face to face meeting.

His suspicions had eventually been aroused too though, after several more meetings with Durandel. Athrun had noticed Durandel did a lot of promising... but his promises were worded in such a way that they could be easily exploited later on. And then there was the certainty. Durandel said more military force was needed to protect the member-states from "outside threats". He said it with utter conviction. You could not doubt, when looking into his eyes when he talked, that he was completely sure that these threats were real. But he would never say what threats he meant, exactly. He wanted to increase security, but as far as Athrun could tell from the best Orb Intelligence he could obtain, not to mention the intelligence network Waltfeld still maintained in the PLANTS, there was no threat no matter how hard they looked. Certainly nothing to warrent the kind of build up Durandel was advocating. Yet Durandel wasn't lying. He wasn't guessing. He didn't "think" there was a threat. He didn't "suspect" a threat. He boldly stated there was a threat, and he believed it... so what threat was he talking about? He would never say for sure, no matter how directly Athrun asked him.

Durandel definitely knew things he wasn't sharing... but what? And why? If there was a legitimate threat, that would only enhance his platform, make him seem even more right, vindicate him even in the eyes of the moderates. One would think that Durandel would be desperate to come up with a specific threat to rail against... but he didn't. "Threats" were out there. "Security" was needed. "More military strength was required for national protection against outside threats to peace and prosperity". It really seemed to Athrun and Cagalli that Durandel was just looking for a catch-all excuse to spend a truly astonishing amount of money on building up military force across the USN... but the nagging "why?" still bothered them. If all militaries were being increased, no one would suddenly become more vulnerable. No one was favored in his policies... they applied to everyone equally. It didn't make any sense. They were missing something, something big. But they only had their suspicions, no proof, and with only suspicions they couldn't do much besides worry.

Athrun finished his warm ups, his heart rate and breathing having returned to his normal levels. He was sweating, very lightly, not enough to need to hit the shower again, though he probably would anyway... there were few things that felt as good as a hot shower right after a work out, and the feeling of cleanliness afterwards as worth savoring too. He turned to face Cagalli and bowed slightly towards her, mocking her apparent fascination with his martial arts. "Like the show?" Athrun asked, noting how wide and somewhat unfocused her eyes were, almost dilated. Cagalli was very relaxed, like a cat sunning herself on a warm rock outside. Her eyes were still open, but her mind was a few million miles away. Athrun appraised her for a moment... slightly damp hair, loose black lounge pants, simple red T-shirt, no make-up, no jewelry, just pure, unfiltered Cagalli. With that dreamy, slightly vulnerable look on her face, she was almost unresistably sexy to him. Only the thought that they had a long night ahead of them held him back.

So instead of laying down with her, which would have turned into something a bit more active than laying within not too long a time, Athrun slipped on a T shirt of his own and instead sat on the bed alongside her. Zim perked up a bit as Athrun's body heat moved within closer range of his sensors, but his command program dictated a preference for Cagalli over all others, and the mouse stayed where he was, though his head did turn to contemplate Athrun. Athrun began using his hands to massage Cagalli's shoulders and back, searching for any knots of tension or stress. Fortunately he found few, and only minor ones at that. She leaned against him, arching into his hands a bit, and he could swear she purred, just like a cat. She denied doing it whenever he brought it up, and she only did it when she was in these supremely relaxed, half asleep states, so maybe she really wasn't aware she was doing it, but that didn't ring fully true to Athrun. Quite how she accomplished the sound was also something he couldn't figure out... he had decided not to question it though. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that.

"Sleepy?" Athrun asked, whispering in her ear. She grunted noncommittally at him. So he tickled her side. That got a reaction, just as he'd known it would. Cagalli was very ticklish along her sides, especially when she wasn't ready for it. She jerked, half shrieked, and rolled instinctively away from him, tossing her head in a knee-jerk reaction that sent the equally unprepared Zim sailing halfway across the room, flipping around in mid air as his internal A-grav motor slowed his fall and brought him lightly to rest on his feet. Squeaking in indignation, the robot mouse hurried back across the carpet to the bed, scaling the sheets with ease and clambering up onto Cagalli's hand, since her head was now out of reach because she'd sat up, blinking her eyes back to their usual sharp, smoky amber color. Zim butted the palm of her hand with his nose, and Cagalli absently lifted her hand, allowing Zim to leap adroitly across to the top of her head again, his favorite perch. "Not any more, I guess." Athrun commented with a smile.

"I had a very pleasant daydream going, I'll have you know!" Cagalli retorted, skewering him with a look. He smiled at her, which only sharpened her ire. Few things could get under her skin... in good or bad ways... than Athrun's smile. Right now, it was much more the bad way... he was mocking her, teasing her, acting like he had one up on her... which never failed to rouse her to great efforts to make him stop doing it, which even occasionally succeeded before she had to surrender her precious bad mood.

"It sounded like it. I haven't heard you purr like that in weeks." Athrun replied, smiling wider. It bugged her. He could see it in every movement of her face. What was the fun of being married if you couldn't productively annoy your spouse to no end? She did it to him much more often than he did it to her, though she claimed the opposite... he suspected that this was often the case. It was okay... he knew what the truth was.

A faint color rose to Cagalli's cheeks. "I do NOT purr. I am NOT a housecat!"

"Zim continues to be fortunate in that regard. I could almost SWEAR though that we have a picture of you with cat ears and a tail and other circumstantial evidence that..."

"Halloween costumes do NOT count!" Cagalli blushed deeper as she thought of the picture in question. "Not unless you're really a vampire!"

"I seduce a beautiful maiden and drain her life force through erotic servitude almost every night, what do you mean I'm not a vampire? I may not drink blood, but really... that's so seventeenth century anyway." Athrun returned, stroking his chin to accentuate his toothy smile. "Fangs are in here somewhere... hold on... I think... no... don't go anywhere, maiden... I'll find em, eventually..."

"You're impossible." Cagalli pushed at him, but she was smiling now. He caught her up in a hug from behind, moving with all the speed his still warmed up muscles could lend him, which was far faster than she could compensate for in her still waking up mood. He clasped his hands around her stomach and leaned his head against the side of hers, resting his chin on her shoulder lightly.

"I was thinking more along the lines of "incredible"." Athrun prompted, touching the side of her neck gently. "Hmm... no bite marks. I guess you aren't seeing any other vampires at least."

"Imbecilic." Cagalli retorted in a breathy voice. "Perhaps you should... check elsewhere? Not all vampires are proper enough to only bite a girl's neck."

"Ah... insatiable, how's that?" Athrun began to do as asked, despite his resolution of earlier.

"More like int..." Cagalli was interrupted when the door to the Executive Suite of the Orb National Palace swung open without warning. Two men, clad in black and white camouflage uniforms, with the addition of dark blue spots as well, wearing full assault gear, including heavy assault rifles and grenades, with demon-dog faced helmets on their belts, came tromping into the room. Well, tromping was an exaggeration... even with all their gear on, the men actually moved more quietly than most people did when walking around in sneakers... it just seemed that much louder because of the intimate atmosphere the room had been acquiring.

The man on the right, tall, slim and latino in skin and hair color, sized up the situation with a stricken expression on his face. He turned to the man on the left, who was more muscular, with germanic features, blue eyes and short buzzed blond hair. "Goddamn it, Conrad! Didn't I tell you to knock before entering a private room!"

"Conrad", who was actually named Sergeant Matthew Kurtz, new recruit into the Stormhound company, looked distinctly uneasy, though not uneasy enough to be without a comeback. "Well, I was about to, Corporal, but then you practically kicked the door down ahead of me in your eagerness to complete our patrol sweep. It's almost like you have some place to be or something. Though I know that can't be true, cause we still have four more hours of duty time..."

"Don't get smart with me, Conrad. I'll kill you, see if I don't." Staff Sergeant Richard Ramierez, long time Hellhound and now a senior Stormhound, replied with a predatory grin. Quite why his nickname remained "Corporal", despite the fact that he hadn't held that rank for years, was something Athrun and Cagalli couldn't figure out. The whole nickname process in general confused them... they seemed so arbitrary. Some, like "Conrad" were obscure literary references. Others referred to observable physical characteristics, or to references to a person's background. Still others just seemed to appear one day and stick. Ramierez sketched a hasty salute in Cagalli and Athrun's direction, holding his gaze resolutely away from the bed. It wasn't the most awkward time he'd ever accidentally walked in on them, but it was never fun to step in on someone just as things were getting sexy. And from the look of things, sexy was about to have been an understatement. He'd have shot the first man through the door had it been him in the bed. "Pardon our interruption."

"I don't see how we have any choice in the matter." Cagalli replied, her voice frosty, pulling away from Athrun's embrace a little in sudden self consciousness, glaring at the two elite soldiers. Having a unit like the Stormhounds came in very useful, ninety percent of the time. People like Alkire, Raine, Cyprus Finch, Thomas Glory, Richard Ramierez and the soldiers they had recruited and trained didn't just grow on trees after all. There were only about thirty of them in the entire Stormhound unit, but they were the thirty deadliest men and women in the USN, at least outside of Mobile Suits. Cagalli didn't believe in assassination or other underhanded tactics, which was usually why governments had teams like the Stormhounds. She employed them to counter other governments "black" missions directed aganst Orb. They did that job very well. And incidentally provided extra security for important people in the Orb Government. But sometimes their inclination towards doing things their own way... such as random patrol times and an utter disregard for political protocol... rubbed her the wrong way.

"Just doing our hourly check in. Don't mind us. We are blind, deaf and dumb." Kurtz added hastily, going a bit pink in the face. This was his head of Government he'd walked in on after all. And her consort. And they'd been about to delve into the "consort" side of his duties from the look of things. Well, until the two Stormhounds had blown the mood. He smiled weakly in their direction, as he rapidly flicked his eyes over all the obvious... and not so obvious... possible hiding places in the room.

"I hope not, or else you really did interrupt us for no good reason." Athrun wasn't above being a little put out himself. He'd been on something of a roll there, after all. Still, he appreciated the thought, and he always slept better at night knowing they had people like Ramierez and Kurtz roaming the grounds as extra insurance. It was just... inconvenient when he wanted Cagalli to himself. He watched the Stormhounds finish their inspection of the room. "Satisfied? Or do I need to pull up the bed covers too?"

"No sir, that won't be necessary!" Ramierez replied, taking the question at face value though he certainly felt the sting in Athrun's words. "Room is secure. We'll be going now. Uhm... oops. Sorry. You can get back to whatever it was you were about to be doing. It looked very interesting..."

"Leave, before I go find a bigger doggie!" Cagalli growled.

"Leaving, aye, ma'am!" Ramierez and Kurtz left the room with professional speed, not hurrying, but definitely not dawdling either.

"Well damn." Athrun commented, as soon as the door was shut again. "I don't know about you, but I've got a case of the heebie-jeebies at the thought of getting intimate again."

Cagalli sighed heavily. "Yeah, me too. I'm too fully awake now anyway. Opportunity lost due to interference by outside factors. Twenty yard penalty, opposing team. No repeating the first down."

"A full twenty yard penalty huh? Going to be a fun morning tomorrow for the Stormhounds." Athrun observed.

"Entertainment can be found in the strangest of places. Even mucking out storm drains and hauling bulk fertilizer for the lawns. The regular gardeners seem to get quite a kick out of the extra help." Cagalli replied with a merciless chuckle. "Sometimes being the head of Government is so fun."


	4. Freeze Frame Life Part 2

"Ahhh Earth! Blue skies! Wind off the ocean! Endless horizons! Mountains! Stormclouds! There's just no place quite like it, is there, Ysak-y?" Katie asked exuberantly, practically dancing along as they toured Nara-Attha City on foot to kill time before they were supposed to meet up with the other Clyne Faction members for dinner. The last time they'd been to Orb with any time off at all, the City had still been in the early stages of reconstruction after Purgatory Day, and Ysak hadn't been in much of a mood to go touring around then. The memory of the life or death struggle with the Merciless had still been too raw then... some of the buildings that were still in ruins then had been turned into ruins by Ysak, trying to kill Cray in the Merciless. Eventually he and the Duelist, along with Dearka and Miriallia in the Grand Buster, had been successful, but not before dreadful damage was done to the city, by friendly as well as enemy fire.

Today Ysak couldn't even figure out where the destroyed buildings had been, everything was so new and pristine looking. He was glad for that... seeing the devastation wrought in the city had been a constant predatation upon his nerves, and he'd really only been able to let go of the feelings of guilt and responsibility recently, now that he'd seen for himself that the cityand its people had recovered. Or recovered as much as it was possible to anyway, since people never forgot tragedies like Purgatory Day completely, not for decades anyway. Looking around, Ysak saw many monuments and memorials dedicated to that Day, but he was glad to see that they were uniformly uplifting, exhorting the people of Orb to remember fondly and honor those who gave their lives that day so that peace could eventually be won. He was embarrassed to discover several monuments dedicated to the Gundam and its pilot who destroyed the Merciless and "saved the city"... the statue of him was astonishingly true to life, even down to the scar across his face, and just about the last thing he needed right now was to be assaulted by a horde of grateful survivors, just when he was putting it all to rest finally.

"Oh, I don't know... its not THAT good a likeness, Ysak-y. You're taller than that. Stronger. And you never look that tired or self-justified." Katie replied, skimming his thoughts off the top of his mind, as she was wont to do whenever he didn't concentrate on stopping her from doing it. "Plus, whoever made that statue gave you WAY too much ass. You've got a bony ass, not a full, lush ass. No, its all wrong. Terrible statue... obviously, whoever made it doesn't know you like I do."

"For which I am eternally grateful." Ysak muttered. "Having one person know me like you do is sometimes more than I think I can handle. And my ass is not bony, its perfectly proportionate to the rest of me. Now yours... yours is..."

"Careful what you say or think, Ysak-y, because it might have direct bearing on whether or not you're found floating face down in the harbor tomorrow morning. Remember, we're staying at MY family's place now, not yours." Katie cuddled into his side ferociously. Ysak snorted in contempt of that idea.

"You know I'm not in the least frightened of Alkire. And not too frightened of Raine, assuming she doesn't have a gun handy. Their new team members give me some pause, especially that Cyprus Finch guy, but even then, they're just a bunch of Naturals. They're not Newtypes either."

"Ahh, there's the arrogant, devil-may-care Ysak-y that I love so much. Obviously, if someone isn't a Coordinator or a Newtype, they aren't any threat at all, to such a big, strong, bony-assed Redcoat elite like you. I'm glad to hear that, really, I am. I wouldn't know what to do to protect myself otherwise, helpless little me." Katie laughed loudly, enjoying one of her new games, which was blowing everything Ysak said way out of context and proportion. She loved seeing how long it would take for him to get fed up with the constant ridicule and verbal sniping, before he was "forced to take her somewhere and show her why...", which could evolve... or degenerate... into all sorts of entertaining situations. "Of course I can extrapolate that comment to understand that other Coordinators, Ultimate Coordinators and especially Newtype Coordinators are people you are afraid of?"

"Afraid of would be putting it too strongly. I have a healthy respect for them. Most of them. Zala is still an annoying bastard, being a major political figure hasn't changed that. Nothing will change that, with regards to him. Dearka is... Dearka. When he's serious, he's right up there with us... when he's not, he's even more annoying than Zala." Ysak replied confidently. "With my new..." _Gundam, I think I could take Athrun pretty easily now. Dearka and that hulking monstrosity Dr. Simmons designed for him would be even less of a challenge._ Ysak transitioned smoothly between verbal and mental communication for the more sensitive topic. One never knew who might be listening, at least verbally. "My new coat is white now, remember? I'm not a Redcoat anymore, thank god. The style is still hideous, but at least the color isn't an abomination."

_With OUR new Gundam you mean, Ysak-y. You may be the one who flies it and shoots the weapons, but I'M the one who would help you beat Athrun, Dearka and Miriallia, more than anything else. We might even be able to take down Kira, assuming Lacus didn't interfere._

_I'd prefer not to even consider that. I don't like it, but there is no denying that Kira's natural talents for Mobile Suit combat far exceed any skills I can teach myself. It would be an interesting intellectual exercise to match the Vorpal against the Seraph, but I think it would be safer all around if it remained just an intellectual exercise. Just about the last thing any of us would want would be me and you facing off with Kira and Lacus. Just Kira and me would be bad enough... I don't even want to KNOW what you and Lacus could do to each other on the pyschic side of things if you really went down to business on each other._

_Whichever side won the pyschic side of things would be the side that won the Gundam fight too, lets leave it at that, Ysak. I don't know how combat between Newtypes would work. I don't WANT to know. I have a few theories, some ideas on what I would do if I wanted to hurt another Newtype with my powers... but I really pray I never have too, especially with someone as strong as Lacus. Nobody would come out of a serious contest like that with a whole mind, regardless of who won._

_I agree._ Ysak's eyes, constantly roving around as he turned his head to gawk, carrying on the physical cover to his and Katie's mental conversation, caught on a sight that brought a frown to his lips. It was a video arcade, one of a new chain of such locations that stretched across the Earth, Moon and even into the PLANTS. They offered new virtual reality experiences on a massively multiplayer scale, creating entirely new virtual worlds for people to play in, explore and otherwise waste large protions of their life pursuing. He didn't have much time in his life for the new VR entertainment systems, an outgrowth of the 3D projectors used as status screens in military bases and starships during the Valentine Wars, but they were all the rage amongst "younger people", including many members of his command. Ysak knew he wasn't that old at all, only twenty three, which actually made him one of the youngest ZAFT whitecoats in history, and ZAFT had recruits a young as fifteen, making it the youngest military in the world. Still, even when people were eighteen, nineteen or twenty, Ysak couldn't help but feel incredibly older than them. They were just so... different.

_I'll admit, some of them are definitely weaker of mind than I would have expected Coordinators to be... I guess I got spoiled when I met you, Ysak-y... but remember Ysak-y, most of them joined up after the Valentine Wars. They're peace-time soldiers, and you're a war-time soldier. That's why they seem so immature and undisciplined._ Katie assured him. "Ooooh... they have the new Gundam-WARS game! Everyone's been eagerly anticipating that game for months now! We should go try it out, Ysak-y! I've heard its a lot of fun. You can even customize your own Gundam for the open world battles!" _Though I somehow doubt they'd let us have anything like the Vorpal. I don't even know how they'd translate Newtype abilities like mine into a game like that. Not like they tried... most people still don't believe Newtypes exist after all. _

"If you've never actually piloted a Gundam, maybe. The controls on those games are so simplistic it is insulting. And it doesn't feel real at all... ZAFT simulators provide a far more realistic experience than these commercialized time wasters." Ysak curled his lip in contempt. "They don't show you what it feels like to complete an eight G turn while dodging enemy fire, or what it really feels like when an enemy unloads twenty four hundred pounds of high explosive shells into your face from fifty meters away... it sure doesn't just make your screen shake a little. It's just a game, compared to the real thing it's not even training." If spitting on the sidewalk wasn't a misdemeanor, Ysak would have done it. "The game isn't about Gundams... its about piloting remote controlled war machines that don't have to conform to the limitations of a real pilot because the people playing the game could never BE that kind of real pilot."

"And the elitist jerk strikes again, ruining all thought of fun and enjoyment, sheesh!" Katie pouted at him. "Wouldn't kill you to at least PRETEND you'd like to try the game once or twice, Ysak-y. I'll agree with you, compared to real combat it's brainless, oversimplified and even comical... but then again, I'm fervently NOT looking for real combat, am I? I just want to have fun pretending and blasting a bunch of teenage no-hopers to virtual scrap, not feeling scared three quarters to death, wondering if each moment might be my last, or the last of someone I love and care about!"

"All right, all right... we'll give it a try." Ysak caved. It was a waste of time, undoubtedly... but that was all they were really doing anyway right? Wasting time until they were supposed to meet up with the others? And having a sulky Katie by his side for the rest of the night would make it absolutely unbearable... he needed her to succor HIM, because he was sure Dearka and Athrun would team up on him mercilessly. He intended to hand out a few choice salvoes of his own, but the plain fact was that they were better at that aspect of socialization than he was. And even unrealistic combat was better than something truly onerous... like bookstores or movie theaters.

"Yay! Thank you, Ysak-y! I'll even ignore that comment about bookstores and movie theaters... neither of which are NEARLY as tedious and embarrassing as going through fashion apparel with you...I swear, you don't have to criticize EVERYTHING thats in the store do you?"

"Only the stuff that's fucked up, in one way or another. Which is most usually EVERYTHING in the store. I don't know who designs some of that clothing, but they need to be taken out and horsewhipped. They have NO sense of class and the nuance of symmetry and asymmetry... and they want to charge THOSE kind of prices for that crap!? Any reasonable person would be enraged, I think I handle it better than most!"

"Tearing the clothes off the racks and tossing them to the ground while loudly and directly harassing the poor store clerk who tried to sell them to you is something you consider restrained rage?"

"THAT was an exception. Those clothes DESERVED that! They were an abomination unto the physical reality of the universe, they should have been burned upon completion. The clerk was just the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time. I did apologize later."

"After they called the police! She was in tears and cowering away from you! I'm beginning to see why Dearka was so shocked that Chanel and I weren't afraid of you when we first met. You do have a... way... with women, you know that? A way of making them feel small and worthless and ugly."

"A way that doesn't seem to work on at least one woman, for some reason, may god be thanked." Ysak squeezed his arm around Katie's waist as they headed into the arcade. "I don't mean for it to happen, you know. I don't wake up in the morning and tell myself "I'm going to make some girl cry today", except with regards to Pilot Third Class Krono, whom I do make a special effort for most days, but there's reasons for that. But I do have trouble controlling my critical nature. I guess my standards are just too high for other people to meet, and I have trouble stopping myself from informing them that they don't meet my standards. Some people just can't take it."

"Yes. Its odd, that they have trouble dealing with it when a slightly more than six foot tall, extremely muscular and fit Coordinator with a huge, wicked scar across his face and eyes that could freeze ice gets in their face and then verbally and publicly disassembles them into their component insecurities. I wonder why that is?" Katie snorted to contain her chuckle.

"You can't avoid natural selection forever. Eventually you have to face your problems, or they'll consume you. That's why I do it to PTC Krono... she's got potential, if she'd just learn to grow a backbone." Ysak retorted.

"So your solution is to berate them into getting thicker skin and a backbone? That or a mental hospital, I take it? You're so kind, Ysak-y, you don't even know."

"A regular Lacus Clyne, that's me." Ysak blinked his eyes to adjust them to the dimmer lighting inside the video arcade. It reminded him of the interior of some of the fanciful interstellar starships that appeared with distressing regularity in the action movies Katie was always renting and then watching in bed when Ysak was trying to get to sleep. The damn shows were rotting his brain, he was sure. He couldn't help but watch them though. They were WRONG! Impossible! The science was fucked up, the structural engineering was something out of a Waft high and the acting was merely adequate. Quite how the actors managed to suspend their disbelief in the falseness of their surroundings was beyond Ysak, but he accounted that as the most impressive of their talents. Worst of all were the movies based off the Valentine Wars. Those made him want to claw his eyes out of his skull with a rusty fork.

_Just you wait, Ysak-y, they're supposed to be coming out with one of those dramatizations of the Clyne Faction contributions to both Wars. I hear they're also making an adaptation of it for the stage theaters. The movie is going to be a rousing action-adventure tale... the theater's are making it a musical! I can't wait to see who they get to play us, especially you, Ysak-y, can you?_

_I would rather pay personal witness to the heat death of the universe. _Ysak frowned mightily at the mere thought of the horror that movie and the theatrical adaptation would be. The only saving grace, as far as he could see, was that the man scripted to play Athrun Zala was a total moron, little more than a pretty face who could mouth lines on a teleprompter. Poetic justice of a sort. He had Athrun down pat, as far as Ysak would publicly admit. A wide screen TV display over the snack bar portion of the arcade was tuned to a news station, which Ysak thought odd for a frivolous place like this. Just beyond the snack bar was an entire multileveled wall of the building dedicated to Gundam-WARS, seventy double occupancy VR booths on three floors. Checking his watch, Ysak paid for a half hours worth of time on the machines for him and Katie, which judging from the lines, was a generous estimate. He paid cash... no way was he going to hand over a check card with the name "Ysak Joule" on it, given the memorial statue outside.

"Say... you look kinda familiar for some reason, buddy. You been around here before?" The clerk in charge of the cash register peered at Ysak through his glasses, mind obvious stumbling through his memories. Ysak was tempted to answer sarcastically, telling the clerk that yeah, his regular job was posing as a statue right outside that the clerk probably saw on his way into work every day, but he'd decided to come in for a bit of R and R today, but he held off. That would negate the point of paying with cash to keep his identity, if not secret then at least not completely public.

"I get that a lot. But no, I've just recently come here from the PLANTS on a working vacation." Ysak replied shortly.

"Its a honeymoon actually, he's just embarrassed." Katie interjected, snuggling Ysak mercilessly.

_You can't help but try and make me blush, can you?_ Ysak thought darkly at her as he accepted his change, and the clerk's awkward congratulations on a marriage contract that didn't exist. It wasn't that he didn't love Katie or want her to be a permanent part of his life... he was fairly sure he couldn't live without her by this point... but, much like Kira and Lacus, they'd had no formal ceremony. Ysak still felt they were too young to get formally married... he'd known a lot of young soldiers rush into marriages in their late teens, only to be divorced within months. He didn't intellectually think that would happen with him and Katie, but logic did not rule him on this particular subject.

_It's so much fun, I just can't stop. Besides, I consider every trip we take where it's just the two of us, even if we meet others for a little while at the destination, to be a honeymoon for us, Ysak-y. Hey, look at what's on the news!_ Katie nodded her head at the big TV screen, which had just come up with a Live Special Report. It was concerning the USN appointment committee results. Three major USN post terms had recently come to an end, and the posts needed to be handed over to the next generation of USN talking heads. Ysak and Katie did a lot of cross-training and consultation with the USN space forces, and they were both eager to see who got the post of USN SecDef. Not that the question was ever really much in doubt... Gilbert Durandel of the PLANTS Supreme Council had odds of nearly thirty to one for him getting appointed, according to the most recent political watchgroups.

"About damn time they put a Coordinator in charge of the USN military." Ysak grumbled, low enough that only Katie could hear him. This wasn't the PLANTS, where support of Durandel was public and common. Not that Ysak particulalry cared about treading on other people's political opinions, but he knew that Durandel wasn't very popular in Orb. He found that kind of strange, personally, given that Orb was a long time believer in maintaining a strong military force of its own, having been the second nation to independently construct Mobile Suits. Hell, hadn't they just spent the morning viewing five of the most powerful Mobile Suits that he'd ever seen? It seemed kind of hypocritical of Cagalli and Athrun to be so opposed to Durandel's platform of military expansion given how much money Orb had to be throwing into its Gundam Project. It wasn't really any of his business though... his political views aside, Cagalli and Athrun were doing an incredible job with running their nation, and he couldn't expect them to agree with him or the PLANTS all the time.

"Durandel sure is something, I'll give you that." Katie replied evenly. "I haven't seen such a powerful speaker since Cervantes Zunnichi."

Ysak threw her a sharp look. "Not you, too? Am I the only one who doesn't think Durandel has some shadowy ulterior motive? I'll grant you, his policies could use some better definition, and his talent for making empty rhetoric sound like true facts does bother me at times, but he's got a good heart. He really does have the safety and security of the people of the USN as his major priority."

"Sorry." Katie shrugged in contrition. "It's just that he's so squeaky clean on the political media front that it rubs me the wrong way. Cagalli and Athrun aren't even half as much media darlings as Gilbert Durandel is, and we both know that Cagalli and Athrun are the real thing. Either Gilbert Durandel is the second coming of the Messiah, as the media would have you believe... or he's got a spin department that could make the sun going dark sound like a good thing. I'm more inclined towards the second, and why would a man have such a good cover up program if he didn't NEED to cover something up?"

"So? Hit me with the dirty secrets already. The skeleton you must have found in his closet, or that you've heard about from Alkire and the Stormhounds?" Ysak asked, with a fierce smile on his face.

"You know that I don't have any such thing, Ysak. I don't particularly want to know his dirty secrets, if they're just regular political dirty laundry. I don't care whom he fucks, whom he drinks with or whom he gets his money from even. What bothers me is that even Uncle Alkire and the Stormhounds don't know those things... and they have dirt on EVERYBODY. Everybody but Gilbert Durandel. He's golden. Spotless. Nobody gets to be a member of the Supreme Council in less than four years from the position of Assistant Department Secretary and stays spotless! He's got a hidden agenda, and it might not even be HIS agenda, but the agenda of whoever expedited his political career. I just want to know who that is."

"Well, its almost certainly another Coordinator anyway, so what's it really matter? He's still going to be loyal to the PLANTS, and by extension to the rest of the USN. The PLANTS..."

"The PLANTS have never decided to destroy the human race, I take it? Coordinators don't go bad, can't be enemies and bad guys, right? Oh give me a fucking break, Ysak. Dirty politics is dirty politics, regardless of genetics, I'd be just as opposed to Durandel if he was a Natural. I don't have anything bad to say about him, other than the fact that I don't have anything bad to say... and that makes me nervous. I hate to say it like this... but he's too good to be true. That's what I'm afraid of."

"His stated goal, which I believe he believes in with all his heart, is to protect the people of the USN against all threats, external and internal." Ysak answered. "I can't find fault with that, and not just because of all the extra money he's going to be pouring into ZAFT. It's how I feel too. It's what I do, Katie. It's what WE do. And if need be, though I really personally don't expect this to be a problem, if Durandel becomes one of the threats he says he wants to protect us against, then I'll be there to shove fucking Siegfried down his craw right there with you. But until that unlikely day, I'm going to keep saying that I think he's really the best man for the job, and about damn time too! Now what say you we work off some stress with this stupid game? I might even be persuaded to let you win."

"Oh... accepting bribes are we? I'll have to think about what your price is... it might be too high for me. You do have expensive taste, Ysak-y..."

"I accept down payments, don't worry..." Ysak sneaked a kiss on the top of her head as they waited in line, along with hordes of totally unsuspecting teenagers.

---------------------------------------------------------

Dearka hated hospitals. He really hated them. He'd never liked them growing up, especially because his family seemed to basically live in one, whether it be physicaly or mentally speaking. His opinion of them hadn't improved after he'd joined ZAFT, nor even after defecting to the Clyne Faction. He certainly hadn't become any more enamoured of them in the time since the end of the Second Valntine War, despite how much time he spent in them. Maybe it was because of all that time he spent, and he never saw much improvement over time spent resting or healing elsewhere. He seemed to recall that he always healed up just as fast in his own bed as a hospital bed, and in quite a bit more comfort too. Just about the only thing hospitals had in their favor was cute female nurses, and he couldn't even take advantage of that anymore... not without asking for Mir to put him into the hospital in a more permanent fashion.

It wasn't that Mir jumped down his throat whenever he flirted with another girl... it was so ingrained into his personality that it was hard for him to NOT flirt with pretty girls... but she definitely kept him under a hawk like gaze, even when she wasn't around. It was the way their relationship was set up. Dearka didn't really set himself any rules or boundaries, though he was more than happy to follow the ones Mir set into place. She liked being in charge, and he liked letting other people be in charge, because otherwise he couldn't justifiably chafe against their authority, which would make him quite bored if he couldn't do. It led to things being pretty cyclic between them... they'd go through periods where they meshed really well and got along great and were super happy... and then they'd have some rougher times, esecially when Dearka let himself get depressed and Mir was too busy with her job to be able to spare much time or sympathy for him.

Getting depressed was getting easier and easier these days, though Dearka fought long and hard against it. He didn't like being depressed. Didn't like not feeling like he had any energy, like the world was cold and grey and pointless. But the older he got, the longer he and Mir stayed together, the harder it was to stay as happy as he wanted to be. It was the goddamn ICD. Infertile Coordinator Disorder, the official name for the difficulty... more like impossibility... some twenty percent of second generation Coordinators had with producing children. It wasn't that they were impotent... they still had sex drive, their sexual organs still worked just fine... but they were infertile. No matter how often they had sex, no children came from it. Even in vitro fertilzation techniques didn't work. The percentage of Coordinators afflicted with ICD increased dramatically the farther away from first generation, that is, Coordinator children of Natural parents, that they got. By the time you got to fifth generation, there weren't any Coordinators without ICD.

They called it "The Curse" or just "Curse" on the street level. Being "Cursed" was a growing social stigmata among young Coordinators, especially after they hit puberty. It wasn't officially proven, but everyone took it as common fact that Curse was contagious among family members... that is to say, that if one child of the family had it, then even if it didn't manifest in other children, they still were likely to pass it down to their own offspring... more likely than other people anyway. The fertility and genetics tests that detected ICD were supposed to be strictly private affiars, between physician and patient only, but in the modern day and age there wasn't much in the way of electronic information that couldn't be acquired eventually by a determined hacker.

There was even a growing demand for ICD statistics to be published openly, by parents who wanted their children to be "informed" of the real situation before they opted to marry someone and by young adults who wanted pretty much the same thing. Why marry someone if you were just going to find out that you couldn't have a family? Adoption was of course possible, but that only helped a small perentage of marriages and couples. The ability to have children was an irrefutable psychological stabilizer for most marriages... the inability of one person or another to contribute to the having of children was linked to all sorts of cases of spousal abuse and divorce. As things were there were already many people trying to exploit people with Curse... date rape and sexual assault rates against both men and women skyrocketed by nearly eight hundred percent when the victim had ICD. The situation went the other way too, though not as often, with Cursed people selling their bodies for money in a revival of a prostitution industry that had never before been present in the PLANTS.

That wasn't even touching all the other problems that were manifesting as symptoms of ICD... crime rates were up in the PLANTS, as people who misunderstood those with ICD got into fights, or those with ICD decided to strike back at a world that apparently hated them. It was a miniature version of the early days between Naturals and Coordinators on Earth... some people were different, even though they looked the same, and you couldn't know who was different except by intimacy with them. Suicide rates amongst people diagnosed with ICD were four hundred percent higher than for people without the ICD diagnosis. Help groups and special therapists were springing up all over, but the problem was currently bigger than the attempted solution, and it wasn't getting any smaller.

Another contributing factor to why many people with ICD, or who were close to those who did, had problems with hopelessness and depression was the lack of progress in finding a treatment. A cure was right out the window, people just wanted something that could delay or supress the effects. They wanted something that would give them a chance, no matter how slim. So far, nothing even slightly effective had come around. People were looking for a drug or treatment that would work on one in a thousand cases even, any chance being better than none, but they were denied even something that unlikely. If you had ICD, that was it... sex was just a physical sensation, oops, sorry, try again next life. High hopes were held for the field of viro-tech and bacterial-tech, using engineered microscopic organisms to cure the problem, but it was hard. The problem wasn't something after the fact medication could really cure, since the problem was genetic.

But they couldn't figure out where it was coming from! There was no common set of genes that resulted in ICD... members of the same family, even otherwise identical twins, had manifested cases of one person having ICD and the other not. There had to be some contributing factor, something the scientists were missing that could be detected and hopefully corrected before it became a problem in an embryo, like many other genetic conditions were weeded out during the process of making a baby a Coordinator! It was theorized that perhaps ICD was caused by a genetic change brought on through puberty by the chemical and biologic processes natural to the human body at that time... but short of keeping people from going through puberty, which would not help the situation, no one could imagine how they would cure ICD down that path. Current genetic technology was incapable of fundamentally altering the human genome after birth... even the current cosmetic genetic "Touch Ups" were temporary, being eventually flushed out of the body like germs by the human immune system, not to mention limited to simple things like pigment alteration.

Dearka was sitting in a waiting room of the Nara-Attha National Hospital, waiting for another batch of test results to come back to him. The Genetic Sciences Clinic was actually pretty crowded, mostly with young Natural couples recieving consultation on having their first Coordinator baby, though there was a sullen young man sitting across from Dearka who looked to be coming in for treatment for having a surplus of Touch Ups, so many that his body couldn't flush them out properly, which was causing what looked to be a rather nasty breakout of hives and buboues. Combined with his snake pupil eyes, dark red skin and dark purple hair, the punk looked pretty damn grotesque. Dearka didn't understand the new rage of Touch Ups, which were far more popular with Naturals than Coordinators, perhaps not surprisingly. Hair dye still worked just fine... why alter your genetic code and risk the super-mumps for something a five dollar can of dye would do just as well? Fashion could be such a bastard to stay with.

He could feel the looks other people were giving him, though thankfully there were few whispers. It wasn't too hard for people to figure out why a single, young, male Coordinator would be in the waiting room of a Genetic's clinic. He might as well paint ICD across his forehead. He felt his spirits droop yet further, and had to fight hard not to reach into his coat pocket for a pick me up tab. It was just an over the counter anti-depression medication, but Mir always flipped a shit when she saw him taking them, and he wasn't ever really happy with it either. He wasn't depressed when he took them, but he knew he was relying on a temporary chemical crutch, and that really ruined it for him. It was enough to drive a guy to drink... and he did, which also did not please Mir much at all. Most times, that really distressed Dearka, but sometimes he didn't give much of a fuck at all. He knew it was a self destructive spiral. He knew damn well. That didn't stop him when things got bad. But what the hell could he do about it!? The depression was sapping all the enjoyment out of life anyway!

He took the envelope containing his test results from the orderly when they were brought out to him, though he didn't plan on opening it anytime soon. He didn't need to see more of the same crappy news. He didn't have to look at it to know it was crappy news... if it had been good news the orderly would have been smiling for him... it would have meant a cure for ICD would have been at least potentially found, and there would be Coordinators dancing in the streets when he got outside. There weren't, though it was perfect dancing weather, sunny and just at that perfect temperature that Earth could achieve with almost no effort at all and the PLANTS spent billions of dollars a year not quite copying right. Dearka thumbed open his cell phone and hit the first speed dial, connecting with a message service.

"Hi, its me. Just got out of the hospital. Headed back to the'Light, grabbing some groceries on the way. I'll be back in plenty of time to get changed for tonight. Love you, see you soon, bye." Dearka snapped his phone closed and headed for his borrowed car. He and Miriallia lived almost full time on Dearka's salvage ship, the Dawn's Light, out of which they both also ran their respective businesses. Spending most of the year traveling the Earth's oceans, putting in to ports as need be for supplies, fuel and work, Dearka and Mir hadn't thought it prudent to invest in a car that would just sit in storage for eleven months out of twelve. When he really needed to drive around and avoid Nara-Attha City's rather exceptional mass transit system, he just called Athrun or Cagalli and had them hook him up for a day or so, which required only a sentence or two on their part.

He probably could have afforded to buy a car, even a nice one, if not a custom job like Athrun's extravaganza, and pay for it to be warehoused when he wasn't using it... the salvage business was pretty lucrative, if in bursts rather than steadily, and Dearka had put away a lot more money than he'd first expected to be earning. It was amazing what shipping companies would pay to have cargo retrieved from ships that had accidents and sunk, or what research groups would pay to use his equipment for their submarines, or what even TV channels were willing to pay for use of his boat for their shipwrecking hunting shows. Of course, a lot of his business was because of Mir's business... as a photojournalist of some small reputation, a lot of people whom she did business with got referred to Dearka when they needed help with some salvage or needed a small ship for some reason.

They even got a contract once in a very long while from the Orb government, real off the books sort of stuff. Take this group of people, whom you will not interact with, to this location and drop them off, wait three days for them to come back, then return them to Orb, also not talking to them. Not that Dearka was much of one for taking groups of armed men and women onto his ship and just ignoring them... he'd gotten along fine with the TEMPEST members during the Second Valentine War, which meant he already knew at least some of the same people his "cargo" did. He'd built this small bit of common knowledge into at least the beginnings of a friendship with one Stormhound, the former Hellhound Richard Ramierez. They had similar personalities, and somewhat similar life stories even, though Ramierez was very vague about his own family. Dearka understood that, all the way.

Dearka stopped by a mini mart on the way down to the harbor, picking up mostly light snack foods and some fruit and vegetables... nothing heavy or filling, just something to tide him over through the first few hours of company. He also bought a big bottle of vodka, which he put in a brown paper sack and concealed between the other bags of groceries, just in case Mir was back from negotiating the sale of her latest human interest news from around the world before he was. He was annoyed at himself for doing it... a man should be able to buy his booze without feeling like he has to sneak it back onto his own damn boat... but he knew and dreaded the look Mir would give him if she saw the vodka. He didn't drink to excess, and hardly ever got drunk drunk at all... but it was the act itself, of drinking to cover up for his depression, that really pissed her off.

The Dawn's Light was just as he'd left it after returning from Mare-Town Depths that morning, and it didn't look like Mir was back yet. Dearka parked the car in front of the stairwell that led from the dock to the rail of his ship, which was a good ten feet above the dock at high tide. The Dawn's Light wasn't a huge ship, only about two hundred feet long and thirty feet wide at the widest point, making her quite tiny as far as salvage operations went, but her draft, which was how far the hull went down into the water, was only a couple of feet with the proper ballast adjustments, allowing Dearka to move the ship in very close to islands or other shorelines, where bigger ships could not go and where the majority of shipwrecks occured.

The ship was mostly automated, and could be easily handled by just the two of them, though Dearka commonly hired on extra temporary help for jobs involving a lot of heavy lifting or labor, not to mention there were usually working passengers of some sort or other, whether they were TV crews, research groups and Orb special forces troops to help with any complex tasks. Besides all the various parts of the ship dedicated to the detection, acquisition and storage of various things from sunken ships and underwater caches, there were several rooms dedicated to Miriallia's business, including a fully stocked red light room for old fashion photography and a fully kitted out modern office for her to work on her stories from. There was also their quarters, which were nice enough to qualify for rooms in a four or five star hotel, if not nearly as neatly maintained... Mir was only one woman after all, and Dearka was far from the neatest of men.

Dearka's phone buzzed at him and he answered it, holding it in the crook between his neck and shoulder as he headed into the kitchen to start putting away the snacks, and to add the bottle of vodka to the back of the liquor cabinet, where it wouldn't be immediately obvious. "Hello, Elsman Salvage. You lose it, I find it."

"Ha ha, Dearka, this is your home cell number, not the work cell number." Miriallia rolled her eyes as she walked along towards the bus stop.

"I get them so mixed up sometimes. Work and home that is, since they're both kinda the same place..."

"Sure you do... just like you mix up yellow light and red light behavior. You're just one confused guy, aren't you?" Mir replied, without pity. She switched tacks. "I just got your message. What'd the hospital say? How was it?"

"About as good as could be expected." Dearka replied, trying not to wince. "More of the same.'

"I'm sorry, Dearka." Miriallia's voice went husky for a moment, as she struggled not to cry at the unfairness of it all. Dearka was such a wonderful person, and to be afflicted with ICD was crueler than he could have possibly deserved

"Not your fault, Mir." Dearka replied shortly, as he tried to shrug. He knew his tone was hollow, but there wasn't much he could damn well do about it, was there? Short of transplanting a full reproductive system, which would defeat the point of passing on HIS genetic legacy anyway!

"Its not your damn fault either, Dearka! You can't help the way you were born!" Miriallia retorted fiercely.

"I know."

"You say that but you don't mean it! It's really not your fault, Dearka! It's not your failing! I love you no matter what and I mean it!"

"I know, Mir. I know. I love you too, especially these days. But the fact remains... I've got ICD and there is no fucking cure! I'm a genetic fucking mule! A randy, cuddly, smoking hot dead end! It doesn't matter how many times we try, nothing will happen!"

"That doesn't mean we're going to GIVE UP!" Miriallia shouted back into the phone, startling the people around her. "You've saved my goddamn life so many times during the Wars Dearka, I'm not going to let you drift away into self pity and self loathing because of something like this!"

"I don't hate myself, Mir!"

"You sure as FUCK don't act like you LOVE yourself sometimes! Damn it, Dearka, the pills... the booze... you don't need them! I'm here for you! I am! Its not YOUR problem... its OUR problem, and WE will get through it TOGETHER!"

"If you say so, Mir."

"Don't "if you say so, Mir" ME, mister! This conversation isn't over, but I'm on a bus and I don't have the privacy we need right now. I'll be home in thirty minutes. Love you."

"Love you too, Mir. Bye." Dearka flipped his phone closed and tossed it across the room to land with a thump on the couch cushions. If it had kept going and sailed out the window onto the deck and fantail ten feet below, he wouldn't have gone after it, not in his current mood. He looked long and hard at the vodka bottle in his hand, but eventually put it away, unopened. Miriallia would tear his balls off if she came home now and smelled liquor. And despite the fact that they were in a way the source of his pain, Dearka didn't particularly want to lose his balls, because even if it was ultimately unproductive, sex was still fun, and relaxing, and a great way to heal arguments between him and Mir. Instead of a stiff shot of vodka, he got himself a big glass of cranberry juice and sat down with that and a bag of barbecue flavored potato chips on the couch, flipping on the sixty eight inch TV display that took up most of one bulkhead.

Meanwhile, back on the bus headed to the harbor area, Miriallia looked long and hard at her phone before flipping it back open again, scrolling through her list of phone numbers, and selecting one she didn't call nearly as much as she used to. She wasn't exactly drifting away from this person, but by no means were they as close as they'd been four years ago. Still, the situation with Dearka was growing worse, and she knew she'd never be able to talk him into seeing a therapist or doctor about it. This was really her best option right now. She pressed the call button. "Hello? Lacus? This is Miriallia. I'm sorry to call out of the blue like this, especially because I'll be seeing you in a few hours anyway, but I need to ask you a really big favor..."

Dearka grunted as a special news report came on, announcing the results of the recent USN appointment committee hearings. His juice and chips were almost gone, and he was debating the wisdom of going back for more against the knowledge that he might make himself too full to eat much dinner, which would really be too bad, becaus he expected that they were going to go somewhere pretty classy, with all eight of them together, two of them being the head of the national government. He turned his attention back to the TV as the results were being announced. "... and in a landslide victory that should surprise very few of our viewers, Gilbert Durandel, former member of the PLANTS Supreme Council, was selected today to the post of USN Secretary of Defense. The inauguration ceremony will take place late tomorrow, and Mr. Durandel will assume official control of his duties the day after that. Next up..." Dearka hit the mute button.

He leaned back on the couch and drained the last bit of his juice, considering the news. On one hand, he was pleased to see a Coordinator selected to such a prestigious and powerful position within the USN government. He personally thought it was kind of strange for someone to expend all the time and effort it took to get to the PLANTS Supreme Council and then throw it away a year later to join the USN, but then again he couldn't say he exactly had the strongest political senses out there. On the other hand though, people who's political opinion he trusted, including Athrun and Ramierez, didn't have much good to say about Durandel. They didn't have much bad to say either, per se, but the mere fact that Athrun and Ramierez and a good deal of the Orb Government felt antipathy and suspicion towards Durandel was indicative to Dearka that not everything with him was on the up and up. Athrun didn't badmouth anybody lightly, and Dearka had heard him not quite say some pretty harsh things about Mr. Gilbert Durandel, so he was going to leave the jury out for a moment before starting the celebration.

He sat there, pretty much just staring out into space, for quite a while, until he heard relatively light footsteps coming up the stairway from the dock. Dearka sighed and brought his attention back to the here and now... he got up, and prepared to endure a tongue lashing from Mir. He glanced at the clock on the wall, and felt some relief... there was only about an hour and a half before they were due to meet up with the others, so that should help prevent it from turning into a full grown fight between them. He wished he could feel even a tiny bit angry, but really, all he felt was a sort of deadness. They'd fight, yell and scream at each other... they'd make up, laugh and cry together... they'd have great sex, go to sleep satisfied, things would be okay for a week or two... and then it would happen again. What a life for a Redcoat elite and a Gundam pilot to live. Goddamn, but he needed a distraction... something he could sink his life into, where he didn't have time to be worried about the future anymore.

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The media was already in attendance outside the shopping district where they'd planned on meeting by the time Miriallia and Dearka got there. They'd all been expecting it, but hoping it wouldn't happen anyway. But someone, somewhere, somehow had gotten wind that the four Gundam Pilots of the Clyne Faction, along with their respective significant others, were all getting together for a group night out... and then they'd gone and sold the tip to the media. And since the list of significant others included both the Monarch of Orb and Lacus Clyne herself, things weren't just a couple of reporters and a camera crew. No, there were dozens of reporters and at least seven different camera crews. There would have been helicopters, if city ordinances didn't prevent them from flying low enough to get any sort of good pictures. And this was all BEFORE Cagalli and Athrun showed up.

Kira, Lacus, Ysak, Katie, Dearka and Miriallia weren't waiting for long... barely long enough for the media to become completely obnoxious, but not quite long enough to become suable... when a low, thrumming mechanical howl from the street drew away the horde of microphone waving savages. Athrun's custom black sports car, which he had designed and built mostly with his own two hands, with only a little bit of help from Alkire and Dr. Simmons, pulled up to the curb, sliding across all four lanes of traffic to do it, though the tires of the low slung vehicle didn't so much as brush the curb despite the fact that the car must have been going close to one hundred and fifty kph out on the street. The engine revved several times before dying down, loud enough in close proximity to drive even the reporters back a few steps.

"You men and your mechanical penis's." Katie commented, shaking her head in exasperation. "I just don't get it."

"That car can go from zero to two hundred kph (close to 120 mph) in less than four seconds, and tops out at closer to 300 kph! As far as mechanical penis's go, Athrun is hung like a goddamn horse!" Dearka replied, matter of factly. "Besides, we all know it's Cagalli who demands more speed and power, not Athrun."

"Maybe so... but he's the one who spent close to four hundred thousand dollars developing and building it." Miriallia shook her head as well.

"What ELSE does he have to spend his money on? He's the First fucking Husband of Orb, one of the richest and most powerful terrestrial nations!" Dearka rejoined. "Ysak, Kira... you guys understand, right? Sometimes you just gotta dump a truly STUPID amount of money into a frivolous hobby, right?"

"I usually don't have that much money in one place at one time." Kira replied with a shrug. "Lacus handles checks that go up to several tens of millions of dollars, but its not OUR money, its for TCF work."

"Don't try and drag me into the same category as you and Athrun, Dearka." Ysak glowered. His glower grew darker as Katie elbowed him in a knowing manner.

"Oh, but don't you want to talk about all the money you spend on designing men and women's formal wear, Ysak-y? You make such beautiful wedding dresses after all. Oh... wait... you said never mention that around Dearka. Oops. My bad." Katie asked with a wicked gleam in her eyes. Dearka pounced on this information, as everyone knew that he would. The gull wing doors of Athrun's car lifted open, and the Chief Representative of Orb and her chief Ambassador to the PLANTS stepped out into the veritable laser light show of camera flashes and a forest of microphones. Like their friends,Cagalli and Athrun wore only semi-formal wear, since they were planning on spending as much time outside as the weather... and the press... would let them.

As Athrun and Cagalli were getting out, several unmarked government sedans also pulled up to the curb, somewhat belatedly, disgorging a dozen dangerous looking men and women dressed in the blue and black and white camouflage of the Stormhounds, though they did not carry full assault gear in public, or their masks. These men and women weren't here for security purposes though, but merely to keep the media at a goodly distance initially. There were already a goodly number of plainclothes and disguised security agents throughout the shopping district area, along with most of the rest of the Stormhounds in full gear, walking in two man patrol teams around and through the whole area. Public access to the shopping area was not halted, nor were the media ejected from the area, but neither would the Orb security forces just let their head of state wander around unprotected.

Colonel Ledonir Kisaka, who was now the officer in charge of security for the Governmental District and de facto man in charge of the security for Cagalli and Athrun, got out of the driver seat of one of the sedans. He gave Athrun a steady look, and then switched his gaze to Cagalli, who returned it with challenge in her eyes. The plan, which they had discussed in great specifics, had been to travel in a convoy formation, with one security car ahead and two behind Athrun and Cagalli. That had lasted about as long as it took to get out of the National Palace parking garage, and then Athrun had taken off and left the security forces scrambling to catch up for the rest of the trip. Kisaka had made a note to discuss with Major Jones, more commonly known as Alkire of the Stormhounds, his continued teaching of Athrun the evasive and combative driving skills for which Alkire was famed. It just wouldn't do for the Representative and her husband to be able to evade their own security forces so easily.

"Have a nice night, Cagalli. When should we expect you back?" Kisaka said softly, not deigning to even consider the media around them. For their part, the media was keeping a respectful distance. Largely because of the presence of the Stormhounds. The Orb media was no less rabid in their pursuit of scoops than the media from other nations, and the Orb Constitution was no less free in its definition of freedom of speech. However, the Stormhounds were a very serious group of people. They gave you one warning. If you didn't heed that warning, the next warning came in the form of a club to the face, and you really didn't want to persist for the warning after that. A few incidents early on in the Stormhounds days of guarding Cagalli had resulted in a few attempted lawsuits, which Cagalli had wasted no time or influence in squashing totally. If you didn't want to listen to lawful warnings from her security forces, that was YOUR problem. These days, if the media saw that blue and black and white, they backed off until beckoned forward... no point in provoking a misunderstanding and going to a hospital.

"At the agreed upon time, of course. I won't play hooky, Kisaka! I'm more mature than that!" Cagalli replied with a sincere smile that failed to reach her eyes.

"Three a.m., then?" Kisaka asked. The agreed time was ten p.m. "I'll be waiting up for you."

"Yes... "dad"... sheesh." Cagalli rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Do you want to tuck my bib in too, while you're here?"

"That..." Kisaka got back into the sedan. "... Is Athrun's job. I wish him joy with it."

The media pressed slightly closer as Athrun and Cagalli walked, arm in arm, through their gauntlet towards their friends, but no reporter or cameraperson tried to get closer than a long arm's reach, and most stayed well back from that even. Kisaka had left, but the Stormhounds were still there, watching closely. A few reporters were shouting questions about the get together with the other Gundam Pilots, but by and large what the media wanted to know was how Cagalli and Athrun felt about the selection of Gilbert Durandel to the post of USN Secretary of Defense. Cagalli and Athrun had been very open in their opposition to Durandel, both because that was how Cagalli always tried to be with diplomatic matters, and because they were hoping that whoever was sabotaging Durandel's political opponents would make a try at them too, from which they could hopefully learn something about what Durandel was really doing. So far, they'd been disappointed.

Athrun and Cagalli reached the group of their friends, and Athrun unlinked his arm from Cagalli's, pushing her towards the others slightly. He turned to regard the media, which was edging in at their back like jackals after a herd of gazelle. "We'll be holding a press conference on the subject tomorrow morning, and we'll both be glad to answer any questions you have about Gilbert Durandel then. As for the purpose of this get together... its a reunion among friends, with no political connotation whatsoever. A private reunion amongst friends, that is all. If you have any questions, we will be glad to answer them tomorrow as well. I can't legally stop you from following us tonight... but I'm asking you not too. Please. We just want to have some fun with our friends." Athrun swept his gaze over the crowd of media, trying to march the intensity of his feelings across all their eyes. He was getting better at doing it, at reminding the media that they were human beings too, who sometimes needed some time to themselves, even in public. Maybe the Orb media was just more polite than elsewhere in the world, but they did back off quite a bit, though not all of them looked like they were packing up for the night either.

"You have a way with words." Kira commented as Athrun rejoined them and they headed into the shopping district. "I can never get people to back off so easily when Lacus and I get recognized and accosted in public."

"Yeah. A way with words and twelve very dangerous bodyguards within whisper's call. After the Stormhounds sent five members of the media to the hospital with fractured skulls in the first week after they took up Representative secuirty detail, the media got the hint that they weren't joking around. Ever since then, we've had a much easier time of things, at least outside of press conferences." Athrun replied, re-linking his arm with Cagalli's. "So what did I miss while I was distracting the sharks? It looked like we we're burrowing into Ysak's soft underbelly from a distance."

"And how!" Dearka said fervently. "Did you know, Athrun, what Ysak's favorite hobby is? I bet you'll never guess? It's sewing! Frills! Fripery! Embroidered gowns!"

"It's FASHION DESIGN, thank you, Dearka, you prove yourself to be a lout once more." Ysak retorted. He turned his gace to Athrun challengingly. Daring him to laugh. To even chuckle. "I conceptualize, design and produce my own line of formal wear, for men and women, including wedding attire for both sexes. Dearka, as might be suspected, finds this unmanly and amusing, despite the fact that I sell each of my individually tailored garments for enough money to buy a motorcycle."

"I've bought a few things from Ysak actually. For very important events." Lacus volunteered. "He's very good, and Katie and I both think he should look into doing it as more than just a hobby."

"So he can truthfully say Lacus Clyne recommends his products? That's several million dollars worth of endorsement right there! I might have to look into this." Cagalli said thoughtfully.

"Wait! But we're making fun of him! How can we go from mocking him, to buying from him so rapidly!? What happened?" Dearka protested.

"People realized that they have class, Dearka. Don't worry, I wasn't expecting it from you." Ysak answered, smiling as Dearka's joke was turned back onto himself. "I'll tell you what though... if you get down on your hands and knees and beg my forgiveness, I'll consider making your and Miriallia's wedding gown and tux, for when you eventually decided to tie the knot, okay?" He didn't see Miriallia's eyes go wide and concerned, and attributed her gasp to one of humor. Kira and Lacus traded uneasy glances too, and shortly afterwards, Katie stepped on Ysak's foot. Hard.

"Yeah..." Dearka looked down and to the side, his expression composed and neutral. "I'll have to think about that one, Ysak."

_OWW! What did you do that for!? Your heel came down on my instep! I can't feel my foot!_ Ysak glared at Katie, and was surprised when she glared right back.

_Dearka has ICD, JACKASS! You KNOW THAT! And you're just gonna toss out casual one liners about when he's getting MARRIED? Very GOOD, Ysak. Very nice. What a friend. He and Mir aren't having problems with it, no, not at ALL! TWIST the FUCKING KNIFE a little more, will you?_ Katie's retort exploded into his mind in a way that was just about as shockingly painful as what she'd done to his foot. Ysak grimaced... he really hadn't been thinking with that one, Katie was right. And he couldn't exactly apologize either, not without bringing the subject up again, which was probably one of the last things Dearka wanted.

Athrun and Cagalli weren't party to the awareness that had been speeding through the minds of the rest of the group, but they both recognized an awkward conversational gap when they heard one. "Well, maybe not wedding attire, but maybe you could make some really warm winter garments for Kira and Lacus, Ysak?" Athrun suggested.

Cagalli's eyes lit up with excitement as well. She'd only gotten the news from Lacus an hour or so ago. "Yeah! Sorry to spill the beans ahead of you, Lacus, but Kira's taking her to Switzerland for her birthday! They're going to go skiing in the mountains, way up in the Alps! Its cold in those Alps, as I remember."

"Well, its really more of an extended vacation after a working trip to Europe but..." Kira started to say.

"Don't downplay it!" Cagalli interrupted. "This is your guys's second honeymoon type arrangement, isn't it? I think its a great idea! Maybe it should be emulated sometime?"

"I can see why she made you the diplomat, if thats what she considers subtle." Dearka muttered to Athrun, his humor at least somewhat restored now that the awkward pause was past. He'd seen the stricken expression on Ysak's face, and was glad Ysak hadn't tried to apologize. Dearka knew Ysak hadn't meant to stir up the pot like that, though it had hurt anyway, but the last thing he wanted to do was publicly talk through it with Ysak. He was pretty sure Miriallia was going to try and turn the conversation around to it eventually, despite his express wishes to the contrary. She was worried about him, he knew. But that didn't mean he was okay with getting their friends involved in what was basically the most personal issue he could think of.

"Oh, that was positively genius inneundo from her." Athrun muttered back. "She didn't even make it clear whom she was talking to that time."

"Well, I was definitely surprised and pleased. I hadn't told you about my trip to Switzerland yet, Kira, so I'm still not sure how you managed to make such wonderful arrangements for us... not that I'm complaining in the slightest." Lacus added. "Wrenn and I had just been talking about all sorts of things that there were to do in northern Europe, which is where she's from, assuming I had a few extra days there, before you arrived to pick me up."

"Small world. And I have my ways." Kira replied, not wanting to admit that Cyprus had made the arrangements. From the looks of things, Wrenn had been in on the deal too. He still wasn't sure WHY... Cyprus's "it's my job to help" didn't seem fully right... but after he'd seen the look on Lacus's face, he'd been very glad he'd decided to take the chance. It wasn't very often at all that he got to surprise her like that, and the simple enjoyment and pleasure on her face was a memory he was going to treasure for a good while.

"Ooh, mysterious. I'm gonna have to suscribe to the second honeymoon theory too." Miriallia said with a smirk. "I'd tell you to watch out for kinky shenanigans, Lacus, but from what I hear, you deal with those often enough anyway..."

"Quietly, quietly! The last thing I want to think about is the two of them doing anything even remotely kinky!" Ysak groused. "I don't know about the rest of you guys, but I have, for my mental picture of Lacus, firmly affixed the likeness of a sixteen year old pop singer who has captivated the hearts and minds of an entire nation. I don't want to replace that image with something raunchy!"

"You don't want to... or KATIE doesn't want you to? Be clear and honest." Dearka pressed.

"Katie doesn't mind." Katie spoke up, hugging Ysak closer for a moment. "Because she knows that her Ysak-y is deathly afraid of all other beautiful women, and that when he thinks about them, regardless of whom they happen to be, it is with only respect and platonic adoration in his thoughts. Ysak does nothing to disrupt this knowledge of Katie's. Or at least, he'd better not. Unless he wants me to edit that image in his head myself... which he won't enjoy nearly as much as I might..."

"I could never think of Lacus Clyne like that anyway. I grew up with you, in a lot of ways, though never really with you, if that makes sense." Ysak responded. "You were always with Athrun, and then you were famous and... no, you're like a cousin or something. I can admire you, but... not in a physical sense beyond the abstract. Same thing for you, right Dearka?"

"Uh. No. Lacus is very beautiful and desirable. I was very jealous of Athrun for a while. A part of me remains jealous of Kira. I mean, I'm really happy that she and Kira got together and all, and I'm even more happy that Mir and I got together... but Lacus Clyne is HOT. I'm sorry, thats just how it is. Someone doesn't grow less beautiful just because she's practically married to one of my good friends." Dearka answered, without a hint of embarassment.

"Well, thank you, Dearka..." Lacus replied, a faint blush on her cheeks as she cuddled just a slight bit closer to Kira.

"Don't worry. I'll brain him with a rock later, to save you the trouble." Miriallia commented in an aside to Lacus.

"And with that bit of uncomfortableness handled, lets get dinner, huh? I'm sure we all have a lot to tell each other about what we've all been doing since last we saw each other like this." Athrun prompted, leading the way towards the resteraunt he and Cagalli had decided upon.

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"Oh man! I feel like I ate an entire buffalo!" Dearka groaned, as he returned to the table in the private room of the resteraunt after going out to wash his hands and face, as well as the top front of his shirt. Damn, but buffalo ribs were good, but they were so messy! The shirt would never be the same. Not that Dearka particularly minded a stain here or there... especially stains that tasted like spicy barbecue sauce... but Mir was going to be exasperated with him, since this was one of his better shirts. He took several steps into the room and was just about to sit down when he noticed something. "Hey... where'd everyone else go? We still have dessert to eat!"

"They decided to step out for a bit of fresh air." Kira replied, from the seat next to Dearka. He was the only other person in the room, though the plates and glasses for everyone else were still out on the table, with food still on them in some cases.

"Everyone but you?" Dearka asked quizzically, a sinking feeling in his chest. He debated bolting for the door, but this was Kira Yamato... he'd be all over him before he got a half step towards the door. Dearka still remembered that incident at the Clyne house in the PLANTS five years and some months ago, when Kira had flipped him around like a pokerchip onto a tea table, with just one arm and a twist of his body.

"Well, I'll be joining them shortly. Actually we will. But first there's something we need to talk about, and Lacus felt you might not want everyone around for it." Kira answered shortly.

"Lacus felt huh? So Miriallia called Lacus, and Lacus sent you. Wow. I feel so honored." Dearka retorted sarcastically.

"Miri is very concerned about you, Dearka." Kira said, ignoring his friend's tone. He didn't particularly want to be the one having this conversation, but he accepted the fact that he was probably the best choice. Dearka would never talk to Athrun or Ysak about this, and it would be extremely embarassing to talk to Lacus or one of the other girls as well. Kira was really only the logical choice. There was another qualification to the situation, but Kira would get to that shortly. "I don't know everything. I don't want to know everything. But from what I hear, you're not handling this medical situation very well. Its affecting your personal life. It's affecting you and Miri."

"Fuck it, Kira! If you're here as an appointed counseler, lets talk plainly! I've got ICD! That means no more little Dearka's and Dearkaettes, no matter how much me and Mir want them or how often we try! There's no cure! At this point in time, theres no hope of a cure! I still have sex drive! I love sex, especially with Mir! But its pointless, beyond physical pleasure! I might as well have water in me! I don't expect you to understand, Kira... but it really hurts a man, when he realizes that he has a loving woman that he wants desperately to spend his life with, but can't give children to! It's like a fire eating through my gut! Children may not be necessary for every marriage... but Mir wants them! I want them! But I can't fucking have them! Is it any wonder I'm fucking depressed!?" Dearka spat, looking down morosely at his plate.

"I'm here as a concerned friend. If you don't want to confide in me, thats fine. I'll forget I heard any of this, I won't tell Lacus or anyone. But you are my friend, Dearka, and I feel like I should at least offer you my help."

"Help!? What the hell kind of help can you even give me, Kira? No offense!"

"I can listen. I do that very well. I can share your pain..."

"Fuck that Newtype bullshit! My mind is mine, thanks... I'll keep it or lose it at my discretion!" Dearka started to get up.

"Sit. Down." Kira commanded, his voice cool. "And let me finish." He caught Dearka eyeing the door and sighed lightly. "Go ahead and try if you want, Dearka, but you and I aren't leaving this room until we've both said our pieces. We can sit together like civilized friends, or I can put you on the ground and talk sense into you in a slightly less comfortable fashion, though it would pain me greatly to do it."

"Very well then." Dearka sat himself back down. "I know when I've been backed into a corner by superior force."

"I wasn't talking about anything regarding Newtypes, Dearka. Lacus would never invade your mind like that. I don't even have the ability too. I was talking about sharing your pain. because you aren't the only one of us who may have this problem. Lacus's recieved her results some time ago. She never shared them with me. She didn't want to cause me worry. I actually found out from Cagalli, who'd learned from Lacus and then gone against Lacus's wishes to tell me because she was concerned about us... much like Miriallia has done for you. Your father is heading up much of the research into ICD, I know, so you should be able to understand what I mean when I say this... Lacus's results came back... inconclusive."

"Inconclusive?" Dearka sat back and chewed on that one for a while. "Sometimes the results are like that, yeah. They get both positives and negatives on the test, and they can't tell which ones are false positives or false negatives. We still don't even know the full cause of the problem, so diagnosing it is more a matter of collective guesswork more than hard scientific fact. Still, inconclusive can go either way, at the very worst its fifty-fifty, right?"

"Lacus and I have been trying for a year and a half now, Dearka." Kira looked away, his voice going very quiet. "Believe me, and I think you know what I mean, we've been trying hard. So far, we have just as much to show for it as you do. Maybe its bad luck. Maybe its any one of hundreds of causes that prevent or greatly reduce the chances of people getting pregnant... its very much a matter of luck sometimes. Lacus's family history does have some evidence of fertility problems, though not actual infertility. It could just be that. I don't know. Lacus doesn't know. Nobody can tell us for sure either way."

"I... had... uh..." Dearka's mind was mostly blank.

"Of course you didn't know. Only you, me, Lacus and Cagalli know, of the eight of us. Add a few more doctors to the list and you have everyone. Like you, we didn't want our friends getting involved. Lacus didn't even want ME involved. So believe me, I understand very much how you feel, both about talking to me and the issue itself. And I'd very much appreciate you not talking to anyone besides Miri about this... its not as much of a problem for you, thankfully, but if the media got wind of this kind of thing with regards to Lacus..."

"Yeah! I totally understand that!" Dearka shivered. Ugly didn't come close. It would be the worst kind of nightmare... a public one. "Still though, Kira... its not something I want to talk about if I can avoid it!"

"Medical sedatives and alcohol don't solve many problems either." Kira retorted.

"Have you tried them?": Dearka countered.

"Yes, actually. I have that is, Lacus doesn't. She's stronger than me in regards to this." Kira sighed more heavily and shook his head. "Alcohol and weak drugs don't affect me anymore, Dearka. My body flushes almost any sort of poison or contaminant... even friendly ones like medicine... away in a matter of minutes. I can't get drunk. I've tried. To get any sort of effect from tranquilizers, I need to go to dose levels that are illegal outside of hospitals. Talking about it is painful... not talking about it is like letting a cavity build in your teeth because you don't want to go to the dentist."

"Well... shit..."

"Tell you what, Dearka. This is a problem that you, me, Lacus and Miri all have. None of us wants to talk about it with other people, but if we do have to talk about it, within the four of us has got to be the best way! Especially if we can get away from the rest of the world, to someplace private, so we can work out the harder things openly. You and Miri should come with us to Switzerland. Four days up in the mountains, with just the four of us... I think it could be quite carthartic."

"Uh... but I thought that was your and Lacus's second honeymoon? I'd feel totally awkward! Mir would too!" Dearka protested.

"Its not a honeymoon." Kira refuted, a tinge of exasperation in his voice. "I suppose you could have called it a romantic getaway for her birthday, but thats as far as I'd take it. And this is more important! Lacus has a lot more birthdays in her life, and we'll have plenty of time to get away with just the two of us. This issue is here and now, and the sooner we all come to better terms with it, the happier we'll all be!"

"Uhm. Okay. I don't have any jobs right at the moment, and Mir can do her job pretty much anywhere with a computer. I'm pretty sure I can sell her on the idea, especially since it's for a group therapy type thing. We leave in a couple days right? Yeah... I should be able to make that, no problem. Assuming there aren't any problems on your end. You have discussed this with Lacus, right?"

"Don't worry about Lacus." Kira said confidently.

"I ain't. I'm worried about YOU, because if you told Lacus this was going to be a romantic getaway earlier, and now you're springing on her out of the blue that you're dragging along Mir and Dearka to talk about sensitive reproductive issues instead... she's going to be mad at you. A lot mad. Like maybe we find you with your brain on the outside of your skull next time, mad. Thats not what you're going to do right?"

"Don't worry about it. Just show up to the airport at the right time." Kira repeated, though he did look grim and queasy.

"Dude, you're fucked! Not in a good way either!"

"Shut up, Dearka."


	5. Green Angel

"GodDAMN it... this just ain't right! There ain't a fucking parking space left on this entire goddamn PLANT! Everybody and their fucking brother's family is here!" The shorter, slimmer man, with nondescript features and short brown hair, at least this evening, who was nominally driving the car, complained bitterly. His companion, taller, broader with well brushed hair and moustache that was silver grey from age and experience, shrugged a slight fraction, his eyes and expression mostly unreadable because of the extremely darkly polarized sunglasses he wore.

"I mean really... why couldn't we use the goddam valet parking service!? We were right there! We coulda been inside already! Instead, we're stuck out here, in the fucking boondock parking, waiting for God himself to take mercy on us and give us fucking parking spot! It just ain't right!" The driver continued to complain. The woman riding in the back seat of the car frowned, fished in her purse for a moment or two, and then came up with a small notepad and a pen, upon which she rapidly wrote. Tearing the note away, she tapped the grey haired man on the shoulder and passed the note forward to him.

"Well... whats she fucking say then?" The driver asked, querously, craning his head fruitless from side to side.

"She says "Jean, if you don't stop bitching and moaning, I'll give you something to cry about and blow out your eardrums."" The grey haired man quoted. "Please, allow me to find my earplugs first though, Mary."

"Fuck you too, commander!" Jean retorted. The front seat passenger sat up straighter and turned his glare upon Jean.

"Mr. Dylan. I have told you a thousand times or more, not to call me that. I am no longer a commander with ZAFT. Ever since..."

"Ever since I pulled your half dead, burned alive carcass out of your Grendel in the desert blah, blah, blah blah... yeah I know. Really, I do! Goddamn, Aireg, aren't you familiar with the fucking concept of a nickname?"

"If its nicknames you want to use, Mr. Dylan, what shall yours be? Traitor?" Aireg Randolf replied coldly.

"Shut the hell up man! Jesus christ!" Jean Dylan ducked his head and eyed the parking lot full of cars. "Are you trying to get me arrested or something?"

"Is there anyone at this party that would recognize you by that name and want to arrest you?" Randolf asked, smiling faintly.

"Fuck, man, I don't know... maybe? Its not something I want to chance!"

"I don't understand how you can live your life in fear like this. Never knowing when the next knock on your door is going to be the authorities, seeking your entirely justified punishment. How many times did you sell out your own people again? Twice? Three times? How many times did you double cross your clients? Five... or was it six times? Maybe a lot more than that, for all we know. And yet you wonder why people don't like you, Mr. Dylan? If we weren't fellow employees, I'd break your neck, and feel I'd done a good day's work for it." Randolf informed his somewhat colleauge.

"I ain't got much time for you high and mighty Coordinators either, Randolf. In my opinion, if you ain't smart or clever enough to avoid getting fucked by the other guy, thats your shitty problem, not mine. Glory be to those who want to take it... and riches be to those who can get them." Dylan replied with a nasty look. "If we weren't supposed to work together... if I didn't know the boss would find me out in an instant... you might wake up and find some arsenic in your Coordinater-O's one morning, ya bastard."

Mary passed forward another note. "If you two don't stop quarreling, I'm going to remind you both why my nickname is "Banshee" and then we'll get some peace and quiet and we can get on with the rendevous." Randolf read from her handwriting. "Well said, Mary. You have a way with words, even if you cannot speak them." He turned and scanned the lot with his own eyes, grateful as always for the dark shades. Ever since the incident in the desert he'd suffered from extreme light blindness... even interior lighting was painful to him. Sunlight was enough to disable him completely with agony. "There. Next to the two red convertibles. We can squeeze in there."

"Fucking right we can! And it ain't like its even our car if it gets scratched!" Dylan crowed, pulling into the indicated spot. Or rather, he had the car do it, since he was only a mediocre driver. The three of them squeezed out of the car and took a few moments to smooth their slightly ruffled formal wear, which had been provided for them for tonight, because none of them were anywhere close to wealthy enough to be able to afford clothes like this otherwise. Dylan and Randolf both wore tuxes, with identical green ties and green rose boutiennires. Mary O'Brien wore a dark green silk dress with a collar that nearly went up to her chin, to help hide the ugly scarring that rippled nearly all the way around the front of her neck and was why she never spoke. She couldn't even manage a whisper of words, though she could shriek and scream like few others. She brushed back her red dyed, slightly curly shoulder length hair and gave her two male co-workers impatient looks.

Aireg gallantly offered his arm to Mary, and she took it, though she had no real attachment to Randolf. He was merely preferrable to Dylan. The only one she had any affection for at all wasn't someone she could be around very much... the boss was a very busy man after all, living the equivalent of two lives. Busy lives at that. But soon... soon enough anyway... they'd have a lot more time together, once things got started in a few days. This was the last time they'd all be getting together before it started. It was just too bad it had to be at someone else's party. The three of them headed towards the convention hall, which was almost a mile distant.

"Goddamn it... even the fucking valets don't have to walk this far!" Dylan was never happy, not unless he was in his room watching some porno vid or other, at least as far as Mary had ever seen. He just liked to complain.

"For this type of party, even the valets are more important than people like us. We shouldn't even BE at this party, except for the will of our employer." Randolf answered. "Drink the free champagne, eat the party snacks, make a fool of yourself with some of the hired help, recieve your orders when you get them and stop complaining! The boss has everything covered... we just have to play our parts as directed. We don't even have speaking roles to worry about... all we need to do is be in the background at the proper time. Even a Natural can do it. No offense, Mary."

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"This clothing is slightly uncomfortable." Markov Ashino noted with a glance at his date. "Nothing nearly as bad as Eric intimated it was, but then again, something that is faintly bothersome to me might indeed well be a true torment to someone else."

"Don't mind my brother, he's just being a guy about it." Jean Kellson replied, reaching forward to adjust Ashino's necktie again. "Throughout history, immature men have always complained about wearing tuxedos, despite the fact that they have not changed their style appreciably in multiple centuries. The reason for it is, theres nothing wrong with how they make men look... they make men look great! You don't fix what isn't broken." She appraised Ashino frankly and smiled, leaning closer. "You look great, I should stress. Some men look only handsome, and a bit gawky... but you really fill the suit out well, love."

"Hey!" The "only handsome and a bit gawky" man sitting the back of the car protested. "I can't help it if my collar is choking me half to death, can I? I'm sweating like a moose back here! The PLANTS are not good tuxedo climate!"

"Eric, you sweat like a moose even in a bathing suit, so thats nothing new." Jean retorted. "And you're just nervous. I don't blame you. My knees are knocking a bit, personally. There's going to be a LOT of VERY important people at this party. The USN Secretary-General! Most of the PLANTS Supreme Council! Pretty much every member-state politician who could make time! All sorts of military folk, of which we are part of the complement. Well, you two are anyway... I'm just window dressing. They don't elect a USN Secretary of Defense every day after all... and especially not one like this Gilbert Durandel!"

"That is true." Ashino allowed. "He promises to do much for the USN Military. I must say, I had vestiges of concern about having a Coordinator be SecDef... they aren't the most pro-military of people after all... but Mr. Durandel should prove most effective, I believe. I want to hear more about these threats he says we are facing, but I am sure that will come with time. I am just glad that I am now only a Gundam Pilot, not Supreme Commander of the Mobile Forces. I don't even have to speak tonight, merely observe. I think it will be most educational."

"Its kind of strange though, don't you think? This is a party for the new SecDef, and yet uniforms aren't allowed as part of the dress code? Renting this thing wasn't cheap you know!" Eric pointed out.

"Who can know the mind of these politicians?" Ashino shrugged, plainly not bothered overmuch by it. "We are probably going to be among the lowest ranking people here anyway... it should be refreshing, not having to salute all the senior brass all the time."

"Plus there would be the problem of having people from five different military services here, all in full uniform. Keeping track of who to salute and how would be a real time waster." Jean pointed out. "It would take away from Gilbert Durandel, and since this party is about him, or its supposed to be anyway, I can see as how that wouldn't be something he'd want."

"Sure hope there is valet parking... this place looks packed to the rafters." Eric commented, as their car started getting near to the convention center.

"Walking will not hurt us. We do much more strenuous physical exercise every morning for training, Eric."

"And most nights too." Jean added, in a whisper for Ashino's ear only, grinning at the slightly stunned expression that flicked across his face.

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"It sounds like the guests are packed in like sardines, Mr. Secretary. Everyone who is anybody in the USN or the PLANTS is here tonight, or will be here tonight. I hope you don't suffer from stage fright." The man sitting across the limosine from Gilbert Durandel said with a hard smile.

"I am familiar with the affliction. If not personally, Admiral." Durandel replied, with a slight smile of his own. "And you know it is bad luck to publicly address an appointee by their title before they attend their congratualtory party."

"I hadn't counted your private car within the bounds of the public ear, Gilbert, but I won't tread on fate's toes anymore, if that is what you want. Its among the very least of the things I can do, considering all you've done for me, and will continue to do for me." Admiral David Icarus, formerly of the EA 12th Lunar Fleet, and now longtime lackey and subordinate of Durandel, leaned back into the plush leather of his seat and crossed his arms across his chest. He was dressedin his full dress uniform, in blatant violation of the party's dress code, but as a senior aide to Durnadel he could get away with minor breaches of protocol like that. As the new canidate for the post of Commander in Chief, USN Space Fleet, once Durandel took office, Admiral Icarus was soon to be one of the most powerful military men in human space. A big step up in the world for a former Captain with only mediocre combat ability, with the fiasco of the 12th Lunar Fleet's defeat by a single Mobile Suit on his record.

However it wasn't Icarus's combat or even administrative abilities that Durandel had taken him on for. Nor was it really because having a Natural who was a former member of the EA as a senior aide looked very good politically. Or even because David Icarus was very well connected amongst the flag level officers of the FNE and ALU space fleets, and to a lesser extent among their terrestrial force counterparts. No, all of those were certainly nice bonuses, but the real reasons that Durandel had accepted a failed officer like David Icarus and made him into a new, powerful man, was because Icarus was one of those people who made a perfect pawn. Smart enough to be ambitious and creative, but not smart enough to pose a challenge to a real master like Durandel. Possessed of his own dreams and goals, but willing to subsume them into the greater plans of another. As loyal as could be, as long as properly groomed and rewarded. And best of all, expendable at the proper time without too much expenditure of resources. His only major flaw, as far as Durandel was concerned, was his relative lack of concern for information security.

"Please, Admiral, let us discuss such things another time. Perhaps in my office, or upon your yacht when we next go fishing together. I am, alas, not universally popular, and there are many who would rejoice to come into posession of even a hint of wrongdoing upon my part, no matter the utter hypocriscy of the people in question. There will come a time, dear Admiral, when we will be able to speak as we like, but that time is still some ways in the future." Durandel said in gentle reprimand. Dealing with Icarus required patience and a mixture of blunt command and subtle reminder. One could not be too subtle, because the Admiral had the penchant of ignoring the opinions of others, but to come on to strong and commanding would bruise the Admiral's pride and self image, which tended to make him sullen and uncooperative, even petulant.

"Oh Gilbert!" Icarus rolled his eyes in minor exasperation, taking off his cap to scratch at his balding mop of grey and brown hair. "I reviewed the progress reports from the official USN invstigative team that was comission to conduct electronic survelliance upon you and all other canidates for SecDef. There is absolutely nothing in this car in the way of listening or recording devices from the USN or any terrestrial nation, not even Orb. Now, unless you're worried about your own people eavesdropping on us, I'd say we're pretty safe!"

"Not my own people, precisely... but rest assured, Admiral, there are people out there trying to listen on us and this car is not, despite what your USN analysts tell you, perfectly secure. No place with an electronic device, especially those connected to a long range data transfer network, is secure for our purposes." Durandel replied, narrowing his eyes slightly and skewering Icarus with the force of his gaze, which many people compared to that of a predatory lion.

"S-surely not!" Icarus replied awkwardly, a thin sheen of sweat appearing on his brow as he turned his faded blue eyes down and away. "The effort and technology required to hack an entire world wide data network to use as a eavesdropping device? Surely no one, not even the USN, has the resources to accomplish that, at least not without it being at least semi-private knowledge!" Still, the Admiral did not raise any further discussion of their longer range plans and agreements. Gilbert Durandel was a profitable man to serve... and an extremely dangerous one to cross. Admiral Icarus was well aware of the relatively tenuosity of his position... there were many men and women eager for promotion into his place, some of them perhaps even better suited for the job than he was. Only by virtue of long association and dedicated service to Durandel was his future at all bright.

"Do you think he's going to show up, Gil? He implied that he would." The third person in the passenger area of the limo, who had been quietly observing the other two men until now, spoke up, speaking to Durandel. He was quite a bit younger than the other two men, just barely twenty, with long pale blond hair and sparkling blue eyes that could cut like laser beams into the center of people's hearts. Like Icarus, he was dressed in USN dress uniform, though his was much less ostentatious, with many fewer ribbons and gold trimmed areas. The USN uniform was made in the mode of the ZAFT uniforms, with black boots, belt, garrison cover and gloves, creased white pants and dark blue buttoned tunic, with the USN insignia of Earth surrounded by four stars on each shoulder and the front left breast. The twin silver bars of a Captain shone on his collar tabs. There was another rank insignia upon his hat, which was a beret, in the tradition of the USN Mobile Suit Corps.

"He has implied such before, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high, Rey." Durandel replied, condolences in his tone and fervent hope in his mind. Just about the last thing he wanted on today of all days would be a public appearance by his so called partner. Durandel could not deny that his alliance with this person had borne tremendous fruits for him, catapulting his political career forward by a decade or more in the space of only a couple years, eliminating all potential rivals in his meteoric rise to the Supreme Council and providing a seemingly limitless supply of money and resources for Durandel to use, both publicly and behind the scenes. And all he was required to do in return was keep the public eyes turned away from his partner's businesses, which Durandel was only too happy to do as it meant that much more attention for himself.

Still, Durandel was more than aware of the old saying "There is no such thing as a free lunch", and though he still could not figure out what exactly his partner was gaining from their alliance, he knew it had to be something at least as worthwhile to his partner as becoming USN Secretary of Defense and eventually Secretary-General of the USN was to Durandel himself. It troubled Durandel greatly that he had so much that he owed to his partner, while his partner seemed to owe him nothing at all. It made him feel like the junior partner in their alliance. It made him feel like the other regarded him somewhat like Durandel regarded Icarus. Useful, diverting at times, but ultimately a disposable part of a much larger scheme. He knew that his partner's resources were vast... in their way even exceeding the USN's... but what he needed such vast resources for was not something Durandel could, for the life of him discern, despite his best efforts at espionage. Rey was one of those efforts, actually.

Rey was Durandel's adopted son, though this was not a fact more than four or five people alive were aware of. They did not often act much like family, except when they were sure that no one else could observe, and even then it was a very restrained and formal familiarity. Still, Durandel loved Rey very much, and he was one of the very few people Durandel trusted implicitly enough to discuss his longest term plans and dreams with. Rey, for his part, regarded Durandel as the central figure in his life, dedicating undying loyalty and affection to the first man who'd even shown him kindness and treated him like a real human being, not a science experiment. A recent graduate of ZAFT's elite Redcoat academy, Rey had immediately been transferred into the USN Mobile Corp so that he could come to work directly for Durandel. Possessed of combat skills and intelligence unequaled except by the very best of soldiers, Rey was on the inside track to becoming the next USN Gundam pilot, once another Gundam was completed.

Rey was Durandel's link to the feelings and views of the bulk of the soldiers in the USN and other militaries, scouting out the points of common dissension and dissatisfaction for Durandel to address and smooth over. Durandel knew that regardless of whether or not the senior command levels of the militaries were behind him, if he could not likewise capture the hearts and souls of the common and lower ranked soldiers, then enforcing the somewhat stickier parts of his long range plans would be impossible. You had to lead from the bottom up when you were going to propose large scale changes, you could not merely send orders down and expect them to be obeyed. The soldiers had to want to obey, had to be ready to obey, had to feel that obeying was the right thing to do. Durandel had seen too many recent historical examples, especially within the EA and ZAFT, for him to discount the disruptive effects of soldiers deciding that their orders were immoral or impossible and instead choosing to go off on their own.

Rey had also become friends with Durandel's shadowy ally, which Durandel had initially regarded with great annoyance and suspicion, but had gradually realized could be just the sort of viewpoint he needed to crack open the secrets of his partner, and he had thus encouraged Rey to further befriend the other young man. It wasn't hard, since the two young men had a great deal in common with each other, even including a common method of birth, though Rey was four years older. They also shared the same genetic condition that all people born that way had manifested, the results of an oversight in the process itself, though Durandel was less than entirely sure as to what exactly the problem was or how it had come about. He knew that Rey was sick, sick in such a way that he could not get better, even taking the medicines that he did only staved off the effects of the illness. The drug's couldn't hold up forever either, which saddened Durandel greatly, because Rey would most likely not get to live long in the world Durandel was planning on creating, if he even lived to see it. That Rey remained dedicated and loyal to him anyway touched Durandel deeper than just about anything could.

Thus far, Rey had not turned up any information of great worth, such as actual details on plans or goals, although he had discovered a few interesting tidbits that might lead to greater gains in the near future. Durandel gritted his teeth at the lack of progress, but he knew that an investigation like the one he was having Rey conduct was not something that could be rushed. The friendship had to be genuine, and until his ally decided to open up more fully to his friend Rey, there would be little concrete progress made. Not helping matters was the untrusting nature of this ally, and his admittedly incredible intelligence and skills, which made any sort of deception perpetuated against him extremely risky. Quite how the little... not so little these days... devil gained the information and knowledge that he did, Durandel would dearly love to know, because some of the information was the sort of thing that people only kept in their heads and spoke about when they were sure of security, or did not even speak of at all.

"That is really too bad. I was hoping to meet the young man you've spoken of so often and so highly, Rey." The fourth person sitting in the limo said, her sweet, dulcet tones a balm upon any troubled soul. With her long, straight pink hair and lavender blue eyes framed by her alabaster pale skin, she was instantly recognizable to anyone who hadn't been living under a rock for the past decade or so, especially here in the PLANTS, her homeland.

"You'll meet him eventually, Miss Lacus." Rey replied with a shrug and a smile. "He's expressed a great interest in meeting you too. He absolutely adores your music, and he's an even bigger fan of your humanitarian and charity work. He talks constantly about the donations he sends to your foundation."

"Oh... really? Thats... um..." Lacus foundered a bit.

"They're from Genesis Laboratories, sent to The Clyne Foundation for use by charities that deal with preserving or healing the environment, and the protection of endanger species of animals and plants." Rey provided, sighing inwardly. The girl looked great, but her mind had a good ways to go before she'd really be ready to meet Noah. Rey hadn't been exaggerating when he'd told her of Noah's interest in Lacus Clyne, if anything he'd been understating it. If this girl didn't act, sound, look and especially think like Lacus Clyne did, Noah would know it in seconds. Of course, everyone in the car knew that this girl was not actually Lacus Clyne, but the pretense was kept up at all times anyway, for security purposes. The real Lacus Clyne lived privately on Earth, outside of Orb, but she no longer involved herself with politics, which was both a blessing and a curse.

A blessing because she could not lend her huge influence on the popular vote to anyone opposing Durandel, not even her close friends in the Orb Government. A curse because she could not be convinced to add that same influence in support of Durandel, no matter how much he offered to send to her charities. Lacus Clyne was one of those extremely annoying and rare people that could not be bought, one way or another, for any price, whether it be monetary, political or social. It had grown to such an annoyance for him, because having Lacus Clyne endorse him would free him a great deal from the political clutches of his ally, that he'd considered sending people to "remove" her, so that he could replace her with a double. After researching the matter somewhat, he'd discovered that though Lacus maintained no official ties with Orb, beyond her friendship with the head of Government, Orb still provided a strong security contingent for Lacus. Strong enough that overwhelming it would stretch Durandel's resources considerably, and make keeping the whole affair secret almost impossible.

He'd come to realize though, that removing Lacus actually wasn't necessary. These days she went far out of her way to avoid media attention, except for rare incidences where she would champion the cause of one needy charity or another. All that he needed to do was provide someone who could be "proven" to be Lacus Clyne to endorse him, and by the time the real Lacus could do anything about it, world opinion would have already swung behind Durandel, if she even chose to do anything about it at all. After all, Durandel was promoting peace and security for everyone, and disputing his endorsements would only cause problems for everyone, which Lacus did not want. And if she did end up starting to cause problems... well, there was always the first plan to fall back on, which would grow easier and easier to implement the longer he stayed in power as SecDef. If things really got out of hand, he could just claim that he'd been decieved by the imposter and set her up as the scapegoat as a greedy manipulator who would do anything for fame and fortune.

As a side benefit to having "Lacus" endorse him, Durandel would also be able to use his ally's infatuation with the girl against him. Truly, even the strongest minded of men could be caught off guard and weakened by a beautiful woman. Durandel himself was not immune... his thoughts turned briefly to Talia, his fair Captain, away on joint training exercises with ZAFT and the USN fleets. He blinked, bringing his mind back to the here and now. He was grooming the girl, one of a veritable legion of Lacus Clyne impersonaters that were sprinkled across human space, especially in the PLANTS, to help Rey befriend and befuddle his ally into revealing his plans. He'd even started prepping the girl for the idea of seducing his ally, in case it became necessary... pillow talk was still one of the best ways of acquiring information, a fact that had been unchanged for millenia. She was... adequate, and getting better. Not the brightest of Coordinators, but she could learn rapidly enough, and she had a very good memory. It was just adapting and improvising in tough situations that caused her problems. It was a common problem for Lacus impersonaters, who tended to idolize and impersonate her as a pop star, rather than a political figure.

"How much usually?" Lacus asked, her lips downturned in a slight frown of concentration. She was determined not to put on a poor showing, especially in front of Gilbert Durandel himself! He'd come into her life like an angel descending on wings from heaven, to lift her out of the daily mire of pointless life and make her something special. Someone important. Someone who could make a difference! And become the person she'd always dreamed she could be! She was no longer impersonating Lacus Clyne to fool lewd men out of money and gifts... she WAS Lacus Clyne now, able to improve the future for everyone under Durandel's guidance. And she was making a LOT of money doing it! More than a movie star ever could! Certainly orders of magnitude more than a down and out theater clubber and wanna be pop singer could!

"Anywhere from ten to fifty million dollars per check." Rey replied, after a few moments thought. "He usually sends anywhere from two to three checks per month. He's been doing it for years now."

"Fifty million dollars a check!?" Lacus shrieked, to the somewhat discomfort of the other people in the car. She did have quite a voice, this Lacus Clyne did. "He must be really rich!"

"Unbelievably so, Miss Clyne." Durandel answered, with a frown of his own, though it wasn't directed at her. He was aware of course of the many public holdings and corporations that his ally owned and operated, many in the fastest growing and powerful sectors of industry and business... but his ally's financial resources were still of a degree that belittled even that level of legal income. Nobody threw fifty million dollars or more away into a charity for the preservation of endanger animal species every month, not even the most rabidly eco-friendly of major corporations. To have that kind of discretionary income available to him, in addition to all the projects he was conducting for Durandel and to the expenses of the lifestyle he led, at least according to Rey... that could not be legally done. He had to be stealing or making money in some other fashion than just his legitimate businesses and industries. For all Durandel knew, his ally was just taking money straight from the national treasuries of various member-states... it wouldn't be something beyond the scope of his abilities, insane as that seemed.

"He also runs his own charity organizations, the most prominent of which is the N.A.I.P.E.E.S., pronounced "Naypes". It stands for Noah's Ark Initiative for the Preservation of Extinct and Endangered Species. He loves the environment and animals of all sorts, from the lowliest insect to the largest elephant. He can talk for hours about pretty much every endangered animal that you can think of, and hundreds that you can't. One quick way to get on his bad side is to endorse hunting or other animal-death based industries and sports, as well as logging and rainforest deforestation clearing for farmland. He is also not a fan of mining operations, except in space. Pretty much anything that has an adverse ecological impact upon the Earth and its animal and plant species draws his ire." Rey added.

"I can get behind that. Save the animals, right? Save the plants too, I guess. Is he a vegetarian?" Lacus asked, noting it all down in her mind.

"He only eats cloned or otherwise lab produced animals and vegetables, or foods of that sort. Since he owns several companies that produce such things, hes not exactly on a lean diet. Which is not to say that he is fat or overweight... quite the opposite, his metabolism is a wonder to behold." Rey shook his head, smiling at the memory of the last time he'd had dinner with Noah. Rey had about two inches and a good thirty pounds of muscle on the other Coordinator, and Noah still ate twice as much as he did, and twice as often too.

"Could you describe him for me?" Lacus asked, eagerly. She'd heard so much about this friend of Rey's, who was supposed to eventually be her friend too, but she'd never seen a picture of him. He never appeared in public much, or so it seemed. Never showed up on TV, wasn't ever in any magazines, even though he was supposed to be one of the richest people alive! She was afraid that he was really ugly or something, but maybe he was just really shy? Or private... a lot of very wealthy people were like that. Her gold digger's instincts were certainly operating at full capacity... she had signed on to being Lacus to bring about a better future with all her heart... but she wasn't adverse to the idea of acquiring a sugar daddy along the way, even if he was a couple of years younger than her. That just meant the physical side of things would be less onerous!

"I could not possibly do him justice." Rey answered, his smile broadening. "He's like an angel straight out of a engraving, somehow come to life and physicality. Isn't that right, Gil?"

"He is... something, I'll grant you." Durandel replied with a grunt. He wasn't one to be attracted to pure physical beauty, especially in other men, but he did have to admit that his ally was not the sort of person who could be easily described. There was more to him than just his mere physical attributes, almost an aura or extrasensory presence that magnified his effect upon you. Standard words could not describe the effect. It was lessened by distance and especially by lack of physical presence, and so Durandel preferred to confer with his ally through video or voice only communications whenever possible.

"Mr. Durandel, we'll be arriving shortly at the back entrance." The chauffer commed from the driver's seat.

"Thank you, we're ready back here." Durandel replied, even as the limo began to slow. He turned to his Lacus. "Well, Miss Clyne, let us go together to meet the wolves who would think to use us for their own selfish ends. Little do they realize though, but they've tried to close their teeth around the tails of some lions!" Durandel smiled and offered Lacus his arm, escorting her out of the limo to astonished gasps from the adoring public lined up outside. Truly, it was going to be a party to remember!

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The party had been going on for several hours already, after Durnadel's triumphant arrival with Lacus Clyne on his arm. That sensation had yet to die down entirely, and there was still a slightly hysterical edge to the celebrations. With the fresh endorsement of Lacus Clyne, the greatest peacemaker of modern times, even many of the political figures who had only arrived to the party because it was expected of them, not because they supported or like Gilbert Durandel were feeling most generous and supportive towards him. Jumping onto the Lacus Clyne bandwagon was not only politically easy, it was politically intelligent! No one wanted to be publicly seen criticizing or opposing Lacus Clyne, especially not on the PLANTS! You might as well forget re-election for whomever was stupid enough to question Lacus's judgement publicly. Which wasn't to say that her sudden appearance at Gilbert Durandel's side went totally unquestioned, especially among the members of the delegation from Orb, who had airtight intelligence placing Lacus Clyne on Earth, in Orb actually.

Still, it was impossible to deny the evidence presented by their eyes and ears, as Lacus gave several speeches, containing many ringing endorsements of Durandel's policies and platform, as well as personal endorsements for the new SecDef himself, who stood there by her side with a understandably pleased smile on his face the entire time. A man could go very far indeed with Lacus Clyne's shoulders to stand upon... indeed, in PLANTS politics her word was considered more weighty than that of God in Heaven at times. It may be by God's grace that Lacus had accomplished what she had... but she was here, now, and God wasn't, so it was difficult to give the Almighty full credit.

Durandel himself gave several speeches as well, as was expected of a new incumbent for office. He avoided much overt discussion of his platform and policies, leaving those for Lacus to hit upon and rehash, which was far more effective than him doing it would be. Instead he talked of himself, and thanked his many supporters, reflecting glory back upon all the members of his political organization and his various supporters, something which was expected of those taking high office. Still, he did it better than most did, and there were many smug and self congratulatory expressions filtering around the room by the time Durnadel had finished his second acceptance speech. He then introduced his senior supporters and aides one by one, including Admiral David Icarus and Rey Za Burrel, which went over quite well with the more junior military folk in the audience, seeing a mere Captain and a Mobile Suit pilot at that, taken into Durandel's inner circle of advisors and friends. The rank and file could feel that they really had a voice in the councils of the high and mighty now, which was a rare thing.

After the speeches and introductions were over with, it was time for the social and political mingling that was also expected at events like this, where powerful people from five different major political groups and innumerably more diverse smaller political factions could talk shop with each other, maneuver for position in the larger political game, and make alliances or enemies that would affect their lives and careers for years to come. Most everyone took the time to heartily suck up to Durandel or his major supporters, except for the junior military personnel, who still mostly advanced based upon personal merit, rather than political favors. And even then, it never hurt to have your name be known by those at the top of the chain of command, as long as it was in a good way.

As for Durandel himself, he made extra sure to forge as many connections and acquaintances with the less senior people in the audience as he could. These were the up and comers, the people that, in a few years time would be filling up the places of those people who were actively seeking his attention. One of his most fundamental personal policies was to go after the prime supporters as early as possible, before they became too attached to anyone else. Having great personal magnetism and political pedigree was all well and good... but he with the most competent subordinates, both in numbers and quality, was the one who suceeded, more often than not. It also let him scope out the uncooperative ones, the ones that would eventually grow into problems for him, so that he could nip their careers in the bud here and now, and save himself a great deal of trouble later down the line.

Such as this one, the somewhat famous Markov Ashino. A former major commander from the Isolation Era of the Second Valentine War, the dimunitive Commander Ashino was hardly the most prepossing of people. Oh, he did have a certain physical presence, with those bulging muscles and the nigh cherubic face, with the sparkling green eyes and curly red hair, but really, he looked a bit overdone... like a shaved ape stuffed into his tuxedo by his trainer. The image brought the needed smile to Durnadel's face as he stopped by to converse with Commander Ashino and his party, which consisted of a slightly pretty young woman with glasses who hung in a protectively intimate fashion from Ashino's arm, despite the fact that she had almost a foot of height on him, as well as a stiff backed young military man with a strong family resemblance to the young woman who stood just behind Ashino, with the attitude of an alert aide waiting for a cue from his boss.

As they exchanged platitudes and congratulations with each other, Durandel took his measure of the USN's only current Gundam pilot. He was usually a great judge of character, but he had to admit, this Ashino character was a tough case. He met Durandel's gaze with no understanding, but great confidence and self assurance. He seemed at once totally sure of himself and somewhat uncomfortable with himself as well. At first Durandel was heartened by the tones of support he sensed from Ashino, who was a highly respected and skilled soldier, as might be expected of a Gundam pilot, but when the discussion abruptly turned to probing questions about what sort of "threats" Durandel's policies were designed to counter, Durandel went on guard. Ashino, despite appearances, was not a blundering political ape, a pure soldier, even if he was a Natural. Well, sort of. Deflecting Ashino's questions with promises to explain everything in good time, which thankfully the man seemed to consider normal, Durandel made his excuses and moved on.

Potentially useful man, Ashino... but one that would need to be treated and watched very carefully. As long as Durandel could provide legitimate internal or external threats for Ashino to face, there would be no problems. If, however, it came down to that time in the future, when the nature of the threats would "change" to include a much broader definition of the term... well, Ashino might have to go before then. It shouldn't be too hard to arrange, since by then Ashino would not be the only Gundam pilot in the USN, not if Durandel had any say in the matter at all. As things were, he'd have to be careful to make sure Ashino wasn't allowed to become too heavily involved in the combating of the early "threats", to prevent an accidental transfer of credit from Durandel's solutions to the Gundam pilot's skills, which would be most annoying.

As Durandel continued to move through the crowd, he caught sight of another small group of people, and his mouth tightened momentarily into a grim, displeased line, before he recovered his poise and forced himself to smile again. This was a night of triumph and victory for him after all... it would not do to look displeased or discontent, less he appear ungrateful. He was not greatly familiar with the two men and one woman, but he had met them before. Though the short man and the woman had obviously disguised themselves a little with hair dye and contact lenses, or perhaps even Touch Ups, the challenging and somewhat disrespectful glances they gave him, not to mention the tell tale dark green ties, dress and flowers they wore was enough to proclaim their affiliation to Durandel. These were members of Borander's inner team, though unlike Durnadel's inner circle, these men and woman were not advisors or confidantes, but mere lackeys, extensions of their master's will. Definitely a surly bunch, and not one he was happy to see at his celebratory party.

They would not be here for no reason, and none of them were the sort to be running a game of their own on the side, certainly not in a group like that. Durandel was well aware of the internal strife between several members of Borander's team, but despite his best efforts they presented a uniformly united front against any of his attempts to break them apart or buy them away from Borander. Borander had a hold over them that was somehow stronger than any amount of money or power or material reward... in some ways, they reminded Durandel uncomfortably of religious fanatics. They had that aura of knowing something that the rest of humanity did not about them, of such total self assurance that their cause was the right one that nothing could sway them, not even threat of injury or death. They had a cause that they believed in, and might even be willing to die for. That made them extremely dangerous.

While Durandel was considering the troubling presence of the three Borander goons at his party, the valets outside the main entrance were getting to their feet as one, mouths agape. They had anticipated at least several more hours of time to themselves, talking shop and dreaming about driving the sorts of cars they only got to touch for a few minutes when parking them for the important guests inside. No one would be leaving until Durandel did, that much was for sure, and anyone important enough to need valets had already arrived. Or so they'd thought... until they caught sight of a truly wondrous car turning into the parking lot drive. For one thing, it was huge, a good fifty percent longer than anything but a limo, but it had the look of a high performance sports car. It was a shimmering gold color, with no visible doors or windows on it, and though it moved with alacrity there wasn't the slightest sound of an engine. The car glided up to the curb, somehow avoiding even brushing the concrete despite the lack of windows or even cameras that the valets could discern, and drifted to a stop right at the tip of the carpet leading up into the building.

The valets stared at each other, not sure of what to make of the car, since it didn't seem to have any way of getting in or out, or of seeing where you were going when you were inside, which along with its unusual shape and size was going to make it DAMNED hard to put in the parking garage. They collectively jumped as without warning and in perfect silence, a section of the middle of the car lifted up and outward, allowing the people inside the car to step out. The first man out was big and tough looking, with midnight black hair that looked dyed or Touched Up and intense green eyes that also looked slightly contrived. The raised pink and brown scars that covered most of his face in a hash of lines and jags made it impossible to tell for sure, but to some of the valets, who were former members of ZAFT, the man looked slightly familiar for some reason. Something about the chin and the hairstyle, and the way he stood. He wore an impeccably tailored tux with a green tie and green petaled rose stuck in his right breast pocket.

Once the man, who was unmistakably a bodyguard or security agent, had cleared the doorway of the car and apparently decided it was safe, the other occupants of the car exited, the sight of which completely distracted the valets from their contemplation of the first man. It was understandable, because the second thing to step out of the car was a large, green and tan lizard-like animal, though it walked upright on two legs, like a flightless bird, not down on all four. It was about the size of a large turkey, maybe two feet tall at the crown of its head, and looked to weigh a good fifty or sixty pounds. It had a large head and jaw, filled with wickedly sharp looking teeth, and its forelimbs were almost vestigial, little more than thin wrists with a couple of weak grasping claws. With a long tail swaying from side to side behind it for balance, and its claws clicking on the pavement, the animal eyed the valets goggling at it and growled at them.

"Stop that." The other person in the car ordered, tugging on the leash that was fastened to the collar around the beast's neck. At once the animal stopped its growl and dipped its head in the manner of a shamed dog. It inched placatingly to the side as its owner stepped out of his car, to take command of the situation, which he did naturally and without the valet's even realizing it. As soon as they laid eyes on him, their backs stiffened, their gazes dropped slightly and they aligned themselves to face him more respectfully, though none of them were really consciously aware that they were doing it. He smiled at them, and the valets all felt a flutter of awe run through them. Never had any of them seen such a perfect example of the human body, nor had they ever imagined such beauty could manifest in real life. Beautiful was usually a term applied to women that the whole world envied, but it barely seemed good enough for the man... well, sixteen year old boy, but still... standing in front of them now.

He reached up fluidly to brush a stray strand of his medium length platinum blond hair away from his tanned face, product of actual hours tanning in the light of the sun, incidentally and intentionally drawing attention to his luminous royal purple eyes, filigreed with specks of gold and silver around the edges of the color. He smiled a perfect white smile straight from a dental advertisement, knowing that he had utterly overawed the simple men and women in front of him. He was good at it, even without the incredible powers of his mind. There was a minitaurized Tyrannosaurus Rex on a leash in his hand, and they were all unable to even glance at it as soon as he'd entered their field of vision. Being an Ultimate Coordinator was a heady sensation at times. His tuxedo shimmered, the omnichromatic treated fibers rippling through a change of color, shifting him from black outers and white inners to white outers and black inners, one of hundreds of possible color combinations it could access. A vanity invention perhaps, but not everything could be potentially world shattering, could it?

"Uh... are... um... shou..." The senior valet, a man who had spent twenty years dealing with all sorts of movie stars, world dignitaries and other people who made a living impressing other people, and had formerly thought himself immune to being impressed by others on first glance, struggled to find his tongue, wondering if they should take this impossible appariation's keys so they could park his car. Although the how of that still escaped him.

"Don't bother yourself with it." Noah replied, plucking the thoughts from the man's head, a depressingly easy exercise at this range. "It will take care of itself. It's designed to." Noah smiled for the herd's benefit once more, steeling his mind for the inevitable headache that he would be enduring soon. It was always like that, when he went out into crowds. If there was one thing he did not like about his nearly unique talents, it was that he could not turn them off. He plucked the thoughts and emotions from everyone's minds around him in a fifty foot radius, whether he was concentrating on it or not. He could choose not to pay attention, but there was a constant low murmur going through the bottom of his mind, like a river of sluggish pollutant flowing through an otherwise peaceful mountain glen. It wasn't even fun anymore, prying into the deepest and most secret parts of lesser people's minds and personalities.

He much preferred the company of animals, or at least those with quiet minds, like Mary O'Brien or the girls at the Institute. People were so much more agreeable to be around when their minds were quiet and peaceful. The only problem was, the only people that had minds like that were usually insane, deeply asleep or comatose. It was an imperfect world, but he was slowly working on making it more perfect with every passing day. He reached out with instinctive ease that came with inherent talent and long, hard practice, brushing his feelings and thoughts against the minds of the valets and everyone else nearby like a steel wire brush against a wall of chalk. He wanted to etch this feeling into their minds, a memory that they would never be able to forget. It was time for this pupae to become a butterfly, and the world itself had better pay close heed, because it would never be the same afterwards.

Noah turned to his erstwhile bodyguard and personal body-servant, Michael Genesis, though that was certainly not who the man actually was. "Come, Michael. Let us not keep the others waiting any more than necessary. I am sure Gil will be overjoyed to see us coming to wish him well on his tenure as Secretary of Defense."

"Doubtless, boss." Michael agreed, though with a flinty smile. He knew that Durandel loathed his boss, and feared him too. Michael himself wasn't actually too sure what he felt about Noah... he did as the kid said, because it made so much sense. It just seemed to always be the right thing to do at the time. It felt right, and natural, so he didn't trouble himself with too much deeper thinking on the matter. "You want me to take Zilla's reigns there? He's such a friendly bugger, I'd hate for him to drag you about in excitement when he finds out where all that smell is coming from. It might make it hard to maintain a dignified entrance."

"Thank you, Michael, I'm fine. And his name is Achilles, not Zilla, Godzilla or any other variation on that simplistic lizard-monster's name." Noah replied with a frown. Try as he might, he just COULD NOT erase completely the irreverant side of Michael's original personality. Well, not without completely destroying the utility of the rest of Michael's mind and body, anyway. Just one more annoyance that had to be born, at least for the meanwhile. "You know I'm quite a bit stronger than I look. Achilles won't trouble me at all, even if his training would allow it."

"Is.. is... is... that re-really a... a.. a din..." One of the other valets stammered, at last tearing his eyes away from Noah, a feat made possible because Noah had directed his attention elsewhere for the moment, to point a trembling finger at Achilles, who was standing at heel by Noah's leg, toothy jawed head turning this way and that alertly, like a cat watching birds flying by a window.

"Really a T-Rex the size of a medium dog? Yep, that it is." Michael supplied with a generous grin. "One of hundreds of new lines of patented Mini-Pets soon to be available at pet stores throughout the PLANTS, courtesy of the Ark Biotech Foundation. Genetically tailored to be docile, friendly, and playful, they produce easily biodegradable waste and can adapt to almost any sort of diet or geographic climate. They're completely sterile, and quite long lived, up to twenty five years if properly cared for, making them ideal family pets for families of all sizes. Fifty percent of all profits on Mini-Pets from ABF goes to NAIPEES coffers, so you're helping improve the natural world for everyone when you buy one of these wonderful little guys. Oops... sorry for the sales pitch... force of habit."

"If you are quite finished?" Noah prompted, lifting an eyebrow at Michael and the Valets, who had started to crowd around Achilles during the course of Michael's spiel. The valets backed off with sheepish expressions and flushed faces, though Michael only chuckled and shrugged. He truly was incorrigible. "This is not the most important thing I have to do today, and I'd prefer to be back at the Conservatory or the Institute as rapidly as possible, if that is quite all right with you, Michael?" Noah said, his tone polite, his eyes like purple lasers.

"Sure thing boss. Remember guys, look for em in stores near you soon!" Michael broke away from the valets and fell into step ahead of Noah, ready to open doors or otherwise assist his boss's grand entrance into world society. Behind them, as soon as the control program in Noah's watch-computer registered a significant seperation between Noah and his car, the car door swung shut and sealed, seamless to the naked eye, with the rest of the car again. The car, on fully automatic pilot, just like it had been when arriving, pulled away from the curb and headed away down the drive, back to its maintenance pen at the nearest BoranderCorp holding, to wait for the control signal calling for its return. The valets were too busy staring after Michael, Achilles and especially Noah to notice that the trunk of the car levered open for a few seconds as it drove away. Even if they had been paying attention, they would have only seen largish black and white streaks leave the trunk, as Noahs two real guardians deployed themselves to wait outside but within easy reach if they should be needed, concealing themselves behind shimmering veils of magnetically controlled particles.

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Durandel was standing with Admiral Icarus, Rey and his Lacus when he heard the disruption from across the room. Dreading what he would see, that would cause such shouting and even screaming, by men and women both, Durandel directed his eyes towards the entrance to the grand ballroom. It did not take him long at all to pick out Michael Genesis, Noah's foremost personal lapdog and front man, from the crowd, despite the fact that Michael's hair was currently dyed black, instead of its usual blond. The scars were hard to miss, legacy of some sort of space accident in the middle past. Michael Genesis was one of those mysteries that accompanied Noah Borander that Durandel just didn't have the resources or time to devote much interest to. Eventually he'd get a line on why the man seemed so damned familiar for some reason, something that almost everyone who met him said in common, but it was far from an overriding priority.

However, it was certainly not Michael Genesis that was the cause of the commotion, though he was still quite a dashing and imposing figure, even with his facial scarring. It didn't take long, with a little neck craning on his part, for Durandel to catch sight of the real disturbance. His heart seemed to freeze in his chest for a moment, and he felt a surge of black rage shoot through him, more intensely than usual for when he met with his so called ally. Because there he was, right behind Michael Genesis... Noah Borander, owner and sole scion of the massive PLANTS super-corporation, BoranderCorp, instantly calling the full attention of every man and woman in the room to him just by his physical presence alone. Durandel heard the awed gasps from his Lacus, and the choked surprise from Icarus, and he heard similar exhalations suruss throughout the room. Only a few seemed unaffected... Durandel, Rey, Ashino and of course Noah's three henchmen among them.

Screams and shouts seemed a little much, even when confronted by Noah in all his splendor, or so thought Durandel, until he spotted the animal that was trotting obediently at Noah's side. That got him to stare all right. Unless he was having a very realistic hallucination that was shared by hundreds of other people, Noah had a Tyrannosaurus Rex on a leash. A two foot tall T-Rex maybe... but that was actually even MORE impressive, come to think of it. Not only that, but one that was acting like a very well trained dog. It wasn't jumping, roaring, gnashing its teeth or trying to eat anybody. It was just regarding the crowds with a sort of idle curiosity, like a cat lying on the mantle looking out at a dinner party. The reaction was a little different going the other way, as more and more people caught sight of the extraordinary pet as the closer crowds drew back in alarm.

Durandel had known that there was currently a lot of research funding going into the cloning of animals for food and animal products, as well as cloning pets... but to bring an extinct carnivore back to life, shrink it down to a fifteenth the size and an even smaller fraction of the weight and make it domesticatable? That implied some serious technological breakthroughs that he had been totally unware of! If Noah could produce a living, breathing creation like THAT... what the hell else was he capable of building or creating? Just how far ahead of the rest of the world WAS HE? Durandel collected his thoughts again, as he saw Noah, the little bastard, smirking at him. Wiping the expression of shock and awe from his face with a moment of concentration, Durandel began trying to think of how he was going to get the situation back under his control again. Noah was quite literally stealing the crowd, right in front of him, and Durandel couldn't afford to become a sideshow on his very night of triumph!

Before he could open his mouth though, Noah beat him to the punch. "Hello, everyone." Noah wasn't speaking loudly, but the entire room went quiet and almost seemed to be straining to hear him. Though he was standing at the edge of the room, he was the undisputed center of attention. "Many of you have heard of me, but this is the first time I've ever attended a public gathering, so please pardon me if I introduce myself. My name is Noah. Noah Borander. Yes, that Borander." Noah quirked a small smile, a cat pleased to have gotten all the cream, with more to come. "I've come here tonight to wish my good friend Gilbert Durandel well on his tenure as Secretary of Defense for the United Solar Nation. Please excuse my tardiness... I had a few things to wrap up at the lab, so I had to bring Achilles here with me. I hope no one minds... he's perfectly harmless, I assure you."

About half the room turned their heads to look at Durandel, as if accusing him of intentionally denying them the pleasure of meeting this unique young man, whom many of them had indeed heard of but no one had ever met or even seen before. They turned their heads back as people exclaimed again, because Noah's tux had shimmered and shifted colors again, turning as red as a Redcoat's uniform in a smooth process that lasted less than two seconds. Impressed and wondering whispers filled the room as people discussed this surprising event, not quite sure what to make of it. Noah lifted a hand, grabbing their attention again, as if he only had to will it, as he handed the leash of Achilles off to Michael. "Well, this is supposed to be a party, isn't it? I do hope I came to the right place." Noah prompted, gradually releasing his hold on the room.

Conversations and arguements gradually started up again, but everything was much subdued, as people continually snuck glances towards the corner of the room that Noah had selected to hold court, and a continuous stream of guests wandered, as if casually, over to talk to him or merely watch him talk to others, before drifting away again, shaking their heads in awe. Almost no one was paying any more attention to Durandel or his major supporters, a switch that they could not fail to notice, like finding sandpaper instead of toiletpaper in the bathroom. Durandel knew he had to take the initiative back quickly, before all momentum he'd built up in the early part of the party was lost, because if he didn't then all most people would remember of this party would be the parts after Noah had arrived. The media was already all over that corner of the room, and Durandel could only hope that the majority of people watching had already turned their attention to other stations, because otherwise he'd be losing that advantage too.

Biting down on his pride, Durandel headed across to the far corner of the room, where Noah was. He knew that Noah had deliberately chosen a place far away from Durandel, so that Durandel would have to come to him, and been seen by everyone to be doing it. The bastard's political acumen was growing more and more as he got older. Just by a simple placement of position, he was establishing a relative order of precedence between him and Durandel that all the political old hands could not miss, and even the greenest soldier boy could not fail to remember seeing. Icarus, Rey and Lacus fell in behind Durandel, like moons following their planetary body across the solar system. Rey tried to divert Lacus away from them, but she was having none of it. That young man was the most entrancing person she'd ever seen... you'd have to saw her legs off at the knee to get her away from him, and maybe not even that would be enough! Rey traded a concerned glance with Durandel... they both knew that their Lacus was nowhere near ready to encounter Noah, but it didn't look like they had much choice.

Durandel and his party edged their way through the solid ring of people who were gathered around Noah and his wondrous pet, though it was by far the greater majority that were paying attention to Noah, rather than the dinosaur. It was as if they saw miniature T-Rex's every day... or at least every week or so, and Noah was something totally unprecedented and impossible, a product of some unimaginable science or technology. Well, that last part was somewhat true actually, if what Durandel suspected was correct, but that was beside the point! Noah was a man, just a Coordinator like Durandel himself was... it grated on Durandel to see him so easily overaweing these poltically astute people! As a person who was pretty damned good at overaweing the politically astute himself, Durandel could not help but recognize a true master at work... Noah didn't even have to try, or so it seemed... he was just himself, and people fell into line accordingly.

"Ah, Gil... there you are!" Noah said with a winning smile, as if he hadn't been well aware of Durandel's progress across the room. "I was beginning to wonder if this was your party after all, I couldn't find you!"

_It makes me wonder too._ Durandel thought darkly, even as he pasted a pleasant smile onto his own face and reached out to take Noah's hand. "Oh, I couldn't deny you your fifteen minutes of fame, Noah. Its about time you came forward into the light!" Durandel swept his hand towards the ring of people. "I'd like to re-introduce Noah Borander to you all. He's been a close family friend of mine for years, especially since the death of his parents and the disappearances of the rest of his extended family... bad businesses, those disappearances... and he's been a principal financial backer for me, though only in private until now. I could not have gotten to where I am today without Noah Borander." Durandel forced himself to say the words, though they tasted like poisonous ash in his mouth.

"Well, thank you Gil! I'm honored, I really am." Noah's sincere smile felt like a cheese grater on Durandel's pride. "I look forward to helping you progress even further along your dream, with the assistance of your other supporters of course." Noah turned his attention to the crowd, watching them lean closer unconsciously as he tightened his mental grip. "I give you Gilbert Durandel... the right man to garauntee our security and safety for years to come, ladies and gentlemen!" Noah waved genially for the cameras, which flashed and sparkled rapidly. Durandel ground his teeth as he maintained his smile, having the sick feeling that this was going to be the front page news photo tomorrow, and he didn't think it'd be centered around him either. He tightened his grip around Noah's hand in a small measure of private revenge... he just wished he could break it!

He regretted his pettiness almost at once, because no matter how much he tightened his grip, Noah didn't seem bothered by it. It was perposterous, that a sixteen year old boy, barely into young adulthood even by PLANTS standards, with Noah's delicately handsome build and perfectly uncalloused hands, obviously totally unused to physical hardship, could be stronger than Durandel, a full grown man! But that definitely seemed to be the case, as Noah began exerting pressure of his own, and kept doing it until Durandel was once again gritting his teeth, this time to keep from screaming in agony! Just when Durandel was sure that the people around them could hear the bones of his hand grinding against each other, Noah released his hand, as if nothing had passed between them but a friendly handshake. Durandel tucked his hand into his pocket, aware of the finger shaped discolorations that were quite visible on it. He was about to speak again, when Noah stepped right past him, once more stealing the initiative and establishing their relative importance for the benefit of everyone watching.

"Rey, good to see you again." Noah nodded at his best agent within Durandel's circle, though neither Durandel or even Rey was aware of it. Rey was supposed to be spying for Durandel on Noah, but in reality it was the other way around. Rey was a Latent after all, and it was simplicity itself for Noah to manipulate his thoughts and memories as he wished. It was one of several amusements he allowed himself in his game with Durandel. It really wasn't much of a game... Noah had almost all of the advantages after all... but it was the best game he could manage, at least for the next while, until the rest of the plan fell into place. And Rey was another clone too, so for that reason alone if no other, Noah had some sympathy for him, and felt a certain degree of kinship. It also made Rey an excellent test subject for some of the more risky medical experiments Noah was conducting into curing that insidious clone malady, Short Telemeres.

It wasn't a problem anymore, in modern cloning... Noah had made sure to correct the process almost as soon as he'd learned of the flaw, but of course by that time it was quite a bit too late for him and Rey. There had been another clone too, from the same flawed process, but Rau was long dead, and not germane any longer. The initial cloning process had taken genetic stem cell material from one Albert La Flaga, owner of a giant aerospace and aviation conglomerate on Earth several decades ago, and used it to create a perfect genetic copy of him, because he wanted a son that was just like him, having some sort of problem with the one his wife had given him. As far as La Flaga had wanted, the experiment was a total success. It wasn't until later that the flaw in the process was realized, by which point in time it was too late for Rey and Noah.

The flaw was the fact that the base genetic material had been taken from a man in his late fifties, and a Natural at that. Human DNA broke down over time, causing the cells of the human body to replicate less and less perfectly as the years went by. It was a natural process called aging, and it happened to everyone, though at different rates. As the process progressed, internal organs would start to lose efficiency, and then functionality. Many of them could be replaced with transplants, even cloned transplants in recent times, but that only prolonged the problem, and it did nothing for the pain. Rau, Rey and Noah had all been in their late fifties when born, at least as far as their DNA was concerned, and this dramatically cut down on their lifespan because their cells could not renew themselves as well as regular people's. They suffered from early onset arthritis, kidney failure and cataracts of the eyes, as well as more serious problems with bone marrow and vital organ functions, especially in the liver and heart. Modern medicine could delay the effects, but not cure them, because it was a natural genetic disorder.

Rey was twenty now, and would probably not live much past thirty. Noah's genes were far better than Rey's, and he did not expect himself to last to fifty, at least if nothing was done about it. But he WAS doing something about it, and in fact was getting very, very close to the solution, or so he thought. Fortune had favored him, in giving him such a personally motivating problem that tied in so well with what he was planning on doing anyway. He just didn't want to subject himself to unnecessary risk early on... there was only one mind like his able to figure out this problem, and if he didn't do it, no one likely ever would, because after he and Rey died, no one would care. So he experimented on Rey instead, and once he perfected the cure, he'd use it on himself too. And it wasn't like he wasn't benefiting Rey as well... they'd both be cured... so he was easily able to quash the tiny voice that cried out at him for conducting painful experiments on a "friend". Science had to take priority sometimes... sad maybe, but true.

Noah turned his attention to the person he'd been wanting to talk to from the moment he'd stepped into the room and caught the flash of pink dress and hair. A quick caress of his mind informed him beyond a doubt that this trollop was NOT Lacus Clyne, which was extremely disappointing, but had been what he'd expected. He'd made something of a study of the woman after all, since she was the one who'd inspired him to develop his mental powers to the degree that he had. This person looked like Lacus, sounded like Lacus, could probably mimic Lacus to a degree that a common person would find seamless... but she did not have Lacus's mind or thoughts. This was a person named Meer, surgically altered and Touched Up to look and sound like Lacus, likely for Durandel's political benefit, since the real Lacus wouldn't do that in a million years. Good for her, the real Lacus. Durandel was a bug... no a disease... and Noah would cure him eventually. But not yet... not just yet.

A brush of Rey's mind told Noah all he needed to know about this Meer-Lacus and what Durandel's purpose for her was. He smiled inwardly, and decided to take umbrage. It really didn't matter what Durandel tried to do to learn what Noah's goals were... it wouldn't happen in this world. But Noah liked Lacus Clyne... he respected her and even, secretly, was infatuated with her. She was the only other person like him he'd encountered, and she was beautiful and powerful... what was NOT to like? This Meer-Lacus was a willing participant in Durandel's schemes for political power and influence, and that eased the last remnants of Noah's conscience... if she was being tricked he would have felt bad, but she was being paid and paid well for her deception, and that was that. Now all he had to do was decide how he would accomplish his punishment, and get his point across to Durandel... Lacus, even her image, was to be left alone, that was final.

"Lacus Clyne! You are even more beautiful in person than I had believed possible." Noah swept himself down into a courtly bow, taking her blushingly extended hand and brushing his lips across her knuckles. He momentarily concentrated the full force of his mind on sending a jolt of awe, desire and happiness into her rather simple mind. She twitched all over, as if electrified, and the backwash from the effort, suffused several other women in the crowd, causing them to gasp and clutch more tightly at their partners. Meer-Lacus's eyes glazed over slightly for a few seconds, as she lost momentary control of her conscious thoughts, like a drug user in the first moments of a high.

Noah straightened and held out his hand... not to Lacus, but towards Michael, who obediently handed him Achilles's leash. Responding to a mental thump on his well conditioned mind, Achilles pried himself away from a band of admiring party guests and trotted loyally over to Noah and Meer-Lacus. Nudging Meer-Lacus's mind again, Noah directed her attention to Achilles, and she knelt down with a gasp of wonder and delight. Achilles permitted himself to be scratched on the head and cuddled, proving that as long as something was miniature and docile, it was automatically somewhat cute, even if it was a carrion eating predator from millions of years ago. "He's really not dangerous? His teeth look so sharp!" Meer-Lacus commented, looking up at Noah.

"So do the teeth of most dogs, but Achilles's dentures are even less dangerous than those of dogs. Though his teeth look sharp, they are actually quite blunt, and his jaw muscles are intentionally genetically weakened. He couldn't leave bite marks on a human unless you put your hand in his jaws and stepped on his head." Noah replied. He held his hand out by way of example, and prodded Achilles's mind again, prompting an impromptu "trick". Instantly, Achilles darted his head away from Meer-Lacus and clamped his jaws around Noah's outstretched hand. There were a few cries from the watching guests, and Meer-Lacus jerked in surprise and a little fear of Achilles's unexpectedly fast movement. Achilles tried to gnaw at Noah's hand, but his jaws just weren't strong enough, he couldn't close his mouth any more after his teeth encountered Noah's skin. Growling in frustration, the T-Rex pet loosed his master's hand and dropped his head in a sulk.

"Perfectly unharmed, as you can see." Noah held up his hand for everyone to witness. There weren't even bruises. "Perfectly safe around kids of all ages, no matter what species of pet you get. Garaunteed." Noah paused to accept the applause from the audience, before he dug a foil wrapped packet from his pant pocket, even as his tux shimmered and turned blue. He unwrapped the packet and tossed the pressed meat cube it contained past Achilles's head, only to have it snapped out of the air adroitly and easily by the now pleased carnosaur, who swallowed it whole. Meer-Lacus laughed and clapped at the show, and Noah felt almost embarassed at how easily some people were impressed. Truly, the human race needed to be properly weeded out, if people like this were allowed to live to puberty. It wasn't like this among the animals or plants, where only the strong and powerful survived. Well, he was going to make the human race strong and powerful, if it was the last thing he did!

Noah noticed that Durandel, Rey and his other major supporters had left, tucking their collective tails between their legs and ceeding control of the party to Noah. Durandel was no doubt livid, though of course he wouldn't show it. Of the few things that Noah admired about Durandel, the man's control was certainly among them. Realizing that he was not going to salvage anything more of political worth from the celebration now that Noah had shown up, with a pet T-Rex no less, Durandel had obviously opted to leave and make the best of getting an early start on implenting his policies for the USN. Noah would have laughed had he been alone... Durandel was so predictable at times... ruffle his pride and he'd go off and stick his head in a cave with his friends and plot, rather than do anything really constructive. The man couldn't STAND not being the one in charge, hated not being the one directing everything from in front of and behind the scenes. Noah was willing to let him be the on scene director, at least for now, but Durandel had NEVER been in charge behind the scenes, not since Noah had turned ten or so anyway.

Noah had felt Michael move away too, slipping away mostly unnoticed as Noah and Achilles had held the attention of the party, just as expected. He would be circulating through the crowd, as unobtrusively as he could, passing along the details of the final rendevous to the other Brotherhood members among the party goers... both the ones wearing his colors openly and the ones who served with more discretion... sometimes so much discretion that they did not even know they served the Brotherhood at all. he'd accomplished what he'd come here to do, now there was only this little detail of Meer-Lacus and then he could get on with the actually important things he had to do today. He held out Achilles's leash to Meer-Lacus. "Here, why don't you take him for a while? Don't worry, he won't pull your arm off or anything... he's very calm, as you may have noticed."

"I think... I will! Thanks!" Lacus took the leash after a moment's thought. Achilles considered the transfer of control dutifully, and idly scratched at his chin with one forelimb. "Wow, this feels so weird!"

"Not that much different than walking a dog, really." Noah replied with a shrug. He held out his arm for Meer-Lacus to take with her free hand, which she wasted little time in doing. He could feel her excitement, throbbing like a small fire in the back of his head. Well, he'd let her have her excitement all right... he'd give her all she could handle of it... and more, besides. The wave of presences, feelings, emotions and thoughts was really starting to give him that headache he'd been dreading... humans were just too damn complex in their thoughts! Even he couldn't process it fast enough! Especially in big crowds like this. Perhaps it was time for a brief change of scene. He leaned in closer to Meer-Lacus and lowered his voice, breathing lightly in her ear. "How about we go somewhere a little more private for a chat? Its getting kind of stuffy here, I think."

Noah watched the goosebumps crawl up and down the skin of her arm and across the back of her neck, and he felt her emotions surge... she was firmly in his grip, that was for sure. She cast her eyes around doubtfully for a moment, seeking Durandel no doubt, but he'd already cut his losses and run, and was nowhere within sight. She deliberated for a few more moments, her mind wishy-washy without someone there to tell her what to do... another thing that seperated her from the real Lacus... but she eventually remembered that she was supposed to be pumping Noah for secret information, and this might be a good opportunity, right? I mean, it was obvious that he liked her! And she sure liked him... HOT didn't cover him! Like Rey had said, it was like he was an angel, stepping right out of a painting or engraving, so beautiful he seemed beyond human! She could barely keep her thoughts focused at all, especially when he was RIGHT THERE!

"S-sure!" She answered, her voice cracking a bit, even in a whisper.

"Excellent. This way." Noah set off, with her somewhat in tow until she got her wobbly legs under her again. Sighing in annoyance, Achilles trotted after them, rather than be pulled by the neck. It was going to be another picture for the front pages... Noah Borander, majestic in his beauty, with Lacus Clyne radiant on his arm, a two foot T-Rex on a leash following humbly after them. The entire world was reeling and dancing to a new tune... and Noah Borander had barely even begun to play yet.


	6. Green Devil

"So what did you want to chat about?" Lacus asked, somewhat bashfully. They were standing on one of the fifth story balcony's of the convention center, one that faced out directly into the nearby park. It was quiet, away from the street and parking lot and from the noise and crowds of the party. As was usual for the PLANTS, it was constantly daylight, even though the chronological time was close to midnight, at least on this city. In the distance glimmered the slightly blue tinted glass wall that seperated the lush PLANTS environment from the harshness of space, and beyond that, large even with great distance, hung the gargantuan construction of Millenium One, the first of a new line of E-PLANTS.

Noah closed the doors seperating the balcony from the hallway that led back down several flights of stairs to the grand ballroom, ensuring their privacy at least for the moment. He'd feel the mind of anyone who tried to listen at the door, and his guardians would foil any attempts at long range eavesdropping from their perches along the roofline just above him. He could just barely make out the shimmer of their Mirage Colloid cloaked forms crouched peering over the roofline, but it wasn't something you'd notice unless you knew to look for it, or had eyes like Noahs. Noah kneaded his brow for a moment, grateful for the considerable lessening of psychic pressure assailing his mind now that they were well removed from the bulk of the party crowd. He walked over to stand at the lip of the blacony, within easy arms reach of this false Lacus, but not touching her.

Achilles the miniaturized T-Rex, one of many new types of patented Mini-Pets one of his companies was soon due to dominate the domestic animal markets with, crouched on the far side of Meer-Lacus, his head and neck poked between the ornamental stone bars of the balcony railing, snapping his jaws at passing birds futiley, even though they were tens of feet out of reach. Well, Noah had never made any claims as to the intelligence of the animals, though at least Achilles didn't pretend to be something he wasn't, like most humans did. That was the most refreshing thing about animals, besides their quiet minds... they were always honest, true to their natures. They responded to their environment with instinct and little else, living as their natures directed and not desiring anything more than full bellies and large numbers of offspring. It was admirable, Noah felt. A good design, though as always, there was room for improvement. Improvement he would provide, incidental to the golden age he would eventually lead mankind into. But that was in the future... though perhaps it wouldn't hurt to talk about it a little? Who was she going to tell, anyway?

"I actually wanted to ask you a few questions, about something that's been bothering me, Lacus. Can I call you Lacus?" Noah replied, staring out at Millenium One.

"Of course! As long as I can call you Noah." Meer-Lacus answered, with a cheerful smile and a cock of her head as she regarded him. _God, but he's so beautiful! Its unreal! Why did it take you so long to build a man like this, God? Surely the angels of heaven look down at him and think they've lost one of their own!_

"I wouldn't have it any other way." Noah could feel her interest in him build. It wouldn't be too much longer before she was slavering over him like Achilles's ancestors would over a fresh kill. It was his fault, of course... he'd pushed entirely too hard earlier on her mind, and she needed a release for the pressure. It was one of those things that was just so hard to judge... some minds were like eggshell glass, and broke under the lightest of taps, others were more like rubber balls, able to bounce back to normal no matter how hard he hit them. It was something he could only discern through time and experience, unfortunately for many of the weaker minds. It was perhaps merciful, what he'd be doing later... by now he was quite familiar with the signs of an encroaching obsessive-compulsive bipolar disorder, especially in a girl.

"So what questions do you have? I warn you though, I won't talk about anything... dirty." Lacus giggled, expecting him to blush. He was only sixteen after all, which was barely a year into adulthood in the PLANTS, and far from the age of real maturity. He seemed immune to the sensation though, and his eyes were actualy frank and achingly soulful when he turned to look at her. She just wanted to take him up and cuddle him to her breast when she saw those eyes... something was apparently DEEPLY troubling him, and he wanted to confide in her! Well, he wanted to confide in Lacus Clyne, but at the moment that's who she was! Maybe this might even be something Durandel would want to know about... though she felt guilty as soon as she thought that,

Noah took a deep breath, ordering his thoughts. "If you had the knowledge and power to guide humanity into a new, golden age of progress and improvement, would you do it? I'm not talking about something minor, like we've seen since the end of the Valentine Wars... I'm speaking of something fundamental, an entirely new chapter in the history of the human race. I'm talking about the next step of human evolution, the progression beyond homo sapiens to what lies beyond. If you had the power and ability and knowledge to bring about something like that, Lacus... would you do it?"

"Well... yah! Who wouldn't want to do something amazing like that!? I mean... its a dream... being able to change the course of human history for the better! I'm not sure what you mean about evolving, but the premise is wonderful! What makes you ask a rhetorical question like that?" Meer-Lacus replied, fighting not to get lost in his eyes.

Noah chuckled briefly and leaned a bit closer, drawing her in. "Well, yes, but let me continue. Would you do it, that which I'd spoken of, if you had the ability and power... even if it meant that eighty seven percenty of humanity had to die to accomplish it? If it meant ending the world as you and I currently know it, regardless of the wishes of the mostly worthless tides of humanity that cover the Earth?"

"W-wh-what!?" Meer-Lacus stammered, caught off guard. "I m-mean... why... no! That would be terrible!"

"Yes, it would be awful." Noah agreed, leaning closer still, a gesture she unconsciously mirrored. "If that was the necessary price though? If you could return humanity to the days of the Garden of Eden, before the Fall, to a time where humans and animals and nature lived together in harmony and peace and mutual understanding, without war or hunger or strife... but eighty seven percent of the current population, Naturals and Coordinators both, had to die to do it... would that be a sacrifice you could make? Could you do it... Lacus?"

"I... wait... what... ho... w... oh..." Meer-Lacus faltered, as she seemed to fall into Noah's eyes. She could feel him catch her, feel herself sag against his strong as steel body... he didn't look nearly so solid, but he was supporting her weight easily with just one arm.

"Imagine it, Lacus. No war. No suffering. Humans and animals, coexisting easily and naturally with each other. It would be heaven on Earth! Who wouldn't bring that about if they could? What price is NOT worth that bliss!? Humans... humans are too numerous! They blot out the Earth... drink up the seas! They prey on everything, without order, without mercy, without cease! It has become part of our nature to prey on others shamelessly! It is WRONG! If only we could understand each other more fully! If only we could truly know the minds of others! The problems would go away! There would be no more hate! There would be no more inequality! If you could get rid of that, all of that... wouldn't it be worth it?" Noah held Meer-Lacus close to him, staring out into the distance, petting her back like a man would do for a small child. He could feel her mind straining under the onslaught of his conviction, the pure power of his mental belief in what he was saying. It was too much for her, poor thing. Poor, weak, unworthy thing.

Achilles looked up, his skin twitching and tail wagging as he felt the backdraft of Noah's feelings wash through his simple, primal mind. "I have that ability, Lacus. I have that power, that knowledge. No one will understand yet... but I have it. I have the power within my grasp to finally end the problems between Naturals and Coordinators. It is regrettable that the process is still so flawed... but natural selection does need to have its say. Only the strong, the worthy, the true elite... only they deserve to live to see the perfection of the new world. Only they deserve to experience the true transformation that will bring about the evolution of humanity into a better, more wondrous state of being! And thirteen percent of almost twenty billion is still quite a number... more than most animals could ever hope for. With the way humans breed, even after we gain understanding, we'll have made up the difference in a few centuries. I might even still be alive then!" Noah sighed, lost in blissful thought for a few moments.

"But that's rather more than you need to concern yourself with, Lacus. Or should I call you Meer? Does it really matter, at this point in time?" Noah listened to her pant and gurgle slightly, as her mind went through a sort of fit, unable to handle the emotional battering Noah had poured into her while discussing the bare bones of his grand plan. He always got so worked up when he thought about it, he just couldn't help but want others to feel the same way! But most people didn't feel the same way he did, alas, and many times they ended up suffering what he termed "mind-burn", as his feelings overwhelmed theirs. "Oh, do WAKE UP!" Noah commanded, spearing his will into her mind, stirring around the mush he found there until she jerked awake with a small scream and no doubt the worst headache of her life.

"Oww! My head! Wha' happ'n?" Meer-Lacus complained blearily, her eyes unfocused.

"You slipped and banged your head against the banister. You'll be okay though, not even a concussion. Still, I imagine you're going to want to lie down. Shall I take you home? Don't worry, its no bother to me."

"Ya. Thanks, Noah... I feel terrible all of a sudden. That sounds like just the thing." Meer replied, glad that he was supporting her because she didn't feel very able to stand on her own. She wondered why her head was swimming so much, from just a little bump on the head? She also couldn't, for the life of her, piece together the conversation she'd just had with Noah. She knew it was pretty important... something Durandel would probably want to know, but she couldn't bring it into any detail. Noah had talked... she'd listened, but nothing more than that. She knew it would come to her eventually... she just needed to lie down for a while, until the migraine went away.

Noah pressed a button on his watch, which sent the control signal to his car, which would be waiting for them at the curb by the time he got this mushy-minded imposter down there. He looked up, at the point of roofline his guardians had remained perched on the entire time, unmoving and almost totally invisible to any sort of detection. "Phlegethion, Aether, meet me at the car. We're taking Meer for a little ride back to her house so she can clear her head. Its absolutely on fire with pain right now." Noah watched the air rippled and shift, and heard the quiet double-clap of two sets of precisely engineered wings open to cup the air as his guardians dived off the roof, to glide around in protective circles until the car arrived.

"Who... you... talking to, back there?" Meer asked, not even able to register that Noah had called her by her real name. Talking hurt, but she felt she had to say something, to at least pretend like she didn't want to scream and cry and roll around on the ground in agony. They had descended several flights of stairs by the time she'd worked up the ability to talk that much, and he was almost carrying her by that point in time, Achilles following obiediently behind them, panting slightly, just like a dog.

"Someone like me has a lot of people who only pretend to like him, while they really want him to say, perhaps fall down a flight of stairs... and not get rushed to the hospital too quickly either. I am more than capable of handling most threats to my person by myself... but it never hurts to have backup around. Phlegethion and Aether are my two staunchest and most loyal guards, and easily the most capable too. There's not much that the two of them can't handle, one way or another." Noah replied.

"Didn't... see n'un." Meer muttered, her eyes feeling so heavy now.

"They'll be at the car if you want to see them. They look a little... different... so they usually stay out of sight, one way or another." Noah informed her with a secret smile, as they descended the final flight of stairs and stepped out onto the walkway that led to the valet drive thru. His car was just turning the corner onto the drive, slowed perhaps by some traffic somewhere along the line, and the valets were out in force. Though they weren't concerned much with the car at this point in time, but rather the two guards that had appeared, seemingly out of thin air, in their very midst and were now efficiently herding them away from the walkway. Phlegethion scented Noah and raised her head, black armored jaws parting in a ecstatic hiss that caused the three nearest valets to scurry backwards like mice fleeing a cat, even though Phlegethion was only about three quarters the size of a man, and most of that in length.

Aether caught his gene-trace a moment later, and likewise hissed in pleasure, her white armored jaws menacing the valets on the other side of the walk from her sister, their flexible jointed tails flipping back and forth in synchronous agitation. Wings settled in to cup protectively along their sides, the twin draconid robotic guardians established a perimeter of at least ten feet on either side of the walkway as Noah helped Meer down towards the arriving car. If ever a valet chanced to step too close to their invisibly defined barrier, the dragon on that side would hiss in warning and crouch down, fully preparing to pounce to bring the threat down. Though they only weighed about ninety pounds each, that was still a lot of weight in a very solid armored package, and the dragons could move very quickly, far faster than a human could run, both on the ground and especially in the air.

Phlegethion turned her head to adoringly regard Noah with her red tinted camera lenses, just like those used by Mobile Suits, if a lot smaller. Aether mirrored te gesture with her amber eyes, though neither dragon stopped monitoring the area through radar, scent and several other types of senses. Armored with TransPhase Shift plating, equipped with Mirage Colloid cloak emitters and mounting mono-molecularly bladed jaws and claws, the twin dragons made for extremely intimidating physical presences, even though they were only about three feet high at the shoulder, and six feet long from snout to tal tip, most of that tail or neck. Claws and teeth were only the least of their armaments though, and the dragons were quite capable of killing all ten of the valets within seconds if the need arose. They were the most expensive bodyguards around, each costing as much to develop as a Mobile Suit... but to Noah, they were worth every cent and more.

As far as he was concerned, their crowning glory came not in their armaments or special equipment, but in their minds. Well, technically control chips, but for the two dragons the term was accurate either way. Like the Haro named Melanie, Phlegethion and Aether incorporated control circuits imprinted with the focused psyches of two girls, real life sisters, from Noah's Insititude for the Terminally Ill. The girls were now both dead... the imprinting process was rather hard on the host body... but their minds... or at least the useful, loyal parts of their minds that adored Noah as the center of the universe, lived on as the motivation and control programs for the twin dragons. If anything, their only flaw was that their love for him was TOO great... they became jealous easily, and would attack any female that happened to catch his more than passing interest, though they rarely killed. It was problematic as it was... rabid animals did not exist on the PLANTS, and covering up the injuries was very difficult, usually requiring Noah to personally wipe the girl's memories of the attack, which was tedious.

Meer barely caught more than a glimpse of the two dragons as Noah bundled her gently into his car, which was curiously roomy inside, with only two chairs and no visible steering mechanism. The door closed on them, and though it was impossible to see in, seeing out was another matter entirely, as almost the entire car seemed to be translucent. Achilles curled up behind thier chairs, snorting as he got comfortable, and Meer felt herself starting to drift into unconsciousness. There was no sound, and no sensation of movement, but the scenery outside the car started to change, slowly at first but then much more rapidly. She was just about to speak up to offer Noah directions to her house before she drifted off, when a sudden unwelcome sensation jolted her into a greater degree of wakefulness.

Noah's hand was slowly shifting up her leg, and the other down the front of her dress. She tried to open her mouth to protest, to at least indicate that she wasn't feeling like intimacy right at the moment, with her head feeling so terrible, but she couldn't even open her mouth, much less talk. She could barely blink. Her entire body felt limp and numb and disconnected from her will and desires. No matter how much her sense of panic grew, no matter how hard she tried to even make a small grunt of protest,it was like her mind was locked away from her body, frozen in a block of ice where she could observe and nothing else. She saw Noah dip his head into her line of vision, and she wanted to recoil from the smile that made his beautiful face seem harsh and cruel. "Don't worry... Meer. I'm going to make you feel much better. I just need you to remain perfectly still for me... thats not so hard... is it? Now now... don't cry... you want this more than I do... don't deny it, I can read your mind. Meer, Meer, Meer... poor Meer, involved with people she shouldn't be. Got in way over her head this time, didn't she? Maybe she should learn not to impersonate important people, yes? For next time? Shush now, Meer...this will be the best time of your life, I promise..."

Meer wanted to scream in terror, but she could only sit there, held immobile and a prison in her own mind by a strength of will that she could not begin to comprehend.

------------------------------------------------

Meer staggered up the stairs to her second floor apartment, tears rolling freely down her face, sniffling and sobbing. Durandel had told her that it might be necessary to eventually sleep with Noah, to try and work his secrets out of him... and she'd been okay with that. Especially after she saw him in the flesh! But she'd always assumed that, if it happened, it would happen with her consent! Not... she burst into fresh tears as she dragged herself slowly up the stairs, her legs weak and watery, her vision blurry. Her entire body and mind hurt, and so did her soul. He hadn't been violent... he hadn't needed to be. She couldn't do anything but sit there, locked into a corner of her mind that she couldn't leave and watch him have his way. That had been the worst partof it all... the helplessness. She couldn't even cry while it was going on. That, more than anything, more than any other violation... that was what hurt the worst. Never had she been made so helpless while being so conscious in her life! How he'd done it... some sort of roofie maybe or other drug... but what was that babble about reading her thoughts? She couldn't think straight right now.

She reached her door and fumbled with the keycard for what felt like forever before she managed to stumble in, almost falling through the doorway rather than walking through. She had to find a phone... Noah had taken hers when he dropped her off... more rolled her out of his car, which was gone by the time she'd managed to even get to her hands and knees. She needed to call Durandel. Tell him what had happened. Get help. She needed to tell him what she'd remembered about her conversation with Noah on the balcony! That chilling question, so cleverly disguised at first. Heaven on Earth! Garden of Eden! A new humanity! Eighty seven percent of the world dead! He was a madman! A true devil! Pure gold on the outside, pure filth inside.

The kitchen window shattered inwards even as Meer leaned against the refrigerator, only a few feet from the phone. She blearily stared at the broken glass and empty window, sniffling. Had someone thrown a rock through her window? Couldn't her day get ANY WORSE!? She had her answer a moment later, as glass crunched and slithered across the floor as something she couldn't see took a few steps across the kitchen counters and jumped to the middle of the kichen floor with a heavy thump. Fear rose in a molten tide through her, galvanizing her into action. Meer lurched for the phone, yanking it off the hook and reaching for the speed dial. The steady drone of a "currently out of service" message resounded tinnily in her ear. She only had time for a brief moan of terror when the unseen thing in her kitchen lept and slammed into her with the force of a small motorcycle, throwing her heavily back into the wall behind her, then pulling her down to the floor beneath it.

The phone spun out of her hand as the thing that was now standing on her chest began mauling her with claws that sliced through cloth and flesh and bone with equal ease, even gouging lines in the floor beneath her as she struggled. Meer tried to scream, but could only manage a strangled gurgle as the invisible assailent's needle sharp jaws closed on her neck and windpipe, gnawing down with mechanical force. The poison coating the claws and teeth of the assailent took only a few seconds to set in, causing full body paralysis, though by the time that it mattered Meer was already half dead from the mauling and the slow suffocation. Even after she went still, and the blood trickling from her body went cool, the weight did not leave her chest. Finally, five minutes after Meer breathed and thought her last, the air above her chest flickered and resolved into a blood spattered black armored form. Hissing with satisfaction, Phlegethion stepped down from the squishy chest and inspected her handiwork.

Phlegethion's head darted towards the door and she snarled silently in a threat posture as the door to the apartment clicked open again, but it was only Aether that was crouched outside, one white armored foreclaw pressed to the locking mechanism to disable it via the electronic picks the dragons front claws contained, in addition to multiple other tools. Hissing at her gore smeared sister, Aether slipped quickly inside and let the door close behind her. The black and white dragons considered the pink haired body together for a moment. It was disconcerting to them, because they were actually programmed to PROTECT Lacus Clyne as if she were Noah, but yet they were also insanely jealous of the special place Noah had in his heart for Lacus. Being able to take out some of their frustration on a Lacus look alike was a dream come true for the limited intelligences that they had remaining to them. Aether gave Phlegethion a hard stare, since the darker sister had already made the kill, while Aether had been disabling the phone service.

Phelegthion cocked her head at her sister, and then hissed with satisfaction, internal recorders playing back a snippet of conversation from Noah. "... absolutely on fire with pain right now." Noah's voice reminded them. Aether hissed in satisfaction as well, getting the idea immediately. Master Noah had planted a note in the imposters pocket that was to be undamaged, so that Durandel could not fail to understand the lesson, but anything else was left up to the dragons's limited creative skills. Phlegethion sidestepped out of range, as Aether stalked forward and stared down at Meer. Except for the bite wound on her neck, just under the chin, she looked like the victim of some sort of movie slasher victim. Aether opened her jaws and trigged a blast of plasma flame from deep within her chest, controlling the burst so that it only enveloped Meer's head and neck, and the floor beneath them. The dragons could only breathe once every few hours, but that was usually more than enough, as it was in this case. Flesh instantly seared away and bone charred black, hair evaporating into acrid steam. The floor beneath Meer's head caught fire, though the flames did not spread far before the dragons patted them out with their wings.

Satisfied with their handiwork, and feeling the need to return to Noah's side, the dragons flickered and dissolved from view once more, before leaping out of the shattered kitchen window one after the other, taking wing in the bright daylight of the early morning PLANTS, leaving behind them a crime scene that would baffle ZAFT investigators for months, since even the genetic evidence left behind was not in their systems, though Gilbert Durandel figured out the lesson much more rapidly than that, with a note that said "Intellectual property, fraud will be punished".

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"Ah, home sweet fucking home! No place quite like it, eh gang?" Jean Dylan said with a hint of sarcasm as the four of them, him, Aireg Randolf, Mary O'Brien and Michael Genesis, finally opened the last of the security doors seperating the secret Brotherhood of Man installation from the rest of the burgeoning construction of Millenium One's sub levels. What better place to hide a major construction effort than inside a much larger, even more complex construction venture? The name of this Brotherhood location, which was to be their primary base once it was completed, was the Great Endeavor. The Great Endeavor was still only about fifty percent complete... most of the main structures were in place, but there was still a lot of bulkheads and other additions needed to actually make the place livable full time, much less operational. Still, this was where the majority of the Brotherhood's military material was stored, and where the larger protion of the Brotherhood's corps of true believers stayed until the time was right to unleash them upon the great plan.

"Don't talk to me." Randolf rebuffed, turning away from the short, unpleasant Natural. "Bad enough what I have to put up with in public for the name of civility, don't tempt me to end your pathetic existence here in private, where I'm much more inclined to do it."

"Now you two..." Michael stepped between them. "If you're going to fight, use the simulators. Nothing against you guys, but you could both use a little more practice before things get kicked off. Especially you, Aireg, consdering as its you thats doing the kick off. You can bet that you'll be going up against more than just regular forces at some point in time. The boss is smart, but he's not the only one who can build Gundams. In fact, even though we've done it hundreds of times before, we should do another systems check now,while we have the time. Boy, would the boss be livid if we were forced to delay because of something we should have caught during the pre flight checks, right?"

Mary nodded her extreme agreement... Noah's anger tantrums were excruitiating to go through. Besides, she could at least somewhat talk like a normal person when she was hooked up to her Gundam. You never realized how much you took it for granted until it was permanently taken away from you.

"What about you, Cray, you hear me?" Michael asked, shouting into the darkness off to their right, where a truly massive humanoid shape loomed, mostly hidden in shadow.

"I am ready, as soon as you connect me to the rest of the Revenant, Michael. Ready to kill all you pathetic bastards that is! You guys first and then the motherfuckers that did THIS to ME!" The mechanically amplified and filtered voice of Craydon Thresher, BCPU 5, recovered from the smoking, oven hot ruins of his Gundam after Purgatory day, echoed down to them from more than a hundred meters overhead, where the Revenant's head was. The Revenant itself was actually the recovered fragments of the Judgement Gundam, stolen away from the crater it had dug when colliding with the Moon by Brotherhood agents years prior and slowly reconstructed and modified by Noah in the time since. Cray was even more limited in his physical abilities than Mary... at least she still had a functioning body. Without the full hookups to his Gundam, Cray was just a mouth and a mind hooked up to permanent life support. He couldn't even see, hear or feel without the Gundam. Which was ironic, considering that Cray would have been the most physically powerful of them all by a large margin.

"Good to hear, thanks! Sleep tight now!" Michael called in return, ignoring the sulferous curses that rained down upon them from on high. At the moment, curse was all Cray could do, and he did it often... at least when Noah wasn't around to calm him, through whatever methods Noah employed to do that, which were unknown to the Brotherhood Gundam pilots. Not waiting for Michael to shepherd them, as he would do if they dawdled too long, the four of them split up, each heading to their indiviudal Gundam, first passing along the gallery of more conventional Mobile Suits, though that was a very general term wit regards to the Brotherhood. The non-Gundams were divided into two classes... Zealots, which were designed for multiple missions supporting the Gundams... and then Martyrs, who were supposed to be used as their name implied, namely as throwaway pieces to gain some larger advantage in a fight. Neither mobile suit type had an actual cockpit. Instead, they were controlled from afar, usually from within the Great Endeavor, by telepresence nodes attached to simulator type trainers, which in either case allowed pilots to fight without regard for their own lives, which weren't at risk.

The control systems for the Zealots and Martyrs, as well as for the Gundams themselves, were Neural Interface Control Systems, version three. The original system, NIC-I, had been the one put into the Pulsar. It was a groundbreaking system, but it had its problems... such as unrestricted action-memory growth and very high active current levels that had led to the gruesome death of the original pilot, damage to the nervous system of the second pilot and an unprecedented melding of man and machine with the third pilot... none of which scenarios were particularly desirable for long term use. Noah had gone in and tweaked the system, eventually coming up with NIC-II, which maintained the full body wire interface system of NIC-I but corrected the action-memory and current regulation problems.

Upgrading yet further in ease of use from NIC-II, which was exclusively equipped on the Revenant with Cray, came the current system, NIC-III, which consisted of a helmet only wire interface, allowing the pilot to use their biological limbs normally even while controlling all the limbs of their Gundam with their central nervous system. In addition to the NIC-III telepresence nodes, the Zealots and Martyrs were equipped with stockpiled archives of action-memory data harvested from the Pulsar before its destruction, giving each machine a mixture of recorded skills from Jeremiah Borander, Kira Yamato and Zacharis Frost to draw upon if ever the control signal was disrupted. While by no means as truly skilled as the pilots whos memories they had, the AI control system was still more than a match for most normal pilots.

Randolf's Gundam was named the Haunted, and it was an apt name because Randolf was haunted by a great betrayal he'd suffered, by someone he'd formerly believed in with all his heart and soul. It was his desire for revenge upon the person who had so wronged him that had led him to accepting Noah's aid and eventually into working for Noah, with the understanding that Randolf would be able to accomplish his own goals in the pursuit of Noah's. The outlines and features of the Haunted were difficult to make out, because of the Chameleonic Phase Shift armor it had, which blended in with its surroundings automatically. While not nearly as effective as Mirage Colloid, it also provided the protection of Phase Shift, which Mirage Colloid superceded. The Haunted featured a Nuclear reactor, though it was so heavily shielded that it barely showed up like a battery on most sensor scans, especially heat scans.

The Haunted was equipped with all manner of special electronics, allowing it to intercept and scramble enemy comm transmissions, reconfigure its own IFF beacon and even dampen sound around itself slightly. Its hands and feet had traction grips on them, which allowed the Haunted to cling to walls and ceilings and cliffs that would support its weight, like a spider. Probably its oddest feature was the sonar system located in the head, though it was actually a integral part of the Haunted's fighting strategy, not merely an afterthought addition. Finally, rounding out the Haunted's repetoire of special equipment were four combat grade holoprojectors, a system unique to the Brotherhood, at least so far. Each projector could display a completely perfect image of the Haunted up to one hundred meters away from the actual location of the Gundam, and all four projectors could function at once, giving enemies five seperate targets to shoot at, only one of which was real.

Still, modern sensors could ordinarily easily defeat such holograms, since they had no metallic mass or heat signatures. The Haunted however also carried a new type of weapon system, in addition to its more common armaments. This new system was a Nanofog emitter. The Nanofog spread rapidly throughout the atmosphere of the surrounding area as soon as it was deployed. The tiny machines sucked heat out of the air in order to fuel the process of creating more of themselves from the moisture and other molecules that made up air. The visual side effect to this construction process was a thick,soupy mist of snow like nanoclusters, which created more of themselves at a visible pace. Within a few minutes vision would be obscured within a few meters of the machine... with longer term operation an area of up to several square kilometers could be shrouded in the mist to a depth of several tens of meters. Wind and other natural effects could only slightly affect the self propogating fog, making it ideal cover.

Since the fog sucked heat out of the air, thermal sensors had their range sharply reduced. Visual sensors obviously couldn't see through the fog for more than a few meters, and magnetic sensors were also mostly useless, due to the fact that the fog was made of tiny machines the size of a couple molecules put together, the same for radar or laser targeting systems. Just about the only thing that traveled at all through the metallic fog was sound waves, and thus the sonar system. As a side effect of the moisture being drawn from the air, and the air itself being consumed to make more fog, the air pressure within the fog dropped quite a bit compared to air pressure outside the fog, resulting in a rareified atmosphere inside the fog that could lead to lightheadedness or even unconsciousness in humans who tried to breath unassisted in it. Coupled with the extremely sub zero temperatures from the heat loss and the environment rapidly became quite hostile to unprotected humans. It was in this self created mist that the Haunted would wait for its opponents, appearing like a ghost from five directions at once, before melting away again and again before finally claiming the life of its helpless foes.

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Mary's Gundam was called the Tormented, because she was stricken nightly by terrible nightmares of the battle between the Grand Buster and the Merciless that had torn through the hospital where she'd been a nurse during Purgatory day. She'd lost a lot of her friends that day, a terminally ill boy who was her special friend among them, and left a large part of her soul, along with her voice, behind in the blazing ruins. She couldn't talk... but she could scream like no one else, communicating her anguish in such a heartbreaking screech that it would bring tears to the eyes of men and women, and send animals scurrying for cover. She could even crack glass when she really tried, and that was just with the unassisted power of her own two lungs.

The tormented was tall and gangly limbed, based heavily off the original Pulsar, even down to its left arm, which had five mono-molecular claws on its fingers and sported a twenty five meter chain whip on the forearm, plus a Positron Reflector shield in the palm. Unlike the Pulsar though, her whip was electrified, not heated, because the Tormented did not contain a FPR power supply. In addition to a weapon complement featuring flamethrowers, mortars, rocket launcher and melee weapons, the Tormented's primary weapon system was mounted in the head, with supporting gear throughout the body. This system was called the "Banshee's Shriek" and it was a CUSA... Compounded Ultra Sonic Amplified. What it did was relatively simple... it amplified Mary's vocal sounds by several hundred thousand times and broadcast them both across all comm channels and vocally through special speakers. With an effective range of about a fifty meter sphere, the Banshee's Shriek was an extremely destructive weapon, able to shatter even Phase Shift armored targets with multiple second long sonic barrages that battered the pilots even worse than their machines, resulting in splitting headaches, bleeding ears and eyes and even burst blood vessels leading to strokes. Unfortunate people caught unarmored and exposed within the effective radius could be smashed or pulped or even blown apart by the concussive soundwaves.

Adding to the psychological arsenal of the Tormented was its Holoshroud, another Brotherhood holographic technology. Unlike the Haunted's Holoprojectors, the Holoshroud could only cover the outside of Mary's Gundam with images, but it could do so perfectly seamlessly, no matter what actions she was undertaking, even if it was violent evasive maneuvers or attacks. Mary usually had the Gundam take on the half flayed skin of a young woman, bleeding terribly from multiple wounds, her eyes ripped out and her mouth sewn shut, to burst asunder in sprays of gore whenever she unleashed her Banshee Shriek. It was tougher to deal with than you might imagine, a twenty plus meter screaming dead woman coming at you with a razor sharp trident and flames shooting from her other hand. Certainly it was enough to give pause, to even veteran pilots, and a pause was all Mary needed. Even if the Tormented took damage, it had a nano-repair system that could reconstruct nearly the entire machine in a matter of days, without any return to a base.

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Jean Dylan's Gundam was fittingly named The Traitor. Dylan was a Natural of small skill with Mobile Suits. He'd never even piloted one before he'd entered Noah's service. He had no business being in any Gundam that did not have a NIC system for controls. His Gundam was built around a rather different set of strengths than most... rather than pure combat skills or pure stealth, the Traitor was built around being able to sow confusion in enemy ranks, and distrust between allies. Equipped with a large range of sensor gear as well as extreme amounts of shielding for its nuclear reactor, the Traitor's outer appearance was very basic and blocky. It spent almost all of its time under the guise of its holoshroud, disguised as a rank and file machine from one of the USN member-states or a USN machine. With advanced comm stealing and jamming systems, as well as an IFF decoder and scrambler, Jean could program the Traitor to appear to almost all tests, save for actual physical touch, as whatever machine he was masquerading as.

Of course, the disguise did not provide any of the weapon systems depicted, so once the Traitor started shooting the gig was often up, even if he did still appear friendly on the screens of the people he was shooting. Usually though, if the Traitor was the one starting the shooting, no one was going to be able to shoot back, because they were too busy being gunned down by surprise from behind from a machine they'd thought was one of their allies. The Traitor mounted Phase Shift armor in case it was discovered, but the armor was kept powered down much of the time. It also had Mirage Colloid capability, which Jean used for infiltrating and exfiltrating enemy territory and also for running away from fights he could not win... which was most of the ones he didn't start himself. A cowards Gundam perhaps... but an effective one for all that, able to cause great havoc behind enemy lines.

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Michael's Gundam was the most advanced of them all, which was fitting for the best pilot of them all. Well, it should be said that Michael's was the most advanced of the ones Noah had provided for his senior lackeys... Michael knew there was at least one more that Noah was still constructing for himself to use. Michael's Gundam was called the Vengeance, which was slightly odd because Michael didn't have anyone he was particularly seeking vengeance upon, though he supposed it was just one of those things... and maybe it referred to something Noah was doing or thinking about when he'd made the Gundam. The Vengeance was based very heavily off the Pulsar, indeed it could be said that the Pulsar was a prototype and the Vengeance the final production model of the same Gundam, with five extra years of advances thrown in on top.

Unlike the other Brotherhood machines, the Vengeance was powered by a FPR though instead of cooling vanes, vulnerable on the back of its limbs, like the Pulsar had sported, the Vengeance's cooling system was hidden in two great, angular armored wings, as hard to hurt as the rest of the Gundam itself. Also in a departure from the Pulsar, the Vengeane was in fact armored against physical and beam attack, sporting an entirely new class of armor. It was called LCR Armor... Liquid Crystal Regenerative Armor. It consisted of a thick fluid that could be made to take a durable, heat resistant crystalline form by running varying amounts of electric current through it. The armor was translucent, though it could be made to take various colors by varying the density through more current manipulations. It could even have its form be reshaped to a limited degree, allowing for shifts in outline and function of some of the armored pieces of the Gundam. It was all but immune to beam and heat based weaponry, though not particularly strong against physical or munition based weapons. However, it was a form of nanocolony that could rebuild itself within seconds when damaged, making any gaps very temporary indeed.

In addition to the NIC-III control systems used by the other Brotherhood machines, the Vengeance also included a GRS-II, for Gravitic Reduction System, mark II. The original Pulsar had used a gel filled cockpit, along with magnetic fields used to warp gravity slightly around the pilot, greatly reducing the stress of high speed maneuvers. The new system was more reliant on newer and better supermagnets for the warping of gravity, and only required the pilot to wear a gel filled space suit, instead of a full chamber. It was also better at preventing G force stress on the pilot than the old system. Like the Tormented, the Vengeance was equipped with a Nano-repair system, seperate from the LCR system, which allowed the machine to rebuild itself in a matter of hours if damaged, as long as it was provided with sufficient raw materials. The Vengeance, unlike the Pulsar, had two 15mm Beam CIWS mounts on its head, though it hardly needed them.

Like the Pulsar, the Vengeance's primary defensive systems took the form of Positron Reflector Shields... fields of contained anti-matter particles that annihilated anything that crossed them, wether it be beam, munition, physical blade or charged particle. Just about the only thing that could pierce the reddish tinted fields was the pure heat energy of a FRALA laser. The Vengeance had a Positron shield in each palm, and a third shield mounted on the middle of the back, between the wings. The Vengeance carried a 57mm gatling beam cannon for its primary ranged weapon, and had the Pulsar's 25 meter heat whips in each forearm. However, its sword and claws had both been upgraded to Quantum Crystal weapons, being made of pure carbon crystal that was crystalline in structure all the way down to a subatomic level, with an edge that narrowed to the same. Though physical blades, they could shear through Phase Shift armor with ease, since that only guarded on a molecular level... two orders of magnitude larger than what QC operated at. The blades were resilient in the extreme, and more than capable of withstanding beam blasts and beam weaponry, or attacks from physical weapons and munitions.

The scary thing, Michael sometimes thought to himself, was that he KNEW that the Vengence, for all its high technology and power, STILL didn't actually represent the full potential of the technology Noah had already developed. Why his boss didn't give them Gundams with the REALLY good stuff escaped him, but he didn't question. It wasn't his place to ask that, merely to do. After he reviewed the Vengeance to make sure all its systems were good, Michael went on to the other systems he wasn't really in control of, but thought he should still check on because of how important they were. And so his steps took him through the partially completed superstructure of the Great Endeavor, first into the industrial production areas.

Here he viewed the major secret behind the Brotherhood's ability to construct their material without leaving paper or electronic trails. Mobile Suit components didn't just disappear from stockpiles and inventories without question, after all, or even the raw materials required to make those components. Below the catwalk on which Micahel stood were rows of huge steel vats, coated with a magnetically repellant paint. In these vats, which were hooked up into one of the four FPR systems that the Brotherhood used for power... enough to power an entire City of PLANTS... churned dark red nanocolonies that broke down whaever raw materials were tossed into them, using energy from the FPR's to convert it to other types of more useful material, in the process generating more of themselves. It didn't matter what you tossed in to start it off... put in enough power and you could eventually turn chalk dust into solid steel. And with four FPRs, they had power to spare. The stuff was called Red EDEN. EDEN meant Effect Distrubuted Elemental Nanomachines. It was the second of three types of EDEN Noah had designed and constructed.

Michael went to go overview the first type as well, which was the only other type he had access too. The first type was the most important type. It was the one they were going to use to do most of the work of bringing about the great golden age Noah promised. How exactly it was gonna do that, Michael did not know. He took it on faith though. The first type was called Green EDEN, EDEN this time meaning Effect Distributed Eugenic Nanomachines. Michael knew Eugenic had something to do with breeding programs or genetics, but he was hazy on most of the very technical stuff Noah did. Whatever it was, Green EDEN was stored in very tightly sealed, very well armored containers, so obviously it wasn't stuff you wanted lying around loose or active. And with that last check completed, Michael went to go grab some shuteye. Big days were coming, for Randolf first, but soon after they'd all have their own parts to play in setting the grand plan into motion.


	7. Clearing the Field part 1

Author Note: I'm sure some of you readers have been comparing the relative stats and strengths between the Gundams I have provided for our heroes, and the Gundam's alloted for our villians. Our villians seem kind of... lacking, you might say, in terms of raw fighting power. That is intentional. I'm trying something new with Gundam, you see. Most Gundam stories revolve around a smallish unit of good guys, heroes, usually with exceptional talents and machines that allow them to hold their own and even triumph against a far more numerically powerful foe. In fact, I think pretty much ALL Gundam stories are based around that model, even G-Gundam in a way. Thats how Chaotic Cosmos was too... even though they had Orb behind them (most of the time anyway), the Good Guys were definitely the underdogs, with the PLANTS and especially Blue Cosmos/The Isolation stacked against them. Even Frost was at root an outgrowth of the Blue Cosmos force.

Good Guys against monolithic Bad Guy forces... it gets done all the time, but its not very realistic. It makes for great movies and anime and stories... but there's not many real life examples to compare to. I'm going a different path with Eden Disaster. What about the Good Guys as the monolithic force, the side that has hundreds and thousands of pilots and machines and resources at their beck and call? Not to say that all the Good Guys are on the same side, or acting under the same plan of course... but this time Kira and the others aren't fighting AGAINST most of the rest of the world. They did that already. Now they're heroes, and the world knows it. Now its the Bad Guys who are the small force, battling against long odds. They can't fight directly against the main strength of the Good Guys, despite their superior in many cases technology. They have to use the situation to their advantage to accomplish their goal... whatever that happens to be (it sounds like genocide, I know. But really... wait for it. Re-read what Noah said a few times, if you like... there's a few deeper hints in what he said to Meer). I think its going to be fun, exploring a "monolithic Good vs underdog Evil" scenario... it reminds me a lot of the current War on Terror, actually. Not that I think the War on Terror is fun, far from it, just that the concept makes for a different twist for a story, especially a Gundam story.

I shouldn't say much more, wouldn't want to get too far ahead of myself (it's so frustrating, having the entire story written in your head, and being unable to put it out fast enough to talk about the cool parts when you want to). Just a little blurb from me, on how this story is going to be a bit... different. Oh yeah... does anyone get those review replies I send out to your reviews sometimes, using the little button in the top right corner of the reviews? The email account for my fanfiction stuff is now outdated by several iterations, so if you're sending stuff to it, I'm not getting it. I'll work on updating it eventually.

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"I don't know..." Lacus said, her voice somewhat muted by her fleecy pink scarf, her eyes and much of the rest of her face hidden behind light purple tinted snow goggles, as she peered down the ski slope from her position at the cusp. "It looks awfully steep."

"That's about as shallow as it's ever going to get, at least on the upper slopes." Dearka replied, shrugging and eyeing the easy slope with a glimmer of anticipation. "You should see the really advanced runs... its like going downhill on an express elevator, except with a lot more ice and sometimes trees or rocks in your way." He added, with definite relish in his voice. He was sitting down on the ground, cinching the final straps on his snowboarding boots down tightly, making sure his feet wouldn't come loose from the board at an inopportune moment. Such things tended to suck. Chalk that one down as a lesson you learned from experience, and only had to learn once.

Dearka wasn't nearly as tightly bundled up as Lacus, who was practically outfitted for an arctic expedition, with her hair braided and tucked under her collar, with a warm hat, goggles, scarf, full body snowsuit over several layers of clothes, thick mittens and very snug ski boots, all in her traditional pink and white. Dearka only wore gloves, ski pants, a jacket and wraparound sunglasses on a cord, with a headband for his ears and a pull up muffler if his mouth got cold. Truly, he didn't think it was all that cold, even at the top of the mountain, since it wasn't windy. No reason to get bundled up like you were expecting to have to survive without shelter for the next few days on the open mountain... he was surprised Lacus could move as fluidly as she did, with her only awkwardness being because she'd never set foot on a ski slope before in her life. Dearka finished up with his boots and scooted over on his hands and butt to help Mir with her own board. Unlike skiiers, snowboarders didn't have poles, and moving on a flat plane was real tough in the upright with both feet strapped down tight.

Dearka and Miriallia had been on ski trips several times in the years since the formation of the USN, though they were actually board trips, since neither of them had much interest in skiing. Miriallia had actually done a bit of snowboarding in her youth, before her family moved to Heliopolis, and she had gone back to it with a will once she had the chance. Dearka had never even touched a snowy mountain before his first time with Mir... snow skiing was definitely a terrestrial activity, as no one had the space to build anything similar in space, not even in the PLANTS. Just the thought of the absolute pain in the ass it would be creating snow and wintry temperatures in the PLANTS, especially in just a localized area, was enough to give Dearka a minor headache. Luckily Earth had plenty of space, and the weather came naturally in most places. Mir had turned up her nose and sniffed with disdain at skiiers, and so Dearka had by default become a boarder... he liked it so much he wasn't particularly interested in trying skiing now either. Don't give up something you enjoy unless you have to, was his motto.

Kira and Lacus on the other hand, had gone the traditional route and gotten skis and poles for their inaugeral ski trip. Since both of them had lived in space, whether on the Moon or in a space colony, for the greatest part of their lives, they also had never had any experience with snowy mountains or ski trips. Still, Dearka reflected, with Kira's physical abilities, he could probably jump straight into X-Games level Wintercross on a whim and do pretty all right, so simple downhill skiing shouldn't be even a hitch. Of course, there was Lacus to consider, who while no homebody wasn't precisely the epitome of Coordinated grace and strength. Her balance was pretty damned good though, from all the dancing lessons she'd had, so that would help her a lot, until her legs got tired. Another reason they had chosen skiing vs snowboarding was that while about equally easy to learn, you tended to fall down a lot more in snowboarding while learning, which wasn't something Lacus had particulary liked hearing about, and also tended to sap your strength pretty quickly.

"I think... I'll be avoiding those." Lacus said, as if that wasn't a no brainer. Lacus Clyne on a Black Diamond or Double Black Diamond run would be a bad day for everyone. The goal was to have fun, not try and become world class skiiers in only a few days. They'd have plenty of time to take things slowly. Probably a good thing that they did, because the last thing any of them needed was stress or frustration at this point. So far they'd avoided talking about any sensitive or spiky issues, though they all knew that the time would come for it... probably later some evening, after they'd had some time to unwind. Unwinding was a good thing. Dearka shot a glance towards Kira, standing on the other side of Lacus, and could not help but notice his friend's still somewhat stiff and awkward posture. Dearka winced, trying not to show it.

He thought back to a few hours earlier, when they'd been unpacking their bags after arriving at their midmountain rented lodge, which was on a mountain off to the side of the main ski routes, accessible from the town at the base of the mountain via snowmobiles or tracked snow-cat buses. You could also ski down to the town from the lodge, if you were willing to either brave the wild trees or following the winding cat track, thought getting back up usualy meant a long hike or hitching a ride. Still, you couldn't argue about the isolation... talk about having a huge section of landscape to themselves! Which was going to come in handy if there was to be any yelling, which Dearka was somewhat expecting there to be, especially given how Kira and Lacus were being so cautious around each other.

Well, to be more accurate, Kira was treating Lacus like she was a live hand grenade that might go off if he touched her wrong, or even breathed wrong and Lacus wasn't doing much to extend an olive branch, either verbally or mentally, as far as Dearka could see with his admittedly limited senses. Still, he'd been in the utter doghouse with Mir often enough to be able to recognize the signs in someone else. The plane ride from Orb to Swtizerland had actually been relatively pleasant and relaxing, as had the bus ride into the mountains. He'd begun to think that everything was going great. Until he saw Kira setting up a cot in the lodge's laundry room. "I thought you had a room already, Kira, with a nice comfortable bed?" Dearka had half joked.

"Lacus does have a nice room, with a comfortable bed, yes." Kira had replied, his voice carefully neutral, as he set up the cot and did not look up at Dearka. "Maybe, if all goes very well, I might get to share it with her in a few days. One can always hope for the best, even if it is unlikely."

"Oh SHIT! I'm sorry! This is cause of me and..." Dearka had tried to apologize. Kira had held up a hand to stop him, with a very slight smile on his face as he sat down on his cot.

"This is because I was hasty, and made a promise I could not end up keeping to Lacus. It has very little to do with you and Miriallia, or your reason for being here with us, trust me. Lacus could not have been more supportive of the idea of a joint group discussion with the four of us, especially in a relaxed environment."

"So... she's not giving you the cold... everything... because you promised her a romantic getaway with just the two of you for her birthday, and it ended up as a group sexual therapy session for the four of us?" Dearka had asked, disbelief in every word.

"Oh, no, that is accurate. But she doesn't blame you and Mir, and neither do I." Kira had shrugged heavily. "All the same, please don't make a big deal about this... I don't need any more help in making difficult situations for myself, trust me. Lacus has been most... detailed... in her explanation of that to me. It would probably be best for me if you and Mir just pretended that Lacus and I were sharing a room normally."

Dearka had made sure to warn Miriallia the first chance he got, and they had resolved to tiptoe around Lacus and Kira until there was at least one blow up... they both knew that until their friends got it out of their systems they could be volatile. Kira and Lacus were still human after all, and though neither Dearka nor Miriallia had yet seen Lacus actually go off on someone who didn't deserve it, neither wanted to be the first example. They HAD both seen Kira get snappish, and neither particularly wanted to deal with that either. They'd managed to go through the process of renting skis and boards and gear with no trouble, and the ride on the express gondola up to the top of the mountain had been amiable, so he was hoping that everything would stay happy until they got off the mountain. It helped that the mountain was reasonably crowded... Lacus would hardly want to cause a public scene, though her ski gear did definitely cut down on how many people recognized her, which she seemed to enjoy greatly.

"We'll meet up at the midmountain express lift?" Kira asked, pointing to the indicated spot on his map of the slopes. "I hear it's best to not go all the way down to the base of the mountain until you're planning to leave, because of the crowds and lines at the lifts."

"Yeah, thats true." Miriallia agreed. "Nothing worse than spending forty minutes going down the mountain only to have to wait for an hour to get a ride back to the top."

"Want Mir and I to wait at the lift for you, or go on up and wait at the top?" Dearka asked. He patted his pockets. "I've got a cell phone on me somewhere, and so does Mir, so if you can't find us just give a call and we can work out how to meet up."

"That sounds like a very good idea. I think I'm going to take quite a while, at least for the first few times." Lacus replied, her smile of relief mostly hidden by her scarf. "Go ahead and just have fun with the two of you if you want, while I figure out this whole skiing thing. You shouldn't have to wait just because of me."

"We might do a few runs, but this is a joint vacation after all." Miriallia decided, with a careful not-quite-glance at Kira. "I'm pretty rusty, so I'll probably drop back with you after a while Lacus, so Kira and Dearka can get a good workout wearing themselves out racing, or whatever other pointless competitions men get themselves into regularly."

"I'd like that." Lacus spoke up, with only a tiny hint of haste, just as Kira was opening his mouth to say something, which he instead swallowed silently. Clearly he had decided to let Lacus call the shots for the meanwhile, a very wise plan in Dearka's estimation. When in the doghouse, it is definitely the dog that waits on the pleasure of the master, not the other way around. Without further ado, now that the plan had been set, Dearka pushed himself to his feet, and extended a hand back to help Mir do the same thing. Once she was settled, Dearka half waddled, half hopped his way forward, building a modicrum of momentum he used to reach the actual slope, and from there it was all a function of gravity and balance. He heard the scrape of Mir's board hitting a few icy patches behind him as he started to bleed speed by angling his board into the first of many, many turns, but he resisted the urge to look back. Mir could handle herself just fine, and not watching where you were going was a good way to hurt yourself, or someone else.

Most beginner skiiers and boarders tended to travel down the mountain in big, sweeping curves, traversing nearly the entire width of whatever ski run they happened to be on, trading speed for control. Dearka opted for a quicker route, a much narrower "S", because he wasn't a novice and the speed didn't bother him, and also because it was actually easier on your legs and body if you didn't turn as often or as hard. Control took effort when going downhill, and the more control over your speed and direction you wanted to exert, the more energy it would cost you. Of course, going faster, thus inherently less in control, could backfire with more incidences of falls, and more painful falls at that, but packed and sloped snow actually wasn't that damaging a surface to fall upon, especially with all the padding your snow gear provided. More worrisome was collisions with other objects or people, but unless you were totally reckless or out of control, it wasn't difficult to keep yourself away from obstacles or other people.

The run branched up ahead, and Dearka turned his board sideways hard in a braking maneuver, leaning back towards the slope behind him to dig the edge of the board into the snow to provide even more resistance to forward motion, bringing him and his board to a halt in a matter of feet, though he'd been going faster than most people could run. Standing up on a snowboard while on a slope without moving was almost impossible, so he sat down and then rolled over onto his knees, so that he could look back up slope. Miriallia was about three quarters of the way to him, just standing up from a brief fall... nothing worse than just sitting down backwards to stop herself from going too fast when she hit another patch of icy snow... while he could just make out Kira and Lacus up near the top quarter of the run, going down in very wide, slow turns, with Lacus's skis formed into the cone shape that provided the maximum amount of speed control for beginners. Still, from what little he could see, both she and Kira seemed to be enjoying themselves.

"Have yourself a little tumble?" Dearka asked, grinning as Miriallia slid to a stop beside him, sitting down again to keep her balance. "Sorry I missed it."

Miriallia punched him lightly on the arm as she caught her breath... boarding was always slightly more work than she remembered from last time, though while she was moving she hardly noticed because of the excitement. "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get all sorts of chances at watching me fall on my ass and maybe even my face, today. Its what usually happens on the first day. At least to most of us."

"I fall sometimes!" Dearka protested, well able to remember several spectacular incidences.

"And I treasure every one of them, after I make sure you haven't crippled your stupid self. But those usually come about because you were trying to do something you shouldn't have, not just on easy downhills." Miriallia shrugged. She'd long gotten over the fact the Dearka was just going to be better at most physical activities than she was. She lay flat on her back and tilted her head to look up slope. Hardly the best vantage point, but it felt good. "It's weird... she doesn't really act angry at him, watching them right now. Hell, I'd say they were both having a ball, learning as they go."

"There's always the cot to consider though. I'm sure glad I don't have any mental powers... the fireworks show would probably make the New Year's celebrations look tame." Dearka pointed out. He shrugged as well. "Well, he's asked us not to make a big deal about it. Couples fight... God knows we do, probably much more often than the two of them... they'll get over it in a day or two. They're both entirely too reasonable people to stay pissed with each other long." Dearka flipped around to his back, and then pushed himself to his feet. "Let's give them as much privacy as possible though. Just to be on the safe side. You wanna lead this time? I'll make sure to get the blooper camera out."

"I think you'd better get downhill before I get up, because I'll give you a blooper to take pictures of otherwise!"

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"You're doing just fine!" Kira called, watching Lacus negotiate a steeper section of the slope, still part of the beginner trail, but more advanced than anything else she'd tried so far. Kira himself had had almost no problems, his body and balance adjusting themselves almost without thought, in a fashion he was almost used to by now, though he did feel tremendously self conscious. Normally it was something Lacus just laughed at and shook her head, or even applauded happily... but right now he REALLY wished he could just totally forget how to be good at stuff the first time, because he could feel Lacus getting slightly frustrated with how natural and easy he was making it look, when she was trying so hard for so little progress.

Even as he spoke, he watched her overcorrect, trying too hard to slow down as her tips went a bit too far down slope, and then she hit a patch of ice. Her skis scraped three feet down slope without warning, and it proved too much for her balance. Arms windmilling, poles dangling loosely from the wrist straps, Lacus almost managed to fall over backwards, upslope, but just before she could direct herself in that direction her balance totally failed and she went over sideways, landing on her left side and sliding several feet down the slope, headfirst. The slope wasn't very steep, and she had been moving at barely a crawl, so the fall wasn't particularly hard, but Kira winced all the same. It had been just about the farthest thing from graceful, and he himself had gone down that portion of slope like it was a walk down a sunny sidewalk just seconds before.

Kira started sidestepping up the slope towards Lacus, as she slowly gathered herself up into a sitting position, brushing white powder from her head and face and front in clouds. She was still sitting by the time Kira had got there, and he was absolutely dreading the look he was expecting to see on her face... girls in general had a way of looking both embarassed and furious that quite disarmed him, and Lacus was the worst, of course. He didn't get the look from her very often, but he was always at a loss when he did, helpless to do anything but wait for her to tell him what he should do to make things better. To his great surprise though, Lacus was actually giggling a little, not embarassed or angry at all. "Wow... that must have looked really graceless!" She commented, smiling brightly at him. "I haven't fallen that bad since I first started learning to perform on stage."

"Um... yeah." Kira tenatively agreed, wondering if this was some sort of trap. Lacus didn't usually do things like that, but she had been REALLY upset about the vacation thing, so he wasn't going to put uncharacteristic behavior totally past her.

"Oh come on, Kira. You can laugh a little, have some fun with it... I'm not going to tear your face off just because you make it look so easy!" Lacus reminded him. She sighed heavily... men, even Kira... perhaps especially Kira... could be so dense and timid at times. "You don't get mad at me because you give tone deafness a bad name when you try to sing. Don't think I don't know that you get a little bothered by the fact that you sound like a dog stuffed in a heavy sack whenever you try and do more than humm a tune."

"Ok. So that was just about the least graceful thing I have ever seen you do." Kira allowed a small smile to creep across his face, mostly hidden by his muffler. "There's five year olds on the mountain who fall like you do. It's a good thing nobody recognizes you, because otherwise I'm sure there'd be a Lacus Clyne's Funniest Falls video on the net before the end of the day, if this is any indication."

"Thats more like the Kira I know. You just better watch it though... you'll fall sometime, and I'm gonna be there to smile at it." Lacus accepted Kira's hand up. "I'll get better... its not like I'm not having fun or anything. This isn't going to sound good, but if Miriallia can do it, there should be no reason why I can't."

"You're right. That doesn't sound good." Kira agreed. "Its a good attitude to achieve with though." Kira looked downslope. Miriallia and Dearka were well out of sight, perhaps even already down at the lift. He and Lacus were far from alone on the slopes... skiiers and boarders would come by every few seconds in ones or twos or sometimes bigger groups, but since he and Lacus were standing still, everyone else steered well clear of them for fear of hitting them. There was certainly no one around who was listening to them, or paying them more than the barest bit of attention. Kira took a moment to just enjoy the feeling of being free. Free of responsibility, free of worries... well, mostly... and free of crowds. He wasn't afraid of socializing with people, far from it, but still, he could not deny that he was most comfortable with just a few, close friends, rather than at a big gathering. He hadn't had time really alone with Lacus in more than a year.

"It is a nice, refreshing feeling, isn't it?" Lacus commented, sharing in his unguarded line of thought. "Its too bad its just temporary, while Dearka and Mir are around the corner and out of sight, but its better than nothing."

"Lacus..."

"Don't start now, Kira. We'll talk tonight, or maybe tomorrow, and get things all straightened out. I know why you did what you did, and I approve, of your intentions if not everything else. I even told you to help them, so I am also partly responsible. You know better now, and thankfully you almost never make the same mistake twice. But thats a little too heavy of a conversation for a ski slope, don't you think?"

"Well... yeah, probably. I just don't like it when you're mad at me."

"I don't particularly like being mad at you either. But some things require it." Lacus ended the line of converstion by taking a firmer grip on her poles again. "Okay. So now that I've fallen once, I'm not feeling nearly so timid... it was barely worse than falling onto an old couch. You go ahead and lead the way... and you could at least PRETEND to wobble when you hit some ice... and I'll follow you again. Lets try not to fall TOO far behind Dearka and Mir. This IS a joint vacation after all."

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"So... now that it's just us girls... lets be frank with each other." Miriallia prompted, warming her hands around a cup of hot chocolate as she sat down across the table from Lacus. They'd both put a couple of runs under their belts and had decided to come in to the mountaintop lodge for a short break, to get something to drink and to rest their somewhat aching leg and back muscles. It wasn't anything too bad... just the aches and pains of a body getting used to exertions it hadn't done in a while, or ever before in Lacus's case... but it was much preferrable to take a break early and rest rather than risk stressing a muscle or tendon at some later time. Besides, Mir had been searching for a way to get some time with just her and Lacus to talk, without the worry of having to be tactful for the sake of the men. Not being nearly as sore or tired as Mir or Lacus, Dearka and Kira had gone off on a few more runs, before they were due to meet up for lunch.

"I've told Kira that we're going to straighten things out tonight or tomorrow..." Lacus began.

"Thats nice. I'm not Kira." Mir interrupted, taking a sip of her coco. "What you and Kira do is up to you, I'm just concerned that what's between you and Kira is because of me, and THAT isn't something I'm going to just let sit."

"Its not because of you." Lacus replied, frowning.

"Really? I could have sworn it was me who asked you for help, which then prompted you ask Kira to talk to Dearka, which then brings us, through several steps, to where we sit right now, with me feeling TOTALLY awkward about intruding on your and Kira's special time together for your birthday. Obviously it wasn't something you were planning for either, given... well, lets just say that Kira has had a higher place in your admiration than he does currently."

"Yes, I am mad at him. This WAS supposed to be just for me and him, and suddenly, a day before we go, finding out that it ISN'T, was not something that pleased me, regardless of WHY." Lacus answered. "However, I don't blame you for it. You and Dearka didn't ask to be here... you came because Kira extended the invitation, and you felt it was a good idea, not knowing that he hadn't talked to me about it yet. It was a stupid and thoughtless thing for him to do, to all of us, but he was just trying to help. Sometimes he's better at it than others. To be honest, I really can't stay mad at him. Its frustrating, and disappointing... but really, its probably for the best that it works out like this. You agree?"

"Sort of. If I was in your shoes, and Dearka had suddenly and without asking me invited two people, even close friends, along on what was basically supposed to be a second honeymoon trip, NO MATTER his line of reasoning, he wouldn't be able to look me in the eye for weeks. And he could FORGET any sort of congenial bedtime habits. In short, I'd be LIVID, and I've never had much trouble staying mad at Dearka. Maybe he's just more problematic than Kira, or maybe I'm less forgiving than you... scratch that... I AM less forgiving than you, and Dearka transgresses more often... but yeah, I'd totally understand if you wanted me and Dearka to get our own place down in town tonight, you know? Thats what I would want, no offense."

"Well, it isn't what I want. I've already given Kira a hauling over the verbal coals, and yes, he won't get much in the way of bedtime fun from me until I decide that he's truly sorry enough... but between us, thats as far as things go. Theres so many worse things in life to worry about than a single vacation and what happens with it. Really, its a small thing to me. If he does it again, he'll be sleeping outside, in a tent, for a month... but everyone makes mistakes... and at least his are because of good intentions."

"Guys don't deserve girls like you, Lacus." Miriallia rolled her eyes.

"I think I got pretty lucky with Kira, for that matter, despite the few rough spots."

"Yeah. You two are so ideal for each other its downright sickening at times. I WISH Dearka would pick up some habits from Kira. Like, I dunno, mental organization, lack of interest in other girls, spontaneous acts of romance with no overt sexual motives behind them... small things..."

"I could trade you for some of those, I think. Idyllic is something you say only of other people's lives, because you don't see everything. For instance, Kira doesn't sleep like normal people do. He hardly ever sleeps at all! It is intensely annoying! He's always up and about, and being able to feel his emotions makes it twenty times worse for me... I can't get a moments rest unless he really tries to dampen himself down... and then I feel like he's missing, which gives me anxiety. Not to mention the food! Oh God, the food... just look at lunch... its always so embarassing, eating in public with him."

"I notice you don't complain about the rampant sex drive." Miriallia noted slyly. She watched a faint blush touch Lacus's cheeks. "Times were, it used to be ALL you'd complain about. Or at least pretend to complain about, right? I mean, how bad could it really be? An inexhaustible lover, entirely devoted to pleasuring you? Where's the downside now?"

"Try it sometime, and you'll see." Lacus retorted, shaking her head in an exasperated memory. "I can tell you though, its really another one of those things that looks so much better when its happening to someone else. Have you ever devoted an entire day to just you and Dearka and... well, you know what I'm saying?"

"No, I don't. Please speak clearly. And in great, embarassing detail." Miriallia smiled mischeviously at her friend's discomfort. "Every living animal has sex, Lacus, its nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed of anything." Lacus refuted. "But as I was saying, and I'm sure you have... imagine that. Its a good memory, right? You've probably never been so worn out, in a good way? Now imagine doing that every day for a week, with no rest stops. Good exhaustion only stretches so far, before it becomes real exhaustion, and then even pain. Sex is supposed to be the ultimate act of love, between humans, or so I believe... with Kira and me, its not always something he can help, regardless of what we both want... and that is really a tragedy, in my opinion... turning sex into just a meaningless physical act. Maybe I'm spolied with a ideally romantic relationship, but I've never thought of having sex just because it makes my body feel good... it has to have some meaning to it, for me to want to. Sadly, I don't always get my way... and Kira knows that, and it really eats at him, even though he can't help it."

"This is kind of off topic... but once again... I am REALLY, TOTALLY, UNABASHEDLY happy that Dearka and I aren't Newtypes. It makes everything so much more complex! It can't be worth it!" Miriallia shook her head vehemently. "I mean, sometimes I just want to get screwed... don't care why, don't really want anything attached to it... I just want that good feeling that comes from it, and from afterward. Same goes triple for Dearka, and for most men, at least from what I hear. Your problem is totally alien to me, Lacus."

"So are some of yours to me. Kira likes other girls. He has no trouble admiring beauty in women, or even in being attracted to some. But its nothing serious. I'm sure its the same way with Dearka... he just doesn't strike me as the sort of person who would do that sort of thing, seriously."

"Yes, well, you see, YOU have total surety with Kira, because you can FEEL his emotions! I don't get easy-mode like that! And Dearka, despite your opinion, is very MUCH the sort of person who might, perhaps unintentionally, cheat on me with another girl. He'd feel terrible afterwards, but when he gets drunk, well, he's not always in control of what he does! And he's GOOD at hitting on women! It would NOT take much for him to make a mistake!"

"You give him too little credit. You're the one who is glad she can't feel his emotions all the time."

"You give him too much! I don't have to feel his emotions to see his wandering eyes! I know damn well when he's checking some waitress out... its the same way he looks at me, right before bed!"

"We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one."

"Okay, okay... tangent over. Back to the original topic... you're not taking it out on Kira because he invited Dearka and I along?"

"Oh, I am indeed taking it out on Kira, because it IS his fault. But me being angry at Kira does not preclude me being happy that you and Dearka can be here, so we can address our mutual problems and come out the better overall for it. To be honest, I'm glad I have someone to talk to who really UNDERSTANDS what I'm going through... the doctors are very precise and technical, but they aren't my friends, and I can't really open up to them, like I could to you. Cagalli and Athrun really don't know what to say, and they try and stay out of it as much as possible. The same for Ysak and Katie. You may be surprised to hear this, but really, you and Dearka are the most like me and Kira, of the eight of us."

"Hadn't really thought of it like that... but I guess I see what you mean. Though, not to put too fine a point on it, I'm glad I'm not you, all things considered."

"One down. Several hundred million to go. Small victories." Lacus smiled for a moment. "Stay with us, Mir. This is a unique opportunity for the four of us, and we shouldn't waste it. We've all hashed this and other problems over with our partners a hundred times already... seperating would just give us more opportunity to do that, and I'm sick of it."

"Okay, put like that, I don't have a problem with it. Though if you're going to yell at him, please give me some warning, so I can go out to admire the stars or something for an hour or so."

"If such a rare thing were to occur, you and Dearka would have plenty of warning. If you start feeling a migraine come on for no reason, I'd start running if I was you."

"I'll be sure to. Though feel free to sharpen your claws on Dearka, if need be. A little extra tongue lashing won't hurt him."

"Its a little more than that, when it comes from me..."

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"So, are they talking about us?" Dearka asked Kira, as they slogged their way across the top of the mountain towards some of the more advanced runs. They'd dropped the girls off at the lodge for drinks and rest, but Dearka had the sneaking suspicion that Miriallia would put to good use the time alone with Lacus to try and get some earl problem solving done. Or at least find out what was really going on between Lacus and Kira, and what she and Dearka needed to do with regards to it. Sometimes her meddling streak really ticked him off... but at times he was damned grateful she wouldn't let things rest, no matter how much other people wanted them to.

"How should I know?" Kira replied, shurgging his shoulders as he poled himself along.

"What the hell do you mean, how should you know!? Durh!" Dearka tapped the side of his head meaningfully.

"It doesn't work like that." Kira sighed. "Its not like we're constantly on a speakerphone with each other, with every thought and emotion being broadcast openly. With Lacus, its not even really words, though we can extrapolate pretty good, from long experience. If we aren't trying to talk to each other, all I really get is a general sense of how she's feeling. And thats only because she's projecting it at me... I'm a Latent... I can't actually use any abilities of my own that aren't passive. I can "recieve" easily... but I can't "send" at all, by my own power anyway."

"Sure, dude, whatever... totally speaking out of my depth. A simple... "beats me" would have sufficed." Dearka bemoaned, rolling his eyes. "Given how often Mir and I can talk to each other while having two entirely different conversations with the same words, I'd not be surprised if Lacus could talk about you without you knowing it. Girls are tricky like that."

"Does it really matter if they're talking about us?" Kira asked, shrugging again.

"You're surprisingly unconcerned for a guy who's currently being forced to sleep on a cot in the laundry room. If I was you, I'd be on tenterhooks, trying to eke out every last scrap of information on what I could do to put things right between me and my lover." Dearka pointed out, as they reached the top of a Black Diamond class run. It was a narrow, extremely steep valley, with several large bumps and the evil sheen of ice down most of its length. "Suicide Chute. Sounds like our sort of place." Dearka commented, reading the sign at the top. "You just seem... too passive about it all. Do you even talk back when she yells at you?"

"Not usually, because if Lacus is yelling at me, its because I've done something legitimately wrong, and I deserve to be yelled at for it. She's not easy to rile that badly, you know." Kira replied. He studied the chute carefully. He disliked the look of all that ice, which would make it almost impossible to turn or brake properly. "Lacus is not an easy person to argue with."

"Women in general are not easy to argue with! They have this way of making you feel innately wrong, even when you're totally right! Still... you're telling me that you didn't even protest her telling you to get a cot out!?" Dearka just shook his head in wonder. "Mir dreams about being able to walk all over me with such impunity!"

"Lacus doesn't walk all over me. I get my way just as often as her, sometimes more often. So often, in fact, that I really don't think it remiss of me to let her have her way when she's really fired up about something. Especially when I make her mad."

"What about when she makes YOU mad? Would you tell her to go get a cot!?"

"Even if I were enraged, I'd not do something like that. It's a punishment for me no matter WHO is in the cot, as long as we're seperated!"

"That is a good point... but really... don't YOU ever get mad at her? Want her to just shut up, leave you alone and go away for a while? To butt out of your life, just for a few hours? You never feel like she's smothering you with concern? Like she's meddling with things that really aren't entirely her business?"

"Uhm. Not really. Lacus is very good about not intruding on me when I want to be left alone for one reason or another. I mean, its the same for me with her, usually... I can just feel when she would rather not talk about something, or when it might be a good idea for me to go outside for a while. Besides... what business of mine ISN'T Lacus's business too?"

"I should remember who I'm talking to, got it."

"What's that mean?"

"It means... as far as the average woman is concerned... you're a goddamn angel, Kira. You are the ideal man, for most women. Just like Lacus is pretty much the ideal woman for most men... at least, in a purely domestic sense. We'll leave the politics out of it for the sake of discussion, bcause otherwise she's frightening, utterly. She's sweet, beautiful, attentive, endlessly loving and understanding, forgives easily, puts out when you need some relaxing sex... whats NOT to like?"

"Thats not a very nice way of saying that." Kira noted, with a deep frown.

"Probably true. But I'm right, aren't I!? I mean, its fucking wonderful, the celestial twist of fate that let you, the basically ideally innocent romantic guy, hook up with the basically ideally innocent romantic girl. You're so perfect for each other its like you were designed that way! Every couple should dream to have the sort of relationship you and Lacus have... not perfect perhaps, but its a damn sight better than most people get! Mir and I fight every goddamn week... sometimes more often! And thats full out yelling at each other, accusations, tears even... not reasoned debate. We have problems, we blow up at each other, we make up, make out and get on with things... its normal, or relatively so for people our age! I'm trying my best... but I'm having trouble connecting with you, man! We both are having the same issue in our relationships... but finding a common viewpoint is a lot harder than I thought it'd be!"

"Yeah... I get that a lot, actually, if not in so many words." Kira sighed in a sad tone, somewhat taking Dearka aback. "Connecting with people, I mean. I have my friends... you, Athrun, Ysak, Katie, Mir and many others... but I haven't gotten much closer to any of you since the end of the Isolation. If anything, I've drifted farther apart, from pretty much everyone but Lacus. I just don't seem to have much in common with anyone anymore! Ysak doesn't have any trouble socializing with people, in his own way... but I find it hard and awkward, even with Athrun sometimes! We're just so different now! I'm not like other people... and it shows, though most don't really realize it unless I remind them. This is going to sound really terrible, especially coming from me, but I feel like a man living with a tribe of apes... we're similar in so many ways... but I can do so much more than other people can that..."

"Wow. That was the most elitist, racist comment I've heard in years. Thats awesome, coming from you, with your famous quote of "people aren't defined by their abilities alone" and all!" Dearka chuckled, though it caught in his throat when he saw the truly stricken expression on Kira's face. "Don't take it hard, man, I was just poking fun at you."

"Maybe so, but you hit the nail right on the head. I really believed what I said then. I still want to, with regards to most people. But I'm no longer sure it applies to me, and that really worries me, Dearka. I've done so many things in recent years that NOBODY else can do, or would even be able to attempt, that I really wonder sometimes... WHY? Why me? Or more accurately... What is me? Why can I do these things that I can do? I'm a Coordinator... an Ultimate Coordinator, though I despise that term with every fiber in my being... and I was, to put it harshly, designed for a purpose. My father went far out of his way to make me an Ultimate Coordinator... but I still don't know why, or even how. There's a lot more to it than just an artifical womb, I know that... but what? And WHY?"

"This is fucking wonderful." Dearka deadpanned. "You're having a identity crisis. Lacus and I are having fertility problems. Miriallia is all over my case about alcohol and seems to be thinking about putting some distance in our relationship for a while, maybe. Aren't the four of us just wonderfully perfect? What happened to us, the conquering heroes who defeated the evil Isolation and defeated Frost? We're the goddamn liberators of Orb... several times over! We saved the fucking world! Twice! And yet we're all so fucked up its not even funny! The world sure does have a fucking cruel sense of humor, doesn't it!?" Dearka could not stop himself from laughing, though he really wasn't amused. "I feel better though... you and I do have some stuff in common, Kira. We've both been so utterly fucked by fate that the only reason we have a chance at all is because of two very special young women."

"You have a point." Kira allowed, smiling grimly. "I would have expected Athrun and Ysak to be the maladjusted ones, but I can't deny you have a point."

"Oh, I could go for hours about Athrun and Ysak... just look at the women in THEIR lives if you want true examples of maladjustment, no offense to Cagalli... but yeah, sometimes they can't even hold a candle to us. They're mundane, even if they wouldn't believe it themselves." Dearka bent down and strapped his foot in again. "Well, with that off our chests, lets get on with doing what the girls are expecting us to do while they plot against us behind our backs."

"And what is that?"

"Attempt to kill ourselves in a stupidly macho, high speed, barely controlled manner. See you at the bottom of the chute... hopefully."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Any outside observer would not have seen anything particularly amiss, were they even close enough to be within visual range of the disguised drop pods. From farther away, much less as far as the few orbital observation stations run by the USN or the major terrestrial powers, there was absolutely no chance of discovery. The pods looked like just any other unremarkable bit of space junk, consigned to the great debris belt around Earth that had resulted from decades of space travel and construction, not to mention space battles and accidents. There were four of them... three personnel pods and one larger pod that contained the true power of the initial strike force, the Haunted and two Zealot supporters. Cloaked in mirage colloid fields, and shrouded by holographic projectors beneath that, the only thing that might have possibly been noticed was the slightly unnatural sudden degeneration of their orbital pathway. Even that though, was unlikely, as hundreds of items fell from the junkbelt every day. With the sensor signatures reduced by the mirage colloid fields, the four pods appeared no larger than soda cans on sensor sweeps, and thus they were ignored.

Aireg Randolf, ex-Commander in ZAFT, a former contemporary of such famous figures as Andrew Waltfeld and other first line terrestrial officers, went about his final readiness checks, even as the drop operation itself commenced automatically. He'd been allowed to select the target himself, somewhat as an honor from his boss, but also because the initial target wasn't actually important, in the terms of a specific location. Any semi-isolated, easily defended, yet still public location would do fine. He'd chosen a resort town in the mountains of Switzerland, in the FNE. The mountain valley it was situated in had caught his eye, being almost totally inaccessible to standard ground response forces, and difficult to attack from the air as well due to the surrounding mountain peaks, any sort of enemy response would be awkward and ineffective.

The ground was also well suited for the peculiar strengths of the Haunted and Randolf themselves, with the valley being just shy of the optimal size for a night's operation of his Mist weapon. He'd always had a talent for ambushes and surprise attacks, and now he could quite literally create his own cloud and fog cover as needed. There were no major FNE or USN bases within several hours flight of the area as well, which would give his forces plenty of time to commence operations, make their public demands, dig in, and prosecute their mission satisfactorily. There was also the possibility of netting a few major public or political figures, since several mountainside lodges in the area were known to be part time residences or time shares for all sorts of wealthy and influential people. That would be a nice bonus, but the people of the resort town itself would be more than sufficient for the initial strike parameters.

Randolf noticed an object lying on the cold metal floor of the pod-hanger that contained the Haunted, and he bent over to pick it up, grunting as he recognized it, despite the extremely dim lighting. The lights were barely on at all, just enough to dispel total darkness... most people would still have been stumbling about, waving their hands in front of them to avoid bumping into things only half seen. To Randolf, with his light sensitive eyes, a malady suffered because of his injuries in that infamous attack that had so ruined his life and destroyed the foundations of his moral certainties, nearly seven years ago, it was the perfect amount of illumination, just bright enough to see by without his polarized glasses, not bright enough to cause even the slightest flash of pain. He was a creature of deep shadows now... both in habit and morals.

The item he'd picked up was a book, relatively cheaply made, bound with cloned leather stained a dark black, without a title on front, back or spine. The only marking that identified the book at all was an emblem engraved with faux gold into the front cover, depicting a single wide open eye, with beams of light radiating from it, while great angel wings grew from either corner of the eye. A winged eye of knowledge, the symbol of the Brotherhood of Man, which was both an activist organization and a fringe religion. Randolf grinned darkly for a moment... yes they were activists indeed... in the mold of the ecological and religious activists that had shot and poisoned and blown up and burned down anything that displeased their ethos for centuries now. He was a senior member of this terror group, but he was not particularly enamoured of the religious side of it. He'd read the Testament, of course, which was what the book someone, likely a mechanic, had dropped on the floor of the pod-hanger contained... but he hadn't been drawn into it like some were.

The religion preached about the inherent equality of all beings, and promised a soon to come golden age where everything would be truely equal, in mind, body and spirit. The people who brought about this golden age would ascend to become saints and angels in the new order of things, their names remembered for all time. It was a very stark religion, full of worlds being reborn in fire and destruction, of wrongs being righted, of long awaited justice and the uplifting of the worthy into an heavenly state. It was about creating a paradise from the ashes of wickedness and strife. It preached an urgent self renewal, a recreation of your entire being, mind and soul, before the Great Event that would occur to evolve their body's similarly. It was heady stuff at times, Randolf had to admit... who didn't want to be told that they would be reborn as a magnificent angel, able to live a life of heaven on Earth, in a paradise they had created for themselves? This was no afterlife reward, no thousand virgins in heaven... this was a real, tangible reward, being offered in THIS lifetime, within years even!

The Prophet... Randolf's Boss... Noah Borander, whatever you wished to call him, was a living, breathing example of the ascended state to which the worthy amongst humanity would soon rise. Or so the Testament said, though Randolf had his misgivings... the Boss was something special, that was beyond a doubt. But an ascended Angel? That was a bit of an ego trip, Randolf thought. He kept his opinions to himself though... many of the rank and file members of the Brotherhood were quite fanatical in their belief, and they took a dim view of "blasphemy" or any slight upon the object of their devotion, the Prophet. Also troubling to Randolf was just how Noah was going to grant "ascension" to his followers, much less the rest of the world. The Boss was completely sure he could do it... but the how... he would not explain. As far as Randolf could see, despite his unearthly physical beauty and incredible intelligence, and the aura of his charisma, Noah was still just a sixteen year old Coordinator, at heart like any other. Well, maybe not like any other, but Randolf had known at least one other Coordinator like Noah before, so he was far from unique. The thought drew a mighty frown across his face as he once more confronted the motivating force behind his downfall.

His mind went involuntarily back to the Saharan Desert, south of Gibralter, during the initial stages of the Second Valentine War. He'd been in command of the task force designated to re-take ZAFT's primary Mediterranean base from the Earth Alliance, and they had accomplished that goal easily and without suffering more than minor damage. The Alliance forces had scattered in large numbers into the surrounding deserts, and the most difficult part of the whole operation had been in hunting down the fleeing bands before they could reform into a more cohesive whole, which might have become a guerilla force, much like the one that caused so much trouble for Andrew Waltfeld during the First War. Excaberating the difficulty of the task was the fact that their comm system had been almost entirely befuddled by solar flares and other natural atmospheric phenomenon during that time, which made coordinating pursuit forces hellish to say the least. He'd had to rely heavily on scout teams going out on patrols and using line of sight laser comms to report back in.

It was the report... or rather, the lack of the usually timely report from one such scout team that had first started Randolf down the path to becoming the man he was today. The scout team had happened upon a column of retreating armored vehicles and personnel carriers and since they were unable to call for backup the team leader, a young man named Shinn Asuka, had elected to instead attack the column himself, using just his Bucue's and Efreet. Four Bucue's and the then state of the art Efreet should have been more than enough to deal with a single lousy armored column of tanks and APC's, and would have been too... if not for the arrival and intervention of the Clyne Faction Gundams, who were in the area while heading to the buried location of the Archangel, though of course no one else had known that at the time. After defeating the scout unit handily, though mysteriously leaving the pilots totally unharmed, the Clyne Faction had massacred most of the remaining Alliance soldiers and moved on.

Once aware of the attack, Randolf had been quick to move the bulk of his forces out to intercept them, since five Gundams were too dangerous a target to let alone for long. Not to mention the possibility of being able to capture one or more of the suits, which would go a long way towards reviving ZAFT's morale, which had been in the pits ever since the heavy casualties at Washington D.C., said to be due to the intervention of three new Alliance Gundams. ZAFT had had no Gundams at the time, though it had been building one, though Randolf had only found that out much later on. Randolf had thought that fifty mobile suits, including five of the mirage colloid cloaked Efreet scouts and five of the simian shaped heavy assault Grendels would have been enough to at least make a pitched battle of things, if not prove totally overwhelming.

He'd never really gotten the chance to find out. He'd been just about to engage the Clyne Faction machines when he was forestalled by a totally unexpected event. Lacus Clyne herself had come out to talk to them, though she'd been transported in one of the enemy Gundams at the time, which Randolf had found surpassingly odd. Everyone knew that Lacus Clyne hated mobile suits, hated all war machines, with a great passion. She wouldn't voluntarily ride in anything that was armed or armored in any way... it was against everything she stood for. Randolf had been an acquiantance, a friend even, of Siegel Clyne, her father and though he'd never been all that close to Siegel, he had come around for drinks and discussion every so often, especially after the premature death of Siegel's wife. Randolf's frown deepened considerably... Elaine Clyne was another subject that nursed bitter feelings within his heart, but it wasn't something relevant right now. He'd watched Lacus grow up, into the beautiful, intelligent, charismatic girl that so captivated the PLANTS with her voice and her sincere wishes for a better life for everyone, and he had thus been able to instantly recognie the person who'd appeared on his comm screen that infamous day.

As strange as seeing Lacus Clyne in a mobile suit had been, Randolf had been willing to make allowances... this was LACUS CLYNE, how could he not be willing to at least let her explain herself? He doubted that his soldiers would open fire on her on an unprovoked order anyway, disregarding even the fact that she was in a Gundam that had single handedly wiped out a scout team without much effort. He'd opened a comm line with her, but he'd been quite disturbed by the evasiveness of her answers to his perfectly reasonable questions. Simple things anyone would have been able to answer directly... such as "which side are you on?", "why did you attack my men?" and "why are you here?". She had talked quite a bit, and it was standard Lacus Clyne talk... it was reasonable, calm and very peaceful sounding. But on a potential battlefield, it was distinctly lacking in something important... real substance. He'd confronted her about this, implying that during her months out of the public view, she might have been unknowingly influenced or even overtly coerced by her companions... Lacus was a sixteen year old girl, and a total pacifist after all, threatening her would not be difficult.

She'd become very indignant and defensive at that point, which he'd again found odd. The Lacus Clyne he knew never got flustered or impatient with people, no matter how unreasonable or even unpleasant they were being. She had nerves of pure steel, the sort that would let her stare down a Mobile Suit successfully if she ever managed to cross paths with one walk walking down a street. Still, he'd been willing to let it go... she had agreed to his terms after all, effectively surrendering herself and her companions into the custody of his command. If only it had been sincere. Randolf clenched his fists and gritted his teeth in a rage that had never once diminished since that day. He could still play the events back through his mind with crystal clear clarity. Lacus had been squirming around in the cramped cockpit she was in... the Gundam was obviously a single pilot machine, and with two people inside it was quite cramped. A very well thought out and convincing touch, though he was sometimes stumped to think of why she needed to perpetuate the ruse so fully, given the backup she had waiting to spring upon Randolf's forces.

She'd reached out and brushed a control switch with one hand as she started unbuckling herself. Just barely flicked it, really. If he hadn't been watching with suspicion, he'd never have noticed it. Even then, it might have been totally innocuous... the chance hit of hand on the confines of a cramped space. Might have been. Could have been. SHOULD have been. But then the three Alliance Gundams that had devastated the ZAFT forces at Washington D.C. had appeared, falling out of the sky in flanking positions, weapons already firing. Half of his command, including his best friend and second in command Mike Juarez were murdered before they even knew what hit them. Speaking from the viewpoint of a bloodless, cold tactician, Randolf had to admire the trap. He'd never seen it coming. Who would have, with Lacus Clyne herself acting as willing bait? Who would expect Lacus Clyne to turn traitor like that, even under threat of death or dismemberment? The bottom had dropped out of his world at that moment... he'd not realized until then just how much Lacus Clyne had signified to him as a representation of everything ZAFT was fighting for.

He'd tried to kill her, but her Gundam Pilot... Kira Yamato, a name that burned with blood red flames in Randolf's mind... had quickly gotten her to safety. She'd continued the ruse even then, in case there were any survivors perhaps, pleading her innocence and ignorance incessantly, despite the evidence all around her. Randolf himself had been easily, even casually struck down by one of the Alliance Gundams and everything had disappeared in searing flames and unbearably bright light... the physical pain still inconsequential to the emotional pain of being betrayed by the daughter of his friend, a false angel of peace that was poisoning the very heart of ZAFT and the PLANTS from within! He'd thought that he was dead. By all rights he should have been, if not for the machinations of the Boss, who had ordered Jean Dylan to search the remnants of the battlefield for any scraps of intelligence on the Alliance Gundams. Dylan hadn't found much of that... though he had found Aireg Randolf's badly burned and rapidly expiring body.

Randolf did not remember much of the intervening months between his "rescue" in the desert and the point in time where he'd recovered enough at the Boss's Institutite for the Terminally Ill to be able to old a conversation with someone other than himself. He'd lost almost eighty percent of his skin and outer musculature, not to mention his hair, finger and toe nails and even his eyelids... all ash in the desert sand now. Most people would have died of infections or system shock... Randolf certainly would have gone that path if not for the medical wizardry of Noah Borander, which had provided him with skin of a sort and regrown his hair and nails. There was nothing to be done about his eyelids though or the extreme sensitivity to light his burned eyes now suffered. He was forced to wear a blindfold when he wanted to sleep, and extremely polarized sunglasses whenever he was outside or in bright light. He had to use an eyedropper every other hour to remoisten his eyes, his tear ducts had also been scorched away by the fire, and his eyes constantly burned and itched even then... a constant reminder to him of what had happened.

Randolf snorted... in a way it was fitting... his eyes had quite literally been opened to the truth, and he could not shut them again, no matter how painful it was. True enlightenment and knowledge was always painful, though that was only apparent after you achieved it. That was something very few people understood... some things you were truly better off not knowing. Randolf had been despondent for weeks after waking up, his life in ruins, his few family members thinking him dead, the world moving on without him quite easily. Lacus Clyne's fame had grown tremendously during his time in the hospital, she was as a colossus, bestriding the very world with her image. No one could speak a word against her without being shouted down and shunned, and Randolf had despaired of ever being able to expose her for what she was. It was then that Noah had come to him in person, offering a deal. Noah would provide Randolf with the information and materials he required to exact his revenge upon the people that had done him wrong, and in return Randolf would lend his own skills and time to helping Noah achieve his own far reaching goal.

He'd been sceptical at first... what could this mere child, a sixth his age, possibly have to offer him? For that matter, what sort of long range plans could such a child have that would require someone like Randolf as a subordinate? His scepticism had lasted for the first thirty minutes of the conversation, no more. Noah, even back then, had had an aura of charisma and power that was quite impossible to deny or ignore, and the more they had talked, the more Randolf had come to realize that despite his physical age, Noah was one of those rare people, much like Lacus Clyne herself, that would grow to loom over the rest of humanity like a giant among children, his accomplishments and goals being of an order than normal people could barely even dream. A man could go far following someone like that, a person that only appeared once or twice a century. Noah and Lacus... like Da Vinci, or Michelangelo, or Socrates, or Joan of Arc, or Charlemange or Magellan or Einstein or Newton... pioneers of humanity. Noah himself had been quite pleased with that comparison, and he'd given Randolf some information on the spot as a reward.

That one piece of information, actually just a few questions, had changed everything for Randolf. "What if Lacus was decieved? What if I told you that she WAS being influenced, that she'd been coerced through the most insidious of means, seduction, so that she did not know what she was doing? That she had been USED by someone she had grown to love and trust intimately for his own purposes?" Noah had asked him. Randolf had not taken long to consider... given what he knew of Lacus's trusting nature, which was a trait she'd definitely inherited from her father, especially in matters of the heart... Elaine had loomed in his mind's eye for a long moment before he shook it away... it was not a tough stretch to imagine that she had indeed been seduced and manipulated by someone she intimately trusted. The realization had lifted a great weight from his soul... it WASN'T Lacus's fault at all! She was as much a victim as Randolf was, if not more! He hadn't been wrong about her! Hating Lacus Clyne was both pointless and incorrect! His ire was better aimed at the true perpetuator of the crime of betrayal, the one who had ensnared Lacus in a web of lust and "love" so fine that even that intelligent and perceptive girl could not see it... Kira Yamato, the Gundam Pilot.

It was disconcerting at times, because the deeper Randolf was able to delve into the histroy of Kira Yamato, and the more he saw of the two of them, Kira and Lacus, on TV and in other reports, the more they truly seemed to be really in love with each other. Kira was so upstanding, so innocent seeming, so... so normal. So worthy of Lacus Clyne, really... a man who seemed to love her for who she really was, not for her fame or riches or just pure physical beauty. It stoked the fires of his rage... Yamato was the best manipulator he'd ever had the misfortune of being able to perceive. If Randolf hadn't had the perspective and information Noah had given him, he'd never have believed that Yamato was just using Lacus for his own ends. But he did have that enlightened perspective, and he did have the information and so he was forced to watch with mounting hatred and disgust as the world came to accept Kira and Lacus, even admire them. The heroic Gundam Pilot, the beautiful princess... it was sickening how trite it was. You could not find a better plot written in a fiction novel than the romance that apparently bloomed between Kira and Lacus. But despite their professed vows of eternal adoration for each other, Randolf had noticed a few things that put the lie to it all.

Yamato refused to marry Lacus, for instance. Obviously keeping his options open, in case he ever needed to discard his victim for a more opportune subject. Or the fact that they lived as far from the public eyes as they could manage, a strange step indeed for a public figure like Lacus Clyne. Obviously Yamato wanted to keep her isolated from any friends or support she might have had, besides he himself. It was a fairly standard method of relationship control, common in many abusive relationships. If your wife or grilfriend couldn't talk to anyone, travel anywhere or otherwise survive in the modern world without your aid, then she would be forced to rely on you for everything, which would make it easy to control her. The despicably impressive thing about it was that Yamato had somehow managed to make Lacus feel that it was all out of love for her that he did such things, and she seemed truly content and happy with her silken cage! What better way to keep your prisoner captive than to make her want to stay of her own free will, because she did not even realize she was a prisoner!?

Randolf had been collecting information and making preparations for five years and more now, and he was almost ready to make his move. Soon he'd have enough information to make a legal case against Yamato as an abusive spouse, perhaps even a kidnapper, and from there he could add in enough other things to ensure that what good name Yamato did have would be irrecoverably tarnished. With the Brotherhood's connections in the penal systems of the USN and its member states, even Orb, Yamato would not last long. Perhaps Randolf himself would even be able to be there himself... the Boss's arm was long, and he could do a surprising amount of things in a surprising amount of places. But even if not, merely being able to free Lacus from her captivity would be enough for Randolf. Doubltess, because of her long term abuse and conditioning, Lacus would be quite distraught for a while, and would likely fight hard to save her oppressor... but with the Boss's information gathering and even falsifying services, there was no way Randolf would lose a legal battle of his own choosing.

And even if he did, he now had a Gundam of his own to use against Yamato. Not that he really considered himself a match for Yamato in a straight up fight... he could not deny that his nemesis was truly gifted when it came to Mobile Suit combat. So gifted that Randolf knew that in a direct challenge, Yamato would annihilate him without much effort at all, even with the advantages of the Boss's high technology. The trick would be not making it a straight up fight... Randolf would have to engage at a time and place of his own choosing. Preferrably without even letting Yamato into a Mobile Suit at all. But if Yamato did manage to get to a Mobile Suit, even a Gundam... well, on a battleground of its own preparation and choosing, the Haunted was more than a match for a single unprepared foe. It was the ultimate ambush hunter, a blood drenched ghost in the mists.

The primary weapon systems were a 100mm silenced and sound suppressed semiautomatic sniper cannon mounted within the forearm of each arm, with the barrel protruding from the palm when in use. The shells the sniper cannons fired were of the standard high explosive, armor penetrating type, except for one major modification. When fired, each shell activated a single use beam emitter mounted on the nose of the shell, extending a plasma beam edge a few inches ahead of the shell. The plasma edge only lasted for a second or two, but that was usually more than long enough for the shell to reach its target, the beam edge carving into the armor... even Phase Shift armor... before the explosives detonated, making the sniper cannons useful against any enemy, even... or perhaps especially... Gundams. Phase Shift armor use had been a staple for Gundams for years now, and Gundam Pilots had grown contemptuous of ballistic munitions as a result. The Haunted used that arrogance against them.

The Haunted mounted eight missile tubes along its back and shoulders, each missile had a range of nearly fifty miles, being closer in shape and performance to the anti-ship missiles carried by space warships than the smaller, direct fire munitions on most Mobile Suits. The missiles themselves were Trans-Phase Shift armored to help prevent anti-missile systems from blowing them away, a common fate in the modern day of precision CIWS systems. The armor on the missiles also lent them extra penetrating power, sometimes even enough to penetrate other Phase Shift systems, assuming a direct strike on a flat plane. The missiles carried armor piercing plasma sabot warheads, but the charges were small, barely big enough to kill a tank, much less a Mobile Suit. The real payload of the missiles, which was released once they had struck and impaled a target, was another form of Nanological warfare. The molecule sized machines would fill a seventy meter radius of the missile, frantically latching onto and devouring any sort of electrical system they came into contact with. It was like an extremely fast acting acid that only affected complex electronics, destroying machines without overtly harming the pilots. Better yet, it was a smart acid that would not hurt any Brotherhood forces within the "explosion" radius.

Secondary weapon systems included a standard 57mm beam rifle that the Haunted could wield in its left hand, as well as a quad barreled 155mm shotcannon with cut down barrels and stock, making it in essence a four barreled sawed off shotgun for a Mobile Suit, for the right hand. The barrels had to be reloaded manually, which took some time, even for a NIC operated Gundam, but no longer than it would take a human to perform such an action for a regular sized gun. The weapon had an extremely short range, but all four barrels at once could shred a pair of heavy assault Mobile Suits standing side by side within fifty meters without much trouble, and might even be able to knock a Gundam over. What it did to infantry or less hardened targets was truly impressive... or horrifying depending on your viewpoint. The Haunted mounted a pair of regular 20mm CIWS in its head, though its ECM suite made it practically immune to any sort of targeted attack by missiles or other guided weapon systems, not even mentioning its Nanofog cover. Finally, for those situations where guns and missiles just couldn't cut it, the Haunted carried a two handed, double bladed anti-ship axe, with both physical and beam blades.

Randolf completed his inspection of the Haunted, finding the usual wolfish smile creeping onto his face as he contemplated the masterpiece Noah had built for him. On ground of his own choosing, he'd set himself against any opponent with confidence. Even on neutral or unfavorable ground, he'd give himself the strong odds against anyone who wasn't a true master of Mobile Suit combat, especially with the freedom of movement and maneuver the NIC-III system gave him. He might be in his sixties now, but he was far from washed up physically and his reflexes were still as sharp as they'd ever been, while his tactical mind was sharper than any blade. He'd never been a famous pilot, but one didn't become a Commander in ZAFT without being able to hold your own in combat. Randolf turned his attention to the other two Mobile Suits that shared the drop pod with him and the Haunted. A Commander had to have soldiers to command, after all.

He'd been allocated two Zealots for this mission... more than enough for a simple terror strike, really, but it never hurt to have backup and support, especially if the foe had an unexpected surprise or two of their own. There shouldn't be any opponents of note in the area, much less any Gundams, but the Brotherhood and the Boss were not omniscient. They were close at times, but they could still be surprised. Thus the insurance. Zealots were short and dumpy, almost awkward looking really. Very angular and bloated in construction, they looked like they should waddle rather than walk, though they were orders of magnitude more graceful looking than the Martyrs. For all their ungainly looks, they were still controlled by NIC-III systems, even if it was from tens of thousands of miles away, and they moved with the surety and dexterity of trained soldiers. Not always trained pilots, but definitely trained soldiers, a difference that was often immediately apparent to long time Mobile Suit pilots like Randolf. That was one slight downside to the NIC system... it gave the illusion that you WEREN'T actually piloting a seventy foot tall, ninety ton war machine that could fly and do other things a regular human body could not, so unless you were trained to expect to be able to fly or take advantage of the differences between Mobile Suits and Humans, you might not remember to use them properly.

The Zealots carried a 200mm linear cannon in their right hands, with a Citadel Shield on the left side for defense. When asked why he hadn't come up with his own type of defensive shield for the Zealots, given that he had access to such technology, Noah had just shrugged. "What works, works, at least for rank and file soldiers." Randolf had to admit there was truth in that... a Citadel Shield was more than protection enough for anyone outside of a Gundam. Each shoulder of the Zealot mounted a 150mm high energy beam cannon, while it had a pair of 55mm machine cannons taking up the portion of its center torso where a cockpit would normally be. A quadruplet of 20mm CIWS cannons clustered in the head and twenty four discardable missile tubes on its back rounded out the Zealot's long range weaponry. The missile launchers were smaller versions of the ones the Haunted had, even down to the Trans-Phase Shift Armor on the missiles, though the Zealot's missiles had standard warheads instead of Nanoweapons. Finally, each Zealot had a beam sword for melee combat, should its pilot desire it. The Zealots themselves were powered by nuclear reactors of the same sort that had gone into the Freedom and Justice, and the Zealots were fully Phase Shift armored, making them more than a match for most mass produced mobile suits of the USN or its member states.

In addition to the Haunted and the two Zealots, Randolf's command included thirty Brotherhood "commandos" and associated gear. Commandos was perhaps too generous a term, because although many of them were retired ZAFT infantry soldiers, few, if any, actually had the training and experience of actual elite special operations soldiers. Still, they knew how to fight, and not only that but how to fight as a squad or unit and they had the advantages of fanatical belief and extremely good gear, plus special equipment that would give them the advantage once their chosen ground had been properly prepared by Randolf and the Haunted. And they were all Coordinators, an advantage Randolf was not too politically correct to deny. He'd had personal experience with the fanatics of Blue Cosmos, and those had been bad enough, being just ordinary Naturals, not even always soldiers, usually without modern military equipment at all.

Each Brotherhood soldier wore body armor that had been woven from metallic fibers that were of the same composite used for Mobile Suit armor plating, sandwiched between two layers of this mesh were more standard ceramic ballistic plates, along with a thin layer of titanium-steel chainmail for protection against blades and edges. The armor was heavy, but actually not very restrictive and it was designed so that the body took the weight equally, not just on the shoulders and waist. A sturdy belt harness supported a large battery on the back, the battery provided power for a number of special functions, such as environmental regulation of temperature and humidity and a limited active camouflage system based off the omnichromatic fibers of Noah's favorite clothing. The battery could also be used to power a limited form of Phase Shift Armor, for about three minutes or thirty blocked shots, energizing the metallic outer and inner weaves of the armor. It was the best... and most expensive, costing as much as a APC, each... personal protective device that a modern soldier could hope for.

For weapons the Brotherhood soldiers did not use common firearms, though they did have easy access to them. Noah saw no point in sending his forces out with just the best the rest of the world could come up with, because that would still give the advantage to the rest of the world, with their superior numbers and training. The standard assault weapon of the Brotherhood armed units was a 15mm linear rifle that used magnetic fields to soundlessly launch what amounted to small composite steel crossbow bolts up to fifteen hundred meters. Each bolt was tipped with an armor piercing point that could even penetrate most forms of standard vehicle armor, and each bolt was actually filled with a slow acting, impact fused explosive about as strong as a 40mm grenade, which would explode about a half second after impact. The primary fire mode was semiautomatic, and the combination of power pack and clip held twenty bolts. A different type of clip could be attached, filled with two hundred 10mm, cone shaped steel bullets, which allowed the weapon to be used in a rapid fire mode at closer ranges.

One out of every ten soldiers was armed with a 20mm beam rifle, complete with a bulky back carried power pack that allowed for up to three hundred shots. The weapon could be fired in either a single shot mode that was devastating to light vehicles and heavily armored targets, or a rapid fire burst mode that was killer on infantry, but less effective against vehicles or hardened targets. No armor made, not even the Brotherhood versions, could withstand fire from the beam rifles, and even indirect hits from the green plasma beams could prove incapacitating or fatal to humans. In addition to either the linear rifles or the beam rifles, the Brotherhood soldiers also carried a variety of grenades and other hurled or planted explosive devices, as well as fighting knives with mono-molecular edges that could cut through steel with barely a sound. Truly, they would not be a pleasant bunch to encounter, when the USN response teams finally did get around to trying their inevitable rescue effort. Randolf smiled wider, wishing he'd be able to see the looks on their stupid, Natural faces. He felt the pod start to shake as it entered the upper reaches of the Earth's atmosphere. Soon. It was almost time.

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"Your back still sore too, Kira?" Dearka asked, rubbing furtively at the small of his own as he meandered out onto the back deck of the lodge, which hung out over the side of the mountain, with the town spread out several miles away below, a cluster of lights in the dark valley. It was well after sunset, though this high up the slopes they could still see a tiny bit of orange and rosy red light lining the edges of the peaks farther up. It had been a full day on the slopes, and Dearka was not unhappy to admit that he was exhausted. It was a good exhaustion, the kind you get when you put a lot into something, and got even more out of it than you put in. Sometimes a lot more out than you put in, though not in a good way. After all, it didn't take much effort from you at all to slip and fall at high speed on a slope... but the mountain just kept on giving and giving and giving to you as you rolled and bounced downhill until finally found a flat spot to lose your momentum on. Dearka was just glad Mir hadn't been around to see that one... the Chute had been one HELL of a lot longer than it looked that was for sure, though it was kind of hard to look while rolling head over ass.

"No. It was sore for about an hour or so, but unless its a serious injury it doesn't tend to slow me down for long." Kira replied, shrugging with indifference, unware of Dearka's momentary blackly envious gaze. Dearka hadn't been the only victim of the Chute after all, though he'd not seen Kira fall, having been too busy trying to stop his own tumble to much care what the rest of the world was doing. Still, Dearka had eventually stopped rolling and flipping... at least until Kira's sliding, tumbling form had rammed into him and sent them both spinning a few dozen more yards down slope. Looking back on it, Dearka was grateful that they HADN'T been seriously hurt, because he'd fallen at least three hundred yards down the slope before halting, and Kira not too much less than that. The ice on the Chute wasn't exactly as cushioning as the powder Miriallia or Lacus had fallen in either. The worst part of the whole ordeal had been having to hike back up the slope to retrieve his board and Kira's skis... it was a STEEP slope, and the ice just made it even more horrendously unpleasant.

Of course, seriously hurt was a matter of opinion... Dearka hadn't boken any bones or suffered more than a very mild concussion, plus innumerable scrapes and bruises, but the real pain he hadn't felt until coming off the final run of the day, when his body decided to gang up on his nervous system all at once and inform him that he really should have stopped after the fall, and not pushed on for eight or nine more runs. Legs, arms, back, neck, face... it was a regular mardi gras of aches and pains, that was for sure. No part of the body wanted to be left out, or so it felt. His only comfort had been that Kira must have been feeling the same way... and now it looked like even THAT was denied him! If a guy couldn't share his hard won pain with a friend who'd been through the same experience, what was he supposed to do? Pain like this was only bearable and acceptable when you had friends who were beat up the same way and you could trade humorous stories about it!

"Could you PRETEND your back was still sore, perhaps?" Dearka muttered, half to himself. "Something... anything... to help me feel like I wasn't the only one pursuing entertainment beyond my means earlier today?"

"Oh. Ouch. My back." Kira rubbed absently at his shoulderblades, staring up and out into the night sky. "I hope I don't fall like that again... despite how much it would probably cheer Lacus up to see me take a tumble."

"Nevermind." Dearka sighed heavily. "You suck at acting, by the way."

"That's what Lacus tells me too. And singing as well." Kira grinned for a moment. "Feels good actually... to not be good at something."

"Not too many people who could say THAT with a straight face." Dearka commented. "If I didn't know you, I'd think you were a pretty arrogant son of a bitch, that you could be happy NOT to be good at something for a change, implying of course that normally you are good at EVERYTHING. Of course, you ARE good at everything, mostly, so I'm just going to have to shake my head and sigh at you."

"Lacus does that when she gets irritated too."

"Please try and hold off comparing me to Lacus Clyne, okay? I don't know whether to feel scared or honored when you do that."

"You'd be surprised how many people say things like that. I don't see why anyone would be frightened of her, or being like her."

"That's because you were either unconscious or away every time she got honked off and started freezing people in place with just her willpower alone! Do you even remember what she did during your fight with Frost!?"

"I do remember, yes." Kira answered, his tone turning introspective. "Making people afraid isn't what Lacus wanted though. She wants to protect and inspire people, not control them!"

"I know that, man! Trust me, I know that almost as well as you. I'm just saying... to what I hesitatingly call "normal people", Lacus can be VERY frightening, especially if she decides to use her... her... well, you know."

"Her Newtype Abilities, yes, I do know. Better than anyone." Kira glanced over his shoulder at Dearka, who was looking sheepish. "Lacus and I did not have any choice when we were born, that we could have denied the abilities we have, much as we now wish we could have. Newtypes are a reality that the world will not be able to stick its head into the sand and ignore forever. Its not a hoax, though it can be hard to believe. But like you said... I do remember what Lacus did during my fight with Frost. I think everyone who heard her that day remembers, whether they want to or not. Its who Lacus is now... it seems wrong to me for people to be afraid of her for that when they would not otherwise be. People aren't afraid of me because I have mental powers of my own!"

"No they're afraid of you because you're the best Mobile Suit pilot alive. And sometimes because of this whole Ultimate Coordinator strangeness, which I don't want to get into right now cause I sure as hell don't know up from down with regards to it! You're one of my best friends, Kira... but I gotta say, I wouldn't want you angry at me, okay?" Dearka shrugged uneasily. "I mean, I'd not want to piss off any of our friends... but if it came down to a choice between getting Athrun and Ysak hunting me for my blood, and the same for you and Lacus... I'd go with Ysak and Athrun every time. They're just..."

"Easier to understand? More normal?" Kira prompted, smiling at the worried look that flashed across Dearka's face. "Don't worry, I think that of myself and Lacus as well, even though Ysak is also a Latent Newtype. Its not as readily apparent with him. Ysak's a much more normal guy than I am, I won't hesitate to admit."

"Being strange isn't necessarily bad..." Dearka started to say, wincing even as he heard himself say it like that. Not exactly the most tactful phrasing.

"I never said I was displeased with who I am... I mean, its who I am, right?" Kira shrugged. "There's a lot more I'd like to know about myself, to be honest... but I can accept myself for who I am without that knowledge. Being different is merely that... being different. There are times when I'm glad for it, and times when I'm not so glad. Its just life."

"You should write a book, you know? I mean, you've SO got the whole Natural Philosopher thing going. Learn how to do Feng Shui and Yoga and you'll be the idol of millions of self help enthusiasts!" Dearka commented, with a smirk.

"Feng Shui and Yoga both have extremely sound scientific principles behind them, even if they are cloaked in mysticism and ritual..."

"Why am I not surprised that you know the scientific principles behind Feng Shui and Yoga? I'm sorry, my friend, but that's just wierd." Dearka smiled to take the sting out of the observation. "So what's up out here anyway? Dinnertime soon, thought maybe you'd come in for drinks and light conversation with the rest of us? I should stress that I am the most amiable envoy you're likely to receive on the subject."

"Just wanted to get a breath of fresh air. People joke when they say it, but its true... there's nothing like fresh mountain air sometimes, for clearing your head. And it really is a beautiful night, so clear and crisp. You can see for miles, practically to the horizon, at least a smuch of it as the mountains allow. I'm no PLANTS bred Coordinator, but mountains still aren't exactly ho hum to me, especially ones that have snow year round." Kira pointed briefly at the sky overhead. "You can see the stars so well, and the moon. Even on Serenity Island, I don't always get this clear a look at the sky... its almost never this clear. There was a brief meteor shower right before you came out. Probably just some stuff falling out of the junk belt, but it was right overhead for about ten seconds... pretty spectacular actually. Too bad it was just the four, I was going to call everybody outside."

"I dunno. Meteor showers just don't do it for me... reminds me too much of orbital drop pods, or warships diving through the atmosphere or something. Guess some things a soldier just can't forget, right?"

"You were right." Kira replied after a long few seconds.

"Were?"

"About being an amiable envoy I mean. Lacus wants us inside for shrimp cocktail. She did not include options in her statement."

"Goddamn... no offense, but that is WIERD! Could you two get some cellphones so you can at least PRETEND to not be talking to each other mentally!?"

"Why? Do you know how much money we save without cellphone bills?"


	8. Clearing the Field part 2

Author Note: This is just a casual estimate, but I've been going over my outline and noticed something. Last chapter was the first chapter of a new mini-arc, within the first major arc. Besides the prelude, I have 12 more such mini arcs to cover during the plot of this story. Considering I'm already nearing one hundred thousand words for just the prelude and a fraction of a mini arc... well, I got my work cut out for me, indeed. I'm glad people like my set up and relaxation chapters as much as my action ones, since theres going to be quite a few of them, at least until the end of the first major arc. As the other major ark is revealed, things will become extremely frenetic. But enough with the spoilers and talking up, you all came here to read a story after all!

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Kira opened his eyes, blinking once to adjust to the relative brightness of day versus night streaming in through the window of the laundry and utility room area. He contemplated the small room for several moments, trying to discern what it was that had set him off, since he hadn't intended to awake from his meditations for several more hours, to give Lacus as much time as possible to sleep in. This was supposed to be a vacation after all. Even as he looked around, he made sure to remain concentrated on keeping his thoughts quiet and untroubled, to maximize the time before Lacus picked up on the change from dreams to wakefulness. Things were starting to look up, at least if the fun she'd seemed to be having last night was any indication, and Kira saw no need to court danger by waking her up at an unreasonable hour. Lacus was not immune to being grouchy in the morning, especially if she was stiff and sore for some reason, as she was likely to be after her first day of skiing.

Kira didn't see anything or even hear anything that might have set his sometimes too keen senses off... it might have been a wind blown branch against a window or something else totally innocuous, but he knew he'd be restless until he knew what it was for sure. Not that he thought they were in any danger, on a vacation in the middle of the Swiss Alps... but damn it, sometimes he just couldn't help himself. He sat up on the cot and swung his feet over the side and had to fight down a yelp of shock that would have woken the entire lodge, not just Lacus. The floor was cold! Not just mountain lodge with snow outside in the early morning cold, which was unpleasant enough on bare feet but not expected... no, this cold was sharp and painful, like icy needles slowly being pushed into the soles of his feet! The sensation persisted for a few seconds after he'd jerked his feet back onto the bed, his toes going numb for a bit until feeling returned with a fiery sensation.

Kira was rubbing his protesting feet in surprised contemplation when he noticed something else that most certainly was not right. He could barely see the floor at all actually, as a thin, soupy white mist seemed to be drizzling in from outside through the minute cracks seperating the utility room door from its frame. Kira cocked an eyebrow at seeing that, since the door was designed to keep warm air in and keep cold air out, and yet this foggy mist was seeping in with seeming ease, which implied a major failure in the door... but he'd been sleeping here all night, he sure as hell would have noticed a bunch of cold air rushing in! There was something decidedly odd about the fog itself too for that matter. He was familiar with early morning fog, since it rolled in across Serenity Island every morning most winters, airborne moisture so thick you couldn't see ten feet in front of you... but the conditions for fog like that simply did not exist in the mountains, certainly not also when the outside temperature was well below freezing and there was a light wind blowing.

Perhaps maybe during a storm or blizzard... but it was bright and sunny outside, or so the light flashing into his eyes through the window on the door informed him. Something was not right here... he didn't feel threatened, but there were too many things not adding up for him to feel comfortable. Fog that leaked through into the lodge should have been condensing on the walls and floor, and this fog wasn't. If anything, it seemed to be growing thicker and thicker the more of it that came in, and Kira could feel the temperature in the room starting to drop now as well, though he couldn't feel any air motion that would usually precipitate a leak from inside to outside. Also the humidity of the room was going down, which was the exact OPPOSITE of what should have been occuring with all the airborne moisture flooding in. A sound at the top of the stairway that led up from the utility room to the rest of the lodge caused him to forget about the fog for a moment. "Lacus? Um... good morning. Did you sleep well?" Kira asked, still somewhat distracted.

Lacus considered the truly astonishing number of replies that occured to her after Kira asked her that rather obvious question. Given how he was sitting up in bed, bright eyed and bushy tailed as usual, despite a day probably quite a bit more grueling than hers, and with a great deal less actual sleep besides, most of the replies she could think of were decidedly snappish, perhaps even snide. Her legs HURT, and so did her lower back, and her neck... and her hands... and she'd gotten sunburn on her cheeks and nose... and it was just past dawn... and... and she'd had to spend a night alone in a strange bed because she wasn't willing to back down on punishing Kira for his short sightedness and inconsideration! It all combined to make her feel quite a bit less congenial than most of her fanbase would ever be able to conceive of her being.

"I WAS sleeping well, yes. Until someone, maybe you know who, managed to stub his TOE something fierce, and almost yelled. Thankfully he did not, thus perserving the well earned rest of Miriallia and Dearka... though he did not so well stifle his mental exclaimation, which I heard LOUD and CLEAR. So I came to find out whether this worthy, whomever he may be, needed some help perhaps? Some help going BACK to sleep that is!"

Lacus started somewhat unsteadily down the steps towards Kira and his cot as she began summoning up some more of her aches and pains to fuel her displeasure. It was entirely petty of her of course, but she didn't get to be petty all that often, and she relished the few opportunities Kira gave her. Besides, he knew she wasn't REALLY angry at him, and was just venting. Kira was good at letting her vent when she needed to. It was one of the reasons why he was hard to stay mad at... no matter how angry she got, he'd just accept it and try and make things better. It was very, very difficult to keep an angry tirade going at someone you love more than life itself when all he does is agree with you and apologize, with total sincerety. It took two to fight after all. Lacus rubbed at one eye blearily, trying to rub some of the sleep-blur from her vision, wincing slightly as she stroked her mildly sunburned cheek in the process. Her hair was an absolutely tangled mess, like it usually was when she woke up, and seeing it that way never failed to give her just a little bit more fuel for a verbal fire.

Lacus did not see the mist that was covering the floor of the utility room until she was standing ankle deep in it, still rubbing at her eyes and trying to muster a truly hair curling stare for Kira's not so much benefit. In truth, she was privately near delighted that Kira had managed to stub his toe on something again... it would help him calm down, and worry less about how different he was from other people. He was still normal enough to stub his toe after all, Ultimate Coordinator not withstanding. Gradually, over the course of a second or two, her feet and ankles managed to flag down her attention, and inform her that THEY HURT! Hurt like she'd just dipped them in ice water then stuck her feet in a freezer filled with crushed ice! She went from partially asleep to fully, unhappily awake in those few seconds, crying out loudly on by the physical and mental planes.

She hopped on one foot and then the other, trying to relieve the feeling, but it wasn't until Kira jerked up from the cot, stepped into the mist, grimacing as his own feet were attacked by the unnaturally cold fog, and picked her up that the feelings of pain slowly dulled away. Kira deposited Lacus on his cot and practically leapt up onto it after her, swearing quietly to himself as he alternated trying to rub feeling into his feet and then Lacus's. Rubbing to get the blood flowing didn't seem to help much, if anything it just seemed to spread the feeling of numb cold through their lower legs, at least for a few seconds. Kira put an arm around Lacus as she huddled closer to him, shivering with something that had little to do with her slowly warming feet. "Well, as you might guess, I didn't stub my toe." Kira said, after a few moments of just holding onto her.

"It'll happen again eventually." Lacus muttered, sighing with brief enjoyment at being able to relax into him again, even if only for a moment. She leaned forward in his embrace, peering over the edge of the cot at the malignant white fog that now completely covered the utility room floor to a depth of several inches. "Fog, coming through a insulated door, at this elevation in the mountains?"

"On a bright, sunny, breezy day, mind." Kira added, nodding at the window, which they could look out of quite easily in the light of dawn, at the slowly swaying tops of the pine trees on the slopes below the lodge. "Moreover, fog that seems to lower humidity, not increase it. It's like its leeching the moisture from the air and freezing it."

"Strange weather they have here." Lacus commented, trying for some humor, though she was starting to geet a bad premonition in her gut as well. They both heard people moving around in the upstairs prt of the lodge, where most every other room except for the utility and storage rooms was located. "I daresay I managed to wake up Miriallia and Dearka. Hopefully they won't have to step into this freezing fog stuff in order to wake up as fully as I did."

"Mmm." Kira agreed. "Your hair is messy."

"It always is, especially when I don't get enough sleep..."

"I like it messy." Kira trailed his fingers through some of it, gently unsnaring a few tangles. He was more than acutely aware of Lacus's relatively thin nightgown, and the shivers she was still experiencing, even though they were quite close. "A lot of very good things have happened to me when your hair is messy."

"Ahem!" Dearka's voice came down to them from the top of the stairs. "Please tell me if I'm interrupting something delicate or involved, and I'll go away... but believe me, there's something up here that you both NEED to see!"

"Drat." Kira muttered, barely loud enough for even Lacus to hear him. She blinked at him, and he shrugged in sudden self awareness. "Sorry... guess I was getting a little ahead of myself... but it IS you and me, on a bed, in a mountaintop lodge, on a vacation... I was getting some strange vibes."

"From you, those kind of vibes aren't strange." Lacus rolled her eyes and regarded the floor with misgiving. She was not eager to put her feet into that freezing white stuff again, most certainly not. Kira solved the problem for her by darting off the cot and picking her up in his arms, cradling her as easily as he would a small child, before he dashed to the stairs and even up to the top before the next two seconds had elapsed. Kira reluctantly put Lacus back on her feet, even as he grimaced at the renewed frosty pain on his own. He did not relinquish his arm from around her shoulder though, and was glad to see that she was in no hurry to shrug it off either. Except for the fog, the morning was looking up.

The problem was the fog. And it was a BIG problem. Kira and Lacus followed Dearka's wordlessly pointing arm and the sight gave them both pause. They were looking out the wide picture windows that fronted onto the back deck of the lodge, the same deck that overhung the utility room that Kira's cot was set up in, that had the main door of the house in it, through which the fog was seeping. And seep it would, because as far as they could see from their rather good vantage point, the entire valley was filled with the stuff, starting at just barely their ground door level and extending down who knew how far. It was like they'd had a mountaintop lodge the night before, and woke up in the morning to find that the valley had become a frozen over lake, and now they were at a winter waterfront resort. The fog even acted somewhat like water, roiling in big undulations beneath the light breeze or internal air currents, acting quite unlike any fog Kira had ever seen before.

"What the hell IS that stuff?" Miriallia asked, a shaky note in her voice, as she stared out at the vast, valley spanning expanse of white and grey fog. "And where the hell did it come from?"

"Its cold, I can assure you of that!" Lacus replied, shooting a frowning glare back down the stairs to the utility room.

"Well, let's see what the weather channel has to say about it?" Dearka opined, snatching up the TV remote and flipping it on. There was nothing but static. On every channel. "Hmm. Satellite must be down. Maybe we had a storm during the night or something?"

"I don't think so... none of the trees I can see have any new snow or ice on them, and I didn't hear any wind last night." Kira replied, frowning as well. "Believe me, the wind keeps me up a lot... I'd have remembered a windstorm, especially with all the trees up by the side of the lodge."

"My cell phone isn't getting any reception." Miriallia reported, her fingers stabbing at the buttons on the small device. "No texts, no net, no calls... nothing. Keeps saying "signal interrupted". Never gotten that before."

"Well I'll be damned... mine too." Dearka added, picking his own up off the counter. "I can't even call you, and your phone is right there! Something is officially screwed up! This phone is supposed to work anywhere on Earth... given how much I pay for it every month, it damn well BETTER work anywhere on Earth, it always has before."

"Let's call the landlord. Perhaps someone in town knows what's going on." Lacus suggested. Kira was quick to take up her suggestion, relinquishing his grip on her shoulder. His slightly concerned feelings from waking up were getting a lot worse all of a sudden, and he could no longer maintain the desire for intimacy... something was wrong, and he wouldn't be able to relax until he figured out what it was, and what, if anything, he could do about it. Kira grabbed the phone and dialed the number stenciled above it, which should have connected him to the owners of the lodge, who lived down in the town below. He didn't get a dial tone. Not even a busy signal. Just dead quiet. He reported this more than a little troubling fact to the others.

"Alright, alright... let me get these facts straight..." Dearka put his hands on the back of the couch and leaned forward, his eyes staring intently into the middle distance. "We've got no internet. No cell phones. No TV reception, no land line phones. All of these things were working just fine last night. There was no major blizzard or windstorm during the night. It is actually a bright, sunny, rather nice day outside... except for the giant fogbank filling up the entire valley. I don't think I'm alone when I say I'm seeing a lot of red flags here. I've seen big ass fogbanks come out of nowhere several times on my boat, around islands and shoals... but ten thousand feet above sea level, on a breezy day? I don't think so."

"Okay. So we all agree, something is not natural here. What the HELL do we do about it?" Miriallia asked, still transfixed by the fog and her inoperable phone, in turns. "We can't communicate with anybody, its just the four of us out here. It's an hour's walk down to the town, and a good two or three hours from town up here. Visibility in that stuff has got to be somewhere on the low side of nil, and despite the breeze and the sun, it doesn't look like its planning on going anywhere anytime soon. Do we just sit here and wait it out? I mean, we've got plenty of food and water, the power still seems to be running, so we got heat and lights..."

"I'm going to go down to town to see what is up. Maybe there is some sort of normal explanation for this... the brochure did say they sometimes had some pretty freaky weather around here, perhaps this is one of those once in a decade things." Kira decided. "If I take my skis down, it shouldn't take more than ten minutes or so. The hike back up will take a bit more time, but I should be able to manage in an hour or so. Give me an hour to look around town, so I'll be back in three hours, tops?"

"That's a good idea. Dearka should go with you, just to be safe." Lacus added, with a significant look at Miriallia.

"Dearka doesn't have any intention of going NEAR that creepy ass fo..." Dearka started to say, before catching Miriallia's gaze in his direction. "I mean, when do we leave?"

"I see no reason to wait." Kira replied, shrugging. He'd be just fine by himself he knew, but if Lacus and Miri both decided that he and Dearka should go together, he knew better than to try and win THAT arguement. "We're going to want to bundle up pretty warmly though... you don't want that stuff to touch more bare skin than absolutely necessary, let me assure you. It gives cold a new meaning."

"You make me feel so glad, you know?" Dearka replied darkly. "I can't wait to take an early morning plunge into freezing fog, then hike several miles down and then up a steep slope in full winter gear, let me assure you in return."

"Talking about it won't make it any easier. Lets go."

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"Holy MOTHERfucking SHIT this stuff is cold!" Dearka exclaimed, not for the first time, as he tried to follow Kira's path down the snowy trail that wound its way down from their lodge to the town in the valley. It wasn't easy, even though Kira was only a dozen or so feet ahead of him. Mir hadn't been exaggerating when she'd guessed how bad the visibility was in the fog... pea soup had NOTHING on this shit. It was so thick it was muffling even his rather loud complaints, to the point that he had to actually yell at Kira in order to be heard clearly. Well, the fact that he had two mufflers on probably didn't help matters much, but even with most of his gear doubled up, Dearka was still shivering from the chill. Kira had NOT been fucking around when he said that this fog brought a whole new definition to the word "Cold".

It was not foggy cold either. There wasn't even a hint of dampness... it was actually dryer IN the fogbank than it was outside the lodge! He felt like he was actually ascending the mountain rather than descending, because that was how the atmosphere was changing. The farther down they went, the thicker the fog became, the colder it got, the drier it got and the thinner the air seemed to get. This shitty fog was getting LESS natural the more he saw of it, and to say that he was nervous about it was a MASSIVE understatement. He knew fog could be created artificially by a bunch of different means, from as simple as a bucket of dry ice to the complex seeding of clouds with dust particulates to encourage rain in dry areas. But to create fog in such an environment as a mountain valley, of such thickness and amount, and have it persist despite a glaring sun and breeze? He wasn't sure how people would even BEGIN to manage that!

And then there was the coldness as well. Usually when things got colder than freezing, the water in the air started to freeze and precipitate out... it was called snow or sleet. But there wasn't ANY new snow about, and the temperature had to be well into the minuses by now. There wasn't even any ice in evidence... it was like the moisture in the air had just... gone away. It hadn't become airborne snow and ice, hadn't fallen to the ground, hadn't frozen on the ground... it was just not there anymore. It sure as heck WASN'T in the fog... he'd made the mistake of trying to taste it earlier. It was as dry tasting as it felt on the skin, almost like breathing dust or sand. Ice cold dust or sand. Gritty, almost metallic even.

And he wasn't positive he was seeing it right, but Dearka was almost SURE the fog was thicker in direct proximity to him than it was anywhere else. Like the fog was attracted to heat or something. It sure seemed to be doing its damndest to suck what heat he had out of him, despite his layers and the physical exertion. He swung his arms around him, batting at the mist like a playful child, though he was far from that state of mind. The fog was thick enough in some spots that he could actually detect a change in air resistance as his arm passed through it. Most disquieting, the logical part of his mind wanted to comment. The rest of him had words that were quite a bit more poignant than that. He felt like a character in a horror movie, plodding blindly towards his doom, and he really didn't like that feeling at all. He wanted to go home. But he couldn't just LEAVE Kira out here... the thought of what Lacus and Mir would do to him if he came back without Kira made him forget about the cold and discomfort for a while... it made him feel even WORSE.

He came up on Kira so fast he almost didn't manage to stop. He had to veer sharply to the side and nearly off the sno-cat track to avoid hitting his friend, who had stopped right in the middle of it without warning. Cursing mildly to himself, Dearka unbuckled a foot from his board and pushed himself back over towards Kira... bad enough that he had to suggest an expedition into this damned fog, did he have to TRY and make problems for Dearka by playing "let's test Dearka's reflexes by stopping without warning when he can't see you"? His irritation vanished almost at once when he saw the way Kira was standing, slowly turning his head from side to side like an antelope searching out predators on the savanna. Dearka silenced his complaints and lent his own eyes and ears to the effort, though since he'd not noticed anything in the first place, he hadn't the slightest idea what to be looking for. At length he couldn't take it anymore.

"What is it?" Dearka asked, on his third try managing to make it loud and clear enough so that Kira could understand him through his mufflers.

"Footsteps. And I heard a radio crackle. And something that sounded like a grenade going off." Kira replied tersely, never stopping his scan of the area, though it was much more with his ears than his eyes, since even he could only see about fifteen feet in any direction.

"I didn't hear a damn thing. You sure?" Dearka asked, eyes darting nervously and uselessly through the billowing fog, his own ears straining for the slightest hint of a sound.

"Yes. Someone is coming this way. Maybe a couple someones." Kira replied. "One hundred... maybe eighty feet away."

"You have got some SHARP fucking ears, you know that?"

"Compared to Lacus mine are only medio..." Kira suddenly cut off, going stock still, his head ceasing its scan to stare. Dearka froze up too, staring in the same direction as Kira, though he still didn't see jack shit. He was just about to ask what the hell had set Kira off this time when he heard it too. Distinctly. The sound of a boot crunching down on ice or something else brittle but yielding. Shortly after that crunching sound came a crackle and buzz that Dearka instantly recognized as bleed noise from a full face comm system or helmet of some sort. And shortly after THAT came an explosion, like a firework detonating outside your door or something. Dearka shared a long glance with Kira, before they both bent down and unbuckled themselves from their skis and board, as queitly and quickly as they could. Picking up their gear, they edged off the trail, trying to make as little noise as possible.

They were doing just fine too... until Dearka reached out with one hand to steady himself on a tree branch as he edged down the slope off the trail towards a small group of rocks that Kira had chosen as a hiding spot. The branch was as thick as his wrist, and should have borne his weight easily. Should have, had it not been drained of moisture and frozen solid by the fog. The branch snapped in half as soon as Dearka put his weight on it, icy splinters flying like shrapnel in all directions, sending Dearka tumbling down slope with a gunshot crack and the sound of thrashing limbs and sliding snow. Dearka managed to control his fall after sliding almost fifteen feet down the slope. Well, hitting a big tree headfirst definitely helped slow his momentum down, which made it easier, if more painful, to regain control. Real subtle. Very stealthy. He had the unhappy feeling he'd just flunked his Escape and Evasion remedial training for the year.

He worked himself around until he was able to get to his knees, searching for his snowboard, which he spotted several yards further down slope. He was just brushing all the icy splinters off his jacket sleeves when he realized he was no longer alone. And his company wasn't Kira. Dearka looked up slope and blanched behind his mufflers. There were a pair of men standing at the edge of the sno-cat trail. Large men, with very bulky outlines that suggested not only a lot of gear, but very big muscles as well. Large men, holding large, unfriendly looking rifles of a design Dearka could not identify, pointed in more than just his general location. He couldn't see their beady eyes, because they were both wearing full facial filtration and breathing masks not dissimilar to those worn by medical technicians decontaminating a biological or radiological hazard area, the sight of which did nothing to make his stomach feel good. Their clothing was a mixture of white and grey, and it took him several seconds to realize that the color patterns were actually shifting a little in real time to match the eddying fog. That was some pimp camouflage, better even than the Stormhounds had, actually.

With no advantage other than natural bravado, and an ally the goons hopefully hadn't detected yet, Dearka put both hands where the goons could easily see them and froze in place. Why exactly he was so sure these guys were goons, thus enemies, he could not say. Maybe it was their silence, as they looked at him and he looked back. Maybe it was the masks, which were distinctly unfriendly looking. Maybe it was the guns they were pointing at him. Yes, the guns were a large part of it. Those were full sized military weapons, not hunting rifles or sport rifles. And while he was not a firearm conessieur like some people he knew, he at least knew what the basic longarms for the militaries of the world were... and these were none of those. Dearka let the silence stretch for a bit, before he decided that there was no harm in providing a little cover for whatever Kira was hopefully up to. Maybe this was all a misunderstanding. That would be a nice change.

"Hello! Fancy meeting you guys here! Whoever you are. Pleased to meet you. As you can see, I've taken a bit of a tumble trying to find my snowboard. I don't suppose either of you could give me a hand, could you?" Dearka asked, as brightly and cheerfully as he could. He got no response, though there was a brief blurb of radio noise bleed between the two men. Dearka sighed in relief as the men both slung their rifles a few seconds later. Maybe he'd lucked out, for once. Maybe these guys were just policemen or park rangers or something. Hell, they might even be ski patrol... never know who might need to be armed in the mountains. He was sure there was a good, legal reason for them to have such nasty looking guns. He was so sure, that he wasn't at all surprised when both men headed down the slope at him, pulling even nastier looking bright, shiny knives out of leg sheathes. Seeing as the bruisers had put their guns away, Dearka saw no point in kneeling there for them to come up and gut him.

Dearka cast about for a weapon of his own, picking up the brittle tree limb that had caused his problem in the first place. It may be brittle, but it was still reassuringly heavy in his hands, a good three foot length of wrist thick wood. He sensed that his two assailents were not much impressed with his choice of weapon, because they didn't slow down in the slightest as they half slid and half jumped down the slope towards him. Charging upslope, especially in the snow and while swaddled in thirty pounds of winter gear, was far from easy, but Dearka was disinclined to just sit there and wait for them to come rolling over him with their knives and superior momentum. He swung the tree limb with both hands like a baseball bat, right at the face of the man in front. Had it connected properly, it might have done some damage, but the goon blocked with his empty hand's forearm. Dearka felt the improvised club hit solidly, but the man barely grunted as the wood shattered like an ice sculpture on the armor plates sheathing the arm.

Coming to the unpleasantly belated realization that his foes were in fact wearing heavy armor, perhaps even designed for melee combat, Dearka still refused to just give up. The goon stabbed at him, a relatively clumsy overhand jab like a man sticking a tent peg into the ground. Dearka blocked the man's wrist with his own crossed wrists, grunting as he felt the strength of the other guy. Fortunately, Dearka was far from helpless, he definitely hadn't had time to get soft and weak hauling all those lines and nets and salvage gear aboard his boat, and he guided the stab well to the side before ramming his knee into the goon's midriff, to distressingly little result. He got a grunt, and the man might have bent over a bit, but the torso, even the lower torso, also seemed to be heavily armored, and Dearka had the feeling he was going to hurt his knee long before he really hurt the other guy with moves like that.

The goon shoved Dearka hard in the chest with his free hand, pushing him several steps back downslope as he fought for his balance. The goon charged at him while he flailed, knife extending out in front of him like a lance point. Which was exactly what Dearka had been hoping for. Recovering his balance in an instant, he twisted his body, catching the extended wrist and arm under his own and gripping the knife wielding hand with both of his own to immobilize it. Dropping his enter of gravity, Dearka pulled on the arm as hard as he could, adding his strength to the goon's charging momentum, letting the heavy weight strike him on the back, Dearka then stood up and shrugged as hard as he could, flipping the man up and over him in a clumsy throw. His back felt like he'd just tried to stop a charging bull, but seeing the goon go flying head over heels down the slope made it worth it. Until he remembered the second goon.

Dearka threw himself hard to the side, slamming half upright into a boulder as the second goon slashed his knife through the space he'd just been in. The first goon was thrashing around in a violent manner as he fought to get back to his feet on the slipperly slope, though he wasn't Dearka's concern for the next few seconds. Dearka could do nothing besides desperately twist and roll to the side as the second goon tried to leap bodily upon him, knife stabbing downwards again. Dearka heard the crisp sound of steel encountering rock, and he hoped against hope that the man would break his knife. No such luck... the knife bit into the stone as cleanly and easily as it would into an apple, stabbing in to the hilt before the man could reverse the momentum, though he had no trouble in yanking it out either. Sharp fucking knife. Don't get hit with it, Dearka reminded himself with wide eyes. Where the FUCK had Kira gotten off too anyway!? Two against one wasn't odds Dearka liked when the other guys had knives and guns and armor!

As if summoned, Kira rose up behind goon number two, with his skis held together in his hands. He belted the goon across the back with the plexiglass skis hard enough to swat the man face first into the boulder he'd tried to pin Dearka against. Unfortunately, Kira hadn't realized about the armor until after he'd hit the man either, and instead of being stunned and hurt the goon was merely pissed off. The goon swung about, knife slashing in a wide arc and Kira's only defense was holding up his skis and leaping backwards. Of the two actions, leaping backwards saved his life and holding up his skis got them ruined, sliced neatly in half by the goon's knife without so much as slowing it down. Kira discarded his ruined skis without a second glance and bounced back into melee range of the second goon before the man had even finished his wild swing. Dearka watched Kira belt the goon twice in the gut with his fists, to little perceptible results, and he started to get a bad feeling.

The bad feeling went away as the man made an awkward backhand attack at Kira, which Kira easily caught with just one hand, stopping the blow and twisting the man's arm away at an awkward angle. Kira wasted no pity on the man, who had attacked Dearka with a knife without even a word of intent either way. If these men wanted to be enemies, that did not please Kira, but he wasn't going to let them knife a friend either. Kira brought his free fist up and around in an uppercut like blow, aimed not at the goon's face, but at his trapped arm's elbow, which snapped upwards with a crunch of gristle and torn muscles. That elicted a hoarse scream from the goon, shortly before Kira yanked on the man's broken arm, pulling him closer in even as Kira's elbow swung around and slammed into the goon's facemask, cracking a polarized viewing lens and snapping the goon's head back sharply. Not sharply enough to break the neck, but JUST shy. The goon dropped like a stone and stayed limp.

"Holy shit! I gotta get a membership to your gym!" Dearka commented, pushing himself away from the boulder, where he'd only been able to watch, stunned, as Kira took the goon down with a minimum of fuss. He was just about to take another step forward when he remembered that he hadn't heard much from the first goon for the last few seconds, and that made him very suspicious. Dearka dropped and rolled to the side, even as Kira dived in the opposite direction, as goon number one scrabbled up the other side of the boulder, rifle in one hand, and fired a shot into the ground where Kira and Dearka had just been.

It was just a single shot, but Dearka could not help but note that the gun barely made any noise at all, just a mechanical or perhaps electrical whirr. Which, given the size of the barrel, which was wider than almost any gun he'd ever seen before, save a shotgun, didn't make much sense. Something that shot bullets THAT big would be really noisy, one would think. You should be able to see and hear the muzzle flash and bang for hundreds of feet in any direction. But he was right next to the damn weapon and he hadn't seen even a little flash or heard more than that whirr. At least, not until the crossbow like bolt the thing had sunk into the ground blew up like a small grenade, sending frozen dirt, snow and chunks of rock splattering up in a small eruption. Silent, no muzle flash and shoots fucking explosive arrows!? Good christ, but what the HELL was this?

Dearka scrambled up from his prone position, finding that he had unconsciously snagged one of the parts of Kira's sliced up skis as he did so. He wasted no time in spinning on his heels and throwing the piece of plexiglass at the goon as hard as he could, even as he pushed off with his legs and dived behind the cover of a tree. The goon had been aiming at Kira, and the plexiglass ski fragment hitting his gun arm had caused it to waver slightly, sending the 15mm bolt wide to the right of its target. The bolt impaled a small tree and the slightly delayed explosion chopped it down as neatly as a chainsaw, but with a lot more splinters. The goon swung back over to face where Dearka had gone, and fired two more bolts into the trees over there, though he couldn't see where exactly Dearka had gone, so the shots only blew up more dirt and snow. The goon was about to swing back over to keep Kira covered when Dearka popped his head and arm around his tree trunk and heaved a snowball at him, striking him dead center on his face.

Startled perhaps, the goon loosed one more shot in the general direction of Dearka, though he shot high and sent a mass of splinters and pine needles raining down in a large radius, rather than accomplish anything truly effective. He turned to cover the other kid... and found the other kid, namely Kira, right in his face. The goon tried to bring the gun around, but Kira had Dearka's snowboard in one hand, and he sliced the plexiglass board up and into the goon's gun, knocking its barrel upwards, loosing a shot out to disappear into the mist before the gun went spinning out of the goons grip from the force of the blow. Kira ducked and spun, putting both hands on Dearka's board, which he hammered into the backs of the goon's knees, sweeping the man's legs out from underneath him. Goon number one let out a strangled cry as he fell heavily onto his back atop the boulder, with Kira standing over him. Kira swung the board one more time, aiming carefully, so that the edge of the board struck the man's head at just enough of an angle that it tore his mask off without damaging his skull.

Dazed, goon number one still made a grab for his knife sheath, which prompted Kira to bring the board down with both hands on the crown of the goon's head, though he made sure to strike with the flat and not the edge, splintering the board into several pieces from the force of the blow, but laying the goon out, quite safely unconscious. Kira stood over the man, breath panting in steaming white clouds that slowly diffused into the mist without dissipating, for several moments. Dearka poked his head out from behind his tree, a snowball in one hand, brushing pine needles off his shoulders and head with the other. Seeing that the situation was fully in hand, Dearka dropped his snowball. "Nice save! I am reminded why it would be a bad idea to get on your bad side!"

"I couldn't have got either of them if you hadn't distracted them. And if you hadn't thrown that ski, he probably would have shot me in the face." Kira replied, pulling his muffler up over his face again. "You saved my life. Thanks."

"Well, you did save mine too. And I did sort of draw them onto me through clumsiness..." Dearka stood over the second goon, the one Kira had taken down with his elbow. He wasted no time in relieving the man of his knife and gun, though the man remained well and truly limp throughout the procedure. Yeah... don't mess with Kira in hand to hand combat. Lesson learned, by proxy. Slunging the gun across his shoulders and strapping the knife to his own leg, Dearka debated stripping the man of his armor too, but a second look nixed that idea. This guy was way bigger around than Dearka was, the armor would never fit, even if he could figure out how to take it off and put it on in a timely fashion. He did remove the man's breather mask, so he could get a look at the guy who'd tried to pin him to the rock like a butterfly beneath a collectors pin. Dearka drew in a sharp breath, like he'd been caught in the gut with a jab, which caused Kira to look over and down at him from where he was crouched over the man he'd leveled with the snowboard.

"This guy's a Coordinator. Former ZAFT too." Dearka reported after a few moment's inspection. The green eyes and dark blue hair were a pretty dead giveaway, though in modern times he supposed they could be Touch Ups. But what confirmed the appraisal was the small scar on the lower left side of the man's neck... a small scar all ZAFT soldiers had in common, because that was where they stored your medical ID chip, which contained your medical and dental records while you were on active duty. It also sometimes doubled as a personal transponder, especially for soldiers who'd gotten in trouble, so their command could keep track of when they left base. Dearka had had his scar removed along with the chip when he'd decided he wasn't ever going back to ZAFT, but he'd recognize one anywhere, since many soldiers and former soldiers had kept them as a small reminder of their service. "Weird tattoos on his face. Not familiar with the design... looks kinda like the FAITH angel wing, but if this guy was former FAITH, I'd be dead right now, and so would you probably."

"Like an opened eye with angelic wings?" Kira asked. Dearka nodded in reply. "This man has them too. Perhaps its some form of unit insignia or identifying mark?"

"Likely. Who knows what the fuck it means for sure though, except for them. And they don't look like they're much for talking at the moment. And given that they just sort of came after me with knives, they don't strike me as the most genial and talkative sorts at the best of times." Dearka answered. He shivered, and it wasn't because he was cold. The thought of men like this, out wandering the slopes of the mountain, armed and dangerous and obviously without too many compunctions on killing... more than disturbing. "Lets go back to the lodge... I'm suddenly not comfortable with Miriallia and Lacus being alone up there, with dudes like these wandering around."

"They'll be fine. Lacus has already been forewarned." Kira replied shortly. "We still need to check out the town itself."

"They'll be fine!? What the fuck are you smoking!? There's men armed with explosive shooting weapons and sharp as FUCK knives wandering around in this fog! Even the kitchen knives in the lodge aren't very sharp... and no offense, I don't see Lacus or Miri swinging skis and boards like you do!" Dearka protested angrily.

"They'll be fine because they'll be fine." Kira retorted, calm as could be. "No one can get within five hundred meters of that lodge without Lacus knowing. No one who can hear her voice will be able to point a weapon at her even if they get that close. Lacus, and by extension Mir, is safer than you and I are. Lacus is the frightening one, remember?"

Dearka studied Kira for several long moments. "Bah. I can see you're convinced. I'm not so much, but you've got something of a point. If I go back to the lodge without you, Miri will claw my eyes out, and I don't even want to guess what Lacus would do to me for leaving your out in the cold, so to speak. I guess I have to go with you, for both our sakes. Especially because I'm betting you're not going to take a weapon, are you?"

"I've no interest in guns, especially guns like these that can only be used for killing people. I'll take a knife, but only for utility purposes." Kira replied, strapping the knife sheath to his leg as he did so.

"One of these days your morals are going to get you hurt or killed. Or maybe me hurt or killed. You know that?" Dearka sighed. Kira just nodded and shrugged, as if that was some kind of acceptable answer. "So what do we do with tweedle dee and tweedle dum here?"

"I don't know about you, but I didn't bring any rope or handcuffs." Kira answered, jumping off the boulder and heading back up towards the sno-cat trail. "I hit them hard enough that they shouldn't be waking up anytime soon, and they don't have their knives or guns anymore. We'll come back for them."

"I could just shoot them now..."

"You could try, but then I'd have to stop you."

"Goddamn it, Kira!"

"Killing people, especially helpless people, is WRONG, Dearka. It doesn't help any of us, in the long run. These men are criminals, and they deserve the right to stand trial for their crimes, just like anyone else. I won't stand for them to hurt anyone while I'm around... but I won't stand for anyone else to hurt THEM either, now that they can't defend themselves and are at my mercy. That's the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. Do you want to go further with this?"

"Not right now." Dearka sighed and shook his head. "Let's get to town, so we can sooner get back to the lodge and sanity once more."

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Cagalli had a number of morning rituals she liked to keep to as much as possible. Given how chaotic many of her days could become, she at least wanted the morning to be something she could control. She was the head of government for the most technologically advanced, wealthiest and most powerful terrestrial member-state of the USN after all... there had to be SOME perks to the job. One of those perks was The Tea, as far as Cagalli was concerned. It fully deserved the stress on the name, it wasn't just tea, it was The Tea. She didn't know the name of the actual brand, if there even was one. She liked to think that it was grown and made especially for her... and for all she knew she was right. It certainly conformed to every last iota of what she considered good tea. Of course, Athrun said that too, and she couldn't even SMELL his usual morning tea without feeling slightly ill, so maybe The Tea was just one of those rare things that appealed to everyone.

She could never quite describe the taste. It tasted GREAT. That was it. Just enough caffeine to banish residual sleep, not enough to make you jittery or cause you to crash after a few hours. Sweet enough to not need any extra sugar, but not so sweet you felt like you were drinking watery syrup, which was how Athrun's tea usually tasted to her. And the spices... WOW, it was like all the spices in the world had gotten together and elected the best members of each type to appear in the perfect amount in a single drink! Whoever made this stuff didn't get paid nearly enough. Several of her more annoying cabinet ministers or parliament members directly owed their lives to the calming influence of The Tea, that was for sure. Even Athrun had cause to be thankful for it, every now and again. Which was perhaps why he only sporadically drank it, reserving most of it for her. She didn't care for the reason, as long as she got her morning cup of it.

Breakfast was important too. If she didn't eat a good breakfast, she'd be five or six times as grouchy and irritable during the morning, at least until lunch, because of the hunger pangs. But she had to be careful not to eat TOO good a breakfast, because as a head of state she didn't get NEARLY the right amount of physical exercise. Not even a tenth of the amount she'd gotten before she became Chief Representative, that was for sure. Nothing pissed her off more in her personal life than discovering a pair of pants or shirt that no longer fit because of an extra half inch around her hips or waistline. And of course, Athrun didn't get fat at all, pretty much no matter what he ate. He did exercise a lot, but he ate a lot too. It was completely unfair of course, and she made sure to remind him of it often. He always told her that she wasn't getting fat, or even pudgy, but she knew what that sort of talk from a Guy was worth. Less than the paper it was writ on, so to speak. Guys would say anything... except seriously tell you that you were getting pudgy and fat. Survival instincts at their best.

Getting back to breakfast, Cagalli was something of a picky eater. She despised all those super-healthy multi-grain cereals for instance. Eggs or omelets she could only tolerate once in a while... it was a mental thing, she'd always been fond of baby birds, and she always got such horrid images when she saw egg yolks. To her constrenation, her favorite breakfasts were always the ones the dieticians in the magazines strongly advised against. Things like blueberry french toast with powdered sugar and caramel sauce. Or waffles with chunky peanut butter and loads of maple syrup, maybe with a few strawberries or banana slices for fruit flavor. Or donuts, preferrably chocolate frosted donuts, with sprinkles and whipped cream filled centers. Or crepes in honey butter and cinnamon-suger, with mixed berry sherbert. In short, she had a major sweet tooth, and a healthy dread for getting fat, mutually opposing factors which made eating a truly GOOD breakfast very hard.

She'd found herself giving in to the sweet tooth today, despite a somewhat quizzical look from Athrun that might have earned him a standoffish snap on a less good day. But today was a good day. A day good enough that tempering it with a little after breakfast guilt wouldn't negatively impact its course. Today was a good day because there wasn't actually all that much she had to do today, and what things she did have to do were easy, unstressful and likely to be short. Days like this only came around once in a blue moon, and she really needed this one, after dealing with the media storm growing over her and Athrun's strident opposition to Gilbert Durandel, which Cagalli had not backed away from even though the man had been appointed USN SecDef. They'd lost a major political battle, sure, but if Cagalli had learned ANYTHING from the Valentine Wars, it was that you weren't truly beaten unless you were dead. And not even then sometimes.

Cagalli kept a challenging gaze locked with the back of Athrun's head as she reached into the cupboard and opened a cardboard box of donuts, one of many items in the pantry that was replaced on a daily basis for freshness, regardless of whether or not anyone actually ate the stuff inside. More donuts for the serving staff, most of the time. But not today. Today there would be at least two less donuts for the staff to enjoy. Maybe as many as three or four, depending on how guilt proof she was feeling. Athrun did not turn around, calmly sitting at the living room table, sipping his own tea and eating a ham, egg, pepper cheese and onion omelet he'd made for himself sometime in the nebulous time between when he woke up and when she got out of bed at last. He'd turned the TV on to the morning news, as was his habit, though given the sorts of intelligence briefings he was privy too after breakfast every morning, Cagalli didn't always see the point of watching the news, with its very limited knowledge and scope. This morning she just shrugged to herself and took her plate of donuts and tea over to sit next to him.

"You really gonna eat that?" Athrun asked, without taking his eyes off the TV screen, just as Cagalli was about to take her first victorious bite out of the chocolate frosted, cream filled, sprinkle garnished piece of doughy heaven. "Do you know how many calories are in that?"

"It doesn't matter." Cagalli forced herself to hold off on the culinary nirvana for a moment to shoot him a glare. "I don't care if its thirty, three hundred or three thousand... I'm having donuts for breakfast. Nothing in this world can prevent this from happening. Certainly not my annoying, self righteous husband, who eats close to two thousand calories a meal anyway."

"I'm a growing boy, what can I say? And I try and stay active, throughout the day and even on into the night in many cases." Athrun replied with a slight smile, keeping his eyes on the news.

"You have a little help at night, I should remind you." Cagalli retorted, somewhat muffled by the warm, chewy, sugary pastry in her mouth. She swallowed and licked the frosting from her lips in a way she KNEW Athrun would not be able to avoid looking at. He tried to pretend like he was focused on the news, but he wasn't the only one who could play games in the morning. Especially because it was a good day for him as well. And when it was a good day for him, and a good day for her, on the same day... THAT was truly a recipe for disaster. At least in Kisaka's eyes. Cagalli rarely had more fun, and even Athrun seemed to enjoy it too, more than someone who didn't know him as well as her might expect. "Do I have something on my face?" She asked slyly.

"Wouldn't know. Wasn't looking at your face." Athrun replied, though with a short cough, almost like he'd almost choked on a piece of omelet or something.

"Oh?" Cagalli smiled lazily at the corner of his vision. "Where then were you looking, because methinks you're not really watching the news..."

Athrun was about to reply, propelling them both down a frequently used path that would probably result in undue stress being placed on the table and them both being late for the morning briefing, when the News suddenly cut away from the morning drudgery of weather and traffic reports. A flashing red warning scrolled across the top and bottom of the screen, proclaiming "Breaking News, Hostage Crisis in Swiss Ski Resort Town". A harried but still somewhat intense looking USN official appeared on the screen, flanked on either side by the flag of the FNE... a white background with a picture of the Earth on a silver shield in the center... and the USN, a black background with the Earth in the center, surrounded by four brightly blazing stars in a diamond shape around the Earth. Since Switzerland was part of the FNE, it made sense that they would be claiming initial jurisdiction over any crisis within their borders, though obviously they considered this threat extreme enough that they'd called in the USN as well, which was actually saying something, since the FNE tried perhaps the hardest out of all the member-states to keep the USN at arms length from internal matters.

"Hold that thought." Athrun said, with a heavy sigh. It just hadn't been his or Cagalli's luck recently... every time they had a good, pleasant sense of intimacy building in private, something came in from the harsh real world to deny them. It was enough to really frustrate a guy sometimes. As for what it did to Cagalli... well, it was a good thing there was nothing heavy or especially sharp at hand that she could throw at the TV screen. People laughed when Athrun told them about things like that, but HE certainly didn't break the TVs. "I've got a really bad feeling about this for some reason."

Cagalli was about to give her opinion on his feelings when she was interrupted by the buzzing of Athrun's cell phone. Well, howling was more like it, a custom ring tone that they both hated, but kept because of how distinctive it was. And because they almost never had to hear it, except in the worst sort of emergencies, at which point they didn't care what the phone sounded like. They both froze, and slowly turned their heads to look at the phone, which was on the kitchen bar-counter, right next to the power outlet. The stiff white form of Zim lay next to the vibrating and howling phone, unmoving. Cagalli didn't power him on until after breakfast was all cleaned up anymore... not after that horrid incident where he'd been sitting on her head while she ate a plate of pancakes slathered in far too much maple syrup, and she'd dipped her head too far and he'd lost his grip and fallen directly into the middle of her plate. Cleaning up the mess of Zim, dripping in maple syrup and bits of pancake, trying to climb back up onto her head as his program dictated, had NOT been a good morning.

Athrun's phone howled a third time, like a ghostly hound clawing its way up from the depths of Hell in pursuit of its prey. Athrun rose and stepped over to the counter, snatching it up and turning it on before the fourth howl. That ringtone would get louder and more insistent the longer you waited to pick it up, and even the first one was downright creepy. He'd tested himself once, and managed to hang on through six howls, but he'd had to either flee or turn off the phone right afterwards, goosebumps crawling up and down his spine and arms. "Yes, Cyprus, what is it?" Athrun asked, tersely. Cyprus Finch, de facto head of physical security for the Chief Representative and her consort, was not a man Athrun was particularly fond of. Still, he was also one of the few Naturals to seriously scare Athrun as well, and that was a sentiment pretty much every Coordinator Athrun had met shared. He was definitely a good man to have on YOUR team.

Cagalli watched Athrun turn very pale indeed as he listened to Cyprus's reply. She had mixed feelings on Cyprus as well... much as she had about Alkire and even Raine, much less the other Stromhounds. She was glad to be able to employ them, and grateful for the peace of mind they usually gave her... but she didn't think she'd ever be able to actually warm to them as full on friends, not like she had with Ysak or Dearka or even Andrew Waltfeld. An early morning direct call from Cyprus was NOT a good thing. The man was capable of handling pretty much any sort of problem, save major international incidents, without direct supervision from anyone. If he figured he had to call her and Athrun and get THEM involved... she suddenly didn't feel like eating any more donuts. She wasn't hungry.

"Yes, we're watching the news." Athrun spoke into the phone. "Yes, we'll be watching very closely, though if they are, I don't think they'll be hiding them away, the opposite in fact. Yes, I think that would be a prudent idea. As many as you can spare. I'll get whatever authorization you need, though... yes, you did it anyway, of course. Do me a favor and tell them to prep my Gundam. I hope it won't be needed, but it never hurts to... you understand, of course. Yes. Yes I'll be there soon." Athrun ended the call and turned to look at Cagalli, who was switching her gaze between the nervous looking official on the screen shuffling his paperwork, whom she'd muted during the phone call, and Athrun.

"Its the resort Kira and Lacus went to?" Cagalli surmised, not needing something that simple spelled out for her.

"Dearka and Miriallia too. Kira made it a joint venture at the last moment apparently." Athrun replied.

"How very good of my brother. I hope he talked to Lacus about that before he did it." Cagalli said fiercely, though she really didn't have much hope in that regard.

Athrun nodded in silent agreement. "Well, even if he didn't, they've both got bigger problems now certainly. Cyprus is preparing a full briefing as we speak, and also assembling every Stormhound he can spare. He's already got clearance from National Defence Headquarters to take a supersonic transport, and its being warmed up as we speak. Honestly, we're going to have to figure out how he's bypassing our internal command protocols sometime... the man could start a war if he wanted to, given the way he gives orders to people who really shouldn't be taking orders from him."

"I'll put some people on it, though its not going to be easy... he's the guy we put in charge of our counter-intelligence operations, he's going to be awful hard to trace. But that's neither here nor there right now. Can you sum up the situation, or do we need to watch the news?" Cagalli answered.

"At the moment we don't know much more than the news, though I imagine Cyprus is working very hard at fixing that as we speak. He recommended that we watch it for the moment, and keep an eye out for Kira, Lacus, Dearka or Miriallia. If any of them have been taken hostage, its a sure bet that the terrorists will put them on display for added public attention. Cyprus is pretty sure that the terrorists have released a tape, which is what the USN official will be showing to us. Apparently its fairly standard doctrine for terrorists." Athrun unmuted the TV.

"... will be showing a recording sent to the USN by the terrorist organization that has taken control of the resort town. Parental discretion is advised, as the images may be both graphic and disturbing to young viewers." The USN official finished saying. He looked up at the cameras for a second or two before the picture changed, becoming slightly grainier, and much less well lit, though compared to what Athrun had been half expecting, it was actually very professional. This was obviously the work of some fairly serious people, not just a bunch of druggy freaks out for a high with a video camera and some guns. The view oscillated between darkness and relative light for a few moments before coming fully into focus. Athrun and Cagalli's eyes both narrowed, and their mouths hardened into grim lines at what they saw.

The room was obviously the foyer of an office building, or perhaps a hotel. It was a large room, but it was very crowded, packed with at least a hundred people, if not more. Most of them were clad in bathrobes or nightgowns or in various states of half dress, plainly they had been surprised while in bed or preparing for it. It seemed odd that so many people could have all been caught off guard like that, but no less odd than a terrorist organization taking over an entire TOWN, not just a building or building complex. The people in gowns and robes and boxer briefs were cuffed hand and foot with the plastic ties that modern law enforcement services used in place of metal handcuffs, at least in short term situations. They were cruel things to leave on someone for extended periods of time, biting into flesh and cutting off circulation in a matter of hours.

In the center of the room a small stage and podium had been set up, draped with dark green flags with an odd symbol on them in gold. It looked like a human eye, with rays of light extending from it, and an angelic wing growing out of either corner of the eye. It was not a symbol that either Athrun or Cagalli was familiar with. It was around this stage and podium that the majority of the people who were not bound hand and foot were congregated. They were all big, shapeless, bulky individuals, wearing what looked like heavy ballistic armor and full facial filtration/life support masks, complete with polarized viewing lenses over the eyes. Their clothing was the same dark green as the flags, speckled with random jags and lines of gold that seemed to shift as they moved. It took Athrun several seconds, as the camera was panning around the room to show all the frightened and defeated looking hostages, to realize that the patterns really WERE moing, and that the armor had some sort of advanced active camouflage system on it!

The camera stopped panning around the room and zoomed up on the stage and podium. One of the armored and masked figures seperated from the group and made his way up onto the stage, taking up position behind the podium, which apparently had a microphone in it, judging by the volume of his voice. "We are the Brotherhood of Mankind. We are not a terrorist organization. We are legitimate freedom fighters, with an interest in world peace and continued prosperity for the worthy. Those you see before you now are the harbringers of a golden age none of the uninitiated can possibly comprehend! We have taken control of this town, and we will only relinquish it back to its so called proper authorities after our conditions have been met fully and without interference! It is not in the best interest of the USN, the FNE or any other member-state of the USN to try and resolve this situation through force. We have all of the advantages, and a righteous cause that we would all gladly give our lives for. Hail the Brotherhood!"

"HAIL THE BROTHERHOOD!" Every other masked figure in the room yelled, obviously either on cue on because it was a standard reply in whatever their organization was. "HARBRINGERS OF THE NEW HUMANITY!"

"How delightfully fanatical." Cagalli commented sourly.

"Our demands are simple! First, we have a list of our Brothers and Sisters in arms that have been unrighteously detained by various authorities. They will be released, and given passage to a location that we will disclose at the proper time. Second, we demand that our Testament be circulated by all major media, so that the legions of the apostate can have their due chance at becoming one of the true worthies while there is still time! Copies of the Testament, in its full glory, will be sent out along with this recording. No bias must be attached to the distribution of our Holy Words, divined directly from Heaven by the Prophet Himself!"

"HAIL THE PROPHET! GLORY TO THE GOLDEN AGE TO COME!"

"Third, and perhaps most importantly, we DEMAND the immediate and total withdrawal of the PLANTS from the heresy of the United Solar Nation! Coordinators have no place sullying their hands with the leeching grasp of lesser races! Let the Worthy be Judged by their own merits, not by the merits and labors of their BETTERS!"

"LET THE WORTHY BE JUDGED!"

"Is he preaching or making demands?" Athrun muttured, not sure if he could take the over the top performance as seriously as he probably should be. He was also troubled because what he was hearing didn't fit the bill for any of the Coordinator-Supremacist groups HE was aware of anyway, not that there were too many of those, especially not militiant, religious oriented ones.

"Fourth, we demand an immediate contribution by the heretical leaders of the USN to the cause of the Righteous Golden Age represented by the Brotherhood of Mankind! The contribution will not be less than five billion dollars, and there is NO upper limit! Demonstrate your worth to the Brotherhood, that ye may be judged worthy before the coming of the Great Recreation! Finally, once ALL other conditions have been met to OUR satisfaction, you will allow us safe and unmolested transport to a location of our choosing, and no retributive action will be attempted, now or in the future, against the Brotherhood! Hail the Brotherhood!"

"HAIL THE BROTHERHOOD! HARBRINGERS OF THE NEW HUMANITY!"

"If our conditions are not met within one hour of this recording being delievered, I, the Haunted Apostle of the Brotherhood, will kill five randomly selected hostages! We have plenty to spare. Observe." The preacher, or Haunted Apostle, or whatever he was called, gestured at something off screen. Two men, two women and a boy in his low teens were promptly dragged into view and lined up on the stage. They were bound hand and foot and gagged. Without wasting any further words, and precious few actions, the Haunted Apostle drew forth a long, extremely shiny combat knife from a leg sheath. with a minimum of flourish, he took the first man by the hair and yanked his head back. With a single smooth swipe of the blade, he cleanly decapitated the man with barely a grunt of effort. The other hostages tried to shrink away, but other members of the Brotherhood were pressing forward, knives glinting in their own fists. In a matter of seconds all four remaining hostages were dead, hacked to shreds by the eeriely silent mob of terrorists. What was left was barely recognizable as human remains.

The Haunted Apostle cleaned his knife blade off by flicking it casually to the side, flinging droplets of red over the nearest wall and the hostages huddled beneath it, staring through horrified eyes. "We will butcher them like the cattle Naturals are. You have one hour to comply. Hail the Brotherhood!"

"HAIL THE BROTHERHOOD! RIGHTEOUS ANGELS OF THE PROPHET!" The rest of the terrorists cheered, thrusting their bloody knives over their heads in synchronity. On that egotistical note, the recording blacked out, to be replaced by the even more shaken looking face of the USN official, who had probably been watching the recording for the first time himself. Athrun turned the TV off, his hand white knuckled around the remote. He had to try very, very hard to keep his fists unclenched and his face composed. Cagalli was making no such effort for self control, he noted, but that was all right. It was when Cagalli was outwardly calm that she began truly contemplating things they might all regret later. Seeing her enraged never made him happy, but he knew she'd be channeling this rage as productively as possible.

"Well, I think we can officially rule ZAFT out of helping with this one." Athrun noted. "Of course there isn't any connection between these Brotherhood psycho's and the PLANTS, but since it's a Coordinator-Supremacy group, the media will make it too hot for themto become directly involved."

"Ballsy fuckers, aren't they!?" Cagalli gritted out. "An HOUR!? AN HOUR!? Nothing will get done in an HOUR! Even if the USN caved completely, there's no way they could meet all five demands in a single HOUR! Bloodthirsty motherfuckers are just looking for an excuse to kill people!"

"Yeah..." Athrun trailed off, fighting down his own righteous anger. There would be a time and place. He'd make SURE of that. But not right now. "Something is not right about this situation. Those guys are practically FORCING the USN to drop on them like a ton of bricks, killing hostages like that. I'm no terrorism expert, but even I know that any situation where the authorities are forced to send in strike teams never works out well for the terrorists. They may get to kill a lot of people, but they all die in return, and none of their demands are met. The value of hostages is keeping them alive, and trading them for favors... murdering them out of hand is STUPID! Maybe they are religious fanatics... but they managed to take an entire TOWN by storm! I just can't get a good read on them... are these guys professionals or fanatics?"

"Professional fanatics, if that sermon we had to listen to was any indication! What a load of BULLSHIT! Nutjobs, all of em! Almost makes me wish for FROST... at least he was AWARE that he was an evil, crazy homicidal sociopath and he never tried to justify himself!" Cagalli snorted, turning blazing eyes on Athrun. "Go out there and show those bastards why its NOT acceptable to the good people of this world to kill people like they are cattle, regardless of what sort of genetics you have! If you can take them captive, good, bring them back here and I'm sure Cyprus can figure out some way for them to have a series of bad accidents before we turn them over to the USN. If you can't take them captive... and I don't really care how hard you try... that won't make me unhappy either. Terrorists aren't the only ones who can send intimidating messages through actions! Shit like this is NOT okay!"

"No, it isn't, you're completely right. There are plenty of peaceful, legal ways to make your political and religious beliefs known. Taking hostages of men, women and children and killing them while they are bound and gagged and helpless is emphatically not one of them!" Athrun leaned forward after baring his teeth in a wolfish grin. He put a hand on Cagalli's shoulder and kissed her, steely green eyes locked with fiery amber ones. "For luck. I'll be home for dinner."

"I'd be happier with lunch."

"The Phoenix King hears, and will do his best to obey."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Oookaay then... that's a brand of insanity I haven't seen in a while." Major Alkire Majesty, aka Major Robert Jones, depending on who was talking to him, ostensible force commander of the Stormhounds branch of the Orb Special Operations Squadron, commented with a wry grin and a malicious glitter in his eyes. He was referring to the video released by the nutjob loonies, aka The Brotherhood of Mankind, which the Stormhound response team was mulling over as they made their way to the action zone. Even with the fastest supersonic transport Cyprus had been able the wheedle out from under the noses of High Command, it was still going to be a four hour flight. That meant at least twenty people were going to die, and there was nothing Alkire could do about it. Some people would be bothered intensely by a fact like that... he happened to work for several of them. Alkire put it into a distant part of his mind, for perusal when the time was right. Such as when he had one of the nutjob loonies in his sights.

"Especially from the Coordinators! I mean, anyone can go crazy, but religious crazies? Especially terrorist religious crazies? Given how often they were persecuted by such groups, I would have thought Coordinators wouldn't touch that particular cesspit of humanity with a twenty foot spear." Staff Sergeant Richard Ramierez, former Hellhound and now senior Recon Specialist of the Stormhounds, added laconically. "I guess you really can't count on ANYONE to stay sane these days."

"It's true that Coordinators aren't, as a culture, particularly religious... but there's always a subculture that buys into these doomsday cults and splinter groups. Every society has its disaffected and underprivileged members, and the PLANTS are no exception. If anything, they might be more suspectible to a doomsday cult than other places, because so much of their population is relatively young. Rashness of youth and that sort of thing." Sergeant Matthew Kurtz, tall, muscular, with short cropped blond hair and ayran blue eyes, one of the newly inducted Stormhounds, replied thoughtfully. "Just because he was new to the Stormhounds didn't mean he was new to SpecOps, far from it. He'd spent almost eight years kicking down doors and shooting various "bad guys" as a part of MAGOS, the special unit of the Atlantic Federation's Marines before being forcibly retired by the merging of the AF military into the FNE at the end of the Second Valentine War. He'd been thinking about going into private security, or perhaps police SWAT, but then he'd had a brief visit from the scariest motherfucker he'd ever crossed gazes with, and that had ended up with him coming to Orb for a tryout. He'd never looked back.

"These guys don't exactly fit the bill of a standard doomsday cult though." Major Raine Belaruse, the other surviving member of TEMPEST besides Alkire, and the sniper specialist of the Stormhounds, cut in. "I saw plenty of them in my own youth in the Eurasian Federation. They talk a pretty good game, and they can be violent like few others... but no way they'd have the organization and training to take over an entire town, not unless there was a whole army of them! And an army would not have caught an entire fucking town in their sleepwear! And an army, we would have heard of something beforehand. These guys dropped out of the fucking blue sky and took over a fucking town of hundreds of people without too much effort. No, I don't buy the doomsday cult angle. These guys are pros."

"They don't ACT like pros." Private Melissa Raven, another new member, formerly of AFAR, the Atlantic Federation Army Rangers, protested mildly. Short, slim, dark of hair and eye, with pale, freckled skin, Melissa Raven reminded most people of an awkward high school cheerleader. Which was a bad impression to have, because she was a mean bitch by her own words, and she was one of two primary support weapon specialists of the Stormhounds, with the other being the gigantic Sergeant-Major Thomas Glory, who sat beside her, dwarfing her like a tiger next to a housecat. Even the other Stormhounds would sometimes stop and shake their heads in amazement when she wasn't looking, astounded that such a small woman could carry such a big gun, and use it so well. "By killing those hostages right off the bat, yeah, they proved they aren't fucking around... but at the same time they pretty much nixed the chance of amiable negotiations. We don't have any choice but to go in and waste the motherfuckers now!"

"Maybe they want us to come after them. They are Coordinators after all... they must be feeling pretty high and mighty." Glory snorted to show his true opinion of that line of thinking. Coordinators were no more invincible and all mighty on a general level than Naturals... though there was a higher incidence of what Glory liked to term "supreme bad-assedness" among Coordinators than Naturals, at least of his personal acquaintance. One such example of that was actually flying not too far away from them, in his own supersonic transport, though Athrun was lagging slightly behind because of the Mobile Suit carriers lower top speed.

"You might not be far wrong, Thomas." Lieutenant Cyprus Finch, the actual field commander of the Stormhounds, regardless of what rank he was, spoke up, his intent grey eyes focused entirely upon the terrorist recording, which he was replaying in slow motion. "In fact, I'm almost sure they are in fact inviting an attack."

"Why would they WANT the USN to send in strike teams?" Sergeant Jack Quentin, another former Hellhound and the Stormhounds resident demolitions and gadget expert, asked with a frown of puzzlement. "I don't care if they're Coordinators... they're massively outnumbered and outpowered. Hell, the USN could send in MOBILE SUITS if they wanted. We're bringing a fucking Gundam... what the FUCK are they going to do against that!? Is it just the standard martyr complex? I thought Coordinators were supposed to be smarter than that!"

"Coordinators usually are smarter than that." Cyprus replied. "I think these Brotherhood people are MUCH smarter than that, actually. Distressingly so, even."

"Oh boy. What did you see?" Alkire rolled his eyes, trying to fight down a surge of professional jealousy. Cyprus was just so damn good at his job that even other people at the top of their line of work couldn't help but feel outclassed sometimes. Sometimes Alkire just couldn't see the point of even TRYING to compete with Cyprus... but then again, he couldn't just let the cold eyed bastard walk in and take up shop without a fight, could he? I mean, sure, they were on the same side now, and Alkire was glad for it... but goddamn it, HE was the senior Clyne Faction Specialist, and he was going to prove that he was every bit as good at his job as damnable Cyprus Finch! Somehow.

"Several things." Cyprus answered, not rising in the slightest to the tone of Alkire's voice. The Major was an incredible soldier, and had nothing to prove to Cyprus or anyone else, even if he did feel a little too strongly at times. Professional envy was actually a good motivator, in Cyprus's opinion. He used it himself after all, with regards to Yamato and sometimes Zala as well. "They aren't obvious, but I'm sure you'll all see what I'm talking about without too much trouble. Look at their weapons and armor. Are any of you familiar with guns or knives or body armor of that type? I am not." Cyprus listened to the silence, which was broken only by brief denials from the other Stormhounds. "That armor has an active camouflage system superior to the one our own uniforms employ."

"And the caliber of those guns is huge... ten or maybe even fifteen millimeters? Thats more like a support weapon than a grunt rifle, but as far as I can tell they all got em!" Raven pointed out, her brow furrowing. "Kick on those has to be murder!"

"Knives ain't normal either." Ramierez noted, with a frown of his own. "He swiped that poor bastard's head off like he was cutting through soft cheese, backbone and all. I ain't never seen a blade that cuts through bone as easily as it does flesh. Even surgical scapels aren't that sharp. I'm not looking forward to coming to up close and personal grips with knives like those. Especially with armor like that. Looks pretty beefy, yeah, but they aren't exactly waddling around like bomb squad, which given the amount of padding I see, they should be."

"Those masks of theirs give me a really bad vibe." Raine commented with a narrow glare. "Those look like a full on anti-CBR (Chemical, Biological, Radiological) rig, maybe even a self contained personal environment system. Shit like that is not comfortable for long periods, nor is it particularly easy to fight in. Restricts your vision, restricts your breathing... unless they put them on just to hide their identities, why wear them? Unless there is some condition that is forcing them to wear them. But what that might be I can't see... the hostages didn't seem to be in any undue distress from gas or germs or radiation."

"Maybe they got some sort of agent they're planning to use on the strike teams? But it doesn't make any sense... why tip their hand like that? Any fool can see that those masks are a anti-CBR precaution. The USN forces will be going in more than ready for that sort of shenanagin." Alkire mused. He was starting to get some pretty bad vibes too. Unknown, highly advanced gear. Distinctly weird behavior, even for religious nutjobs. Irrational killing of hostages, mixed with the apparent ability to take over an entire town in the middle of the night without any inhabitent even getting dressed to find out what the hell was going on... he couldn't get a good read on these freaks to save his life... and since his read on them might even actually save his life in the near future, that was worrisome! "But unless they got a decon station set up outside the view of their camera, I don't see how they could possibly have already deployed an agent that would MEAN anything to their situation without some effect showing on the hostages."

"Maybe its a long term germ. Ebola 2 doesn't show symptoms for up to ten hours after infection." Quentin pointed out. "If they've got some kinda super virus, they could well have already released it, and nobody will know a damn thing about it until people start puking their guts up half a day after all the shooting stops."

"Well there's a fucking nice thought, thanks, Q." Alkire replied, shivering with unfeigned dread. He didn't so much mind things he could shoot, stab or run from. But a fucking germ? Get even a little of Ebola 2 in your system, and if you didn't get the right treatment FAST, it was the hard goodbye for you as your insides slowly liquefied into an infectious slurry.

"Possible, but doubtful." Cyprus said, his tone sure. "They have to know that all hostages and strike team members would be heading into quarantine as soon as possible precisely because of that fear. Even if they have released a bioweapon, they won't kill more than the hostages and a few dozen relatively inconsequential special operations soldiers. It would be a waste of a bioweapon."

"For once I find myself glad to be labeled "inconsequential", I don't know about the rest of you." Glory said with a bitter smile. "Trying to figure these guys and all their conflicting signals out is making my head hurt. Do we have any solid intel we can hash over to give me some time to chew on the unknowns? You know, like an actual plan and maybe some maps? I know the Major is happiest when he's pulling ideas whole and bloody from his own ass, but I'd prefer to avoid that for as long as possible. I've a weak stomach for that sort of engagement."

"I've had Athrun working on those. Do you have anything for us, Mr. Ambassador?" Cyprus replied, speaking to thin air.

"Just call me Athrun. I'm not here on official business." Athrun's voice, somewhat tinny but quite recognizable, came from Cyprus's mask-helmet, which was sitting on his lap. Ramierez jerked in shock and stared at the helmet with grave intent.

"How long have we been on comms with Athrun?" Ramierez asked quietly.

"Since the beginning of the flight. Why?" Cyprus replied, with what may have been a slight smirk.

"Ah. Great. Okay, Athrun... anything you may have heard me say about how CUTE, HOT and SEXY Cagalli looks on that Sport's Illustrated cover she did... I didn't mean that. Well, I did... but not in a bad... I'm just gonna shut up now..." Ramierez subsided under a ferocious glare from Glory. "Goddamn it, sir, you gotta warn a guy!" He whispered, shaking his head in exasperation.

"Situational awareness, Corporal. I've said it ten thousand times. Eventually you might actually listen, or so I can hope." Cyprus replied, his face a mask of serene concentration.

"I'm afraid I don't have much that you people are going to like. I don't have much I like, and I'm going in piloting a state of the art Gundam, not on the ground." Athrun told them, ignoring Ramierez. What the man thought on his own time wasn't Athrun's concern... as a matter of fact, he definitely agreed with the Stormhounds opinion of that picture, but that was neither here nor there.

"That's encouraging. Way to boost morale." Raine said sarcastically.

"I'm sending over our satellite feed as we speak, along with what maps of the area we have on file. The older maps are what you guys are going to have to rely on, because..." The screen on the wall of the aircraft flickered to life as it received Athrun's data feed. "... as you can see, there ISN'T much to see." The screen showed a real time picture of the Alps, looking down from several hundred miles above. The picture shrank to half the screen even as it zoomed in on a specific mountain valley, with the other half of the screen being taken up with topographical maps of the same area. As the satellite camera finished zooming in, the Stormhounds all got a very good, close up look at... a big bank of fog. A big bank of thick white and grey fog that covered the entire mountain valley and much of the lower slopes of the mountains on all sides.

"Interesting. It's midmorning there now, it'll be afternoon when we arrive. What is the weather pattern there now?" Cyprus asked.

"Sunny, breezy and cold, all morning long and projected for the rest of the day. The whole rest of that geographical area is cloudless and breezy, even the other valleys, with no warm fronts within hundreds of miles." Athrun replied, his voice puzzled. "Not exactly good fog weather."

"Fog doesn't usually show up in high mountains either. Low clouds, blizzards, sure, whatever... fog banks? Of that size and thickness? No, I don't think so." Alkire added. "Do we have any pictures of what the area looked like last night?"

"Not from our satellite... hold on, let me see what I can grab from the public net..." Athrun said, and the Stormhounds listened to the sound of his fingers flying across the keyboards for a impressively short amount of time. There was a longish pause after Athrun stopped typing. "That's strange." Athrun commented, putting the image he'd been watching up on the Stormhound's screen before they could ask him what was strange. "This first picture was taken just after dusk. Notice everything is calm and clear." Athrun changed the pictures. "This was taken at just after midnight. Notice its still calm and clear... except over the town, which is hidden beneath fog." He changed the pictures again. "This is four AM, local time. The fog bank is covering most of the valley... but again, no clouds, no moisture, and especially no fog anywhere else. That's just a little..."

"Disquieting." Cyprus finished.

"I was gonna say "creepy"." Raven muttered to Kurtz, who nodded in agreement. "They built their own fog bank... and a damned BIG fog bank too. That's some pretty impressive environmental technology in play there. Certainly not beyond the means of people who hail from the PLANTS... but that sort of stuff isn't cheap or easy to get."

"It does not explain why the fog remains despite the prevailing weather conditions though." Kurtz replied. "No fog making technology I know of could create such a widespread effect in the face of even a light breeze, not to mention bright sunlight. Besides, fog is a great visual blockade... but in modern times, all it takes is the push of a button and most sensor systems will look right through it. Our satellite should be able to do it, certainly."

"And that is where this situation leaves "disquieting" and becomes "disturbing"." Athrun told them, not bothering to hide the concern in his voice. "Watch this. Switching to infared heat sensors, now." The picture of the mountain valley hanged from the vivid colors of a normal camera to the blues, greens, yellows and reds of thermal imaging. The town should have shown up as a cluster of yellow and orange glows running along the middle of the valley. There were several lodges above the fog line that showed up like that. But everything inside the fog bank was the same uniform deep purple of extremely sub zero temperature. There was no sign of a town at all. "Here's ground penetrating radar." The image did not substantially change... there was still no useful image where the fog bank covered. Athrun cycled through several more types of sensor imaging and specialized cameras. Nothing pierced the fog any better than regular vision did.

"I'm disturbed all right." Quentin volunteered. "That's not possible, I'll be the first to say. Thermal imaging was bad enough... but to be opaque to radar!? Much less some of the more esoteric shit!? I could see a SANDSTORM maybe being opaque to radar, but certainly not ALSO thermal scans. And what the fuck was with that magnometer sweep!? That fog bank lit up like it was made from pure fucking iron! We hit that shit with enough sensors to see through Mirage fucking Colloid, and we might as well have not wasted our time! The only thing we haven't tried is sonar, and I doubt there's going to be a sonar system we can borrow, ten thousand feet above sea level!"

"This just raises more questions of course." Cyprus almost seemed to be enjoying the challenge this inexplicable fog bank was presenting.

"Not least of which is how those Brotherhood whackjobs can see in that soup?" Raine pointed out quietly. "I can't think of a single sensor type we didn't try, save for sonar, like Q said. So what the fuck are THEY using to see through it with? Are they even? Or are they as blind as everyone else? I don't like missions with so many unknowns in them. They tend to see a lot of people killed that should ordinarily not be."

"We can actually just shelve the whole fog situation for the moment, can't we?" Alkire suggested. "The kids should be at the lodge, right? I know we ain't got shit for voice comms... another distrubing thing, given the comm technology we have... but Dearka and Miriallia have always struck me as logical, reasonable people. They should know we'll be coming to look in on them since they haven't called, and that means they should be staying put, safe and warm in their lodge, which is still above the fog line."

"I notice you don't include Kira and Lacus among the "logical, reasonable people"." Athrun retorted.

"Can you really blame me? I didn't think so. Don't get me wrong... Kira and Lacus, you can't help but love and admire them. But logical, reasonable people... hell no. They've made a career out of flying in the face of logic and reason no matter WHAT the odds, so why should they stop now?" Alkire shot back. "Call me on it if I'm incorrect, but if I know Kira at ALL, I'm going to say that he just can't leave well enough alone, so he's probably out investigating the fog personally. Which may mean that he's already encountered some of these Brotherhood freaks, since they're bound to have patrols out, or at least a perimeter of some sort. Knowing Kira, he's probably fine, regardless... but I wouldn't have my hopes too set on finding him at the lodge."

"I agree with the Major's assessment." Cyprus added. "Elsman, Haww and Miss Clyne are almost certainly staying put, but Mr. Yamato has a meddlesome streak almost as big as he is, and an entirely too good set of instincts for his own good health. He is undoubtedly investigating on his own, because he won't be able to relax until he figures out what is wrong. Which will probably involve a great deal of gunfire and excitement, despite his best intentions. We can only hope that we arrive in time to back him up, because for all his skills, outside a Mobile Suit he is far from invincible."

Cyprus took up a laser pointer and flicked it on. "We're going in basically blind, which none of us like, but we don't have much choice in a off the cuff response like this one. Athrun and his Gundam will precede us down to secure the area while the rest of us parachute down, HALO, of course. Once we land, we will re-form up and procede with due haste to the lodge, where we will verify the safety and good health of as many principals as we can. After discussing with them what they have observed and done since the beginning of the crisis, we will procede to evacuate or commence a detailed ground search as necessary to ensure the safety of the four of them. After we enter the lodge, Athrun will recon the village as best he is able with his Gundam, working in support of any USN actions to free the hostages if possible. We'll finesse the plan as we go, but those are the basics. Any questions?"

Raven raised a slightly shaky hand. "We're going to jump, basically blindly, out of a supersonic jet and conduct a high altitude, low opening coordinated parachute drop in full gear... over a mountain range? Is that the insertion plan?"

"Welcome to the Stormhounds, Private. You can leave your sanity at the door, all we care about is results." Ramierez replied with a wide smile.

--------------------------------------------------

Randolf sucked in a deep breath of the supercooled, freeze dried, "fog" laden air before he closed the acess hatch on the Haunted. He savored the feeling of the chill spreading throughout his entire body, like the welcome embrace of a friendly ghost, before his immune system, boosted by enhancers provided by the Boss, overcame the Nanites and dissolved them. Randolf could breathe the Haunted Mist for hours and hours without great physical discomfort, assuming he had some way of keeping warm as well. It wouldn't do for a ghost to be harmed by his own special environment, would it? His Brotherhood minions were not so blessed, and thus the environment masks. He had one himself, but he'd only donned it for the farce with the media recording. Randolf smiled, enjoying the thought of the constrenation the video had likely created amongst the people of the world.

Especially amongst the hapless USN reaction forces, who would be looking at so many different examples of contradictory behavior amongst Randolf and his men that they wouldn't know WHAT to think. Were they dealing with religious fanatics? Insane sociopaths? Drug addicts? Professional actors? Cold blooded soldiers? The reality was something of a mixture of all of those things, and more besides. Randolf slipped on his control helmet and sighed with enjoyment as the Haunted powered on, expanding his senses and filling his body with the full power of youth and more. He watched with a grim smile as his men herded the hostages out into the fog in small groups, cutting the bonds on their legs and pushing them away, shivering and screaming in muffled voices. Clad only in sleepwear and a few bathrobes, the townspeople would not get far in the Haunted Mist before the Nanites sucked the heat from their bodies and lulled them into a sleep from which none would ever awaken.

The thought that he was in essence murdering an entire town by sending them out to die of exposure did not bother Randolf too much, at least if he didn't let himself dwell on it. It was a necessary, if not palatable sacrifice for the greater good. History would remember all of the people of this town as martyrs for the cause, the first spark upon the tinder that would lead to the blazing fires of recreation and evolution. Randolf turned to the two Zealots flanking him consideringly. Not being equipped with sonar, the other two machines would be as hindered as anyone else in the fog. He contemplated deploying them to the edge of the fog, but in the end decided against it. What did he care about them blundering around like drunk men, shooting in every direction? Collateral damage would serve the cause well, and it wasn't like there was going to be any townsfolk to get caught in the crossfire. Not that the USN forces would know that.

"Apostle, one of our patrols has not reported in for nearly an hour." One of his unit commanders reported. "They were dispatched to probe towards one of the lodges on the mountainside to the north. I can hardly believe it, but something must have befallen them. Perhaps some armed survivors we did not round up in the intial stages are hiding out there. What should we do?"

"It is inconsequential..." Randolf thought for a few moments. "No. We must make an example. Take a full squad and see to these armed survivors, Harbringer. Bring the camera and take captives if possible. We might want something to send the authorities when they try to negotiate for some hostages. We ARE supposed to be butchering them like cattle every hour after all."

"Hail the Brotherhood, Apostle, the Prophet's will be done."

"Hail the Brotherhood, Harbringer." Randolf replied curtly, though the ritual phrase made him want to snort with amusement. Hail the Brotherhood? How childish could you get? The Boss must have thought of that before he went through puberty. It did make for good disinformation though, he had to give it that much. The Haunted backed into a wide alley between two hotels, and in moments it was like it had never been there at all, so complete was its concealment. The sound of the Gundam scaling the side of one hotel barely carried for half a block, and Randolf stretched himself comfortably out prone on the roof, spreading his weight around to prevent collapsing entirely through the structure, though it was hard on an unreinforced building. Now it was time to watch and wait and hope the USN didn't disappoint.


	9. Clearing the Field part 3

"Terrorists? I never would have thought that terrorists would, in this day and age, be able to take over an entire town in a civilized nation without people even only a few miles away being aware of it." Miriallia said worriedly, pacing back and forth in front of the picture window that looked out over the back deck. There wasn't much to see besides the surface of the fog bank, which had thankfully not grown any higher in the few hours since it had first started seeping into the lodge, and the distant mountainside on the other side of the valley. Every few steps she would pause and shoot a very concerned glance over her shoulder at Dearka, who was huddled on a footstool as close to the blazing red frame of the electric space heater as he could get without burning himself. He'd been sitting there, in that position, with the thoroughly miserable expression on his face, pretty much ever since he and Kira had come trudging up out of the fog about an hour ago. "I can't believe you're still cold." Miriallia commented with a sniff.

"Believe it. That mist sucks the heat right out of you, even worse than wet clothing does. I almost died of hypothermia on the way back up the hill. Sweat was freezing to my body inside my coats." Dearka replied in a weak voice. He didn't know if he'd ever feel warm again, that was how deep the cold went. It was in his limbs, which he could still only barely feel, but worst of all it had gotten into his lungs, a big, heavy chunk of ice in his chest, sitting on top of his heart. "It's a good thing Kira knew where we were going, because I could barely see. It felt like my eyeballs were crystallizing." What Dearka carefully did not mention was the fact that he was fairly sure his eyeballs HAD been starting to freeze solid. At least if what he and Kira had found on their way back uphill with the two goons they'd fought off on their way down to town was any indication. They hadn't left the two unconscious goons for long... less than an hour certainly. Not very long at all for two men in their prime, especially Coordinators, especially in environmentally controlled suits of armor.

Too long, as it turned out, much to Kira's dismay and Dearka's weary acceptance... he'd been suffering the soul deep chill by that point... much too long, especially for men lying on the cold ground unmoving. To say the least, both men were dead. To say more, they both looked like they'd been in a deep freeze for about a month, with heavy rimes of ice all over their bleached white skin, their facial features brittle to the touch. Dearka had accidentally ripped one guy's nose off, when his fingers almost got stuck to the face checking for breathing. There was reddish ice where the flesh had used to be, but the blood was all frozen, or so chilled that it wouldn't flow. Dearka had crossed the possibility of CPR thankfully off his list, and good riddance too, though convincing Kira to leave the two corpsicles had taken a little more doing. Kira had been annoyingly unfazed by the environment, at least it had seemed to the Dearka-cicle that had been plodding behind him up the sno-cat track, though as soon as they got back Dearka had watched with faintly stunned amazement as Kira had tucked in to nearly ten pounds of steaming hot beef patties and chili, so plainly he'd been burning some sort of reserve to keep warm!

Kira shared another look with the shivering Dearka. They were both keeping silent on much of the details of what they'd seen down in the town, neither wanting to distress either Miriallia or Lacus with their eyewitness accounts of the bloody massacre of the five bound and helpless hostages by nearly twenty more of the armored goons. They'd managed to sneak into the middle of the curiously deserted town before they even saw a building with lights on. Not so curiously once they saw the greater portion of the townsfolk bound and held hostage in the hotel foyer, under guard by the well armed and armored goons. They'd quietly searched several other buildings, all with smashed open doors and windows that filled the interiors with the fog, leeching the heat from everything and making the darkened houses even more surreal and creepy than they would otherwise be.

They hadn't found anything either of them particularly wanted to remember, though they both suspected they'd be reliving some scenes in nightmares the next few times they went to sleep. Bloody smears of blown apart bodies amid craters in wooden or slate floors and walls, where shots from the strange rifles the terrorists used had blown men and women and even a few children into a messy oblivion. Several other frozen corpses, with glaringly deep and fatal looking knife slashes in their backs or faces or necks, testified to more up close and visceral contacts between townsfolk and terrorist. All the bodies, at least those that were mostly whole and identifiable, were in various stages of half dress or sleep clothing, the occupants obviously spilling out of beds to investigate the sounds of battered down doors and broken windows, only to meet merciless death coming the other way. One strange thing that Dearka had noticed and pointed out to Kira was that no animals had been shot or stabbed or otherwise harmed in any way, even guard dog type specimens, though they had still succumbed to the fog's deathly embrace.

It had been on their way back from witnessing the massacre at the hotel, when they'd both been hot eyed and fuming with rage,that they'd spotting another disturbing detail. Namely, a mobile suit of unfamiliar design, painted a dark green with golden line drawings of the same tattoo they'd seen on the goon's faces for emblems. Kira had wanted to investigate closer, but Dearka had begun feeling the chill by that point, and had managed to argue him out of it, mostly because he was sure that the terrorists would have real guards placed on their war machine, if the pilot wasn't already inside and watching them on his sensors at that very moment. Fortunately, it seemed that the pilot, if there was one, hadn't been paying attention to them, and they'd managed to slip away without any incidents. They'd come back to check on the two goons, found them freeze dried and eventually, after much more cajoling of Kira by Dearka, headed back to the lodge. A good thing too, because Dearka had made it by a slimmer margin than he'd wanted to admit. He supposed Kira probably could have carried him the last bit, but THAT would have been a mortal embarassment for all time, and he was glad it hadn't been an issue.

"And they have at least one mobile suit." Lacus said thoughtfully, standing behind Kira as he continued to chow down on his beef and chili, her hands placed protectively and comfortingly on his shoulders. "Perhaps more. That can't be common for terrorists, though it does explain why they thought they would be able to take and hold an entire town hostage."

"It brings to mind thoughts of Blue Cosmos." Dearka agreed. He swallowed and shivered again before replying, in a quieter tone. "But these guys are Coordinators. Former ZAFT soldiers. At least some of them are. They're organized, well prepared, extremely well armed and they have Mobile Suits neither Kira nor I can identify. That's a little more than just your run of the mill terror organization... there's soveriegn nations that aren't as well equipped as these guys are. I hesitate to say it, but at least when talking about their weapons and armor, these guys are more advanced than Orb by at least a couple of years. And that isn't even touching the damn fog!"

"Have you had any luck in contacting the rest of the world yet?" Kira asked, finishing the last of his meal, relaxing a bit as he felt warmth spread through him as he replenished the energy reserves he hadn't even consciously been using to keep himself active in the bone chilling fog. He hadn't even really noticed the cold, beyond an abstract "hey, its pretty cold" thought every now and again. He'd thought Dearka was just playing it up because he wanted to get back to the lodge sooner, but when he'd finally managed to get a good look at his friend, he'd been unpleasantly shocked to see his condition... Dearka hadn't been joking when he said that he'd been near to succumbing to hypothermia. Kira was impressed that Dearka had made it as far as he had, given how he looked.

"Not even slightly." Miriallia replied, stopping her pacing and walking over to Dearka, enfolding him in a close embrace. Mir drew back slightly for a second, her eyebrows raised. "You ARE cold!"

"Told ya. That fog ain't no joke. Its like it sticks to you and feeds off your heat in order to make more of itself. I could almost swear it was thicker in close proximity to me than it ever was farther away. It's ten times as bad if you get it in your lungs though... stuff sticks like a bad cold coated in superglue!" Dearka was not above leaning more into Miriallia, even though she wasn't as warm as the space heater. There was warmth and then there was warmth, after all... and he needed some non-heat warmth too.

"I've tried to contact Katie, but I don't have the range by myself. Plus she and Ysak are already well on their way heading back to the PLANTS, they should already be in orbit, so they wouldn't be of much help other than to relay a message. I doubt that's necessary anymore... I'm sure the terrorists have contacted the media by now to make demands, and Cagalli and Athrun won't take long at all to connect our silence with the terrorists. I'm sure there are people on the way to us even as we speak." Lacus added.

"You're right." Kira agreed. "However, even if we are safe and soon to be rescued, that doesn't really help the people down in the town very much. I'm sure the FNE and the USN will be sending in their anti-terrorist units... but they have no idea about the debilitating effects of the fog, the quality of the weapons and armor of these terrorists or especially the Mobile Suit, perhaps even Mobile Suits. They'll be massacred... infantry cannot stand against Mobile Suits, even in an urban environment!"

"Well, that's true, but what the hell do you want to do then, Kira?" Dearka retorted. "You'll have to drag me kicking and screaming if you want me to go back into that fog again, especially now that I'm just starting to feel alive again. Besides, there's at least twenty of those well armed and armored goons down there, PLUS the aforementioned Mobile Suit. We haven't a chance in hell of doing anything besides getting shot to bits without doing much at all if we go back down there!"

Kira was about to answer when Lacus suddenly went stiff and let out a small gasp, her head snapping around like a turret to face downslope, her eyes peering anxiously into the fog. The other three looked at her for a moment, but they didn't need her to paint a sign for them either. Kira shot to his feet, followed closely by Dearka, who was struggling to get dressed even as he rose. "How many?" Miriallia asked, her voice curiously light hearted and calm sounding to her ears. They were being approached by an unknown number of fanatical, bloodthirsty terrorists, and she didn't even feel scared particularly. Annoyed, if anything. She never would have been able to imagine herself having that kind of fortitude back when she'd lived on Heliopolis.

"At least ten. And they are coming here. And they aren't happy." Lacus reported, her brow furrowed with concentration.

"I guess they found their buddies." Dearka muttered, to which Kira nodded. Dearka understood... if he'd found some of HIS friends frozen like that, he'd prolly be pissed too, even if he was a sociopathic, fanatical terrorist.

"How long?" Kira asked. He nodded in acknowledgement after a second, and headed downstairs to the utility room. Deakra soon heard the sound of shifting heavy weights as Kira slid the washer and dryer in front of the doorway, and braced them against the base of the stairs with his cot.

"For the benefit of those of us who don't have a natural brainphone system, how long do we have?" Miriallia prompted, after several seconds of staring at Lacus. Lacus shook herself and refocused her eyes on the interior of the lodge, rather than the nether-world only she could really see.

"A couple of minutes, no more. They aren't trying to be stealthy, the only reason they aren't running is because of the slope." Lacus answered. "Sorry about that, its just so easy to tell Kira that way that I sometimes forget to add words for other people. Its led to a few awkward moments at resteraunts, let me tell you."

"Tell me when we're not in life threatening danger." Dearka muttered, running his hands over the rifle he'd stolen from the goons earlier. He'd taken a few extra clips for the thing too, and it LOOKED simple enough, just like a regular rifle in a lot of ways. Clips went in there, facing that way, trigger was there, safety was the little slide just above the trigger housing... yeah, not so bad. Just be careful not to shoot it near a friend, because he well remembered the exploding arrows it fired and he needed little imagination to envision how unpleasant that would be in a close environment. Hopefully he'd be able to give the terrorists some of their own medicine here shortly.

"Maybe we should have Lacus talk to these guys." Miriallia suggested, a sudden light in her eyes. "I mean, these guys are Coordinators, right? And she IS Lacus Clyne, right? Its not like they'll shoot at..."

"No." Kira cut her off sharply.

"I think it's not a bad idea." Lacus volunteered.

"No. These people hacked five bound and gagged hostages, including women and a child, to death with knives just to show that they were serious to the USN." Kira replied, firmly, not taking his eye off the makeshift barricade he'd put in front of the utility room door. "Coordinators they may be, but I cannot trust that they won't just shoot at ANYONE they see, especially if they are angry."

"Well, I mean, Lacus can handle a few guys with guns right? I mean, she's done it before..." Dearka was slightly hesistant to point out.

"I was not myself at either time. And that was only two people at a time. Two and a half perhaps, the first time. Whom I could make eye contact with." Lacus answered. "Eye contact is important, at least for me, when doing that sort of thing. I have to be able to see the person, to fix an image of them in my mind... I can't do it to people without looking them in the eyes, and especially not if I don't know what they look like. And even if I can manage to freeze one or two of them, that still leaves eight of their friends as a problem for the rest of you, and I'll be exposed, since I have to keep them in line of sight to hold them."

"And people tend to not like it when you take their voluntary muscle control away from them." Kira added. "You two got jumpy over something as simple and non-invasive as telepathic communication, even from a good friend like Katie. How would you feel if some stranger, even a world famous celebrity, just paralyzed you with her mind?"

"I don't know? Would I feel too much more homicidal than I already am, considering I'm a child murdering, woman slashing, psychopathic terrorist? That's a tough question, Kira." Dearka spat back. He was about to say more when the picture window shattered inwards as a volley of 15mm bolts slashed upwards through it after penetrating the deck planks. The bolts all went high, sticking in the tops of the walls and the ceiling, before detonating with thunderous cracks MUCH louder than the muffled booms Kira and Dearka had experienced down in the fog, blasting big holes in the ceiling and walls. Burning bits of plaster and wooden splinters cascaded down from the impact craters, even as smoke started to rise into the sky through a hole in the roof. Within a second of the shots detonating, as the four of them were just beginning to get to their hands and knees after Kira and Dearka had thrown themselves on their respective significant others in identical protective motions, there came a heavy impact on the utility room door, which rattled in its frame but did not open, wedged shut by the dryer and washer as it was.

Dearka dived for the top of the stairway leading down into the utility room, scrambling to a kneeling position with the strange rifle tucked into his shoulder. From his position he could just barely see the top of the utility room outer door, and he adroitly sent three of his own bolts spearing out through the thinly pressed wood of the door. The gun was as silent and flashless as he remembered, with barely any kick at all. Again he heard the humm and whirr of electronic systems, but there was no smoke discharge, smell of propellant or even an ejected shell casing after each shot to suggest any sort of chemical or ballistic propulsion to the rounds. If this thing was what he was starting to think it was, a man portable linear cannon, then he was officially scared now, because nobody else in the world had a linear cannon smaller than the gun of a main battle tank. And from the looks of things, these guys were MASS PRODUCING these weapons. Dearka smiled with satisfaction as he heard his three shots detonate outside, and he could have sworn he heard a shout or scream too.

The bad guys didn't seem all that deterred though, and Dearka was barely able to roll back out of the way as a volley of answering bolts punched back in through the door, blowing the dryer into flaming scrap and nearly demolishing the stairway under the impact of multiple detonations. Wooden and metal shrapnel shredded the portion of hallway Dearka had just been kneeling in, and the pounding rumble of the chained detonations made his ears ring and his vision blur for a few moments. Miriallia and Lacus had both retreated into the kitchen, along with Kira, who had opened the door to the refrigerator and then neatly sliced it off it hinges using the knife he'd taken from the goons downslope. Leaning the door against the sturdiest wall he could find in a makeshift armored lean-to, Kira made sure both Lacus and Miriallia were as covered as possible.

Dearka peeked his head around the corner and peered down into the wreckage of the utility room. The door to outside was pretty much gone, blasted to smithereens, as was the dryer and most of the washer. The entrance was pretty much open for anyone that wanted to come in that way. The stairs up were pretty much gone, but a determined attacker could probably climb up the ten or so feet of difference between the basement and the rest of the lodge. And Dearka had the sinking feeling that these guys were the very definition of determined. Dearka pointed his stolen rifle at the doorway, waiting for the first bold terrorist to step into view so that Dearka could cheerfully blow his head off. Or whatever other part of the body seemed appropriate at the time.

"They're splitting up." Kira whispered in Dearka's ear, not quite causing his friend to jump in surprise. Kira listened to Lacus's internal revelations for a few more seconds. "Three went left, three went right and four stayed out there. You hit one, but he's still active."

"How the fuck is that possible? These things shoot fucking grenades, he should be mince meat!" Dearka protested, half heartedly. He didn't doubt Lacus was right when she said that though. "Shit, at least he should be hurt... active you say? Goddamn, thats SOME armor!" Dearka shook his head. "All right. So they split up. Those flanking guys are probably going to either come in across the deck and through the window, or they're just going to shoot their way in through the back wall. Perhaps both. We only have one gun. Which approach to do want me to cover?"

"Stay on the front door. I'll get anyone coming in through the window, and Lacus and Mir will take care of those trying to shoot through the walls." Kira replied, his tone confident, even relaxed. Dearka contemplated screaming and raving at his friend, to get him to perhaps react appropriately to their situation, but he found he couldn't. Kira, damn him, was even rubbing his calm mood off onto Dearka. Or maybe it wasn't Kira at all... Dearka could faintly hear Lacus humming some tune in the kitchen. Something wordless, but definitely soothing. Maybe she was just trying to calm herself down... but it was affecting him too! Dearka shivered, and it wasn't because of the cold air coming in through the door. Psychic shit... he'd never get used to it or like it. He hoped she hadn't read that in his mind... it wasn't very charitable, he had to admit. The truth usually wasn't.

"Lacus AND Mir, you say? Those poor bastards'll never know what hit em." Dearka joked with a half smile. If you couldn't beat em, you might as well join em. If he was gonna die, he was damned if he wouldn't have at least a witty remark or two for the record.

"Yeah, no doubt." Kira smiled. He was just rising into a crouch to make his way over to a more advantageous position next to the remains of the picture window when the terrorists played their trump card in an effort to neutralize any thought of opposition in the utility room area. A bright green beam of electrically charged, ionized gas, roughly the same temperature as space a few hundred kilometers from the surface of the sun, seared through the doorway and into the remains of the washer, which flash melted in a blinding flash of light and steam. The beam blast carved through the middle of the ruined staircase, setting it alight, and cored a glassy tunnel almost two meters into the frozen dirt beneath the lodge. Kira and Dearka had both recoiled from the heat and light, covering their eyes with their arms instinctively. They heard the echoing whiplash sound of cooling air being suddenly reheated to plasmatic temperatures again, as a second beam blast came in through the door, angled higher, burning entirely through the inner and outer walls of the house and spreading the stairway blaze further.

"A fucking MAN PORTABLE beam cannon!? You have got to be fucking SHITTING me!?" Dearka hollered in protest. "I call foul, ref! That's gotta be illegal!"

"They're just full of unpleasant surprises, aren't they?" Kira muttered, half to himself, as he crab walked... more crab sprinted... over to the nearest wall to the shattered remains of the picture window. He heard the sound of heavy boots creaking on wood, moving closer and closer, and he prepared himself for some of the most intense hand to hand combat he would probably ever be in. He watched the SEED fall, the silvery cracks and roots even wider and more defined now, more than five years after he'd first seen them sprout. It wasn't NEARLY anything like the time when Lacus had awoken his SEED for him, but it was still an astonishing inrush of strength and speed and knowledge, on top of his already admittedly incredible abilities. Hopefully it would be enough.

Meanwhile, Dearka was still resettling into his watchful pose, mindful of the fire blazing merrily away only a few feet above his head on the wall, when the first terrorist came barreling through the gaping frame of the utility room door. Dearka was surprised at the speed displayed by man, remembering even as he sighted in and pulled the trigger that these were fellow Coordinators he was up against, even if they weren't quite Redcoat caliber. His reactionary shot caught the man pretty much dead center on the breastbone, even as the man caught sight of Dearka and started bringing his own rifle, another of the linear cannon type, to bear. Dearka yelped in horrified amazement as he watched his shot hit the man and DEFLECT off his armor in a shower of sparks before exploding, the force of the blast hurling the man backwards off his feet and into the door frame, which splintered and cracked loudly. Still, the man wasn't even unconscious! He was still moving vigorously and began getting back to his feet almost as soon as he'd hit the wall. A second man appeared in the doorway behind him, linear rifle already shooting explosive darts in Dearka's general direction, forcing him to roll desperately backwards to get out of the line of fire.

Kira heard Dearka cry out, but he couldn't spare a moment to check on him because two of the terrorists practically leapt around the corner of the lodge, one crouched low, the other standing tall, rifles hunting for targets near or far. Kira lashed out with his stolen knife at the standing terrorist, aiming not for the man but for his weapon, which the knife sliced neatly in half with a slick sound like a plastic bag being zipped. At the same time Kira stepped forward and place kicked the crouching man in the chin, since while their body armor was pretty much proof against any mortal strength, even his, their head and neck was still relatively vulnerable to sudden shock. His foot didn't feel particularly good, since the man's face mask was made of metal and hard plastic...but Kira was willing to bet it felt better than the terrorist's face and neck, given the way his head whiplashed backwards and the way he slumped loosely to the ground with a bubbling scream that spoke of broken teeth and maybe a broken jaw as well.

The standing terrorist dropped the useless half of his rifle and made a grab for his knife with one hand while the other reached out to try and grab Kira to hold him still for a gutting stroke. The man moved almost laughably slow in Kira's eyes, and he spun inside the clumsy grab, putting all of his weight and strength into a shoulder block and shove off that sent the terrorist stumbling heavily backwards, off balance, until he struck the deck railing with a loud slap of armored flesh on wood, and a sharp crack of wood giving way. Too surprised to even cry out, the terrorist tumbled backwards off the deck, landing with a loud THUMP and a lot of sliding and rolling sounds on the snowy slope below. Kira smiled in satisfaction even as he spun back to face the third terrorist, who had been covering his allies's flanks and was now turning his gun on this gung ho kid.

Kira ducked forward, past the first ill aimed shot, which hummed off into the distance before dropping into the fog. He brought his free hand up and blocked the rifle to the side in time to send the second shot blasting into a tree about fifty meters away. He stabbed strongly upwards with his knife, aiming for his opponents arm. Painful certainly, but hardly a fatal wound, though it would prevent the man from using a rifle. At least that was the idea... until the knife scraped off the terrorist's armored forearm with a screech and a line of sparks and little other effect. Kira had seen this knife pierce solid stone with ease, and cut through stainless steel without pause... the last thing he'd been expecting was mere cloth, even ballistic cloth, to be proof against it! His surprise left him staring for an instant too long, and this time it was Kira who ate the shoulder block and was pushed backwards a half step, and then down onto his ass when the terrorist hooked his leg rather expertly.

A huge explosion shook the entire lodge, but Kira had no time to figure out what it was, since the terrorist was swinging his gun down to blast this cocky young man once and for all, even if he did look kinda familiar for some reason. Kira had no other viable choice. He threw his knife at the terrorist's head, the point slicing up under the chin of the face mask and carving into the man's face. The terrorist let out a bloodcurdling howl of agony, dropping his rifle and clapping both hands to his mask, trying to get at his split open face and chin. A few degrees of difference on the angle of throw and the terrorist would have been scratching the inside of his skull with the blade tip, but with his jaw, nose and part of his forehead split wide open, he was less than fully appreciative of that fact. In any case, he was safely out of the "threat" category, at least until he found some way to staunch the massive bleeding.

Back inside the lodge, Dearka was having rather less luck in dispatching his own opponents, who kept getting back up when he shot them, which was MOST unfair, considering the power of the linear rifle and the terrible mess it was making of the lodge. The only up side was that he'd so far managed to avoid getting shot in return, which was good, because he LACKED god-mode body armor, a serious oversight he was fully intending to take up with Erica Simmons the next time they met, assuming it was in this lifetime. The breaching charge employed by the three terrorists Mir and Lacus were supposed to handle caught him by surprise, the concussive noise and force throwing him reeling several feet across the room and over a couch. This allowed the four battered but still much too active terrorists below in the utility room time to boost one of their number up onto the first floor of the lodge. This lucky individual was bending over to help his next best friend up and over when Dearka strode back into view, rifle already aimed and ready.

Having found to his repeated discomfiture that body and limb shots just didn't work, Dearka aimed for the head. The results were gratifying. Fountain of gore, would be the term used by a video game reviewer. The 15mm bolt pierced his foes helmet right over the ear, jerking the man heavily to the side from the kinetic force of the shot, before it exploded, shattering his skull like a teacup under a sledgehammer and pretty much decapitated him. The blood and brain fragments didn't do a whole lot for the aesthetics of the lodge carpet and wallpaper, but the sight did cheer Dearka up in a gruesome way. Score one for the good guys. Dearka was forced to dive for his life once more as the terrorist's three friends started shooting up through the floor at him, explosive darts and the searing green blasts of the beam cannon coming dangerously close to returning the favor Dearka had just handed out.

Miriallia and Lacus, lacking stolen guns, knives or nigh superhuman reflexes, had been doing the sensible thing... namely, ducking down in cover as much as possible to minimize the chance of random death or injury rearing their ugly heads. The battle raging around them was LOUD, even louder than regular gun battles because of the explosive nature of most of the bullets being fired, not to mention the unearthly whipcrack sound of the beam blasts. Then there was the breaching charge the other flanking team had rigged to the outer wall of the lodge, right outside Dearka and Miriallia's guest room, which blew pretty much that entire wall inwards in a tide of fire, concussive force and jagged wooden splinters. Fortunately the room was empty, though the blast did few good things for Dearka and Miriallia's things, especially Mir's camera collection and laptop.

Miriallia clutched tightly at the sides of the refrigerator door-shield that she and Lacus were taking cover behind as much as possible, darting her head out as much as she dared to try and keep track of Dearka. She saw a splatter of blood and brains over near the staircase, and her heart jumped into her throat for a moment before she caught movement out of the corner of her eye and saw Dearka throwing himself backwards, just ahead of several beam blasts and dark explosions. Mir turned her attention back to Lacus, who had her eyes tightly closed and her brow furrowed with concentration as she did whatever it was that she was doing with her mental abilities. Mir hoped that whatever it was that Lacus was planning on doing, that she'd do it soon and do it powerfully, because as much as she really wanted to contribute to her own defense, against terrorists wearing heavy body armor there wasn't much she COULD really do.

Lacus's eyes suddenly flew open and she gasped with alarm, but before she could fully vocalize what was wrong, Mir found out as well, as the refrigerator door was yanked out of her hands, almost pulling her forward onto her face. The terrorist who'd yanked the concealing stainless steel door away swung his rifle around with his other hand, not needing to reall aim to waste these two stupid girls who thought they could sit the fight out. They had orders to capture, but they'd already taken several casualties, and he was in no mood to be merciful. Though as his finger started to tighten on the trigger, he did have to say that one of the girls looked REALLY familiar under all that plaster dust and wood soot. He never fully realized whom he'd been about to shoot, as a supersonic rifle round struck him on the side of the head, the frangible armor piercing round boring easily through the armored helmet siding to rip the opposite side of his head apart in a crimson mist.

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"One tango down, unknown number still active. No further sightings. Covering principal L and principal M, principals NOT secure." Raine said, tonguing her helmet mic even as she worked the action on her trusty 7.62mm sniper rifle. She could have gotten something a lot fancier. Something custom built for her, that cost as much as a top end sports car. But why bother, when her current rifle could still drop a half seen, armored, man sized target at nearly a klick and a half without him even knowing what had hit him? What more did a girl need in a gun? Especially in one that had such relatively little kick that it could be repeatedly used from almost any position, including while hanging from a parachute after a HALO drop? No, you didn't improve on perfection when you already had it. Besides, it would take her absolute AGES to learn a new gun at this point.

"Understood. Continue providing covering support." Cyprus replied, as he and the other Stormhounds coasted in for nearly textbook landings a hundred meters or so upslope from the resort lodge. He released his parachute, which drifted in the wind for a few moments before the explosive threads built into its structure ignited under a simple electric command and turned the chute to perfectly deniable dust. Parachute? What parachute? I walked here, officer. Cyprus swung the MAAR-274 (Morganroete Armories Assault Rifle) off his shoulder and into his hands, checking the clip and the saftey in the same motion. Produced especially for the Stormhounds and other Orb elite ground forces, the MAAR-274 was the most advanced assault rifle currently in production in the USN, at least as far as Cyprus was aware. 7.62mm, frangible armor piercing rounds, identical to the ones Major Belaruse's sniper rifle used used, capable of piercing any body armor known to the USN at closer than thirty meters, fifty of them per clip. There was also a bayonet clip, a HUD integrated scope, a silencer/flash suppressor and an underslung, pump action 10 gauge shotgun with 3 solid slug rounds for door breaching. The gun was relatively lightweight, sturdy enough to be used as a club or spear, and endlessly patient of customizations.

"Corporal, you and Alkire go to the breach with Thomas. Conrad, you and me and Raven are going to circle around across the deck and in through the broken window the Major pointed out to us on the way down. Careful with your fire, heavies, that is a definite soft bunker in front of us." Cyprus ordered. Pairing himself with the two junior Stormhounds was a natural habit of his. It wasn't that he didn't trust them... he just didn't trust them AS MUCH, maybe even only on a subconscious level. "Quentin, go provide support and guidance for the Major. The last thing we need is people lost in the fog." It also put two entry specialists and a heavy support in each team, which was a good makeup for a rush job like this, with an unknown number of foes with unknown equipment, not to mention four mission priority principals already in life threatening danger.

Heading forward in a lope, following the scariest man he'd ever met, Kurtz or "Conrad" to his fellow Stormhounds, checked the safety and clip of his own MAAR-274 several times in an unconscious nervous habit. This was only his second time actually going into real combat with the Stormhounds, and though he had eight years of combat already under his belt, he still felt nervous. He wanted to impress these people. These legends. To prove to the Lt that he'd made a good choice in handpicking Kurtz for this unit. To show fucking Ramierez that Kurtz wasn't just a MAGOS punk. To get a pat on the shoulder from the Sergeant-Major. To prove it to HIMSELF as well, perhaps most importantly, that he deserved to be here, doing this vitally important job that less than a hundredth of a percent of all soldiers alive anywhere were qualified for.

The ground kept on trying to jump away from Raven as she ran along behind Conrad and the Lt, having to work at least fifty percent harder because of her smaller stature. She didn't mind the exertion... she was used to that, had been used to it ever since she'd first tried out for AFAR. She didn't have a body that was naturally good for SpecOps work, so she had to MAKE it work instead. So far, she seemed to be pretty good at that, though in the process she'd been promoted and busted back down so many times she'd lost count. Some people, that is to say, most officers, didn't like her attitude. She'd been surprised when the Lt had shown up looking for her, but she was sure as fuck glad she'd decided to give the lean motherfucker a try... even if she did have to do some really batshit crazy stuff every now and again. Like jumping... more like getting sucked out of... a transport jet flying at close to eight hundred miles per hour, twenty thousand feet above ten thousand foot tall mountains less than six hours after waking up in her beachfront apartment that morning. She really hated HALO. Really.

Still, it was giving her an opportunity to test drive her new baby in real battlefield conditions, not just on the range. Unlike Major Belaruse, Private Raven hadn't seen any reason NOT to get MA to build her a tried and true MOTHERFUCKER of a weapon if they were going to be so nice as to offer. They'd built her a monster, and she loved it. Slightly over sixty inches long when fully set up, weighing in at slightly more than thirty pounds fully loaded, it put the ASSAULT back in assault weaponry. With the recoil compensators it didn't even kick much more than an MAAR-274 either, which was a definite plus for Raven's small frame. The weapon was double barreled, in an over-under configuration, with a seperate clip for each barrel. The top barrel fired two types of rounds, alternating 13.2mm mercury tip caseless bullets and 13.2mm exploding hollow point caseless shells in four round bursts, with an effective range of about three hundred meters and an eighty round clip. The bottom barrel fired plasma saboted miniature rockets filled with nearly four hundred armor piercing titanium steel needles, which were accelerated to close to 2000 mph when they struck a target vehicle and started bouncing around inside. Bad for the people inside to say the least, especially since barrel two clips had four rockets in them with a range of close to a kilometer. It was called the MASD-SBAW Warhawk (Morganroete Armories Special Division, Selected Barrel Assault Weapon).

Meanwhile, Alkire and Ramierez, who were both armed with the MAAR-274's, were pressing themselves up against opposite sides of the breach hole. They could hear what sounded like grenade explosions come from inside, which was worrisome, because grenades mixed with unarmored principals was a very bad combination. They shot glances back at Sergeant-Major Glory, who was toting his own gift from MASD in one hand with all the ease of a man holding a child's air rifle. Glory's contribution to the artistry of superior firepower was called the A2-Shrike Minicannon. It was a titanium and chrome plated construct a little less than fifty inches long from driver units to muzzle, six barreled, with a recoil compensator very similar to that of the Warhawk. It fired 5.6mm hypervelocity depleted uranium tipped caseless bullets at the rate of 7500 rounds per minute, or 125 rounds per SECOND. Up to three slides of ammunition, containing 500 caseless rounds each, could be linked in series to the weapon, or it could be belt fed for effectively unlimited ammunition as long as you had enough belts to feed it. Designed to provide continuous anti-personnel and light anti-vehicle suppressive fire for minutes at a time at up to seventy meters range, it was also at least as effective in close quarters, as long as you didn't have too many allies around.

Glory nodded at the two men and stepped forward, raising his weapon and letting off a full second long burst into the lodge, angling the bullets up high so they would have no chance of actually hitting anyone. He wasn't trying to hit people... he was just letting them know that the cavalry had arrived, with the tremendous ripping noise of a stupendous amount of automatic fire. And that now might be a good time for the bad guys to give up, if they wanted to live. Of course they were child murdering religious lunatics, so he didn't REALLY hold out much hope for that outcome, but a guy had to try. The enemy took even less time to respond than he'd been expecting, with a masked and bulkily armored terrorist popping around the interior doorway, weapon already raised for a shot. Unfortunately for him, all Glory had to do was squeeze the trigger, sincehis weapon was already pointing at the door, since that was just about the only place the terrorist could show up in. Twenty rounds from the gatling cannon buzzsawed into the man, throwing him backwards like a man falling off the back of a speeding truck.

"Tango dow... what the fuck!?" Glory started to report, his jaw dropping open inside his helmet as the terrorist started to clamber painfully back to his feet, obviously nursing some broken ribs or other internal injuries. Which was besides the point, because twenty rounds from the Shrike at a range of less than twenty feet should have seen the bastard cut in half, or splattered like spagetti sauce! The terrorist triggered his own weapon, which made nary a sound or flash that Glory could detect, even as it hurled a metallic dart right past his head on out into the mountainside a few dozen meters upslope, where it promptly exploded like a 40mm grenade! Glory didn't waste any time dwelling on the near miss, or the odd weapon the terrorist had. He jammed his thumb down on his trigger as hard as he could, joined in almost the same instant by Alkire and Ramierez, who had likewise been staring in shock at seeing the tango escape relatively unharmed from the inital flurry of shots.

Incredibly, the terrorist's armor held up against even that onslaught... for a few seconds, before the Phase Shift battery ran out of power and he was explosively gutted by the concentrated fire, nearly ripped to dogfood really. It had taken nearly three hundred bullets from three powerful guns, but the tango was definitely DOWN this time. "Tango down! Be advised, enemy body armor is extremely resilient." Glory broadcast on the all hand's channel. "These guys are fucking walking tanks!"

Glory was about to say more when the third of the three terrorists who'd broken in through the breached wall, having heard what had befallen his two teammates while he'd been checking Lacus and Kira's room for any potential targets, had switched to the secondary clip type for his 15mm linear rifle, changing the fire mode to fully automatic. Not bothering to aim, he sprayed the entire two hundred round clip of conical steel bullets in the general direction of the breach hole, slowly sweeping his fire back and forth at waist level, shooting the slugs through the wall with relative impunity as he slowly walked forward, noting with a snarl the remains of his two teammates. He darted across the doorway while still firing to cover himself and paused in a crouch on the other side of the doorway to reload, slotting in another two hundred round rapidfire clip.

For their part, Alkire, Ramierez and Glory had been forced to throw themselves awkwardly down and away from the breach, and indeed that whole wall of the lodge as whistling steel bullets ripped and whipcracked their way out of the house towards them, blasting small divots in the snow covered earth and gouging craters in the trunks of nearby trees, even chopping them down in one or two cases. "Tango's have both full automatic and explosive firing weapons, both with extreme penetrating power!" Alkire warned, even as steel slugs whined and snarled only a few inches over his head. He saw the tango dart across the doorway, still firing, with no muzzle flash or sound that Alkire could detect, using the same kind of rifle the first tango had been using. "Be advised, their weapons may have multiple fire modes." Alkire added, looking at the gun with jealousy. Soundless, apparently recoilless, with no muzzle flash and multiple fire modes... that was a pretty damn slick gun right there. Especially for a fucking tango.

Suddenly the tango leaped back into the doorway, somewhat awkwardly and quite off balance. Alkire didn't know what the deal was, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He put two three round bursts into the tango's belly and torso, which didn't do much besides knock the guy on his ass, which was DAMNED disconcerting. Alkire adjusted his aim and fired another burst, this time at the tango's head, which promptly flew apart like a pumpkin thrown off a tall building. "Helmets are weak. If you count not being able to take a burst that should have killed him anyway weak." He got no reply on the tactical net, though he could hear the muted claps of MAAR fire from inside the house, so he figured Cyprus and Conrad were probably too busy not getting killed to talk. Alkire cautiously advanced into the breached room, even as a surprising object fell out of the hallway into the doorway. A refrigerator door, of all things. Followed shortly by the cautious head of the person who'd used it like a battering ram to push the terrorist out of cover.

"About damn time!" Miriallia exhorted them with an exhausted smile.

-----------------------------------------------

Alkire's guess was not far wrong. Cyprus, Kurtz and Raven hadn't encountered any resistance on their way into the house, though Kira had nearly broken Kurtz's arms before Lacus had managed to inform him sufficiently well that Kurtz was a friendly. It had been hard to tell, with only the arms and gun protruding around the wall. Seeing the two men and the woman with the snarling demon-dog faced helmets and balefully glowing blue eyes had evoked mixed reactions in Kira, who could well remember a time when the demon-dogs had red eyes and had been hellbent on killing him and Lacus and Cagalli and Athrun and pretty much everyone else in the Clyne Faction. Still, more allies showing up was not something he was going to protest, certainly not right now. Motioning for Dearka to step aside, which he gladly and wearily did, Cyprus and Kurtz stepped forward, rifles at tactical present, while Raven began the several second long process of making her Warhawk battle ready behind them.

Sensing the lull in fire above, and misinterpreting it as their foe being out of ammo for his stolen weapon, the three remaining terrorists wasted no time in making a bum rush for the stairs, with the largest making a stirrup with his hands that he used to practically toss his two smaller teammates up to the first floor, where they landed with both poise and grace... and a good deal of surprise as well, coming face to face with the advancing Stormhounds. The two Stormhounds had the drop on the Brotherhood terrorists, easy, and their MAAR's chattered in unison, the impacts blasting the closer tango backwards in a heap before two bullets from Cyprus zipped higher and took off the top of the tango's head, spraying it in a mulch back onto his friend's masked face.

Undeterred by this nasty experience, the second tango brought his gun up smoothly, only to drop it as he was hurled backward, his ribs shattered by the kinetic force of a full four round burst fired neatly between Kurtz and Cyprus by Raven's Warhawk. The bullets, which could shred a cement filled steel trash can, hadn't penetrated his Phase Shifted armor, but they didn't really need to, especially the mercury tipped rounds, which struck like a pair of sledgehammer blows. Panting for breath, the Brotherhood soldier scrabbled at his chest harness for a grenade he could use to take at least one or two of these heretics to the afterlife with him, but then the leering face of a blue eyed hellhound loomed up over him and Kurtz placed a three round burst neat as you please right into the terrorist's face and neck, wiping him out in a thorough manner.

The larger Brotherhood soldier, who was the one armed with the beam rifle, realized that he was the only one of his comrades left alive and conscious. To some that realization might have been disheartening, but not to a member of the Brotherhood. The fate of all good Harbringers was death, though of course death after the Glorious Recreation was preferrable. Still, all Harbringers would eventually face trial by death, and only the worthy would pass on to ascend to the ranks of the Angels. If his test was to be today, he would welcome it with open arms. Taking his rifle in one hand, he squeezed off three shots to clear the enemy away from the stairwell and then jumped, clawing with his free hand to drag himself inexorably up onto the first floor above him. He held the trigger down on his beam rifle, ignoring the growing signs of overheating on the weapon. The weapons of the Prophet were sturdier than they looked, he'd emptied an entire power back on single beam without letting up the trigger before with no problems. The weapon had been useless afterwards, but that was desirable in this case as well. Let not the Unbelievers sully the glorious technology of the Prophet with their hands!

Raven cried out in shock and a little terror when the green plasma blasts erupted from the floor and nearly crisped Kurtz and the Lt. Bad enough that the tango's had armor like God himself would envy, and weapons that shot explosive arrows of all things... they had freaking laser rifles too!? This was getting a little too horror-sci fi for her tastes! The good guys were supposed to have the advantage in firepower and technology over the bad guys, who always had the numbers over the good guys! Especially when the bad guys were tangos! "A fucking laser rifle!? Gimme a break!" Raven shouted, firing a burst of her own into the banister and floor near the staircase, though that didn't seem to slow down the big dude clawing his way up onto the floor with them. Guy wasn't all that much smaller than the Sarge-Major... and that meant FUCKING HUGE!

"It's plasma actually." Cyprus replied, unable to silence his logical side, which was an indication of how off guard the plasma rifle had caught him. What an inane thing for him to say. Laser. Plasma. What did it matter, really? The tango had an energy weapon that shouldn't have existed, by the laws of technology that Cyprus knew anyway. The question was what they were going to do about it, since he was almost entirely sure ballistic cloth and ceramic chicken plates weren't going to be much help against plasma beams. Not much was, not even Phase Shift Armor.

Kurtz was caught off balance by the plasma fire and the sudden appearance of the big tango, and his burst of nearly point blank fire went embarassingly wide, even before the tango grabbed him with his free hand and yanked him forward and over the edge to fall down into the ruins of the utility room below. The tango used the motion to fully gain the first floor, slowly swinging his beam rifle around to point towards the Stormhounds, Kira and Dearka, while his other hand went towards his chest harness for a grenade to toss on the idiot who had let himself be thrown downstairs. He never fully completed the motion, as a double burst from Raven exploded across his upper torso, slamming him backwards in a stumbling retreat, though he managed to remain upright. His Phase Shift wasn't going to take much more punishment like that. Eh, as the Prophet willed.

"MotherFUCK..." Raven trailed off, seeing the big tango just shrug off enough firepower to wreck a family sedan. "Let's see how you like this one, chuckles! FIRE IN THE HOLE!" Raven shouted the last part, warning the Lt and everyone else to dive clear, as she hit her second trigger, sending a mini-rocket roaring at the bastard at close to Mach 2. The rocket struck him high on the shoulder of his free hand and detonated, igniting the walls, floor and ceiling around him as the armor piercing needles turned white hot and half molten in the instant before they slammed forward like a horizontal sleet straight from hell. The tango's arm was not ripped off... it was evaporated off by the heat and stabbing impacts from the needles. The impact tossed the big man into the opposite wall... but it didn't kill him, per se. The pain was so intense he went into instant shock, even as his finger spasmed several times more on his beam rifle trigger, burning several holes in the wall, narrowly missing Alkire, Ramierez and Glory on the other side of the house, before an adrenaline fueled heart attack snuffed him out like a candle in a hurricane.

Silence descended upon the house, broken only by a transmission from Raine. "Tango sighted. Tango down. Sitting targets aren't any fun." As she aced the guy whom Kira had knocked off the deck earlier, who was still recovering from the jarring fall when her shot decapitated him. The silence was broken by the sound of powerful thrusters as the Phoenix King, which Athrun had been using to fly air cover since he dared not directly support a fight taking place inside a house with the altogether too powerful weapon systems of his Gundam, set down as nearby as he could.

Kira didn't waste time waiting for Athrun to dismount and close to within talking range. He turned to the nearest Stormhound, which happened to be Melissa Raven, whom he didn't know, but that hardly mattered. "You have communications with Athrun?" Kira asked tersely. After her somewhat tenative nod, he pressed on. "Athrun, there's at least one Mobile Suit of unknown design down in the town. I couldn't get close enough to get more than a glance at its outline, so I'm sorry that I can't tell you any more."

"Nevermind that for the moment! Are you okay! All of you?" Athrun demanded, worry sharp in his voice. It was momentarily odd, hearing Athrun's voice come from the helmet of a female Stormhound, but Kira admonished himself to focus better. He couldn't phase out now.

"We're fine. Well... we're not seriously hurt." Kira replied, with a slight smile. He doubted he or Lacus was going to be fine for a good while, and the same was likely true of Miriallia and Dearka as well, but they hadn't, through cosmic luck, suffered more than bruises and small cuts and a hell of a panicked adrenaline rush that was going to be problematic in a few hours, once he realized just how SCARED OUT OF HIS MIND that he'd been. Not to mention the backwash he was going to get from Lacus going through the same thing, and for her with regards to him as well. No, fine was a LONG ways away, indeed.

"That's so much of a relief you don't even know." Athrun answered, sounding like he'd just let off hauling a load of several tons.

"I think I might be able to imagine, eventually." Lacus spoke up, tottering forward on suddenly exhausted legs to lean heavily but reassuringly against Kira. He was still whole. Not even badly hurt. She could slow her heart rate back down to normal, and quell the disturbing thoughts that tended to transfix her mind these days whenever Kira was put into real danger. She didn't know what she'd do if he actually got hurt, badly, right there in front of her. What she'd do to the people who hurt him, she did not want to think about. She was NOT that kind of person. She wasn't. Never. "I've definitely had more relaxing vacations."

"There's several hundred people being held hostage down in the town." Kira pressed on, determined that now that he and Lacus were out of immediate danger that they not forget about the other people in need. "Assuming they haven't killed them already that is. These terrorists don't seem to have much regard for human life. Not even their own."

"They call themselves the Brotherhood of Mankind, which is sickeningly ironic given that ethical stance of theirs." Athrun replied, his voice harsh with repressed anger. "As far as we can determine, they're a deeply religious, Coordinator Supremacy group bent on creating chaos for either profit or because they believe some sort of apocalypse is coming, and that it is their job to usher it in. I prefer to hope that they're in it for the money... its less disturbing. If they've been following through with the threats they made in their video, they'll have killed at least twenty hostages by now... selected at random, with five more due to die at the end of the next hour."

"That still gives you nearly fifteen minutes to stop them!" Kira exclaimed, though the thought of twenty people having lost their lives while he and Dearka had been climbing back up the mountain and fighting the terrorists hit him like a punch right to the lower stomach. Twenty five innocent people dead, and for what? Money? Pointless ideological hatred? Something else inexplicable!? He'd thought humanity was past this sort of self hatred, after the events of the Valentine Wars!

"I'll do what I can, but I can't do much with just the Phoenix King besides see off the Mobile Suits. Even then, a town isn't exactly my ideal location for a Mobile Suit battle. And if they use the hostages as human shields, there's really not much I can do about it." Athrun replied, restrained fury in every clipped word.

"The USN strike teams should be moving in soon." Cyprus spoke up. "We'll see what we can do about coordinating with them from here, but nobody in this area is safe while the enemy has Mobile Suits, so we definitely need to get rid of those as quickly as possible. You might be outnumbered so..."

"I know what I'm doing, Cyprus, thank you." Athrun replied shortly. "Make sure my friends are safe, and I'll make sure the Brotherhood regrets ever even fostering the idea of using Mobile Suits as instruments of terror!" With those words the Phoenix King spread its wings and rose gracefully into the skies on jets of thunder and flame, before circling once in a salutatory fashion and then diving down like a bird of prey into the thick, artificial fog.

"Sucks to be those Brotherhood bastards..." Alkire commented, as he watched the blazing red Gundam disappear. "... because Athrun Zala is just about the number two or three person in ALL the WORLD that you don't want to tick off!"


	10. Clearing the Field part 4

Author Note: Thanks for all the wonderful reviews, folks. You guys and girls really fuel my muse, can't give you credit enough. A lot of people commented on Alkire's assessment of Athrun. Bear in mind that it is ALKIRE'S assessment. Whether or not Athrun really is the second most bad ass Coordinator out there, that is entirely a matter of personal opinion, and we're all going to think differently. As for the Brotherhood of Mankind... well, I never really got much into Command and Conquer, but I understand the reference. I was actually thinking more along the lines of some terrorist organizations from Marvel Comics, namely Hyrda (who's members shout the credo "Hail Hydra, Immortal Hydra, Cut off one head and two more shall take it's place!!", off which I based many Brotherhood chants), or AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics), who's members always wore big bulky environment suit like things and used advanced weapon systems of all sorts. Asmus, I must hail you in particular, because I love your speculations and predictions. Most of the time, when I read your reviews the next chapter isn't written yet, and many times I have used your "guesses" to actually germinate an idea or two. Although you are as often wrong as not, I like that you try. I'm surprised that no one commented upon my little hintish spolier in the last author note, but perhaps I made it too subtle, especially since english isn't the first (only, in my case) language for everyone. Either that or you've all spotted it and are just too smart to be drawn in, which is equally likely. Oh well.

As for your question, a Plasma Sabot is actually a current military technology common to many armor piercing cannon shells or missiles, such as are used by the US Army's tanks. I'm no expert, but I believe the technology works by incorporating a "sheath" of relatively easily melting material, like copper, in the interior of the shell around a "spear" of much harder metal, like tungsten, which is heated to a charged gaseous (hence plasmatic) state by the explosion of impact, and the pressure of this plasma expansion upon a small area, which is the point where the tip of the shell strikes the armor plate pierces the armor plate and sprays the interior of the target with plasma and molten metal, to the detriment of the people inside. Secondary damage is caused by the overheating of ammunition and fuel carried by the target, which is what usually causes it to actually explode. Sabot comes from the term sabaton, I believe, which is a name for armor plate around the leg or foot... in essence, the plasma acts as "armor" for the warhead of the shell, increasing its ability to penetrate heavy armor.

In my story anyways, plasma saboted ammunition, which is common to many militaries and organizations, is inferior to the much newer beam blade tipped (or Phase Shift tipped and eventually Quantum Crystal tipped) munition systems the Brotherhood has, because the beam blade plasma is hotter and more damaging than the short lived (milliseconds at best) plasma created by the older rounds, and also since the plasma beam is on the outside of the shell's warhead, the warhead itself can be bigger and more powerful. In essence the beam tipped shells are like an add on that makes regular high explosive shells also armor piercing, while the old plasma sabot rounds are just armor piercing, and therefore less effective at actually blowing stuff apart or versus targets that are NOT heavily armored, since a large amount of resistance from the target is required to activate the plasma sabot trick. Before the Brotherhood, you could either pierce heavy armor or blow less armored stuff to little pieces... not both with the same shell.

That question was actually tricker to explain than I'd thought it was going to be. It was a term I'd borrowed from some military science fiction I'd read before, though it is a real technology, and not even a particularly modern one. It works so well, its one of those "don't fix it if it ain't broke" sort of things. It also sounds really cool and powerful, even moreso than it actually is.

I find it interesting that when people were rating some of the people they thought were scarier than Athrun... no one listed any villians. Cyprus WAS sort of a villian, I guess, but not really, compared to the REAL villians. Makes me wonder... given my representation of characters, both canon and original, who are your top five or ten or whatever number you wish to use people in my stories that you would NOT want to have angry at you? You can include why if you want, but you don't have to. Mostly idle curioisty, though it might help me make future villians and heroes better, at least when I want them to be scary. And now, on to the hotly anticipated, hopefully jaw dropping, inaugural Gundam battle of Eden Disaster!

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Randolf detected the intrusion of the enemy Mobile Suit as soon as it fully penetrated the upper strata of the Haunted's Mist, like a captive shark scenting a drop of blood falling into its aquarium. He was surprised... by the Boss's calculations, the USN wouldn't have been able to mount a cohesive Mobile Suit attack for at least another hour or so. He had no doubt that they had the forces already nearby to conduct such an attack, but they hadn't even TRIED to negotiate with him or anyone else in the Brotherhood detachment, which seemed odd. That the USN and FNE considered the Brotherhood to be extremely dangerous and unpredictable was a given, that was the impression the recording Randolf had sent was meant to give them. But very much because of that impression, the USN and FNE should have been taking things slowly, and with the utmost care. They should attempt negotiations first, then they should send in scouting teams, then infantry assault forces with a few specialized vehicles and finally, lastly, they should send in the Mobile Suits, after the Brotherhood had already decimated everything else that had been sent in. That the enemy would start off with Mobile Suits was concerning. Had there been an information leak? Such a thing hardly seemed possible, given the nature of the Boss's connections and the extent of his technological control over most of the information gathering services of the USN and most of its member-states.

However, Randolf's fears of a Traitor... he knew exactly who it would've been too... or other critical failure in the plan was quickly allayed. There was only the one Mobile Suit, and it was moving very hesitantly, clearly taken quite off guard by the Haunted Mist. A lone cowboy in a Mobile Suit, trying to save the townsfolk? Strange. Concerningly strange. This element had NOT been accounted for in the mission plan, which was all oriented around creating an international stir, prolonging the situation as long as possible to garner media and public attention to the ineffectiveness of the current USN and member-state military forces, inflict casualties upon the same while testing the Brotherhood's technologies in the field, and then a orderly retreat back to the extraction location, hopefully though not essentially without many casualties of their own. The only truly essential person on the battlefield was the Haunted and Randolf, all else could be sacrificed if need be. The Zealots would self destruct if not destroyed by enemy fire, and the weapons and armor used by the Brotherhood soldiers would likewise rapidly disintegrate over the next twenty four hours, unless a countering code was sent to the Nanites that covered them in invisible, nigh intangible films. The only evidence left would be the bodies of the slain and perhaps a few injured. Brotherhood injured would kill themselves via sucide pills in their teeth, and their bodies, save for their tattoos, would tell the enemy little.

Randolf considered what he should do with regards to this lone cowboy. Quite plainly, he could not be allowed to blunder around for too long, or else he would undoubtedly discover the fact that the townsfolk were all already dead, frozen in the mist. If this information was relayed to the USN, the Brotherhood's chief psychological advantage would be gone, and an overwhelming attack from the USN would shortly follow, which would likely result in a complete mission failure, which was simply not acceptable. However, if Randolf wasn't careful and overwhelming in his own attacks upon this cowboy intruder, all it would take would be a few missed missiles or cannon or railgun shots rising out of the mist and the fact that the Brotherhood had Mobile Suits would also be divulged, which would likewise nix the mission plan, which could not be allowed to happen. There was the risk that one or maybe even both of the Zealots would be damaged, perhaps even destroyed, by an encounter with this cowboy, which would make executing the rest of the mission harder, but it was the only thing Randolf could see to do. In a pinch, the Haunted was more than capable of hamstringing any USN or FNE Mobile assault by its lonesome anyway, so the Zealots were not necessary, merely convenient.

Mind made up, Randolf relayed instructions to his supporters. The infantry forces were ordered on even higher alert than they had been before, and were told to hunker down as best they were able to minimize any chance deaths from fallout from the Mobile Suit engagement. Randolf transmitted a sensor link from the Haunted to the two Zealots, allowing them to see the location of the intruder so that they could begin their flanking maneuvers, under strict orders to attack only in close quarters, to maximize the chance of taking the foe out without noisy collateral damage that might compromise the mission. The sonar picture he gave to the Zealots wasn't even a hundreth the quality of the one the Haunted used for its own vision in the Mist, but it was the best he could send to non-sonar equipped units, basically just a 3D plot of the town with a target icon where the foe was, and similar friendly icons for the two Zealots and the Haunted. Describing the Haunted's vision was difficult, at least if you'd never experienced it before. Suffice it to say, he could not only discern distance and bearing to other targets, he could map their every surface feature, creating a completely detailed, realistic 3D image as accurate or even more accurate than most regular camera sensors could manage. It was all colorless of course, in simple greyscale, but what need had a ghost of colors?

Even with the tactical map provided to them by the Haunted, the two Zealots moved with great care and even a bit of tenativity. Guiding a ninety ton war machine, even one that you could control as easily and naturally as your own body, wasn't exactly easy when you had at most ten meters of direct visibility, and maybe twice that of indistinct visibility, where buildings and trees looked like mobile suits looming up around corners and behind other buildings. Tripping over parked cars and almost stumbling into buildings was a matter of course, and their progress was loud enough to alert any ground forces within a block of their position. Fortunately, the audio pickups on most Mobile Suits weren't all that good, and so their foe remained unaware of their less than noiseless flanking maneuvers, his sensors, much like most of theirs, probing futiley at the all encompassing greyness. Over the course of several minutes the Zealots managed to split up and come at the intruder from either side as he edged his way down one of the main streets of the town. One waited about forty meters ahead of the intruder's progress, while the second stepped out onto the same road but about sixty meters behind their foe's current location. Tiptoeing, as much as his NIC-III systems would allow him, the Zealot stalked towards the foe, weapons ready to blast him brutally from behind, in a single instant excising this impediment to the Prophet's Great Vision!

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Athrun was definitely kicking himself as he brought the Phoenix King to a halt and peered, with mounting self annoyance and little success, at his surroundings. He ached to be able to switch sensor views, to get rid of the oppressive funeral shroud grey mist that cloaked everything on all sides of him, but he'd tried it several times already, with even less success than he'd had using the satellites on the flight here. Whatever this fog was, it was the best and most aggravating sensor camouflage system Athrun had ever had the misfortune of blundering around in. Diving right into the fog, like a knight in shining armor off to save the townsfolk from an evil monster had been a pretty hasty and stupid thing to do. A rookie mistake, something Kira would have done without hesitating. Athrun though, was supposed to be smarter than Kira, at least when it came to military tactics. Ethically, morally, it felt good to be doing something, to be trying to save the innocent hostages from the evil Brotherhood. Intellectually though, he wasn't going to be all that much help to ANYONE, even himself, considering he couldn't see the Devil Himself if he popped up farther than a gentle stone's throw away. He'd almost crashed the Phoenix King into the ground trying to land, that was how far he could see, and he'd been piloting Mobile Suits for what felt like half his life.

Even with a compounded view created by the vari-camera's the Phoenix King used for sensors, he could see at best perhaps thirty meters in any direction, and he could really only discern color and clear detail at about half that distance. Athrun didn't mind close combat, but having an effective quality sight radius of fifteen meters, when going up against at least one and likely more than one Mobile Suits of an entirely unknown type... that put a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. Even going up against Ginns or Strike Daggers, the original ones, wouldn't have been fun with this damn fog... and he had a damnable feeling that these Brotherhood machines were a great deal more capable than Strike Daggers or Ginns. He thought back to the green plasma beams that had cut their way out of the lodge Kira, Lacus, Dearka and Miriallia had been staying at. There had not been any vehicles involved in that fracas, but someone had been using beam based weapon technologies anyway. And since Orb didn't have any man portable beam systems... wasn't even particularly CLOSE to them... that meant that the Brotherhood had some technology that was just plain SCARY. If you could put beam rifles in the hands of your soldiers... what the HELL did you put on your Mobile Suits!?

Another extremely concerning fact was that he had no idea where the hostages were. One of the hotels, but his maps of the town were of little good to him when he couldn't see signposts or use the satellite to give him his exact geographical position. For that matter there might be townsfolk held in different locations not shown on the video recording, or even townsfolk that were free and hiding in homes and offices. A stray shot from Athrun, even a misstep on his part that sent him stumbling into a building, and civilains could be as dead as if the Brotherhood had hacked them up with their knives! And of course, the Brotherhood probably wouldn't be under nearly the same sort of moral restrictions that Athrun was... the terrorists always had that advantage, of being willing and able to kill people, even helpless people, all in the names of their goals or religion, while those trying to stop them had to be careful lest they do the terrorists job for them. The standard problem of being a person who cared too much going against people who cared too little, especially in a crowded area.

Well, Athrun wasn't going to do much of ANYTHING, besides slowly turn into an ice sculpture, unless he got more proactive, he reminded himself with a tightening of his eyes and lips. He dialled up the cockpit heating system of the Phoenix King another notch, noting with a subconscious shiver that his external temperature sensor was currently reading almost negative ninety degree's fahrenheit, without even a wind chill. It was as cold or colder than the Antarctic night in this town, because of this heat sapping fog, which billowed even more thickly around the cooling system exhaust ports for his reactor and other electrical systems. He was getting some pretty screwy atmospheric readings as well... humidity was in the pits while air pressure was way down as well. It was drier than a desert under noon sun, and the oxygen and nitrogen content was about as thin at ground level in the town as it would be at around twenty five thousand feet in the air anywhere else. Anyone out in the fog without the protection of extreme weather gear and likely their own portable air source, would succumb to hypothermia and anyoxia in a matter of minutes, less if they were exerting themselves. A note to bear in mind if and when he defeated the enemy Mobile Suits and could go looking for the hostages themselves... minimize time outside either a powered building or the Phoenix King.

He was just about to take another step forward when something caught his peripheral vision and he froze, eyes scanning greedily for any input whatsoever. He hadn't really seen what it was, but there'd been a motion that was out of place and... THERE! Athrun watched as a car parked by the side of the street, about ten feet behind and to the right of the Phoenix King, suddenly bobbed up and down on its suspension, this time harder enough to set off its burglar alarm, though the fog muted the sound so much Athrun could barely even hear it, and his audio pickups had been dialed to the maximum ever since he landed. But he was barely even paying attention to the sound, because to make a car jump like that while it was sitting still meant that there was a pretty serious ground tremor involved. And since the town was high up in the mountains, on pretty much solid granite bedrock, an earthquake powerful enough to make the car move was unlikely, besides Athrun would have felt it himself. Other things could cause ground tremors like that, especially in a very localized sense. Things like Mobile Suits...

Athrun spun the Phoenix King around abruptly, catching sight of an unidentifed but definitely Mobile Suitish figure trying to sneak up on him from behind. Athrun had to admit, in the brief instant before the enemy realized that he'd been seen, that whoever was in the other machine was pretty damned good. Mobile Suits were not ordinarily designed for moving stealthily on the ground, and this guy had been practically tiptoeing forward, at the speed of a unassisted man walking. Athrun could do it himself, he knew how hard it was... and the fact that this guy had done it in a fog, basically blindly... that was impressive. His reaction time was pretty good too, only a few hairs slower than Athrun's, as he thrust his weapons forward even as Athrun was beginning his turn. Still, Athrun knew, just from those few fractions of a second, that he definitely had the advantage over the other guy. If this had been Frost sneaking up on him, Athrun would already be dead. With reflexes honed against foes like THAT, not too much of lower caliber impressed him for long anymore.

The Citadel Shield projectors mounted on the Phoenix King's forearms blossomed to life with plenty of time to spare in order to block a linear cannon round launched from a sleek rifle in the enemy's right fist, while the glowing orange tracers from a twin machine cannon mount splintered and sparked against the translucent green-blue energy fields for a second before the enemy eased off on the trigger. Athrun was surprised to see that the enemy designers had located the machine cannons in the middle of the torso, where the cockpit generally was. Where did the pilot sit then? If the cannons were there... then the recoil and cooling systems must be there... and the ammo and feed system there... that didn't leave many spots for a cockpit. A bright green energy beam flared from each shoulder of the enemy, splashing against Athrun's Citadel shields with no effect beyond pyrotechnics. Even a quadruplet of CIWS systems in the head opened fire, though Athrun ignored those as inconsequential.

Athrun dropped his shields and took a step forward, eager to bring the fight into closer quarters, where he could hopefully quickly minimize the ability of the terrorist to cause damage to their surroundings. Even as he did so though, two more green high enerby plasma beams seared through the air, this time from BEHIND him, back the way he'd been facing before he'd detected his stalker. There was at LEAST one more enemy out there! There was still time to dodge, or at least attempt to dodge, but Athrun made no effort, sucking in his breath a little as he put his faith... and life... in the hands of more of Erica Simmons's vaunted technological prowess. If the HAC armor didn't work right, he'd probably never know it, though that didn't make him feel any better. Thankfully, the armor worked like a charm, as the Phoenix King took both beam blasts square across the middle of the back, the Heat Absorbing Conductive armor siphoning away all of the energy of the attacks and distributing it across the entire surface of the Gundam, which rapidly recooled to normal temperatures, actually helped by the heat leeching fog all around it. Which grew slightly thicker for a moment, leaving a Phoenix King shaped thick spot in the fog as Athrun pirouetted the Gundam around so that he had one side facing toward either foe.

Obviously nonplussed by the total ineffectiveness of the dead on beam strikes, the opponent he could see took an uncertain step back. A second later, a second enemy Mobile Suit, identical in appearance to the first, stepped into view on the opposite side of Athrun. Perhaps heartened again by the thought that they still had their enemy surroudned, the two Brotherhood machines thrust forward their shields and opened up with their weapons again, besieging Athrun from both sides at once. The Phoenix King's Citadel shields were more than sufficient to handle the threat, although splash damage and deflected cannon rounds did cause a moderate degree of collateral damage to the buildings on either side of Athrun. Still, he did not flee the relatively dangerous zone between the two Brotherhood machines, even as they slowly closed in on him, egged on by his lack of retaliation. Athrun smiled to himself, not even sweating, as the two terrorists allowed themselves to be drawn right into Athrun's hands, like puppies on leashes.

Athrun waited until his foes were almost within an arms reach of the Phoenix King's shivering and pulsing but still strong Citadel Shields before he moved. He struck in the carefully planned moment where both enemy machines had just fired rounds from their linear cannons and machine cannons, and were in the process of reloading those weapons. Athrun spun around again, crouching low as he did so, while blazing orange and red plasma fire coursed from his forearm projectors to form a coalscent ball between his palms. The ball straightened out into a pair of jagged beam blades, which Athrun thrust at the terrorist who had initially been behind him. Even as he lashed forward, Athrun brought the Phoenix King's wings slicing smoothly upwards, the feathers already glowing cherry red with heat, to impact the other terrorist right in the chest, melting a deep furrow in the torso and ripping the machine cannons out with a small explosion, the force of the twin blows knocking the enemy machine backwards and to the ground.

Athrun's left hand sword took the Brotherhood machine right on its linear cannon, slicing away the entire barrel in one neat stroke, while his right hand blade splashed heavily against the Citadel equipped physical shield the terrorist had in his other hand. Athrun grunted a sour note, unhappy to see what should have been USN or FNE or Orb only technology in the hands of terroists, but there wasn't much use complaining about it now, was there? The force of the right hand strike pushed the Brotherhood machine backwards another few steps, and Athrun was forced to admire the fancy footwork demonstrated by his foe, who almost danced his machine back to full balance again, whipping out a beam sword in the process. The terrorist Athrun had knocked down fired a few shots from his linear cannon to clear the air right over himself and then rolled sideways across the street before rising to one knee in a well practised defensive move. Athrun found himself staring in shock... nobody could just ROLL a Mobile Suit like that, the controls just didn't allow for that sort of motion. Mobile Suits LOOKED humanish, but they were really not human in their full range of motion. Well, that wasn't ALWAYS true, Athrun supposed, a sinking sensation growing much worse in his stomach. There had been ONE Mobile Suit that operated just like a human being would...

But that was CRAZY! Both of these machines, well constructed and well armed though they might be, were still just terroist weapons! How could THEY have that kind of control system!? Nobody knew how to replicate that system! Athrun had seen it more up close and personally than almost anyone, and he knew something that was basically unique when he saw one! The technology to even begin to get close to that sort of control system was still at least a decade away in Orb, and he didn't think the PLANTS were doing any better. Anyone else was right out, they wouldn't even be able to conceive of it! But now it looked like SOMEONE had mass produced it! At least twice, and who knew how many more times!? Even as he was staring in disbelief, Athrun's instincts were keeping his defenses up, dodging the Phoenix King to the side so that the shots from the kneeling terrorist streaked harmlessly by him, ricocheting off the standing terrorist with no effect. Athrun's eyes grew even wider... he also knew Phase Shift Armor when he saw it, but he didn't like seeing it here! One of the few advantages they'd had the last time his friends and him had encoutnered a control system like this, the Gundam using it had been practically unarmored, so that even CIWS was somewhat threatening to it. But not these guys, with fully functional Phase Shift, these were practically Gundams he was facing! Just about the only saving grace to the situation was that his Gundam was much more powerful, or so he hoped!

The standing terrorist threw wide his arms and sent a long burst from his machine cannons at Athrun, while his kneeling friend picked away at Athrun's back with his linear cannon. Athrun was forced to let his swords dissolve away and bring the Citadel Shields back to defend against attacks from both directions. He really wished, in that instant, to have Phase Shift Armor of his own again, so he could just shrug off the incoming fire like a spring rain. Neither enemy had yet used their shoulder mounted beam cannons on him again, after they'd both seen how ineffective the first hit had been. Not only technologically advanced, but not stupid. That was wonderful. He sure knew how to pick his fights well, didn't he? Athrun forced himself to conentrate fully on the here and now. Regrets and recriminations could come at a later time, likely aided ably by Cagalli. Right now, he was starting to get irritated... it was time to even the odds some. Athrun decided that the weapons remaining on the standing terrorist were the lesser threat versus the large caliber linear cannon the kneeling foe had, so he directed his immediate attention at removing the greater threat.

Athrun brought both of his arms together, dispelling the Citadel shields in the same motion as he drew up more gouts of plasma from his arm projectors. He drew another jagged bladed sword in each hand, but he slammed their hilts together, creating a double bladed beam staff instead of two swords. Spinning the weapon expertly over his head, Athrun charged the kneeling foe, ducking and dodging the suddenly unsettled linear cannon shots from his chosen foe, who rose from his crouch even as Athrun bore down on him. Sparks and small armor chips exploded from the Phoenix King's back as the other terrorist walked his 55mm machine cannon fire into the legs, back and shoulders of the Gundam, but the shells were too lightweight to do serious damage very quickly, and the HAC armor withstood the attack without much more than cosmetic damage. Athrun closed to within striking range, held his blow a moment longer, and then swung down as hard as he could with both hands. If it hadn't struck the Citadel Shield, the attack would have cleaved the Zealot in half from crown to groin without slowing, but the Brotherhood pilot did manage to interpose the shield, rocking back and being forced to one knee by the force of the blow.

Athrun pressed his glowing blade of fire as hard as he could into the citadel shield, keeping up the pressure on his foe even as the Phoenix King shuddered under a fresh barrage from the other foe, who was even then charging towards Athrun's back, beam sword extended, torso cannons flashing indiscriminately and wildly, sending almost as many shells to the sides of or above the Phoenix King as he put on target. Athrun took one hand off his double headed blade-staff, forming a new ball of plasma energy in the free palm even as he adjusted his grip on his beam construct slightly, tuning the magnetic fields already in place. This tuning had a startling effect, at least to the Zealot trying to hold the blade away from himself. The top third of the enemy beam blade suddenly curved dowards and inwards sharply, like a hook, sliding down past the top edge of the Citadel Shield and burrowing into the back side of the physical shield underneath the Citadel field.

Athrun spun at the last moment before the second enemy arrived, yanking hard on his blade-staff-hook, the magentically contained plasma edges catching on the impenetrable Citadel field, tearing the shield out of the stunned hand of the Zealot and discarding it in a high, slingshot toss, up and over a row of buildings and out of sight. Atrhun's other hand snaked out and thrust the plasma ball at the charging foe, releasing control of the magnetic fields and hurling a wide cone of unfocused plasma fire right in the Zealot's face. The fire wasn't focused enough to do more than singe and charr the outer surface of the Zealot, but that wasn't the purpose of the attack. The fire washed up in a roaring cone that fully engulfed the torso and head of the Brotherhood machine, creating a visual wall made of fire that completely disoriented the Zealot pilot for a fatal second. The pilot was still blinking the flame glare out of his stunned eyes when his control signal went dead, and the simulator pod he'd been using to remotely control the Zealot went dead and quiet. The words unit lost scrolled up onto his screen in red.

Back down on Earth, Athrun's other hand, with the blade-staff, had come around with its other blade and sliced through the Zealot at the waist, cutting it fully in half, with the legs actually running out from underneath the torso and arms before losing balance and skidding to a halt several dozen meters further down the roadway. The remaining Zealot came out shooting, glancing a 200mm linear cannon round from the back of the upper right arm of the Phoenix King, even as the Zealot drew out its own beam saber with its suddenly shieldless hand. The Zealot swung the sword, somewhat awkwardly with its off hand, while settling its rifle for a more steady shot. The left wing of the Phoenix King came crashing down into the path of the beam swing, slashing easily through the plasma beam to dig into the arm and side of the Zealot, sending it staggering to the side and throwing off its aim once more. Damaged but not fully disabled, the left arm of the Zealot stabbed with its blade again, even as the Phoenix King turned once more to face it full on.

Athrun caught the stabbing beam blade within the palm of one hand, the BGCS in that hand easily overpowering the static magnetic fields generated by the beam saber hilt, and he twisted the captive blade upwards and then back around towards the Zealot, like a man bending a piece of rubber hose. The tip of the Zealot's own beam saber carved into its left shoulder joint, destroying it and severing its own arm, even as the blade-staff came around, morphing as it swung, so that it was in the form of a huge, double bladed axe when it struck, slicing off the right arm of the Zealot at the shoulder. When the hands converged, the beam axe melted into twin beam lances, which Athrun spun like knives on his palms before stabbing deeply into either thigh of his armless foe. He didn't want to destroy this one, just disable it. He wanted some people he knew to get a GOOD look at this enemy machine, that was for sure.

Apparently that wasn't in the Brotherhood pilot's game plan though, because no sooner had his machine been disabled then it went up in a huge ball of fire and a shockwave that threw the Phoenix King stumbling backwards and down to its hands and knees. Athrun swore bitterly as he held on through the tremors and shocks... he'd not seen any sort of ejection mechanism go off. The pilot had self destructed along with the machine, committing suicide rather than be captured! Athrun gritted his teeth as he got back to his feet. Truly, fanatical terrorists had NO PLACE at the controls of Mobile Suits! What sort of man or woman would willingly choose explosive death in a situation like that? Athrun just couldn't understand. What made a person hate like that? How could people let themselves becomes so twisted? It wasn't like he thought the world was a perfect place... but it wasn't such an awful place that killing yourself or other people wantonly was an acceptable response to it! If you were alive, you could work to change things for the better... once you were dead, that was it... it was OVER! Forever! He had needed help learning that for himself, but maybe that was why he couldn't understand why others would choose death when they were offered life... he'd been there, been given the same choice... it hadn't been a hard one!

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Randolf was, despite himself, quite impressed with the mettle of this cowboy. For that matter, he was quite a bit more impressed with the power of the cowboy's Mobile Suit, which was most DEFINITELY a Gundam. A new Gundam, of quite frightening capabilities, at least so far that Randolf had seen. He was not sure how the Gundam could posess such fine control over the creation and manipulation of its melee beam weaponry, or even manipulate the beam weaponry of other machines, but he had to admit, it was a stirring sight. Even the Boss didn't have technology like that, or the armor that was apparently immune to beam blasts as well. The Boss was not going to be pleased. He liked to think that he was the smartest person alive, and that no one could think of something that he had not thought of before, first. Randolf shrugged... the Boss likely WAS the smartest person alive, but that didn't mean that he was omniscient, no matter how much he wanted to be. If there was anything that sixty years of life, with several heartbreaking tragedies worth of experience had taught Randolf, it was that nothing human was perfect, and that no matter how good or talented someone was, there was no way they could be everything, all the time. He didn't think the Boss would understand that, not until someone handed him his own ass... but that was probably going to be a long time in coming, because while not perfect, the Boss was pretty DAMNED close.

Randolf was disappointed in the Zealot pilots, though he supposed he should not have been. This was a Gundam pilot, a real Gundam pilot, that they'd gone up against and lost against, in a relatively short amount of time. They, despite the advantages of their control systems, were still only mediocre pilots, and it had definitely showed. They had none of the creativity and snap second reflexes of their foe, and they had not been able to adapt as quickly to the rigors of fighting mostly blind in the Haunted Mist, despite the fact that they had had several hours longer than their foe to adjust. It just went to show, skill and talent are great equaliziers, especially coupled with advanced technology and a healthy dose of self confidence, in the face of almost any adverse battlefield condition. Randolf wondered whom he'd drawn, which Gundam pilot that he'd shortly be snuffing out? He shrugged, it really didn't matter much. It wasn't Yamato, that much he knew. Yamato would never have killed the first Zealot, and this Gundam had done so without hesistating. Perhaps it was Joule, who was known to enjoy melee combat. That would be satisfying... the Joule's had always been a bunch of arrogant snobs, and taking them down a peg or two by eliminating their male heir wouldn't be a bad days work. It was also possible it was Zala. Randolf hoped not though... he'd always respected the Zala's.

In any case, it was time for Randolf to take a personal hand. The enemy Gundam was powerful indeed, and it would need to be eliminated before it became a threat to not only this mission, but perhaps even to future missions. It would be most embarassing if Randolf's entire force was defeated by a single machine, even a Gundam. The Boss would be livid if that happened, and that was not something Randolf was keen to see any more often than he had to. Still, for all the power of the enemy, it mattered very little. The Gundam had defeated his lackey's, but now he would be facing the very master of the Mist himself, and there was no escaping from the Haunted on its home territory! He rose from his prone position to a balanced crouch, extending both arms as he tuned his sonar to a more active setting, granting him an ever clearer picture of his victim, who was just now recovering fully from the detonation of the second Zealot. Cloaked by almost a half kilometer of fog, there was no chance whatsoever that the Gundam would be able to see the attack coming, even without the silencer and flash suppressor the twin 100mm sniper cannons featured. Randolf centered his aim on the center chest of the enemy Gundam, and he smiled a hard smile as he gently squeezed his triggers. Tough luck for the cowboy, because even Gundams were trumped by Ghosts.

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The first two shots caught Athrun COMPLETELY off guard. He was just standing up from the self destruct blast that had consumed the second Zealot without warning and the Phoenix King was standing almost fully upright when without warning, the Gundam slammed backwards under the thunderous impact of two high caliber explosive shells. The only thing that saved the Phoenix King was its HAC armor, which was totally unaffected by the beam tips on the Haunted's explosive shells. Unable to initially pierce the Gundam's armor, much of the explosive power in the shells was wasted as they exploded outwards in all directions from the point of impact, putting several cracks in the Phoenix King's torso, but leaving the cockpit, which had been the target of the sniper attack, completely intact. Still, the impacts had been hard enough to cause several secondary systems to fail, and had almost knocked the Phoenix King entirely over backwards, if not for its slightly spread wings digging into the buildings on either side of the street and slowing its backwards momentum long enough for Athrun to catch himself.

"What the HELL...!?" Athrun shouted, even though there was no one to hear him besides himself. To say that getting shot in the chest was a surprise was putting it almost comically mildly. Getting shot once in the chest from far enough away that Athrun couldn't even begin to detect where the shot had come from was one thing. Flukes happen. But he'd taken TWO shots... two shots was NO fluke. Someone was sniping him. Which meant that someone had a way of seeing through the mist. Which also meant he still had at least one enemy out there. And that enemy was more dangerous than the other two, because he wasn't limited by the fog in anything near the way Athrun was. Pure instinct brought both his arms up across his damaged chest, Citadel Shields flickering into existance quickly enough to deflect another shot at his chest, but with both shields up high, the other sniper shot cleanly struck the Phoenix King's right knee. The joint held up, though armor spalled away from the wound like shed skin, and Athrun was forced to drop one shield down to cover his lower torso and legs to prevent being crippled.

Two more sniper shots detonated against the Citadel Shields before a third and fourth snuck through gaps in Athrun's coverage, scoring against his left hip and right shoulder. The Phoenix King rocked under the blows, and more alarms began beeping at him. The shots couldn't kill him in one go, but if he let the bastard shoot him more than once or twice in the same spot, Athrun had the uncomfortable feeling that the HAC armor would quickly show its relative vulnerability to standard explosive and solid munitions. And the bastard shooting him seemed more than proficient at his craft, able to pretty much pick wherever he wanted his shots to go, sneaking them around the edges of Athrun's shifting Citadel Shields in a nearly unbelievable fashion. Any remaining doubts that his foe could not only see him, but see him clearly, were quickly dispelled, as the sniper placed shots Athrun himself wasn't sure he could make, and that even Kira might have had some trouble emulating. Of course, it didn't help that the Phoenix King was basically a standing target, but Athrun didn't have much choice... he had no idea where the shells were coming from, besides somewhere in his frontal arc, and he didn't feel comfortable flying around in the fog... he'd be sure to crash into buildings before long, and it wouldn't help him find his enemy except by great accident.

A sudden thought struck him, which might buy him at least a little bit of time to think. Athrun crouched the Phoenix King down slightly, lowering his center of balance and gravity even as he enfolded the front of the Phoenix King with its wings, forming a thick wall of armored feathers between him and his attacker that reached from the tips of the Gundam's feet all the way up to the top of its head, and covered it along its full width as well. Almost immediately the sniper started pouring shot after well aimed shot into the wings, and Athrun knew he wasn't going to have very long, maybe ten or fifteen seconds, before the wings started to give way and he lost his defense, not to mention the ace up his sleeve offense, which he was saving for when he finally got a good lock on the location of his foe. The image of the thicker cloud of fog that the Phoenix King had left behind after its armor had absorbed the surprise beam blasts from the Brotherhood machine flashed behind Athrun's eyes. He smiled grimly, inspired. The enemy wanted to play with fog? Well, Athrun had a few ideas of his own to show off.

With no gain to be had in wasting any more time and risking possible severe damage to his wings, Athrun flicked them back over his shoulders even as he sprang forward, crouching low to the ground. A green SEED dropped slowly through an infinite void inside his mind before detonating in a cloud of red light that shook the whole universe. Athrun jerked the Phoenix King to a halt after advancing about twenty meters, stopping so fast the sniper actually overcorrected and blasted two shots into the street about five meters ahead of him. Athrun thrust his arms out, down low to either side of his body. Still crouched down low, he began backing up as quickly as possible, while gouting flames from both hands upwards in geysers as wide and tall as he could make them. Exactly as he'd expected, whatever was making the fog bloomed into massive overstimulation as soon as the fire hit the air, and the fog doubled in thickness and then doubled again, and again, as the Phoenix King poured heat energy into the greedy fog. Athrun stopped when he'd reached his original position, then turned off his flames and backed up a few more steps. Almost immediately the vastly thickened and rising cloud of fog he'd created paid dividends. It didn't stop his foe from shooting at him, but with his SEED enhanced senses Athrun was quite easily able to see the paths the shell's made as they passed through the thick fog and into the relatively thinner fog between him and his jury made smoke screen. Once he could see them coming, with the grace space his few extra steps gave him, moving his shields in time to block the shells with SEED reflexes was childs play.

The impromptu smokescreen also let Athrun see the path the shells arrived along, which, as he'd expected, showed him that his sniper was on a rooftop or in the air somewhere, shooting downward at him at an angle. This was actually good news for Athrun, though the sniper wouldn't realize it... it meant he didn't have to worry nearly so much about hitting civilian structures when shooting back. Which he did after deflecting the next two sniper shots, the Phoenix King's hands darting to its hips, where a dual 57mm beam rifle was slung on either side. Athrun snapped a pair of shots from each two barreled weapon back along the trajectory from the last two sniper shots, the bright green energy beams leaving thickened trails of fog behind them as they seared towards the sniper. Athrun was easily able to maintain his hold on the rifles while also using the shields to deflect incoming fire, and he smiled in a predatorial fashion. Just TRY and keep sniping him... it wouldn't take Athrun long at all to trace his enemy's shots back to him, and then the shoe might be on the other foot!

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It hadn't taken Randolf long at all to realize that his vaunted sniping plan had become outdated. His strength had become something of a weakness, which was never a pleasant feeling to have. He could still see the Gundam fine, despite the cloud of thicker fog that his enemy had cunningly created. Initially Randolf had thought the ploy was to create a visual blind, which of course was utterly pointless. But he'd been wrong... and HOW! Instead of cowering once more behind his shields and the so called visual blind, his foe had used the differences in the density of the thick fog and thin fog to track incoming shells from Randolf's sniper cannons, which he then deflected with terrifying ease. Not ONLY that, but the enemy Gundam Pilot had used his brief glimpses of the incoming trajectories of the shells to back-trace them to their point of origin. Which was Randolf, of course. The four twinned beam blasts from the enemy Gundam had nearly blasted the Haunted's hands off, that was how uncannily accurate the other pilot was! If Randolf had been a few fractions of a second slower, he'd have been the one that was crippled!

He'd moved of course, before taking the next few shots, with distressingly similar results, but there was another advantage the enemy Gundam had over him, one that kept growing more dire with the passing of time. That advantage was the ever approaching time when the USN and FNE would send in negotiators and scout teams to assess the situation within the town. Once they discovered a Mobile Suit battle raging within the town, they would not be slow to send in their own forces. Though they would be greatly hampered by the fog, the USN and FNE had forces to spare, and they would be able to swamp the town with their numbers. Perhaps not very good for the town, but all its inhabitents were dead as it was, and the action would only serve to showcase the strength of the USN, which was the opposite of the mission goal. Randolf just didn't have the time to waste for a prolonged sniper duel with this extremely skilled and adaptable opponent. He'd have to get closer, to the point where smoke screens could not compensate for his shots, despite the peternatural reflexes of the Gundam Pilot.

Randolf was not afraid to admit that the thought of closing to proximity with the enemy Gundam gave him some cold sweats. This guy, whichever one he was, had mopped the floor with two Zealots while adapating to a strange environment, and he'd done it without too much trouble. Not only that, but he'd adjusted on the fly to Randolf's own attacks, and had even figured out a way to use Randolf's self created environment against him! Randolf stripped away any thoughts that he was at all superior to this Gundam Pilot... hell, the only thing even keeping them close to even was the fact that Randolf could see and his opponent could not. Just about the last thing Randolf wanted to do was negate that great advantage of his, but he did not have too much choice in the matter. He had all of minutes remaining before the USN would start sending people in... this had to end NOW. Even if it meant closing with an opponent that was in a skill class quite a bit better than Randolf's own.

That wasn't to say that Randolf was desperate and completely out of tricks. Oh no, he still had a few aces up his sleeves, which would HOPEFULLY be enough to unbalance and surprise his foe long enough for Randolf to strike enough telling blows that the enemy would not be able to recover. Withdrawing the sniper cannons back into the interior of his forearms, Randolf took out and loaded the quad barreled 155mm sawed off shotcannon, even as he thruster jumped well over the head of his opponent, landing a hundred meters further down the street. Stalking swiftly and almost silently forward, Randolf put his other hand up onto the grip of the two handed anti-ship axe slung across his upper back. He'd blast his foe off balance from behind with the shotcannon, and then hack him to pieces with the axe before he could recover. Just to be sure that he'd catch his opponent with his guard down, as if chameleonic Phase Shift wouldn't conceal him well enough, Randolf activated the holoprojectors mounted on the Haunted's head and shoulders. Each would project a fully life sized, completely visually accurate image of the Haunted up to one hundred meters away, and could even make those images move and somewhat react to outside stimuli. Still, their primary purpose was to confuse and draw fire from foes, while the real Haunted struck from an unexpected angle. Let's see how this Gundam liked tangling with some spectres...

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Athrun was stunned when the form of an unknown mobile suit appeared out of the mist, only a few meters ahead of him. One moment there was nothing there at all, the next, perhaps decloaking from mirage colloid or some other high tech stealth system, a Gundam nearly as big as the Phoenix King, if lacking wings, was practically nose to nose with Athrun. The enemy Gundam, for it had to be a Gundam, with that head shape and the stealth systems he'd just seen it use, not to mention the sniper cannons it had been using on him earlier, though they weren't in current evidence, was holding a short, quad barreled gun of wicked looking design, while the hilt of a large, physical melee weapon of some sort poked over its shoulder. Athrun didn't wait for the enemy to open fire, he brought his left arm up with the shield ready to take whatever it was the gun was going to dish out, while his right hand fired three quick beam blasts into the foe, point blank. Impossibly, none hit their targets, as the enemy Gundam moved so fast it BLURRED, reappearing, completely unharmed, about ten meters to Athrun's left.

Athrun's jaw tightened... he'd seen a Gundam move like that once before, when he'd been helping defeat Frost in the Pulsar at the end of the Second Valentine War. Frost had moved so quickly that shooting at him was almost pointless, even without the basically invincible shields the Pulsar could project from its palms. He was just so fast, in terms of reflexes and pure speed that he could dodge pretty much anything that wasn't point blank, and even the point blank stuff he could usually evade without too much of a sweat. If this new enemy Gundam was piloted by someone even CLOSE to Frost, then Athrun was in deep, deep shit. They'd beaten Frost, but only by a slimmer margin than anyone was comfortable with, and it had taken the combined efforts of all of Athrun's friends plus a few other people to do it. Just by himself, he didn't give himself very long odds, even with the Phoenix King's power. Not in this fog. Not in the middle of a town of innocent people.

It was very strange though... no matter how hard he tried, the enemy Gundam always evaded his shots with contemptuous ease, blurring with speed and reappearing a short distance away, in mostly random directions. Athrun wasn't even mussing the guy's hair, or so it seemed. But despite having been left open on multiple occasions, the enemy pilot had done nothing to actually attack Athrun. If this was a Frost like person, they were playing a very sick game, which was not unknown... but things weren't adding up. Athrun could have sworn that this guy was trying to kill him as quickly as possible when he'd been sniping at Athrun. But now, here he was, gun alreadly leveled, dancing around Athrun like a man around a glass sculpture, and he was holding his fire? If the bastard wanted to kill Athrun, he could have done it several times by now! It was almost like he was shooting at something that wasn't actually there.

With that odd thought in his mind, Athrun decided to take a chance. He fired at the foe again, but turned away from where the guy was going to go, if he followed his usual pattern. Somewhat to Athrun's surprise and concern, the enemy Gundam was standing in the direction he'd turned to face, as if the pilot had read his move. Still, Athrun had to be totally sure, and though it made every piloting and soldierly sense in his body scream in protest, Athrun forced himself to turn away from the foe threatening him with a gun to his front, and looked over his shoulder at where he'd thought the guy would go. Athrun smiled, relief tingling throughout his body. There was another, identical enemy Gundam where Athrun had thought there would be. He was flanked by Gundams, but they weren't firing at him? Athrun didn't think so. He scanned the area slowly, and discovered an additional two Gundams lurking around. Or at least, that was what his opponent wanted him to think. If four Gundams were really surrounding him, Athrun would already be dead. So the obvious conclusion was that these Gundams he could see, which avoided his shots with ease and never fired back despite the oppotunity too, weren't actually real. They were images of Gundam's, nothing more. A speculative shot at one while he carefully observed it showed that though the Gundam moved, its legs did not, nor did thrusters fire. The fog made it hard to detect, but once he was looking for it, it was almost obvious.

So if none of these four Gundams were real... but he hadn't been gunned down by the sniper while dealing with the images... and the images all stayed mostly to his front or sides... that meant... Athrun spun the Phoenix King as fast as he could, both arms coming up across his chest with Citadel Shields at maximum power, barely in time to catch the four barreled shotcannon blast from the fifth Gundam, which was the real one. The real one did not obligingly make itself visible like its images did. No, it blended into the fog like it was part of it, and all Athrun could really see was a vague blurred outline where the mist parted around the edges of the Gundam's frame. He couldn't even see it's eyes, either because it had none, or because they too were covered by the cloaking effect. It wasn't mirage colloid, since the Phoenix King's vari-camera arrays would have stripped that invisibility away within seconds at this range, but whatever it was made it almost impossible to see the Gundam. Color and pattern changing paint maybe? The Brotherhood terrorists had had an active camouflage system on their armor that Athrun had seen in the recording... it wasn't too much of a stretch to imagine similar technology for their Mobile Suits. Though the other two hadn't had it, which made Athrun even more sure that this machine was in fact an enemy Gundam, while the other two were... just Gundam-like.

The force of all four barrels unloading their payload into the Phoenix King's shields pushed Athrun backwards a few steps, but it was by no means nearly the effect his opponent had probably been hoping for. Athrun shuddered, once, at the thought of what that shotcannon blast would have done had it hit him while his back was turned and he was unprepared... major damage at the best, lights out for good at worst! The enemy Gundam dropped its weapon, and unlimbered a huge two handed axe from its back. It was disconcerting, seeing the gun and then the axe, which weren't camouflaged, besides a flat grey-white paint coat, apparently floating in midair, until you looked really, really close and saw the blur lines that showed where the Gundam itself was. The enemy Gundam hammered its axe into the Phoenix King's shields as hard as it could, trying to batter them out of the way so that the next blow could fall upon the vulnerable cockpit section. Not that there was a chance in hell of that happening. The Haunted was strong, but the Phoenix King was more massive, just as strong if not stronger and well braced.

Athrun turned and deflected the second axe stroke down and to the side, before lashing out with a side kick that only clipped the Haunted's legs because Athrun had to guess at the actual dimensions of the Gundam, using his memory of the ghost-images, which fortunately proved to be accurate. A mistake on the part of the ghost-machine, making its images look just like itself, so that a skilled pilot could approximate what he should aim for even if he couldn't see the real machine. Athrun lost some of his smile when the other four images of the enemy dissolved and then reformed, along with the fifth Gundam, the real one. Athrun found himself facing a semicircle of Gundams, all identical, each holding its axe in a slightly different pose. He wanted to believe that the enemy hadn't managed to change position, but he doubted that the foe would reveal himself and remain in the same spot. Now Athrun saw why all the images were the exact same... in the fog, without sensors more complex than cameras, there was no way he could tell which was the real threat. A lesser pilot, or one without the Phoenix King, might have been worried or intimidated. As things were, Athrun's smile quickly regenerated itself.

The five Gundams began edging their way forward, maneuvering for what the other pilot obviously thought was the kill stroke with malicious glee evident in their stride and posture. Athrun ignored the lot of them raising both of his hands high above his head and turning the plasma projectors on to maximum flow. He generated a two handed beam sword at least as big as the one Frost had used so well with the Pulsar, and Athrun kept pouring more fire into his fields, until fire literally ran in streams up and down and around the Phoenix King's arms, even looping up and down the coursucating blade of the massive sword. Athrun glanced up at his sword, compared it to the anti-ship axe his foe had, and thought, what the hell, why not? So he made the sword about twenty percent bigger in all dimensions, straining the BGCS to its regular limits, holding a pillar of flame in the general shape of a sword in his hands, big enough to immolate a small Mobile Suit with a single strike. However, the attack came from the wings. Flickering out to full extension to either side and then sweeping forward in a great single wingbeat, the Phoenix King shed its feathers in a horizontal hurricane of fire and blazing metal.

To say that the Haunted was caught by surprise would be quite the understatement. Its confused and scared and almost defeated foe had suddenly stood up and generated a sword of truly mind boggling power, drawing his attention to that gleaming pillar warily. And then, out of nowhere, the wings had come out and swept forward and unleashed too many red hot, thruster boosted, razor sharp feathers for Randolf to count, at less than twenty meters range! Of course, there were five different targets for the feathers, all attempting strenuous evasive maneuvers, so Athrun could not detect which was the real enemy right off the bat. Not until several feathers struck the Haunted and plowed black scars across its arms and legs and torso, soon making it appear like the ghostly Gundam had laid out along a barbecue grill and gotten sear marks on its flesh. His foe finally marked out, Athrun wasted no time in leaping forward to engage more closely, ignoring the darting phantoms of the other images that leaped suicidally into his way. Still, Randolf wasn't totally helpless, and he managed to get the beam edge of his axe interposed between himself and the oncoming sword.

For all its size, the BGCS sword had much less mass than the physical form of the Haunted's anti-ship axe, so the intial blow didn't do much besides send the Haunted sliding backwards, heels digging a trench through the ground, until its back smashed into a building. If the sword had been a physical weapon, Randolf knew that he'd have been dead, his axe battered out of his hands and then his body split apart in the same motion. He tried to press up with his axe and force the giant sword away, but in a clinch, where the Phoenix King could use the strength of its BGCS fields to press down, there was no longer any constest of strength. The Haunted's axe was slowly forced down, until its opposite blade was starting to cut into its own shoulder. Trapped between the building and the blade, Randolf grew desperate. This was no longer a battle he could win. Escape was the utmost priority, even over mission completion. Gambling, Randolf took one hand off his axe and shoved it towards the Phoenix King's chest, the palm irising open to reveal the muzzle of the sniper cannon. Athrun recognized the threat the instant it appeared, and he adjusted his BGCS accordingly, reversing the sword so that its tip protruded down from where the hilt used to be, shooting downwards like a spear to cleanly slice off the Haunted's hand at the wrist, before the Haunted could open fire.

Still, the end result was in Randolf's favor, as the maneuver released the pressure of the sword on the Haunted's axe. Able to at last get a moment breather, Randolf launched himself straight back through the building, collapsing it around himself before shooting out the other side. By the time the Phoenix King had cleared the dust and debris cloud from the collapsed building, the Haunted was gone, disappearing like a ghost into its fog. Athrun stood on guard for several minutes, before he reached down and recovered the severed hand. It wasn't much, but it was at least some proof that he'd fought an enemy Gundam. Perhaps Erica Simmons would be able to glean something of import from it. Athrun was about to turn to go back to his original purpose of searching for townsfolk to help, when he saw more shapes looming out of the fog, coming towards him in a group. More enemies... that was JUST what he needed, as the scattered feathers began to slot themselves back into place on his wings after pulling themselves out of wherever they'd ended up embedding themselves. However, this time it WASN'T more enemies. In some ways, it was worse, Athrun thought with a pained groan, as the first USN Mobile Assault squads slowly spread out to surround him, demanding that he surrender his machine as a potential terrorist. This was not going to ge over well in the media...


	11. Tilling the Ground part 1

Once, many decades in the past, there had been a time when Aireg Randolf would have shivered and trembled visibly with anxiety in a situation like this. Reporting failure was never easy, and even less so when you had a situation stacked heavily in your favor. Whether that stacking was accomplished by being born a Coordinator and the failure being failing out of the public school system, or was by being given a tactical situation a complete rookie moron should have been able to pull off and ending it stumbling away in panicked retreat, half crippled and scared for his life, both situations weighed upon him heavily. But now, unlike that time when he'd gone home to his parents in his middle teens, Randolf still held his head high and walked with confidence and surety in his stride. This time at least, he knew that he'd given his best, unlike that time in his youth, which had been a result of... personal deficiencies... on his part. Failure was failure, but he could forgive himself, slightly, for failing because of the strength of his opponent, not because of his own weakness. Whether or not the boss would be as forgiving was unknown, but Randolf would soon learn, one way or another. Still, he had to shake his head in self mockery. Almost fifty years of experience and confidence building, and he still felt like an expelled schoolboy taking the news home to his parents, even if he didn't show it outwardly. To think that a mere boy, barely into adulthood, could have such an effect on him... truly strange.

Randolf met gazes with the man standing just off to the side of the door to the executive office... one of dozens... that the boss used for his public work, depending on which sub-corporation he had decided to helm for the day. BoranderCorp itself was so huge, with so many component businesses and interests that the boss could quite literally focus his attentions on an entirely different sphere of business or technology every day of the week, and run out of days before running out of corporate interests to manage. At times it made Randolf wonder why the boss had created the Brotherhood at all... surely someone as rich and powerful as the sole scion of the Borander family could do pretty much whatever he wanted anyway, right? One more question to join the legion ranks of the other things that puzzled him about the boss, Randolf resolved with a slight shrug. The boss was the boss, and trying to understand him would only make your brain hurt. Randolf was not a suscriber to the idea that the boss was some sort of angel or higher order of being, but he could not deny that the boss had depths to him that Randolf had encountered in few living men.

Michael Genesis, Noah's so called "confidante" and personal assistant, though Noah didn't confide much in him and didn't need assistance with much at all, matched gazes with Aireg Randolf for a few moments, before nodding his head fractionally in respect. Of them all, Randolf was the closest in temperment and background to Michael, and though he was well aware that Randolf was definitely not a very true member of the Brotherhood, and only really a fringe member of the whole Noah Borander team, Michael had to respect that too. Very few people could become as intimate with Noah as Randolf was without succumbing to Noah's natural charisma and passion. It took great willpower and a sense of self direction to follow in the path of a giant while also maintaining your own destination. Age did have some benefits after all... it helped you become properly stubborn and set in your ways, something which Michael could appreciate more and more these days as Noah grew older and entered his later teens. Being bodyguard, manservant and general guardian for the richest, most powerful and undoubtedly most spoiled teenage Coordinator alive was no particularly fun or easy task. That this teenager was also trying to, and would likely succeed in accomplishing, changing the entire world on a fundamental but secret level didn't help matters. Michael covertly pressed a button on the wall behind where he was standing, disengaging the security mechanisms that warded the door so that Randolf could open it without the both of them being diced by lasers or blown apart or melted by acid or something else terrible that Noah had cooked up as a door guard. You could never tell with him.

Randolf stepped by Michael into the executive office, blinking his eyes behind his protective sunglasses at the sudden flare of light. The lights in the office had been off, leaving the room in almost total pitch darkness, but as Randolf had crossed the threshold the office had veritably exploded into light, brighter than day, brighter than the interior lighting out in the executive hallway. It was so bright, and the momentary change between darkness and light so jarring that even behind his shades, Randolf was forced to screw his eyes shut and turn his head away for a few seconds, before he was able to blink the spots from his vision and adjust. The room was fairly normal, as far as executive offices went, in an older style mode... plush carpets, large windows with real drapes and curtains, wooden furniture, even a big wooden desk topped with glass, though the glass shimmered internally with a manner that suggested a high power flat screen video or computer display. The carpet was a rich brown, the walls lighter shades of tan and white, the entire place very earthy and quiet, like a cave dug in fresh ground. With all the shades drawn and the curtains down, there was no way to tell what the view was, though Randolf did no doubt that it was spectacular... as high up the spire of the PLANT as they were, it would be like looking down on Earth from heaven itself.

Randolf stopped in front of the desk and bowed his head slightly despite himself, unable to help a small gesture of respect for the young man sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk, half turned away, leaning back with his eyes closed and a look of slowly retreating contentment on his peaceful face. The desk itself was bare of any ornamentation and even documentation, the display screen as clear as regular glass now that Randolf was standing in a position where he could look down onto it. It stung, a little bit, that the boss still had things he was not willing to trust to Randolf, even given the sorts of services he demanded of him, but Randolf shrugged the irritation away. It was enough that the boss gave him the information he needed for his campaign to free Lacus Clyne, that was all. If he could accomplish that sublime goal, then almost any sacrifice was worth the cost. Even his reputation. Even his life. A deal with the devil maybe, but sometimes that was the only way forward for a man. Randolf watched Noah open those transcendant purple eyes, replete with golden starbursts twinkling throughout the pupil, and his boss sat forward with a slight sigh. Noah lifted his hands from his lap and placed a small, mirror bright metal dish on the desk. In the dish was a collection of small colored crystals, each about the size of a quartered penny. They were all cut to look like gemstones, and for all Randolf knew, they really WERE precious stones. The boss was wealthy enough...

"In a manner of speaking, yes they are. And in another manner, no, they certainly aren't." Noah answered, perhaps reading something in the way Randolf stood or a twitch of his facial muscles. Randolf had not yet been able to fathom how his employer could have such a keen grasp of what other people were thinking, with just a glance at their posture and expression, sometimes not even that. Randolf liked to think that he had a pretty good poker face, but the boss still seemed able to read him like he had a vid screen displaying his thoughts in the middle of his face. It was downright uncanny at times. Especially when the boss pre-empted a question Randolf hadn't even been planning on asking, or only idly considering. "They are indeed gemstones, but they're factory made stones, not naturally mined. I actually churned them out myself in the lab a while back, as part of a systems test. I kept them around as a lark, and I've found them to be useful for other things, particularly when I need to relax and focus my mind, or practice intense concentration."

"Something like a worry stone or grip bag then?" Randolf asked, trying to parse what his boss was saying, though the stones hardly looked at all like any sort of conventional stress relaxation mechanism. They were too small and too numerous to be easily passed from hand to hand, and it wasn't like you could squeeze them, or roll them around your fingers like a grip bag or a coin trick. One more mystery to add to the load the boss already carted around with him.

"Something like that, yes." Noah replied, a secret sparkle in his brief smile. "But you came here to talk about more than just my idle habits."

"Yes, sir." Randolf found himself, to his continued annoyance, bowing his head in momentary reverence once more, like a butler to the master of an estate. "I wanted to report on the results of the initial..." Randolf trailed off, quietly appalled at himself. He glanced around the room, though he knew a mere visual inspection was hardly good enough to spot monitoring devices in this day and age, even if you were trained to look for them and a Coordinator to boot. To his surprise and continued irritation, Noah broke into a wide smile and even seemed to be forced to suppress a small series of chuckles. Randolf's eyes narrowed... information security was nothing to be taken lightly!

"Nobody can spy on us, Aireg, don't fret." Noah admonished, still smiling. "You have some small inkling as to the connections I have with various government and commercial organizations, and I assure you, my connections go farther and deeper than anyone could possibly imagine. But if it'll make you happy..." Noah glanced to the side and tapped his finger on the desk once. A sphere levitated into view from the floor on the side of the desk that Noah had glanced at. Randolf revised himself... not a sphere, but a multiple sided polygon. Something with more sides than Randolf could easily count, even at little more than arm's distance... at least fifty, maybe as much as twice that. The roughly spherical polygon was a deep blue color, with silver trim along the edges, and it was about the size of a deluxe sized softball. Randolf vaguely recognized it as one of Noah's many robotic utility creations and affectations. He didn't remember what this particular one did though, as small red and green lights flickered across display surfaces too small for Randolf to easily see. "Merlin here projects a tuned electronic disruption field that will disable even my OWN spy devices in a twenty meter radius. Trust me, Aireg, we can speak freely." Noah assured his cautious underling. He didn't add that Merlin was a recording device himself, a veritable floating library of information, but that was beside the point.

"Very well then sir." Randolf shrugged. Let it be on the bosses' head then. "I'm sorry to say, sir, that the first mission completely failed to accomplish its goals. I am forced to conclude that it was due to my own tactical failings, as well as failings in the intelligence I was operating with. I was led to believe that the opposing forces would consist soley of USN and FNE terrorism response units and perhaps main line military forces. My own troops were more than well enough trained and equipped to deal with the mission as defined by the briefing I gave them, and up until a certain point, everything went perfectly and smoothly, just as you'd said it would."

"Up to a certain point? Explain what went wrong." Noah commanded, his face a slightly amused mask that Randolf found even more unsettling than open anger or annoyance.

"First was the disappearance of a two man patrol sent to check the mountainside lodges for any townsfolk or tourists who may have escaped our initial sweeps of the town. Our intelligence noted no long term reservations for the lodges in question, but last minute lodgers are not an unknown thing, and so I deemed it prudent to at least investigate, despite our complete communication blackout of the surrounding area. Perhaps we might have even been able to snap up a celebrity or two, best case scenario, which would have made for even better fodder to use in the media than the townsfolk. Instead the two men, both ZAFT veterans with plenty of ground combat experience, just plain disappeared, until I eventually sent men looking for them. They were discovered stripped of their weapons and protective masks, frozen to death by the effects of the Haunted Mist. Tracks in the snow indicated at least two assailants, who had apparently entered the town in a scouting foray before retreating once more up to the lodges. Quite how relatively unprotected people could survive such a trip in the Mist is somewhat beyond me, sir, but we found no bodies on the slopes on the way up. I sent a full ten man squad up to flush out the resistance in the lodge, and thought that would be the end of the matter. I never heard from them again."

"Perturbing. To think that a full dozen of our soldiers were..." Noah trailed off, perhaps seeing the interested look flash across Randolf's face. Randolf had been totally involved in first escaping from the town, then the immediate area, then the FNE in general and finally the Earth itself in order to return to the main Brotherhood base in the PLANTS over the last two days to catch even a glimpse of the news or a newspaper. He actually had no idea himself what the media had made of the whole incident, or what had been discovered by the USN or FNE in the aftermath of his actions. "Do continue, Aireg."

"Yes, sir..." Randolf replied, gritting his teeth at being forced to basically give his entire report blindly. "I lost contact with the squad, but before I could attempt to re-make contact with them, I was confronted by an entirely unexpected threat. A single Mobile Suit had entered the Mist from above, quite without warning. It was confounded by the Mist, just as expected, and I sent my Zealots to take care of what I thought was some crazy, wanna-be cowboy hero from a USN or FNE base. Both Zealots were defeated, if not handily, then at least without much trouble, and almost no damage suffered by the single enemy. I attacked him myself, and initially enjoyed a strong advantage, as expected for the Haunted in its own Mist. However, through superior personal skills and tactics, my opponent not only managed to use my own terrain against me, but forced me to fight on HIS terms, eventually nearly overwhelming me despite my best efforts and coming within a hairsbreadth of destroying me! By that point in time, all advantage had been lost to any further attempt to salvage the situation in line with the original plan. With the Haunted damaged and my opponent beyond my ability to defeat even with my Gundam whole, I judged retreat to be the only viable option. I fled without looking back, and have not spared a single thought to anything else but arriving back here as rapidly as possible to inform you, sir, and accept any due blame for my failure."

"A single Mobile Suit defeated you and two Zealots, on your own ground, is that what you're telling me, Aireg? That you stacked the deck as heavily in your favor as you could... and you were STILL defeated, by just ONE Mobile Suit?" Noah's voice was calm, even neutral. Randolf thought furiously for a moment or two, before shrugging once more, shoulders drooping afterwards.

"That is... yes, sir. One Mobile Suit." Randolf looked up, his jaw tightening... he WOULD NOT be scolded like a schoolboy! "One Gundam."

"Yes. A Gundam. An Orb Gundam, to be precise. One nobody knew about, not even me. I found THAT to be most bothersome indeed." Noah steepled his hands on his desk and apparently contemplated the wall behind Randolf intently. The silence stretched, until Randolf could take it no more and he started to fidget a little. He could understand yelling. He could understand anger. He could even understand fear. But just silence, staring at the wall with that calculating expression? It chilled his blood.

"Sir... you're well within your rights to..." Randolf started to suggest.

"I'm not going to punish you, Aireg." Noah cut him off. "You did not fail."

"But... the mission..." Randolf started to protest, shocked. "The... the USN and FNE..."

"Still looked like ineffective idiots, sitting around for hours outside the spooky fog, letting nearly four hundred innocent men, women and children be killed by the terrorist's "chemical" weapons while they bickered and manuevered politically, trying to decide who's jurisdiction the problem lay in, and who was in charge of doing what. Meanwhile, a single Orb Mobile Suit, a single Gundam, stepped forward and handled the crisis all by his lonesome. Quite heroic of him. Quite a black eye for the USN and FNE, to be having a jurisidictional fracas while ORB comes in on the sly from half the world away and saves the day yet again. Very embarrassing. It isn't how I originally planned it... but I am forced to conclude, that I like this way as much, if not better." Noah said, his smile tugging slightly wider.

"Sir!?" Randolf arched both eyebrows in shock, knocked totally off his mental balance by the pleased tone of Noah's voice. "But the two Zealots... the damage to the Haunted... the thirty men...!?"

"The men knew they were expendable before you even set out, Aireg. The same for the Zealots, both of whom were either destroyed or self destructed beyond the means of the USN or FNE to recover anything of import from. With you and the Haunted returned to us, even damaged, I account us as heavily in the positive column. Everything we have lost can be replaced with great ease, and we have still managed to embark upon the great plan, while also seeming to serve our dear "ally", though it took him a little while to realize it. A very little while, to his credit. Initially he was quite wroth at the failure of the plan to turn out as I made him expect it would, but, if nothing else good can be said of Durandel, his ability to set bad or unexpected situations to his best advantage is indeed incredible." Noah replied, leaning back into his chair and stretching his legs out beneath the desk. He saw the Randolf, for all his military skills, lacked the proper political mindset to make the logical leap that Noah and Durandel had. Noah sighed and leaned forward to explain... the man deserved to know WHY he'd done a good job, at least, since he obviously couldn't see for himself.

"Think about it, Aireg. Think about what you know of the USN, and it's controls on the military forces and technology of the member-states. What its position on Gundams is, at least for the moment." Noah prompted, seeing the light slowly start to dawn on his underling's face and in his mind.

"Nuclear powered Mobile Suits are currently prohibited in the militaries of the member-states." Randolf said slowly, examining each fragment of thought carefully as he fit the pieces together. Randolf smiled as he started to see what his boss was talking about. "Orb's not SUPPOSED to have Gundams, is it?"

"Indeed not." Noah acknowledged, like a father patting a child on the head. "The Gundam, which is known by the rather pretentious name of Phoenix King, is in fact an ILLEGAL Gundam. It's pilot, the ever popular Orb Ambassador, Athrun Zala, was in fact committing a international CRIME by piloting the Gundam against our forces, regardless of his good intentions. And since he singularly failed to save even ONE hostage, since they all froze to death hours before he arrived, despite his bravado in charging in alone and heedless of the PROPER authorities, there are no mitigating circumstances to lessen the severity of the breach of the USN conventions. And though his heroic actions definitely win him no enemies amongst the public of the world, dashing hero that he is, Athrun made few friends for Orb in the FNE and many branches of the USN itself with his rather rash breach of protocol and convention. There's more than a few people nursing public black eyes and bruised ego's that would not hesitate to crucify Athrun, and by association, Orb, on the political front, for launching illicit Covert Operations into the sovereign territory of another member-state, QUITE the opposite of Orb's public stance, of course."

"Well, I cannot say I'm happy to see Athrun Zala take a hit... I've nothing against that young man, and quite a bit of respect for him... but I guess it's tough times ahead for the First Husband of Orb, not to mention his wife. Durandel won't hesitate to drop on them like a ton of bricks, considering all the political trouble they've caused for him in the past." Randolf mused, wincing inwardly. Gilbert Durandel was definitely one of those people that you crossed only at great peril to yourself, because he would always, someway, somehow, end up in a position to screw you, and he ALWAYS paid his debts in kind.

"Not even slightly." Noah countered, enjoying the stupefied look on Randolf's face. "Don't misunderstand, Aireg. There is little Gilbert would love more than being able to publicly flay Athrun and Cagalli, and through them Orb, over this incident. They are so vulnerable to him right now they might as well shoot a child and take pictures of themselves in the act, because they could not be more visibly guilty of a crime! And he has ultimate jurisdiction over the prosecution of this crime, since it violates USN military laws. There is almost no limit to the sort of hellish sanctions and punishments that he could levy against Orb as USN SecDef. He could break them as a military power, if he so chose, could force them to accept complete watchdogging by USN observers throughout the military and even police forces! And he's exactly the sort of man to take vindictive pleasure the whole time while he does it, watching them squirm under the white hot political dissection and scandal."

"You seem to be making my point for me, sir." Randolf noted. "The emnity between Orb and Durandel is well known. Why should he hesitate to slap them down like misbehaving children now that he has the chance and even the right?"

"You really aren't a very good politician, you know that, Aireg?" Noah sighed. "The only thing a politician... no, a person like Gilbert Durandel... likes more than the ability to completely and totally crush his enemies when they leave themselves open like this is the ability to have them REALIZE their situation, before he PROTECTS them from the consequences of their actions, therefore putting themselves into his DEBT. Durandel immediately pardoned Athrun of any and all suspicion of wrongdoing, protecting him from several USN investigations and accusations, snuffing them out entirely. Not only that, but he legalized the Phoenix King pretty much on the spot, as well as extending a tacit legalization for any MORE Gundam's Orb may have constructed, with the caveat that Cagalli must declare them openly and publicly immediately. He didn't even make them reveal the technical aspects of the machines... he "took it on faith in the demonstrated goodwill and ethical devotion to world peace known to be a fundamental part of the character of Orb" to quote one particularly nasty jab."

"I... don't understand, sir." Randolf admitted. He was familiar with the idea of putting someone in your debt in order to make use of them when otherwise they'd have nothing or little to do with you... Noah had done it to Randolf himself after all, saving his life like he had. But he just couldn't see why Durandel would pass on the opportunity to crush his last remaining major political opponents when he had the chance handed to him gift wrapped on a silver platter?

Noah sighed again. "Aireg, you frustrate me sometimes. The military is such a terrible organization, to force people to think so linearly. Consider what Orb's STATED political stance on military strength is? They want to REDUCE the strength of the USN and the member-states militaries. They are in DIRECT opposition to Durandel, and they have a goodly bit of public support. However, a Gundam is NOTHING if not an expression of military strength, especially one with as many exciting and frankly impressive new technologies as the Phoenix King employs! In essence, Orb has now been conclusively PROVEN to be demanding everyone reduce their military strength while ALSO building up their own! Cagalli and Athrun talk their talk... while walking Durandel's walk. Normally, that's not such a big deal... everyone does it, its an open secret. But to be CAUGHT doing it, especially when you are the most vocal and active opponent of the idea? It looks bad. Very bad. And it looks worse for each additional Gundam Orb built. Five of them in all. Five Gundams, each at least a DECADE in advance of anything the USN, FNE, or ALU currently has in the works, and probably a good two or three years ahead of the PLANTS."

"Five Gundams!" Aireg goggled. "They built four MORE monsters like that, in secret!? Sir!"

"I know, it is most distressing. The plan will have to be revised slightly to account for them. But to stay on topic, Cagalli and Athrun have come out of this whole incident smeared in some very deep, dark shit, at least on the issue of military strength on an international level. Durandel made NO secret of the fact that he was covering for them, protecting them from their own mistake, so not only do THEY look bad, but Durandel looks GOOD, like a progressive, honest, peace minded leader. Beyond even THAT, Athrun and Cagalli now OWE Durandel heavily on the political front, which has to be about as palatable to them as eating rotten eggs off the bottoms of his boots. You can bet that you won't be hearing too much from Orb for a little while with regards to the USN. Even if Cagalli and Athrun don't care if the world as a whole sees them as ungrateful bastards, the rest of the Orb government appartus will prevent them from committing political suicide by standing up to Durandel so soon after getting their fat pulled from the fire by him. And by giving them such good terms in public, and with his comments on TRUSTING the peaceful nature of Orb, Durandel gets to rub their faces in it the whole time." Noah rolled his eyes. "If you were still in ZAFT, I think Durandel would find some way to make sure you got a very nice medal for your work, assuming he even knew who'd done it. I've not seen him smile so much since just before I crashed his party."

"You say linear thinking frustrates you, sir, but I must say, I prefer it. Better to just kill or crush my enemies than torture them like that." Randolf replied with a frown. "Durandel can sure be a twisted bastard when it comes to getting his revenge on people..."

"Fear not, good Aireg. Gilbert Durandel, for all his political ferocity, is far from the only person who possesses the ability to enjoy turning a crushing advantage into a venue for private enjoyment. He is really among the LEAST of our concerns, our dear ally is. Especially with these new Gundams of Orb's. I'll have to put some thought into upgrading our own forces somewhat. It's bothersome, really... I had hoped to keep some things for later..." Noah refocused his eyes on Randolf, as if suddenly realizing that he was speaking out loud while his subordinate was still right there to hear him. "In any case, I have to congratulate you on a job well done. Our ally is ecstatic with our results and is eagerly awaiting the next event, while I am about as pleased as could be expected. We encountered some problems, but in the end, we have emerged even stronger, with more knowledge than before, and it can only lead to our inevitable triumph that much more easily now. It is only the unknown that can stop the Brotherhood, Aireg. And on that note, I think you should probably go get some rest, my friend. You have a while before I'll need you again, but it is never wise to tempt fate, especially with the new variables."

"Yes... sir." Randolf agreed reluctantly. He didn't feel particularly tired, despite the grueling past couple of days... it had been nothing worse than any of a hundred such stretches of time during the Valentine Wars. He turned to go before one more thing flashed into his mind as an afterthought. "What happened to that patrol I sent to the lodge, sir?"

"Them? They had the misfortune to encounter an Orb special forces team that accompanied the Phoenix King, in order to extract several Orb dignitaries that had booked lodging there at the last moment. That is a whole seperate international incident, though it took a sideshow to the Gundam event." Noah responded, a sudden shadow crossing his face. He focused his gaze on Randolf's, capturing it despite the slight barrier of the sunglasses. "Don't worry about them, Aireg. They did their job as best they might, even if they did encounter some significantly unexpected problems. It is not your concern."

"Not my... concern?" Randolf replied, struggling to think clearly as a haze washed over his thoughts. Maybe he was more tired than he'd thought? Older age catching up to him at last, maybe? "Yes, sir... you're probably right about that. All dead anyways, right. Poor bastards... guess they get to see their promised land a little sooner than the rest, right boss?"

"They will enjoy the delights of Heaven in Heaven, yes. Heaven on Earth will have to suffice for most of their brethren." Noah replied cryptically, flicking a hand in dismissal. Randolf nodded his head, without a single flash of irritation this time, and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Immediately, the lights turned themselves off, leaving the room in blackness which was almost total once more. The only spots of light came from the metallic dish on the desk, from within the phosphorescent gemstones. The light reflected from Noah's eyes for a few moments as he stared at the doorway until Randolf was well away, before he closed his eyes and relaxed heavily back into his chair. He put some parts of his attention on continuing the updating of his plans to account for the new Orb Gundams, but the greater part of his mind re-concentrated on the practice task he'd been working on before Aireg's interruption. He was still just a beginner at this, but practice would make perfect, and even Ultimate Coordinators had to take baby steps initially. He smiled as he started stacking the gemstones into tiny pillars, alternating colors, his hands folded neatly across his lap. Start small. Think big. The basics of any good plan.

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Kira could not hide his wince at the sound of breaking crystal and splintering wood that echoed mutedly down the stairway that he and Lacus were ascending, in the private levels of the Orb National Palace. In the two days since their ordeal in Switzerland, both of them had recovered rapidly and fully from the physical and emotional trauma's they'd suffered. Perhaps they were still desensitized from the Valentine Wars, but an incident that would have put most people their age into therapy or even a hospital had barely put them off their stride a few hours after getting off the plane in Orb. They'd actually come through it all without any serious injuries or hurts, beyond bruises, abrasions and small cuts, which were to be expected from any sort of close encounter with armed soldiers in a fight. Dearka and Miriallia had fared almost as well, though they had retreated to Dearka's boat and were not currently returning calls, so Lacus had figured that they probably needed some time alone before she tried to get them back into the stride of things. Just because her birthday vacation had been interrupted not just once but twice did not mean that she had forgotten the things she and Kira and Dearka and Miriallia all needed to talk about.

"Sounds like it might be a good thing that we stopped by to talk with Athrun and Cagalli." Lacus noted lightly, with an attempt at a slight smile. Kira listened to the thumps and thuds of overturning furniture and winced again. Cagalli was in full flow, that was for sure. He didn't think he'd EVER seen her this mad, not since the Valentine Wars anyway, and even then he'd never seen her throw or break things. Yell, scream, grab people, shake them... sure, all of those. But destroying inanimate objects, even possessions of hers? His little sister was a very frightening person when she was angry. Kira could not comprehend sometimes how Athrun could deal with her.

"The same way I handle you when YOU'RE being childish... with a great deal of understanding and patience." Lacus observed, guessing what he was thinking with the ease of long familiarity, even when she couldn't access his emotions and thoughts directly because of his shielding. In this proximity, with them holding hands as they walked, it was harder keeping thoughts SEPERATE than it was in discerning them in each other. "Fortunately for me, you don't tend to externalize your negative emotions, and you've grown much better at not storing them all up inside too."

"From the sound of things, Cagalli could use a bit of storing up of her negative feelings. It sounds like she's trying to tear the building down." Kira replied, as they passed a pair of stone faced Stormhounds stationed at the top of the stairway. Kira and Lacus both nodded politely at the guards, but they got no response, as both Stormhounds, relatively junior members of the unit, both seemed to be trying to block out any and all external stimuli that did not have to do with their immediate job of watching the stairs. Kira reflected that it must be pretty difficult to tune out your own Head of State throwing a screaming anger tantrum, breaking furniture and glassware with abandon, all of thirty feet away around the bend, even through a closed door. Still, the Stormhounds seemed to eat, drink and breathe discretion and loyalty, so Kira doubted that anyone but the immediate witnesses would ever know about this lapse of polite control on Cagalli's part. That was a good thing, because just about the last thing Orb needed right now was another political uproar.

The fallout from the intervention of the Phoenix King and the Stormhound's unit was still starting political brush fires every few hours, as pretty much every party with a minor grievance against Orb, or Cagalli or Athrun personally, seemed to be homing in on them with the notion that right after a major terrorist incident was a good time to kick them while they were down. It was the price of being honest and respectable in the dirty and mean game of international politics. It didn't matter to the sharks that Cagalli had sent Athrun not only to save Kira and Lacus and Dearka and Miriallia, but to stop the terrorist threat itself! All that mattered to them was the fact that Orb, bright, shining, unimpeachable Orb had violated international law in its haste to do the right thing! In some ways, it reminded Kira a lot of the time before the Second Valentine War when Blue Cosmos had used mudslinging tactics on Cagalli, casting her political and ethical independence into question because of her intimate relationship with Athrun, which had been a direct contributing factor to the start of the Second War. When it came to international politics, doing the right thing for the world was quite often the wrong thing to do, politically speaking.

Of course, Cagalli and Athrun didn't much care what most of the rest of the world thought about their many unpopular stances and actions... taking a stand against the status quo was never going to earn you many friends, not until the status quo changed anyway. Most of the time, due to Orb's technological, economic and military power, it really didn't matter what most other people thought. Though small in population, Orb was easily the second most powerful member of the USN, trailing the PLANTS by only a small margin, largely due to the more populous nature of the PLANTS. But now that they were suddenly shown to be vulnerable, that meant that there were that many more people waiting to jump on top of the dogpile trying to crush them into the ground, despite the unexpected support from Gilbert Durandel, who had cleared Orb and Athrun of any sort of actual wrongdoing. Still, the mere appearance of wrongdoing was damaging enough, and the wolves were closing in from all sides, wondering if at last the bear was too weak to fend for itself. Kira could have told them, if any of them had been inclined to listen, that they were better off staying a safe distance away. Cagalli had made a legendary political career of recovering from devastating losses, both personally and politically... she'd come back from this twice as strong and fiery as before, and woe betide any opportunists who got in her way.

Kira and Lacus rounded the bend and found Athrun leaning against the wall outside the doorway leading to the Royal chambers on this particular floor. He had a patient, if long suffering, look on his face as he stood there with his arms crossed across his chest, waiting for the storm inside the dining room behind the door to calm down to a level controllable by mortal forces. He didn't seem particularly bothered by the fragile and expensive sounds of breaking materials coming from the room, indeed he almost looked bored. Kira could not help but wonder just how OFTEN Athrun had to deal with a situation like this, if he could be so calm about it? Kira waved half heartedly as Athrun looked up at them, wincing as what sounded like an entire dining room table's worth of silverware went crashing and clattering against a wall just a few feet away. "I hope we're not coming by at a bad time..."

"No. You missed the bad time by about ten minutes. She's already into the "carthartic rage driven wholesale destruction stage", which is LEAGUES better than the "howling fury that shoots holes in the walls with her gun stage". She's merely unhealthy to be around right now, compared to downright deadly." Athrun answered with a half shrug.

"Does this happen often?" Lacus asked, eyeing the doorway with some trepidation.

"More often than some people would believe, less often than others would think." Athrun half shrugged again. "I'll have to admit, Durandal conceals his smugness just well enough that its obvious how much he's enjoying this whole situation. Truly, no good deed goes unpunished, as they say. If there's ONE thing Cagalli really hates... its smugness from other people when they have the advantage. She LOATHES being condescended to, and thats when it comes from me, playfully. When it's coming from Durandel... well, ergo the shutting of herself away in the dining room. She's much better about getting away from others than she used to be... I've had to barricade the door to her public office once." Athrun narrowed his eyes. "To be honest, I'm not exactly as calm and carefree as I look either. I know what I did was right, and even if I'd known that this was going to happen, I'd have still done what I did. I could not have known that all the hostages were already dead... nobody could have. But to have my honor and trustworthiness called into question, at the same time as Cagalli's, then having to deal with condescending allusions of our indebtedness from our major political opponent... I can tell you, you don't want to face me in a simulator later tonight. I can totally understand the urge to scream and break things."

"Is it safe to go in there? I mean, we came to talk about the situation, but I'd really hate to tear open a fresh scab..." Kira asked contemplatively. "We can always stop back in a few hours."

"I actually need to talk to Cagalli about a few things." Lacus spoke up, gently disengaging her hand from Kira's. "They don't have anything to do with the current situation, though I'm sure we'll end up discussing it too, given that its dwelling all over her mind right now."

"Well, if you want to risk it..." Athrun flicked his head at the doorway to the dining hall, which shivered under an impact even as they watched. "I won't stop you. Though I will say that even if Cagalli does hit you with something, she's not liable for it. I looked it up in the Orb Laws... Royalty IS actually allowed to strike subjects who show them "disrespect" or "ill feeling", though obviously if she causes real harm there's a problem. And I always thought it was just a natural tendency on her part... now I learn its practically in her blood."

"I think I'll be okay. I tend to aggravate Cagalli less than either of you two. I should wonder why." Lacus replied, rolling her eyes, to indicate she did not have to wonder very much. She paused, with her hand on the doorknob, shooting them both a significant look. "Perhaps it might be best if you two took a walk for a while. Someplace outside maybe? I'd hate to have one or both of you get dragged into a conversation between me and Cagalli that might be a little... too interesting for you guys." Lacus opened the door and slipped inside, shutting it firmly and quickly after her, leaving Kira and Athrun standing, somewhat wide eyed, in the hall, exchanging slow glances before they moved away, casting many an incredulous look over their shoulders.

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"What do you suppose she meant by that?" Kira asked, about a minute later, as they were both descending a different staircase, one that would eventually take them to one of many garden areas interspersed throughout the structure of the Orb National Palace grounds. The National Palace was much more a series of interlinked governmental complexes built upon landscaped parkland than it was a single building, like it's name would suggest. It was large enough that walking from one end of the "building" to the other could take as long as an hour or more, depending on which path you took, mostly because of the security. Orb was one of the most open and free nations on Earth, but that didn't mean they just let anyone wander the halls of their primary governmental buildings as they pleased. Of course, both Kira and especially Athrun were recognized on sight, and no one made even the slightest attempt to impede their progress even through some of the most secure rooms, though there were plenty of whispers following them as people mused to their friends about what such two legendary people were doing, apparently just strolling casually around the Palace.

"I don't know why you'd think I would know Lacus better than you, Kira." Athrun replied, with a wryly raised eyebrow. "I may have known her since she was in grade school, but I honestly have to cede any chance of knowing her better than you do, since you're both... well, you know."

"Newtypes. You can say it, you know. It's not a secret." Kira answered with a small sigh. "I mean, I don't go around shouting "Hey, I'm a Newtype!", but mostly just because ninety nine percent of people would just look at me like I was crazy, and the others would either try and kidnap me for science experiments or flee in terror, neither of which is particularly palatable to me. But I can't deny that it's what I am... well, a part of what I am. I'm still trying to figure out exactly WHAT I'm supposed to be." Kira said the last with more than a hint of morosity. Initially he'd been mad at his parents, the people who raised him, because he'd thought they made him a Coordinator, and he hated being different from many of his friends, perceived as inherently better than them, or worse, perceived as thinking that he was better than them, both of which were far from the truth. Of course, then had come the discoveries on the Mendel Colony, and had thrown the messy curveball of being the sole so called "Ultimate Coordinator" into his lap. And things had gotten astronomically worse after the changes his body had gone through because of his encounter with either the Pulsar or Frost's blood, nobody could tell which. Saying that Kira was having something of an identity crisis, even now, five years after the incident with the Pulsar and Frost, was more than a little understatement.

Much of this was known, and known well, by Athrun, as well as the other top members of the Clyne Faction who were also close to Kira. He didn't exactly keep his problems a secret, though he usually didn't drop them into the laps of other people either. Even Lacus had to take action of her own before Kira would open up to her, at least on issues that weren't immediately life threatening or of similar severity. Athrun placed his hand on Kira's shoulder for a moment, in friendly affirmation and confidence. "You, me, and everyone else alive, Kira. Point me out someone who say's they truly know who they are, now and forever, and that they know what God or whatever creationary force they believe in gave them life for, and I'll point out to you a big, fat liar. So far, at least it seems to me and everyone else who knows you well, you seem to be doing a pretty damn fine job of being Kira Yamato... better than anyone else can claim to, certainly. And from what I've seen, being Kira Yamato isn't always a walk in the park... there's really only one guy I know who could do it, you see what I mean?"

"I think so. Thanks, Athrun." Kira nodded his head slowly. No matter WHAT he was supposed to be, Athrun did have a point... who he was and what he was supposed to be might not be something that he could just quantify and know in a wholesale lot, it was much more something that you found out continuously throughout your life. Not that he was fully satisfied by that conclusion... it didn't bring peace to his concerns over the rather alarming abilities he was manifesting, and the subtle changes in his mind and body that he was going through, but for the moment at least his emotions were steady once more.

"Well, Newtypes is also true, but I was going to say... "a great deal more intimate than Lacus and I ever were."" Athrun picked up his thread of conversation again after having disarmed Kira's concerns for the meanwhile. To say that he was completely sanguine about the startling new abilities Kira was manifesting at times would be an extreme exaggeration, but no matter how odd Kira's personal habits sometimes became, or what incredible, nigh impossible thing he managed to do, Athrun could see that Kira, his best friend and brother-in-law, the real Kira that Lacus was so inextricably entwined with, hadn't changed at all. And until he did, somehow, through events Athrun could not fathom and did not WANT to fathom, Athrun couldn't muster up too much real worry over his friend's personal drama.

"You were not going to say any such thing." Kira retorted mildly. "Nice diplomatic cover up though. Very smooth. Just personal and slightly awkward enough to be totally believable."

"How do you know for sure?" Athrun countered, with a confident smile.

"I'm the pyschic one here, remember?"

"I can't tell you how many times I've heard you say "it doesn't work like that", but now it's MY turn to say it." Athrun's smile grew just a bit. "I can't say I'm comfortable with this Newtype stuff, but that doesn't mean I haven't been paying attention over the years. You may be psychic... in fact, there's no denying that you are... but I know you don't have any powers of your own. You certainly can't read minds. Not even Lacus's, unless she lets you. Which is basically always..." Athrun trailed off thoughtfully, then shot Kira a sidelong glance, seeing all the confirmation he needed in the slightly guarded expression in Kira's eyes. "Aha! But not right now, I take it? That's why you were asking what I thought?"

"As a diplomat, you make a good spy." Kira answered. He paused a few breaths. "But yes, that's pretty much it. Right now I have only the insight into Lacus that comes from our relationship, and I can't think of many things she would want to talk to Cagalli about that neither of them would want US around for. And by not many, I mean almost none at all. Has Cagalli ever mentioned anything that she and Lacus might be colluding on?"

"Would it really be important if she had?" Athrun replied, searching his mind even as he stalled. "I mean, maybe this is a bit of a newsflash for you, Kira, but couples DO keep secrets from each other. It's something the rest of us like to call personal privacy. Given that Lacus is... shielding you, I believe is the term, right... then I don't think it would be my business to tell you, even if I did know something, which I don't."

"I'm not so different from everyone else that I don't realize that people, especially couples, keep secrets from each other." Kira retorted, somewhat defensively.

"That's not how I meant that, and you know it." Athrun cut him off before his friend could go any further down that path, which would have made no one happy. "If its important, I'm sure Lacus will tell you about it in good time. If I know anything about Lacus, it's that she'd never do anything consciously to hurt YOU of all people, especially on an emotional level. I mean, maybe it's something completely normal... it's not like Lacus and Cagalli aren't really good friends, you know. You say you can't think of what they'd want to talk about without us... I can think of almost too MANY things they could be talking about I personally wouldn't want to overhear if I didn't have to." Athrun looked around, seeing that they were near the garden, and currently the nearest pair of prying ears looked to be at least fifty feet away. He lowered his voice just to be sure. "For all we know, Lacus might just want some... you know... sex tips. I mean, its no real secret that Cagalli and I..." Athrun flushed faintly and coughed. "... well, we're not exactly saintly, when it comes down to it. Maybe Lacus wants to... spice things up a bit?"

"Well... you're right about ONE thing." Kira snorted with faint amusement. "I wouldn't want to hear them talking about THAT, that is correct. Though, like most people, I think you give Lacus and I too much credit on just how "saintly" we are in private."

"Uh huh." Athrun made his doubt more than plain with the tone of his voice. "You're a nice guy, Kira, to a fault, and Lacus is, plainly put, a nice girl to a fault. There's nothing wrong with that. You don't have to try and impress me with wild stories that we both know really only happen in fantasies."

"I think you're just uncomfortable with the thought of Lacus and me..." Kira cut off his sentence as a small group of junior level adminsitrators passed by, shooting the two of them curious glances, joing the throng of other people wondering what sort of weighty, world changing matters Athrun Zala and Kira Yamato were discussing. If only they knew the truth. "... in intimate situations." Kira finished, his voice considerably quieter, once the group moved away. "And don't YOU try and make yourself sound like any less of a nice guy than I am... I'll admit, I did think, at one point in time, that you had a distressing lack of control over your hormonal instincts, but as I matured a bit, I've found that looking back, I can't blame you at all for acting like you did. Honestly, in a lot of ways, our situations are now reversed, though you do a much more admirable job of staying out of my damn way than I did for you, which I appreciate."

"Can you blame me if I was?" Athrun led the way into the garden, which was nearly an acre of well maintained lawn, a small pond with a feeding and draining stream, and a grove of trees, plus many smaller bushes and flowers, with a small flagstone walk winding through it. They sat down on some stone benches near the pond, in the middle of the grove of palms and brush, with a clear view of the walkway in both directions so that they could see anyone coming well before they got into easy hearing distance. "Besides, though I'm very fond of Lacus, in a familial way, I still don't have that irrational overprotectiveness of blood relation that you have with Cagalli. And to be honest, that Cagalli has with you, though at least she has the sense to stay out of your sex life."

"Maybe not, if what you said is true and she and Lacus ARE, well..." Kira let the thought trail off. "How did we get onto this subject anyway?" He asked after a few moment's thought.

"Making you uncomfortable, is it? Mr. I'm-Not-Really-Saintly doesn't like to talk about nitty-gritty sex, hmm?" Athrun arched his eyebrow in amusement again, leaning back into a nearby palm tree, with his arms crossed behind his head.

"Don't make this into a challenge." Kira warned. "It's just you and me right now. I don't have to be nice for public's sake."

"Yeah-huh." Athrun agreed noncommitally. "Whatever you say, Kira. You've always been the quiet guy, the geeky guy, the sits in the corner at the school dance the ENTIRE time guy. You can try and talk tough, but I know you better than just about anyone but Lacus... you're all bark when it comes to manly issues, at least amongst a forum of fellow guys. Face it, there's nothing wrong with being who you are at heart... a nerd. A very famous nerd, with skills like nobody would believe... but you're still a nerd. All you'd need would be a pair of coke bottle glasses and you'd be THE stereotypical nerd."

"Oh really?" Kira sat forward, giving Athrun an analytical glance. "What does that make you then, Athrun? If I'm a nerd, you've GOTTA be a..."

"A jock, yeah, I know. No hiding it." Athrun cut in with a smile. "I'm good at all sorts of sports, I was always one of the most popular people at school, I was definitely way prettier and more fashionable than you, I've got my own damn FAN CLUB, which is currently in it's tenth YEAR of existence... which is more embarrassing now than anything, I will say..., I drive an ABSOLUTELY badass sports car, I mean, I've got it all."

"You were born into a wealthy and famous family! That's an unfair advantage!" Kira protested. "Your parents raised you with the expectation that you'd be following in their footsteps into PLANT politics. You used to bitch and moan ALL the time about how stringent their standards were, and how little praise you tended to get from them!"

"I never complained to you about that..."

"Not out loud... but even if I am a nerd, that doesn't mean I can't pick up on the social scene around me. I mean, you never REBELLED against your parents, openly... but a lot of the stuff you did seemed to be in SPITE of them. Including befriending me and a lot of other people."

"That's the first time anyone's ever admitted to picking up on that. Even my parent's didn't seem to get it, which made it all the more frustrating at times." Athrun mused. "Though, if I think about it, that might have been their defensive strategy... they couldn't let me think I was bothering THEM with my childish willfullness. Though I would have been your friend anyways, Kira."

"I don't doubt that, and never have. I mean, I only realized why in the last few years, with the discovery of my Newtype heritage, but I always KNEW, on some level, when my close friends were really friends and not "friends". I can't read minds, or make people freeze up, or make them feel angry or sad or happy or calm, or send my thoughts across interplanetary gulfs in an instant... but, with long term association, I CAN get a deeper, emotional read on people than I think I would normally be able to if I wasn't a Newtype."

"That is true... you've always had a very strong sense of empathy. It's one of the things that really shaped you into being the person you are today, I think." Athrun commented. "I mean, I like to think I'm a pretty well adjusted individual... I care about other people, even people I don't know at all and will never meet personally. But I don't even hold a candle to you... fighting in a Gundam without killing? I don't know how you do it... I couldn't. I wish I could at times, but I just can't. It's a WAR machine, its designed to destroy and kill. Destroying and killing can be directed in an overall positive fashion, to protect what I hold to be right, proper and dear... but it doesn't change the fact that it's still destroying and killing. You're the only guy I know who not only MADE a resolution to not kill, but has KEPT that resolution, through thick and thin."

"I wasn't always like that, you know." Kira said quietly. "It wasn't until after the last time I fought you that I made that resolution, and it never would have come about without Lacus. People give me the credit, but really... Lacus is the one that made it happen, and has kept me from re-lapsing. It took me a long time to realize it myself, even. Because believe me, there have been plenty of times when I've come face to face with people that I really should have been trying to kill from square one. People like these Brotherhood terrorists." Kira clenched a fist. "I spared ther lives because I didn't want it on my conscience. I spared the lives of men who had a hand in the cold blooded murder of four hundred innocent men, women and children... all to salve my conscience. Dearka put it very nicely when he said that "one of these days, my morals are going to get me hurt. Or him hurt. Even killed." And not just me or him, but anyone I care about, or even people I don't know. Eventually I'm going to be put into a situation like what Ysak had to face with Asmodeus... where my path, the path of empathy and moderation, won't have a way forward. I'm starting to think, Athrun, that maybe I might have been wrong, all this time. Sparing the lives of the guilty... does that make me guilty too?"

"I think I saw somewhere this quote, which I'm going to have to paraphrase." Athrun replied after a long few seconds of silence. "There are two types of evil in the world. The evil of evil men, who hurt and kill others for their own enjoyment or profit. And the evil of good men who do nothing to stop the evil men when they have the chance." Athrun met Kira's eyes. "I would never presume to judge you or your choices, Kira. In fact, let me say that I think, personally, that your choice, your resolution, no matter where it came from or why you keep to it, is a beautiful and precious thing that the world can not see enough of. I can't say either way if not killing someone when you have the chance, even if they are evil and deserve it by the standards of the world, is itself an evil act. All I can say is... there's too much killing and death in the world as it is. Is any less, even of evil people who might deserve it, really a bad thing? I don't know the answer. I don't know if there IS an answer." Athrun eyed Kira for a moment after his friend looked away. "You're not beating yourself up about those hostages, are you? There's NO WAY you could have known!"

"Maybe, maybe not. Certainly no way of knowing now." Kira replied, his eyes downcast. "Maybe if Dearka and I had searched the town more thoroughly... we'd have been able to do... something. But I can't blame Dearka for cutting our time short... as things were, he could have died from exposure, if we'd been out in that mist for just ten or twenty more minutes. I really had no idea it was affecting him so much... it barely bothered me." Kira clenched his fist again. "And of course, leaving those two terrorists lying in the snow pretty much declared unequivocably to their friends that there were people out there that they needed to find and kill. I may have put everyone in danger..."

"Oh shut up." Athrun retorted, in exasperation. "You're not all powerful, Kira. Or especially all knowing. You do what you think is right at the time, and usually it is. Sometimes, it isn't. Other people make their own choices too, and what you did probably didn't have much bearing on them at all. It's not like you could have just let them cut Dearka up anyway, could you? I'm not asking or telling you to forget that those people died... but the failing is not yours. Or if you really won't let go, its only marginally yours. Its primarily the fault of those fucking terrorists! And then, secondly, its the fault of the slow ass response from the USN and FNE, who WERE just sitting on their asses bickering over jurisdiction for almost two and a half HOURS before I even got there, there is no denying THAT. Save your guilt for when you actually do something wrong, like when you boarded the Pulsar against Lacus's EXPRESS wishes. That was REALLY stupid. You should feel bad and guilty about that sort of thing!"

"Thanks. Reverse psychology?" Kira grunted.

"Not even slightly. If you EVER do something that stupid again, the rest of us really WILL kick your ass for you, you hear me? That was one of your very few truly GRAVE errors of judgement, and I have no compunctions at ALL about making you feel absolutely terrible about it, because I never, ever want to see you screw up that badly again! I'm not even fucking joking, Kira... that was BAD, and I can't even begin to get into however it was that you managed to convince Lacus to LET you pilot it... you made her cry, man, and I shit you not, if you do that again, I will put you in the hospital. I blame myself a little... I should have just shot the Pulsar right then and there when I had the chance, but I was too worried about what was happening outside. That's one of MY problems... under the gun, I sometimes put too little faith in my friends, and too much in my ability to change the tide of a situation."

"They were up against Frost. I don't think anyone can blame you for being worried, least of all me. He was a true nightmare, and he's one of the very few people I will never feel guilty about killing. Or the next closest thing, since I... well, Lacus and I... more caused him to kill himself, rather than killing him personally." Kira sat there and thought for more seconds of silence, before he spoke up again to close the subject. "I think I feel better, even though you were trying to make me feel worse there at the end. Or I should say, I do feel worse, but about the things I SHOULD feel worse about, while I'm feeling better about the other stuff. Should I thank you?"

"Constantly. But I'll give you my Royal leave to forget about it for the rest of the day, as long as you promise me you won't go off and brood in a corner when I start making fun of you."

"When have I ever done that!?"

"You don't remember much of fifth grade, do you?"

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Much to Lacus's surprise, the interior of the dining room was far from wrecked. Oh, it wasn't tidy, and there were several big, heavy wooden chairs that had obviously been recently and forcefully overturned, but by and large, to room was much more intact than she'd been expecting, just from the noises she'd heard coming up the stiars and while talking with Athrun outside the door. There were no holes in the wall, no shattered glass on the ground, no splintered chairs or tables, the silverware was still on the table, though it was all in a big disorganized pile, which looked more like someone had just swept them there with her arms, rather than onerously picked up from the floor after hurling them across the room in a fit of pique. Put a tablecloth down, right a few chairs, re-set out the silverware... the room was about two minutes from being perfectly respectable. There were only two things majorly out of place. One was the portable music playing device hooked up to large amplifiers sitting on a side table, playing the sounds of a room being torn apart by a young woman in a frenzy at a very loud volume. The other was the young woman herself, standing across the room with a very guilty expression on her face, and a huge bowl of ice cream clutched in her hands, the spoon halfway to her mouth.

Cagalli's expression of guilt faded rapidly as she realized that Athrun had not walked in on her during one of her "tantrums", revealing her long and closely held secret. "Oh, its just you, Lacus. That's a relief."

"I guess so." Lacus studied her friend intently. At length, she just couldn't hold herself back. "What ARE you doing? It sounded like you were fighting a war in here."

"Yeah, that's right." Cagalli freely admitted, seeing as she was totally exposed. Besides, it relieved some of the guilty part of the guilty pleasure to tell at least ONE other person about it. "I know how volatile everyone thinks I am. I have a reputation to uphold. But while tearing a room down around my ears used to be very relaxing... its grown very expensive, and I've come to realize that it is VERY immature. It was okay in my teens, but now that I'm in my twenties, I really should excise my negative emotions in a more positive, less destructive fashion. So I recorded me renovating one of the basement rooms in the Villa Pacifica while Athrun was away on a trip, and I use it to generate some alone time when I need it, and can justify it. He hasn't caught on yet, but you had me worried. I was afraid that I would have to go and tear apart a room again to maintain the facade. If Athrun knew I was in here, eating ice cream before dinner... " Cagalli shivered. She calmed herself by taking another mouthful of cookie dough ice cream, slathered in caramel sauce and whipped cream.

Lacus just had to shake her head. "You are weird, let me say that right off the bat. You're more worried about Athrun catching you eating comfort food than you are about him thinking that you're destroying a room? How does that make sense?"

"YOU don't have to see the look on his face whenever I indulge my sweet tooth!" Cagalli accused. She took another oh-so-delicious bite of her precious ice cream. "Athrun doesn't EAT sweets very much. Never more than a single scoop of ice cream at the end of the day, or the equivalent! But I love them! The more the better! But he always... ALWAYS... gets this funny look on his face whenever he see's me getting three or four scoops, or eating a candy bar or getting a second slice of cake or whatever. He doesn't SAY anything, which keeps him unhurt, but he just LOOKS and makes me feel so self conscious! I know it isn't affecting my figure... I work it off, I really do... but still... that terrible look just makes me feel about twenty percent more chubby than I am! Does Kira ever do that to you?"

"Does Kira, who eats almost four or five pounds of food at a sitting, ever look at my portions, which aren't even usually a tenth the size of his, and make me feel chubby?" Lacus asked, with a smile. "No, I have not yet suffered from that particular form of harassment from him, fortunately. I don't see it as becoming all that likely in the future, either. Not that there's anything at ALL wrong with comfort eating. It's certainly a much more... modern... solution to stress management. I can't really say whether it's THAT much more mature than tearing down a room... but it is more modern. And much less expensive."

"Its not like you'd even GET chubby anyways..." Cagalli noted with narrowed, envious eyes as she considered Lacus. Lacus, no matter WHEN Cagalli saw her, ALWAYS looked better than the last time Cagalli remembered seeing her. Lacus was just one of those people that was naturally beautiful, whereas Cagalli only rated herself as naturally pretty. To be beautiful she had to really work at it... Lacus would be beautiful if you tangled all her hair up, splashed her with mud, and dressed her in sackcloth two sizes too large. It was completely unfair, but what could a girl do about it, besides be envious? It wasn't like Lacus made a point of displaying it, thankfully. Or at least, a conscious point.

"You might be surprised. If I didn't do gardening and outdoor play activities with the orphans most days, or my dance classes on weekends and afternoons, or my yoga class with Wrenn, I would gain weight. Most Coordinators, while they do have very good metabolisms, are no more immune to extra weight gain from over eating and improper eating than anyone else. Not to mention the dental hazards of too many sweets." Lacus replied, walking over to the table and sitting down, wincing slightly as the sound of a very large quantity of glass breaking resounded from the music player. "You can turn that off, you know. I suggested to Kira and Athrun that they might want to avoid eavesdropping on us, the poor, easily embarassed dears."

"Oh good! It gets very jarring after about five minutes." Cagalli wasted no time in powering off the music player, before taking a seat across from Lacus. "Do you want some ice cream? I have plenty. More than I should, really. Its a constant temptation."

"I'll pass for the moment. I prefer strawberry flavor anyway."

"Ah yes. The pink ice cream in your guys' freezer. Honestly, what IS it about pink anyway?"

"It's not the color, it's the flavor!" Lacus insisted. "As for the other stuff... I don't know really. I just like it. It's calming. Do you have a problem with pink?"

"Umm... on you, no. On me, yes. Its WAY too girly and cute for me. I wore pink when I was like seven, and didn't know any better. Oh, a little bit of pink... decorations, emblems... thats okay. But a pink shirt? Uh, uh!" Cagalli shook her head fervently. "That's not even touching skirts, dresses or gowns!"

"I don't know... I think you'd look great in a pink dress. Especially if you put Athrun in some reds... you'd make a great Valentine's Day couple."

"Yeah, since Athrun loves to get dressed up and party on Valentine's Day, it being SUCH a happy day for him!" Cagalli retorted sarcastically.

"He doesn't dwell on the Bloody Valentine any more than any Coordinator, and a great deal less than most..."

"Which is to say he's not consumed with rage, even if he sometimes descends into a deep pit of anguished bitterness, especially on Valentines Day itself! Doesn't dwell my ASS, he just doesn't get all sulky and withdrawn like Kira does!" Cagalli rolled her eyes. "Honestly, could you tell my little brother to grow the heck up!? Sulking stopped being cute in fourth grade!"

"Kira has a lot on his plate, emotionally speaking..." Lacus said, somewhat defensively.

"Oh, don't start with that again! I know, as well as anyone but you and Kira, what he's going through. Honestly, if he thinks its THAT bad, maybe he and I should SWITCH? I'll take all his damn biological problems and emotional insecurities... he can damn well run Orb and get publicly pasted in the media by SMUG, CORRUPT MOTHERFUCKERS WHO THINK THEY CAN TELL ME WHAT TO DO JUST BECAUSE THEY CURRENTLY HAVE A SLIGHT POLITICAL ADVANTAGE!" Cagalli slapped her hand down onto the table loudly, staring fiercely off into the middle distance. "Pardon my language, but Durnadel is REALLY pushing my buttons. You can't do anything altrusitic these days, not without HALF the FUCKING WORLD jumping down your throat because you stepped on their toes in your RUSH TO SAVE LIVES!"

"This is going to sound critical, but it's not meant to be. But perhaps Durandel is right to point out that Orb has been somewhat hypocritical, calling for reduced forces while building new Gundams. No matter which way I look at it, you were in the wrong there." Lacus pointed out, as gently as she could. She met Cagalli's venomous glare with her own, diffident and accepting one.

"Everyone else doe..." Cagalli started to say. Lacus held up her hand to stop the tirade.

"Everyone else does it, yes, I know. I'm not stupid, nor naive, not nearly as naive as most people think I am anyway. Bear with me when I say this, but even though you were IN the wrong, I think you were still RIGHT to do it, precisely because of the fact that everyone else DOES do it. You are ALL equally wrong, Orb, the PLANTS, the FNE, the ALU and the USN. Everyone talks about peace, while making sure, at the same time, that if peace fails, they are strong enough to deal with war. It is part of human nature, the instinct to rely on yourself for protection first. Total pacifism is also total vulnerability, after all. I don't like Mobile Suits. I HATE Gundams. But I acknowledge the need for them, and I don't fault you for building them, even if I think you are wrong to do so. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes, actually. You're right, it does sound very critical, but I understand that you're not criticizing ME, or not just me. You're criticizing a greater phenomenon, and its one I'd EXPECT you to be critical of, because its one that is definitely problematic when trying to move the philosophy of the world to a point where war won't be a problem anymore. However, just because it is wrong, I'm glad you realize that I have little choice to not only do it, but do it better than anyone else, precisely because of what you said about pacifism. Total pacifism is a wonderful philosophy. More people could stand to follow it. But it is an inappropriate philosophy for a national government. It is an inappropriate philosophy for Orb, even if you are one of my closest political advisors, on the down low. Its just too bad that Orb had to get caught with it's pants down, getting FUCKED in the process, because we tried help people. I should be USED to it by now, I know... it happens often enough after all. But it still makes me furious!" Cagalli replied, clenching her fists.

"I'm not surprised at that. I'm not exactly pleased myself. You were in the wrong, but you did do more to try and save those people, even though you were worried first about me and Kira and Dearka and Miriallia, than either the USN or the FNE. It's better to do the wrong thing, at the right time, for the right reasons, in pursuit of the right goal, than it is to do the right thing, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, in pursuit of the wrong goal, no matter how politically damaging it is! Politically I have to criticize you. Personally, I have to applaud and congratulate you, as usual. I may be the voice and the figurehead of what many people in the world see as the movement towards better, more peaceful times, but you, Cagalli, are the hands and feet that get the job done when it comes down to it, even if you get pasted in the media for it. I'm really sorry that it has to be like this." Lacus sighed, slightly depressed by her friend's unfair situation. Cagalli was expected by her people to do what was best for Orb, but she knew, better than almost anyone, that sometimes what was best for the world took precedence, even if it meant that Orb had to lose face or face negative media attention. It was not an enviable situation.

"Hmmph. Well, better that it happens to me than someone who couldn't deal with it." Cagalli leaned back, her ice cream quite forgotten for the moment. "There's actually a few upsides to this debacle. I mean, we DID show up the USN and FNE, which might give Athrun some problems at some future diplomatic events, but it's good for the pride and morale of Orb citizens. Even some of my own opponents, especially in the other Royal Families, aren't unhappy to have Orb demonstrate its power so openly. We may be wrong... but we're a VERY strong wrong. And since Durandel has magnaminously decided to let us keep our technical secrets, a move which makes him look very good, which sticks in my craw, I have to admit, it at least ensures that Orb is still the first or second most militarily powerful member-state of the USN. It definitely gives me a strong wall to put my back against when the carrion dogs try and snatch a few more bites off me than they have coming to them." Cagalli leaned forward again, the fire back in her eyes. "You didn't come here just to give me a pep talk though, especially when I was in such a "foul mood", nor would you have sent the guys away if that was all you were here to do. Spill."

Lacus fidgeted in her seat for a moment, refusing to fully meet Cagalli's gaze. "Well... that's true. To be honest... I need to, um, borrow that... stuff again." Lacus blushed more than a little as she revealed her purpose.

"What stuff is this now?" Cagalli was not above taking a small bit of pleasure in watching THE Lacus Clyne squirm uncomfortably with embarassment, especially over something as inane as this. "I'm having a little trouble remembering."

Lacus caught Cagalli's gaze and smoothed her facial expression into a more neutral pose. Cagalli would keep trying to tease her as long as she kept reacting, Lacus knew that from hard experience. "The um, test, things."

"Test things?" Cagalli prompted, an innocent look pasted onto her face. "What test, specifically? Algebra? Language Arts? Art?"

Lacus broke down, realizing that sbtle insinuation was not going to get results when Cagalli was in her current mood. "Your pregnancy test kit." Lacus practically whispered. "I want to borrow it for a little bit."

"OHH... THAT test kit!" Cagalli widened her eyes, as if shocked. "What makes you think I'd have something like that? I'm not trying to get pregnant. Besides, they're available at pretty much every grocery store, for cheap. Why not just buy one on your way home?"

"MUST we go through this ritual every time I ask for this?" Lacus pleaded.

"Only every time you're embarassed about it. Seriously, Lacus... I think Kira MIGHT be aware that you're trying to get pregnant. Somehow, I think even HE isn't so thickheaded that he would NOT realize your intentions on this particular matter. Its not going to offend him if you buy a test kit and keep it in your medicine cabinet! There is NO LOGICAL REASON for you to need to borrow MINE all the time. They cost like six bucks, and they fit in a purse." Cagalli snorted her amusement, and took a big bite of ice cream. "I mean, sure, maybe the clerk might sell the story to the tabloids and you'll have to deal with seeing your picture and Kira's all over the checkout line with all sorts of scandalous and completely stupid captions... but really, its gonna happen sooner or later, once you're successful and you start showing the physical signs. Might as well get it over with!"

"That's the thing though." Lacus spoke up, quietly. "We haven't BEEN successful, Cagalli. And maybe you don't realize it, since you aren't trying yourself yet... but it's a very emotionally charged process, for both of us. Its starting to look like it might not BE possible, if you catch my drift, which gives me all SORTS of bad feelings, and completely murders Kira, even though its not even CLOSE to being his fault. The last thing I need is for the media to catch wind, and start wondering why nothing's coming of it, placing MORE stress on Kira and I, or worse, for Kira to see all the negative tests, and start blaming himself... I'm not sure HOW, but we both know he WILL... which I certainly don't need to deal with either. Out of sight, most definitely out of mind, on this matter."

"Well its NOT like you both don't have a lot of time... you're barely twenty three! Why the rush to have kids? Both of you have got VERY long lives ahead of you, and Corodinators can have children pretty much throughout their lives!" Cagalli protested.

"My ICD results came back inconclusive. Is it better to find out for sure NOW, or when I'm actually racing a biological clock?" Lacus retorted. "Besides, I AM twenty three, which on the PLANTS would mean that I've been an independent adult for nearly eight years now, and of legal childbearing age for five. Most 2nd or later generation Coordinators get married by the time they are eighteen or nineteen, and have children, if possible for them, by twenty one or earlier. I know that's pretty young here on Earth, but that's the culture I was raised in... I've been almost prudish, by the standards I'm used to. Ask Athrun if you don't believe me."

"Yeah. Like I need to give Athrun MORE reasons to want to have sex. Its disruptive enough to my daily schedule as it is."

"That's not how he tells it..."

"Do you want to use this test kit of mine or not?"

"I had no idea he was so demanding. How surprising."

"That's better. Slightly." Cagalli relented. "Oh, very well. You know where it is. Honestly though, you CAN'T keep doing this forever. Eventually someone's going to find out. And then you can be PERFECTLY normal, and buy the damn kits yourself."

"Thank you. It really means a lot to me." Lacus replied, with relief in her voice. Something caught in her mind though. "You know... if you're not trying to get pregnant, given the quality of modern birth control, and how conscientious Athrun is... why do you even HAVE a pregnancy test kit?"

"I think you should leave while you're ahead."

"I know about your secret ice cream habit."

"Yeah. Walk that path. I dare you to try and blackmail me." Cagalli gave Lacus a level gaze. "I'd have Athrun back under my thumb in a matter of days, and then it would be woe betide you. I am not above leaking stories to the press. The people deserve to know when major political and public figures will be taking extended medical absences due to maternity, after all. Remember, Lacus, you can't out nasty me. When other people get mean, I get personal. What's the WORST thing you could do... write an uncomplimentary pop song about me being a bitch? It would NOT surprise ninety percent of politicians everywhere, and the remaining ten percent would be wishing for stronger language."

"I can definitely see why you made Athrun your ambassador."

"I hear that ALL the time."

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	12. Tilling the Ground part 2

In the five years since the end of the Second Valentine War, and the formation of the new power bloc of the Afro-Lunic Union, the Moon, now formally known as Luna, had experienced a tremendous economic boom. Where before the population of Luna had mostly been corporate employee's of the various low gravity industries that the Moon had been famous for before the advent of the PLANTS, and were in a decline because of the loss of business to the PLANTS, these days it was the entertainment and tourist industries that did the most business, and more people were moving to live on Luna permanently because it was now one of "the" places to live. Because of the Moon's unique position as the middle point of trade between Earth and the PLANTS, because of the ease with which it could handle both space ships and mass driver cargoes, far more money flowed into Luna than flowed out. Copernicus City, the new Lunar capital, had expanded to three times its original size and was still growing strongly. A new Lunar metropolis, Armstrong City, was under construction a few hundred kilometers away, and though ground had only been broken on it a couple years prior, its population was already up into the millions.

It was much easier to build large structures on the Moon, because of its light gravity, than it was to construct buildings of similar size on Earth, which lowered costs considerably. On the other side of things, there WAS gravity, so people didn't have nearly as much trouble adapting to a potentially zero G environment, or have to spend extra money on creating entirely artificial gravity, which was a major concern in the PLANTS. Everything was bigger on the Moon, or so it was said. What would buy you a one thousand square foot house on Earth, or a five hundred square foot apartment on the PLANTS would get you a thirty five hundred square foot combo-suite in a Lunar city. Even when you factored in travel costs and immigration taxes, which were light because the ALU was trying to encourage immigration at the moment, the Moon was fast becoming one of the most desirable places to live in the entire USN. Lots of space, exotic environments, low cost of living, plentiful business opportunites, a booming economy, the premier tourist and entertainment industries of the USN... Luna was the Las Vegas of the USN, but better in many ways.

The laws of the ALU were also somewhat... loose... at least in comparison to similar laws in the FNE, Orb or even the PLANTS. All sorts of businesses and pursuits that were only borderline legal or even illegal in most of the rest of the world were perfectly normal and acceptable on Luna, if not the terrestrial holdings of the ALU. Luna had pretty much taken the concept of the "red light district" of Earth cities and made it the standard model for their main commerical centers. Of course, many people disapproved of this wild and woolly character of Luna, but that minor public disfavor just helped bring in even more business, because it is a well known fact that as soon as people start trying to ban or boycott something, it's value and popularity immediately skyrockets. Some people will go for it JUST to be counter culture, even. With no minimum drinking age, legalization of most popular recreational drugs, a decidedly cavalier attitude towards what was considered a decent amount of clothing to wear in public and a definition of freedom of speech that would shock most liberal news reporters, Luna had become THE new party spot in the USN for the young, the rebellious and the people who just did not give a rats ass about anything but having the best time of their lives.

Anarchy didn't exactly rule the streets though... Luna was well aware of the detrimental effect a continual wild college party atmosphere would have on the greater majority of people looking to become permanent residents of the ALU. No matter how good for business the wild parties were, they were seasonal income, and while seasonal income was great for padding the profit margins, it was the steady state work of permanent residents that really filled out the Lunar economy, and kept the cost of living so low and made Luna the lucrative place to live and do business that it was. It was jokingly said at times that the civil police in Luna were actually stronger than the regular ALU military forces. Whether that was a hit on the ALU military, which was notoriously feeble compared to the militaries of other USN member-states, or a true compliment to the skill and quality of the Luna Police Force, was a matter of some debate and personal opinion. The LPF even had their own detachment of riot control Mobile Suits, surplus Strike Dagger's bought from the FNE. Though incredibly dated by military standards, and effectively neutered by the removal of all offensive weapon systems and most of the thrusters, which were not quite replaced by spotlights, tear gas launchers, amplifed speakers and sirens, their sheer physical presence helped keep things calm. You could beat up a police officer. You could vandalize a police car. But disrespecting a Mobile Suit was borderline lunacy.

Well aware that their newfound economic power had come at the cost of the economic power of other nations, most notably the FNE, and distrustful of the USN, since it was still at heart a multinational organization, a type of organization that hadn't exactly had a very good historical record of helping out Africa, the ALU had invested a considerable amount in their military forces. However, the people in charge were unwilling to spend the billions and billions of dollars, not to mention years, perhaps even decades of time in creating a military from the ground up, preferring to spend the money on social or political projects to benefit their previously underpriviliged and formerly destitute majority populations. They certainly didn't want to sink money into the pit of producing their own unique Mobile Suits. Why do that when ZAFT had huge inventories of its own, only slightly outdated models that they were looking to get rid of because they couldn't afford to maintain them with their peacetime budget? Sure, all the real interesting technologies had been stripped out, and the ALU had to buy a defence contract from Orb's Morganroete Armories to get the operating system that let Naturals use Mobile Suits, but in greater scheme of things, the costs were well worth it for what the ALU was looking for.

They didn't need to be a military superpower, they just needed to make sure they had SOME military power, so that non-governmental forces didn't think they could just walk all over the ALU, a major historical problem especially in the African nations, who had been plagued by warlords and inter-tribal conflict for millenia. They made their military just strong enough that the tribal warmongers and dissidents couldn't stand up to them, and then relied on close ties with the USN or ZAFT to bolster their forces if and when the time came that the situation got out of hand. In fact, the ALU had fought hard to have as many USN or multinational military facilities in their territory as possible, to help facilitate the intervention of stronger forces in the cause of mutual interest should things ever get too crazy. The primary such facility was the Galileo Lunar Fleet Base, on the dark side of the Moon. Formerly one of the primary military bases of the Earth Alliance and then the Isolation, Galileo had been almost totally destroyed during ZAFT's attempt to conquer the Moon during the Second Valentine War, though that had been because of Zacharis Frost crashing the Judgement, a hundred meter tall walking battleship, into it at several dozen kilometers per second, rather than any real effort by ZAFT.

Galileo LFB had been rebuilt in the time since, first and most basically by the ALU, who then leased the property and facilities to the USN for quite a fee in both money and political favors. If the USN could be said to have a true military headquarters, it would probably be Galileo LFB. It was where almost all of the USN's military forces went for space based training, and was the primary manufacturing center for the USN's Mobile Suits. It was also the primary space based Coalition training center, where military units from the USN, Orb, ZAFT, the FNE and the ALU would meet for joint training scenarios and even cross-service training. Indeed, there were even entire portions of the base devoted to and owned by the various member states, who kept permanent military and political detachments there in ongoing efforts to integrate more fully with the USN and each other. This philosophy was met with varying degrees of effort by each member-state, with Orb and ZAFT being the most in favor of it, while the ALU didn't really care much either way as long as nobody bothered them and the FNE was surly at best, at least when they didn't think they were getting the better deal on something, in which case they could be almost comically accomodating.

Tensions were sometimes high though, especially between the FNE and the ALU, or the FNE and Orb. And with military material, even Mobile Suits, ready to hand, the possibility for a major international incident was always lurking in the back of everyone's thoughts. The USN maintained higher authority over the entire base of course, and had a military presence that far outweighed even all four member-states put together, but the USN couldn't be everywhere at once. Some days, despite everything that had brought the people of the world to the state they were in now, it really seemed like true peace was an impossibility, given how the various factions remained at each other's throats constantly. The civilian support city underneath and around the LFB sometimes seemed divided into gangland territories, where troops from one faction weren't welcome in the territory of another faction, and the USN forces were only barely tolerated no matter where they went. The greater public of the USN and even the member-states themselves had no idea of course... but Galileo LFB was a powder keg at times, and the days of the aftermath of the atrocity in Switzerland by the pro-Coordinator Brotherhood of Man terrorist group was definitely such a time.

It was into this powder keg that Noah had sent Jean Dylan and his Gundam, the Traitor. The world public had been shocked and angered by the terrorist action in Switzerland, and public pressure was strong on the USN to more securely protect it's citizens and world peace. It was time to further stir the pot. And there were few better pot stirrers than Jean Dylan, who was infamous, even if most people didn't know his name, for the selling of the secret Cyclops System plans to ZAFT just before their assault on JOSH-A in the First Valentine War. Though ZAFT had still suffered greatly in their assault, it was widely accepted among the higher ranks of the military forces of the world that ZAFT would have been much more heavily damaged, likely forced to sue for peace, if Dylan had not turned traitor and warned them of the danger. Though not much of a fighter, Dylan knew better than most how to cause the most damage without ever getting into direct combat in the first place. Appearances and assumptions could be so damagingly deceptive after all.

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Jean Dylan froze, sweat beading on his brow, as the USN inner perimeter patrol came into view. He'd been expecting them of course... he had the entire USN patrol schedule right there on his damn screen after all... but he still couldn't completely still the nervous thrill. Intellectually he knew that regardless of whether or not he was immobile or not didn't really matter, since the Mirage Colloid system was on he was functionally invisible to standard sensor systems and even the naked eye. Not only that, but he was in slight cover, lying down just over the crest of a hill with just his head poking up, in a manner only made possible in a NIC equipped machine. It would take a miracle from the devil himself for Dylan to be discovered right now... but he didn't discount the possibility either. If there was anything a life of only being loyal to himself, and selling out his so called "friends" to the highest bidder on multiple occasions had taught him, it was that it was not possible to be TOO careful or paranoid. And while Dylan might be able to lie to himself with relative ease, he wasn't so self deceptive as to tell himself that he had any sort of real chance in a stand up fight, if he was discovered. He was a soldier in name only, the only reason he'd made it through basic training was because he'd had the goods on some of the instructors, shall we say, less savory habits.

Even though the Traitor was, technically anyway, a Gundam, Dylan knew that even a two machine patrol from the USN outgunned him by a significant margin. The basic Mobile Suit of the USN, a pair of which were currently strolling with grim purpose about a half kilometer away to his front, was called, presumptively in Dylan's opinion, the Champion. Twenty meters tall, damn near one hundred tons, they were bigger and meaner even than the Cavalier's that formed the basic troops of the FNE, and quite a bit tougher than the Elementals ZAFT used. They weren't as versatile as the M-4 Guardian's that Orb sported, but again, they were tougher and bigger. As for the nearest ALU equivalent, a trio of which Dylan could just make out at the edge of his vision, well... even he had to snort with amusement. The model was called Lupus... but what they were was slightly modified original model Ginn's, almost a decade out of date. Scary if you were in a tank maybe, but really... Ginn's? Come on! They didn't even carry ranged beam weapons, just a single machine gun and RPG combo and a pair of light missile racks. Their most dangerous weapon was the short handled beam axe that probably only one in twenty of them had any idea how to use, and only one in a hundred would actually SURVIVE to get close enough to use!

Dylan focused his attention back on the two Champions, which were no joking matter. Hard mounted weapon systems included a twin 20mm CIWS turret somewhat untraditionally mounted high on the left shoulder, while the right shoulder carried a AMS-LAS (Anti-Mobile Suit/Light Anti-Ship) missile system. Though only consisting of four missiles, they were a bastardized mix between true anti-ship munitions and the rockets usually carried by Mobile Suits, each more than powerful enough to at least disable, if not destroy outright, any current mass production model Mobile Suit of any nation. The same missile could pretty much cripple an escort class warship, and two or three would benough to even trouble a destroyer or frigate. The missiles were armored as well, which helped ensure that they would hit their targets before being blown away by most light CIWS interdiction fire. Each Champion also carried a ten meter long physical/beam bladed anti-ship sword, much like the one the original Sword Strike Gundam had had.

For primary armament, the Champions could be outfitted with a variety of weapons, depending on their combat role, or the demands of the situation. Both of the ones Dylan could see had the standard "infantry" weapon, which consisted of a combination of a 57mm beam rifle and 80mm machine gun, granting both the penetrating power of a beam weapon and the rapidfire capability of the machine gun. Other alternate weapons that Dylan was aware of included a 580mm hyper impulse cannon, a 350mm gun launcher, and a 30 tubed multiple missile launching system. For protection, the Champions had heavy, thick armor, with a limited Phase Shift system powered by a seperate battery from the main power source, granting total protection against up to twenty five ballistic or physical type hits before it ran out. Not only that, but they carried a massive Citadel equipped shield on their left arms, a tower shield varient that covered the Mobile Suit from just below the CIWS turret all the way down to just above it's toes, being broad enough to hide over ninety percent of the Champion's profile as it advanced with shield to the front. A special notch in the middle side of the shield allowed the weapon of the Champion to protrude through the shield, allowing them to fire while advancing, even through their own Citadel shield.

Not only all that, but at least with the USN, you could never tell if the pilot was a Natural or a Coordinator, not until after you engaged them anyway. At least with the FNE or ALU you were pretty sure it was Naturals you were up against, and with ZAFT you knew that the other guy was a Coordinator right from the get go... with the USN, and to a lesser degree Orb, it was a crapshoot. Luck of the draw. Dylan HATED crapshoots. Way too easy for a guy to get his head clipped off in situations like that. He considered his own weapons. He had a 57mm beam rifle of his own, with an attachment that let him fire 300mm rocket grenades for a bit of explosive punch. But he only had five grenades, and they were about as useful as paintballs against Phase Shift Armor. He had a 155mm pump action shotcannon he'd taken at the last moment from the surplus weapon stores, but it only had nine shots in it and was likewise basically a popgun compared to something with true punch. Not only that, but it was short range, which was unhappy making. Really, his most deadly weapon was his beam sword, and he'd never even USED it before. Other than that, he had two 20mm CIWS guns, a bunch of anti-personnel .50 caliber machineguns built into his fingers, and a pair of automatic anti-personnel grenade launchers in his forearms. Not exactly a frightening arsenal.

On the defensive side of things he did have a Citadel shield, and Phase Shift Armor of his own, powered by a nuclear reactor for unlimited duration, which was a comfort. At least until he started to consider the truly staggering number of beam and plasma type weapons that were likely to be in use on the LFB. And he did have Mirage Colloid, though he couldn't use that and the Phase Shift at the same time. But really, to be going in, basically alone except for a last ditch emergency measure, the Traitor wasn't exactly the most bad ass of Gundams. On the other hand... Dylan accessed his special electronics suite, which had finished intercepting and decrypting the various IFF signals being bounced around the base by various factions. He selected one for the FNE, identifying himself as a Cavalier. The USN patrol passed out of sight and sensor range, and Dylan brought the Traitor up into a mad sprint for the fence line. He crossed it with plenty of time to spare before the next patrol or sensor sweep from the nearby comm tower. He consulted his rather nice and complete schematics for the base. He was currently in a sector of the base that was "owned" by the ALU. A perfect place to start. He dropped his Mirage Colloid, activating his Holoshroud in the same motion. After that it was just a matter of fine tuning a few things with regards to his stealth system, and then, viola... to almost any observer, there was a FNE Cavalier standing there.

Of course, if you looked real close, someone might notice that the "Cavalier" wasn't quite moving right, but it was astonishing, truly astonishing, how infrequently people looked past first glance, especially when their sensors agreed with their eyes. Dylan waited with baited breath, in plain view of the comm tower, through the acid test as the tower spotted him and swept him with its sensors. His comm system started to ping as the tower asked him what his business was, so far outside his own sector of the base. Dylan chose not to reply with words, instead slotting a rocket grenade into place on the tip of his rifle. Before the poor sots in the comm tower could figure out what was happening, Dylan had blown the top part of the tower apart with the grenade, sending bodies, whole and in pieces, spiralling out into the void. Alarms started to wail across the various frequencies. Dylan ducked behind a warehouse to block line of sight, and his holoshroud shimmered and fritzed. Within a second or two, a Lupus stood there, complete with IFF codes. Dylan smirked, and took off at a steady trot, passing several squads of scrambling ALU machines on his way out. It was going to be a busy day... this was a damn big pot to stir.

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_And just WHAT are YOU looking at now!?_ Katie's somewhat irritated thought pulsed heatedly in the front of Ysak's mind. He refocused his eyes and smiled somewhat weakly across the cafe table at her. She wasn't buying it, he could see that already. Katie had that way of looking directly into his eyes that informed him that she already knew what had caught his eye. Still, the instincts were hard to fight. "Oh nothing much." Ysak replied, before he could really stop himself. He cursed to himself... Katie did not take well to denial, especially when she knew he wasn't being truthful.

_Is... that... so..._ Katie's eyes narrowed vindictively. _So if I was to turn around right now, I would not see some scantily clad little thing prancing along the sidewalk in an entirely too innocent fashion? Is that what "nothing much" means these days? Hmm?_

_I don't see why YOU of all people would react badly to the standards of dress around here. _Ysak groused, not denying anything. Could he help it if seeing girls basically strutting along in what amounted to lingerie, and not very much of it at that, in broad "daylight" on a public street was eye catching? And it wasn't an isolated incidence either... you could NOT look around without seeing that sort of thing! He'd heard stories from soldiers who'd gone to Luna on leave before, but he'd never lent them much credence. People see all sorts of things when they were drunk, not all of them were real. And those that were real were often exaggerated for dramatic effect. Well, in some cases, Ysak was finding that his soldiers had been dampening down the details for believability's sake. It was a good thing, he reflected, that he'd found Katie before Luna had become like this... the Ysak of the First Valentine War would have had to run and hide in embarassment from this place. _You're the one who only sees clothing as convenient, not required. HOW many times again have you been forced to hide in the bathroom at home when my mother drops by for an unnanounced visit, just because you never decided to get dressed that morning!?_

_YOU'RE the one who forces me to hide... I don't have a problem with nudity! I was RAISED that way, remember? Sure, maybe those scientists were WRONG to raise me that way, but they were wrong to do a LOT of what they did._ Katie countered. She leaned slightly closer to him over the table and took one of his hands in both of hers. Ysak was not fooled by the apparently cuddly gesture... Katie could do quite a number of unpleasant and painful things to him just with access to his hand, things learned from her Uncle Alkire, Uncle Vladimir and Big Sister Raine, if the mood struck her. _I don't care what people wear or don't wear... I just don't like it when YOU get distracted by them when otherwise you wouldn't! It's called jealousy, Ysak... I wouldn't think you'd need to look it up._

_Well, I'm trying not to stare, okay... but it's HARD! This culture is just so... open... its crazy! I can't see how people can live like this... its indecent!_ Ysak furrowed his own brow, keeping his hand still and steady. Trying to pull away was like pulling away from a cat when it had its paws on you. Its instinct was to sink in its claws, regardless of whether it was going to do it before. Katie was the same way... if he tried to free his hand, she'd do something just because he was trying to get away. _Maybe coming out here for lunch wasn't such a good idea after all._

_I really like our new Gundam too, Ysak-y... but honestly, you cannot go to Luna and NOT walk the streets of Copernicus._ Katie withdrew her hands slowly, folding them in front of her and leaning her chin on them. _But maybe you do have a point... perhaps we should go somewhere else after we finish lunch. A moonwalk or something. Or maybe that low gravity roller coaster they have... that looks pretty wild!_

Ysak relaxed slightly... she was calling him "Ysak-y" again, which was a very good sign. Now he just had to keep her happy... a never ending chore that was. Worth it though. Definitely worth it. He decided a change in topic was appropriate. _Can you just imagine what the looks on everyone's faces are going to be when we show up from our "vacation reunion" with a brand new Gundam in tow? Now that they're a public secret, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't show off a little._

_You say that happily, but aren't you a little pissed off at what happened to Cagalli and Athrun?_ Katie cast her eyes down to the table for a few moments. _I mean, they went and did the right thing, and look what happened._

_Nobody ever said doing the right thing was going to be easy, or popular._ Ysak shrugged. _Athrun and Cagalli can handle themselves. It was something of a dick move on Durandel's part to drag the whole affair into the public eye, but then again, its kind of his job to do things that way. If I was him, I'd probably have done something similar. Having my major political opponents basically gift wrap themselves and put their heads on a silver platter for me like that, I wouldn't be able to resist really. Though I'd have been a lot tougher on them than Durandel was. See... he's not such a bad guy... he could have royally fucked Orb and it's military, but he didn't._

_I guess you have a point._ Katie frowned, lifting her eyes from the table and directing her gaze past Ysak's head, off down the street a ways. Ysak didn't turn around, instead focusing his attention on watching Katie's face and paying attention more fully to the link between them. Despite how keen his own senses were, they were nothing compared to Katie's ability to sense minds and intentions in those minds. If there was something up... and there was, judging from her face... then she was going to be able to figure out what it was before he ever could. _You have an admirer. A kinda cute one too._

_Oh? _Ysak raised an eyebrow. Apparently his first impression had been wrong. No emergency after all. Well... Katie's definition of emergency could be rather loose at times... anything alarming or interesting to her could be "emergency" status. _Not my fault this time. My eyes have been on you for several minutes now. No way I could have been oogling another girl._

_Who said anything about girls?_ Katie smirked at him for a moment. _Young, tall, slim and military type build. Slightly wild looking, with that dark brown shaggy hair and those blazing red eyes. He looks like the sort of guy a girl could have a lot of fun with if she wanted. Though he's only looking at you, not me, so maybe he swings the other way. No, no, retract that statement, he just goggled as that floozy strutted by. Hmm, so, I wonder what's so interesting about YOU, Ysak-y?_

_Is that so? _Ysak refused to rise to the bait. He was as possessive of Katie as anyone in his situation would likely be... though considering the only other people in his situation were Kira and Lacus, perhaps that was a bad way of putting it. It was very hard to imagine Kira in a fit of jealousy. And Ysak strongly doubted that Lacus Clyne ever played games with Kira like Katie played with Ysak... trying to draw him "out of his shell" by indirectly flirting with or admiring other men while he was around. _Perhaps you should go find out... I'll need some time to find a place to hide the body afterwards anyway. And it's not like I'm exactly in disguise here. How many other Coordinators do you know with white hair and my scar? Honestly, the only two other Coordinators likely to be recognized on sight easier than me, at least amongst the younger generation in one case, are Athrun Zala and Lacus Clyne herself._

_You are somewhat easy on the eyes, I will admit. _Katie smiled briefly. She turned her gaze back to him. _His friends showed up and they moved on. Just a random admirer I guess._

_Better get used to that. _Ysak shifted in his chair, catching the eye of the waitress. They'd sat there in silence for long enough the service staff was likely starting to wonder if they were ever going to order lunch. Sometimes it was hard to remember that their mental conversation was inaudible to other people, given how realistic it sounded, even down to variations in tone and emphasis based on mood or feeling. _I can't be totally sure of course, but I get the feeling that every Redcoat in ZAFT is going to be bleeding green with envy once they get a gander at the Vorpal. As is right and proper, of course. Given the torturous path I... We've... had to walk to acquire it, I think its really about time that we got to bathe in the covetous glares of the plebes._

_I think you might be letting this whole hero of the USN thing go to your head a little bit._ Katie's smile grew wider. _Can't you just see the looks we'll get the first time we step out of the cockpit together? Envious would be quite an understatement, I think. People will be putting a whole new emphasis on the word "cockpit", eh?_

The waitress had to wonder, as the strange but slightly familiar looking couple finally ordered, after almost ten minutes of making faces at each other in dead silence, just why the guy was flushed so red with embarssment. She sure hadn't seen or heard anything that would cause such an extreme reaction. And people said Lunites were weird... they had nothing on the tourists.

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"That's funny." Shinn Asuka muttered to himself, craning his head around even as the other guys from the Schwartz team pushed him on down the street, with all the grace and poise of a rioting mob. Liberty call on Luna, in Copernicus City no less, was not to be taken lightly, or so many of the younger pilots insisted. Just turning twenty one made Shinn actually one of the oldest pilots in the Schwartz team, other than old man Schwartz himself of course, who positively ancient at thirty five, at least for the Mobile Suit Corps of ZAFT. "I could have sworn that was Commander Joule back there."

"Uh oh... his Demonic Highness is muttering spells again! Watch out, or all our hair will drop out, or our balls will shrink up and be useless!" One of the other pilots, the often brash and more than frequently annoying cadet Jamis Karr, nudged his best friend and fellow cadet Rodrick Clave with one elbow. Shinn shot the both of them a fierce glare, hoping to pre-empt any more of their near constant fun at his expense. He was aware that he was often a brooding, somewhat grim presence, especially compared to the lighthearted cadets, but then again, was that really his fault? He'd fought in the Second Valentine War after all, in some of the biggest battles of the War... and not always winning battles too. None of the rest of them, save for Commander Schwartz, had ever fired a real round against anything more dangerous than a target asteroid. They all talked pretty good games, but Shinn could vaguely remember how he himself was at that age, and he took much of what his teammates said with more than a few grains of salt. Still, he couldn't deny that if he was going to be stuck on Luna for a few days anyway, especially on his twenty first birthday, he might as well go out with the guys and look for something fun to do, even if his idea of fun and theirs didn't always mesh.

"Not like you need to worry too much there, Car-Wreck, given your luck... if you can call it that... on getting laid." Kai "Guy" Kurane, third most senior man in the team, after Shinn and Schwartz himself, commented wryly. He was staggering somewhat as he walked, which was far from surprising, considering he was holding a long necked bottle of vodka in one hand, from which he'd been swigging every few steps for what must have been a good kilometer and a half now, as they searched for "this one bar" that Jamis had heard about that was supposed to "be the be all, end all of party bars". Kai was a pretty big guy, and a Coordinator, but they'd been bar hopping for several hours already, and he was definitely starting to get to a good buzz stage. He was kinda disappointed that they hadn't managed to get Shinn to do more than down a glass of beer every now and again, given that this was supposed to be HIS birthday party and all... but then again, that was Shinn for you. "His Demonicness has better things to do with his time than waste dick shrinking curses on a wanker like you."

Shinn turned the fierce glare on all three of his teammates, but they'd been part of the team for long enough by this point... and drunk enough liquor to boot... that none of them were particularly intimdated. Shinn glared at everyone, all the time. It was just a part of who he was, or so the common consensus went. It had been the source of his nickname, no one could forget that, when Shinn had just come back from the ZAFT Elite Academy and fought an unarmed exhibitionist match with a pilot from another team. Shinn had completely destroyed the cocky bastard, so badly that when the poor bastard woke up after his teammates doused him with ice water and broke open a smelling salts pill under his nose, his first words were to ask whether that "red-eyed glaring devil" was gone or not. From then on, it had been pretty much inevitable, as most such nicknames are when most people agree on them. There was no fighting it, you could only tolerate it as best you could. Even Commander Schwartz used it, having given Shinn the callsign Red-Devil during several training maneuvers and simulations. At least it was better than Jamis's "Car-Wreck".

"Besides, theres nothing wrong with baldness!" Rodrick exclaimed, rubbing a hand over his own shaved and polished head. "I think it would be worse if the Demon-King were to cause our hair to grow... can you imagine having to shave like three times a day? Ugh!"

Kai and Jamis looked at each other and shrugged. Rodrick was a good guy, but he was a little... off... sometimes. "Whatever you say, Gator." Kai took another swig from his bottle, which was nearly drained. He straightened and staggered, reaching out with a hand to steady himself on a nearby wall. "Goddamn it, I'm just wasted enough to wish I was more wasted! Where the hell is this bar, Car-Wreck!? We've been walking too long!"

"Not much further, Guy, I promise. Just you guys wait... you'll see. This place is fan-fucking-tabulous! They got everything... even strippers! It's gonna be awesome!" Jamis informed them, practically swaggering with self importance and delight. "We're all gonna feel like we died and went to heaven! Or to a nicer place in hell, for his Demonic Highness."

"That's what you said about the last bar." Rodrick pointed out. "But there weren't any strippers there. The beer kinda sucked too."

"Listen man...!"

"For that matter, you said the same things about the bar before that one. And the one before that too." Rodrick plodded his conversational momentum onwards. "In fact, if memory serves, you say that every time we go out on liberty..."

"Man, why you gotta be dissing me like that? I can understand pessimism from the Dark Lord back there... but you're supposed to be full of piss and vinegar like me, Gator!"

"I AM full of fucking vinegar, Car-Wreck... thats the fucking problem, since I'm trying to be full of wine!" Kai cut in. "The beer tastes like shit in every bar you pick, and the liquor ain't much better! No, we're done following the Car-Wreck. I say we consult a true connessieur of worldy pleasures. Hold on a sec." Kai fumbled in his pocket for his cell phone.

"Ohh fuck... who's he gonna misdial this time?" Jamis licked his lips with a mixture of nervousness and anticipation. Guy was always good for a few laughs later on in the night, especially after getting sloshed, because he always kept his cell phone with him, and he liked calling to "consult" people when he was in the throes of a drinking binge. The results were often side shakingly hysterical. Like the time Guy had called the duty officer and gotten into a profanity laced screaming match with the girl, right there in the middle of the bar. Explaining it to Commander Schwartz the next day hadn't been nearly as fun... but at the time, Jamis had seen few things funnier.

"Uh uh... gimme the damn phone, Guy!" Rodrick stepped forward, reaching out to take the phone away from his inebriated teammate. The last thing they needed was Guy calling the duty officer or someone else important again, and getting all their liberty canceled because he was drunk and disorderly towards a superior officer again. He didn't know how many investigations of misconduct he could stand up to before the investigators caught wind of some stuff that he really should have never gotten involved with, but now couldn't exactly back out of. Spiffy was a truly damnable substance, even if you only sold it on the side. Maybe even especially if you only sold it on the side, most especially if you sold it on the side while on active duty in ZAFT. Just cause it was one of the most addictive and expensive designer drugs on the market... well, that and it was deadly poisonous to humans in doses larger than a hundred milliliters or so, which was about six hits. Problem being of course that you felt SO DAMNED GOOD while high on it that you'd do just about anything to keep the hits coming. Only thing that kept the majority of users from OD deaths was cost... at several hundred dollars a hit, most people on the street couldn't afford more than one or two hits at a time.

Kai lifted his hand high above his head, out of the reach of his shorter teammate. "Trust me on this one, fellas. This man is a true master of good times. If anyone is to know where to go, it'll be him. Just hold on while I find his number... its in here somewhere."

"Come on, Guy, I ain't fucking joking!" Rodrick grabbed his friend by the arm and tried to pull the phone down within reach. "You know what sort of bad shit happens when you get near a phone when you're wasted! You'll thank me for this later! Jamis, help me out here!"

"Fuck you, Gator. You gonna trample all over my bar finding ability, and then yer gonna ask me for help? Nuh uh, I wanna see who Guy calls out of the blue."

"Shinn! Shinn, please... I don't wanna explain to Schwartz why we just stood by and let this happen again!" Rodrick called out in desperation. He didn't really like "tough guy" Shinn Asuka, thought he was a self righteous dick most of the time to be honest, a goody-two-shoes Redcoat who felt he was too good for the rest of them just cause he was veteran and they weren't. So what, he'd fought in the fucking war... big fucking deal! So had a lot of folks, and it wasn't like it was Rodrick's fault he'd been ten at the time, was it? He did have to admit, Shinn was some pretty hot shit in a Mobile Suit, but then again, he was a fucking Redcoat, so that wasn't much of a surprise was it? No, Shinn was a cold fucking fish most of the time, and Rodrick just couldn't warm to the often melancholy bastard. Still, Rodrick was pretty sure that Shinn hated getting in trouble with Commander Schwartz because of Guy's drunken dialling even more than Rodrick did, and any port in a storm right?

Shinn sighed and stepped forward. He disliked getting involved in the boisterous infighting that his three teammates seemed to enjoy every time they went out on liberty as a group, but Rodrick did have a point. Commander Schwartz was enjoying his own liberty call somewhere else in the city, and he would NOT be appreciative of being called back to the transit station in order to escort one of his miscreant subordinates back to the ZAFT section of Galileo LFB, a good forty minute mag-lev ride away. There wasn't much Commander Schwartz could really do to Shinn, since Shinn was a Redcoat and thus somewhat outside the usual chain of command, but on the flip side of that, Shinn was a Redcoat and thusly had some measure of responsibility for keeping his companions both in line and out of trouble, since he was the senior man present. And Shinn rather liked Commander Schwartz in the balance of things, given his tolerance of Shinn's moodiness and personality quirks. "Put the phone up, Kai. I'll find us a place to go. Maybe even a bar. There's bound to be a directory somewhere."

"You can pry it out of my cold, dead... um..." Kai's brain caught up to his mouth and he trailed off, considering as hard as his alcohol flushed mind could muddle. This was Shinn he was talking to now. Shinn was a Redcoat. Not only that, but he was a hardass, angry Redcoat, at least at times. Shinn had a very high up spot on Kai's personal list of people he never wanted to fight unless he had no choice, and preferrably the advantage of numbers and surprise. On the other hand, Kai was feeling pretty tough himself, having drunk most of a bottle of vodka and almost a dozen beers in the last few hours. He wasn't sure why exactly, but the thought of the alcohol in his system made him feel quite a bit tougher, faster and stronger than he usually was. Maybe even tough, fast and strong enough to turn the tables on Shinn. Kai was still considering the pros and cons of the situation when Rodrick, trying to take advantage of the slightly befuddled look on his teammates face, made another grab for the phone. He almost got it too, half tearing it out of his friend's hand, as Kai snatched his arm up and away. His grip was considerably loosened by Rodrick's attempt at stealing the phone and he was still puzzling over how to handle Shinn, so he forgot to tighten his grip again. As a result the phone went sailing out of his hand in a long arc, like a grenade tossed by a ground pounder.

Kai watched with horrified eyes as his precious phone descended towards the pavement a good twenty feet away, well out of the range of any potential intervention by the members of the Schwartz team. That was a six hundred dollar phone, down the drain right there, not to mention the social costs of losing all the numbers in the directory. It had taken him the better part of three years building up the network of friends, acquiantances, old girlfriends and various "important" people, like the party-master he'd been about to call, that had been programmed into that phone, along with all his work related contact numbers as well of course. So maybe the programming was a little haphazard, and he sometimes called a work number when he thought he was calling an old girlfriend and got into a screaming match with a testy bitch, who later turned out to be the duty officer. Mistakes happen, right? Well, they wouldn't be happening for a while, he mourned, waiting for the phone to shatter into blue plastic shards on the pavement.

However, that personal calamity was averted at the last second, as a hand shot out of the crowd of pedestrians making their way along the sidewalk and caught the phone as easily and surely as if he'd been aiming right at that person the whole time. Quite who the person was they couldn't see because of the pedestrian traffic, at least for a few moments, until the person stepped out from behind the group of oblivious tourists who hadn't even seen the phone in the first place, and looked back down the street towards the Schwartz team. Collectively, the Schwartz team let out small gasps, even Shinn. The person who'd caught the phone was a girl... well, young woman. And WHAT a young woman too. Pale, lightly tanned skin, leggy, with the hardened and shapely figure that can only be found as the result of constant physical training or activity, tall for a girl, with magenta shoulder length hair and light blue eyes, she was definitely pretty enough to draw stares from the four Coordinators. Those selfsame stares obviously identified for her just who had tossed the phone, and she wasted little time in approaching them.

"I saw her first." Jamis claimed in a tight whisper, licking his lips slightly, before realizing that he was in plain view of the smoking hot girl while he'd done it. He coughed, bringing one hand up to cover his mouth as he flushed with embarassment. To be entirely honest, for all his tough talk, Jamis was unbearably shy around girls, especially pretty girls. Especially, especially pretty girls in short pink skirts and well fitting sleeveless shirts that definitely showed off their figure to good advantage. "That means I..." Jamis continued, his voice somewhat muffled by his hands.

"Have already been too slow." Rodrick cut his friend off, running nervous hands across his scalp, combing back hair that hadn't been there for almost a year now, though the nervous habit was hard to shake. He was nervous, but inwardly he was smiling. Kai was drunk, so he wasn't much of a contender at the moment. Jamis practically broke into hives and had nervous breakdowns when girls were nearby, so he was out. And Shinn was a cold fish, who probably didn't even stroke off at night, and seemed about as interested in girls as Rodrick was in root canals. Of the four of them, Rodrick was the only one really in a position to take advantage of the situation. As long as he didn't make a total fool of himself with first impressions, he might even find this liberty call being a great deal more enjoyable than he'd dreamed. "First come, first serve, Car-Wreck." Rodrick stepped forward to meet the girl.

"I believe you dropped this?" The girl said, flicking her eyes across the group of men. Off duty ZAFT soldiers, unless she was totally blind. Probably from the Galileo LFB contingent, though from what it looked like, ones that didn't get out to Copernicus City much, since they seemed to be in the middle of an arguement as to where they were going. She rolled her eyes... men were such idiots at times, when all it took was five minutes at a public net terminal to come up with complete, street level maps of pretty much anywhere you wanted to go. But no, they preferred to pretend to be hunter-gatherers, trading spears and clubs for vodka bottles and cellphones, beating the modern bush for bars and strip joints in high fashion. She could feel them all appraising her, but she was relatively used to that, and they were actually a bit more polite in their half drunken stares than many sober Lunites had been on her way to this spot from the hotel she was staying at.

"Well, my friend's had a bit much to drink, and the predictable happened to his physical abilities..." Rodrick shrugged, trying for a winning smile. He held out a hand for Kai's phone. "Thank you, by the way... he'd have been in tears by now if it wasn't for you. I'm Rodrick Clave, who might you be?" Rodrick asked. Look at the face. Focus on the face. He kept chanting the mantra inside his head. Nothing gave a worse first impression to a sober girl than a guy staring at close range at her breasts and other assets, especially when he was talking to her. Never mind that she was definitely well endowed, he could compliment her on that later... he had to first get past initial awkwardness, so there could BE a later. She cocked her head and looked at him intently, which caused his heart to flutter, you bet it did, as she placed the phone in his hand. At least, his heart fluttered until he realized that she wasn't looking AT him, but rather PAST him.

"Shinn? Shinn Asuka?" The girl asked slowly, as if dredging the name up from deep within her memory, which was an accurate assumption. If she recalled right, the last time she'd seen hair that brown, and eyes so red, had been during Operation Overload, at the climax of the Second Valentine War. Of course, that had been five years ago, and he'd been wearing rather less at the time, having been caught in mid scramble with just his boxers on, but the hair and the eyes... even amongst Coordinators, you didn't come across brown hair and red eyes all that often. Usually if someone had a totally alien color like red for their eyes, they also had hair that was creatively colored, like green, or blue, or purple... not an entirely natural, if dark, brown. The shaggy, slightly wild cut of the hair was also the same as she remembered. Not quite disheveled, but certainly untidy. It, along with the eyes, definitely lent him an air of a beast, barely restrained by iron self control. "Its been more than five years!"

Shinn was doing some memory sorting of his own, before he too hit on Operation Overload, having been helped by her comment about it being five years. "Lunamaria... Hawke?" He asked, somewhat doubtfully, though to his somewhat relief he saw the pleased look in her eyes that told him he'd come up with the right name. He tried, with not much success, to compare the interesting, if still somewhat gawky, girl he remembered bumping into and nearly flattening against a bulkhead back then, and the more than pretty young woman standing barely an arms length away right now. He remembered agreeing to her half shouted suggestion to meet up and talk after the Operation was over, but that had never happened, due to the disorganized, half destroyed state of the ZAFT fleet. To be honest, he'd pretty much forgotten about the whole incident until just now. That was starting to look like a misstep on his part, because there was absolutely no denying that Lunamaria was more than just attractive, she was stunning. Shinn knew his teammates would never believe it, but he was far from uncomfortable with the idea of feminine company... it was just tough finding someone who could put up with him, that was all.

"That's me." Luna agreed, sizing him up again. Five years had not taken much away from him, at least at first and second glance, that was for sure, and had added quite a bit in the process. "Seems fate conspired to keep us from having that talk we promised each other, eh?"

"Well, things were a little chaotic, given that more than half the fleet was floating scrap, and we still didn't know who was in charge of what or why." Shinn could not suppress a shiver at the memory. "I have to admit, I kinda forgot about the whole thing until just now. Fancy meeting you here."

Lunamaria smiled, somewhat charmed by his blunt honesty. To be truthful, she hadn't really thought much of the guy she'd bumped into either, until she'd bumped into him again, just now. Everyone had had much more pressing matters than socialization on their minds in the wake of Operation Overload. But few men, in her experience, would have admitted to forgetting about or blowing her off, especially to her face, doubly especially given the "fate conspired" excuse out she'd provided him. "Oh, I'm just passing through with my sister, on our way to our command. I just got done with the Academy, and we're finishing up my two weeks of graduation leave."

"The Academy?" Shinn raised an eyebrow. It was a generic term, used amongst ZAFT to denote all sorts of post basic training courses and schools. If he remembered right, she'd been a pilot first class back during Operation Overload, same as him, which meant that, given her age, she had advanced about as far as she could at the time. But to be a pilot first class when you were fifteen or sixteen, and still be in ZAFT five years later... Shinn did some calculations, and straightened his bearing somewhat. It was more than likely that she was an "officer", as much as ZAFT had formal officers.

"Yep. Had to go convince some people that I needed a change of wardrobe. And about damn time too." Luna's smile grew wider at some fond memory. "I can't tell you how good it felt to trade in those gold crosses for the trefoil wings." She added, referring to the formal collar pins worn by first pilot first classes, and then the much rarer adornment worn by elite pilots. Redcoats to be precise. Shinn smiled himself, pleased without knowing quite why that they were of the same basic rank, if not fully seniority, since he'd been through the Academy for his trefoil wings several years ago. Still, ZAFT wasn't exactly picky about seniority as long as people had the skills and drive to get things done, and that went triple for the Redcoats.

"I've some idea." Shinn replied with a nod. "Buying all new uniforms is something of a pain though, even if they do give you an allowance for it."

"Its never enough. Not for the correct number of uniforms anyway!" Luna agreed. She cocked her head slightly at Shinn. "But then, I think you know that already, right?"

Shinn was just about to reply when, in unison, the duty pagers that he and all three of his teammates wore or carried somewhere on their persons at all times while out on liberty call away from Galileo pinged urgently. Shinn heard the pinging chorus around a bit, as other ZAFT personnel interspersed throughout the crowds were likewise paged. Jamis dug his pager out of his pocket and stared at the screen in incomprehension. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me!" He complained angrily. "Urgent recall? What the fuck!? We're out on the first ninety six hour liberty chit in two fucking months and we get a fucking urgent recall!?"

"Fate conspires once more." Lunamaria commented with a smile and a shrug. "One of these days we'll be able to have a good talk, Shinn."

"Maybe I should make like I lost the fucking pager!" Jamis was muttering rebelliously. Shinn quieted him with a look. Not a glare, just a level look that nonetheless left the pilot third class quite subdued. Shinn nodded his head at the crowds around them, listening to the pings and pongs and beeps and blurts of all sorts of pagers and cell phones and other communication devices going off.

"Its not just us." Shinn said thoughfully, trying to sort out the various chimes and signals. ALU... FNE... more ZAFT... some USN... even an Orb, he was pretty sure. "Every soldier in hearing distance is getting recalled all of a sudden. Something's happened at Galileo. Something big." He turned to look at Lunamaria again, who had an understanding look on her face. "I won't forget this time." Shinn promised, meeting her gaze eye to eye.

"I should hope not. I get the feeling we both might miss out on something we'd rather not." Luna smirked at him. "I'll be on the Moon for another two days, at the Hilton-Copernicus. Room eighteen thirty six. See you around, Shinn?"

"See you around, Lunamaria." Shinn agreed, before leading his teammates off at a quick trot, to join the stream of other civilian dressed soldiers heading for the transit station. He could not but help glance over his shoulder a time or five though, despite the ribbing his friends were trying to give him. He would definitely NOT forget this time.

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"When I said earlier that I could not wait to show off the Vorpal to my compatriots at ZAFT, this is most definitely NOT what I meant!" Ysak grumbled as he burst through the door into the makeshift ready room aboard the cargo shuttle that had been chartered to carry the Vorpal, as well as Ysak, Katie and several technical teams from Orb who would be in charge of actual maintenance on the Gundam, at least until Orb and ZAFT finished working out the agreements that would let the ZAFT crews take over. He was still moving as he groused though, shucking off his outer garments even as he opened his locker, grabbing the specially constructed flightsuit and accompanying gear. The one downside to the Vorpal, with its unique cockpit design, was that snap launching took a lot more time than it would if it was just him jumping into his flightsuit and strapping in. When he'd had the Duel, and later the Duelist, he'd been able to get ready to launch in less than four minutes, from dead asleep to clipped into the magnetic launching system, armed and dangerous. So far, his best time for similar results in the Vorpal was something more than fifteen minutes. Of course, he'd only had the Vorpal for a week or so, but still... it chafed.

Katie followed him into the ready room at a somewhat more sedate pace, since her own pre-launch readiness requirements were quite a bit simpler than Ysak's. Indeed, before she actually climbed into her "seat" in the Vorpal, she didn't have to do anything at all. Couldn't really do much of anything at all, besides help Ysak don the considerably more cumbersome than usual flight suit. "Well, its not like we HAVE to go out with the Vorpal, you know." Katie reminded him. "Yes, from what we saw on the TV, the situation at Galileo does look pretty bad, but we're not on active duty right now, Ysak. In fact, from what I saw anyway, things looked so chaotic out there that maybe showing up in a basically unregistered Gundam might not even be a good idea..."

Ysak paused, and gave her a steady look. "People are dying out there." Ysak said quietly. "I'm no bleeding heart, or even much of a philanthropist, but I... We... have the power to help, and thus the responsibility to help, unless I'm much mistaken. And chaotic though it might be, a Gundam showing up might be just the thing to calm things down somewhat. From what it looked like, the ALU was tearing into the FNE, while the FNE was making moves against ZAFT, and ZAFT was hitting pretty much everyone. God knows why its just the units at Galileo going nuts, but the USN's on crackdown mode, and I don't think that's going to go very well considering the various units are already engaged. You can ignore a lot of things... but I don't think you can ignore a Gundam. And you certainly can't ignore me!"

Katie shrugged. "Just playing devil's advocate. Hopefully when we get over there I can figure out what's causing everyone to attack each other. This whole situation is just too fucking strange. Why would the units at a multinational training base that's under the direct control of the USN suddenly start attacking each other? And not just attacking each other, but practically picking fights with multiple opponents at once!? It just doesn't make any sense, especially because no action has broken out anywhere else on Earth or in Space. I don't buy it."

Ysak finally got the suit comfortable, or at least comfortable enough, and he stood up. "This is where I used to give you a hug and a kiss before heading off, but I guess that's not really going to be necessary this time, is it?" Ysak asked, with a thin smile. Of course, Katie threw her arms around him and kissed him anyway, but she was positive that that was what he'd said that for in the first place anyway. This time it was her who led the way, though only because he had to be somewhat careful moving through confined spaces, especially doorways. Within seconds they entered the main cargo bay of the shuttle, where the Vorpal was standing, still being released from its packing restraints by the technical crews. They wasted no time in boarding a portable gantry lifter, which raised them to the cockpit level with a hydraulic hum. Katie stepped onto the armored hatch that would cover the cockpit entryway when raised, and acted as a boarding platform when lowered, before Ysak, since there would be no way for her to enter the cockpit if he went first. Katie looked over at Ysak and smirked, seeing his face already twisted in a scowl as he glared down at the various technicians and engineers working below.

Without further ado Katie cast away her shirt and skirt, then the underwear underneath, completely without shame or hesitation. She did resist the urge to stretch out her back and legs, but only because it was a relative emergency. The crews below were well trained, or at least as well trained as young men could get, and though many paused a moment every now and then to sneak a glance up at her, none overtly stared and all continued their work at nearly the same pace as before. Which was well and good for them, because Ysak's gaze was scouring the makeshift hanger, daring anyone to be unlucky enough to meet his jealous and angry-embarassed eyes. He'd made very clear to the technical crews that he was far from above the level of meteing out "unofficial" punishment if he caught anyone being lewd during the times when Katie was entering or leaving the Vorpal's cockpit. And his definition of lewd was pretty much anything he didn't like. Katie decided that she would do her part in keeping all the various members of the technical crews out of the hospital, and stepped into the cockpit without further delay, followed quickly by Ysak.

Once they were inside the cockpit though, Katie became more fully serious, attaching the various medical monitoring sensors that would make sure she remained alive and functional during the stress of battle as she settled onto the cushions in the bottom and back of her tank. Once the device was more fully prepped, it would be filled with gel, which would render the cushions obsolete, but until that point in time she was definitely grateful not to be sitting naked on bare metal. Ysak carefully sat himself down in the modified command couch of the Vorpal, and he and Katie went through the somewhat laborious process of fixing him in place, so that the back part of his suit formed a solid seal with the front of her holding tank. Several minutes later, Katie removed the rebreathing mask unit from its cubby in the side of the tank and put it on, resigning herself to breathing the cold and filtered oxygen supplied by generators deeper within the Vorpal. Once that was in place, she leaned forward and placed her arms and legs into the special sleeves in the front of her tank that connected with the bulky restraints that criss crossed Ysak's chest and body. As always, she shivered with enjoyment at the feel of her skin sliding along Ysak's, in a not so faint reminder of other, much more fun times when they touched like this.

_Concentrate._ Ysak's thought resounded with unusual force because of the enhanced intimate contact between them. _Are you secure?_

_I am. So serious, Ysak-y._ Katie replied, moulding herself to his back as best she could, in order to enhance the link even more, and get comfortable.

_We're in a Gundam. Playtime is officially over._ Ysak's thought-tone brooked no arguement. And Katie acceeded to that, though she probably wouldn't have if they were somewhere else. But Ysak was the Gundam expert of the two of them, and she could be as serious as anyone when the mood struck her. Or when Ysak needed it from her. _I'm starting the gel flow then._ Katie felt Ysak's muscles twitch slightly as he reached over to flick a switch. With a low hum the pipes that led to the aerated gel stowage containers started to pump the thick, slightly warm blue stuff into the tank at high speed. Katie focused her mind on other things, running through the mental equivalent of the systems checks Ysak was performing on the rest of the Vorpal, as the gel level rose higher and higher. Not that she was particularly claustrophobic or bothered by the thought of being submerged in the gel, which was breathable even without her mask, but it still took some getting used to. This was only her seventh time actually getting into the full system. _Gel levels show maximum. Confirm?_

_Confirmed._ Katie replied, after a moment's inspection. _How am I doing?_

_All vital signs showing green and healthy. I'm ready when you are._ Ysak's tone was steady, but she could easily feel the nervousness beneath. She didn't blame him, this wasn't exactly a well understood thing that they were about to do. Still, she was confident in her abilities, and confident in her bond to Ysak. They could do this. Katie smiled, as she began to drift into the familiar dream haze of a Trance, much like she and Chanel had used to do, oh so long ago when her dear sister was still alive. This time though, instead of a tropical beach or slightly messy bedroom, her dream took the exact form of the Vorpal's cockpit, as if she herself were sitting in the pilot's chair, and not in the tank behind it. Her hands were on the controls. Her feet upon the thruster pedals. Her eyes watched the screens, and her ears listened to the data readouts beep and whistle. She was Ysak. Ysak was her. They were both something more. Katie looked with more than just her eyes, and listened with more than just her ears, allowing her perceptions of the physical universe to drift away, dissolving the dream construct of the Vorpal so that she could see in all directions around it, unimpaired by physical structures blocking line of sight.

_Ready. Can I have the honors?_ Katie asked, as she watched the technical crew's minds withdraw from the makeshift hanger, as the massive swinging doors at the back of the shuttle opened, allowing a path for the Vorpal to stride out into the larger hangar area, from which it would ascend to the lunar surface. She felt Ysak's assent in a warm inrush of anticipation, and she smirked as she stretched out her mind in a way that would be impossible for her to do alone. It was the work of less than an instant to locate the technicians nominally in charge of "launching" the Vorpal. Katie dived into their minds like an olympian off the high board, awestruck by the ease at which she passed the normally impregnable Stump barrier common to non-Newtype minds. _This Ysak and Katie Joule. In the Vorpal. We're launching!_ Katie informed the technicians, enjoying the stark surprise and unease that flowed through their thoughts. _Get used to it..._ She left the thought trailing off in their minds as Ysak walked the Vorpal nimbly off the shuttle, causing all nearby work in the greater harbor to freeze in wonder at the sight of the Gundam.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

For Jean Dylan, actually being there firsthand to witness the results of his treachery was a novel experience. One he didn't much like. It was so... messy. It wasn't like he knew these people, didn't know their names, their histories, couldn't feel how they felt really... he didn't really have a connection with anyone personally. But as a whole, watching them howl with rage and lash out at others around them with little or no warning, because they had been stabbed in the back by someone who they had at least thought was an ally, if a lackluster one, and not an enemy... it was more than faintly disturbing to Dylan. He liked to be well away from a situation, preferrably several hundred miles away if not more, when things got sticky because of his profiteering. So much cleaner to read about things in the next days newspaper, or watch them on the news that evening. Being there, living the events as they happened, was kinda scary, even though he was definitely the one in control of the situation.

At the moment Dylan was marching at the rear of a patrol of FNE Cavaliers, disguised as a Cavalier, naturally. He'd been spending most of his time as either an FNE or an ALU mobile suit, both because they were the easiest to mimic and because they had Natural pilots, like him, and so his actions and response times would seem more normal. Of course, he had had to masquerade as an Elemental once or twice to get ZAFT fully into the act, but he didn't like it... there was just an aspect to the fluid, graceful, confident movements of the ZAFT pilots in their Elementals that he felt he lacked, and might be noticable to a trained or sharp eye. For similar reasons he'd avoided mimicking the Orb Guardians when other Orb units were around, since not only did he not really move like a Guardian pilot would, he couldn't transform into a jet or a tank either, which would be an instant giveaway. His holoshroud could alter his physical appearance quite a bit... but he had to look like a Mobile Suit at least.

Dylan's "unit" was responding to reports of a ALU incursion into FNE territory, over by one of the storage and industrial lots allocated to the FNE by the USN when they'd leased this part of the base. Tracer fire, beam blasts and the glow of ion thruster contrails could be seen crisscrossing the infinite dark sky above and to all sides of them as they moved across the lunar surface, headed towards the cluster of blocky buildings and bunkers that was their destination. Ever since being rebuilt since the end of the Second Valentine War, Galileo LFB had become one of the largest bases, in pure physical size, in the entire Solar Sphere. The central portion of the base took up most of the massive crater where the Judgement had landed and exploded, though you could barely tell there was a crater there at all, given how built up the area was with a multiple leveled military facility. This area was the primary USN headquarters and training center. The ground for about two kilometers in every direction in a rough circle around the crater was also USN territory, with industrial centers, storage facilities, extra housing areas and testing ranges interspersed throughout the territory.

To the geographical north of the main crater was all FNE territory, a sprawling collection of harbors, parade grounds, industrial-support complexes and mass habitation units that extended for dozens of square kilometers. To the west was the ALU portion of the base, which was more tightly grouped in its distribution of structures. To the east was Orb, which was the sparsest of them all, at least when it came to surface structures, though like an iceberg, almost ninety percent of the Orb holdings were actually underground, dug deep into the moonrock. This left the surface bare except for a few control and communication towers, hangar openings, a mustering ground, and the various defense perimeter bunkers and emplacements, leaving the greater majority of the surface open for use as a testing range or training exercise field. Finally, to the south, directly opposite and in no way bordering the FNE base was the ZAFT base, distinguished by the blue crystal glass domes over its habitation centers, identical to the material the PLANTS were made from. ZAFT, like the ALU, had concentrated most of its structures in a single location, but unlike the ALU, they had enclosed them within a single, massive structure, a large armored, half buried oval almost two kilometers long and more than a hundred meters tall at its highest point. ZAFT thus had two perimeters... their outer one, which Dylan had already penetrated several times in various guises, and then the oval, known as Aurora Base, which had gone on lockdown as soon as hostilities had started, which he had not even touched.

Which was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it meant that his emergency backup wasn't likely to be accidentally uncovered by stray munitions... bad because it was now sealed in an armored fortress, quite a bit out of his immediate reach. Oh sure, he could activate it at any time with the codes the Boss had given him, but who knew how long it would take to get out of Aurora and arrive at his location? Probably longer than he'd like, given that it was an emergency failsafe only, thus indicating that he was having an emergency. Dylan's thoughts along those lines were cut off by more immediate concerns, as his patrol came under fire from a squad of ALU Lupus's and the even bigger, support model Ursus's, which were modified ZaOots, also purchased from ZAFt at bargain prices. Flights of missiles and rocket mortar rounds started falling like fiery rain upon the FNE machines, destroying the lead man as four missles slipped past his shield to detonate his chest in a smoky multiple flash that was eeriely silent in the lack of atmosphere. The rest of the FNE machines, Dylan included, scattered, searching for what little cover the lunar plain allowed, Citadel Shields raised like medieval men staving off arrows. Dylan immediatly saw that the FNE were faced with a conundrum... they had plenty of long range, reasonably accurate firepower... but any misses would strike their own base structures, and when you were talking about hyper-impulse cannons, friendly fire was definitely deadly. But advancing without cover fire would be costly, and perhaps even impossible.

Before the little skirmish could go much further though, a double strength unit of USN Champions landed in the middle of the ground between the two sides, a ballsy move that Dylan could not help but be impressed by. Stray missiles detonated harmlessly against the limited Phase Shift the Champion's sported, further underlining, in an obvious manner, the technical sophistication and power of the USN machines, compared to those of the fighting member-state units, at least in this particular case. With five Champions facing the FNE, and five more facing the ALU, the appearance of the USN forces brought the skirmish to a screeching halt. Nobody wanted to jump over THAT dark percipice, of firing on the USN without provocation. Of course, Dylan couldn't exactly just let them calm down and start talking things over, now could he? No, that would be quite counter to his mission statement. If they weren't going to shoot at the USN with a reason... then it was his job to GIVE them a reason. Fortunately for him, the dust clouds rising from the craters left by the missile barrage provided more than enough visual blind for him to activate his Mirage Colloid unnoticed, though only for the second or so it took him to modify his holoshroud and stealth system once more, before reappearing, in the rear of the FNE unit, as a USN Champion.

Given that he was no longer trying to hide, Dylan knew it would be seconds at most before his erstwhile "comrades" noticed the "intruder" behind them, and the simultaneous loss of one of their own unit icons from their IFF displays. He declined to wait even that long though, keying a program into his comm system that played a recording of a woman screaming in terror before being cut off in mid yell... a relatively accurate semblance of a pilot being shot and destroyed from behind. The fact that they were on the Moon, and thus in a vacuum, meant that not hearing a mobile suit blow up would in fact be normal, though a careful person, with the right frame of mind and the time to think about it might note that there was no explosion sound in the comm blurt. The trick was not allowing them the right frame of mind, or the time to think about it. The female voice was part of it already... it was a proven fact that, all things considered, most pilots, especially male pilots, responded with more anger and hatred when a female compatriot died than when a male compatriot died. Primal human instinct at work, or something like that. Dylan shrugged, since he wasn't really bothered either way, not really having people he would consider "compatriots", certainly there were no females he'd ever invested enough emotional worth into that their death would cause him even a moment of sadness or anger. At the same time, he brought up his rifle and blasted the two closest FNE machines to him in the back, just as the rest of the FNE patrol turned in reaction to the scream.

This was the most dangerous time of any betrayal... the time when the betrayed realized the fact of their situation. There was no telling exactly what people would do in this situation. Some stood in shock, others tried denial, still more descended into mindless fury. Dylan did what he could to tip the balance towards mindless fury, blasting several more times at the dumbfounded FNE machines as he slowly backed into the slowly settling cloud of lunar dirt. He didn't hit any of them, though that wasn't the point. The point was that they were under fire from a USN machine, without warning or reason. The mostly unaimed blasts also pinged off some of the USN machine's Citadel Shields, giving them the impression that they had been fired upon by the FNE. There were some people who could be fired upon without warning, and they'd just take it as best they could and keep trying for peace or understanding. Fortunately, such people were exceedingly rare, and none of them were in this unit of the USN. The USN unit oriented fully upon the FNE, labeling them the aggressors of this particular skirmish, despite the fact that the ALU unit was trespassing on FNE territory, and opening fire. People tended to think less rationally when beam blasts were flying at them. Wonder why? Dylan smirked as he used the confusion to slip away, Mirage Colloiding himself at the earliest opportunity, though he kept his holoshroud identity for the moment.

He listened to the shocking news of the unprovoked attack by the FNE on the USN, or the USN on the FNE, spread across the Galileo LFB comm nets, and his smirk grew wider as he heard both sides diverting more forces to the area in order to protect their own interests. The FNE was accusing the USN of biased supporting of the ALU's treachery, since everyone knew how tight the ALU and USN were, while the USN was saying that the FNE was using the situation between ZAFT and the ALU to reduce the strength of their terrestrial neighbor, since every knew the FNE hated the ALU. Meanwhile, ZAFT and Orb, despite being close allies, were eyeing each other suspiciously as they investigated reports of unprovoked attacks by either side against the other, and Orb implored ZAFT to cease its attacks on the ALU. ZAFT refused, saying that they were defending themselves, not attacking at all, and actually asked Orb to HELP them defend themselves, since they were allies. Dylan decided to direct his efforts there, since with the USN and the ALU nominally working together, the FNE would not last too long. On his way though, he figured he might as well accomplish one of his secondary objectives, which was to cause as much "shock" damage to the USN as he could. He wasn't supposed to deal major, long term damage... just something that would go over real well in the mdeia to generate anger and fear and sympathy for Durandel's cause. He had just the right idea too, which would also help with getting ZAFT more fully into the game.

Dylan kept his Champion guise as he decloaked on the outskirts of the Galileo hub, though he tweaked his appearance somewhat to display some battle damage scars... burn marks, buckled plating, a small atmosphere leak... enough to account for his hurried pace and his path towards the central repair and training centers of the USN base. Not that anyone was really paying too much attention of course, since everyone was running... well, driving or flying on the surface anyway... around in a panic, trying to figure out why the entire base was going to hell in a handbasket all of a sudden, with no other military movements by any member-state in support of the madness, and thus no one to pin the blame on. Of course, the image of a USN machine, "battle damaged", would by itself make people less inclined to be forgiving in the near future. Dylan soon reached one of the main entry airlocks for Mobile Suits, and he asked the control system for permission to enter. Technically, though he had a perfect USN IFF code, it was a generic one, and not specific to any of the units actually assigned to Galileo, which might have caused a problem, were it not for the override signal piggybacked onto the request transmission. Quite how the Boss had override codes for the USN's own military systems was something Dylan would have loved to know, but at the moment he was just thankful that the Boss did, because they made his own job a lot easier.

Dylan cycled the Traitor through the airlock, which had a lift integrated into its floor that lowered up to four Mobile Suits at a time the fifty meters into the moonrock so that they could access the first layer of the Galileo Hub. Dylan stepped out into a chaotic scene that mirrored well the actual fighting above, though obviously without actual violence. There was atmosphere here, and he could hear people shouting, hear motors racing as cars and bikes sped by him on service roads and even feel the footsteps of other Mobile Suits shaking the pavement as USN units rushed hither and yon in efforts to contain and resolve the crisis. Dylan strolled through the midst of this barely controlled chaos, practically unnoticed and unremarked upon, save by curious passerby catching sight of the battle damage. He'd have to be careful here... there were many more potential observers in here that could see him change his shroud, and all it would take would be a few witnesses with a comm system seeing that, and the entire gig would be up. And right now, he was in the lion's den, so that would be pretty damned inconvenient for him. Maybe even fatally so.

Dylan entered a second airlock/lift system, much the same as the first, which took him down to the second level, which was where he wanted to go. A five minute walk, spent listening the the furor over the comms, brought him to a wider open area, consisting of hanger type buildings, large parade grounds, administrative complexes and row upon row of multileveled barracks complexes. This was where most fresh USN inductees underwent their training while on the Moon, whether it be for permanent zero G duty stations or just the standard course all USN soldiers had to endure. This was also where the nascent USN Mobile Suit pilots would take their first staggering steps, in outmoded Strike Daggers, Ginn trainers and other dated mobile systems. Things were quieter here, more than a hundred meters underground, protected by two layers of defensive systems and armored bastions, as well as scores of Mobile Suits. It wasn't exactly business as usual... anyone who wasn't an active duty, fully trained and qualified soldier was currently confined to quarters, or at the very least to the bounds of the training base itself... but there was no chaos here. Yet. Dylan was here to change that, oh yes he was. He gained access to the base, overriding yet another automated system in the process, thinking that the USN was certainly going to be re-thinking their widespread use of automated recognition systems after this day was done, which would make things harder in the future, at least until the Boss found a way around whatever their solution was too.

People started running over the tarmac towards him as he marched into the first empty looking hangar he saw, forcing himself to move with the awkward gait of a Mobile Suit, rather than the more natural locomotion his NIC system allowed. The hangar wasn't quite empty, being home to several Ginn trainers and a single technician who was staring at him with wide eyes from his station at a diagnostics computer hooked up to the Ginn closest to the entrance. It would have to do. Dylan pointed his shield arm at the hapless tech, and the automatic grenade launcher slid out of its recess on the forearm, though it was still hidden under the holoshroud. Dylan selected a frag grenade from his menu and without further ado, blasted the tech and his console into bloody, sparking rags. The bastard never even knew what hit him. The Traitor shimmered and wavered for a moment, before reforming its appearance to that of a ZAFT Elemental. He'd debated using an Orb machine, but had eventually decided against it. NOBODY would believe that Orb had launched an unprovoked attack on the USN, not even the USN. Orb just wouldn't do it. They took their national character, embodied by that crazy bitch Cagalli Zala-Attha, way too seriously for them to just go batshit and attack the USN, even if Cagalli was known to hate Durandel passionately. There was, thankfully, no such garuantee with the PLANTS. Oh, they were peacable bastards, but they had used sneak attacks before, no one could forget Heliopolis, certainly.

Dylan stepped from the hangar, his rifle and shield stowed for the moment, with his arms extended loosely, his fingertips levered away to reveal the barrels of the antipersonnel machine guns hidden within, while the grenade launchers in both arms loaded themselves with a mixture of HE, frag and nerve gas grenades. The people that had been running towards the hangar before in alarm at seeing the damaged USN machine all came to various screeching halts at the incomprehensible sight of the Elemental striding out of the hangar. Dyaln reflected, as he opened fire and blasted dozens of helpless soldiers to bloody ruin with his machine guns, that he should have picked an Efreet mask, since Efreet had Mirage Colloid, which would have made more sense for explaining how the ZAFT machine had appeared from nowhere. Oh well, his bad... and it wasn't like he was planning on making sure no one ever found out that the Brotherhood had done this, right? Either way worked, whether the public blamed the USN or if they blamed the Brotherhood, it was still the USN's problem in the end. Dylan raked his fire over the nearby administrative tower, the automatic grenade launches whirring and thumping as they sent their explosive munitions crashing through windows or blowing chunks from the unarmored walls. The machineguns as well, being of the caliber usually used as support or vehicle mounted weapons, penetrated the unarmored building facade with ease, often plowing through two or three walls, and people besides, before coming to a halt.

Dylan fired a pair of gas grenades at the main entranceway to the tower, fogging the area with pale yellow vapors that preyed upon the lungs and other involuntary muscle reflex systems of the human body, sending those who breathed it into uncontrollable spasms that ended in broken spines and twisted bodies that leaked blood and ooze, as the secondary effect of the gas corroded aay their softer tissues. Nasty stuff... he was very glad that he was in an environmentally sealed Mobile Suit. He bet the horde of people stampeding out of the shot and grenade ravaged tower were wishing the same thing, as they encountered the gas laid across their path and went down, howling and screaming like damned souls. Dylan declined to watch their greusome ends, knowing that it would upset his stomach. He turned his attention to a barracks building, and opened up with his twin 20mm CIWS. As his antipersonnel machineguns were much more powerful and deadly than common rifles given to soldiers, so were the 20mm CIWS more powerful by a great magnitude than the machineguns. Designed for use against light armored vehicles and even Mobile Suits, the armor piercing shells chewed through the thin metal and concrete walls of the barracks like they were made from sugar cubes. With cyclic rates approaching two thousand rounds per minute each, it took only a ten second burst and a slowly turning head to completely gut the lower levels of the building, in fact collapsing the entire structure as its support beams gave way under the damage.

He only had two of his rocket grenades left for his rifle, but he chose to expend one against a second barracks compound, blowing a thirty meter wide hole in the top and middle floors, the hole was deep enough that he could actually see through the building to the one beyond it. He fired another pair of nerve gas grenades, this time into the ruined floors of the holed building, to prey on any survivors of the blast who did not quickly evacuate the premises. Of course, any who did would probably find themselves victims of his machineguns, but would you rather die in brutal contortions, sneezing up your liquified stomach... or be blasted apart by .50 caliber bullets? At least the bullets would be quick, from hydrostatic shock or instant decapitation. Even while he mused on the grotesqueness of that choice, Dylan fired the rest of his explosive and frag grenades from the automatic launchers through the hole into the building on the other side, blasting away most of the outer facade and sending almost half the building tumbling downwards in rubble. His finger guns were starting to run low on ammo, as were his CIWS, and he was down to only a few more gas grenades. It was time to move on to greater things. He drew his rifle and shield once more, pausing only to fire a couple of beam blasts back into each hangar he could see, filling them with explosions and flames as he struck idle training Mobile Suits or stored parts and munitions. He left, not looking back, so as to avoid the nightmarish scene he'd created burning itself into his dreams. He'd look at in the news. Not a moment sooner. It was just too messy.

-------------------------------------------------------------

_There's Galileo. God damn... what a mess!_ Ysak noted, shaking his head as he adjusted the thrusters, pushing the Vorpal into a dive towards the USN base. Spread out for hundreds of square kilometers below him, the base looked like it was trying to relive the third battle of Carpentaria, where the Isolation had managed to overrun the entire base in a matter of hours due to advanced tactics and new technologies. ZAFT had hung on doggedly, largely due to the fact that it was still unknown at that time just whether the Isolation really was different from Blue Cosmos, and whether or not they would simply massacre all the PLANT civilians sheltering at the base. As a result, the base had been thoroughly trashed and leveled by the invading forces, to the point where few buildings had remained standing or whole. Galileo wasn't quite at that point, but if the wild melee was allowed to continue for too much longer, it wouldn't be long before a whole new standard for widespread devastation was set. Galileo was a very well built up base, with far more infastructure than was normal because of its multinational nature, with each faction, including the USN, declining to let its competitors build a bigger, better base than itself. In the current situation, that meant collateral damage was enormous... almost every errant shot hit SOMETHING, whether it was a target range, comm tower, storage hangar or defensive emplacement. And with the confused nature of things, there were a LOT of errant shots.

_I can't even tell who's shooting at who._ Katie replied, her tone filled with misgiving. _Heck, as far as I can determine from right here, some of THEM don't even know who they're shooting at, or why... they're just shooting because they were shot at, maybe even by accident. How the hell are we going to sort this out? If we fly down into the middle of that, people are going to shoot at us just by REFLEX!_

_Aurora still looks relatively calm. We'll start there._ Ysak decided, aiming their course at the ZAFT base, which loomed up at them from the Lunar surface like a humpbacked whale breaching on the surface of the ocean. Ysak recalled, briefly, seeing such a thing during his time in Orb not so long ago... it had been an awesome sight, to say the least. Animals that big did not exist on the PLANTS... could not exist on the PLANTS. It had been humbling, and inspiring. He forced himself to focus again... neither of them could afford distraction right now. Ysak keyed his comm system, trying to find a command frequency. He needed to talk to someone in charge, and quickly! The Vorpal had IFF codes for both ZAFT and Orb, but in the current situation he didn't want to just drop down out of the blue, Gundam or no Gundam. ZAFT and Orb didn't seem to be attacking each other right at the moment, but that was no garuantee, since NOBODY should have been attacking ANYBODY, yet they were.

_You don't think that this is going to cause a political fuss?_ Katie asked as they descended, while Ysak fruitlessly tried to sort through the garbled comm network. _Us, I mean. We're an Orb made Gundam, piloted by a ZAFT commander. Isn't that going to make a lot of people think Orb and ZAFT are becoming more than a little chummy?_

_Well that IS the truth._ Ysak snarled in silent frustration as he switched channels again. _Some of the stuff in the Vorpal is propetiery to MA, but a lot of it isn't. Orb want's to keep me, and my Gundam, on rapid retainer in case of future emergencies, but facts are, I work for ZAFT. So in return for ZAFT in effect leasing me and my skills to Orb whenever Orb needs me, Orb makes me a Gundam, and ZAFT gets to look at most of the tech, complete with instruction manuals and everything. The idea was to keep it secret, to prevent jealousy from the FNE and ALU, but now that the Gundams aren't a secret anymore, that's a worthless idea. ZAFT has elected not to build its own Gundam program, instead they're in essence time sharing one with Orb. ZAFT gets a Gundam and some tech, Orb gets a Gundam and ZAFT owes them a big favor. Definitely a positive situation either way, or so I surmise, given that both sides agreed pretty easily to it. This is just the start too... I wouldn't be too surprised, at some point in the future, if ZAFT and the Orb National Military didn't end up combining on a more permanent basis._

_I don't think the FNE is gonna like that idea. The ALU either, though as long as they get some profits out of the deal, they won't bitch and moan too loudly._ Katie considered. _Not much they can legally do about it of course, especially since Cagalli isn't exactly known for giving a shit either way what the ALU or FNE have to say about military matters, or internal Orb politics. Do you want me to try contacting somebody?_

Ysak thought about the offer for a few seconds before shaking his head. _Thanks, but I don't think it would help. Whoever you contacted would probably think they'd started going crazy. Maybe they HAVE, considering the situation, but lets not push anyone more over the edge than they already are, okay?_ Ysak finally just set his comm to broadcast on all ZAFT and Orb frequencies, and he boosted his signal strength to hopefully cut through the muck and static clogging the system. "This is Commander Ysak Joule, in the Vorpal. I need to talk to someone in charge. ZAFT Forces, Orb Forces, please respond!"

There were a few moments of static and senseless noise before, at last, recognizable voices came back to them, if faintly. "This is Commander Duponte, of Aurora Base Command Staff. Say again who you are, your Mobile Suit does not show up in our database." The first voice, that of an older female, ordered. "Commander Joule, this is Colonel Fayne, ONSF (Orb National Space Forces). We have you on our screens. Be advised, sir, the current situation with ZAFT is somewhat strained. We have unconfirmed reports of unprovoked attacks by ZAFT upon our outer perimeter. They claim to have suffered attacks by us in return, but no Orb Forces... I repeat NO Orb Forces have engaged anyone outside our territory." The second voice, an older male, added right afterwards.

"So you would naturally say!" Commander Duponte retorted, now that Ysak had connected her directly with her opposite number in the Orb base. "I have seen vid of a Guardian with my own eyes launching unprovoked attacks against our perimeter defenses!"

"Just as I have seen vid of an Elemental doing the same thing to US!" Colonel Fayne replied scathingly. "If Orb wanted to attack you, Commander... and rest assured, we do NOT... then you'd be seeing more than just vid of Guardians! The Ambassador would have my balls on a plate if we initiated any sort of conflict, with ANYONE! We're supposed to be allies!"

"Yes we are! But you're being strangely reticent for an ally, Colonel. Regardless of what you may or may not have done to our perimeter, ZAFT has UNDOUBTEDLY been attacked by ALU forces on several occasions now. Probes that we sent packing handily enough, but we have requested aid and you have done nothing for us! What am I supposed to think, other than that you've cut us off for your own agenda!?" Duponte answered, her own voice beginning to heat up.

"BOTH of you need to calm down and THINK about the situation!" Ysak half shouted, angered by the infighting between two people who could have already been making great strides towards resolving the whole situation. "ONE Guardian attacking Aurora? ONE Elemental attacking Orb? The ALU... THE ALU... attacking ZAFT? Nobody see's anything wrong with this situation? The ALU Mobile Forces are a JOKE! Ginns and Bucue's and ZaOots... vs Elementals!? Nobody in their right mind would match the ALU against ZAFT. Those attacks you suffered must have been independent movements by soldiers not acting under their chain of command... the ALU knows better than to pick a fight with ANYONE without USN backing!"

"Independent movements or not, we WERE attacked." Commander Duponte argued. "We have a right to defend ourselves." Her voice softened though, as she thought. "It does seem strange that only a single machine would attack us, in the case of the Guardian. Not only that, but we never could track it down..."

"The same for us... I have studied the Elemental in our vid extensively, and as yet I have been unable to match its serial numbers to ANYTHING you have over in Aurora. The same for its IFF code. It was definitely a ZAFT Elemental, without aspect packs... but it had no team code or other identifying marks. I can't discount a special stealth unit... but why use only one?" Colonel Fayne mused, puzzlement in every word.

"I am ordering that both ZAFT and Orb stand their forces down RIGHT NOW!" Ysak cut in, his voice low and fierce. "I don't care who may have attacked who, or why, or what the fuck is going on, or you THINK is going on... participating in this conflict is not helping ANYONE. Both sides will power down their defenses and return their units to their bases at my signal, is this understood? If you don't think I have the authority to DO this, think again. I am on a first name basis with BOTH of your head's of Government, and I can get authorization the likes of which God has never seen if I have to, but I'd prefer not to make this any more complicated than it has to be! If you are attacked, by ANYONE... I will defend you. Call me and I, and my Gundam, will make an END to anyone attacking either ZAFT or Orb, understand? No matter WHO it is." Ysak set the Vorpal down in front of Aurora Base and faced the main airlock doors confidently.

"I... understand. Orb Forces, standing down now." Colonel Fayne replied, after only a few seconds hesitation.

"Just like that!?" Commander Duponte sounded flabbergasted.

"Commander, the man is piloting a Gundam custom built for him by the order of my Chief Representative and Queen. If that doesn't showcase to you the sort of faith and esteem in which she holds him, what does? I would be a fool to ignore that level of political authority, regardless of my military superiors, who would all likely agree with me anyway. I don't know how things are done in ZAFT, but in Orb, what Cagalli Zala-Attha says, goes, at least within reason. And I find his order to be quite reasonable. Besides, it means its HIS problem now." Fayne replied with a snort.

"Very well." Duponte responded, after almost a minute of consideration, and perhaps consultation with her own superiors. "ZAFT is willing to place its own faith in its own Gundam Pilot. My apologies, sir, I had not realized the full extent of your qualifications."

"I don't like making an issue of them, Commander." Ysak replied shortly. _Two down... two, possibly three more to go._

_I had no idea you could be so diplomatic. Or, well... coming in and overpowering both sides with pure charisma and brute force authority... yeah, that sounds kinda like my Ysak-y after all. Of course you do realize that if something goes bad, its all gonna be your fault now..._ Katie informed him.

_Some people are afraid of responsibility. Others thrive on it. Which do you think I am?_ Ysak retorted with a smile.

_I think... OH CRAP!_ Katie's shout of alarm went off like a low yield nuclear bomb in Ysak's head. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but he found himself spinning the Vorpal around to respond to the threat, whatever it was, before he could sort out what Katie was sending him. And then, his own eyes were providing a more than accurate summation of the problem. Namely, the reinforced platoon of almost thirty USN Champions making good speed across the lunarscape towards Aurora, weapons armed and in an assault formation. The ZAFT forces that had just been heading back to base from their perimeter positions slowly halted, confused. On one hand, they had their orders. On the other, the USN forces didn't look like they were stopping over for a calm, quiet chat either. Comm hails went unanswered, which was more than ominous. _They aren't in a mood to play nice, Ysak. Those are a lot of very pissed off people coming at us. _Katie informed him.

_Any specifics?_ Ysak asked, even as he strode the Vorpal forward, taking a position ahead of the ZAFT forces, so that he was between them and the USN platoon. "ZAFT forces, you have your orders. Stand down. Do not open fire, do not return fire if fired upon. I will handle this."

"No offense Commander Joule, but there's almost thirty of them... you might need some backup." Commander Duponte observed.

"If I have to fight the USN, Commander, no amount of backup will be enough to make the situation right." Ysak replied calmly. "USN forces. This is Ysak Joule, in the Vorpal. Halt your advance and state your intentions. ZAFT forces are standing down as we speak."

"Standing DOWN!?" A hoarse, tense voice replied over the international channel. "After what those murderous bastards did, you think we're just going to let them STAND DOWN!? Not gonna happen, buddy! You've got one option, so far as I can see... you can surrender right the fuck now, and we'll take you all into custody pending court martial!"

"We are on sovereign PLANT territory! The USN has no such authority here!" Commander Duponte answered firmly. "Commander Joule..."

"I will handle it, Commander." Ysak cut her off harshly. _Give me something, Katie!_

_They think they've been attacked. Sorting through this stuff isn't exactly easy you know! Theres a lot of them, and they're all on emotional highs! Be very careful with this, Ysak... these people are right on the line of shooting first and worrying about consequences later._

"What are you accusing ZAFT of doing, exactly? There's been a lot of confusing things happening lately. I do not want to see the USN and ZAFT fighting each other, especially over what might have been a mistake or even a deception!" Ysak asked, playing for time. If he could get them talking, get them thinking, he might be able to defuse the situation. Not only that, but it would make things easier for Katie if they were thinking logically, rather than just allowing blind rage to guide them.

"A mistake!? FUCKING RIGHT IT WAS A MISTAKE! You bastards thought you could get away with trashing our training center, with killing hundreds of recruits in training and support staff without warning, in their BEDS in some cases, while they were helpless to resist, and you wanna call it a MISTAKE now!? You think you can get away with using fucking NERVE GAS in a sealed environment, and then just act innocent and STAND DOWN to keep from getting your just desserts? I got news for you then, you fuckers... it don't work like that!" The USN commander yelled, his voice still hoarse with painful memories.

"ZAFT wold never do something so atrocious..." Commander Duponte protested.

"BULLSHIT! I SAW it happen with my own eyes! One of your Elementals sneaked down into the base... how I don't know... and wiped out the fucking RTC right in front of my eyes! I almost got shot myself!"

_He's speaking the truth. At least, he is certain he saw an Elemental destroying the training base._ Katie reported. She winced, as she encountered the man's raw memories of buried alive friends, nerve gas victims, and the splattered remains of dozens of bodies lying on the parade ground, cut to pieces by heavy bullets. Many of the bodies were of younger people, eighteen, nineteen or younger in the case of Coordinators. _But how the hell did it get down there? Mirage Colloid?_

_Mirage Colloid has been banned ever since the end of the Second War. ZAFT still has some Efreets with it, but none here and none that are used anymore. Besides, Mirage Colloid wouldn't let a Mobile Suit enter not just one, but multiple locked airlocks without making a scene. There's no way a Mobile Suit could get to the Galileo Recruit Training Command without going through at least two airlock-lifts. I don't buy it. And nerve gas? ZAFT doesn't have nerve gas. Quite literally does not have... not isn't known to have or doesn't admit to having... ZAFT does NOT have nerve gas. And while the RTC is technically a military target, ZAFT has no reason to attack it... the FNE and ALU would just LOVE a reason to get together with the USN to take down ZAFT, and attacking a USN location so brazenly would be all they would need to start a witch hunt. No, something's wrong here._ Ysak returned. _Is there anything suspicous in there? Anything at all?_

_You make it sound like a cluttered storage container, not a living mind._ Katie groused, but she kept "digging". The USN contingent had at least slowed to less than assault speed, and had begun bunching up, since they were well within range of Aurora Base's perimeter defenses and had not come under attack. Things were not going as expected, and they were starting to lose the surety of blind anger and hatred, given the lack of resistance, despite the ability to resist, that their enemies were displaying. The towering and cloak wrapped form of the unknown but unmistakable Gundam standing tall between them and the ZAFT forces was also a cause for some concern amongst many of them. They'd all watched the news concerning the Switzerland incident, and the capabilities displayed by the Gundam in that situation... who knew what sort of crazy things this blue and grey Gundam could do? Katie watched, through the USN commander's eyes, as a damaged but still mobile Champion stomped its way across the spotless parade ground of the RTC before disappearing into a hangar. Shortly thereafter, the Elemental that had laid waste to the RTC strolled out of the exact same hangar, and had begun its destructive rampage. There was no sign of the Champion, nor any indication of a clash between the two machines taking place inside the hangar. _Aha... that is strange!_

_What is?_ Ysak asked, eyeing the still approaching USN forces, with his hands tense on his triggers, especially on the controls for his Minion pods. He was going to be needing a powerful shield in a hurry if all the USN forces decided to blast him out of their path. He was pretty sure he could handle this with force if things got ugly... like, about seventy percent sure. He suddenly wished Kira and the Seraph were the one handling this... nobody in their right mind and almost none of the people in the wrong mind would shoot at Kira Yamato, regardless of situation. And if they did, the Seraph would just send everything they shot at it right back at them, neat as you please. But all he had was the Vorpal, and Katie, and that would have to be enough. Katie replayed the memories she'd found for him, and Ysak found himself frowning. _That IS strange. Where'd the Champion go? Why didn't it do anything to stop the Elemental? What the hell was a battle damaged Champion doing at the RTC anyway? There's better repair facilities elsewhere in Galileo. What the hell is going on here?_ Ysak kept most of his concentration on his instruments while he pondered, and thusly he was able to catch sight of a truly strange occurence.

A Champion at the back of the platoon suddenly disappeared from his sensor screen, its IFF icon just winking out without warning. Ysak was familiar with the phenomenon, it was what happened when a Mobile Suit or ship was destroyed, thus cutting off the IFF signal... but he'd seen no explosion, registered no weapon's fire... there was no reason for a Mobile Suit to suddenly blow up, or just plain disappear! Even more strange, a ZAFT IFF icon suddenly appeared near where the USN icon had disappeared... and it was an Elemental. "What the fuck is that?" Ysak murmured, staring at his screen. He flagged the IFF beacon on his screen and opened a data link to Aurora Base. "Commander Duponte, who the FUCK is that and why aren't they standing down?" _Why didn't you see him, Katie?_

Before she could reply, there were two explosions from the back of the USN formation, signalling the demise of two Champions, shot down from behind without ever knowing what had hit them. Needless to say, the rest of the USN forces, seeing the ZAFT icon on their sensors, weren't about to waste any more words on talk. They'd been looking for a final bit of provocation, and boy, had they found one! Some turned towards the new threat, while the rest sent a flurry of shots at the ZAFT forces making their way into Aurora Base. Ysak activated his Minion pods, producing a reinforced Citadel Shield between direct line of sight of the USN and the ZAFT forces, blocking much of the fire, while he sheltered behind his own shield against the desultory fire directed his way, mostly the result of misfires or accidents, since the USN pilots were hesistant to provoke a Gundam intentionally.

_Ysak... there's only two people dead! Three mobile suits were destroyed, or so it would seem... but only two people died! One mind barely even changed position!_ Katie replied, her tone confused. _I should have seen anyone coming within a couple kilometers right now! I should even be able to detect people like Cyprus or Ashino when we're Resonating like this!_

_I don't doubt you. But let me guess which mind didn't change position... the first Champion to "die"?_

_And the guy piloting the Elemental. I wasn't watching as closely then, but I'm pretty sure its the same mind. But how is that possible?_

"ZAFT forces... do NOT engage! Retreat at once! I repeat... do NOT engage!" Ysak screamed over his comm, as he saw some of the Elementals around Aurora start to raise their weapons as incoming fire blasted into the lunarscape around them, and splattered off Aurora's armored surface. "USN forces, cease fire! ZAFT did not attack! You have an unaligned intruder on your flanks!"

"Sure looks like an Elemental to me!" The USN commander retorted. "Ignore the bastard, people... he's just trying to confuse us! Blast the murdering fuckers! And the Gundam too... he's on their side!"

Ysak deflected a few more beam and bullet blasts with his shield... the USN pilots weren't obeying the order to attack him with much fervor, none wanting to attract his attention most likely. If only they knew his trepidation about firing on them. Normally Ysak wasn't the sort to hold back when fired upon... but right now he KNEW that they were all being manipulated into this fight, and by killing USN soldiers he would only make things worse, not better. Yet another reason to wish Kira was here... disabling enemy Mobile Suits was first nature to Kira, Ysak didn't think that he himself would be nearly as good at it. Perhaps sensing his reluctance, and definitely noting the reluctance of his command, the USN leader oriented himself on the Vorpal, and charged to the attack, beam blasts and machinegun shells spitting at the Gundam in steady streams, while an AMS-LAS missile streaked from the shoulder mount like a lance of fire. Ysak took the beam and shell fire on his shield, and easily perforated the missile with his beam CIWS, which penetrated the missile armor with ease.

Undeterred by the ease at which Ysak had handled his ranged attacks, the USN commander switched out his gun for his sword and leapt forward to the attack, gunning his thrusters for every bit of extra momentum. _Ysak..._ Katie's worried voice whispered inside his skull, he sent calming emotions and reassurance back. He knew what he was doing, and in a one on one situation, he would have no trouble in avoiding killing the poor fool. Ysak waited until the USN commander had commited to his swing before sidestepping, turning side on to the Champion, allowing its vertical sword swing to scythe through empty space while Ysak slammed his shield into his opponent's shield, unbalancing his flight. As the Champion stumbled by him, Ysak raised his 120mm shotcannon and fired a blast into the back of the Champion's left hip, the FIHR rounds glowing white hot as they penetrated the limited Phase Shift armor and blew the limb cleanly off. Staggering, the Champion tried to turn, only to take a shot from the Vorpal's twin 75mm rapidfire linear cannon right to the jaw. The explosive rounds didn't penetrate the armor, but the kinetic force sent the already unsteady machine over the point of no return, and it fell awkwardly to its back on the ground. Two more precise shots from the shotcannon blew off the sword arm and other leg, crippling the machine almost completely.

_Keep track of that Champion-Elemental. I've a feeling he might have some interesting things to tell us about why the USN is trying to kill ZAFT._ Ysak ordered, scanning the nearby area for any more direct threats. There were none, the majority of the USN forces seemingly content to try and maneuver around his Minion pods to get a clear shot at the ZAFT forces. A couple were trying to hunt down the Elemental that had sneak attacked them, but in the clouds of dust that had risen from the destruction of the two Champions, they were forced to rely heavily on their sensors, and they seemed to be having great trouble in using those effectively. Ysak was having similar problems, with the Elemental icon in question no longer even on his sensor screen... until he boosted his vari-camera array power, and there it was, of course. Slowly edging away from the fight, the Elemental was Mirage Colloid cloaked, its outlines hazy and indistinct, even to the vari-cameras. Ysak raised his shotcannon and aimed his linear cannons. The enemy was outside the effective range of the FIHR rounds special ability, but Ysak knew better than most that Mirage Colloid and Phase Shift didn't mix, so it hardly mattered whether his shots were just plain explosives or not. The cloaked Elemental seemed to realize his peril at the last moment, and he shimmered into existance, much to the surprise of the Champions searching for him, just as Ysak opened fire.

Those two Champions, as well as Commander Duponte and anyone else looking in that direction at the time, were dumbfounded to witness the linear cannon and shotcannon rounds simply bouncing off the Elemental in question, which staggered backwards under the kinetic force of the shots like a man punched in the face. Ysak frowned mightily... no Elemental mounted Phase Shift armor, and no Elemental could move like that... no Mobile Suit period could move like that! Mobile Suits did not mimic human motion anywhere near to that accuracy. Well... there was the one... and Athrun had mentioned that the terrorist machines he'd fought in Switzerland had had the capability as well... Ysak narrowed his eyes. "That's not an Elemental at all. Or a Champion. Who's in that thing?"

_Name is... hold on... Jean Dylan. Never heard of him... but he is GUILTY, and scared. Want me to give him some red hands? _Katie asked, her voice both worried and a little eager. This would be her first time in trying this particular trick, though she'd seen Lacus do it a couple of times, or something similar anyway. Lacus regarded it as unethical and all sorts of bad... Katie herself thought that, as long as it worked like it was supposed to, that it was pretty neat. And besides... she wasn't TAKING free will away... she was just making her will seem like a VERY good idea. Katie did not wait for Ysak's assent, though she knew she had it. This guy had really ticked Ysak-y off. Bad news for him. She funneled some of Ysak's frustration and anger into herself, and used it to bolster herself as she reached out and sunk her mental grip into this Jean Dylan. He'd notice she was doing it... that was kinda the point really... but he was so shocked and frightened he could barely even think to defend himself, not that he knew how. _Hello Mr. Terrorist. My name is Katie. I'm the person who's going to be mindfucking you today. I'm sure we're going to get along just GREAT, right!? Here, let's start things out by having you show us just how the hell you can look like an Elemental and a Champion, 'kay?_

_---------------------------------------------------------------------_


	13. Tilling the Ground part 3

Jean Dylan was officially starting to think that the stress was getting to him. It was odd. He'd never had any particuar problem with stressful situations before. He'd lied, cheated and betrayed his way through more than a decade of military and civilian services, and never cracked under the pressure once. He'd taken risks most other men and women could barely even imagine, and he lived a life of constant paranoia and social isolation because of it, but it had never gotten to him before, and certainly never would have he imagined that he would be hearing voices in his head! He'd never been religious either, and he didn't believe in ghosts, or angels and devils sitting on a guy's shoulder and giving him moral advice. Especially, he'd never thought that IF, IF such things did exist, that his angel and devil would be female, and cute sounding, even if she was angry. Cute and young and angry... it didn't make any sense. And he'd never have named her Katie, either the angel or the devil. But what other explanation was there? People just didn't hear voices in their heads for no reason! And especially people didn't just get terrible headaches all of a sudden, with no warning, and THEN start hearing voices! It was like something in a bad sci-fi thriller movie... like he was under psychic attack or something! But that was, of course impossible... right? Dylan was so drawn up in his internal struggle that he didn't realize he was manipulating his controls at the same time.

_Wow... I've never seen a control system like this before. Well, yeah, I have... but it was kinda crude compared to this! This thing doesn't have any of the presence that the Pulsar did... Kira would have been just fine piloting this! Hmm... I wonder who made this... Traitor? What an evil name for a Gundam! Though I suppose it fits what you've been doing with it, doesn't it, Mr. Dylan? Don't you have any remorse at all!?_

"Shut up! You aren't real! I'm not talking to you! I don't have to justify myself to anyone!" Dylan shouted, staring wildly around himself for the source of the voice. He didn't see her, but he did see a bunch of USN Champions orienting on him, along with that crazy looking Gundam with the cloak. He dimly remembered disengaging his Mirage Colloid, in order to not be blown away by that selfsame Gundam, which had somehow spotted him through his Mirage Colloid, so he guessed that was why people were looking at him. It didn't explain why the Champions had left off firing at the ZAFT forces though. That was no good at all... having ZAFT and the USN at each other's throats was the only way he could be sure of clean getaway, to keep stirring the pot somewhere else. Dylan belatedly considered that the voice in his head might be listening to him think...

_You bet your slimy, degenerate ass I am, motherfucker. It's been you, the entire time, hasn't it? Shifting your sensor signature and outer looks with your... Holoshroud? Okay, that's some pretty neat technology. Pretty slick, changing your IFF codes and appearance like that, shifting on the fly so you can keep shooting people in the back, then Mirage Colloiding away. You must have been so fucking pleased with yourself, right? Were you still pleased with yourself when you snuck into the RTC and blew away all those helpless recruits and civilians? Huh? Did that make you smile, fucker? Mission accomplished, is it? Well I got some fucking news for you, slimeball... I've got a new mission myself... and it's called turning your brain into a slushie! Just you wait... when I get my... well, when I get my chance, and nobody's looking... you'll need to be fed through a straw for the rest of your life, I promise you that!_

"How the fuck do you know what I've been do... ing..." Dylan realized that he'd been shifting the Traitor through several of its disguises as he argued with the voice in his head. He was currently a Cavalier, but was shifting to appear like a Orb Guardian. He'd been shifting appearances and IFF codes for a little while now, he realized with a start. In plain view. No wonder the Champions had left off their attack. His Guardian guise shifted to that of the battle damaged Champion he'd worn into the Galileo RTC, and Dylan found himself swallowing hard. He'd been listening to some of the talk between the other members of the USN platoon he'd joined and egged on to attack ZAFT. The things they'd been planning to do to the guy who'd shot up the RTC were not making for pleasant memories, not in the slightest. He took a couple of faltering steps back, raising his shield defensively in front of him as, for a brief moment, the Traitor shimmered and took on its real image, before he forced it to return to the appearance of a regular, undamaged Champion. Dylan shook his head and forced himself to concentrate. He had no fucking idea what was going on, but the gig was up, and he was in a hell of a bind. There was only one thing to do.

_If you surrender now, I promise to leave you the conscious use of your biological waste systems. If you make an issue of things though, you'll be using a bedpan for the rest of your pitiful life, wearing soiled adult diapers in your prison bed!_

Dylan actually had to chuckle at that. The voice in his head didn't know him very well at all. "Lady, if I get caught, there ain't gonna be no prison for me. If I'm lucky, they'll just go straight to the lethal injection stage. If I'm not, they might make a special petition to take it to the USN courts, and they'll use the good ole gallows one more time. War crimes doesn't even cover what I've done. Compared to that, I think a little bed shitting might be paradise. Way I see it, girlie, I can either go to hell now, finger raised to the world, or I go home, to a different sort of hell, one of my own creation. Either way, at this point in time, I'm good." Dylan stabbed a finger down on the button that sent out the emergency signal. Or he would have, had he not been on a NIC system, but the effect was the same. His only chance was to use the confusion of the emergency backup's arrival to blend into the mix of Champions and make good an escape.

_That's not going to happen, shithead. I've got you pegged like a thief in a spotlight. I don't care what form you take, or even if you use Mirage Colloid... you CANNOT hide from me as long as you have a conscious mind! And unless you can fight off Ysak... well, lets just say that's not going to happen, is it? You aren't a soldier... you're just a cowardly terrorist. You can kill people in their beds when you're in a Mobile Suit, but a fair fight? Not a chance, Mr. Dylan. And let me assure you, you aren't in a fair fight now. You cannot win. Give up. Maybe you're dead either way, but at least by giving up you can do one decent thing for the world!_

"Lady... I'm in so deep now that decency no longer has much meaning to me. The world can go fuck itself for all I care. And so can you!" Dylan snatched out his beam rifle and took up his last rocket grenade. He didn't think it would do much good, but he had to try.

_It's pointless, dipshit. I'm reading your mind! I know what you're going to do as soon as you do it, maybe even a little before! There's no hiding, no deception you can use on me... you can't even shut out my voice! You played your game and now you've lost. Accept it. You're doomed. No point in resisting. Hell, you should probably just kill yourself. End your pitiful, disgusting life! Its not like you're adding anything worthwhile to the human race anyway! You don't have any women in your life... little wonder... you don't have any kids, thank god... there's just you. Purposeless you, decaying in your own treacherous hell. That's not a life! That's death, warmed over!_

"Girlie, either scramble my brains or get the hell out, the way you got in. I've been worked over by experts in the art of belittlement, and you just don't cut it. I know I've got nothing but pure shit in my life... but I kinda like it that way. No illusions. I got the pleasures cold cash buy me, but thats enough. I've got one hell of a scary Boss riding my ass, and he bothers me a lot more than you do. He bothers me more than just about anyone does." Dylan took somewhat shaky aim with the rifle grenade. "SO SHUT THE FUCK UP OR DIE, EITHER WAY IS GOOD TO ME!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Rifle grenade, incoming._ Katie warned, though Ysak hadn't needed much warning from her to discern that. _I'm wearing him down I think, but the guy's pretty damn near nihilistic... a psychological victory is going to take a lot more time than we have. That signal he sent went somewhere, and I've no idea what it did, but he seems to regard it as a surefire, last ditch backup plan, and that makes me uneasy._

_Well, at least you got him to show us who started this whole thing. How the HELL did one guy cause all this? Was peace so fragile? Are we THAT close to attacking each other, all the time? Did we learn NOTHING from the Valentine wars?_ Ysak replied, somewhat bitterly, as he advanced on the Traitor. The USN machines, confronted with startling firsthand proof that ZAFT had not in fact commited the crime they thought they had, were standing down as Ysak moved to confront the enemy Gundam. He was somewhat hesitant to call it a Gundam, due to its relative paucity of armaments and the cowardly nature of its pilot, but he could not deny that what appeared to be a single Mobile Suit had set an entire base on the brink of self destruction, and that was something you had to be respectful of, even if it was deplorable. It reminded Ysak of what Nicole had done to Artemis, back in the First Valentine War... a single, sneaky minded person achieving results a hundred, maybe even a thousand people like Ysak could never have done. Ysak narrowed his eyes as the Traitor tried to hide amongst the other Champions, but with Katie as his eyes, there was no way he could lose track of the enemy now.

The Traitor fired its rifle grenade at him, and Ysak didn't bother to dodge. He strode right into the missile, which exploded against his center torso with a resounding shockwave that caused the entire cockpit to shake for a few moments, though the Vorpal itself was unharmed. _A little bit different from an unarmored building, I think he'll find._ Ysak thought vindictively, as he recalled the Minion pods to their charging ports on the Vorpal's back. He didn't anticpate needing them for this loser. The Traitor fired several beam blasts at him, But he just put his shoulder behind his shield and waded through them, altering his shield position in time with Katie's prompts about where the Traitor was aiming. It was like playing a game with cheat codes activated... knowing what his opponent would do changed the game from easy to stupid easy. An almost idle snap shot from the Vorpal's shotcannon blasted the beam rifle from the Traitor's hand, and sent the machine stumbling back in a disconcerting fashion. Ysak forced himself to remember about the control system the enemy Gundam employed... he could not let himself grow too complacant, because his foe had ranges of motion available to him that Ysak could only dream of having.

The Traitor pulled a second weapon from behind its back, but Katie registered no major alarm. Ysak saw why a moment later as the Traitor opened fire, with a shotcannon only slightly larger than the Vorpal's. Explosive shotgun pellets peppered the front torso and limbs of the Vorpal, picking small holes in its photon cloak, causing the defenisve garment to billow out behind the Gundam like a cape, but as the Traitor burned through its clip, Ysak knew that even their enemy knew that his attacks were pointless. He was just declining to give in to the inevitable. At length, as Ysak strode to close range, the Traitor's shotgun clicked empty and was discarded as well, to be replaced by a beam sword. Ysak had to laugh when his opponent drew his sword. He was holding it entirely wrong, more like a man with a walking stick or club than a man with a sword. Who the hell had given a scrub like this an advanced Gundam? He had no idea how to fight at all! Ysak drew the Siegfried and advanced at the walk into close combat. At least the bastard had the sense to realize that fleeing was futile.

Ysak brushed the Traitor's pathetic attempt at a sword swing aside with a simple motion with his shield and then returned the blow with a relatively simple attack of his own. No point in wasting fine technique on a foe like this, when brute force would do the job just fine. The Traitor at least managed to interpose his own shield into the path of the overhand attack, Citadel Shield flaring greenly. Not that it mattered in the slightest, as Siegfried sliced as cleanly and easily through the Citadel effect, and the shield behind it, as through empty space, bisecting the shield from top to bottom and splitting the Traitor's forearm to the elbow in the same swing. Ysak had to admit, he was impressed. He had known what the system was supposed to do... to see it split a Citadel Shield and Phase Shift armor with such ease was altogether breathtaking. The Traitor seemed still game, despite the shocking loss of its shield, and it swung at Ysak again, as clumsy as before. Siegfried took the Traitor's sword hand off at the wrist before the swing was a third completed, again with such ease that Ysak didn't even register resistance as the blade passed through the Phase Shift armor. Ysak stepped forward and used his shield to slam the Traitor backwards, off its feet and onto its back in a cloud of sparks.

_Not even a challenge._ Ysak thought with some exasperation and more than a little disappointment. _Whoever gave this guy a Gundam was a total fool. Lacus Clyne could have beat this guy!_ Ysak prevented the Traitor from rising by leveling his sword at its throat, and put one foot on his foe's chest just to be sure. _Tell him to come out of there, or be cut out of there. Either is fine with me._

_I've been trying and... YSAK!_ Katie shouted the warning, even as a section of Aurora bulged outward before disintegrating in a huge explosion, followed by a massive gale of burning air escaping out of a three level deep rent in the ZAFT base. Ysak staggered away from the pyrotechnics, shocked at the suddeness of the explosion as much as the power. He recognized the explosion type as that usually associated with compressed plasma type weapons, also known as hyper-impulse weapons, but who would be firing large caliber weapons of that type INSIDE Aurora? His question was answered a moment later, as a new Mobile Suit jumped out of the hole it had obviously made and came to a standing rest a hundred meters away or so. It was of a type totally unfaimilar to the Vorpal's schematic memory, which was updated to even include the quasi-Gundams that Athrun had fought in Switzerland. His computer began compiling data on the machine immediately.

Twenty two meters tall, and massing upwards of a hundred and forty tons, the Mobile Suit was bigger and bulkier than the Vorpal by a goodly ways, though it was smaller than Dearka's Warmaster. It moved with the loose jointed, easy gait that the Traitor had evidenced, and the quasi-Gundams in Switzerland had used. That, as well as the dark green and gold paint scheme, told Ysak that this was very definitely a Brotherhood Mobile Suit. How many different types of Mobile Suit could a single terrorist organization have!? Already they were up to two, maybe three Gundams and a mass production model! The ALU wasn't even that good! The newcomer fairly bristled with weapon systems, to the point of ridiculousness. Each shoulder mounted two 450mm railguns and a 150mm beam cannon, while each handless arm ended in three thirty tubed missile launchers, clustered around what appeared to be a 300mm hyper-impulse cannon. Six 80mm gatling cannons crowded into the chest region, and Ysak could discern no place for an actual cockpit to be, which was disconcerting. Finally, four CIWS were mounted in the head region of the new enemy, rounding out the stupendous arsenal. Not since the Merciless had Ysak encountered such a heavily armed enemy.

_Who the hell is this guy? And where the hell did he come from?_ Ysak took most of his attention off the Traitor to confront this new threat, along with the USN and surviving ZAFT forces. "Commander Duponte, what the hell is this?"

"I was h-hoping you could tell me, Commander Joule..." Duponte replied shakily. "That thing just burst out of one of my storage sheds a minute ago and started laying waste to everything in its path between there and the outer wall. Nothing I sent against it even slowed it down. I've never seen anyone move a Mobile Suit like that! Never! It was like it was dancing through the fire!"

_I think I know what his emergency failsafe button did._ Katie observed. She was feeling kind of jittery too, though for a different, if related, reason. _Ysak... there's nobody in that thing._

_What do you mean?_ Ysak watched the Brotherhood machine flex its arms and legs as it slowly turned in place, as if measuring the number of foes visually. _Look at it move. So fluid. Its unfair... something as top heavy as that brute should plod and creak!_

_I mean there's no fucking mind in that thing! There's no pilot that I can detect! I saw this Dylan guy, in his Traitor, just like that. But this new thing... there's nothing there! Dylan calls it a Martyr, and he's glad to see it... but that's all I can give you. I won't be of any use against that thing... it might as well be a robot!_

_Maybe it IS a robot._ Ysak replied, though he didn't really believe that. The motions were too realistic, too graceful. Too human, really. A machine wouldn't have looked around, wouldn't have stood there in a dramatic entrance, it would have just started firing the moment it had targets. _In any case, its an enemy. Keep an eye on Dylan... I'll handle this... Martyr._ Even as Ysak thought that, the Martyr burst into flame. Or so it appeared, until he realized that it had just opened up with all its weapon systems, hosing the area outside Aurora down with more than a hundred missiles, beam blasts, hyper-impulse trails, railgun tracers and explosive shells. The Champions were prepared, but the volume of firepower was so immense that some shots sneaked around their Citadel shields to chip away at their limited Phase Shift armor. The ZAFT Elementals, lacking Citadel Shields, fared rather less well in the firestorm, unable to use their maneuverability to good advantage at such relative close range. The Vorpal's Citadel Shield was more than up to the task of deflecting the mostly unaimed shots that came his way, but the Martyr was not slow in its threat assessment. The Champions were a problem, but the Gundam was the priority target, especially as it was currently threatening one of the Harbringers.

Contrary to what most support class Mobile Suits would do, the Martyr charged forward, trying to close as quickly as possible with the Gundam. Beam blasts and machinegun fire from the Champions chipped away at its thick armor, but the Martyr moved so quickly that the Champions had trouble getting a proper target lock. More used to foes who moved with lightning speed, Ysak triggered his right shoulder mounted weapon, sending a twenty millimeter beam of intense blue light slicing outwards towards the Martyr. The Martyr dodged, avoiding being cut in half vertically, though it did not move from the FRALA beam's path quickly enough to avoid losing its left arm at the shoulder. Undeterred by the loss if the arm or the firepower it contained, the Martyr continued its headlong rush, now opening up with its own weapons, trying to pin the Vorpal down.

Ysak activated his Minions again, adding their firepower, widely spaced, to his own, as he cut loose with his own ranged weapons, trying to blast the Martyr into oblivion before it could do whatever it was trying to do. His own shield, and the heavy, swirling material of his photon cloak, were kept busy intercepting the incoming barrage of munitions and beams. Ysak focused on the beams, since while the missile and shell or railgun impacts caused the Vorpal to shake and tremble, they could not cause major damage, when he was as braced as he was. The cannon shells weren't big enough caliber to send him flying, like the Merciless had done with its shotgun, or rattle him like it had with its gatling cannons, and the railgun rounds came too infrequently to shake him for long. His own return fire, if somewhat inaccurate because of the onslaught he was enduring, still mananged to tear holes in the Martyr's armor, or blow off entire weapon systems from its chest, shoulders and arm. Still, despite his best efforts, the Martyr did not slow, did not even waver a bit as it charged onwards at maximum speed.

_Ysak..._

_I know! I know what I'm doing. He may look suicidal, but this is just a big game of chicken. If I flinch first, then he's going to be between me and the Traitor, and this Dylan guy will have room to run._ Ysak replied, stowing his shotcannon and drawing Siegfried once more. _Albeit, he definitely looks like he's serious about running me down. Sure would be helpful if I knew what he was thinking._

_There's NOTHING in there! I'm telling you, there's no human mind in that thing!_

_Well SOMEONE is sure as hell piloting it! And they aren't half bad either! Hold a moment..._ Ysak spun the Vorpal to the side, parrying a bashing swing of the Martyr's remaining arm with his shield, before he stabbed Siegfried up and into the right torso of the Martyr as it thundered by, not having slowed even a fraction. A gaping rent appeared in the torso area, and debris rained down from the location of the hit, but if the Martyr was at all bothered by having its torso cut almost in half, it didn't show it, as it slowed to a halt and turned to face them from about twenty meters distance. _Okay... what the hell?_

_I'm starting to get a bad feeling..._

_So you CAN detect something!_

_NO! This is just regular intuition... but if I was gonna call something that big and relentless a Martyr, and send it on a suicide charge... and perhaps I maybe had a way of controlling it without actually being in the cockpit... if it even has one... what do you think it would do if it became so badly damaged it could not fight on?_

_Oh damn..._ Ysak had never moved his shield so fast in his entire life, and it was barely in time, as the Martyr, with all internal spaces not taken up with operational machinery being filled with a usually inert but ultimately highly explosive compound, in addition to its aumminition stores and self destruct device, initiated its primary offensive attack. Chemical compounds were pumped throughout the Mobile Suit by one shot high pressure hydraulic systems, activating the usually inert explosive compound, and then, a nanosecond later, the self destruct device went off. The resulting explosion hurled the Vorpal away like a leaf before a gale, in an uncontrolled flight, at least until it rammed into the outside of Aurora, leaving a rather large dent in the armored surface. The shockwave from the detonation sent the Champions and Elementals staggering likewise, though they were not swept off their feet, having been quite a bit removed from the blast epicenter. Nobody had been expecting the Mobile Suit to just blow up without warning like that. Self Destruct was a last resort, a means of denying valuable technology to the enemy. Nobody in their right mind would use it as an attack! Taking the other guy with you was a best an even trade!

Ysak shook his head to clear away the ringing and shaking sensation. His shield had taken most of the blast's energy, which was a good thing because without it the Vorpal would have been lucky to remain a smoking skeleton, but you know you've had a bad day and a close call when you can tell yourself that you were lucky to be thrown a hundred meters into a building, and not merely blown to pieces on the spot. _Ouch. You okay?_

_Triple ouch. I hope this isn't setting the baselines for what I can expect of fighting alongside you. If it is, I'm quitting now. I feel like a pebble shaken inside a tin can._ Katie replied sourly. She'd lost her rebreather sometime during the shock, and it was something of an ordeal all by itself breathing the thick, gluey fluid of the aerated gel inside her tank. Not to mention all the bruises and contunsions she'd suffered from being bounced around. _Sorry about those nail marks and scratches. I had a good grip... sort of._

_What nail marks and... oh... FUCK! OWW! DIG IN YOUR CLAWS ENOUGH!?_ Ysak's mind caught up to his body, and he felt the ten deep, oozing parallel scratches across both sides of his chest, from midstomach all the way up to his shoulders, where Katie's fingernails had ripped tracks in his skin when she was thrown backwards, almost entirely out of the harness, by the explosive shockwave.

_Yeah well, maybe if you'd listened to me when I said nobody was inside that thing, he wouldn't have gotten so close, and had the chance to blow us to hell and back now would he? I'm not exactly unscathed back here myself, you know!_ Katie wrinkled her nose as she tasted a coppery tang in the gel. It took her less than second to realize what it was, and less than three seconds after that to initiate the emergency release from her holding tank. Seals broke with wet sucking sounds as she practically jumped out of the top of the tank, along with a huge rush of blue gel that took advantage of the negligible gravity to fly pretty much everywhere across the cockpit, splattering over everything. Coughing and retching the blue gel out of her lungs as she lay sprawled across the control screens and Ysak's lap probably wasn't the most attractive she'd ever appeared, but Katie was far from caring. She was damned if she was going to breath even a little bit of Ysak's blood in with the gel! The mere thought made her physically ill.

_This cockpit is an unholy mess._ Ysak's thoughts were calm, almost analytical. _But we can worry about that later. Dylan?_

_... Gone, I'm afraid. I lost my concentration during that explosion. Right out of the Trance and everything. Can't exactly reconnect now either. I don't see him sticking around though, assuming the explosion didn't destroy him too._

_He reminds me of a rat... never does die when its supposed to. There's not much left of that Martyr, but I think that's the idea. Once again, no major leads on who's behind this. Goddamn it, but how can they be so ahead of us? How can this go any more wrong!?_ Ysak complained. He was answered a moment later, when his comm system pinged an override, and came up with a two way audio-visual feed between him and Earth. Between him and both Cagalli and Athrun, actually. _Great, just who I needed to talk to when I'm pissed off..._

_At least you got clothes on..._

---------------------------------------------------------------

"And in recent news, the USN Space Headquarters at the Galileo Lunar Fleet Base, on the dark side of Luna, recently suffered a severe terrorist attack, by parties unknown, two days ago. What is known is that the terrorists in question managed to infiltrate the multinational sections of the base and use sophisticated electronic and visual camouflaging devices to simulate attacks upon various sovereign member states by apparent members of other sovereign member states, resulting in a brief reliving of the events of some parts of the Valentine Wars, despite the best efforts of the USN to keep the peace. Simultaneously, other terrorists initiated a surprise attack with stolen ZAFT Mobile Suits upon the USN Recruit Training Command, within the hub of Galileo, nearly destroying the training base and causing hundreds of casualties to both military and civilians. It was only through laborious and costly work by the USN that order was restored at all, and Galileo LFB has been designated an international disaster area in the interim. The identities of the terrorists who perpetuated both attacks are, at this moment, unknown, and no groups have stepped forward to claim responsibility. In response to the public outcry, USN officials have cited a lack of sufficient force levels as being a major contributing factor to the severity of the terrorist incident. In related news, USN Secretary of Defense Gilbert Durandel went before the USN Security Council earlier today in an emergency session geared towards..."

Alkire turned off the newscast, switching the channels idly as he hunted for a sports game, ignoring the looks he got from Ramierez and Glory. "I ain't the fucking Lt." Alkire said, after a few seconds of them gazing at him imploringly. "You wanna watch the fucking news, despite the fact that we all know the real story, then go right ahead, but you're gonna have to find your own TV set to do it."

"But it's supposed to be training..." Raven trailed off. She was still too new to the unit to feel comfortable criticizing a superior officer. She usually didn't give a flying fuck either way, but she actually respected Major Jones a goodly bit, if not as much as she did the Lt. In a normal unit, a Private simply did not disagree, publicly, with a Major. Hell, they would never even be in a situation where the Private could disagree with a Major to their face, in the usual course of things. Of course, for that matter, in normal units staff sergeants or even sergeant-major's ALSO did not publicly disagee with Major's to their faces, but Ramierez and Glory were practically legends... they did stuff nobody else would think to do, and they did it every day.

"We know the real story, but seeing how the media presents the facts, or does not, as the case may be, is experience in sorting disinformation from real information that is potentially invaluable." Kurtz spoke up in support, though he was staring fixedly at a point somewhere a few inches above Alkire's head, not into his face. "Besides..." Kurtz continued in a more pleading voice. "He's expecting a report..."

"Look up the cliff notes, Conrad. That's how I got most of my reports done." Alkire retorted with a heartless smile. "Those that I just didn't make up from scratch that is."

"You're not providing a very good role model for the junior soldiers. Sir." Glory noted with a raised eyebrow.

"Blow me, CSM (Company Sergeant-Major)."

"With respect, Major, the Major in question isn't near pretty enough for that to happen, no matter how much he may want it." Glory replied, leaning back on the couch he'd appropriated for himself, which creaked under his weight. "I would suggest seeking out the better looking Major for such services, were he to desire them so badly. Though I would fain beg to be allowed to hear her response, and perhaps see her pluggeth thou twice between the eyes before you get the second word fully out of your mouth."

"Speaking of good looking girls, did any of the rest of you guys get a peek of that vidcomm Athrun and Cagalli had with Ysak and Katie right after the incident at Galileo? I mean holy SHIT, talk about an erotic pose! Not sure what the blue stuff was but..."

"Shut up, Corporal." Glory intoned levelly.

"But sarge-major!"

"That sort of talk is sexual harassment with a lady present. You'd know that if you ever did your online training."

"I'm no lady..." Raven spoke up.

"Shut up, Private. You're a lady until I say different." Glory groaned and rubbed at his brow with one hand. "I have no interest in listening to Ramierez go off on another one of his rants about how eminently fuckable some of the people we work for are. Its unethical. Not to mention, it gives me the joneses, since I'm single, and hating it."

"I can give you some tips, sarge-major..."

"Fuck off, Corporal. I remember what your tips did for Ashino. My car was never the same after that."

"I can see I'm not appreciated here!" Ramierez sat upright in his chair. "Come on, Conrad. Lets go walk a random patrol. Perhaps we can walk in on Athrun and Cagalli just before they get into the hot and heavy again."

"Not on your life, Corporal." Kurtz shivered at the mere thought. "I don't know if I can ever look Cagalli in the face again as it is."

"The trick, Conrad, is not to look at her face. Her face is pretty eye catching, I will admit... but there are places much easier to fix your attention onto, remember!"

"It's a good thing Athrun can't hear you say things like that." Raven commented, with a nervous laugh.

"Things like what?" Athrun poked his head through the door to the break room from the adjoining hallway. All of the Stormhounds jumped, some more than others. Glory merely twitched an eyebrow, while Ramierez almost fell out of his chair. Kurtz, Raven and Alkire fell somewhere in between. Athrun smiled, pleased as always to have caught the "ever ready" Stormhounds slightly off guard. It was good payback, for all the times they did it to him.

"GODDAMN IT!" Ramierez cried. "You need to wear a fucking bell or something, sir! You're going to give me a heart attack before my time at this rate!"

"Where the hell is your bodyguard, sir?" Kurtz spoke up, frowning when he saw that Athrun was alone. The frown deepened when Athrun merely shrugged nonchalantly. "You do realize we go up on report when you ditch us like that, don't you?"

"I thought it was training?" Athrun replied, unfazed by the Stormhounds accusatory tone. "For both sides. If I don't ditch you, it puts a crimp in my personal life. If I do, you go up on report. Win some, lose some. Besides, we're in the middle of the National Palace... what's going to happen?"

"Assassins can strike from anywhere." Cyprus said, stepping up behind Athrun from the room across the hall from the break room. "At any time." He was pleased to see that the Coordinator jumped, along with the members of the Stormhounds. The only one who didn't flinch was Thomas, who tended to assume that his superior officer was around regardless if he could see him or not, unless he had hard proof otherwise. "In fact, most assassinations, like most vehicle accidents, tend to happen in places near homes or along well traveled routes, where a person is feeling the most safe and invulnerable, and they let their guard down the most. If I was an assassin, Mr. Zala, you'd be dead right now. And none of your five bodyguards within easy speaking distance could have done anything to stop me."

"I feel a critique coming on." Alkire noted sourly, though he made no move to rise or otherwise pay attention to Cyprus, now that he was aware of the man. "Luckily I'm off duty."

"You've really got an attitude problem today, sir." Glory noted. "I mean, you've always got an attitude problem... its part of your charm, sir... but today I think you're overdoing it a bit. Something wrong?"

"What... you mean besides an unknown and highly advanced terrorist organization running around mucking up the world and slaughtering hundreds of helpless boots and cooks up on the Moon? Something besides a mass murdering, freakishly religious organization of psychos with Gundams out to destroy the world running loose? Besides a public that is basically being herded directly into Durandel's hands by these terrorists, and are only too happy to have it happen? Besides a very real and definite threat showing up JUST in time for Durandel to make use of it in order to cement his grip on SecDef? None of these is wrong enough?" Alkire retorted, somewhat hotly. "No, I'm fine, if a little hungry, thanks for asking." He turned his gaze on Athrun. "Remind me, Athrun, just why didn't Orb say anything about how it was Ysak and Katie that stopped this latest atrocity in its tracks, not the oh so glorious USN, who in fact tried to KILL them not long before?"

"You know as well as I, Alkire. Politics. Neither Cagalli nor I am particularly happy about it, but the truth is, its still too soon after the Swiss debacle for us to be fighting toe to toe with Durandel, at least publicly. And the fact remains, regardless of who stopped the attack, the attack was stopped. In this case, I call that better than letting it rage on, regardless of who gets the credit for stopping it! I'm sorry Katie was put into danger, but it was her own choice to have Dr. Simmons make the Vorpal that way, not mine. From what I understand though, Ysak never would have been able to discover what was really going on without her there, and the intelligence she recovered for us is the first real data we have to go on. We're looking up this Jean Dylan as we speak."

"Katie may be my adopted daughter..." Alkire paused to shoot a significant glance at Ramierez, who had been just about to rant about her "erotic qualities" a few minutes before. "... but she's a big girl now, and I was not TOO worried about her. She can do stuff with that Newtype power of hers that I frankly have to label as magical. And from what I hear, when she's connected to Ysak, she can do stuff that's downright scary. Is it really that big of a stretch to think that I'm worried about world peace? Living through two major wars was MORE than enough for me, thanks... I'd prefer to keep things to a dull roar if possible. I think the Pink Princess is starting to rub off onto me."

"You'll be looking up Mr. Dylan for quite a while, I'm afraid." Cyprus spoke up. "If memory serves, that is only one of a rather lengthy list of names he has had or used. In his own way, he's probably one of the most infamous men alive, though almost nobody knows about him directly."

"I shared a cell, briefly, with a man by that name once..." Alkire mused.

"Unlikely that this was the same man, given how many people want him very dead, but anything is possible." Cyprus shrugged slightly. "I would imagine though, that if the EA had gotten their hands on a man by that name, given that he is the man who sold the Cyclops data from JOSH-A to ZAFT, thus preventing the EA's trap at JOSH-A during the First Valentine War from being fully effective, that his lifespan would be measured in minutes, perhaps seconds, and that a cell would be too much of a luxury for him."

"Wait-a-minute... this is the same dude that sold out the entire Alliance!?" Kurtz leaned forward avidly.

"And then double crossed ZAFT by selling pertinent defensive secrets about the Victoria Spaceport to the EA, just before the Alliance's last major space offensive. I'm fairly sure he's responsible for several other high level information leaks, going both ways, which may have added at least ten or twenty thousand casualties to the First War, just by his actions. And from what I hear, he's purely mercenary... only as loyal as the size of his paycheck. A truly despicable man." Cyprus replied with a slight frown of distaste. "I suppose working for a terrorist group was one of the few options he had remaining for employers that did not want his treacherous soul dead."

"Just our luck he chose the bastards with Gundams, eh?" Ramierez said with a wry smile that no one shared.

"The level of technology displayed by these Brotherhood fanatics is deeply disturbing to me." Cyprus said, accepting the topic change. "Religious fanatical groups, as they appear to be, usually are at odds with advanced technological resources, for ethical and religious reasons. Not only that, but they tend to be unable to resist taking credit for things, and yet this Brotherhood has not stepped forward to lay claim to Galileo, despite the fact that they must know we realize they were behind it, even if the news does not say so. Furthermore, at least after my initial analysis, I'm forced to conclude that the attack on Galileo was precisely planned NOT for maximum damage, as one would expect, but instead to illustrate a so called weakness in the USN's force levels, a political point SecDef Durandel has been hammering for a while now."

"Not for maximum damage? How can you say that? Galileo's a fucking wreck! And the RTC there... hundreds of people died!" Alkire protested.

"The Brotherhood, with the resources even my most conservative estimate places them as having, should have been able to wipe Galileo off the face of the Lunar surface, for just about the same amount of effort that they used to infiltrate the base, down even to the RTC, and only destroy a few buildings and kill helpless recruits and civilians. Why use misdirection and chaos to incite member state forces against each other when you plainly have the in depth knowledge of the base and the stealth technology required to infiltrate it, so easily that smuggling in bombs, even nuclear devices, would be almost a joke? I mean, they hid this Martyr machine in the middle of Aurora Base for who KNOWS how long, waiting for that activation signal from the Traitor. That implies a level of planning and organization that is deeply frightening to me. Not only that, but plainly, the Martyr was an EXPENDABLE asset, given its brief combat life. If the Brotherhood is willing to invest that sort of time and resources for what is in essence a walking BOMB... they should be able to wipe out an unprepared base, no problem whatsoever."

"Who builds a Mobile Suit designed for suicide attacks anyway?" Raven spoke up, a confused expression on her face. "I'm not a real expert on cost analysis, but that strikes me as pretty damned wasteful, right? There's a lot of easier ways to blow big holes in the ground than designing a Mobile Suit, building it, arming it, smuggling it into place and then blowing it up two minutes after activating it, right? Besides the problem of getting a nutso pilot to run around in an explosive filled vehicle, armed to the teeth and wearing colors every military in the USN will shoot on sight, then be willing to blow himself up just to let a badly damaged Gundam escape! Who the hell is THAT devoted to a cause? I can see someone blowing themselves up to kill others... but to SAVE someone? That seems odd."

"From what Katie told me right after the battle ended, when Cagalli and I finally got through to them, she seemed pretty sure that there WASN'T anyone inside the Martyr, that it was instead either controlled entirely by computers or by remote control. In her words there was no living mind inside it. From my own experiences in Switzerland, that actually makes some sense, as the machines I encountered there, the two Zealots, I believe they were called, also showed no hesitation for using self destruct when capture seemed imminent, and fought without regard for damage dealt to them, as if the pilots were not worried about actually dying in combat. I have no doubt that there were real human pilots somewhere though... they moved too much like humans, with that damnably impossible control system we found in the Pulsar, for them to be AI controlled. Ysak and Katie's observations parallel my own on this." Athrun said with a frown. "I'm forced to conclude that not only does the Brotherhood have the capability of building Gundams, but that in some areas, their technology is markedly superior to our own, such as their control systems and apparently their REMOTE control systems as well. Not only that, but they possess the industrial and economic resources to build multiple types of Gundams and at least two types of mass production models, one of which is entirely expendable!"

"People like these have got to leave a paper trail somewhere!" Kurtz exclaimed. "We're talking tens of millions, hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of dollars here... money like that doesn't just get handed over in briefcases!"

"We're looking into that, but so far we've come up with nothing. However the Brotherhood is making or moving their money, it has so far eluded our notice for a number of years, as many as ten or more, in the worst case. Perhaps they are utilizing the Spiffy and Waft drug networks, but its too soon to tell, and either way, those networks don't handle the kind of cash flow the Brotherhood apparently has access to. I'm beginning to think that searching on the net is counterproductive... our enemy has a level of technical competence beyond anything anyone has ever encountered... they may very well be using our attempts to spy on them to spy on US. The only time I've ever seen data work like this is right at the end of the Isolation." Cyprus continued, allowing a larger degree of frustration to show in his furrowed brow.

"You mean that computer program that was following the President around?" Glory sat up straighter, having not made that connection until just now. "THAT is the sort of shit the net guys are up against? Poor bastards. Whoever fucking hacked the Presiden't personal computer system THAT thoroughly is in a league of their own."

"But that dude didn't DO anything!" Ramierez protested. "He downloaded those timer programs, sure..."

"You mean the timer programs that told us, to the second, when the Angry Sky bombs were going to fall?" Athrun cut in. "The timer programs that predicted, somewhat inaccurately though it may have been, when Frost was going to show up in the Pulsar and attempt to kill everyone? The timer program that BEGAN the moment he started his attack? This guy downloaded THOSE timers?"

"When you put it like that, it's a lot more frightening." Ramierez observed in a small voice. "I mean, theres like no way the dude could have known that sort of stuff... unless he was in on it. And anybody who was IN on directing Frost is NOT SOMEONE I WANT TO FUCK WITH!"

"How long have these bastards been pulling strings!?" Alkire demanded, of the empty air. "They were involved with the Angry Sky... they were somehow involved with directing Frost, and in the end I could have SWORN he was an independent agent... apparently they were taunting you Isolationist fuckers... they, from the looks of these new Gundams, BUILT the Pulsar, which was... and still IS, freaky far advanced... is anyone else feeling a little bit unsettled here, besides me?"

"Oh, you gave me a thought just now that's going to make all that seem like a spring walk." Athrun replied with a shiver. "I remember the Pulsar pretty damn well, from both looking over its systems aboard the Archangel, and from fighting against it. Besides just the control system, which we know these new Brotherhood machines have, perhaps even an improved version of it, according to Katie... there were several other abilities the Pulsar had that these new machines have NOT yet evidenced. Things like the fusion reactor, or whatever it was that powered the Pulsar and made it shine like a star on thermal scans. Or the damned near impossible thruster and G-force compensation system the Pulsar used to accelerate hundreds of gravities in seconds without smearing the pilot across the interior. Or, though this isn't really a technology, a pilot that was the very definition of superhuman in his capabilities. So far the pilots we've faced have been on the upper side of mediocre, at best. It makes me wonder... when are we going to encounter their elite pilots? And what kind of Gundams are they going to be using?"

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"Boss... I know I fucked up pretty bad. But you gotta listen to me... it wasn't my fault! I did just what you told me to do... but I still got found out, I don't know how!" Jean Dylan protested, wringing his hands out of view of the vidcomm screen. He'd made it back to the Great Endeavor, mostly in one piece, though it had been far from a comfortable or quick ride, given the damage the Traitor had taken, both from the battle and the explosive death of the Martyr. If the damn thing had been two feet closer, people would be grinding bits of Dylan into the lunar dirt for centuries, unable to distinguish him from the grey dust that covered the Moon. He was glad to have gotten away... but goddamn, he'd been sure he was going to die! He recalled the battle... if you could call it that, which he couldn't really... against the Orb Gundam... or was it the ZAFT Gundam... the exact ownership seemed to be in flux. He'd gotten his ass kicked. No, worse than that. It hadn't been a fight. It had been a slaughter. He remembered again with a deep shiver the way the sword had cut through his Citadel Shield and Phase Shift armor like it wasn't even there. What the HELL could do that? Not to mention... Dylan quaked again... not the mention the girl's voice in his head. He was dreading bringing that up to the Boss, but what choice did he have? It was his only excuse.

"There was this girl... and... and she talked to me! Without a comm system! She talked into my head, Boss! You gotta believe me, I ain't crazy! I ain't! She talked into my fucking head and started playing mind games with me! She made me display the holoshroud in front of all those Champions! She tried to get me to surrender, but I didn't! You gotta believe me, Boss! I could never make something this fucking nuts up, could I?" Jean pleaded.

"I would not be able to judge what sort of craziness you could invent to justify yourself, Mr. Dylan." The Bosses voice... his real voice, the one of the teenager, not the older man, came back to Dylan. Jean swallowed... he didn't hear the bosses real voice very often, only in the very best of times... and the very worst. And he had a gut feeling as to which this was going to be. He waited, heart in his throat, for a few more moments. "As it happens, Mr. Dylan, though you may not understand why... I do believe you."

"You... y-you do?" Jean stammered. "Not that I'm complaining or nothing!" Jean hasted to added. "Just... I, well, I know how crazy it sounds..."

"There are things in this world, Mr. Dylan, that are beyond the ken of all but the angels themselves. You should not be surprised that it sounds crazy to you, but let me assure you... to someone in the know, your tale, while fantastic... is quite credible. Do not concern yourself with the matter any further. Given the situation, you did just fine. Place from your mind any more concerns about this girl who spoke in your mind. Unless you happen to recall something about her. Did she sound familiar in any way? Like anyone famous, perhaps?"

"Uh... no, Boss. Sorry, she was a complete stranger. Said her name was Katie and she was working with some dude named Ysak. I think he might have been the Gundam Pilot."

"Katie and Ysak, is it? How interesting. I had not realized." Noah commented, both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised. Pleasantly because he was always glad to discover more Newtypes, unpleasantly because he had not accounted for them in his plans just yet. From the sound of things, this Katie was quite a powerful telepath, if she was able to reach Dylan through the Stump Barrier. There were some Newtype powers, such as some of the ones Noah had mastered, that worked regardless of Stump Barriers... but telepathy was definitely not one of them. Indeed interesting. Noah's own telepathic powers were relatively modest... he would certainly never dream of being able to hold a two way conversation with anyone he was not Trancing with, and even then it was a struggle to convey more than emotions and basic thoughts, like a very young child might have. He wondered what other powers she had, or if she even realized that she HAD other powers to tap. He would have to investigate, and soon. For the moment he turned his attention back to Dylan, and the day to day management of affairs.

"Don't worry about the damage to the Traitor. I'll have it back up and running in a few days. Assets are there to be utilized, and expended as need be. Such as the Martyr. Feel no guilt about it. It served its purporse and we have many more. They are cheaper to produce than you might think." Noah assured his underling. Indeed, with the transmutative properties of his Red EDEN nanocolonies, almost anything was cheaper the produce than most people would think. All it took was time and power, and he could turn the most worthless of space dust into an almost equal amount of any material he so desired. Molecular reconstruction was such a worthwhile technology... it was too bad he was one of the only people who could enjoy it. At least, for the meanwhile. He had no doubt that the hordes of spies and investigators trying to track down the Brotherhood's source of income would be quite despondent if they were to ever realize that instead of a money sink, the Brotherhood was actually a source of positive cash flow, in a net sense, because his machines were only damaged infrequently, while his Red EDEN vats were operating twenty four hours a day.

"Whatever you say, Boss." Dylan agreed, not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. "So I noticed the screa... I mean, Ms. O'Brien is gone. Does that mean the third strike is due to commence soon?"

"You shouldn't need me to tell you that, Mr. Dylan. You know the first stages of the plan as well... well, as well as you need to. So far, you and Mr. Randolf have both performed to expectations, if not a little beyond, despite what you may think. Now it falls to Mary to do the same. I do hope she won't get carried away, but frankly, I doubt it. I've already organized a backup. Its something I'm unfortunately used to doing."

"You're the man, Boss. Or kid. Or whatever you want to be. I'm going to get some sleep, and maybe a long shower. Call me if you need me!" Dylan signed off from the vidcomm, a look of heavy relief sagging across his face. Noah was gladdened to see that the treacherous lout held him in such fear, for it would help ensure his loyalty, at least to a point. The enormous paycheck would take care of the rest. Though whether or not Dylan would be able to spend all his money in the future would be anyone's guess. Noah put it as "unlikely". He turned his thoughts to his third progidal employee, Mary O'Brien. Of the five Harbringers, she was definitely one of the better pilots, though that was more due to her dedication and fanatical spirit than true piloting skill, such as what Cray and Michael brought to the table. The Tormented was a moderately powerful machine... much more direct than either the Haunted or the Traitor, but less overt and awe inspiring than the Revenant or the Vengeance. For the sort of person Mary was, the Tormented was just perfect... as it should be, given that he had built it with her mostly in mind.

Now, if she would but employ it in the proper fashion, taking advantage of the terrorist's favorite form of cover, namely live hostages, then everything would work out just fine. But Mary was an unbalanced girl, quite unhinged by her experiences and traumas. There was no telling how she might react to some stimuli. And thus the backup force, which was moving into place even as Noah thought about it. He moved a second backup force into position in the wings... Mary would have to be extracted by someone, and it couldn't be just anyone. For obvious reasons, the gargantuan Revenant was not fit for the task, so that left only one person capable for it... the Vengeance. He was not planning on using either of his two most powerful lackey Gundams for a while yet, but it never hurt to have them on standby. It would be very inconvenient if any Gundam, even a relatively weak one like the Traitor or Tormented, were to fall into enemy hands.

His thoughts went, briefly, to his own Gundam, the Brotherhood. His masterpiece. Ah but for the day when he could unveil it to come sooner! But that day was still quite some time in the future. Many events needed to occur first. For the moment, Noah brought to mind the startling new technologies used by his foes. Appropriate counters would have to be devised. Countering an opponent's strength was just as important as building up your own strengths! That was one of the underlying goals of his initial attacks after all... gauging the strength of the opposition. So far he was... moderately impressed. Hopefully he would learn more soon.

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	14. Tilling the Ground part 4

It was odd, Andrew Waltfeld reflected, what sorts of things would pass before your eyes during those timeless instants between when you realized something was wrong, and when the consequences actually arrived. It was kind of like a near death experience... tunnel of white light and all that... though his current predicament, approaching very rapidly though it might be, was very unlikely to be fatal. Embarassing, yes. Painful, probably. An overall drag, definitely. But not fatal, not unless the stars were aligned against him. And given how things currently were going for him, he was of the strong impression that the stars were, in fact, aligned FOR him. Disregarding the occasional minor reversal... like having one's surfboard slide out from under one's feet like greased ice, just as the rather impressively large wave you were riding started to waterfall down... his life was pretty damned good.

Andrew watched the cobalt blue water rush up at him, and heard it start to crash down on him from above and behind too, as the wave's crest tumbled over and down in a foamy explosion that would be smashing him into the sandy bottom in the very near future. But all he could think of was what a wonderful feeling it was to wake up in the morning, and find someone else there in the bed with you, and know that it was no accident, that there had been no drunken escapade he'd regret for years. That quite the opposite, that he, Andrew Waltfeld, might finally have found someone to settle down with, in this day and age, despite the trials and travails he'd suffered. Of course, he'd never forget Aisha, his first love, but the sad fact was that Aisha was dead, and had been for almost six years now. It was no bad thing to mourn, but to allow ones grief to rule your life for years and years, that was indeed pitiable. And he refused to be pitiable. A strong man looked forward to the future, with only glances behind to make sure he didn't repeat the mistakes of the past.

The world dissolved into a chaotic, twirling, roaring confusion of cold blue water, foaming bubbles and most unpleasantly, a rather solid patch of beach gravel that would be leaving some definitely visible marks, judging from the way his chest and back and legs and ass continued to sting with the now long accustomed feel of minor cuts exposed to sea water. Andrew forced himself to remain limp and passive though he was a Coordinator, and a very fit and strong Coordinator at that... indeed, his one arm was so powerful as to be frightening... because no one man could even begin to hope to have the strength to defeat a few dozen tons of water, pushed halfway across the globe by gravitational interactions with the Moon. Try and fight a wave during a wipeout, and you'd only get yourself hurt worse. Just take the licks, keep track of where the surface was, and let natural buyancy do the work... early lessons of surfing. A few seconds after impacting the bottom, the main energy of the wave passed over him, and he bobbed quickly back to the surface, spitting gritty water that he'd caught a mouthful of on the way down.

His surfboard floated nearby, and he wasted no time in paddling over to it, also pulling it towards him by the line tied around his ankle and attached to a tie on point at the back of the board. His natural buoyancy wasn't really all that buoyant, especially because of his prosthetic arm, and though he was a strong swimmer, if the board was there, he might as well use it. He eyed the beach, which was still about forty meters away, since the best surfing waves in this area occured around a second sandbar that rose sharply from the sea floor a good bit out from the main shoreline, and decided that it was time to head back. He'd had his early morning fun, and the cold water of the Pacific Ocean had done a tremendous job of waking him up, as it always did. He'd caught a few good waves, gotten some exercise, and only suffered a single bad wipeout... more than par for the course. Waltfeld lay down flat on his surfboard and let the curling waves hurl him towards the beach like a floating dart... bodysurfing was much easier than stand up surfing, he could practically do it on autopilot now. He'd never have thought he'd become such an aquanaut, especially since he'd only really come to be around large bodies of water, like oceans, that actually had real waves, only recently, later in his life, but he could not deny the attraction the ocean held for him.

The waves could only carry him so far before their energy was no longer sufficent to propel his mass efficiently, but by that time he was in waist deep water anyway, and from there it was a short hike to mostly dry land. Andrew tucked his board under his prosthetic right arm and stretched the rest of his body as he sloshed through the surf, heading off any lingering stiffness or soreness, save the temporary effects from the bruising impact with the gravel patch. The morning air was chilly, but that was to be expected at only an hour or so past dawn. From the look of the sky... another thing that he'd never thought he'd grow used to... it was going to be another clear, hot day... typical of Orb in the spring and summer. The semi-private beach was deserted except for him, though he knew that in a few hours, given that it was a weekend, the hundred meter long stretch of sand and worn lava rock would be well crowded with families and other groups taking the day off for fun in the sun. He marched to where he'd left his sandals and towel and dried himself off, wiping away as much sand from his feet and legs as he could. Sand was a great and wonderful thing... but it belonged on the beach or in the desert, not in a guy's house or bed. Especially not in the bed... he had bad memories of that.

It was a five minute walk to their house, mostly because of the ascent up the stairway carved into the side of the basaltic extrusion that formed the small hill and penninsula that their house was built upon, on the south end of the beach. He was still getting used to referring to the place in the plural possesive... up until about a year back, it had just been him there, renting the place. But then she'd come to move in with him, even though they'd been going out pretty steadily for most of two years prior, after she'd at long last come to terms with her own deep grief, and with their combined incomes, they had changed from merely renting the small villa to actually paying a mortage on it. It was still in his name, as the original tenant, a small detail amongst many others that constantly had their friends inquiring as to when they were going to take things to a more formal level in their relationship. As far as Andrew was concerned, that time would come when it came, if it ever did. If it never did, that wouldn't exactly displease him... on the PLANTS, life-pairs without formal marriage weren't exactly uncommon, and he saw nothing strange in living with a woman in a permanent fashion even though they weren't actually married.

He rinsed the salt and minerals and remaining sand from his body using the outdoor showerhead in one corner of the sea-side garden area, and took the opportunity to swap out his trusty tiger striped swim trunks for a more understated and dry land comfortable pair of khaki shorts. He also swapped out the beach sandals for a cleaner, more long term comfortable pair of house sandals. He leaned his surfboard against the side of the gardening/outdoor supplies shed tucked away beneath some trees on the beachward side of the garden, by the low wall that served to demark the boundary between the garden itself and the wild growth that covered the remaining distance to the cliffsides. He'd come back to wax and polish it later in the day, perhaps during a conference call if one happened to pop up, as they often did. He was never really off work... but on the flip side he was never really on work either, except during big crisises. He worked when he felt he needed to, or when people needed him, and the rest of the time he had to himself. Her hours were a little more concrete, but neither of them were exactly overworked, unless they chose to be.

Waltfeld brushed his biological hand against the lock-scanner built cunningly into the side of the garden door, allowing it to confirm his identity genetically from traces of sweat and moisture on his hand. The technology was fairly new, and sometimes buggy, and always slow, compared to a key or numeric lock, but infinitely more secure. Only people who's gene trace was specifically programmed into the lock by Waltfeld could open any of the outer doors of the house, or the secure office doors. He might be only quasi-military these days, but that didn't mean he was going to be lax about personal and information security. Perhaps especially now that he had more than just himself to worry about on a long term basis. The door clicked open a few seconds later, and the first sensation to strike him as he passed into the cool, air conditioned middle floor of their house was the absolutely heavenly smell of freshly brewed coffee. One of his personal mixes, if the aroma was any hint. Since he'd not put any on when he left, not knowing how long he'd be gone, there was only one explanation.

"Have fun playing in the water, Tiger?" Murrue asked, stepping around the corner from the kitchen into the casual day room, with its magnificent floor to ceiling picture windows that gave a one hundred eighty degree view of the Pacific Ocean stretching out to the horizon and beyond. She eyed the faint bruises and small cuts that liberally spotted Andrew's chest and arms. "Or was it the water having fun playing with you?" She took a sip of her coffee and smiled, both at the rich, flavorful taste and because of the sight before her eyes. Truly, Andrew rarely looked so good, even with bruises and cuts, as he did when he was fresh from the ocean, vigorous and full of life, dashing and handsome like an adventurer from a romance novel. She'd come to the realization that she was just a sucker for the gallant, devil-may-care free spirit sort of guy, and Andrew definitely fit that bill very nicely. That he was also intelligent, caring, very handsome and of relatively similar background to her were just bonuses.

"We have a give and take relationship... its just the take's leave more physical evidence." Andrew shrugged, not even slightly self conscious. He shared everything with Murrue, from pain to grief to transcendant pleasure, he'd long since gotten over the initial nervousness and trepidation he'd felt around her in an intimate setting. The fact that she'd at last come to terms with Mu la Flaga's unfortunate death had really helped matters... before that point, he'd always stood there between them, an invisible specter that made any sort of intimacy all but impossible. The only good side to it had been that la Flaga's ghost had also stood between Murrue and Ledonir, which had kept Andrew's rival, at least in terms of winning Murrue, on even footing. That had been one hell of a pitched battle, to match anything either man had experienced during the Valentine Wars, if not near as overt and simple. Andrew still wasn't sure how or why he'd ended up the victor, given all that Ledonir seemed to have going for him at times, but he sure as hell wasn't going to argue! He walked over and gave her a brief kiss. "Is that coffee I smell?"

Murrue swatted him lightly on the back. "I swear, you're never so amorous as when there's coffee on. Half the time I'm not sure whether you're kissing me because its me you want, or the extra coffee from my lips." She smiled wider, as always though, keeping her arm around his back.

"Well, if both of a man's true loves see fit to combine themselves so handily, I'd be a fool NOT to pursue them like that, given the chance, right?" Waltfeld kissed her again. He drew back and studied her for a moment before disengaging lightly. The mood was good... but not THAT good. He shrugged mentally. No big deal... he wasn't like SOME people of his acquiantence, who couldn't seem to get enough of the intimate pleasures they afforded each other. He knew when moderation was the byword of the day, and when it was better to slow down rather than rush ahead. Besides, it would just make it all the better in the future. He went to go pour himself a cup of coffee as well. "Sleep well? I hope I didn't wake you when I got up."

"You always wake me when you get up." Murrue retorted with amusement. "For a man who takes a predatory cat as his personal totem, you're far from stealthy, and to be honest, your night vision is terrible. I've never heard a man trip into so many things while getting dressed as you do. Even if its only into swim trunks. I swear, if I didn't see you do it with my own eyes, I'd never believe you had the agility to surf, given the racket you make trying to be stealthy most mornings. But yes, I did sleep well, and I even managed to fall back asleep after you left, until the dawn's light started shining into my eyes anyway. How about you?"

"Oh, like a log, as usual. Gardening really takes it out of a guy... I haven't been that tired since basic training." Andrew took a sip of his coffee and smiled broadly. Just right. "Who would have thought strenuous physical labor would be so tiring, right?"

"I know. Its shocking. You Coordinators aren't supposed to have physical failings like getting tired." Murrue replied, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Despite all evidence to the contrary of course, some people just don't seem to realize the difference between potential and actuality."

"If you can't deceive the world, you may as well deceive yourself." Andrew agreed, winking at her. Some people had difficulty telling when he winked, since he only had the one eye, but Murrue knew him more than well enough by now to read his facial expressions, even through the scar, as if it wasn't there at all. "After all, that's much easier than actually accepting that you might have faults. Not that I do, of course. Tiredness is just an act, for me. I wouldn't want people thinking I was an arrogant son of a bitch after all."

"Oh, who would think that?" Murrue grinned, taking a seat and looking out at the ocean. "I mean, just because you were "the driving force behind all major Clyne Faction victories in both Valentine Wars" as I might quote, or "able to fight Kira Yamato to a standstill back when I was in ZAFT" is no reason for thinking you have a greater than normal opinion of yourself."

"What I say in the junior officer's club around the newbies and what is in fact part of reality is only loosely connected, you know that. Its impossible to get any respect out of those newcomers unless you blow yourself completely out of proportion. Did I fight Kira... sure. And he was standing still, for a while... cause he didn't want to fight me. Course, when he DID fight me, I rapidly lost and almost died, but the greenhorns don't need that part of the story giving them nightmares. Some of the poor bastards actually think they're going to be the NEXT Kira Yamato, you know? I'd rather they shoot for being the next Andrew Waltfeld, rather than try and walk down Kira's road. There's some places where regular people just can't go, even if he doesn't like admitting it. I'm all for people attaining their dreams... but some dreams are fantasy, and people need to learn the difference."

"Being like Kira isn't so bad." Murrue replied. "Though I wonder how many of them would still want it, if they knew what it really meant to be him... what sort of road, to use your vernacular, that you'd have to walk. Kira is definitely a product of his past, and that past isn't particularly pleasant, though it has had its bright shining moments, I can never forget." She sighed and looked into the distance for a moment or two before returning to the here and now. "So, what's on the agenda for today, beyond abstract philosophic discussion of our friends and subordinates?"

Andrew sat down as well, careful to keep his back off the seat cushion while his cuts finished scabbing over. "Well, besides the possibility of various pleasantly amorous episodes at random intervals..." He trailed off as Murrue dug her elbow into his side playfully. "Besides that, I'll probably work on the front yard some more. Those palms aren't going to plant themselves after all. I did most of the heavy lifting and carrying yesterday, its just a matter of putting them into the holes and filling in the turf and mulch. That should take up most of the morning. If I'm lucky, and don't have any Armory calls, I'll probably spend the afternoon on the sea-side garden... the wall needs some work, and there's always weeds and stuff to pull." Andrew continued, visualizing the labors ahead with actual anticipation. Tending to relatively domestic chores was actually a lot of fun, and it was maintainance the house needed anyway. "You?"

"Unfortunately, I have to go in to work today, though it should only be for a few hours. I should be back by midafternoon." Murrue frowned and shrugged. New ships always took so much time, even on non-work days. It had been the same thing with the Archangel construction... she'd always been coming in on weekends to attend to odd tasks. The Archangel was in semi-retirement at the moment, in the underwater hangar underneath the main Morganroete Armories production center, about ten miles away as the crow flew, though it was more like twenty because they were on the mainland and MA had its headquarters and primary facilities on an island about ten miles off the southwestern coast. There was a network of bridges and subsurface vehicular tunnels connecting the satellite island to the mainland, though traffic was usually very heavy on them. Her daily commute to and from work was sometimes as long as an hour and a half because of that. "I might stop in Morganville on the way home, pick us up something for dinner."

"Great idea! I can cook steaks again!" Andrew perked up.

"No, you can't. I'm leery about even microwaved meals done by you... open flames are completely out of the question until you learn how to grill. Honestly, what sort of man doesn't know how to grill?" Murrue cut him down before he could get attached to the idea. He gave her a wounded look, which she returned with an even stare.

"Its not my fault that backyard grills don't exist on the PLANTS... or open fires of almost any sort. The smoke is bad for the atmospheric filtration systems. I'm getting better." Andrew retorted defenisvely.

"Yes, you are. Who knows, in another few months of charred ashes or bloody raw carcasses, we might be able to sit down to a civilized steak dinner together. But that time is not today. I'm glad to see that you've progressed past looking for the "on" button on the charcoal grill, but you're no master barbecuer yet, Andrew."

"You won't let that go, will you? How was I supposed to know it was so primitive that you have to light it by hand?"

"You spent almost an HOUR searching, that's the funny part!" Murrue chuckled at the memory. "I hadn't seen you that confounded by a simple procedure in a long time... not since the car fiasco."

"Don't even bring that up please!" Andrew shivered. "Changing fluids in a car is entirely automated on the PLANTS, along with driving in general. And I can see why... simple procedure or not, that was a disaster!" He straightened up. "If we're done making fun of me adapting to being an Earthling, I suppose I could beg for something besides chicken or turkey roasts for dinner, right? Taste concerns aside, I think I might be able to handle a few extra calories here and there. I realize you have a diet to consider, but I am, fortunately, not so constrained. Why must we both suffer under the yoke of popular poultry?"

Murrue was about to retort when she caught sight of something out in the distance, way out about halfway to the horizon. She blinked and looked again, shading her eyes with one hand. Still, she couldn't make out much more than a glinting splotch. A moving, glinting splotch at that. It was too low to the ocean to be a boat or ship, she'd never have caught sight of it if it weren't for the sunlight angle. Orb had a few submarines, but she hadn't been aware of any operating in the coastal area in recent times, especially given the relatively shallowness of the water in these parts, barely over a hundred meters depth even a few miles from the shore. It was the gentle topography in the area that made the subsurface tunnels to Morganville from the mainland at all possible, but which at the same time would make operating a submarine of any size awkward unless it was on the surface.

Andrew had noticed her catching her eye on something, and had moved to retrieve a set of binoculars they kept in a cabinet nearby. Usually they used them for bird or whale watching, but they'd do for pretty much any sort of long distance viewing. "Little late in the day for a whale pod." Andrew commented with a relaxed smile. "Someone should tell that poor sap that he's running a bit behind schedule." He handed the binoculars to Murrue, shading his own eye as he looked in the direction she was. Not that his eye was THAT much better than hers, sometimes the opposite in fact, but she had spotted whatever it was first, so house rules said she got the first close up look.

"Someone should also tell him he'd keep better time if he wasn't covered in armor." Murrue's voice had ceased being playful, and had adopted the concerned, intense tones of Murrue Ramius, the Captain of the Archangel, vs Murrue Ramius, MA Shipyard contractor. "And that if he maintains his current course and speed he's going to run out of ocean rather quickly."

It took Andrew a moment to realize that Murrue was saying that it wasn't actually a whale... he was still relatively new to the massive diversity of lifeforms in the Earth's oceans... who was to say that there wasn't an armored whale? There was a winged whale up in the PLANTS, or a fossil of one anyway... why not a living armored one? Her tone change though brought home the fact that things were not right in the neighborhood. "A submarine? I wasn't aware of any coastal operations in the area."

"Its too small for a conning tower, and too big for a periscope. And no submarine captain would direct their craft at that speed and heading, unless they were deliberately trying to run aground." Murrue replied, peering closer through the binoculars. "Unless I'm much mistaken, that's a Mobile Suit. Or at least the head and shoulders of one."

Waltfeld was already moving towards the secure offices, to retrieve a direct connecting phone. "It's awful close in for us to be the first to catch it. What happened to the subsurface sonar detection array? Nobody should be able to get within territorial waters undetected... especially not in a Mobile Suit. Can you get me a model? Ghoon? Zno? Something Allianceish?" He called over his shoulder.

"None of the above. It's ZAFT-like in construction... the head and... damn it, it submerged!" Murrue called back. She could still trace the disturbance in the water's surface the Mobile Suit made as it continued towards shore. Murrue chewed her lip for a moment, running what she had seen through her mind to make sure there was no mistake. There was none. "Andrew, tell them that we've got a Mobile Suit of unknown design and provenance inbound. They'll be reaching the shore in a matter of minutes... no, make that less than a minute. He just speeded up dramatically!" Murrue traced the path the Mobile Suit was likely to take, and realized that it would probably be making landfall on the far side of the semi-private beach, by the houses clustered on the hill opposite theirs.

"The Coastal Defence Force reports no sonar contacts for anything resembling a Mobile Suit in this area!" Waltfeld shouted, taking the wireless handset with him as he headed back towards Murrue. "They have a really noisy pod of dolphins just off the coast, but nothing mechanical!"

"Well their system has been fooled then, because I know what I saw! I'd lay money down that the noisy pod of dolphins is a sonic camouflaging system of some sort... the subsurface sonar detection array isn't exactly the world's best kept secret after all... really, it would be more surprising if an island nation did not have something like it! Clearly whoever this is has found a way around it!" Murrue retorted. She chewed her lip again before continuing on. "Use the override code. Get a scramble here ASAP! There's no telling what kind of terror and devastation a Mobile Suit could wreak in these residential neighborhoods! MA is practically right next door, and ONDFHQ (Orb National Defence Force Headquarters) as well... they should be able to get something here before whatever it is gets too far off the be... OMIGOD!"

"WHAT!? What... HOLY FUCK!" Andrew yelled, darting back into the common room and staring out the windows, stopping dead in his tracks, phone set forgotten in his hand for a moment, as both he and Murrue looked on in stupified amazement as a sight neither of them had ever expected to see rose out of the shallow water near the beach, like a primeveal monstor making landfall in a horror movie. But this monster was no ten story lizard or flying space insect... it had the form of a young woman, a girl with flowing black hair and bare tanned skin, though she was still a giant, more than twenty meters tall. She was strikingly beautiful actually... except for the horrendous multitude of gushing wounds, lacerations and torn skin that criss-crossed her form. Blood and worse flowed constantly down her body and dripped from her fingers and chin like drool. Her eyes were empty, bloody sockets in her skull, and a terrible gory crater in the middle of her belly slowly leaked a pulsing mass of internal organs down her front. Still, despite bearing wounds that should have killed her a hundred times over, she took a steady stride forward through the surf, the sound of her footfall audible even inside the house.

It took both Waltfeld and Murrue a few moments to remind themselves that this was no gigantic zombie aberration, but was in fact a cunningly disguised Mobile Suit, likely equipped with the same sort of disguising projection technology that Athrun had encountered in Switzerland and Ysak and Katie encountered on the Moon. They'd read the reports of course, but neither of them had expected the projections to be quite THAT lifelike... Waltfeld could almost swear he could see blood staining the water around her... its... ankles, and he felt the bile rising in his threat as he continued to look at the defiled and disfigured form. The way she... he shook his head again, forcing himself not to think of it as a person, but a thing... the way it walked was entirely human, they way it moved exactly like a human splashing through ankle deep water would move. It even staggered every now and again, as if unsteady from loss of blood and pain of wounds. Waltfeld remembered the phone set in his hand as the Mobile Suit reached dry land, striding up the beach with careless abandon, but no real sense of haste.

He had just lifted it back up to his mouth, and was searching his stunned mind for the command authority override code that Cagalli and Athrun had supplied him and Murrue with, to be used if ever they deemed an emergency dire enough, allowing them to be temporarily recognized as of equal authority to the Chief Representative herself, in effect granting them command over Orb's armed forces until countermanded by Cagalli or Athrun themselves, when the Mobile Suit stopped, still on the beach. It looked from side to side, as if searching for something, and for a moment Waltfeld could have sworn that he matched gazes with it, even across almost a half mile of space. He heard Murrue gulp as well, likely having a similar experience, before the Mobile Suit turned it's head away. "Th-this is Commander Andrew Waltfeld, evoking Command Authority Override Code Blazing Dawn. Repeat code Blazing Dawn, acknowledge. Acknowledge and scramble me some goddamn Guardians, we have a level one emergency here... enemy Mobile Sui... what the hell!?"

Murrue jerked with shock, dropping the binoculars with a clatter and the harsh crack of breaking glass from the low coffee table in front of her. The Mobile Suit had reached up with both hands and taken hold of its own face, fingers digging into the welling gore of the empty eye sockets and gripping tight. With a convulsive heave that arched the back of the machine, it threw its arms wide, ripping its face in half, gobbets of flesh falling away all down its front, gore fountaining from the self inflicted wound... though Murrue had noticed, somewhat abstractedly, that the sand remained unbloodied, confirming for her that it was all a very realistic graphical illusion, nothing more. Bloody facial bones bared to the sky, the skull's mouth distended downward, wider and wider, until the jaw was open wide enough to swallow a small boat, and then wider still, past the point of believeability... and then the Mobile Suit screamed.

Calling it a scream was inadequate, Murrue reflected in the brief instants between when the sound first reached them, and when she was forced to cover her face and eyes with her arms as the glass windows exploded inwards on the tide of sonic energy, even from a half mile away. It was a heart rending, mind piercing, blood freezing howl, that chilled her to the very soul, evoking images of primal fear and eternal loss, of love sundered bloodily and death stalking streets with impunity. It was the death cry of hope, the victory ululation of something truly wretched. And it was all delievered at a volume sufficient to explode the sand and water away from the feet of the Mobile Suit in all directions like a bomb had gone off. The solid stone of the cliff nearby shattered and vibrated into dust and gravel under the sonic onslaught, tumbling down with a roar that went entirely unheard admist the keening wail. Anything and everything within fifty meters of the Mobile Suit that had an even slightly crystalline or solid molecular structure shivered, cracked and quickly exploded in shards and shrapnel. Beyond the radius of absolute destruction was a much wider one of devastation, with trees with branches ripped away, windows shattered, cracks running through the ground, and a massive blastwave of concussive air and debris travelling away from the Mobile Suit at the speed of sound.

The quiet after the banshee shriek ended was profound. Nobody within a quarter mile of the focus could hear, most had been permantly deafened or impaired by the sonic assault. People staggered from homes, businesses and cars, bleeding from eyes, ears and noses, screaming and sometimes tearing at themselves in mindless agony, as the reverberations thrummed through their bones and shook their organs. Those lucky enough to be farther away shouted and cried out in panic, barely able to hear even screaming right in their ears, wincing in pain like standing next to a rock concert speaker for several minutes during a crescendo... the sound had been so loud that it dazed and confused you, like a blow to the head. The officer who'd been on the phone with Waltfeld, in the process of acknowledging the Command Authority Override reeled backwards in his cahir, falling over to the side in shock and pain, his head ringing from the feedback screech that had conducted itself through the phone before it went dead. He'd never heard something so horrible before in his life! But he had acknowledged the code, and even as he was scrambling back to his feet, shaking his head, he slammed a hand down on the priority alert button. He could barely hear the sirens.

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The first flight of three Orb M-4 Guardian Mobile Suits arrived less than four minutes later, shifting from Jet to Mobile Suit form as they dived down out of the sky. The pulled up sharply, swearing and crying out in shock at the sight that greeted them. None of them had been prepared for the sight of the shrouded Tormented, now complete with a face again. Their shock and hesitation lasted only a second or so, before training and common sense took over... Orb's Military had been briefed on the holographic technology of the enemy to a certain extent, and though visually there was a giant, striking young woman with grotesque gory wounds all over her in front of them their other sensors quickly stripped away the veil, revealing the thermal and magnetic signatures of a nuclear powered Mobile Suit beneath the guise. Unfortunately, as was often the case in a battle, a mere second of hesitation was quite a bit too long, especially when the foe was as aware of them as they were of her.

Mary O'Brien jumped the Tormented forward a hundred meters, clearing the beach and landing in the middle of the residential zone bordering it, where the civilians remaining would serve to restrict the sort of attacks her foes could utilize against her. The Tormented was not optimized for ranged combat, if at all possible she wanted to lure her enemies close, to where she could use her advantages in agility and speed to the maximum, and also so she could use her primary weapon, the Banshee's Wail Compounded Ultra-Sonic Amplifier, to best effect. The CUSA, in essence, as Noah had explained to her, was like the world's most powerful microphone and PA system... she generated the basic noise to be sent out, and the CUSA amplified and re-amplified the effect to the level that it could rip armor to shreds, liquefy flesh and even hurl objects that were not immediately destroyed around like leaves in a gale. Though Mary could not speak, because of her throat wound, she could still scream... and she had a lot to scream about. Even unassisted, she could break glass and make men stagger with pain, bringing tears of heartfelt sadness and despair to most anyone who heard her distilled agony.

Mary drew the Tormented's primary ranged weapon, a 500mm Recoiless Bazooka, from its sheath on her back. Her holoshroud flickered as the weapon broke through its outline from beneath, before once more resolving into a portrait of the banshee that it was programmed to maintain. Meanwhile, she extended the weapons contained in her left hand and forearm, which were actually disguised with an extension of the holoshroud, so that the monomolecular finger claws looked like long nails, and the electrified chain links of the whip looked like a bloodied spine growing from the back of her hand. She blew the first Guardian to little pieces with a single shot from her bazooka, though subsequent attacks on the other two were guarded away by their shields, the impacts nonetheless knocking them around in the sky. Mary gritted her teeth in annoyance, but forced herself at the last to stay calm.

Noah had given her strict orders and sound advice to follow, that she was not to indulge her natural desires for revenge upon the nation that had allowed her tragedy to come to place, that she must be patient and calm, letting her foes come to her on ground of her choosing, where they would be most limited and she totally free. She was alone after all, and for all the great, sublime power of her Tormented alter ego, it was just one Gundam, versus an entire technologically advanced nation. Randolf and Dylan had already suffered humbling and humiliating defeats at the hands of the Orb Gundams, and Mary knew she would be hard pressed to avoid such a fate herself, especially if she didn't follow Noah's plan. Just the mere thought of Noah, her lovely hero and savior, made her calmer. She would make him proud today! She would start paying him back for the life he had returned to her!

She could never forget the events that had ruined her life, had taken everything from her... her voice and good looks least amongst them! She had lost her life that day, no matter that she had lived on through the injuries! She had lost people she cared deeply about, had been left for dead by the cruel world, and if it weren't for the cosmic twist of fate represented by Dylan and Randolf being in the area on a seperate mission, the details of which were still hazy to her, she would have died truly... just one more name on a list of tragedy somewhere, her pain forgotten, the crime committed upon her unresolved, the monsters responsible escaping scot free, lauded as heroes by a decieved populace! What sort of heroes opened fire on a hospital just to destroy a foe? Wasn't that the last resort, especially in a Mobile Suit? Why was a Mobile Suit battle even going on in the middle of a city anyway? Did they just not care about all the people they killed in their stupid, pointless struggle? How could people be so selfish and cruel!? There were hundreds of elderly and badly sick people in the hospital... and they'd just blown it away without even thinking about it... there wasn't much more than seared rubble left when they were done!

There was one death in particular that hit her harder than most, almost as hard as her own personal tragedy. That was the death of a young boy named Jason Lebora. He was the younger brother of one Lain Debora, one of Orb's top Mobile Suit aces. Mary had never met Lain, but she had been impressed with his devotion to his terminally ill younger brother, constantly sending messages, gifts and other tokens of appreciation to the hospital, even in the middle of a war! Jason had been afflicted with a genetic condition that slowly shut down his nervous system over the course of years... he would never have lived to see eighteen anyway, and he was fourteen when he died... but that wasn't the point! He may have been crippled... confined to a bed, unable to even use the restroom by himself... but he still had a life! He still had dignity! He was aware of his condition, and he was making the best of life! He wasn't sad or angry or withdrawn... he was a loving, beautiful boy, and he was her friend! And he'd been MURDERED by those so called heroes, casually... like a BUG! He'd done nothing to deserve his lot in life, but it was crueller still to deny him the little time he'd had left!

She would never forget their names... those murderers! Those villians! She would have their bloody heads on a plate before she was even slightly satisfied that Jason's tragedy had been expunged! Dearka Elsman! Miriallia Haw! She would not let things stand as they were, with their leering faces haunting her dreams, Jason's death screams echoing in her ears whenever she awoke, the blood and soot stained figure of their Mobile Suit striding through the flaming wreckage of the Hospital, stepping upon the helpless wounded as it went whenever she closed her eyes! She had a list of demands from Noah that she was to issue to Orb... but she had a personal demand of her own to make as well, and she would not leave before it was granted! She forced her hatred and anger back down once again with a mighty effort that still left her seeing red in spots, and focused her attention on the two remaining Guardians, circling overhead cautiously.

One of them spotted an opening, or so he thought, and he opened fire with well aimed bursts from his arm mounted 55mm machine cannons and hand held 57mm beam cannon. Tracers and bright green energy blasts blited through the air, on an unerring path for the Tormented's chest... he'd aimed well indeed. Not that it mattered, as the electro-chain retracted into her left arm and a portal spiralled open in her left palm, emitting a faintly reddish field of magnetically contained antimatter, which caught both plasma beams and explosive bullets and annihilated them in brief flashes of light. The Positron Reflector Shield, identical in function, though much reduced in power from those the infamous Pulsar had been equipped with, was the Tormented's primary defensive mechanism, backed up by Phase Shift armor. Since the Tormented only had a nuclear reactor, not a fusion pulse reactor like the Pulsar, its Positron Reflector was only about a fifth as strong... but it was still more than strong enough to handle pretty much anything even a squadron of normal Mobile Suits could throw against her!

Seeing their ranged fire disintegrating in midair also threw the Guardian pilots onto their back feet in surprise... neither of them had ever seen the like before... it was like shooting into a bottomless hole! They opened up in unison the next time, but no matter how much firepower they poured into the attacks, nothing got through the wide oval of the reddish energy field. Nothing even deflected off it, which was something of a blessing in disguise, even though it was disconcerting... there was seemingly no chance of friendly fire damage from deflected beams or shells with this type of defensive system. Seeing that they seemed to have the terrorist pinned by their firepower, even if she was unharmed, the Orb pilots started moving in closer. If they could just get in close past the shield... it turned out to be quite the unwise decision. As soon as they touched down on a nearby road, the Tormented pounced at them, moving so fast and with such agility that their brief bursts of reaction fire went well wide.

Bursting through a row of houses like a woman staggering through a tangle of hip high bushes, Mary blasted the closer Guardian back on its haunches with another bazooka round, before she stowed the weapon and drew out the Tormented's primary melee weapon in that same hand... a long hafted, triple bladed monomolecular trident, able to slice through anything but Phase Shift armor or Citadel Shields like butter! She kept her enemies reeling by engulfing them in a river of fire from the four plasma flamethrowers mounted on the left wrist, while the electro-chain once more slid out to ready position, the Positron Shield deactivating for the moment, as the fight entered her terms. The chain lashed out, followed by the flamethrower stream like a burning shadow, and wrapped around the shield arm of the closest Guardian. Immediately almost a gigavolt of electrical power raced down the chain and into the Guardian, exploding the main computer and frying the pilot in his chair like a fly in a bug zapper. Smoke burst out of the joints of the Guardian and its limbs locked up before it slowly toppled over, crushing a house beneath its weight.

The chain would require some minutes to rebuild its electrical charge, so Mary withdrew it even as she continued her charge, dodging another spray of bullets and beams from the sole remaining Guardian. She kept the pressure on him with her flamethrowers, but he was savvy or skilled enough to still deflect her inital thrust with her trident with his Citadel Shield, and even managed to leap backwards to evade her kick, and the swipe with her left hand claws aimed at his head. Snatching out his beam sword, he made ready to come back at her, but she refused to give him the chance to gain any sort of momentum. Letting the cannon shells from his arm mounted guns rebound harmlessly from her Phase Shift armor, the Tormented bodily tackled the Guardian, knocking it over with a tremendous crashing impact. Able to much more freely than any regularly controlled Mobile Suit, the Tormented was easily able to wriggle around on top of the Guardian, closing her left hand around its head, talons slicing into the armor like it wasn't even there, and Mary ripped its head off with a single jerk of her arm. She pinned the disabled machine to the ground with her trident through its chest as she rose, skewering the pilot, cutting him in half as he tried to climb out and surrender. There was no mercy alloted in Noah's plans.

Mary looked around, seeing that the skies were clear for the moment, though she knew it would only be a matter of time before more Orb forces showed up, in greater numbers. Perhaps even Gundams would be sent. It didn't really matter... really, she'd already accomplished her mission, which was to show even Orb that it was not safe on its home territory from the predations of the Brotherhood. Nowhere was safe from the Brotherhood! Even Orb would have to acknowledge the wisdom of increasing the strength of the USN now! From now on, all that really mattered was her making a show of causing as much damage as possible, in as public a manner as possible, and escaping at the end. She'd been given a plan of retreat, as well as expendable lackey's to facilitate it if need be, but she knew she wouldn't be leaving until her own primary goal had been completed. The Tormented stood straight and then arched its back again, throwing its arms wide as Mary activated the CUSA, once more letting her Banshee Wail loose to blast everything in a fifty meter sphere, including the two downed Guardians, into so much dust and debris! Orb would know her torment!

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"All right... so what do we know?" Ledonir Kisaka asked, his eyes on the situation table that graced the main compartment of the Mobile Command Vehicle that had deployed from MA pretty much as soon as the crisis had started. It was safely situated several miles away from where the terrorist machine was currently being contained by Orb forces, and it could move if the situation changed for the worse, which was unfortunately a real possibility at the moment. Unlike the other two Brotherhood Gundams that had been encountered in recent days, this one seemed to need no special advantagous terrain or strategy... the pilot was skilled, the Gundam itself was powerful, especially in melee, and it was equipped with a Positron Reflector Shield that seemed more than capable of protecting it against any sort of long range takedown, at least from anything that was appropriate to use in a residential area! Evacuations were of course in progress... but there were still thousands of Orb civilians of all ages within the operating area, at direct risk from both the terrorist and any stray friendly fire.

"Well, we thought that she... it... was going to go for Morganville or perhaps MA itself, but it didn't. Really, I can't understand why it hasn't done more than it has... sure, it causes chaos by choosing to hide amongst the residential districts... but really, it could be doing so much worse." Waltfeld mused, scratching his chin in frustration. He'd changed into something a little more presentable than house shorts and sandals, but hadn't had time to find his uniform or anything before he and Murrue had evacuated their damaged house and gone to find whoever was in charge of the Orb response. He winced as he thought about the cost of replacing all those broken windows, not to mention the other interior damage caused by the sonic shockwave, and flying glass.

"It's not the first time these Brotherhood wacko's have had an opportunity to cause truly tremendous damage and have instead opted for something more visible and perhaps frightening to the public. I think we need to stop thinking about these people as military soldiers, and more as true terrorists, who choose targets based on ideaology or public view, not necessarily military or economic utility." Murrue added with a frown. "They may have the capabilities of a military force, but they aren't soldiers. Soldiers have rules... these Brotherhood fanatics don't seem to be so hindered." She hugged herself, thinking of the damage to their house as well, and shivered slightly. If the enemy Gundam had chosen to come aground on their side of the beach, instead of all the way across it, she and Andrew would be dead now, crushed or liquified by whatever that sonic weapon was, instead of merely suffering cuts from flying glass. They'd passed some remains of people who had been unfortunate enough to be within the immediately deadly radius of the weapon, and they were barely recognizable as human... more like smears of flesh and gore.

Waltfeld noticed Murrue's shiver and placed an arm comfortingly about her waist, and she leaned into him appreciatively. On the other side of the table, Kisaka's lips took a slight downturn and he forced himself to concentrate only on the situation table. He wasn't exactly bitter about the fact that his romantic pursuit of Murrue had ended in failure... in the end, their personalities had just been too different, despite mutual physical attraction, for anything long term to develop. As Murrue had pointed out, gently enough, Kisaka already had a woman in his life more important to him than life itself... and that woman was Cagalli. Unless he could give up his orbit around Orb's leader, Murrue just didn't think she could believe he was truly as sincere in his love as a man and his wife should be. And he just couldn't give up Cagalli... she was like a daughter to him, and he was ever aware of the charge that the man he had respected most in the world, Lord Uzumi, had given him. Watch over Cagalli. Protect her with your life. It gave him problems sometimes... but if he was anything, he was true to his loyalties. Still, despite all that, he would never be truly pleased to see Murrue with another man, even Andrew Waltfeld. He could be polite, but he would not pretend to be happy. He put it out of his mind as much as possible... they had much bigger concerns at the moment.

"So far we've gotten a written record of demands from the Terrorist, who identifies herself as the "Tormented Apostle", which matches up with what the Gundam in Switzerland called itself, the "Haunted Apostle". The man Jean Dylan on the Moon would likely be the "Traitor Apostle", given that naming scheme. Makes me wonder just how many Apostles this Brotherhood has." Kisaka grunted, and called up the list of demands again. "Most of these demands are utter garbage. Nonsensical even... nobody would ever expect Orb to renounce its participation in the USN... we helped FOUND it... we can't just leave. Especially not for a terrorist, even one in a Gundam. And the list of repretrations to be paid to people... most of those people are dead! And we don't HAVE any hostage members of the Brotherhood to release... its more like the demands are just an excuse to let them rampage because they aren't being met!"

"I'm still trying to figure out the last one on the list myself. Why the hell is the Brotherhood of Man, a Coordinator supremacy group, wanting Dearka Elsman, of all people, put on trial for war crimes perpetuated during Purgatory Day?" Murrue stared intently at the situation table herself, trying to peer through it, into the mind of the terrorist. It wasn't working very well. "For that matter, who could also want Miriallia put on trial as well? I could understand one, kinda... but both? Maybe the terrorist has a personal grudge against them... but I'm stumped as to what that could be, or who would have it. They're probably the least likely amongst the Clyne Faction to have personal enemies... they stay out of politics as much as possible, and out of the military too."

"Besides which, from all accounts I've heard, Dearka and Miriallia were integral in minimizing casualties and defeating the Merciless during Purgatory Day." Waltfeld added in a puzzled tone. "I mean, they were the heroes of that dark day, along with Ysak of course. Of course it was a terrible thing to fight with Gundams in the middle of a city, but it wasn't like the Merciless gave them a lot of choice! If anyone needs to be tried for war crimes, it would have been the Merciless's pilot, but he's dead!"

"I think Murrue is right about it being a personal grudge." Kisaka said, turning away from the situation table, there being nothing on it he could see that was helpful. "If this was about Purgatory Day, and the damage done by the Gundams during it, they should be asking for Ysak as well. That they aren't says to me that this is something against Dearka and Miriallia only. I'm as stumped as anyone as to what it would be though... like Murrue said, Dearka and Miriallia keep themselves well out of the line of sight of most people who hate the Clyne Faction, unlike the other Gundam pilots."

"So what are we going to do then?" Waltfeld asked, likewise stepping away from the table. "We can't accept these demands, so that pretty much leaves us with a fighting solution to the problem. But that Gundam has already taken out six Guardians, and hasn't seemed to take any damage in the process. I suppose we could rush it, overwhelm it... but the collateral damage on that would be..."

"Unacceptable." Murrue finished for him. "As is a long range bombardment or other conventional solution to a terrorist action. To be honest, the three of us can't really make the final call on this one, given the nature of the problem. When are Cagalli and Athrun due?"

"Anytime now. They were delayed by the need to provide their own transportation." Kisaka grinned for a moment, before the sombre mood reclaimed him. "I think their choice of transport tells us exactly what their direction is going to be though."

"You don't mean..." Murrue trailed off, as the sound of powerful thrusters from outside reached through the thick armor plate of the MCV.

"How did you THINK she would respond to something like this?" Kisaka's grin lasted a bit longer this time. "She's been on edge ever since Switzerland... this damn terrorist picked a rather poor time to mess with Orb, I daresay. Besides... its long been proven that when confronted by a Gundam, the best way to deal with it is to send out your own, preferrably more skilled and powerful Gundam. Or Gundams, in this case." Kisaka opened the door leading outside and revealed the Phoenix King, in Mobile Armor form, circling overhead, the Dawn Goddess perched firmly upon its back. "Yes... a very poor time to be the terrorist." Kisaka commented, inaudible over the din.

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"Yick! What the hell is up with that hologram!? Talk about gross!" Cagalli complained, wrinkling her nose in disgust at the visual smear on her screens that was the Tormented's appearance. "I can understand the utility of the way the Haunted used it's version to create ghost images of itself, or the way the Traitor used it to look like other Mobile Suits... but to make yourself look like a torn up corpse, especially a naked girl? What kinda of sick, warped mind does that? Its more like something I'd expect of Frost!"

"Please don't say that... I really don't want to think about him right now... remember that these Brotherhood Gundams employ the same control system as the Pulsar... if that person is ANYTHING like Frost, then both of us are in a lot of trouble." Athrun replied with a shiver. "I think it's safe enough to surmise though, that given the fact that they haven't already destroyed all of our forces keeping them contained that we aren't facing a Frost level pilot here, thank God. They're good... better than either the Haunted or Traitor... but they aren't something truly terrifying." He paused for a moment, considering what to say next. He opted to be direct. "So what now? I mean, I don't think we brought our Gundams all the way out here as a show of force, did we?"

"Damn right we didn't!" Cagalli retorted fiercely. "These fucking terrorists think they can bring their filth here, to Orb's very own shores... well they're fucking wrong about that! I will NOT stand for terrorism! I sent you halfway across the world to stop them in Switzerland, and I'm not going to do any less her in my own damn yard! They picked the wrong nation to fuck with!"

"They do have hostages though." Athrun reminded her, as gently as he could, though the thought made him burn with anger too. Cowards who hide behind civilians... it was detestable!

"Which was why I declined Dearka and Miri's offer to let them confront this ugly bitch, despite the fact that the pilot seems to want their skulls on a stick! If they were out at sea, where I didn't have to worry about massive scale devastation, sure... I'd let this bitch meet the Warmaster, and I'd bring the popcorn to the ass-whomping show too. But they want to play their games on land, amongst my own people, and I won't let anyone else have the responsibility of potential civilian casualties! All the same though, we can't just let them hide forever, or run away... to do so would be a show of weakness Orb cannot afford right now! Orb does NOT negotiate with terrorists... and when it comes down to it, allowing our concern for my citizens to keep us at bay is a form of negotiation. The situation will not be better if we let them hide behind the hostages. All the same though..."

"We'll have to be careful, yes. That means you probably won't be able to use the arbalest or the missiles. We'll be deciding this fight up close and personal." Athrun was glad for the Phoenix King's emphasis on melee combat... it would be a great help in limiting collateral damage. He didn't delude himself into thinking there would be no collateral damage... Gundams simply weren't precise enough in this setting to avoid it entirely. "The Tormented seems to have Phase Shift armor, so anything physical is going to be useless, regardless of whether or not you get it past the Positron Shield."

"Thanks honey, but I do remember how to fight people with Phase Shift armor." Cagalli retorted with a hint of ice in her voice. "I'm not exactly the newest graduate of the National Defence Academy you know."

"Never hurts to be reminded..." Athrun muttered.

"It might when I'm as pissed off as I am! Just because you're not nearby now doesn't mean you won't be later!"

"I wonder how many people would believe the sort of threats of physical violence I live under as part of daily life? Truly, my closest friends scare me more than any enemy could..."

"Stop procrastinating! I won't stand for that bastard to defile my nation for a second longer than absolutely necessary! Mush! Fly! Go! Whatever it is you do that gets me over there quickly!"

"Roger that, my endlessly frightening and magnificent Queen..." Athrun rolled his eyes in exasperated patience, but he was smiling as he did it. It was time to get to grips, he agreed with her on that. "The Vulcan's Forge is active... BGCS fields are calibrated and connected to your controls. Just don't fall off the Phoenix King, and I'll be sure to line him up for you as neat as you please."

"More doing, less talking!" Cagalli demanded, a frequent imprecation to Athrun from her, though usually in much different, more pleasant situations. She pushed such thoughts away, as she took up her anti-ship lance, arcs of electricity swarming up and down the twelve meter length, even as white hot plasma flames began spouting from the "shoulders" of the Phoenix King's Mobile Armor form, wriggling and writhing upwards in complete defiance of gravity to coil and curl around her lance and arms as she took direct control of the BGCS fields. She shuddered and winced a little as Athrun rolled the Phoenix King up and around into an immelman turn, a half loop and twist that brought them around one hundred and eighty degrees, facing towards the quarantine one that her military forces had established earlier around the terrorist. She rocked back into her chair, gritting her teeth even more as Athrun boosted the Phoenix King to it's cruising speed of almost eighteen hundred miles per hour.

"You'll have a one point two second window to strike. It's coming up in nine... eight..." Athrun continued to count down the seconds as they streaked towards the Tormented, at an altitude of only slightly above head height for the enemy Gundam. He angled slightly off to the side, and rotated the Phoenix King to tilt the Dawn Goddess slightly towards the Tormented, so that Cagalli would be striking downwards at her foe. For her part, Cagalli opened fire with her shoulder mounted hyper-impulse plasma cannons, shooting a pair of blue-red beams at the Tormented as they closed within range, though both blasts were easily absorbed and nullified by the Positron Shield. The Tormented seemed to have been caught off guard by the sudden charge, without even a vocal parley, of the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess, which brought a smile to Cagalli's lips. Did they think that just because Cagalli was a member of the Clyne Faction that she was going to play nice if she didn't have to? More fools they. She stabbed out with her lance as they flashed past the Tormented, directing an explosive pulse of BGCS energy into the ground as the Tormented flung itself prone in a desperate evasion. Earth and concrete gouted into the air, but the Tormented seemed to have escaped serious harm.

"Damn that speed and maneuverability!" Cagalli fumed, as Athrun began a long banking turn, not daring to do anything more tricky while at such speeds, especially with the Dawn Goddess along for the ride. "That control system is completely unfair!"

"You still managed to put the fear of God into him though, I think." Athrun commented. "They weren't expecting a head on charge like that. I'm going to come at it again, but I'm going to stop just short... be ready for the decceleration. Mind the bazooka... it could really ruin our day if it gets past a shield."

"You worry too much." Cagalli took care to make sure that her Citadel Shield projectors were ready to be activated at a moments notice though, just to be sure. "I swear, you're going to turn into an old woman long before I ever will, if you keep up at this rate."

"One of us has to, anyway." Athrun replied with a snort. He completed his turn and hit the main thruster power again, grinning from the feeling of power and speed. His friends all thought that it was Cagalli that always was urging him to more than strictly safe speeds when it came to vehicles... which was partly true... she did love to go fast... but so did Athrun himself. It was carthartic and exhilirating, the feeling of being in minimal but still complete control of something moving faster than humans had ever been biologically designed to move. Once more the two Gundams closed with their foe at almost Mach 3, leaving a trail of sonic booms behind them, like the footprints of a charging wargod. The Tormented was better prepared this time, with its bazooka out and primed, but it made the mistake of firing at the Dawn Goddess, which was easily able to block the frontal attack with its forearm shields. Athrun would have had to veer off if targeted, since his own arm shields were unusable in Mobile Armor form except against attacks from below, but then again there was no way the enemy could know that.

With less than a kilometer to go, Athrun began a sharp decceleration, with the end result of the Phoenix King coming to a dead halt about fifty meters short of the Tormented, a perfectly stable firing platform for Cagalli to try once more with her shoulder mounted hyper-impulse cannons, but once more the Positron Shield proved more than capable of negating them. Athrun pushed power to his ventral thrusters, pushing the Phoenix King straight up, but Cagalli had had enough of the circle and charge game. She jumped the Dawn Goddess off the back of the Phoenix King, dragging along with her a great stream of BGCS plasma, which she directed from the tip of her lance at the Tormented from less than thirty meters away. Again the Positron Shield was interposed, but the less focused, more wide angle nature of the free form plasma blast caused some energy to leak around the sides of the antimatter shield, scorching into the flesh simacrulum of the Tormented's holoshroud. Athrun was intruiged to see the burn marks actually showing up on the "flesh", rather than merely causing the holoshroud to fail in those spots. A versatile technology indeed.

Athrun was less happy with Cagalli's improvisational and impudent discarding of the rather safe and likely effective strategy of repeated charges from the back of the Phoenix King, but he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. Cagalli was truly angry, like he'd seen her only a few times before. Patience wasn't likely to be her strong suit, even at the best of times. There was nothing for it but to follow her lead, and try and keep her from doing anything too reckless in her pursuit of justice. All part of the promise they had made to each other, all those years ago... each had to be a brake on the sometimes reckless nature of the other. He shifted the Phoenix King into Mobile Suit form and pulled a slow flip as he returned to the ground, a pair of beam swords forming in his hands as he landed.

Cagalli had closed range with the Tormented, at last slipping inside the range of the Positron Shield, striking with her electrically charged lance, only to be parried by the Tormented's trident, the blades of which gouged a deep scratch in the lance in a shower of sparks. Hissing in surprised displeasure, Cagalli made a note not to let that trident get through her shield either... HAC armor was vulnerable to physical edges, and would slice even more easily than her lance had. Wasting no time, and moving with a fluidity that was frankly disgusting, the Tormented thrust back at her, but Cagalli was easily able to deflect the monomolecular blades with her Citadel Shields. The impact was strong, but it was nothing like what she'd suffered time and again when fighting against Frost. There was also none of the frenetic thrashing movement or flailing attacks that characterized someone truly putting the speed and power of a Pulsar-like machine to the utmost use, and for that she was grateful. Her opponent was a regular Gundam, just like hers... more powerful in some ways, less so in others, with a regular Gundam pilot... highly skilled, but not inhumanely overwhelming.

Athrun charged in from the side, swinging his swords in sweeping arcs that forced the Tormented to leap awkwardly away from the Dawn Goddess. He gave no regard for whether or not his swords got close to Cagalli... since both the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess were HAC armored that meant they could both safely use beam weapons around each other without fear of hurting each other. Unless he used the Phoenix Feathers, there wasn't a thing he could do that would adversely affect the Dawn Goddess, save punching or kicking it. Less so in return, but then again, he WAS a better pilot. There was little need for Athrun and Cagalli to communicate at this point... they'd trained together in simulators so often by now that they knew each other's strategies by heart. Some things had changed, because of the new Gundams, but they could extrapolate a great deal of what they were each likely to do, just based on personality.

Cagalli stepped backwards, lance darting and poking to draw the Tormented's attention, while Athrun took to the air, sideslipping around to come at the Tormented from the back right side, the side opposite the Positron Shield. The Tormented sprayed plasma flame from the flamethrowers in its own left arm at the Dawn Goddess, but Cagalli just stepped right through the fire like it was water from a waterpistol, her HAC armor far more than proof against such a comparatively minimal amount of heat. This obviosuly caught the Tormented off guard as well, since it had half turned to thrust the left arm with it's Positron Shield at Athrun, and was now caught out of position to block Cagalli's lance. Athrun thrust in as well, forming his two swords into a single large blade, forcing the Tormented to keep it's shield facing him lest he cut it in half when it tried to block Cagalli. Cagalli's lancetip bounced off the Tormented's Phase Shift armor, but the electric shock it transmitted at the moment of contact made the Brotherhood Gundam convulse and stagger, exactly like a person hit with a taser. A downside to the NIC system was the vulnerability its pilots suffered to electrical attacks. Still, Noah had included dampening and shielding circuits as safety measures, not wanting his pilots to turn out like his Uncle Jeremiah, and so Mary was merely shocked, not knocked out or electrocuted to death.

The pain angered her though, and she was definitely already more than tired of being on the defensive. She'd not thought Orb would send TWO Gundams against her, one of which was the one that had given Randolf such problems. Athrun Zala was supposed to be the pilot of that one, and she could already see for herself that the legends about his piloting skills she'd heard about weren't legends... they were facts. Whoever was in the other machine... likely Cagalli Zala-Attha herself, someone Mary had used to admire and respect so much... wasn't bad either. Between the two of them, they would likely overwhelm Mary soon, given how well they worked together. Unless she played her trump card that is... the flip side to forcing her on the defensive with melee attacks was that foes left themselves open and vulnerable, right within the optimum range of the Banshee's Wail. Using her trident to sweep away Cagalli's lance for the moment, Mary pushed at Athrun's two handed sword with her Positron Shield, likewise keeping him at bay for a few more precious seconds, while she activated her amplifiers and her internal audio pickups. She drew in her breath and brought to the front of her mind the very worst images from her most terrible nightmares.

Athrun realized the danger at the last moment, as he saw the illusion of the Tormented's head start to warp and distend, the flesh tearing away in gobbets as sonic waves built up beneath them, concentrating in the focusing dish that was the Tormented's mouth, disrupting the holoshroud effect. Athrun had reviewed the observations, those they had anyway, of the enemy Gundam's special weapon system on the flight over from Nara-Attha City, and he had to say he was impressed and frightened. He hadn't thought sonics would ever become a realistic battlefield weapon, but he was now sorry to see he was wrong. It wasn't a subtle weapon, or one that was useful in all situations, especially at range... but it was powerful as all hell, and effective against almost any target, regardless of defenses. He was pretty sure he could dodge in and out of the worst of the effect, given the visual cues that its pre-activation provided, but he knew Cagalli would have much more trouble with such split second timing, and there was no time to warn her... by the time he finished speaking, the attack would have already happened.

Instead of words, Athrun used actions, just as Cagalli was always exhorting him to do. He charged forward, tackling the Dawn Goddess with one arm, throwing them both backwards and to the ground, half twsting around in midair as much as possible, activating the Citadel Shield on his free arm and putting it between him and the Tormented as much as possible, while also drawing his wings down tightly around him as extra shielding. The sound level grew in decibels rapidly, penetrating the Phoenix King's cockpit in a rising screech that soon progressed well past the ability to hear, becoming a phenomenon of touch and feel instead. His flesh quivered, his bones vibrated and he could feel even his blood fizz and agitate under the sonic assault. Then the actual sonic blast went off, and it blasted his senses to smithereens, at least for a little while. He felt like he'd just stuck his head into a churchbell and someone had punched it using a Mobile Suit. Glass shattered into dust throught his cockpit, and sparks flew from many pieces of gear. The concussive blastwave of air that was pushed out by the sonic attack actually picked the Phoenix King up off the Dawn Goddess and hurled it through the air for a couple dozen meters before crashing to the ground with a jerk Athrun could barely feel because of all the other pain.

He was aware, faintly, of blood trickling from his ears and nose and the corners of his eyes, which wouldn't focus properly, but he could still hear. Sort of. Ringing was everywhere, and other sounds were garbled to the point where he couldn't recognize them. He couldn't understand himself when he tried to talk, but he could hear something, which was a small relief. He'd probably not suffered any permanent damage... but it had been very close. Any more exposure, especially at such close range, and he might be kissing his hearing goodbye for good at this rate. Which would be a really major drag, to say the least. He tried to haul the Phoenix King back to its feet, but his inner ear balance was ALL messed up, and he could barely even coordinate his own body at the moment, much less work his controls. He watched the Dawn Goddess clamber slowly to its feet on his main screen, which was some small comfort... he'd managed to protect Cagalli at least. Now though, it looked like it was Cagalli who'd have to be the one to protect him for a while, at least until he recovered more.

For her part, Cagalli could barely hear anything either, but the Phoenix King had provided enough of a physical barrier-sponge of the sonic waves that her own problems were confined to extreme discomfort and a few small cracks in her screens. Still, that was one HELL of a point blank weapon system the Tormented had... if Athrun hadn't knocked her over and covered her, the Dawn Goddess might have been blown to pieces by the vibrations... she'd seen something similar happen to some of the Guardians that had tried to deal with the Tormented before her and Athrun's arrival. She gulped, not liking the mental images that conjured up, and dragged herself to her feet. Her heart leapt into her chest, because the Phoenix King was down, and not moving in any sort of controlled fashion... but she calmed somewhat when she realized that it WAS moving, which it wouldn't do if Athrun was unconscious or... she didn't want to think of it. He'd obviously taken a much worse hit from the sonics than she had, and it would take even him time to recover from such a devastating attack. She was on her own for the moment.

Barely had she regained her feet though, than she came under renewed attack from the Tormented, who seemed eager to press her advantage as much as possible while her two foes were still reeling from the Banshee's Wail. Mary was disappointed that they had survived at all, but then again Gundams NEVER went down easy, so she supposed she should be glad to have merely hurt and perhaps even disabled one. That the one that might be disabled was the Phoenix King was all the better, because he was by far the more dangerous of the two in her mind. Now it was a fight between two Naturals in Gundams, and though Cagalli was probably a better and more experienced pilot than Mary, Mary had the NIC system, and Cagalli was hurt. Mary smiled... it was partly Cagalli's fault, Purgatory Day was... she'd used to love and admire her Representative, but these days she felt that Cagalli was just getting in the way. She was PROTECTING, for God's sake, those murdering bastards Elsman and Haw... she was condoning their crimes! Such a thing Mary could NOT forgive, no matter who it was!

Mary pushed forward with her Positron Shield, slamming the field into the Dawn Goddess, making the Gundam rocked backwards heavily, off balance and staggering. Mary withdrew the shield and spun around, releasing her electro-chain and bringing it around in a wide backhand swing. Let Cagalli Zala-Attha have a little taste of electricity, see how SHE liked being shocked! Mary's triumph was short lived though, as the Dawn Goddess wasn't quite as helplessly off balance as she'd thought, and Cagalli managed to first interpose her lance, about which the chain wrapped, and then she let go of the weapon, just as Mary was releasing the electrical charge, which lashed through the chain, but had nowhere to go. The lance melted from the heat transfer, but that was it.

Cagalli regained her footing and hit the triggers for her torso mounted gatling cannons, popping off the concealing hatches and blasting over four thousand 80mm cannon shells per minute at the Tormented from almost point blank range. The shells wouldn't penetrate the Phase Shift armor of course, but maybe it would distracte or surprise the enemy pilot long enough for Cagalli to get some distance between them. Now that her lance was gone, there was little point in staying in melee range, where the Tormented would have all the advantages. Indeed, the Tormented did sway under the barrage, but Cagalli was unable to pull away enough to get a good shot with any of her other weapon systems, as the Tormented began pushing forward after her, jabbing with the trident and lashing with the chain. Cagalli knew that there was probably a recharge time on how often the chain could shock things, but she didn't know what it was, and didn't want to chance it being longer than a couple of seconds. She was glad though, that despite the danger she was in, at least the Tormented was ignoring Athrun, giving him more time to recover.

The Tormented scored a hit with its trident, slicing off one of Cagalli' shoulder mounted hyper-impulse cannons, before carving a notch into the left shoulder beneath it as well, but Cagalli managed to duck and slide away before the Tormented could dig its weapon in any further. Cagalli opened up with her gatling cannons again, but the Tormented just bulled through them in a cloud of sparks and shell explosions, its Phase Shift armor shrugging them off like a volley of water balloons. Closing to extreme close range, the Tormented flailed with its clawed left hand, but Cagalli deflected the claws wide with one Citadel Shield, before riposting with a slam from her other forearm shield, snapping the Tormented's head backwards and giving Cagalli the second she needed to jet backwards to medium range. Panting and sweating, she drew the Hameya's Arbalest and aimed at the Tormented, firing first one of the 120mm EARP missiles before following it up with a meter thick green plasma beam from the Gottfried cannon. Both missile and beam blast disappeared without a trace into the Tormented's Positron Shield, drawing a snarl of anger and frustration from Cagalli.

Cagalli's eyes widened with surprise as the Tormented drew its bazooka with its left hand, withdrawing the claws on the fingers in order to properly grasp the weapon. Cagalli blocked several bazooka rounds with her forearm shields, as the Tormeneted advanced at a somewhat slower pace, but she wasn't planning on wasting this opportunity, even if it meant taking a shot! With a weapon in hand, the Tormented couldn't use the Positron Shield, so her opponent had in effect traded in defense for more offense. Cagalli would do the same, and they'd let superior firepower tell the difference! They both opened up at the same, time, Cagalli firing another paired missile and Gottfried blast, while the Tormented replied with a pair of bazooka shots, one of which encountered the Gottfried blast and was blown apart in midair, not even slowing the beam at all, to Cagalli's delight. Her delight faded though, as the Tormented's head distended and warped, even as it had been firing, and Cagalli's own weapon's fire encountered the shockwave from the Banshee's Wail going outward, pushing all the air and matter in the way before it.

Her missile exploded as soon as it penetrated the deadly radius of the CUSA, and the Gottfried blast wavered and refracted, before at last deflecting up and over the Tormented, unable to penetrate the blastwave. The Tormented's bazooka shot in turn took the Dawn Goddess in the right leg, blasting apart the knee and immobilizing the Gundam. The Tormented stowed its bazooka again and advanced under the cover of it's Positron Shield, trident poised for the coup de grace. Her firepower unable to penetrate the Positron Shield, her Gundam unable to move or fly, Cagalli suddenly found herself contronted with damned few options. That is, until movement caught her attention, off to the side. She gasped, and then smiled fiercely. She had an inkling of what Athrun was up to, she sure did. She blasted away at the Tormented with her shoulder cannon, gatling cannons and head mounted beam CIWS, not really having to feign desperation. They were only going to get one shot at this.

The Tormented closed to almost within trident range, and Cagalli played her card, firing a beam blast with the Gottfried. Not at the Tormented, which interposed it's Positron Shield uselessly between them as the powerful beam blast sailed cleanly off to its right, a wide miss. But she still hit her target, right on the money! Cagalli could barely imagine the look on the Tormented pilot's face when the beam blast Cagalli had just fired wide came back around and slammed into the Tormented's back upper right torso from behind, but she laughed all the same. Counting the Phoenix King out of the battle had been the biggest mistake the Tormented could have ever made! Athrun was barely standing, it was true, and probably wouldn't be able to do much directly, like moving or shooting weapons... but he could definitely stand there and use his BGCS to catch and redirect her beam blasts for her! The Tormented's right arm, and the trident it was holding, wavered for a few moments in the hellish green plasma energies, before it disintegrated in an explosion that tossed the Brotherhood Gundam heavily to one side, down onto its knees.

Athrun surprised Cagalli by flying with alacrity, if not particular grace, over to stand by the immobilized Dawn Goddess. He had his radio on, but she couldn't make sense of what he was saying... he was speaking too thickly and quietly, and he obviously couldn't hear her telling him to speak up or slow down. She prayed that the hearing damage was temporary... deafness would be a major handicap for him in the future, at least with regards to piloting a Gundam, which would be a major blow to Orb... not to mention herself and himself of course. The Tormented fled from them, not wanting to try and fight both of them together again, obviously not realizing that Athrun could barely even stand the Phoenix King upright, much less fight with it.

Athrun resorted to actions once more, dropping the Phoenix King down to one knee in an effort to stabilie himself, while charging up a huge amount of energy into his BGCS fields. He saw that Cagalli got the idea almost immediately and he found a predatory smile on his lips. Positron Shields were tremendously powerful defensive measures... but the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess had yet to use their own most powerful weapon either... this should be interesting indeed! Cagalli fired again with the arbalest, this time leading with a Gottfried blast, which had barely left the muzle of the weapon before getting sucked into the massive ball of plasma energy the Phoenix King was moulding with its hands and BGCS fields. The second shot was a missile, which punched right through the middle of the roiling plasma super-ball, zipping out the other side covered in scorch marks but otherwise unharmed. Behind it, it trailed an invisible magnetic field tether of incredible strength, scooping up the energy inside the BGCS and dragging it along behind it in a tide of red and green fire.

When the missile encountered the Positron Shield, it disintegrated, just like the other times. However, the tide of plasma energy twisting in the wake of the missile was an altogether different matter. If, perhaps, the Tormented had been equipped with a fusion pulse reactor, it might have weathered the storm with as much ease as it had every other attack. But the Tormented was powered by a regular nuclear reactor, which while powerful, did not hold a candle to the harnessed solar energies of the fusion pulse reactor. The Positron Reflector Shields could only absorb as long as the field powering them did not collapse, reforming constantly whenever penetrated, and thus maintaining the field required a lot of power... and more power for absorbing stronger attacks. When the Gottfried and BGCS energy streamer connected, the Positron Shield did not quite collapse totally, but the immense detonation still threw the Tormented backwards like a rag doll, left arm smoking and charred black from the inside out, inoperable from the elbow down.

Finding herself suddenly devoid of weapons or defenses, except for the Banshee's Wail, which she could not use consecutively without blasting herself apart with the vibrations, Mary felt herself start to give in to despair. She was surrounded, heavily out numbered and now she couldn't even really defend herself anymore. The next attacks from the Orb Gundams, especially if they used another combination attack, which she had NEVER seen coming, would definitely prove more than she could handle. And she was too far away from them to charge and hit them with a Wail before they blew her apart. She'd failed. She'd failed Jason. She'd failed herself. She'd failed Noah! All was lost! All was pointless! She sagged, the Tormented sagging with her, bowing to the inevitable.

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Michael Genesis had seen enough. True to Noah's predictions, Mary had been unable to properly follow the plan, conducting hit and run assaults, moving on whenever confronted with superior numbers or force. She had failed to use the terrain properly to her advantage, choosing to come ashore in a lightly populated residential neighborhood versus a city, where her opponents would never have dared to intervene with Mobile Suits, at least not for a lot longer time, which would have given the event the media play time it needed. As things were, the two Orb Gundams had shown up, and in a relatively short period of time put an end to the menace, or they were about to anyway. He curled his lip with disgust... the only positive thing he could see was the fact that Mary had managed to damage the Orb Gundams, thus showing that they were far from invincible. But if they lost the Tormented because of it, or worse, Mary was captured... everything could come crashing down. Maybe Noah could "fix" things before it came to that, but Micahel didn't want to chance it if he didn't have to. Intervening himself because of someone else's stupidity was distasteful, but it was the job... and he was good at his job.

He sent the activation signal Mary should have sent to her backup forces, waiting submerged off the coast of Nara-Attha city, where she SHOULD have been attacking, and then moved in himself. He'd been observing from extreme long range, idling in barely powered mode, mostly submerged in the sea except for his head to aid in heat dispersion for the FPR, his Liquid Crystal Regenrative armor tuned to near crystal clarity for visual stealth. Kicking the power up to normal combat levels would of course make him show up on the sensors of his enemies, even at this range, but they were going to know about him anyway soon enough. He tuned his LCR armor as he rose from the water, turning the armor a sort of translucent purple color that he felt an affinity for, for some reason. And then he accelerated towards the fight, deccelerating almost right afterwards, as the Vengeance crossed the kilometers between its observation post and the battle scene in less than a second, arriving with a sonic boom that leveled what few houses were still standing in the area, knocking the sagging Tormented down to her knees.

Michael dropped lightly onto his feet, standing squarely between the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess, and the Tormented. He raised his left hand, palm facing outward, towards the Orb Gundams, while his right hand reached up and snagged the hilt of the gargantuan two handed sword stowed on his back. He drew it with a whiplash of his arm and held its twenty five meter length casually off to the side, the quantum crystalline blade glowing with prismaticly refracted light in the morning sun. The Vengeance stood there, crystal edges sparkling with a natural halo, dominating the scene completely out of the blue. The Orb Gundams had been charging up another of their combination missile-beam blasts in preparation for wiping out the Tormented, but this new variable obviously gave them pause. And well that it should... the Vengeance was in an entirely different class from anything the Gundam pilots had encountered since the end of the Isolation. Michael stretched his cooling wings widely before folding them across his back, their knifelike edges gleaming almost red with the sun behind them, ridges and spikes briefly flowing across their surface before the LCR interface completed its readjustment.

"This is your chance, Mary." Michael said, his tone harsh. "You have failed, but Master Noah has chosen not to abandon you for it, praise you his mercy. Flee now, while you can, and seek forgiveness at a later date. I shall cover your immediate withdrawal. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Y-yes... Michael. I-I'm s-so sorry! I-I didn't think..."

"FLEE NOW!" Michael shouted, before she could break into tears and lose sight of what she was supposed to be doing. Really a delicate girl, Mary O'Brien... like a glass shard. Very sharp when controlled very precisely, but when allowed to swing randomly, she cracked and chipped easily, and would break under even slight pressure if applied at the wrong place, at the wrong time. "I'll tell you what you did and did not think later, Mary! But if you don't get moving, I will slice you in half myself!"

"Y-yes... yes, Michael!" Mary sounded genuinely terrified, which made him grunt with mixed feelings. On one hand, it definitely helped that she was so scared of him in the current situation. On the other, it nagged at him for him to be picking on someone who was mentally ill, and delicate of temperment like Mary. She was a very vulnerable person... he definitely did not enjoy terrifying her. It made him feel like a schoolyard bully, one of those persona types he'd always hated. He watched, with a part of his mind, as the Tormented wobbled into the air behind him, before heading off towards the rising sun, towards the extraction point well out to sea. Well, at least she'd be on his way out... the Vengeance didn't need outside assistance to reach orbit, and he could certainly spare the power to drag her along with him if need be. It was why Noah had sent him after all, and not just a larger number of lackeys. Four Zealots and two Martyrs were more than enough backup resources, they would cause all sorts of havoc in Nara-Attha City, more than enough to keep Orb off their backs as they retreated.

The thought of the destruction soon to be caused in the city pained him... he was a terrorist, maybe, but he didn't like killing people, especially civilians, unless there was no other choice. Take them hostage, sure. Blow up buildings, sure. But wanton killing and destruction... it made him queasy inside, and he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was just too messy for his precise nature... but that didn't really ring true either. He shrugged, the Vengeance mirroring his gesture, rustling his wings, scraping them together with the keening of unyielding diamond against diamond. It was a thought for another time. He directed his attention once more to the Orb Gundams, still charging up their attack. They fired it at the Tormented, aiming above and past the Vengeance, but it was but the work of a thought to interpose himself, and unlike the weak Tormented, the Vengeance, the final production model of the infamous Pulsar, was easily able to handle the energy requirments of absorbing the combo-attack with its palm Positron Reflectors.

Undeterred, with an obstinance he definitely found admirable, the two Orb Gundams charged up again, this time a smaller version of the same attack, which they aimed at him. At the same time, the beautiful, faux feather wings of the Phoenix King detached from its back and flew towards the Tormented, like a horizontal hail of red hot razors. Michael gave in to his arrogance a bit, and decided to show them that they were now the ones guilty of taking an enemy too lightly. Maybe he was just a Natural. Maybe he wasn't ever going to be as good at any number of things as the boss was, just because of inferior genetics. But in a Mobile Suit, he was pretty damned good... and in the Vengeance, he was sublime! He snatched out with his left hand, catching the speeding dart of the armor penetrating missile as it entered his reach, stopping it cold a meter short of his chest. He extended the Quantum Crystal finger claws and sliced the missile into shreds by closing his fist, the QC edges carving through the armored missile like it wasn't even there. The energy streamer trailing behind it washed into the Vengeance like a firehose stream striking a man.

Unlike a man though or the Tormented, the Vengeance was barely even rocked by the energy, which could find no purchase on the faceted planes of the LCR armor, refracting and eddying back on itself a thousand times before dissipating into a faintly charged mist that rapidly blew away in the morning breeze, leaving not even a scorch mark upon the Vengeance. He could almost feel their stares of shock, at the total ineffectiveness of their attack. Of course, if the missile had hit it would have been an entirely different story... while immune to beams or energy weapons of all sorts, LCR armor was not too much better at stopping physical attacks than HAC armor, though it did have the advantage of being able to regenerate itself in a matter of seconds, so that even hitting the same spot twice in a row wouldn't expose any more weakness than a hit anywhere else. He turned on his heel and then ignited his thrusters, catching up to the Phoenix Feathers in an eyeblink, sweeping his sword left and right in a whirwlind of slices that exterminated the red hot weapons in a matter of moments, slicing them to pieces in midflight. Twirling the sword around himself once in a flourish, Michael sardonically saluted the Orb Gundams as worthy adversaries.

He knew that he could kill them now, if he so chose. He could slice them apart with his QC zweihander before either of them could mount any sort of defence... he could be behind them in a moment, out of reach of their protective Citadel Shields. But that wasn't the idea here at all. He wasn't even supposed to be fighting them yet. So instead he tipped them a wave and sheathed the sword, pausing in his retreat only to strike down a pair of Guardians trying to follow the Tormented, tearing their heads off with his clawed hands as he brushed by them as if they were standing still. Compared to the speeds the Vengeance was capable of, they might as well have been. He didn't expect much pursuit... Orb had bigger things to worry about. And so did Mary. Unhappy times all around. Victory could be so bittersweet sometimes, couldn't it?

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Author Note: So, a lot of people have been encouraging me not to keep things as static with my Mobile Suits in Eden Disaster as I did in Chaotic Cosmos. I have to say, I'm not adverse to the idea of upgrading my Good guy Gundams... its just the hows and whys that make it tough. I mean, I can have them steal some tech from the Brotherhood or USN or other sources maybe... but on the other foot, that would take away from, a bit, the unique power of those factions. If need be, that's how I'll do it... there are after all, as this chapter definitely illustrates, various strata of technology within the Brotherhood, with the first three Brotherhood Gundams being the least advanced (Level 1), and the Vengeance and eventually Revenant being higher (Level 2), while the Brotherhood itself tops the pinnacle (Level 3). But what I'm asking you for, my dear readers, is some ideas on how YOU want the Gundams to be advanced. Can you think of any areas you want improved? Changed? Added? Removed? I want to know what YOU think.

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	15. Planting the Seeds part 1

Author Note: This chapter is for all you Seraph doubters out there. Well, it was going to happen this way anyway... but this should, hopefully, put to rest people's concerns about Kira's Gundam.

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Mary's backup force consisted of six Mobile Suits, four of them being the Zealot type that Athrun had encountered in Switzerland, while the other two were of the expendable Martyr type that had ambushed Ysak and Katie on the Moon. Lacking the sophisticated stealth systems of the Tormented, and the incredible speed and maneuverability of the Vengeance, they had been forced to lie in wait several hundred meters outside Orb's twenty kilometer one of national waters, protected against intrusion by sea by the subsurface sonar array on the sea floor. Once freed to act by the signal coming from the Vengeance, they jetted up out of the water, Martyrs to the front, Zealots in back, and moved towards Nara-Attha City at maximum speed, covering the distance in about two minutes. They were detected as soon as they left their waiting position of course, but most of the defenders, as well as the two Orb Gundams, were all on the far side of the island, and the Gundams were too damaged to be much of a threat anyway.

The Brotherhood pilots, safely ensconsed in their NIC III interface simulaters back up on the Great Endeavor, traded good natured ribbing and insults as they vectored in on the helpless city. Projections placed the nearest effective Orb Defense Force at more than ten minutes away at best, which translated into more than enough time for them to really get stuck in the city, leaving a bloody wound that Orb would not soon forget! However, their simulation projectors failed to take into account one very telling variable... the fact that the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess weren't the only Gundams currently stationed in Orb that were combat ready at the current time. Dearka and Miriallia were in hiding at the moment, having been whisked to a secure bunker by the Stromhounds as soon as it became apparent the Terrorist was targeting them specifically, which left the Warmaster without pilots, but there was still one last ray of hope standing between the newly detected Brotherhood machines and Nara-Attha City.

The pilot of the lead Martyr frowned as he saw a contact icon pop up on his screens, though coming from this angle the sun was shining directly into their faces, making it hard for even the shielded camera lenses to focus on whatever it was that had apparently launched to bar their path, about a kilometer from the city docks. He couldn't see more than an outline, and even that was hard to make out. He switched to radar and laser targeting systems, but they proved skittish, and had a great deal of trouble locking on for much longer than a quarter second or so, even though the target was hovering at almost a dead stop in midair. Obviously some sort of ECM or defensive system was interfering with their targeting systems. The thought made him frown, because as far as he was informed of, the Brotherhood had the most advanced targeting systems in the world, that should be able to cut through pretty much any interence less advanced than a total Mirage Colloid cloak. He did not like surprises like this one. Still, the presence of his comrades heartened him, and gave him focus.

"Volley fire! Blast the infidel with our beams, and sow destruction in his lands with our guns and missiles once he falls, brothers! All hail the Prophet! All hail the Brotherhood!" The Martyr pilot exhorted, thrusting both his arms at the appariation in front of them and opening fire with his shoulder mounted 150mm beam cannons and hand stump 300mm hyper-impulse cannons. Behidn him, the Zealots opened up with their own shoulder mounted 150mm beam cannons, the group of six machines sending a veritable storm of green and red-blue energy bolts at their lone opponent. It was enough energy to reduce an entire squadron of Mobile Suits to ash and wreckage, and their foe made absolutely no move to dodge or even raise a shield. The Martyr pilot smirked... stupid infidel had thought he was safe, with the sun at his back and his defensive anti-target lock system... he hadn't expected them to just fill the air with firepower!

The Martyr pilot, as well as his fellows, blinked and stared as one, their jaws dropping slightly open, as a large number of dark specks detached themselves from their target's back, spreading out around him in a complex, constantly shifting pattern that moved faster than their eyes could follow. Their beam blasts streaked into the middle of this pattern... and then veered away like a herd of deer suddenly confronted with a sheer cliff face, curving and sliding in loops and sudden jags, sucked into the swirling pattern of the Seraphs Fractal Wings, ricocheting from shield-feather to shield-feather to shield-feather as Kira redirected their forward momentum into a temporary holding pattern, weaving a net of beam and compressed plasma blasts around the Seraph like a shawl of light. It was harder work than it sounded, and that was saying something... he didn't think he'd have been able to handle this kind of mental load during the Valentine Wars, before his SEED had gone through its changes, especially while also flying a Gundam. Now though, while he was sweating lightly from concentration, he knew that not only could he do this... he could handle more!

The Brotherhood machines flinched as he fired his four chest mounted 400mm hyper-impulse cannons, and they flinched again as the beams bounced away in multiple right angle turns as Kira gathered the new blasts into his Fractal Wings, until his Wings seemed to be made of pure energy, bouncing and rebouding from point to point to point in an ever circulating, lightning fast dance. Once the basic pattern was set, he could automate the sequence needed to keep the beams contained, freeing up much of his attention for figuring out how he was going to use the contained firepower. He'd heard what Katie had said after the fight on the Moon, and Athrun had agreed with her... the rank and file Brotherhood machines at least didn't seem to actually contain pilots, instead being controlled by some impossibly advanced remote control system integrated with a NIC control scheme. That meant he was rather less limited in his options when confronting them than he would be against actual piloted machines... though it was also somewhat inconvenient, since many of the Seraph's systems were designed to incapacitate pilots without killing them, and the Brotherhood machines would likely not be as vulnerable to those weapons.

For their part, the Brotherhood pilots could not quite believe their eyes... every time they fired their beams at their opponent, it just added to the cascading curtains of energy that were orbiting the enemy Gundam. It was a masterpiece of defensive control, and even without any further action on the Gundam pilot's part, it was a damaging psychological weapon, making the Brotherhood pilots feel weak, powerless, outmatched. "Grr! Beams are no good, switch to missiles and guns! Blast this heinous fool from the sky! The Prophet demands obedience! All hail the Brotherhood!" The lead Martyr pilot ordered, opening up with his shoulder mounted railguns, torso mounted gatling cannons and arm mounted missile launchers. The Zealots added to the barrage with their linear cannons, machine cannons and wire guided missiles from their backs. Missile contrails and tracer fire filled the sky and the Martyr pilot leaned forward in his chair with a wickedly triumphant sneer on his face. "What the hell are you gonna do about THAT, infidel!?"

Kira knew that he would be unable to use the Fractal Wings as a Citadel Shield while it was currently at near maximum capacity using the Geischmedig-Panzer function to contain the beam and plasma fire, and while he COULD just take the shots on his Phase Shift, the impacts might disturb his alignment axis, which would result in beams slipping uncontrolled from the Fractal Wings, which he could not allow with the city so close. On the other hand though, much of what they were shooting at him was perfectly interdictable... it just required a creative solution. The Seraph arched its back and then brought both wings forward and down, interposing the Fractal Wings and all their contained energy squarely in the path of the incoming munitions and missiles. Detonations and explosions filled the sky with light and thunder as the bouncing hyper-impulse and beam blasts tore through the missiles and shells without pause, even melting the linear cannon and railgun rounds to mists of slag with their ravening heat. Not a single munition fully penetrated the web of light pulsing between the feathers of the Fractal Wings.

The Martyr pilot gurgled with stunned shock as the concentrated fire from six proud Brotherhood machines was so easily negated... using their own previous firepower to do it even! What WAS this Gundam!? Who could do something like that!? The Seraph snapped its wings back again once the barrage ended, extending them far back up behind the main body of the Gundam, wings of light that were each almost a half kilometer long, glowing in ever shifting reds, blues and greens. Without warning, the gargantuan wings slammed forward once more, lashing like a pair of gigantic whips, releasing their hold on the energy contained within their shifting pattern, splitting and refracting the dozens of beam blasts into hundreds of rays of prismatically colored heat energy, which filled the air in a horiontal, inescapable rain of destruction that ripped through the six Brotherhood machines like light through glass. Both Martyrs were shredded, dismembered totally by the overwhelming onslaught, and when they went up they took out two of the Zealots, who had been faring slightly better behind their shields. Even the two Zealots that remained operational after the ray-storm ended were badly damaged, with smoking holes bored through limbs and most external weapon systems lost.

"An angel! An Angel! He is the lost Angel the Prophet speaks of!" One Zealot pilot gibbered, cowering away from their opponent. "The first Angel, the fallen Harbringer, of the very flesh of the Prophet! We are doomed! Doomed! There can be no victory here!"

His friend made no attempt to reply to his fellow Harbinger, recognizing a man unhinged by a religious catastrophe. Their opponent might very well be the fallen Angel spoken of in the Testament, but that was no reason to give up... the fate of every good Harbringer was death! His Zealot had lost its external weapon systems, except for the chest mounted 55mm machine cannons, and his beam sword, so those would have to suffice as his holy tools of judgement! He would not make the mistake once more of letting the enemy use his own beams against him, and now that the enemy had played its trump card, then it would come down to pilot skill! And there was no way that... he flinched and cried out as the torso of his comatose friend's Zealot exploded, electrical arcs and sparks flying in clouds from his limbs, the shining blades of two swords protruding from its chest. Though Phase Shift armored, that meant nothing when the foe could thrust his blades through the holes his wings of light had created, discharging huge electrical shocks directly into the delicate structures of the Zealot's interior.

The Zealot pilot goggled... when had the enemy moved? How fast was he? How could pilots with NIC systems be outmaneuvered so easily? Surely no one with the clunky, archaic old style of joystick and foot pedal controls could hope to match the agility and speed of a NIC equipped... he cried out in shock as the Serpah's swords flashed for his face and chest, faltering backwards through the air, knocked reeling even further as the swords dragged silver scratches across his armor. He flailed out with his beam saber, but the Seraph blocked the swing well short by catching it between the fields of its arm mounted Citadel Shields. A twist of the Seraph's arms seperated the Zealot from his blade, the beam saber hilt flipping through the air only to be snatched up by the Seraph, which had sheathed its own swords. The Zealot pilot brought up his shield to block his disarmed sword as it came back at him, but it was a feint, and the Seraph's leg came around and booted into the side of his shield, tearing it from his grasp and leaving him defenseless. He opened fire with his torso mounted cannons, until his beam saber whipped across their barrels and silenced them once and for all.

Kira pointed his left palm at the Zealot and bathed it in the purplish cone of radiation energy from the Tranquility Directed Neutron Disabler mounted within the palm. As if it were a candle doused by a bucket of water, the Zealot's nuclear reactor energy signature flat out disappeared, going into an enforced emergency shutdown even though it had formerly been operating at maximum power, the neutrons within the fuel rods unable to propagate their fission reaction while in the DND field. Denied its primary source of power, the Zealot switched to its limited battery, losing Phase Shift, sensors and thruster control all at once. Kira let the machine drop away from him, entombing it inside a pattern of Citadel Shield Feathers. True to his expectations, if not his hopes... he'd wanted to take one mostly intact... the Zealot activated it's self destruct sequence and blew itself to tiny pieces well before it could fall all the way to the ocean, though the explosion could not escape from his Fractal Wings, barely even causing them to tremble. Kira recalled the feathers, feeling them slot home onto his wing spars with tiny tremblors passing through the main frame of the Gundam.

There didn't look to be any more enemies around, and he was glad. The Seraph was all he thought it would be, and more... but that didn't mean he was happy to have needed it. He was glad he could do something to protect people, and if that required a Gundam, so be it... but things just didn't make sense to him. What was the Brotherhood really trying to do? Attacking Orb was suicide, no matter how powerful your Gundams or Mobile Suits were... eight Suits couldn't take on an entire nation, especially one that had powerful Gundams of its own! The Brotherhood had lost... and lost badly... every time they had been confronted directly. Surely the organization couldn't withstand many more losses of this caliber... or could they? Was all this just the opening prelude to something much greater? There was the translucent, purple crystalline Mobile Suit Athrun and Cagalli had seen to consider, that had weathered their best attacks like they were nothing, wielding a great blade that looked very much like the Pulsar's. It had not stayed long, but if it had, things might not have gone so well for Cagalli and Athrun, even they could admit that.

But it just didn't make any sense! Why attack with weak or inferior forces, knowing you were going to be defeated? Who would waste troops and resources like that? Why settle for mere media spectacles when you obviously have the power to make a real difference if you so chose? So many questions, and so damned few answers! They didn't even know where the Brotherhood was based, or who the leader was, or even what their goals were, beyond apparently random attacks spreading terror and uncertainty across the USN. But why try and destabilize the USN, which was one of the best things to happen to the Earth and its surrounding space in human history? Tearing down the USN would just lead to more wars like the Valentine Wars, and Kira could not imagine anyone that would want things like that! Not now that they'd seen the alternative anyway... that people COULD live in peace, regardless of being Coordinators and Naturals. All it took was effort.

Troubled, Kira turned and headed back for the hangar. They were all missing something, but he couldn't think of what it might be. All he knew for certain, deep down in the pit of his gut, was that this was far from over. Indeed... it might have barely even started yet...

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"... and with the third major terrorist incident within two weeks, this time in Orb, where civilian casualties number more than a hundred, a relatively small number due largely to the efforts of Orb's Gundams in repelling the Brotherhood of Man, World wide public opinion has demanded that the USN provide more security to its member states and its citizens. USN officials have stated on several previous occasions that they currently lack sufficient force levels to provide the requested protection against the Brotherhood of Man, or any other large, well organized terror groups that may exist, and later today USN Secretary of Defense Gilbert Durandel is due to speak before the USN parliamentary council about addressing that issue. Before we sign off, let's hear what some of the people on the street are saying, shall we?" The newscast cut from the anchorlady to a crowded street somewhere in New New York City. A boisterous college age man jostled in front of the camera view.

"Hell yeah I think we should give em more troops! If they don't got the strength to defend us, then its up to us to give em the power they need! How can we blame them for not protecting us if we refuse to support them when they need it?" The screen cut away again, to the city outside Victoria Spaceport in Africa. The interviewee was a older woman this time.

"When a person calls out for aid against evil, and you turn your head away, you should not later call out to him for help when evil comes for you! Give the USN the means to protect us! Support Secretary Durandel!" The screen changed again, this time to one of the PLANTS, interviewing a middle aged man, who looked quite tired.

"More military force is never something that she be considered without due thought... but if three major terrorist incidents in two weeks don't call for a stronger USN police presence, then I'm not sure what does. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm backing Durandel all the way... to do anything else is just to tell those damn terrorists that they can get away with doing whatever they want!"

"This has been your Solar News Network, on the news whenever you need to know it! We'll be back after these words from our sponsors..." Noah turned the TV display off and called the minimized vidcomm screen to the forefront of his desk of the day. He stared down at Gilbert Durandel, who was in his limosuine, travelling between his offices in Galileo LFB and Copernicus City, preparing for the briefing he was due to give the Secretary-General before his public address.

"I trust that you're satisfied with the outcome of my aid so far, Gilbert?" Noah asked, a faintly mocking smile on his lips. Out of visual range of the vidcomm screen, gemstones chased each other across the surface of the desk, hovering a millimeter above the glass as they swirled in pinwheeling patterns. Noah folded his hands in his lap and allowed his smile to grow wider. "Think nothing of the Brotherhood's losses... everything I have lost so far has been considered expendable from the start."

"Even your vaunted Apostle Gundams getting their asses handed to them in every engagement so far? I have yet to be much impressed by your so called Gundams, Mr. Borander. You seem to talk a very tough game, but you've yet to produce more than bluster, especially compared to those Orb monsters." Durandel retorted, narrowing his eyes with displeasure at the self satisfied look on his "partners" face. He didn't know how Noah could be so calm about losing such a significant number of assets with so little to show for it... were the Brotherhood's reserves truly so formidable? If so, why was his ally holding them back in the first place?

"I suppose that is why my forces have accomplished every mission objective so far, and escaped without a single piece of information or technology falling into the hands of the enemy? Is that really so weak? People like the Clyne Faction Gundam pilots can't just be pulled out of hats, you know, Gilbert. Of course they're powerful, even frightening... they're the best. But fear not, my friend... their very power is also their weakness... they will be coming into every engagement with the full expectation of winning it. When the time comes when I decide to give them an earnest fight, and it turns against them, the impact will be all the greater for its surprise!" Noah replied easily, refusing to let Durandel's negativity ruin his mood.

"We shall see." Durandel hedged. "Hold off on any more attacks for a while... I need some time to lay the foundations now that the public support has been gathered. I would have liked to have gotten more support from Orb, especially given their debt to me, but Cagalli and Athrun are proving most frsutrating in their opposition to me. I should not have been so merciful earlier."

"Orb will be Orb, no matter whose debt they might be in, as long as Cagalli Zala-Attha remains Chief Representative. She will always be a rock, planting itself in the path of your river of progress, my friend. Just remember though, that it is the river that always wins out in the end, it just takes time."

"I would think that I would be the last person who needed political advice and metaphors from you." Durandel frowned heavily. "Have you anything more of substance to say, or can I stop being preached to by the choir?"

"So grumpy, Gilbert... its cute. Good luck with the Secretary-General. I'll be waiting for your call... I'm sure I'll be able to find something to do to keep from getting bored." Noah ended the call before Durandel could give a polite, if not heartfelt goodbye, always glad to add those little pointed reminders of who was calling who, and who was really the junior person in this little game of allies they were playing. He let himself be distracted by his gems for a little while, before halting their orbiting paths and collecting them into their carrying tin again. He was mildly frsutrated that his telekinesis was still so weak it was barely good enough for a mental exercise, but he forced himself to be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was Eden. It would come to him in time. For the moment though, things were coming together nicely. It was time to hand the reigns over to Durandel for a little while, have some time off for a few weeks, and then he could get back into it, refreshed and revitalized!

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"Alright, Gilbert... we've got mobs of people beating down our doors, demanding to be protected by the USN. I've got pressure coming the other way from your own soldiers and subordinates telling me that we just don't have the forces needed to protect our people, no matter how much they want to. We're in a hell of a bind at the moment, and I'm praying you're here to give me some good news, because I could damn well use some right about now! Where the HELL were these Brotherhood fanatics hiding out anyway? Why now of all times? Goddamit, why now!?" The USN Secretary-General, a distinguished looking Natural with greying hair and a short moustache across his upper lip, pounded his fist on his desk in exasperation, before quieting himself and turning his attention to Durandel.

"We have people working on finding out as much as possible about the Brotherhood around the clock Mr. Secretary-General." Durandel replied neutrally. It was even true to an extent... the more Durandel could find out about Noah's operations, the safer he would feel, and the less dependent on that little bastard the better! It would be good to hit him with some unexpected news every now and again, that was for sure. However, he couldn't be too overt about directing his intelligence operatives towards Noah, in fact he was often directing them AWAY from the bastards operations, because that was part of the deal they had between them. Noah would provide Durandel with the political information and public spectacle required to fast forward his ascension to power in the USN... but in return Durandel had to keep Noah, and pretty much anything illegal he did, out of the world's knowledge. "As for your other question, sir, I'll turn the floor over to my aide, Admiral David Icarus here."

"Sir." Icarus saluted the Secretary-General smartly, while assistants set up his presentation projector behind him. "Our solution is multipronged, with both long term and short term answers to our current problems. I have taken charge of the longer term solution, and the SecDef will be taking charge of the shorter term measures. I must warn you, sir, ahead of time... none of these measures will be without cost, both economic and likely political as well."

"Admiral, we have entire towns of civilians being murdered in their beds! I think I'll be able to garuantee you pretty much whatever funding you need, don't worry about it!" The Secretary-General combed his hands through his hair, almost able to feel it turning greyer with worry every moment. "As long as the terror attacks stop, or can at least be contained, I think you'll find that few people will care what the costs are, as long as they are safe!"

"I am glad to hear that, sir." Icarus smirked, taking the projector control from one of his assistants, as the lights in the room dimmed. "My project is called the Solar Protection Fleet. In recent times, military focus has been on the weapon systems known as Mobile Suits, and their more advanced counterparts, the Gundams. These weapon systems have increased the power of individual soldiers to incredible levels, able to take on entire companies of conventional forces and emerging victorious. However, for all the combat effectiveness of the weapon systems, recent events have also shown us that they similarly place altogether too much power in the hands of those who should never have gotten it! These terrorists use Mobile Suits that are more effective in many ways than anything the USN or most member-states can produce! It is partly our own fault that they have these weapons... we have strongly encouraged the development of Mobile Suits for the past half decade and more now, and the means and technology to make them have proliferated beyond our control."

Icarus clicked through several slides of various Mobile Suit models and Mobile Suit battles. "By concentrating such power in the hands of individuals, we run an unacceptably high risk of failures in personnel reliability. I believe ZAFT was among the first to feel the bite of that particular double edged sword, when they lost the Freedom and Justice Gundams to a pair of kids in the first Valentine War! Though formerly a highly respected hero of his people, that did not stop Athrun Zala from defecting with his Gundam to the Clyne Faction, an action that directly changed the course of the war! At the moment we are assailed with terrorists in quasi-Gundams, in the future who knows what it might be if we continue down this path... I think we have all seen the sort of power Orb's Gundams possess. If one of those were to go rogue... I daresay we might very well wish for the Brotherhood back!"

Icarus paced back and forth for a moment, miming gathering his thoughts, though he'd been planning this presentation for weeks now, even before Durandel took office. The time of the dominance of those blasted Mobile Suits was nearing its end! And he was the one who was ending it! Once more, the proper ways of war would return to the battlefield, and things would become as they should have been before ZAFT ever created the first of the monstrousities! What sort of crazy fool would give individual soldiers the power to destroy entire capital ships, entire space stations even!? It was folly! Tactical and strategic heresy! Individual soldiers, the rank and file, could NOT be trusted with that level of power. Even kids... KIDS... were being given the power to change the course of history and that was just WRONG! All wrong. But he was fixing it, by God he was! "We need to move away from this foolish entrusting of great, nigh unstoppable power into the hands of individuals, before we are consumed by anarchy! In a military, if the individual soldier has more power than his commanders, what reason has he to follow their orders? We are walking a very dangerous line right now, gentlemen... it is up to us to step away from the edge of the abyss!"

"We will do that..." Icarus clicked his projector one more slide over, and his smirk grew wider at the awed look on the Secretary-General's face. "With this. This is the blueprints, and CGI models, for the USNS (United Solar Nation Ship) Incarnate class space dreadnaught." Icarus pointed out major features of the flagship class vessel as he went. "Pyramidal in cross section, the ship is more than a thousand meters from bow to stern, and will have a crew of almost ten thousand when fully manned. It's primary weapon systems will be a quadruplet of 150mm FRALA category laser weapons, capable of striking even through the atmosphere of a planet to precisely destroy any enemy installations, no matter where they are buried or how they are protected! Backing up the FRALA will be eight Lohengrin class positron cannons, much like the Archangel Assault Carrier uses as primary weapons, as well as twelve triple 250cm Gottfried high energy beam cannon turrets for anti-ship warfare. Additional weapon systems will include missiles, gatling cannon turrets and linear cannons, most sized for anti-ship and anti-mobile suit operations. Defenses will include complete Phase Shift armor, backed up by Gesichedig-Panzer shield blisters and Citadel Shield arrays in vital locations."

"It's gargantuan! How much is it going to cost!?" The Secretary-General gasped in shock.

Icarus smiled and shrugged. "I won't lie, sir... we're talking in the tens of billions, though costs should decline for subsequent ships in the class, once the proper facilities have been constructed. But weigh that mere monetary cost, sir, against the personal cost of rogue or terrorist Mobile Suits destroying towns and colonies for years to come? The people demand protection... and the Incarnate class will give it to them. Who would dare stand against the USN with a ship like this in our arsenal? It is the pinnacle of military power, sir!"

"Do I hear you right, when you say subsequent ships, that you intend to mass produce these vessels?" The Secretary-General mopped at his brow with a handerchief.

"We have plans for an initial production run of four Incarnate class vessels, to be completed within the next five years, yes, sir. However, the Incarnate's alone cannot be our sole platform of power... no one knows better than I, who survived the 12th Lunar Fleet's massacre by the Pulsar in the Second Valentine War, how vulnerable large ships can be against skilled Mobile Suits." Icarus replied. He clicked the slides over again, to show another series of ship blueprints. "This is the Myrmidon class cruiser-carrier. It will be four hundred meters long, and have a crew of over two thousand, before you add in the flight wings. Notice how the vessel is vaguely cross shaped... each of those blocky wings will house an entire wing of space mobile armors, currently the Mobieus Flare model, for seventy two mobile armors per wing. Adding in the firepower of the ship to ship linear cannons and Gottfried turrets, the Myrmidons will be as potent a force on the battlefield as the Archangel itself... and we're planning on building a LOT of them. At least three or four for every one Incarnate class. They will form the cores of the ultimate space fleets!"

"But what of the terrestrial forces? These fleets sound like they will dominate space, and to a degree the Earth, because of their firepower... but it would take a truly unfeasible number of ships to control Earth from space!" the Secretary-General protested.

"And that..." Durandel stepped forward. "Is where my short term solution comes into play. Building the Solar Protection Fleet will take time, years and years. But we need something to show the people NOW, HERE, TODAY... and in the world of today, the ultimate force for saftey in the eyes of the people is still the Mobile Suit. Currently the USN only possesses a single Gundam, the Independence, a leftover model from the Isolation era... dated by any measure. Compared to the new machines being produced by Orb, and some of the technology we've seen the Brotherhood field, the Independence's specs are merely adequate, the same for the skills of its pilot. However..." Durandal held up a hand, forestalling what the Secretary-General was obviously thinking. "The solution is NOT, as one might expect, to produce new Gundams of our own. The Admiral has already explained to us how continuing down this spiralling slope of placing huge power into the hands of the individual soldier will only hurt peace in the end... building more Gundams now wouldn't solve anything in the future!"

"But you said Mobile Suits are still the standard for safety today..."

"Indeed sir, I did, but you need to make a careful distinction between Mobile Suits and Gundams. Gundams are unique, highly prototypical versions of Mobile Suits, often incorporating technology a generation or more beyond what the mainline forces of the same member-state are equipped with. The awesome power of Gundams is what we need to be moving away from... instead of distilling all our hopes and dreams and technology into the control of a few, select, hopefully trustworthy souls, it makes far more military and common sense to distribute the power a bit more widely. It might reduce the effectiveness of the power slightly, but conversely it also guards much better against singleton rogue elements causing problems at a later date. Remember what happened to ZAFT during the Second Valentine War... the crushing blow to morale when they lost their only Gundam, the Pulsar... we need to avoid that sort of thing, if at all possible!"

"Well then what ARE you going to do, Gilbert?"

"It's simple, Mr. Secretary-General. I will be ordering the creation of a new UNIT of Mobile Suits, high performance models that will seem Gundam-like enough to capture the hearts and minds of the populce, but without the true overconcentration of power and trust that a real Gundam represents. They will still be mass production models, it will be the people that we choose to pilot them, and the tactics they use, that will truly make them great, not the power of the individual Mobile Suits themselves. In ancient times, those in charge would appoint people to be their champions, to enforce their laws and protect their people in times of war and trouble. These people were known by many names... but one of the most evocative is the Knight. Many compare Mobile Suit pilots to modern day Knights in shining armor, right out of the legends... well, I think it's about time we fully embraced that image! Knights are chivalrous, honorable, dependable and value loyalty and comradarie as much as they do personal skill and power! They are exactly what we need right now! And so, Mr. Secretary-General... let me present to you the Solar Knights!"

Durandel didn't have a visual presentation like Icarus did... many of the details for the Solar Knights were still being hammered out after all. Their Mobile Suits were still in late production testing, their uniforms were still being finalized, they didn't even have a complete roster yet! Still, he could give the outlines of what he was trying to create here, even if the Secretary-General wasn't ever going to realize the REAL reason for much of what Durandel was doing. Every great leader was going to need dependable guards eventually, after all. But that was far in the future. "They will be a full company in strength, with three platoons consisting of four squadrons of four Mobile Suits each, for a total of forty eight mainline Mobile Suits, and a few spares and training models. They will follow the same basic command structure of our standard forces, with the addition of the prefix "Knight" before their rank, denoting the extra level of authority over common soldiers they will recieve, much like ZAFT does with the FAITH program. The unit will be commanded by a Commander, each platoon by a Lieutenant and each quadron by a Ensign. Of course, each squadron, platoon and the company itself will have its own support and logistics units, allowing for a large degree of deployment flexibility."

"Question. By making this unit "special", including unique rank titles, extra authority and who knows what else to set them apart from regular soldiers, won't that engender feelings of jealousy from the rank and file troops towards these Knights?"

"That is a good point, sir, and I'm sure there will be some hard feelings between the regular forces and the Knights... there always is, between the elite and the not so elite, in my experience, especially when it comes to the military. However, the Knights will be the ones most often taking the front lines in the toughest situations that we encounter, so I can hope the regular soldiers may come to respect them for their sacrifices... make no mistake, the Knights are no ceremonial or rearguard unit... if enemy Gundams are causing problems, it will be up to the Knights to stop them without letting the regular soldiers be massacred. With proper media attention and command support, I think we should be able to minimize poor feelings, and instead turn the Knights into the cream of our military, the unit that everyone fiercely competes to be a part of. We will regularly take on new people, and send away old people, based entirely on performance... a great incentive overall, I would think. And more easily attainable than becoming the sole Gundam pilot of the entire USN."

"You make a good point. Who is in charge of giving these elite soldiers their orders? I wouldn't think they'd really be part of the regular chain of command, would they?"

"No, sir, you are quite right... putting them in the regular chain of command would completely trivialize their point. Only the Secretary-General, or the Secretary of Defense can give the Solar Knights their deployment orders. This is both to prevent misuse of the unit's special talents by commanders looking for that extra little oomph for a sticky problem, and to rarify their actions to only the most desperate circumstances. Like all weapons, the Solar Knights should be a last resort, used only after diplomacy and negotiation has failed, or when there are no other options. The Solar Knights are not something to be used lightly, that is the effect I am trying to achieve there." Durandel replied with a slight smile. It also made sure their loyalty was limited to only one or two men, but he didn't feel the need to point that out. Maybe the Secretary-General already realized that Durandel was taking advantage of the Brotherhood situation to essentially build himself a private military unit... one didn't get to be Secretary-General without serious political talents and insight after all... but the situation was desperate enough, and the solution feasible enough, that obviously the SecGen couldn't find a reason to deny the proposal.

The Secretary-General sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Very well, gentlemen. I'm impressed, and though the costs worry me, given the level of public support we have at the moment, I think we might be able to swing this through, as long as we're decisive about it. Get the ball rolling on this fleet, and get this Solar Knight unit together ASAP! We need something to show the people that we're doing something effective, and we need to show it to them yesterday! You have carte blanche, Gilbert, at least for the moment... to be honest, anything less would probably get me impeached!"

"I hope you'll pardon me, Mr. Secretary-General, if I say that I have to agree with you on that... and I don't think its a bad thing. To enact the will of the people is our duty, isn't it? To fight against it would be wrong."

"Hmmph. Indeed, Mr. Durandel. Indeed." The SecGen sighed again. "Let's go give the good news to the media then, shall we? It's about time we showed those bastards that they aren't the only sharks in the pool!"

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"I'm so excited!" Meyrin Hawke commented, in a rising whisper, as she sat next to her older sister on board the shuttle that was taking them, along with several dozen other people, from the rendevous station on the Moon, where they'd traveled after receiving the sealed invitations in the mail, down to the actual training base where this new unit was being assembled, which was down in the Savanna's of Africa! Meyrin had never actualy been to Earth before, the closest she'd ever been to a natural gravity environment was the Moon, and everyone said the Moon couldn't even hold a candle to the majesty of Earth! Not only had she been apparently hand selected for the support staff of this new unit, but her elder sister had ALSO been selected for the same unit! The Hawke sisters were going places once more... and this time it was at the direct request of the USN Secretary of Defense! Her excitement had mellowed somewhat as she'd seen the number of other people who'd boarded the shuttle with excited looks on their faces, black envelopes with the seal of the USN in gold wax on them clutched in their hands, but who cared how many people besides her were selected... SHE had been selected!

"Yeah. That's like the twentieth time you've said that in the past ten minutes. I get it. Really." Lunamaria retorted, leaning her head against the currently shielded porthole and trying to slip back into the comfortable half doze she'd been woken from, yet again, by her somewhat bubbly younger sister. It wasn't like Luna wasn't excited about this new unit that was forming, and her part of it... but they were on a goddamn orbit to surface shuttle, and they hadn't even hit the atmosphere yet... couldn't a girl get some sleep when there was nothing to see? Apparently not according to Meyrin anyway, who was a regular bundle of nerves, as usual. Honestly, was she really such a great CIC operator... she couldn't seem to shut up, and had the attention span of a gnat!? Well, then again, maybe Luna was prejudiced, since they were sisters, and tended to annoy each other more than strangers would. Most people said her sister was a little funny, but not the total spaz Luna often felt she was.

"But we're going to Earth, Luna! EARTH! With rivers and oceans and forests and plains and mountains! MOUNTAINS, Luna! Mountains so high they have snow, real snow, year round! Its going to be incredible!" Meyrins voice cracked slightly on the last word, causing several people nearby to glance over at them in curiosity.

"What's going to be incredible is the headache you'll have after I bash your skull against the wall if you ever squeal in my ear like that again!" Luna growled, turning a hot eyed glare on her sister.

"Sheesh, Luna, you don't have to be all snitty." Meyrin retorted, rolling her eyes in exasperation. "Ever since our vacation on the Moon, you've been nothing but witchy... is it really such a downer that that guy, whatshisname, didn't call you back like you were expecting? Geez, I've never seen you get so worked up over a guy you aren't even going out with."

"Its not about that! I don't get all broken up over guys like you do!"

"Sure, yeahuh. Whatever you say, Luna. Your cutie didn't call you back, and you're moping. Just admit it. Its all right. Happens to me often enough! You're such a romantic, sis."

"I am NOT moping. I was pissed that Shinn didn't call me, but there WAS a major terrorist incident at the base he was stationed... I think that gives him the right to be a little busy, don't you!?"

"Wow... you're even making excuses for him. I've never seen you crush over a guy so bad before, Luna."

"I AM NOT CRUSHING OVER ANYONE, MEYRIN!"

"Then why are you getting all worked up about it? Honestly... its okay to crush over guys, Luna. I don't know where you get your ideas about relationships, but it can't be from the real world..."

"Just shut up, Meyrin, before I really do pound your head against the wall! Ugh!"

Meyrin was quiet for a few moments, until Luna leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. "Luna's got a crush. Luna's got a crush. Luna's got a crush." Meyrin sang quietly, getting louder and louder until Luna's eyes snapped open and she jerked away from the wall, snatching at her sister.

"You are SO childish!"

"Luna's got a crush. Luna's got a crush. Luna's got a crush. Luna's got a... ack!" Meyrin was forced to break off her mocking chant when Luna fastened her hands around her throat. There just wasn't the proper amount of room to run away with, when they were strapped into restraint couches rigth next to each other. Meyrin started grappling back, tugging on Luna's hair in a way she knew her sister hated, disordering the carefully brushed and combed hairstyle she painstakingly created every morning. They probably would have degenerated into quite a show for the interested male observers craning their heads over nearby seat rows, if the shuttle hadn't entered the atmosphere at that very moment, causing the entire shuttle to shake and tremble in a very alarming fashion, especially to those that had never taken an orbit to surface shuttle before. By the time the turbulence ended and the shuttle resumed powered flight, the two Hawkes were doing more to hold each other for mutual comfort than they were to fight with each other.

"Uhm... sorry about the rough ride, folks... we hit a storm front on the way down, things got a little hairy up here. Alls well now though, and I'll be opening the portholes shortly. The view, if I do say so myself... is breathtaking..." The shuttle's captain reported. The portholes opened, and bathed the passengers in mid afternoon sunlight... the first time, for almost all of them, that they'd seen the sun through the lens of a natural atmosphere.

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"Shinn! Shinn Asuka! My god, is that really you, Shinn?" A familiar voice called from behind him, as Shinn stood, with some small uncertainty, on the tarmac of the African training base. It wasn't his first time on Earth by any means... indeed, he'd been born an Earthling... but there was just something about coming back to an endless horizon, with a fully breathable atmosphere, and weather patterns, that just stopped him cold for a while, after so much of not seeing it in space or on the Moon. Earth would always hold a special place in the soul of humanity, that was for sure! Shinn turned, and almost did a double take.

"Holy crap! Rey! What the hell are YOU doing here!? I thought you were off doing high and mighty political things? That's what you said you were going to do, after Academy!" Shinn found himself smiling through his surprise. Rey ze Burrel had been a former classmate of his during the time he was going through the Academy to become a Redcoat, they'd even been roomates for a few months. Calling them fast friends might be stretching the truth a little, but to be honest they'd both been slight misfits at the Academy, and they had bonded with each other more so than anyone else they'd classed with. He'd been dreading the awkward social process of adapting to a new unit, where he didn't know anyone and no one knew him, but it looked like that might not be as much of a problem, with Rey here.

"What the hell do you think THIS place is, if not a high and mighty political thing? Didn't you read the letter of invitation... this unit operates under the direct control of the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary-General even!" Rey admonished his friend. To be entirely honest he wasn't TOTALLY surprised to see Shinn... just surprised to see him right then and there. After all, Rey had helped Gilbert select which pilots and personnel to send invitations or orders to, so obviously he'd known Shinn was likely to be coming, but still, there was always a difference between expecting and seeing! Something was slightly off about Shinn though, and it took him a moment to realize what it was. "Why is your hair slightly brown?"

"It happens when I spend too much time in artificial lighting. It'll turn black again after a week or so of natural sunlight." Shinn shrugged and smiled wider. "I hope you brought some suntan lotion... I remember how bad you burned even on the PLANTS... African sun is no joke, let me assure you! I wouldn't be at all surprised if half the unit came down with cases of heatstroke and bad sunburn in the first couple of weeks down here, at least those who are new to Earth that is. That's what happened to us in Gibralter and Carpentaria anyway. Being on the PLANTS just doesn't prepare you for the Earth's environment nearly as well as you'd think."

"Good insight... I'll bear that in mind." Rey replied, also grinning. To be honest, he usually had much bigger concerns than sunburn... but Shinn had a point, if a bunch of people were incapacitated by heatstroke and sunburn, that would definitely put a crimp in the Knight's timetable. He'd forgotten, somewhat, that Shinn was actually a pretty experienced soldier, who had actually fought in the wars, and wasn't just a simulator jockey like most soldiers nowadays. Rey himself was actually somewhat of a simulator jockey too, but he'd been pretty evenly matched with Shinn during their time at Academy, and given Shinn's tendency towards hotheadedness, most of their practice fights had actually gone in Rey's favor, at the end. Still, piloting skills aside, Rey had to admit, Shinn knew more about being a terrestrial soldier than him. He'd already been planning on keeping Shinn close, now there was just one more reason for it.

"Tell me straight though... what are you doing here, Rey?" Shinn asked. "I know you were assigned directly to the SecDef... why are you here?"

"Keep this quiet, Shinn... but who the hell do you think Gil was going to put in charge of this leaky bucket anyway?" Rey retorted with a snort. "This is his pet project, but Gil's no soldier. So instead, he chose luckless old me to helm this circus show and deal with all you hotshot, prima donna, Knight-wannabes. Don't freaking salute me, you moron... we're in civvies! And I'm here undercover... I don't want anyone to know I'm the commander yet!"

"Getting an unguarded taste of the troops first eh? Sneaky. Thats just like you, Rey." Shinn commented. He frowned though, because if Rey was the guy in charge, that would severely limit the time they could be seen spending together.

"I know what you're thinking. And you're wrong." Rey clapped his arm across Shinn's shoulders. "Think of it like this, Shinn... we're all FAITH members. I may be senior to you, but in the end, the important thing is that we're both FAITH members, or in this case, both Solar Knights. Our command structure is going to owe a lot more to ZAFT than it does to the FNE or regular USN... that is to say, people will fill leadership roles based on talent, aptitude and experience with the role, not because of seniority or whatever military rank they might actually be. We're going to be trying to recreate the "team" atmosphere that works so well for unit cohesion, and that means we all need to be friendly with each other, if not always friends. Remember, like your invite says... the Knights are a meritocracy... you can only be a Knight for as long as you can prove you're worthy of it! That should cut down on a lot of the dead weight and petty infighting most units go through."

"Well, I suppose we can't have the leader getting his ass handed to him by a common soldier in the simulators without some sort of reason behind it then." Shinn replied with a smirk.

"There's nothing common about your abilities as a soldier, Shinn." Rey answered, his serious tone catching Shinn off guard. "I mean, you'll be seeing that pretty much everyone here is pretty damned special... but we both know there's damned precious few people who can say they've fought Gundams before and come out even, much less half disabling one like you did!"

"I caught him off guard, is all." Shinn felt uncomfortable being praised so highly by Rey.

"Which is itself an achievement, when we're speaking of Kira Yamato!" Rey noticed Shinn's faint blush, and remembered his friend's dislike of public praise. Well, not really dislike... in fact Shinn loved being respected for his accomplishments, he just didn't handle direct compliments from his peers very well. It was also one reason why his social life was kind of empty... Shinn usually got all sorts of uncomfortable when girls started hitting on him. Not that Rey was exactly much of a socialite either, but he had special training that enabled him to at least pretend he wasn't uncomfortable... Shinn wasn't so lucky. "In any case, I really should get back to scouting out the troops. Do be sure to contact me though, if you come up with any more insights or experiences you think you should share... I will admit, this is my first time on Earth too, for any length of time... any snags you can spot for me would be greatly appreciated!"

"Uh... sure thing." Shinn replied, somewhat distractedly, as his eye caught on some of the new arrivals, disembarking from the shuttle concourse from the shuttle that had arrived while he and Rey had been talking. Unless his eyes were totally decieving him... that magenta hair belonged to...

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"Oh hell yeah! The invite said this was going to be a co-ed unit, but I didn't think it meant that this was going to be a babe collection!" An unexpected voice from behind Eric made him jump sheepishly, tearing his own eyes away from the assortment of pleasingly feminine forms making their way out of the shuttle concourse. He turned around and then looked down some, at the man who'd come up behind him, sharing his vantage point between some landscaped trees and a chain link fence, away from the greater press of the crowds milling around the parade ground. The newcomer gave him a fierce smile and stuck out his hand. "Pleased to meetcha."

"Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you too." Eric considered the shorter guy, who had slightly wild black hair and mis-matched eyes, one blue, the other green. "I'm Eric Kellson. You are...?"

"Lain Debora. Heard of me?"

"Uhh no... wait... you're the Orb hero of the Australian Maneuever, aren't you? The guy who took down like three or four Nazca's, right over the base?" Eric had been wondering why the name seemed slightly familiar. "You're a crazy bastard, from what I hear."

"Crazier than a bastard who tried to go one on one with the Duelist in Panama, and actually didn't do a half bad job of it? Don't be thinking I just wandered over here by accident, dude... I thought I recognized you from the news. You're the guy who helped convince ZAFT that the Isolation wasn't like Blue Cosmos, after you guys beat them at Carpentaria!"

"Yeah... I had no idea those cameras were there."

"Doesn't change the fact that you're a star! Hell, man, makes it all the better, cause you weren't hamming it up for the media! Gotta respect a man who can fight and still have a fucking heart!" Lain mimed looking around. "To be honest though, once I spotted you, I was hoping to meet up with your friend. Whatshisname... the short dude with red hair? Ashino! That's it... where's Ashino?"

Eric frowned, troubled by the question, which was a perfectly legitimate one as far as he was concerned. He wanted to know the same thing. "Far as I know... he didn't get invited."

"What!? But he's the USN's Gundam pilot... he's a fucking shoo in for this gig! I thought the Independence was gonna be waiting on the tarmac when we got over here!" Lain was shocked. "Where the hell is he then?"

"Unless he's got new orders, he's probably still stuck out in the back end of nowhere, guarding the asteroid belt mining stations against terrorists or pirates or something. I don't know, I haven't seen him since just after he got those orders, right after Durandel took office." Eric replied with a half shrug. Lain looked at him in stunned amazement.

"You mean to tell me that the USN's ONLY Gundam is out cooling its heels in the fucking Asteroid Belt while we're under attack by these Brotherhood wackjobs? How the hell does THAT make any sense?"

"Hey man, I don't write the orders, I just follow them." Eric held up his hands placatingly. "It doesn't make any sense to me either. At the very least he should be here to help us train, especially if we're supposed to be eventually fighting against Gundam like foes... what better to train against than a goddamn Gundam, complete with pilot? Simulators just don't cut that shit!"

"There's something funny about this unit, man, I'm telling you. You know who ELSE didn't get invites? Pretty much all the goddamn Clyne Faction. Not even on the mailing list, as far as I can tell. Nobody even CALLED them. If you're going to be putting together a top notch force, why not at least TRY and get Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala, Ysak Joule or Dearka Elsman involved, right? I mean, maybe they won't join, but they might come help train or something! I'll tell you what I see when I look out at this group, man... except for you and me, and a few others here and there... it's all fucking newbies! Simulator Jockey's! Where the fuck are the hardass veterans!? You don't build an elite fucking unit out of simulator jockey's! At least, not if you're planning on using it anytime soon! And from what I hear about our operational schedule, we're only a few weeks, so they say, from being fully op ready! Ain't fucking happening, dude!"

"We don't even have uniforms yet, much less Mobile Suits!" Eric protested. "I'm beginning to regret accepting the orders already..."

"Well... the one upside is the babes." Lain switched topics, nodding and winking at the infusion of females. "From what I hear, our R and R schedule is pretty damn sweet... lots of time for fun in the sun with some SWEET chicks!"

"You hear a hell of a lot for a guy who can't have been here for more than an hour or so." Eric commented with a slight smile.

"What can I say, dude... I'm not a guy who waits around for facts to come to him... I like to find out the real deal as quickly as possible!" Lain replied. He stopped in mid conversation to stare. "Hold EVERYTHING! Look at THOSE! HOLY... FUCKING... SHIT... YES! REDHEAD ALERT times TWO... maybe even sisters! Oh, just wait, honey's, Lain's a coming..." Lain paused and looked back at Eric, who was giving him a bemused look. "Don't just sit there dude, girls that hot don't just fall out of the fucking sky! If we don't take em, some lucky bastard will! Its up to us veterans to make all the newbies jealous, right... what better way than snagging the cutest girls right off the... bat... FUCK... FUCK... NO... GODDAMN IT! GET AWAY FROM HIM! NOOO! DON'T BE INTERESTED IN HIM! NOOO! SO CLOSE! SO FAR! DAMN IT!" Lain collapsed, sobbing loudly, to his knees, right there on the parade ground, drawing stares and whispers from everyone nearby.

"Are you by any chance bipolar?" Eric asked, studying the man.

"Only when cute girls get stolen from under my nose by men who should have no business poaching from me!" Lain retorted, recovering in an instant from his despair.

"It looked like they knew each other already to me. Is that really poaching?"

"My friend, you are altogether too forgiving! I will NOT lose cuties like those to some simulator jockey! Come on, we can't let them get away!"

"I barely know you..."

"Which won't change if you just sit there like a lump on a log! Goddamn it, Eric... come get some with me, or else I'll make fun of you for the rest of our time together. As you might surmise, I can make that absolutely HELLISH!"

"Fuck it. You're right. Lead the way, Lain. I call dibs on the tall one."

"Aww, no, man... I want the tall one... you can have the one with the ponytails."

"No fucking deal man... short guys get short girls, thats how it goes!"

"What fucking planet are you from? Everyone knows tall girls dig short guys!"

"You're delusional. I can't believe I'm making friends with a nutcase like you."

"Less talk, more movement... they're getting the fuck away!"

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	16. Planting the Seeds part 2

"So, roomie... how do I look?" Lain asked, striking a pose in front of the door that led into Eric's part of the apartment/barracks suite they were sharing, as of the previous night. "Oh, sorry... how do I look, fellow Knight-Ensign? God, it's going to take some time getting used to saying things like that."

"You can just shorten it to "Knight" when you're of equal or greater rank, unless you have some reason to be formal." Eric pointed out, still struggling with some of the finer details of the new uniforms that had been waiting for them in their suite when they arrived, after the initial welcoming and registration ceremonies of the last night. "Just call me Eric in private though. I sure don't feel like a Knight or particularly noble or anything like that. Goddamn these buttons are a pain!" Eric's fingers slipped on the gold plated metal again, and his tunic once more fell half open. "I don't see any earthly reason why zip ties or velcro wouldn't work JUST as good as buttons, if not better, like on regular uniforms!" He looked up at Lain for a few moments, and had to smile. "You look like a pirate out of a overdone movie."

"Good, so its not just me then." Lain muttered, looking down at himself with a mixture of pride and disbelief. "I can't believe this is our WORKING uniform... we're supposed to pilot and go to training like this? What the hell is the fucking dress uniform like then? I know this unit is supposed to be a big media spectacle... but come ON! I feel like an extra in a Peter Pan movie!"

Eric definitely had to agree with that assessment. He didn't know who had designed the Solar Knight's uniforms, but they looked like something you'd see on the battlefields of the seventeenth and eighteenth century AD, in the times of formations of black powder riflemen, horse towed cannon and sail powered warships! The trousers were relatively tight and a brilliant, spotless white that he just knew was going to be hell itself to keep clean, even though they were tucked into shiny black leather boots that almost came up to the knee. The trousers were belted at the waist with a black leather belt, and over that belt was a wide sash of gold cloth. The long sleeved tunics were made of a heavy black fabric that was probably going to be murder in the sun, with high collars and a double row of gold buttons that ran three quarters of the way down the front of the uniform, stopping just above where the sash was supposed to end. There were epaulet loops on both shoulders, though the only things there at the moment were a red cloth tab on either side, which went with the red leather bandoleer belt that stretched from left shoulder to right hip across their front and back.

The bandoleers and shoulder tabs, which were black for rank and file Knights, red for Knight-Ensigns, gold for the Knight-Lieutenants and finally white for the Knight-Captain, served as the only rank markings anywhere on the uniform. The bandoleer also supported a shiny black leather pistol holster on the right hip. Undershirts were the plain white common to almost all branches of military service, as were the socks that came with the boots. A set of white leather gloves was optional as well, though they were required for the dress uniform. Finally, the uniform was capped off with a black beret, with the emblem of the Solar Knights, a gold sword surrounded by five stars of blue (FNE), green (ALU), red (PLANTS), white (USN) and yellow (Orb), on a purple shield, on the front of the beret. Everything that could be polished shone like glass, and the cloth of the tunic and trousers seemed to repel lint and hair, which Eric had to admit was actually kind of cool, and definitely handy. He finally managed to get his tunic closed, and was relieved to see that his struggles hadn't wrinkled the tunic. He didn't need to look like a slob on his first day in a new unit, especially one supposedly as prestigious as this one!

"From what the handbook says, the dress uniform adds a half cape of similar color to your rank insignia, as well as a dress saber and your various award ribbons and medals. I thought the picture in the book was a joke, for a moment, until I actually started putting this stuff on." Eric added with a suffering roll of his eyes. He wondered what Ashino would say, the next time they talked, when Eric would be in this uniform. He hoped his former boss wouldn't die laughing, cause he was pretty sure Jean, his little sister and Ashino's lover, definitely would. "At least we didn't have to pay for these... they look expensive. Even more so for the all weather gear in the closet."

"Wait a minute! There's pictures of this stuff in that instruction manual!?" Lain asked, a funny look crossing his face.

"Uh yeah... you mean to tell me you put all that on without following the pictures?"

"Dude, the day I need a picture by picture explanation of how to get dressed is the day I retire from being a man!" Lain replied proudly. Eric considered that for a moment.

"I think someone here has a little more experience dressing up in weird costumes than I do, if they were able to throw on an ensemble like that with no qualms or instructions. You have it on perfectly, by the way."

"Dude... don't go there. Neither of us is drunk enough to want to go there." Lain replied with a shifty look in his mismatched eyes. "Gimme that manual, would ya?" Lain caught the book as Eric tossed it to him. Lain flipped rapidly through the pages, ignoring the questioning look on Eric's face. "Aha! Very nice! Very nice indeed!"

"What is?" Eric asked, when Lain fell silent. He picked up the beret and looked at it slightly askance... in the EA, and later the Isolation, the only people who wore berets in the military, at least in his experience, were girls. He knew some of the elite infantry units were supposed to wear em too, but he was never really around people like that till late in the Isolation. He tried to imagine Ramierez, Glory or Cyprus wearing berets. The image wouldn't come to him.

"Well, the model ain't very good, but its enough to give you the general gist of it." Lain replied, flipping through several pages. He turned the handbook around briefly, flashing the pages at Eric. "Female uniforms, the wearing of, pages ninety to one hundred and seven. Yeah, I might have to post these on my wall somewhere. I can't wait to see those two redheads in uniform now!"

"I can see that you're going to be a problem towards maintaining good order and discipline in this unit, aren't you?" Eric asked, shaking his head. He was smiling though. It wasn't like he was some angel either. In truth it did feel kind of good to be out on his own again, by himself, or at least in the company of other single men and women his age. He'd been a third wheel for a while now when he was around Jean and Ashino. He hadn't felt like much for romance after Ella Kissinger, a member of his squadron, had been killed by Frost at the end of the Isolation, at least for a while. And after that he'd been too busy with working for the USN, and being basically the sidekick to the USN's Gundam pilot, Ashino. He'd gotten to meet lots of people, but they kept getting shuffled around to so many different duty stations that he'd never really had the time to form strong relationships with anyone.

"I have never yet chased a tail that ended up unhappy about it in the end." Lain replied with a wide smile and mocking half bow. "Whether or not it was considered good order and discipline... well, they can't punish if they don't catch, right? From what I hear..."

"You hear too much." Eric muttered.

"As I was saying..." Lain cleared his throught ostentatiously. "From what I hear, the code of conduct takes a lot from the ZAFT Redcoats and FAITH programs. In case you don't realize what that means, it means that as long as you aren't running naked through the base, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a porno mag in the other, they'll probably let it slide, at least the first few times."

"I hear thats what its like in Orb too." Eric replied, shaking his head again, trying to get THAT image out of his head.

"Well... sort of. We have co-ed units in Orb, but its, well, strongly discouraged, let me say it that way, to get to know the females in the unit on a more than professional basis. What you do outside of work is your own business, mostly, but you're not supposed to bring it back to base with you."

"Better than the FNE... you can get all sorts of trouble for even being thought to be doing anything fun with the girls in your unit." Eric said in return. "Especially between subordinates and superiors." He glanced down at his watch and almost jumped off the bed in his haste. "Holy shit, we've gotta get a move on! We've got formation in ten minutes, and it's all the way across the fucking base! We're supposed to be finding out about the Mobile Suits today... I don't want to miss that!"

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Shinn tugged distractedly at his collar, for what he realized was probably only the hundreth time in a nervous tic that would haunt him for as long as he was a Solar Knight. It was like wearing a tuxedo or something... whether or not he was actually uncomfortable with it, he still felt uncomfortable. To be honest he had to say he didn't mind the Solar Knight uniforms... he'd always wanted to be someone special, to stand out from the crowd, and he definitely would do that now! He could stand to open his collar a bit, like he'd always done with his Redcoat uniform, but that was a small quibble. He forced himself to stop messing with his collar, smoothing down the wrinkle free front of the tunic and patting the red bandoleer across his chest in the process. Rey had privately offered him one of the gold belts for a Knight-Lieutenant, but Shinn wasn't particularly comfortable with the level of responsibility for others that required. He could take charge of a squadron... but more than that would take away from his time in a Mobile Suit, and that he didn't want!

He'd actually been one of the first people in position, standing outside the hangar building where the first of the new Mobile Suits that had been constructed for the Solar Knights were being housed. He'd watched Rey enter about fifteen minutes ago, but his friend probably wouldn't be coming out for at least ten more minutes, when the company formation was due to start. Shinn looked around, bored, but unwilling to give up his place in the first rank slot on the tarmac. He wasn't usually the type who stood in the first row unless he had to, but he was very interested in these new Mobile Suits. He knew ZAFT was supposed to be coming out with a new production line to replace the still good, if old Elementals, and he wanted to be able to compare the various statistics. He was personally of the opinion that the Elementals were slightly superior to the USN mainline suit, the Champions, but he knew it was a hotly debated point between Orb, ZAFT and USN pilots as to just which force had the best and most advanced machines. Maybe these new machines would tip the balance... but then again, maybe not.

Rey had been extremely tight lipped about the Mobile Suits, but that was Rey for you... even to good friends, he could be a closed book and a real hardass, when he wanted to. Shinn didn't begrudge him, that was just how Rey was. Way too serious at times, but better that than way too unserious. Shinn could deal with overly serious... overly informal he found very uncomfortable. All Rey would say on the subject was that the Solar Knight's units were designed to be usuable in nearly any battlefield situation imaginable, that they would not dominate in any one area, but would be far above average in all areas, all the time. That was a different take on things from ZAFT's current strategy, which was to create a single basic frame of Mobile Suit, but equip it with various aspect packs that granted greatly increased capabilities in certain combat areas, and less so in others. Changing aspect packs around as the situation required took time, but allowed for a much smaller force of Mobile Suits to fill a huge number of combat roles.

The FNE and ALU followed the strategies of producing large numbers of Mobile Suits, with a different type for each of several different battlefield situations or capabilities, and the FNE in particular also put a lot of manpower into using Mobile Armors as well, especially in space and underwater. Though not as individually powerful or adaptable as Mobile Suits, Mobile Armors were much easier to pilot, much cheaper to mass produce, and nearly as effective, at least at times and when properly used. Orb, at least as far as Shinn was aware, followed a strategy closest to that of the Solar Knights, or was it the other way around? Orb produced a single type of Mobile Suit that could transform into several Mobile Armor forms, a Jet and a Tank in the case of the current model, the M-4 Guardian, for increased capability in certain conditions. Shinn had always wondered what it'd be like to pilot a Guardian... but he'd never be caught DEAD in any machine associated with Orb. Never Orb, even though he was, technically, an Orb extradite. He tried to forget about that as much as possible.

"Earth to Shinn. Hello. Wake up." A voice from behind him broke him out of his musings and caused him to jump more than just a little. God but she was sneaky! Well, she was a Redcoat too, so maybe it wasn't so much of a surprise, but still! Shinn turned around and looked down slightly, reeling slightly backwards at finding Lunamaria standing practically right behind him, right in his face, a curious and somewhat mischevious expression on her face. "Thinking deep thoughts huh? You didn't seem to be an overly philosophic type before."

"Well..." Shinn struggled for the words. He cursed himself internally, tugging desperately at his collar again. He wasn't fucking fifteen anymore... why was he still so tongue tied when it came to girls? Of course, it didn't help that Lunamaria was standing so distractingly close to him. But stepping away didn't seem like the thing to do either. Maybe she was testing him, seeing what he would do? Who knew what girls were thinking? They seemed quite alien to Shinn most of the time. He blinked down at her again. "You look nice, Lunamaria." He found himself blurting. A faint blush colored his cheeks... he hoped she wasn't going to think he was hitting on her or something... God, but socializing was so complicated!

"I think I rather do, thanks!" Luna replied, slowly spinning in place so he could see both sides. It also gave her time to comport her face as well, hiding the faint blush the compliment had brought to her cheeks. She cursed her unreliable emotions... she wasn't a fifteen year old, fresh out of school girl anymore! She had no reason to be so nervous about a simple conversation with an attractive single male! "You look pretty good yourse... egh?" She was cut off when Shinn clamped his hands on her shoulders and stopped her in mid turn.

"Your bandoleer strap is twisted on the back." Shinn told her, plucking lightly at the red strap in question. He forced himself to keep his eyes above the sash line, though the pleated, mid thigh length white skirt and stockings that were an optional part of the female Knight's uniform was defiantly dragging at his peripheral vision. He realized that he'd just reached out and grabbed her, and he jerked his hands away like he'd just placed them on a hot stove. He went back to tugging furiously on his collar... goddamn it but the thing was cutting off all his air... and tried to find something to do with his other hand. "S-sorry about just grabbing you like that."

"No, thanks for pointing it out. Stupid Meyrin said I was all good, I should have known better than to trust her! She'd have forgotten her beret on the way out the door if I hadn't reminded her, you know? I swear, she's so disorganized sometimes!" Luna reached awkwardly behind her back, trying to dig under her sash so she could reach the place where the bandoleer hooked to her belt. Wearing a belt with a skirt was kind of different, but no more strange than the rest of the Knight's uniform. Her hands slipped on the fasteners a couple of times and she scowled. Sticking her hands under the sash just wasn't going to do it... she couldn't get a good grip. But unwinding the sash would be such a massive pain, especially rewinding it in the proper tight fashion. Honestly, it seemed like the uniform was designed to be hard to put on by yourself!

"Let me." Shinn said, noticing her difficulties. He was surprised at his own words, and his hands seemed to be moving by themselves, quite out of his control as they reached down and slipped between the sash and the back of her tunic. Well, it was a bit late to pull back now without seeming totally awkward and maybe even a trifle suspicious, he told himself. He tried not to think about the way her back felt against the backs of his hands, as he unclipped the fastener point, untwisted the bandoleer and reattached it once more. He withdrew his hands and immediately put them behind his back, gripping one hand with the other to keep them under control this time! "Fixed."

"T-thanks." Luna cursed the slight quaver in her voice. It was a simple uniform fix! About as generic and non-meaningful contact as could be between two soldiers in the same unit. Just helping making sure a uniform was ready for an inspection... she'd seen it, and even done it, hundreds of times by now, with other girls and with guys too... but it had never made her shy like this! She didn't want to admit it, but maybe Meyrin was onto something? Was this what it felt like to crush over a guy? She wasn't enjoying the sensation, one would think falling in love with someone would be fun, not infuriating and distracting! Unlike Meyrin, who was quite the social butterfly at times, Luna had always been a late bloomer, and she'd never really even gone out on a real "date" date with a guy yet. She'd never felt the need, or been attracted enough to a guy before, that she wanted to spend time with one as anything other than a casual friend. She wasn't sure she wanted to be more than casual friends with Shinn, for that matter... she definitely didn't like this nervousness though.

"Where is Meyrin by the way? From what I remember of yesterday, you two seemed quite close. I would have thought she'd be tagging along nearby." Shinn hoped this was going to be an acceptable topic change. He really didn't know WHAT to talk about.

"Quite close might be stretching matters some... we're sisters, with all that implies, and she's definitely the bratty little sister a lot of the time. But she's not a Mobile Suit pilot, she's a CIC specialist, she has her own morning formation to attend, thankfully. Siblings can be such a pain, you know?"

"I... vaguely remember." Shinn hoped the sorrow he always felt when reminded about his family didn't seep through his words too much. He touched, briefly and quite unconsciously, the pocket where his sister's cellphone, his only physical link to her, always resided. He was much less controlled by his grief these days, but that didn't mean the pain was any easier to bear. He turned slightly away from Lunamaria, hoping that she hadn't noticed his pause. "So what do you think of Earth so far? This is your first trip groundside, if I remember correctly?"

"It's so BIG!" Luna replied, still dazed by the thought. Shinn had had the oddest of expressions cross his face for a moment there, but he'd gone on with the conversation before she could ask him what it was about. Maybe his family life wasn't the happiest... not that that would be particularly strange for a soldier, not in the slightest! She accepted the topic change enthusiastically though, and had to fight to keep from sounding too much like an overexcited tourist. Or so she hoped. "The sky goes on forever, and its gets dark at night without even having to opaque the windows! The moon is so bright too! And the clouds... so many layers of clouds! Oh, I'm babbling!"

"It happens to most people from the PLANTS on their first trip. At least you haven't become agrophobic. I knew some guys who couldn't even fall asleep unless they could opaque the windows, and they'd always cringe for a while when coming outside the barracks in the morning." Shinn smiled and shrugged. "You'll get used to it, eventually. The thing that always gets to me most though, is the distances. I mean, on the PLANTS we deal in large distances... hundreds, even thousands of kilometers of space exist between individual colonies after all. But we cross that distance in ten or fifteen minutes, on a regularly scheduled shuttle. Traveling that far on Earth can take hours, even days depending on your method of travel! Everything seems longer, farther away, on Earth."

"Seeing the sun move weirds me out the most." Luna admitted. "All my life, its been a big, bright star, just over the edge of the Earth... and now its this huge, sky dominating, eye searing ball that moves, sometimes so fast you can see it!" She shook her head. "I mean, sure, you see it in movies and stuff... but thats not really real, not like standing there and seeing it overhead!"

"Wait till you see the ocean, and the waves coming in on the beaches. It makes you feel very small and inconsequential sometimes... seeing such massive natural forces at work in a ceaseless cycle thats been going on for millions and billions of years." Shinn replied, finding his hand coming up towards his collar again, he forced it behind his back once more. Really, the uniform breathed much better than he had been fearing... it wasn't at all uncomfortable, despite the thick material, the dark color and the morning sun on their backs. He wasn't even sweating, something of a minor miracle. Well, he wasn't sweating because of the heat anyway... the presence of Lunamaria was a whole different matter. "Do be careful though, unlike on the PLANTS, spending too much time out in the sun here can be harmful. Earth's atmosphere isn't nearly as good at sifting out the bad UV rays as the PLANTS Exo-Glass is. Believe me, you can get a really bad sunburn in only a couple of hours, especially at this latitude, and not even realize it until its too late."

"I brought suntan lotion from the PLANTS with me." Luna told him, though she didn't add that she'd forgotten to put it on before coming outside this morning. Why should she have remembered... on the PLANTS, you could walk around in sunlight all day long and barely even get slightly tanned. How was she supposed to know the sun was so strong on Earth? That wasn't one of the little factoids in the tourist book that Meyrin had downloaded from the PLANTS mainframe.

"Ditch that stuff, it's garbage." Shinn remarked casually. "It'll wear off in thirty minutes, less if you go into water, and even if it doesn't, you can still get burned through it... its not rated for the sun at this latitude or time of year. I have some stuff that I got in Gibralter, from a few years ago, I'll let you borrow some until we can find some of the local stuff. Its going to feel chunky and greasy, but it fades from view faster than you'd think, and its good for half a day at a time. And feeling a little greasy and gunky is MUCH better than feeling like you have a million red hot needles stabbing your face and neck, with your skin peeling off in finger sized strips or maybe even blisters."

"Uggh! Sounds horrible! Who would have thought Earth would be such a hostile place?" Luna shuddered. "Thanks for the advice. I take it you've been to Earth a few times then?"

"I'm actually an Earthling by birth." Shinn admitted. "I only came to live in the PLANTS after the First Valentine War, but I was stationed on Earth for most of the Second Valentine War as well."

"I was stuck in the homeland defense force for most of that war." Luna replied, her voice a little bitter. "My dad was a semi-high level staff officer, he made sure I never got near any real danger until ZAFT had no choice in the matter. I tried to get him to send me to the front lines, or even a garrison posting somewhere other than the PLANTS, but nooo... he wasn't going to risk his precious daughters where they might actually get killed! Bad enough that I'd become a Mobile Suit pilot... a "death seeking daredevil" to use his terms for it, rather than going into CIC or other support personnel type work like Meyrin and him... he wasn't going to let me actually get shot at if he could help it."

"Well, you must have had some combat experience... I don't think Rey would have made you a Knight-Ensign otherwise... err, that didn't come out right." Shinn realized what he'd said could totally be taken as high handed arrogance.

"Doesn't bother me, much, don't worry." Luna shrugged it off. "I got to do a little bit on the Moon invasion, which though I had to fight my dad every step of the way, turned out to be a good thing, given what happened to the Headquarters station, what with that giant Alliance Gundam-thing attacking it. If I'd stayed, I probably would have died with most of the rest of those luckless forces. But other than that, Operation Overload was my only other real combat time."

"You say it like it wasn't one of the most pivotal battles in recent history." Shinn said with a smile. "Anyone who lived through Operation Overload isn't someone I'd care to find on the other side of a battleground from me if I could avoid it, that's for sure." He tilted his head at the other Solar Knights pilots, who were slowly filling in the formation around them. "Ninety percent of them probably haven't fired a real weapon off of the training ranges yet. By comparison, you're a battle hardened veteran, believe me."

"Hold a sec... if I heard you right, you know Knight-Commander ze Burrel? Like, on a first name basis?" Luna's mind finally caught on the detail that had been flashing for her attention.

"Well, we might have gone through Academy at the same time and shared a room for a while..." Shinn found himself tugging at his collar again. Dratted thing.

"So what's he like then?" Luna pressed on, eager for details about their commander. "He looked young last night. Not much older than us! Well, that fits, if you went to Academy together. He must be really experienced then!"

"Rey is... a very unique person." Shinn hedged, searching for the words. "He's driven by a desire for success that is just incredible to see. You hear of people being obsessive-compulsive or perfectionists... well, Rey is definitely a perfectionist about being a soldier. I can't say that having him as commanding officer is always going to be enjoyable, because he's sometimes so serious he forgets he has a sense of humor, and he's apt to judge people according to his own scale of measure. On the other side of things though, he can definitely be very understanding, and he's willing to bend the rules when he thinks he needs to. Long as you stay on his good side and don't cause problems, or badmouth Gilbert Durandel, he's not hard to get along with."

"Big fan of the SecDef then is he?" Luna asked. Shinn leaned closer in a conspirital manner, looking around for a moment to make sure no one was listening in.

"You didn't hear this, and you should probably forget it as soon as I tell you, but I'm pretty sure he's related to him." Shinn whispered. "I mean, that's just my guess, but there's definitly more than a just a bond of friendship between them. Rey idolizes Mr. Durandel. And from the little I've seen, Mr. Durandel trusts Rey like no one else."

"Really? I guess I see why he got put in charge of the Knights then..." Luna digested this opinion of Shinns. The Secretary of Defense of the USN wasn't known to have any family, but that didn't mean Shinn was wrong... plenty of people from the PLANTS had different names than their parents. She and Meryin were such a case, after all... without genetic testing, there was no way anyone could tell that their father was at all related to them. Didn't look like them, didn't have the same name as them, didn't even live with them. Wasn't really a very involved father figure either, but Luna wasn't going to touch that right now.

"Heh, no. Rey got put in charge because he's got skills like you wouldn't believe. He's the definitive Redcoat, let me assure you, and he was going to be on the fast track for a White coat, regardless of his political affiliations, I have that from sources well placed in ZAFT, except now he's obviously got the Solar Knights instead. I mean, I'm sure Mr. Durandel isn't unhappy that Rey is the Knight-Commander, but really, he wouldn't have the job if he wasn't worthy of it. He's one of the only people I've met that's ever beaten me in a Mobile Suit."

"You must not have met many people then, tuft-head." A new voice interrupted from behind them. Shinn and Luna turned in unison to see who it was. There were actually two of them, one tall and lean, with a somewhat apologetic look on his face, with short browny-blond hair and blue eyes, while the other was short, about Meyrin's height, with wilder black hair and mismatched eyes, one left green, the right blue. It was the short guy, standing in a sort of aggressive slouch, hands in his front pockets and jaw thrust out, who had spoken. "Cause I'm fairly sure I'll be the one hammering your twisted, melted wreckage into the ground as soon as we get into the simulators."

"Don't mind him. He doesn't rejoin civilized society until midafternoon, from what I can tell." The taller man cut in, holding out his hand in greeting. "Eric Kellson, nice to meet you both. He's Lain Debora, by the way."

Lunamaria accepted his hand and shook it, though Lain and Shinn were locked in a staredown contest. "Lunamaria Hawke. And he's Shinn Asuka." She paused and looked at Eric more closely. "You look faintly familiar."

Eric shrugged self consciously, realizing that he was probably going to get a lot of that. Damn that embedded media crew, they'd made him a celebrity without his intent! "I had a hand in some of the post battle cleanup of the final battle of Carpentaria. I was the guy who opened the doors to the bunkers where the civilians were hiding."

"You were that crazy Isolationist officer who handed your gun to the brigadier general, right there on world wide news!?" Luna was amazed. "That's one of the most famous news clips of the decade!"

"Yeah. Total accident. Luck of the draw." Eric rubbed the back of his head in self conscious embarassment. "So I see you got a red belt as well. Remind me not to get on your bad side, okay? Far as I can tell, they've been giving these red belts out only to the most elite people here."

"Well with that logic, I'd probably not want to get on your bad side either, since you also have one." Luna pointed out. She looked askance at Shinn and Lain. "I think it might be a little late to warn them though."

"Oh, I'm not angry at all. I just don't like hearing other people brag like that. Makes me wanna show em what good really is." Lain replied, not budging his gaze from Shinn's.

"I've seen good. I'm not seeing it now." Shinn retorted. "Call me a bragger, you're the one talking like you're going to tear me apart without even seeing what I can do."

Luna sighed and rolled her eyes, seeing Eric smile as well, safely above eye level of the shorter Shinn and Lain. And on into posturing male ego land they went, it seemed. It was too bad, she'd been having a good time with her conversation with Shinn. Honestly, why did some men have to go through this chest beating ritual every time they encountered each other for the first time? It was like they couldn't be happy unless they knew everyone acknowledged that they were indeed the best at whatever it was they were concerned about. Or at least, everyone else who was male or posed a potential threat to their supposed place in the hierarchy of things anyway. It wasn't like it was possible for them to tell who was the better pilot until they actually got into the simulators, and even then, that wasn't a judgement that was really fair to make based on just one fight or scenario... it was something that was determined over a much longer time than that!

"I thought you were supposed to be from Orb! Whatever happened to that national character of peace and harmony with others you guys have?" Eric asked Lain. He could understand the jealousy aspect of things... Lain had his eye on Lunamaria and he was trying to shoulder Shinn out of the picture after all... but he sensed some real animosity starting to build up, which was no good thing in a new unit, especially amongst the "senior" personnel who would be expected to provide leadership to those junior to them. If the senior people were at each other's throats over something stupid, it would inevitably bleed over to their underlings, and THAT was going to be a big problem.

"Oh, he's from Orb is he?" Shinn's voice got about thirty degrees cooler. "THAT makes a lot of sense actually. Placing their overinflated, ego driven codes of ideology over everyone, regardless of how others feel or what the consequences are... yeah, thats Orb all right."

"Whoah! What the fuck, dude? You dissing my home country, out of the blue like that? Not fucking cool, motherfucker! Orb is one of the primary reasons we even have peace at all, you know!" Lain retorted, taking a half step towards Shinn. "If it weren't for Orb, you guys in the PLANTS woulda been starved to death!"

"Only because Orb let the war break out again in the first place, because your leader couldn't keep her bedtime fuckbuddies out of the news!" Shinn spat back. He was caught momentarily off guard as Lain grabbed him by the collar and pulled them face to face.

"You watch your mouth, fucker... nobody bad mouths Cagalli Zala-Attha to my face and gets away with it." Lain said, his own voice cold and threatening. "She's a great woman, and the world over owes her a debt of gratitude they'll be decades in repaying... trash like you barely has the right to breathe the same air as her!"

"Is there a problem here?" Another new voice interjected. Eric and Luna, who had been exchanging glances, wondering how best to pull their respective friends apart, snapped to attention and saluted, as did the other Solar Knights in the area. Lain looked past Shinn's head and slowly let go of his collar. He straightened to attention as well, though he never pulled his eyes away from Shinn.

"No... no problem, Commander, sir. I was just helping Shinn here straighten his collar a little bit."

Shinn turned around to find Rey standing in front of them, a distant and composed expression on his face. Rey the Commander, vs Rey the Redcoat comrade from the day before. Shinn came to attention and saluted, the last of the Solar Knights to do so. "As he says, sir. Just a friendly talk amongst pilots."

"I'm sure." Rey replied neutrally. "Come with me a moment, Knight-Ensign." Rey led Shinn over to the corner of the hangar, out of easy earshot of the rest of the formation. "When I asked you to look out for any problems or snags yesterday, that sort of display isn't exactly what I was hoping for you, know." Rey whispered intently.

"He was the one who came after me. And he's from Orb!" Shinn protested.

"So is twenty five percent of the entire unit! Get used to it! I know you have history with Orb, but you can't let it come out in public like that, Shinn! If he makes an issue of things, come to me, and I'll fix things, rest assured. But I can't have my squadron commanders getting into grudge matches, understand? Good. Get back in formation." Rey said, accepting Shinn's rather fierce salute with dispassion. Rey looked past Shinn and skewered the Orb ace, Lain Debora, with his gaze for a moment. Just letting the man know that Rey had his eye on him, already. It didn't seem to bother the Orbite much, but that was just because he didn't know Rey very well, nor was he familiar with the full extent of the powers the Knight-Commander was endowed with, regarding his unit. Rey made his way towards the center of the formation of Knights, even as the hangar doors beside him started to rumble open.

Rey made a mental note to ensure that Shinn and Lain spent as much time training together as could be. They didn't have to like each other, but by God they DID have to learn to work together as Knights, and he wasn't going to let up on them until he was satisfied that they could put petty differences aside for the greater good. They were two of the most skilled pilots he had... if he didn't keep them under control, it could fracture the entire unit eventually. All part of the thankless tasks involved in being the unit Commander. It wasn't even the first bit of friction he'd handled this morning, and he was betting it wouldn't be the last for the day, far from it. Rey stopped, once he was roughly centered on the formation. He turned to face them and finally brought his own hand up, returning the salutes they'd been holding, before letting them all relax to just attention again. He wasn't the biggest fan of this sort of ceremonial posturing, but it was a well proven method of getting the attention of a bunch of new soldiers, especially in a new setting. Hopefully they'd all come to both respect and even fear or hate him soon enough, and that would help them forget the differences they had with each other all the faster.

"Welcome, Knights." Rey said, into the silence as the hangar doors finally opened fully. "I am Knight-Commander Rey ze Burrel, your commanding officer. I have been personally appointed to oversee and lead the Solar Knights by Secretary of Defense Gilbert Durandel himself. I hope none of you has a problem with that, but rest assured I did not get appointed because of my skills at reading mail and carrying briefcases, unlike most political duty officers." Rey paused a few moments. He wasn't the best of speechmakers, he just didn't have Gil's talent for captivating words and taking hold of the audience's soul. "I see most of you have managed to figure out how to wear your uniform's correctly. They are somewhat gaudy, I will agree with you. But remember, our job is not only to be at the forefront of any major engagement that warrents our presence, but also to represent the USN impeccably at all times, both on duty and off! We have an image to maintain, and impression to make, an attitude to exemplify, and the uniform is part of that!"

"You may be worried about the time investiture that maintaining your uniforms would require, but you needn't. Your garments will not stain or discolor, not even if doused in grease, blood or paint. A single wash with plain water will clean away anything you might happen to get on you. Also, as some of the more experienced of you will have noticed by now, they provide exceptional comfort even in hot environments like the savannas of Africa. We would not make these our everyday uniforms if they were not designed to be worn everyday, in almost any situation imaginable. You will all be coming to find the philosophy of one thing, excelling in all areas simultaneously while specializing in none, is one of the core values of the Solar Knights. It holds true for our uniforms, our daily training regimes, our operational guidlines and even our Mobile Suits!" Rey paused again.

"Most of the rest of the day will be spent in a classroom setting, going over indoctrination to the Solar Knights, finalizing logisitical and administrative information, getting everyone settled, introducing everyone and finally going over some basic simulations together. Your days here in Africa will be long, I tell you this now. We have a very tight schedule to maintain, and even if we proceed ahead of schedule, terrorists could strike at any time, and we could well be called into action before we are fully prepared! Giving less than your all towards learning everything you can, and doing everything you can to become a Solar Knight, may very well end up costing you, and maybe countless other, innocent people, their lives." Rey paused once more. "Before we go off to do that though, it is only fitting that Knight's be introduced to their steeds."

Behind him, a shape loomed up from the dimness of the hangar, before stepping thunderously out to stand straddling him, dominating the tarmac and the formation of gathered pilots with its sudden majesty, the white, black and gold paint scheme gleaming in the sunlight. Rey smiled tightly, seeing the interested looks on many of the faces before him. Especially for those coming from the FNE or ALU, this was likely the most advanced Mobile Suit they had ever seen in person. Rey was willing to bet the new machines would put even the Orb and ZAFT pilots aback at times... they definitely impressed him. "Meet the Archon, the Mobile Suit of the Solar Knights." Rey said, once the whispers had died away. He let his smile show. "Pity those who stand in our way."

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"Okay, I do have to admit... this is a pretty bad ass Mobile Suit right here." Eric said, glancing briefly out the window into the late afternoon sunlight, looking at the Archon as it stood in the entrance to the hangar across the tarmac from the building they had taken up as their training facility, at least for the next little while. "I piloted Strike Crusaders, Cavaliers and eventually Templars, but I've not seen anything like the utility systems on these Archons. Its like they took all the best qualities from the best Mobile Suits since the latter half of the First Valentine War, added a few new goodies, and then found a way to mix em all together and mass produce em!" Eric turned back to the technical data being projected on the wall of the office. Currently it was only him, Lain, Lunamaria and Shinn in the room. They were the squadron leaders for the second platoon, they were due to meet their platoon leader here soon, before they went off to the simulators with the rest of their platoon.

While they waited, they were going over the specs for the machine that had been introduced to them in the morning, trying to become as familiar with it as possible before going into even simulated combat with it. Well, Eric and Lunamaria were doing that... Shinn and Lain managed to spare a glance or a comment every now and again, but they seemed chiefly concerned with either trying to forget the other guy existed, or else burn holes through each others heads with their eyes. They definitely weren't off to the best of starts with each other, and Eric had winced when Commander ze Burrel had announced that they would be part of the same platoon. As far as Eric could tell, Lunamaria wasn't yet aware that the real reason for Lain's animosity towards Shinn was because of her, but he wasn't really planning on pointing it out to her either. Lunamaria seemed to be a smart girl... she was a Redcoat after all. She'd figure it out eventually, though exactly what would happen then was anyone's guess.

"Twenty meters tall, ninety five tons mass... this thing is huge!" Luna commented, tearing her eyes away from the back of Shinn's head for what felt like the hundreth time that day. He'd been sullen and withdrawn ever since the incident that morning, and she found herself getting annoyed because of it, though she wasn't sure why. If Shinn wanted to sulk because he got dressed down in front of everyone by the Commander, that was his business. What was more her business was the growing animosity between Lain and Shinn... if half the platoon was constantly at each other's throats because they were in a snit with each other, it would seriously compromise the platoon's effectiveness, which would be bad all around! She didn't know what Lain's problem with Shinn was, or why Shinn had gotten about ten times nastier with Lain after learning he was from Orb, but she was going to make it her goal to find out!

"Eh. Gundam sized." Lain threw in. He passed his eyes over the technical documents. "It's not bad, I guess. Better than a Guardian."

"One more for the list then." Shinn mumbled, just loud enough for Lain to hear.

"Could you guys stop fighting for like a couple of minutes, so we can go over these tech specs!?" Luna half shouted, in exasperation. "Honestly, you two are the most childish pilots I've met!" She flushed slightly, as she found six eyes, three of them blue, one green and two red, all blinking at her in mild astonishment. Shinn and Lain gave each other self conscious glances... not apologetic, but at least putting things on hold by mutual agreement. "All I've ever piloted are Ginns and Elementals. Does handling change on larger mobile suits like the Archon?"

"Can't say for sure until we try em out." Lain replied with a shrug. "Larger doesn't always mean slower or clumsier... the Seraph and Phoenix King are both a bit bigger than this, and they can practically dance on a dime."

"Yeah, but they're Gundams and two of the best pilots in the world... they don't count." Eric replied. He thought for a few moments and then shrugged himself. "If they were FNE machines, I'd say that yeah, they'd be slower and clumsier than you're used to. But they aren't. Like Lain said, we're going to have to wait and see about that." He scrolled the tech specs a bit. "Still battery powered I see."

"Its not a regular battery though." Shinn spoke up. "It reminds me kind of like the power system in the Efreet... its designed to recharge very quickly. If I read the specs right, the combat downtime on these, for a full recharge, from empty to full power, is something like only five minutes. Given that combat time is normally estimated at an hour, that's an incredibly quick turnover time! Also, like the Efreet, it can recharge with those deployable solar collectors on the HiMat wings, and recharge in a matter of hours pretty much anywhere with exposure to sunlight. That's going to come in handy, no more having to rely on a mothership for power over the course of multiple fights."

"Ablative gel system? Isn't that what large spaceships use when returning through the Earth's atmosphere?" Luna asked, tapping her finger on the indicated item. "Does that mean we're going to be getting orbital drop training then? I always wanted to do that."

"From the looks of it, not only are they designed to do orbital drops, they're designed to do them without any outside assistance. That's pretty amazing." Eric tried to think of what it would be like, dropping through the atmosphere like a red hot meteorite, in just him and a Mobile Suit. Frightening came to mind.

"They also have scale systems and are pressure proof down to one thousand meters underwater? Commander ze Burrel wasn't kidding when he said excelling in all areas!" Luna sighed in mild awe. "So far it looks like they can fly in atmosphere, conduct solo orbital drops, and even operate at great depths underwater. Not only that, but they can operate for extended periods of time with only the sun as power, and have almost nonexistant combat downtime when paired with a mothership. I'm liking this already."

"What the hell!?" Lain blurted, a few moments later, after scanning yet further down the list of standard equipment the Archon mounted. "Vari-Cameras... Mirage Colloid... they've got freaking Orb tech!"

"I thought Mirage Colloid cloaks were illegal technology..."

"Not for the USN."

"What are these things? Hoverthrusters? It says they're supposed to be used for ground combat maneuvers... isn't that what legs are for?"

"It's another system taken from the Efreet." Shinn explained. "Two legged Mobile Suits are often at a disadvantage in unstable terrain... they overbalance easily, and can become bogged down. Hoverthrusters use vectoring jets from the thruster systems to lift the Mobile Suit just off the ground, kind of like the old ground effect hovercraft of the Reconstruction War. Its not really flying, but its faster than walking, and its much easier to keep your balance, once you get the hang of it. Of course, until then, it feels like you're skating on greased ice, but you'll get used to it. Its superior to walking, at least when it comes to Mobile Suits. You can change direction, even reverse direction, much faster than if you're using the legs to walk or run."

"Why not just fly?" Lain asked. "They have HiMat wings, like the old Freedom... they can fly perfectly fine in atmosphere, and we all know most battles are going to take place in the air anyway these days?"

"So far none of the recent terrorist incidents have taken place in the air." Eric refuted. "In fact, they've all been in relatively crowded urban environments, where maneuverability at near ground level is very important, and flying isn't always the best course of action. Besides, from what I understand, the hoverthrusters are a lot more efficient on the battery than full on flight, while being more efficient on terms of distance moved than just walking. Its a compromise movement, combining good aspects from both walking and flying. Can't wait to try it out."

"It does have one disadvantage though." Shinn said with a thin smile. "It's terrible for melee combat or dealing with large impacts... you have almost no leverage, and once you lose control, its almost impossible to get it back without falling over."

"Well, I suppose that covers the gear... whew, learning all of that stuff isn't going to be a walk in the park!" Luna shivered and hugged herself... memorizing technical information had always been something she'd hated doing. It was one area that Meyrin was definitely much better at than her. She brought up the defense systems tab. "I understand Citadel Shields, but what's Transphase Shift armor?"

"Its an Alliance... well, FNE now... technology." Eric explained. "It's a more battery efficient form of the Phase Shift armor the original five Gundams had. Its a lot harder to shape and more expensive to make though, so most people opt to go with improved power systems, like nuclear reactors, and regular Phase Shift armor, rather than Transphase and batteries. Obviously, the USN took a different path with the Archon. From what I understand, Transphase Shift armor doesn't turn on until just before an impact, greatly reducing the contstant drain on the power system Phase Shift induces. It still protects just as well, or not well, when it comes to beams, as regular Phase Shift. Phase Shift armor takes some getting used to... things like missiles and cannon shells or railguns can't hurt you anymore, as long as you can power the armor. Well, I should say they can't hurt you directly... believe me, it still hurts when you eat missiles in the face, or a bunch of 120mm cannon shells to the torso. It feels like a horse is trampling you into a concrete floor."

"I suppose that's preferrable to being blown into tiny little pieces though, right?" Lain commented with a sardonic grin. "Nice of them to be so concerned about our health. Now if only beam weapons weren't so prevalent..."

"World ain't perfect." Eric shrugged. "Take what you can get I guess. You should also bear in mind that even Citadel Shields aren't proof against everything... a FRALA will cut right through you regardless of your shield if you let it. I don't think they've yet found something a FRALA can't pierce, except for Citadel Shields with a helluva lot of power, and you're only going to find shields that strong on a static base."

"What about those reddish energy shields the whatsitcalled had... the Pulsar?" Luna asked. She watched, slightly bemused, as Eric flinched at some internal memory.

"Even those aren't immune to FRALA's." Eric said, after he recovered from the mental image of the Pulsar carving Ella's Templar in half, right next to him, while Eric was helpless to do anything but watch. "Hitting Gundams like that is an entirely different story, but the FRALA goes right through the shields."

"Those can also be overwhelmed if you hit them hard enough." Lain added. "The Representative and the Ambassador did it to that Brotherhood Gundam outside Morganville. Burnt the shield right out."

Eric gave Lain a level gaze for a few moments. "With respect, the Tormented was nothing but a very pale mockery of the Pulsar. If you encounter a Pulsar like Gundam, and go into it thinking it'll be like the Tormented, you're going to die. Its that simple. I was on the same battlefield as the Pulsar a few times. I've never been so scared for my life, and so powerless to do anything to save myself. I'll grant you your point... the Tormented's shield was overwhelmed. But what about that purple Gundam that showed up and covered it's escape? If I saw the footage right, he CAUGHT the fucking missile, and didn't even bother to shield the plasma streamer. It just couldn't hurt him. My advice is, if you see that purple Gundam, and you don't have at least a platoon of Solar Knights around, flee. He will eat you alive otherwise."

"Isn't it our job to fight people like that though? Because other people can't?" Shinn pointed out.

"There's a difference between fighting and throwing away your life. The Archon's are wonderful Mobile Suits. They could probably beat the living snot out of anything but a Gundam built within the last five years. But the Pulsar was decades ahead of anything else on the field, and that was five years ago... who knows what sort of tech that purple thing has. I mean, I don't know how good you guys are... maybe I'm speaking to the next Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala here... but I'm just saying, the Archon's aren't at the top of the totem pole. Acting like they are might be a very big mistake. We need to get our previously high opinions of ourself out of the way... let future incidents build our reputations as they may, lets at least go into things on the same level, eh?"

"That's a very mature thing to say, and a very good idea. I agree." Luna said. "Inflated egos probably kill more Mobile Suit pilots than anything else. We feel invincible, but we aren't. There's always a bigger fish out there, but at least that goes both ways. Purple Gundam-man might be better than any one, two, three or four of us... but with teamwork and numbers, we'll tear him limb from limb! And this is the stuff we'll use to do it." Luna called up the weapon systems of the Archon. Right off the bat she saw something new. "250mm Accelerated Impulse cannon... ohh, Hyper-Impulse, okay. Why can't they just call it what it is?"

"Because it's different." Shinn replied, speed scanning the data. "It's based off compressed plasma cannons, aka Hyper-Impulse weapons, but the particles are accelerated faster even than normal for a plasma bolt, which results in a bluer tint to the beam, so its dark blue and purple. Apparently it's supposed to be about eighty percent more effective at piercing armor and energy field shields than a regular hyper-impulse blast. I suppose it makes sense that they'd try for something like that, given the amount of Gesichmedig-Panzer and Citadel Shields now being used by various militaries. What I want to know is, why put the weapon in the middle of the fifteen meter anti-ship sword?"

"Utility again, methinks." Lain answered. "Think about it. Used to be, you'd go blasting away with your main ranged weapon until the enemy got close, then you'd have to drop it or stow it and take out your sword. Lots of wasted time and effort there. Combining the gun and the sword is more efficient, as long as you make sure the gun isn't damaged by using the sword. Given that there's both physical and beam edges on the sword, there shouldn't be much it can't cut through, one way or the other. Besides, its a good image, shooting bolts of energy from the tips of our swords... very scary. Good for the media too, I'd think."

"Dual 80mm beam cannon on the right shoulder, twelve tubed laser guided missile launcher on the left shoulder, six Mobile Suit class grenades, 20mm CIWS x4 in the head... not a bad arsenal." Luna continued, reading the list of more conventional weapons. "I was hoping for something a little heavier, but I guess I'll make do."

"Those missiles use Pilum class EARPs (Enhanced ARmor Penetrators). Nice. I remember those from the Moon. Shoot right through anything but an energy field shield or Phase Shift armor. Kind of lacking in the power department, but they're great for dealing with heavily armored targets." Eric threw in. "If those Accelerated Impulse cannons work out like they're supposed to, then that's a hell of a lot of ranged punch, for a mass production model. And with HiMat wings and hoverthrusters, melee combat should be very interesting as well. I might actually have to learn how to fence better."

"Its just too bad they don't transform. If they could transform, they'd be more than just awesome!" Lain lamented. "You should see how the M-7's... nevermind."

"M-7's huh? Those the new Orb Mobile Suits?" Shinn asked.

"I can not say anything about the M-7, if such a thing even exists." Lain returned with a stony face. "Orb will neither confirm nor deny the production of a new series of Mobile Suits based upon the current Gundams."

"Thats no fun." Luna frowned. She'd been hoping to hear some concrete details about the new Orb models. There were so many rumors flying around no one was sure what to believe. She thought about the Primal, the new ZAFT model. It was going to be a close one, with the Archons and now these M-7's. She looked at Eric sideways. "I don't suppose the FNE is coming out with a new line of Mobile Suits as well?"

"It would be wrong of me to admit to any knowledge of the Panzerwulf endeavor, or whether or not it actually concerns the FNE's mobile forces." Eric replied with a sincere smile. "I've heard all sorts of interesting things about ZAFT's Project Primal though."

"Am I the only one here who doesn't know about anything new and exciting, besides the Archon?" Shinn asked morosely. He looked out the window at the Archon. Painted mostly white, with black joints and gold detailing around important edges, like around the cockpit and on the head and backs of the hands and feet, its blue crystal visor-eye stared back at him, glowing dimly in the midafternoon sun. The symbol of the Solar Knights was proudly emblazoned on both shoulders and both calves, as well as the middle of the shield, though that would be hidden by the blue-green energy field of the Citadel Shield during battle. The golden HiMat wings on the back wouldn't stop reminding him of the Freedom, which made his stomach flip flop very unpleasantly. Still, he couldn't wait to get into one of them... no longer would Gundams be able to rampage freely across the battlefields, disregarding everything around them in their personal vendettas! If only the Solar Knights had been around when his family needed them...

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Author Note: Okay, I can't remember Shinn's sister's name for the life of me. Its not on GundamOfficial either, and my GSD discs aren't nearby. I THINK it's Mayu, but does anyone know? As for what some of my reviewers have asked, let me see... yes, I actually watched Code Geass and Code Geass R2 recently, so that might be creeping in a bit, though the idea for the Solar Knights has been written down in my outline for years now. As for Ashino, well, I haven't forgotten about him and Jean, but I've got a lot of ground to cover, and I can't neglect the Canon characters for too long, so fitting in my OC only chapters takes second priority to plot advancement and CC events. Besides, Durandel's been trying to keep him out of things since his inauguration party, because he's afraid he'll steal the show from the Solar Knights.

Thanks for the ideas on new tech, though as ever I'm going to have to dance around as best I can, because I still have a third novel to add after ED is done, and I have to save some stuff for that. And it's not so much that Mobile Armors are better than Mobile Suits, in fact they aren't really. It's just that Admiral Icarus really hates Mobile Suits, and Durandel doesn't like giving Gundams to people who will change their morals at the last moment and steal them, which happens a lot in GS and GSD. If you have a MS or Gundam or warship idea for me, please post it in a Review Reply, I hardly ever check the email account that I use for Fanfiction.

I'm almost surprised no one has yet commented on Waltfeld and Murrue. I mean, I know it's a quasi-canon pairing, cause of GSD, but I've taken it a little farther than that, especially because most of us know by now that Mu is very much not dead. Maybe I thought it was more striking than it is. In any case, thanks very much for the reviews, please keep them coming. As you may have noticed, I'm on a hot streak right now in terms of updates... the more reviews I get, saying what you do and don't like, and why, the easier it is for me to keep these streaks going. See you guys again in Planting the Seeds part 3. (yes, chapter titles are mostly going to revolve around gardening type things).


	17. Planting the Seeds part 3

Adam Corvis felt his heartrate start to speed up, as he finished oilling the hinges on the maintenance access hatch in one of the deeper infrastructure levels of the currently under construction E-PLANT, Millenium City 1. He'd gotten this far, the last thing he needed was a rusty hinge sound giving him away. If he was right, and the intelligence he'd gotten was correct, then what he would find at the end of the passageway that this hatch opened into would blow the whole Brotherhood of Man terrorist conspiracy plot wide open. He shivered, both because it was cold this close to the outer skin of the E-PLANT, without the heating systems working yet, and because of the implications of what he was likely to discover. The plot went all they way to the tops of industry and politics! The amount of money involved was staggering, mind numbing even! The scale of the deception being perpetuated was stunning, and made his paranoia complex grow to new heights. Eyes were everywhere. He couldn't trust anything electronic.

All he needed to do was make some final confirmations, get some real hard evidence... and then he could run back to his ZAFT paymasters and get out of this damned business once and for all! His nerves were shot after this! No more messing in the affairs of the high and mighty for him, no siree! He'd used to enjoy being a private investigator... there wasn't much work on the PLANTS, but when he did get a job it was usually something that could keep a guy occupied for a while. He'd only taken this job on a whim really... scouting out potential Brotherhood operations in the underbelly of PLANTS society before they could get started and commit an atrocity like what they'd done in the FNE, on the Moon or in Orb. Find the goons, get the info, sic ZAFT on em... easy money. If only he'd known. If only he'd known! He shook his head and slowly eased the hatch open, with nary a single sound or even vibration to signal his intrusion. He was in. Now was going to come the really nerve wracking part.

Because, what he'd learned wasn't that the Brotherhood was sending cells of terrorists to the PLANTS in preparation for an attack. No, the opposite actually... Brotherhood cells were being sent FROM the PLANTS to other places to commit attacks! The Brotherhood was BASED in the PLANTS. Hell, hundreds of thousands of people looked RIGHT at the Brotherhood base of operations every day! Hundreds probably walked through the outer parts of it without even knowing, because it was built into the bottom structure of Millenium City itself! The scale of the facility, code named "The Great Endeavor" by the Brotherhood, was massive! It was at least a kilometer and a half in diameter, a rough circle that was easily three hundred meters tall at the outside edges, and closer to five hundred meters tall at the middle. But it's form was so cunningly concealed in the bottom of Millenium that even if you knew it was there, you couldn't make out where the E-PLANT left off and the Great Endeavor began. It was as if the E-PLANT had been designed with the Great Endeavor already part of it! In fact, that WAS the literal truth!

Adam forced himself to be calm, though sweat beaded on his palms and across his brow, as he edged forward down the dimly lit maintenance passageway. He wiped at his face with the sleeve of his "appropriated" worker's coverall, smearing his face with soot and dust. He barely noticed. His straining ears began to pick something up... a vibration at first, that slowly, achingly slowly resolved into a rumbling chant as he penetrated deeper into the beating heart of the Brotherhood. By his calculations he would soon be directly underneath the center of the Great Endeavorm and from the sound of it, his info had been accurate. The informant had told him that there was some big ceremony or something going down in a few hours, and that if he wanted to perhaps get a look at some of the Brotherhood leaders, the Apostles as they were called, that then would be his best chance. The same informant had also given him one of the black bound books, the "Testement" that outlined the religious doctrine of the Brotherhood. Adam hadn't been able to make heads nor tails of it... ravings about angels and recreating the world and all sorts of narcisstic drivel.

Still, obviously there was something to it, because the Brotherhood was EVERYWHERE. Oh, they didn't make their presence plain of course, but he'd long ago lost count of just how many people recognized the sign of the winged eye of knowledge, and would promptly shut up or tell him to go away. Probing deeper, he'd found the gangs of "adherents", who claimed to be part of the Brotherhood, even going so far as to tattoo the winged eye on their bodies as a gang marking, but few if any of them actually knew anything... mostly rich kids, latching on to what they saw as the newest craze in counterculture. Deeper still were the Acolytes... the real peripheral members of the Brotherhood, acting as an interface between the Harbringers, as their soldiers were called, and the various institutions of the rest of the world. Acolytes, Adam had discovered to his chagrin, were absolutely EVERYWHERE. Many of them didn't know they were connected to the Brotherhood even, they just dropped information into a mailbox, or rented out a certain room at a certain time each week and didn't look closely at who used it or other tasks.

It was just his rough estimate, but Adam's info suggested that there were anywhere from ten to thirty thousand Acolytes spread throughout the PLANTS, at all levels of society, from the small organized criminal groups that sold the Waft and Spiffy to the desperate or foolish, all the way up the the high command of ZAFT and the lords of PLANT industry and politics! And his info, as well as recent events also suggested that the Brotherhood Acolyte network was far more prevelant elsewhere in the USN as well. Truly, there was no way of knowing, from his current position, just how deep this cancer went! And besides just their information network, there was also the actual terroist side of things to consider. They had built not only at least four Gundams, but the Great Endeavor itself, as well as who knew how many mass production Mobile Suits, plus their trained infantry soldiers! They were a small nation unto themselves practically! They should not be able to hide as easily as they did, even with their control over information and the networks!

But the thing was, there just wasn't anything there to indicate a major organization! The first rule of investigating was easy... follow the money. But there was no money to follow! Or rather, the Brotherhood was actually exporting money... it was making a profit somehow, while building and training and producing who knew what in who knew how much quantities! It was bloody impossible, but somehow it was happening all the same. There were no purchases of raw materials needed for the construction of Mobile Suits. There were no bulk purchases of food. No mass renting out of living accomodations. No overly large groupings of travel arrangements. Nothing to indicate a huge terrorist haven was operating, with great success, right in the middle of the PLANTS. All of his information, except the latest tip, was still conjecture and guesswork on his part... he had no proof! Which was why he was here, now, and not safe on a virtual-beach in Copernicus... he needed real proof, and that meant risking his life, in this case.

He dearly hoped there were no highly advanced warning devices in this passage... the Brotherhood worshipped advanced technology, and indeed in many cases seemed to even be more advanced than ZAFT or the USN, hard as that was to believe sometimes. He had a pistol in his shoulder holster, but from what he'd heard about the gear the Harbringers had, it probably wouldn't do much more good than a water pistol if he was discovered. After several more heart clenching minutes of careful stalking, he reached the end of the passage. There was an inconstant red glow coming from up ahead, and it took him a few moments to recognize it as firelight, like from a bonfire or something. Odd, but it fit in with the religious aspect of things he supposed. He inched forward once the passage ended and had to fight very hard not to gasp aloud. The chamber beyond was IMMENSE, at least a third of a kilometer in diameter, and it looked to be at least two or three hundred meters to the ceiling from the floor.

The room was a hangar, Adam realized, as his eyes adapted to the inconstant illumination coming from the middle of the room and he caught sight of the Mobile Suits arrayed in maintenance bays around the edges. He tried to make a quick count, but the dim lighting and the sheer size of the room made it hard. There had to be at least thirty or more of the Zealot type, and probably as many of the Martyr type as well, stacked in bays that stretched from the floor to the roof along an entire one hundred and eighty degree arc of the room. Some bays held partially constructed Suits, or ones that might have been battle damaged. Adam looked to his left and saw three larger bays, with various passages and ladderways between them leading off into other parts of the Great Endeavor. In each of those three larger bays was a Gundam and though he didn't recognize them by sight, the fresh battle damage and signs of recent refit told his keen Private Eye instincts that these were the three Gundams that had led the recent terror attacks.

Off to his right were two more larger bays, plus a truly gigantic bay that stretched halfway to the roof, and took up a full third of that semi-circle of the wall. Adam didn't know what to make of the colossal Gundam standing in that bay, other than the fact that it made him feel very, very small and vulnerable. Could something so huge really move like a Gundam? It boggled the mind. Its prodigious arms ended not in hands, but in massive weapon systems that looked big enough to outpower even capital warships! For a second, Adam froze, as he looked up into its frozen yellow eyes... he could have sworn it was looking back at him! He shook the feeling away. It was just a machine. An impressive machine, but an inert hunk of technology, that was it! One of the merely large bays held the purple, crystalline Gundam that had appeared briefly in Orb, majestic in its unique outer texture even in the barely lit hanger chamber. The other merely large bay was blocked off by a sheet of opaque Exo-Glass, though Adam could have sworn he saw the outline of another Mobile Suit behind it. Another Gundam under construction perhaps?

Adam longed to be able to take a picture of the Mobile Suits and Gundams, but his little camera wouldn't reach that far... he'd just get blackness unless he actually went right up to one of the bays, and he didn't want to chance moving towards what was probably a guarded and heavily secured area if he didn't have to. The congregation in the middle of the hanger, gathered around a sort of raised stage with a great burning fire in a metal bowl, easily ten meters around, seemed his best chance for the proof he needed. He couldn't get a good look at the crowd around the stage as he padded through every bit of cover he could find, circling in on them, but there had to be at least a hundred of them, if not more. Most were dressed in simple brown or black robes, and stood casually, if with rapt attentiveness towards the stage. Almost all of them had hoods up, masking their features, even here in their stronghold, though maybe it was another religious thing. Adam wasn't so good with religion.

Abruptly, all sound and motion in the crowd ceased, even the chanting that had faded into the background with Adam hardly even noticing. He ducked as low as he could behind a few crates of machine parts, barely daring to peer out from between a crack. The view was adequate... he could see the stage at least, and the fire wasn't right in the middle of his view. This would be his best chance... any closer and his risk of being seen would go way up, with all the extra ambient light from the fire. He cursed to himself, wishing his informant had told him about the robes... with one of those he could probably have walked right into the back rows of the group unseen! Without warning, there came a mechanical whirr and hiss, and then a pair of people rose into view on the platform, seemingly rising up through the stage itself. Good theatrics, Adam mused. He gave it a B plus, though the gathered Harbringers seemed much more suitably awed.

One of the figures was clad in dark green robes, with the winged eye of knowledge embroidered in gold on the front and back. Her hood was thrown back, revealing a not unpretty girl in her twenties, her skin creamy pale and her hair a cherry red. Adam's eye for detail caught on the nasty lump of scar tissue on the bottom of her throat, which seemed to encircle most of her neck, even stretching nearly up to her chin in some parts. It was the kind of scar someone would have after surviving having their throat slit, or their neck impaled or some other sort of life-altering injury. Adam wasn't surprised when the woman didn't make a sound... with that wound, she probably would be lucky to wheez, much less speak! The other figure wore robes of eye searing white, with the winged eye picked out in green, along with a repeating tessellation of golden feathers that completely covered the robes. This figure was short and slim, perhaps another woman or a youth, but Adam couldn't tell for sure because the hood was up, completely hiding the person's face in impregnable shadow.

"Harbringers!" The voice which issued forth from the white hood was that of an older man, booming and confident, though Adam's was pretty sure he caught a few stray reverbs that might indicate some sort of electronic voice disguiser. Interesting, but academic at this stage. He waited... whoever white hood was seemed important, given how the Harbringers were regarding him with total attention. If he could just get a snapshot of their face then he could go. "You gather before me today for a grave ceremony of contrition! One of our own has fallen from my grace and must atone for her failures!"

"ATONE! PURIFY! ATONE! REVITALIZE! ATONE! BE REBORN!" The crowd of Harbringers hollered as one, startling Adam and nearly making him fall over backwards. "ALL HAIL THE PROPHET!"

"She was given a holy mission, and instead chose to persue personal agendas of vengeance! Such disregard for our great work cannot go unpunished! But your Prophet is not unforgiving of those who sin against him, be they truly contrite and still of worthwhile use! Bear witness, Harbringers, to the repentance of this Tormented Apostle!" The Prophet held out his hand, and with another whirr and hiss, a small table rose from the stage, between him and the girl in the green robes, obviously the Tormented Apostle in question. Upon the table was a white handerchief, folded neatly in half. Upon that handerchief was a knife, its edge glinting cruelly in the firelight. Off to the side was a small metal bowl, from which a thin streamer of smoke wafted. The Apostle girl knelt in front of the table, her eyes downcast, her face troubled as if greatly ashamed of something. She looked like a dog that was expecting yet another in a long line of kicks from a too harsh master to Adam. He had an inkling of what was likely to happen, but he forced himself not to look away. Just a little bit more and he could take his pictures and get the hell out.

"REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT! REPENT!" The Harbringers chanted, stamping their feet in unison like a football crowd gone wild. Adam was startled to find himself, completely unbidden, chanting along with them under his breath. He swallowed hard and gritted his teeth together... something was deeply wrong about this whole situation, and not just because that sad girl was about to maim herself on the stage! The Apostle girl took up the knife with her right hand, and placed her left hand, balled into a fist with her pinky and ring fingers extended onto the handerchief. She lifted the knife and placed it gently just above the bottom knuckles of those fingers. She paused, and looked up at the Prophet as if begging for mercy. Well, Adam thought that until he got a better look at her facial features. He felt sick. She wasn't scared, she was practically orgasmic! What sort of tragedy had warped a pretty girl like that into someone who was gleeful about the prospect of maiming herself for some personal failure? He was reminded ever more of a whipped dog begging its master as she looked at the Prophet. What had the bastard done to her, to make her like this?

"REPENT! ALL HAIL THE PROPHET! REPENT!" The Harbringers kept up their encouragement, pressing closer to the stage in a solid mass, excitement and religious fervor filling their voices. Adam watched the knife blade rise, pause, quiver and then fall with a keening whistle. There was a "thock" sound as the knife sliced completely through the plastic table with hardly even slowing, before the Apostle girl could control the momentum of her swing. There was actually less blood than Adam had been expecting... the cut was so surgically clean that after the first few bright red spurts, the veins and arterys actually started to close up a little, not having ragged edges to keep them open. The Apostle girl hadn't made a sound so far, but when she jammed the stumps of her fingers into the metal bowl, placing them against the white hot coal held inside, she threw back her head and screamed, a heart wrenching, blood freezing howl of agony that brought tears of pain to Adam's eyes, and caused the Harbringer's nearest the stage to shrink back as if physically struck.

"Apology accepted, my dear Apostle." The Prophet reached out with one hand, though it never left the sleeve of his robe, and patted Apostle girl gently on the top of her head, as her scream wound down. Tears were starting from her eyes and smoke rose from her hand, but her face shone with triumph and devotion all the same. Adam almost puked right then and there.

"ALL HAIL THE PROPHET! REPENT AND BE REBORN! ALL HAIL THE BROTHERHOOD!" The Harbringers roared in delight. Buncha loonies! Sick, twisted, loonies! God, but Adam was going to enjoy blowing this case wide open now!

"Indeed, Harbringers. Indeed." The Prophet raised his arms for quiet. Apostle girl slowly forced her way to her feet next to him, bloody knife still grasped firmly in her right hand. "My Tormented Apostle has pleased me with her act of contrition. Let no Harbringer offer her an iota less respect than she has ever deserved, for she now stands redeemed in my eyes, fit now and in the future to be my Apostle! Now, return to your tasks, Harbringers! By your actions, bring the great Recreation ever closer to fruition!" The Prophet said by way of dismissal. His arms drooped to his sides once more, and his head swiveled to look directly at Adam's hiding place. "And you, Mr. Corvis, please step out and join us."

"Oh fuck! Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck!" Adam muttered under his breath. He didn't move. Neither did the Harbringers, though they regarded his hiding place with curiosity. How the hell did the Prophet know he was here? How did he know who he was? What the fuck was going on!?

"Mr. Corvis, I grow tired of waiting." The Prophet's voice grew cold and fierce. "By the power of the Angels of Re-Creation to Come, I command you to step out and join us!"

"Fat fucking chance you... loon... ie..." Adam muttered, before his body jerked itself to its feet, standing up in plain view of the entire Brotherhood gathering. "What the HELL!?" Adam stepped out from behind the crates, despite his mind's desperate signals to do the exact fucking opposite. He took a few staggering steps towards the stage, though he wanted to run as fast as he could in the other direction. He tried to reach inside his coveralls for his gun, but his arms... hell, every consciously controllable muscle in his body just wasn't his to control anymore!

"Behold, Harbringers, a taste of the power of the Angels to Come! After you go through your own great re-creations, you too shall wield the power of the Angels, as I, your Prophet, do now! Behold, Harbringers, the futility of resisting the powers which the inferior mortals cannot comprehend!" The Prophet folded his arms across his chest smugly. Adam staggered closer, mounting the steps leading up onto the stage, before his body collapsed to it's knees in front of the Prophet. "You did well, Mr. Corvis, to come this far, and learn what you did. Of course you already have realized that you will not be leaving this place. Still, Mr. Corvis, I'm not unmerciful... I'll give you the chance to take the clean way out."

"F-ff-fuck you!" Adam sobbed out through clenched teeth. He tried to jerk his arms, hell even fall forward onto his face, but his conscious nervous system was gripped by a force he could not understand, and he might as well have been a bug under a pin for all the movement he could accomplish!

"The choice is made then." The Prophet didn't sound angry. He even seemed kind of sad. "Apostle, provide Adam here with your knife. He'll be needing it." The Prophet bent down and collected his Apostle's severed digits while she was passing the knife over to Adam. He tossed the fingers into the bonfire, since leaving physical evidence, even here in the Great Endeavor, was not permitted. The cinders from the fire would be used as ignition mass for one of the FPRs, and the matter would then be totally closed. He turned his gaze back to the unfortunate Adam Corvis, private eye and troubleshooter. "May you be reborn into a happier place, Mr. Corvis. I am sorry you did not get to experience the great Re-Creation. We might have been able to become brothers, you and I. Such a waste."

Adam watched with horror as his hands took hold of the knife and flipped it carefully around, pressing the tip against his navel, slicing into his skin even with such a light touch. Bloody hells, but that blade was sharp! He tried to squirm, to yell, to scream, even to cry... but it was all denied to him. He was a prisoner in his own body, being puppeted by some impossible force beyond his understanding or ability to fight! He stared wildly up into the hood of the Prophet, and he twitched with shock, his last self generated motion, as he looked into two majestically purple eyes... with solid gold centers where the black pupil should be on a normal human! Even as that thought was running through his head, his lungs stopped breathing and his heart stopped beating, all at once. At the same time, even before his system went into shock, he impaled himself on the knife and ripped upwards, his arms moving with a strength and surety his body could never have had under the circumstances were he in control of himself. Without his heart beating, there was actually not much blood flow, as his guts tumbled out in a slithering mass onto the floor. He died without a sound, still kneeling, his heart and lungs frozen, mind still fighting for a single last moment of self control.

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Noah wrinkled his nose, trying to banish the rich smell of cooking meat from his awareness. Perhaps having the Harbringers dump the unfortunate Mr. Corvis into the bonfire before carting him off to the FPR hadn't been the best of ideas. It was making him hungry, and nauseated at the same time. Mary had gone off to see a medic... pomp and ceremony was all well and good, but he could hardly have her getting gangrene at an inopportune time, could he? With a capsule of Curaga, and a few hours time, there wouldn't even be scars on her stumps. Noah looked around the echoing interior of the main hanger bay of the Great Endeavor and hugged himself inside his robes. He always felt excited after a Brotherhood ceremony, but right now he was practically trembling with adrenaline, a sensation he hadn't felt in a good while. Not since the last time he had used his Newtype powers to force someone to kill themselves. Well, in Mr. Corvis's case, he'd actually been clinically dead, his heart and lungs stopped, before he even brought the knife into it, but it was still Noah's usurpation of their conscious and unconscious muscle control that did the deed.

It had seemed odd to the media, that so many members of the great and powerful Borander family would start dropping dead of sudden heart attacks, right in the prime of their lives. Still, no signs of foul play had ever been discovered, and legal authorites had had no choice but to accept the deaths as coincidences or the hand of fate. Their hearts had just stopped beating. No one knew why or how. The first few had been messy... stopping a heart wasn't easy, isolating the unconscious nervous signals was no child's game, even though that WAS how it had started out. But as he grew more practiced and experienced, he found he could stop a heart even from across a room, as long as he could put his full concentration into the task. Not always could he keep it stopped long enough to actually kill someone, unless he prepared and conditioned them before hand, like he'd done for his uncles, aunts, nephews and cousins, or knew them intimately well, like his parents. He was actually proud of himself... Mr. Corvis was the first stranger he'd ever killed like that... it hadn't been nearly as hard as he was afraid it would be. Practice did make perfect after all.

The Harbringers had certainly been suitably impressed... before now, all his demonstrations of the power of the Angels had been in sending dreams and reading minds and other much less visible and powerful aspects of his powers. If they hadn't been in total awe of him before, they certainly were now convinced that he was indeed an Angel Ascended. He brushed back his hood and searched in his pocket for his contacts case. He'd seen the widening of Mr. Corvis's eyes when they'd met gazes. Plainly, the side effects of that part of the Green EDEN treatments were progressing as he'd expected. He'd had to eliminate that part of the coding from the treatments he was sending to Rey, but that wasn't too hard, considering his own treatments were several weeks behind Rey's... it was much easier to add on to what he knew worked, rather than having to take away something that might end up being vital. He removed the black, one way translucent contacts and placed them into his eyes with a well practised touch, aided by the tiniest bit of telekinesis. He was trying to work it into everyday life, and it wasn't like it was so powerful as to be obvious. The contacts reduced his gold pupils to mere starbursts, which was what people were used to seeing.

Putting a "tag" code onto the Green EDEN was one of his better ideas, he had to admit. It would definitely make it easier to differentiate who was what, when it all came down to it. He smiled, and was about to put his hood back up and head off to one of his labs... there was always some project that needed his attention after all... when the crackle of static from one of the walls drew his attention. He made his way over to the speaker, and stood, hands on hips, looking up at the towering Revenant, sitting grim and dark in its maintenance bay. "Can I help you with something, Apostle?" Noah asked, though it was in his normal voice, not the electronically modulated voice of the Prophet.

"My name is Cray. I'm no Apostle of yours, you crackpot." Cray replied, his voice even more static laced and scratchy than usual. "I'm not fooled by your religious mumbo-jumbo, boy... you're a twisted little fucker, that you are!"

"If all you have is the usual bile, please, spare me, Cray. Don't make me turn off your voice capability again. I know how much you hate sitting mute in your life support tank." Noah replied in a patient tone.

"Hate!? HATE!? You know nothing of hate, boy! Hate is being reduced to less than a corpse, but being left alive and treated as a plaything! That is HATE!"

"Would you have rather I let you bake to death, naught more than a charred torso, in that radioactive oven your Gundam had become? Are you not glad I decided to have your life saved, Cray? Do you not want your chance at revenge at those who ruined your life forever? Say the word, Apostle, and I'll end it for you. I can have any Harbringer control the Revenant if need be... you are merely the best amongst bad choices." Noah offered pitilessly. Talks like this were a necessary part of utilizing the BCPU, who was childish, arrogant and endlessly bloodthirtsy. However, unlike certain other members of the BCPU community, Cray could be carrot and sticked into cooperation, eventually, even now when his entire existence was confined to a life support tank in the torso of the Revenant. Cray just had to be reminded of his dependence on Noah, and his relatively trivial and nonvital place in the actuality of things, every so often.

"You call this saving my life?" Cray said sulkily after a couple of seconds. His voice fritzed and crackled with background noise from his tank. "I don't have arms or legs, or skin or eyes or a nose or hair. I don't have a lower body from the waist down. I cannot see, hear, taste, smell or feel, except as the sensors of the Revenant allow me, which is damned limited when you keep me disconnected like this all the time! I saw that Corvis dude sneaking into the room during your little bloodletting ritual, but I can barely speak above a whisper, so I could not warn you. You keep me entirely useless, suspended between life and death, waiting on your whims, giving me empty promises of helping me attain my revenge... is it any wonder that I hate you?"

"Empty promises? You call the Revenant an empty promise, Cray?" Noah asked, arching an eyebrow in mock surprise. "I have built you an entirely new body, one with incredible power... the power to lay waste to entire nations!"

"It doesn't mean anything if I can't use it!"

"You will! It just isn't the proper time yet."

"It hasn't been the proper time for years and years! I'm tired of waiting."

"What else have you got to do? You're a head and a torso, more a collection of organs and charred bones really! Where else would you go? What else would you do? You wouldn't live for twenty minutes outside your tank, and only that long because you're a BCPU! If you are feeling that lonely and anxious, I can give you some more dreams." Noah offered, though he personally hated treading in Cray's mind... Cray was a wicked, wicked person after all. Noah wasn't a pure soul, he knew... but Cray was evil! Just about the second most evil mind he'd ever touched, really!

"Away with your dreams, mindwalker!" Cray retorted, though there was a whining edge of need in his voice too. Drugs didn't affect him... but pleasant dreams were the only thing that made his existence at all bearable and kept him even marginally sane. Of course, for Cray, pleasant dreams involved mass killing, explosions, death and gore galore and lots of hot, willing naked women, but who was anyone else to call that unpleasant? "Don't think I'm not on to you... I saw what you did to Corvis! No fucking way he just decided to up and hara kiri himself cause you asked him too! I don't know how you do it, boy, but you're not natural! You're evil!"

"I am not evil. I am endlessly misunderstood." Noah retorted with a sigh. He was surprised by Cray's snort of derision.

"Call it what you like. Trust me, I know evil when I see it. Misunderstood people don't have subordinates cut off fingers because of mistakes. Misunderstood people don't use impossible powers that shouldn't exist to force people to slash their guts open! Misunderstood people don't SAVE people like me and build them hundred meter tall death machines as replacement bodies! I can't claim to have the insight into the human soul and psyche my brother Frost does, but even I can see how hollow your lies to yourself are, boy!"

"Frost knew nothing! He was nothing! He died, uselessly! He was NOTHING!" Noah shouted, balling his fists angrily. He forced himself to be calmer... yelling and getting mad was what Cray wanted him to do. It fed the BCPU's ego to tweak other people up.

"Frost was a lot of things. Batshit crazy, massively homicidal, obssessive compulsive, sociopathic and meglomaniacal... but he was never useless and he was the farthest thing from nothing!" Cray retorted. "You're lying to yourself again! Maybe I've gone batshit crazy too, trapped in this glass tank for years and years with nobody but myself to talk to... but a lot of the stuff Frost used to say to me that I always shrugged off is really starting to make a lot of sense now! I'm starting to see how that fucking insane fucker really DID have one helluva handle on you humans and how you guys tick."

"You were human once too." Noah pointed out, fighting petulance.

"Yeah. And I'm one up on you there, I think." Cray replied, surprising Noah once more. Twice in one conversation... was the universe coming to an end?

"What do you mean? I'm far more human than you could ever dream of being! I am the ideal of humanity! My genetics are perfect!"

"What the fuck does THAT have to do with anything?" Cray sounded truly puzzled. Noah was taken aback. "I don't care about your genetics, you stupid Coordinator... I'm talking about your humanity... that which makes you like other humans."

"I am not like other humans!"

"I agree! Good, we have a starting point. You are not like other humans. Whatever your genes are, no matter what you look like... you lack humanity." Cray said. He sounded almost bored, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. Who could say how insane minds reasoned? "You have no sense of empathy for other humans. Look at what you did to banshee girl... that didn't MEAN anything to you, what she did. The same for what you did to Corvis... that wasn't murder... that was an exercise of some sort! Nothing more, nothing less, to you! As one sociopath to another I have to say, it's very striking. However, I don't think you're actually a sociopath... you're too perfect, to use your terms, to have that sort of fundamental mental imbalance. You CAN feel empathy for others... you just don't, because one, you don't know how, and two you have no experience with it, which frightens you, so you try and avoid it whenever possible."

"I can't believe I'm listening to you about this! What do you know? You were just a Natural before you... you became a THING!"

"Just because I'm crazy doesn't mean I'm not right. The insane can sometimes tell the insane apart more easily than the so called sane people can. I wasn't a sociopath from birth, but it was a pretty damn near run thing... alcohol poisoning in the womb, I think it was. But I grew up surrounded by a series of loving families... whom I murdered in their beds... because it didn't mean anything to me. If anything, it made me happy. I was given every chance to learn better... but I didn't. I COULDN'T. Not killing people just doesn't make sense to me. Murder is part of who I am. But that isn't you. You haven't had any chances to learn better... you deny them to yourself by keeping yourself isolated from human society. Try it. Try it out. Spend some time making an effort to get to know some people. Make some friends. Go on a date or something, and don't go all super scientist-mindwalker on her either. If, after that, you still come back and can kill people like you did today, then I'll gladly bow my head to you and accept you into the sociopath club."

"Why should I need your acceptance?" Noah sneered. Cray chuckled.

"Well, if the WORLD won't accept you, then who else will? As you say, I'm no longer human. I am other. Like you think you are, if in a different way. Everyone wants to be accepted by someone... wants someone to understand what they're going through, why they're doing what they are. They want people to approve of them, to be in awe of them, to take notice of them! Even Frost was like that, you know. All he wanted was to make the world pay attention to him... before he killed them. I have no idea where you're going with this whole Brotherhood song and dance club, but unless you get off on talking to the walls, methinks you want someone to brag to. Someone who cares. That can be me. Or it can be someone human. It's all in what you decide you want to be, kiddo."

"We're done talking." Noah turned away from the wall speaker. Cray was silent. Noah started to walk away.

"Say hi to Frost for me, would you? I miss my freaky little brother sometimes." Cray said suddenly. Noah froze in midstride.

"Frost is dead. He died five years ago." Noah replied shortly. To his great surprise, Cray burst into hysterical laughter. "What!?"

"F-Frost... DEAD!? You must be delusional! You can't KILL something like Frost! Evil finds a way! I don't care what you think you know... FROST... DEAD.... THATS HILARIOUS!"

"You're the one who is delusional." Noah muttered, and walked away, his spine crawling.

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Noah keyed in the twenty seven digit password that opened the vault door. With a huge clunk of retreating bolts and spinning mechanisms, the two foot thick armor door slowly swung open, allowing a heavy mist of nanological freezing particles, similar in design to the Haunted's Mist, to spill out into the atrium area, several hundred meters above and too rimwards of the floor of the hanger bay. Noah slipped inside once the door was halfdone opening, his body trembling in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. The vault was small, barely big enough for one person to be in at a time. It had been specially designed by Noah personally to hold on thing, and one thing only. In the middle of the chamber was a pedastel, surrounded by inch thick Exo-Glass. The top of the pedastel was encased in more Exo-Glass, and the pedastel itself was rigged to explode if ever the object on top was removed from the inner Glass without Noah personally inputting the disarm code. Noah stared at the object in question, his heart slowly calming from the hammering it had been undergoing on his way here.

It was a high powered portable computer. Not of a particularly modern design, it was turned completely off, the battery drained and removed, the outside covered with sealing plastic and locked shut even then. Ice glimmered on the outside of the plastic, reflecting the negative one hundred thirty degree temperature inside the outer Glass... as close to absolute zero as he could get in this setting. Noah reached out a clenched fist and placed it against the other Glass, pointing it at the laptop. "You're dead! Dead! You died! Kira beat you, you lost, you died! And I'm never ever going to bring you back to life, you hear me!? You're going to sit there, dead, forever! Can't be killed... huh! Delusional..." Noah turned around and exited the vault, closing the door behind him resolutely. Strangely his spirits were not well buoyed, and his spine was still crawling most uncomfortably. A hot shower... yes, that would cure him! It was just the chill from the vault. It had nothing to do with what Cray had said. Nothing. Never.

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Shinn answered the knocking on his door with a somewhat grumpy expression on his face. It was almost nine pm at night, and he was taking some well deserved time to himself, now that his squadron was getting settled in and were in fact proving themselves to be slightly more adept than the average of their fellows, earning them a twenty four hour liberty chit from Rey for being ahead of schedule. It had been most of a week from the time he'd gotten here, and Shinn was exhausted... Rey had NOT been kidding when he said the days were going to be long! It was a good day when he attended training classes for six to ten hours and simulators or live exercises for only two to six hours after that! Plus an hour or so over the course of the day for meals and personal needs and so far his best workday this week had been thirteen hours long! It was like going back to Academy, but now he was responsible for those three goof balls too! Well, maybe not goof balls... but they sure weren't real soldiers! Not yet anyway. He was in the process of upgrading them, much to their displeasure.

His sour expression faded the moment he opened his door though, and found Lunamaria standing out in the hall. She looked absolutely beat, almost swaying on her feet. Her uniform was a crisp as ever, but that was no strange thing. Whoever made their uniforms, Shinn wanted to shake their hand sometime... the things practically took care of themselves! Maybe they were gaudy, but they were so comfortable you barely even noticed they were there! Her squadron had not had the benefit of a leader who was intimately familiar with the Hoverthruster system that the Archons were supposed to use as standard movement upon the ground, like Shinn was. That alone had helped catapult his squadron a good twelve hours or more ahead of most of the rest. Some squadrons were still learning the basic maneuvers and working on improving their balance. Archon's were slightly top heavy... staying upright when changing direction quickly on the hoverthrusters was as much art as skill.

"Luna!" Shinn was definitely surprised to see her, and especially at this time of night. He was glad he hadn't yet gotten into his evening abulutions, and was still mostly dressed, though he had removed his tunic, leaving him in short sleeved undertunic and trousers. He looked left and right down the hallway, and didn't see anyone. He beckoned her inside the foyer that acted as the common space between the two bedroom and bathroom suites that formed this block of the barracks. It wasn't precisely against the rules for persons of the opposite gender to visit one other's barracks rooms... but the last thing they needed was a bunch of spurious rumors starting, lending more depth to their relationship than there was. He was fond of Luna, and was glad to be her friend... but neither of them had much time for anything else at the moment. And Shinn didn't even know what she thought of him really, besides friendship... he could never seem to find the right way to ask.

"Hey Shinn, could you tell that idiot pounding on the door to... hey, Lunamaria, how are you?" Shinn's roomate, Knight-Ensign Jarvis Integram, of the third platoon's fourth squadron, poked his head out of his suite and into the foyer. Short and almost rotund, Jarvis hardly looked like a Mobile Suit pilot, with his stubbly blond hair and glasses, but he was actually pretty damned good, especially in a hit and run scenario. He possessed a knack for knowing just when the enemy had had enough of being pushed, and would withdraw his forces right before an effective counterattack could form. Jarvis ducked back into his room and Shinn could hear him rummaging around for a few moments, before he popped back into the foyer, hastily dressed in his uniform, stilling pulling the tunic on and wrapping his sash. "Hey, I'm going to go out and get some stuff from the all night store. Need anything?"

"You just got home from the all night store." Shinn frowned, nodding at the pile of grocery bags along Jarvis's side of the foyer. "What's the rush?"

"Uh... forgot something important. Don't wait up for me! Seeya, bye. Bye, Luna!" Jarvis ducked out the main door and shut it after him. He was out of sight by the time Shinn opened the door and looked for him. Shinn closed the door and exchanged glances with Luna.

"I think he may have gotten the wrong idea about why I'm here." Luna said, with a tired half smile. She looked over onto Jarvis's side of the foyer and shook her head in exasperation. "He forgot his beret too."

"Somehow I think he won't be coming back for it anytime soon either." Shinn sighed. "I just hope he doesn't totally blow everything out of proportion." He turned to look at Luna again, noticing that she really was swaying on her feet. "Why don't you sit down? Can I get you something cold to drink?"

"Thanks. Just some water if you could... last thing I need is more caffiene right now." Luna sank into the reading chair in Shinn's corner of the foyer, looking out the window on the dusktime African savanna, extending out to the end of the horizon. She didn't say anything more, until after taking a huge sip of cold water from the glass Shinn handed her. He had a glass for himself as well, and he leaned back against the wall nearby. "So... yeah... I didn't come here for any kinky shenanigans, I'm sorry. I can barely even stand, much less imagine trying to do a quarter of what your roommate thinks we're doing. And besides, no offence, I'm not sure I'm that into you, ya know?"

"None taken. We're all a little busy right now." Shinn took a sip of his water. Not sure, eh? Well, he was pretty sure, he just didn't know how to say it. This didn't seem like the right mood or the right time. Silence was probably the best answer. The silence dragged on though, and finally he spoke up. "So what did you come here for then? I mean, not that I mind just sitting here with you, but..."

"Sorry. Zoned out there for a moment. Comfy chair. Bad news in my state. If I'm not careful I'm gonna end up crashing." Luna yawned. "I need help, Shinn. My guys are just hopeless when it comes to these hoverthrusters. They can't even iceskate, didn't even know what I was talking about. And I just don't have the experience to teach them nearly as well as our training schedule demands. I've got a joint squadron exercise coming up after the weekend, and my guys are going to make a total hash of it at this rate! Please, please help me figure out a way to train people how to use these things!"

"I suppose I can give you some of my notes and training logs, sure." Shinn replied after a few moments thought. "And I can write up a step by step plan on learning the basic maneuvers, as well as good practice exercises."

"Yay! Thank you!" Luna cheered quietly, smiling happily. "I can't tell you what a relief that is... I'd all but given up on it really."

"Don't mention it." Shinn took another sip of water to hide his own smile, his entire body feeling lighter just from that look she'd given him. "I could stop by tomorrow, perhaps do some hands on training, if you'd like."

"Well, that'd be great... but isn't tomorrow when your squadron has that day off they earned? I'd hate to have you come work on your liberty time..."

"Not at all. Believe me, it's no trouble. You may find this hard to believe, but I'm kind of awkward when it comes to socializing with people outside of work... really, I'd be happier helping you guys out than wandering around with nothing to do."

"I do find that hard to believe actually. You've never seemed to have much trouble being open and interesting when I'm around anyway. I mean, I wouldn't know a tenth of the stuff about how things work here on Earth if it wasn't for you. I'm especially glad for that suntan lotion you loaned me... yeah, it did feel kinda slimy, but I saw what happened to that poor guy in first platoon. How horrible, turning dark purple like that and bleeding from all the itching you do!"

"That was an extreme reaction, even for sunburn, but I'm glad you didn't suffer even the minor version. Its no fun no matter what type you get." Shinn followed her gaze outside through the window. "See something?"

"Its dark, but the glass is clear. Still getting used to it." Luna blinked and had to jerk her eyes back open again. "My sleep-activity cycle was also way out of whack up in space compared to night-time and day time here on Earth. It's taking me a lot longer to adjust than I thought it would."

"You spent your whole life in space. No reason it should all change in a week." Shinn shrugged. "Your hair's gotten lighter."

"And yours got darker. Its black now." Luna fought the long blink again. She yawned once more. "Can... can I ask you something of a personal question?"

"Depends. I might not answer."

"That's okay. Its just something I've been wondering. What IS your deal with Orb anyway? Not just Lain... its everybody from Orb that you treat in a hostile manner. I can understand Lain and you don't get along, but everyone from Orb... that's something a little more deeply rooted."

Shinn thought for a long minute. "Do you remember the first day we saw the Archons? That formation? When you asked me if I know how bratty and annoying siblings can be?"

"Yeah...? You said you vaguely remembered."

"Orb is the reason my memories won't ever grow any fresher." Shinn curled his free hand into a fist against his leg. "I had a family once... a mom... a dad... a little sister named Mayu... but then the Alliance came to Orb in the First Valentine War. Orb didn't do the sensible thing. They chose to stand up for their so called ideals, even though it meant battling above occupied cities and ports! A stray shot... took... everything..."

"Is that... really Orb's fault though?" Luna asked, as gently as she could manage. She swallowed hastily, as Shinn's fierce red gaze burned into her eyes.

"It was Orb's choice to fight. When a nation starts making choices based on maintaining its character, and not the lives of its people... that is when it is the nations fault!" Shinn gritted out. "They think so much of themselves... of their so called national identity and character! They don't care about the sacrifices that went into that character! They enjoy the end result... but what about all the people that died!? What about my family!?"

"I... see..." Luna trailed off. "I'm sorry for intruding on your grief. I didn't mean to..."

"No... don't apologize. It's... not a bad thing that you asked. I'd have wanted you to know sooner rather than later anyway." Shinn took a large gulp of water. "I know it's not fair of me to pre-judge everyone from Orb. I'm sure that a lot of them are great people. I just can't... get past the image of Mayu... in my head. And when its people like Lain, who get in my face and try and convince me I'm wrong... well... you saw how that turned out..."

"We all did." Luna acknowledged, in a quiet voice. "It was a good thing that was only a simulator fight."

"I do have to hand it to him though... he hasn't let up, annoying as I find it." Shinn chuckled morosely. "I don't like the guy... I'm pretty sure I hate his guts, and that the feeling is mutual... but I do respect his skills and perserverance. Abstractly." He looked up after a few moments with no reply from Luna. She was out, eyes closed, breathing deeply and evenly. She'd been really exhausted... probably run ragged all week trying to figure out how to help train her squadron on the hoverthrusters, which were far from the most intuitive movement method. He considered waking her, but he just couldn't... she looked so peaceful there, and so in need of rest that he'd feel all sorts of terrible waking her up and sending her to walk across the base to the female barracks. He gently picked her up from the chair, marvelling at how soft and light she actually was, and carried her into his room, laying her down on the bed, on top of the covers. He pulled off her boots, drawing a muted sigh and facial wiggle, but nothing more. He cracked the window slightly to let the cool night air in, and then went to go sit in his reading chair and smile to himself, remembering her look of joy from earlier.

------------------------------------------------------

"I can't believe we're doing this." Eric grumbled, balancing precariously on top of the ladder propped up against the side of the barracks building wall. "This is so childish."

"Shut up, man! When you talk, you wobble. I almost took a nose dive! Almost there... almost... there..." Lain was stretching as far as his body would allow, practically standing on tiptoe on Eric's shoulders, reaching for the windowsill that was outside Shinn's suite's bedroom window. "You heard what Jarvis said, dude... Luna and Shinn are all over each other! I can't let that go! I gotta know what happened!"

"You do remember that Jarvis said that she was really tired looking, and that Shinn was surprised to see her, right? I think you may be overestimating the degree of their mutual attraction to each other." Eric replied, fighting for his balance. "Could you hurry the fuck up, by the way? You may be short, but you're not light, and the ladder wasn't braced very well to begin with... also thanks to your rush!"

"Hey, man... you didn't have to come out here with me. And you're the one who thought up the whole ladder scheme in the first place!"

"Your idea was to try and break into his room through the front door! He'd have killed you, man, straight up! If he catches you spying through his bedroom window, he's probably going to kill you then too!"

"He could try..."

"Man, don't you REMEMBER what happened on monday? I ain't hardly never seen the likes of that shit he did to you..."

"He had an unfair advantage! He's a goddamn natural with those hoverthrusters!"

"Actually, he's a Coordinator."

"Shut up, dude... you know what I meant... he's got the fucking knack for them, and the experience! No wonder he drove circles around me and cut me into tiny little pieces like that! Now I know what I'm doing... it'll be different next time, just you watch!"

"If you don't hurry up I'll be watching from a hospital bed... seriously dude, the ladder is about to go!"

"Shhh! I got it. Let go my legs. Here's where all those pull ups I do during PT come in handy." Lain pulled himself up using just the fingers of his hands, clenching his teeth with the effort. Shinn's window was slightly open, but the room was dark. It took Lain's eyes several moments to adjust to the lighting so he could see inside the room. Desk, check. Closet, check. Dresser, check. Bed, check. Lunamaria... WHAT THE FUCK WAS SHE DOING ON SHINN'S BED!? Lain almost lost his grasp in his shock and outrage. His dear Luna looked like she was out cold, and there she was, lying all helpless on Shinn's bed, vulnerable to who knows what sort of dirty, perverted things the red eyed devil had in mind and... the bedroom door opened and Shinn walked into the room. He came over to the bed, and Lain dropped hurriedly out of sight, hanging full length by his fingernails practically. Still, his ears were listening keenly, searching for even the slightest hint of nefarious deeds on Shinn's part. Nothing came to him.

For his part, Eric had finally managed to recover his balance, and he was pretty sure the ladder was stable now. He was surprised when Lain's feet came back down onto his shoulders, but who was he to argue? Hopefully Lain had seen whatever it was he needed to see so he could calm down, and they could then go inside and get some damn sleep! He grabbed Lain by the legs and slowly started lowering him downwards. There was a brief moment of resistance, where every muscle in Lain's body went taut with effort, but the resistance quickly fell away. Along with Lain himself, fingernails ripped and bloody, pulled off his tenuous perch by the unexpected downward tug from Eric. Unable to react fast enough to let go of Lain, Eric was pulled from the top of the later by Lain's weight, and both of them fell heavily, if without crying out, into the thick underbrush that lay outside this part of the barracks. Several seconds later, the ladder overbalanced and came down on top of them. Several windows opened and people looked out, wondering what all the commotion and noise was.

"Fucking OWW dude... what the hell'd you do that for?" Lain whispered, sucking on the tips of his burning fingers urgently. "I don't recall asking you to pull me off the wall like I was fucking Spiderman!"

"You put your legs on my shoulders! What was I supposed to think, with us trying to be stealthy and all? I thought you were done with this fool's crusade!" Eric retorted, groaning as he felt all sorts of new contusions and bruises and scratches caused by the ladder and the undergrowth. "Did you see what you needed to see? I ain't climbing up that ladder again."

"I saw a little... but not enough, dude! He's got her vulnerable man... she's out cold on his bed! Who knows what sort of stuff he might do!?"

"Are we talking about the same Shinn here? The guy's a fucking Knight dude... and not the Solar Knight kind! He won't lay a finger on her in an untoward way. He's get the hots for her, yeah, but he wouldn't do anything funny!"

"What are you SMOKING man? Jarvis is already off telling everyone they're bed-buddies... what does he have to LOSE by being a bit frisky? Its all everyone's expecting to have happen!"

"I think maybe you're letting your dislike for Shinn bleed over a little bit much here."

"I am not! He's a natural seducer!"

"Actually, he's a Coordinator."

"Damn it, dude... you KNOW what I mean!" Lain pushed himself to his hands and knees. "You can stay out here if you want... I'm going inside to rescue her... like a real Knight would! No more of this sneaking around in the dark... I'm going to beat down his door until he lets her go free!"

"Dude, it is almost ten pm! You'll wake half the fucking building doing that! Forget Shinn, the entire UNIT will kill you!"

"If that's the price required to free my precious Lunamaria, then so be it!" Lain scuttled off into the darkness before Eric could stop him. He lay back into the underbursh with another groan, covering his eyes with one hand. They were so going to get court martialled for this. He waited, cringing internally, for the first sounds of the ruckus from inside the building. Several minutes passed and nothing happened. Had Lain actually come to his senses? It hardly seemed possible. Eric froze as he heard a figure thrashing through the brush towards him... was this the patrolman that was going to courtmartial him for prowling? "Dude, where are you? Are you still out here?" Lain called, relatively softly.

"Yeah." Eric sat up. "Right here. I'm surprised you came back for me... you tend to be pretty one track mind when it comes to..."

"Dude, I dropped my room key when I fell somehow. I can't get back into the building. If I make a scene on the front doors, Shinn will know to clean up his act... I'll never be able to catch him then! Can I borrow yours?"

"No, you can't." Eric said resolutely. Finally, a way to keep them both out of trouble. They'd just wait out here until Lain cooled off some.

"Gimme the fucking key, dude! You're standing between me and my Lunamaria's freedom! I'm telling you, man, I'm on edge here... you don't wanna get in my way!"

"Well, you're right about that." Eric replied. "But hell no. Find your own damn key. You dropped it."

"Dude, its DARK. I can barely see my hand in front of my face. How the fuck am I supposed to find a little plastic key card in fucking waist high brush in the DARK!? Seriously, man... help a dude out. Gimme your key. Just for a few minutes. Or just come let me inside, you know?"

"No means no, just like from a girl, dude!" Eric shook his head firmly. "You aren't in your right mind at the moment. Its my duty as your friend and fellow squadron commander to keep you out of the brig."

"Fine then." Lain straightened up. "I can see my words won't get through to you."

"Damn right they won't..." Eric barely had time to start his sentence when Lain dived onto him, his hands clawing for Eric's pockets. "What the fuck!? Lain, get the fuck off me!"

"No! Gimme the key! Lunamaria needs me!"

"Lunamaria doesn't even especially LIKE you, as far as I've seen!" Eric snarled, grappling with the other pilot. The rolled back and forth through the brush for a few seconds. Goddamn, but why did this have to happen when he was tired after a full day? Lain was all fired up with his misplaced self delusions about saving Lunamaria from his rival Shinn, but Eric didn't have that kind of idiot strength to call on. And in a grapple his advantage of size was nullified. "How can you... be so... sure she... WANTS to be saved?" It was getting harder and harder with each breath to keep Lain's hands out of his pockets.

"Every girl wants to be saved, dude. Its natural. Stop struggling."

"She's a Coordinator thou..."

"SHUT UP WTH THAT! I KNOW THEY'RE COORDINATORS! ITS A FIGURE OF SPEECH!"

"Hey! What's going on over there!? Show yourselves!" A harsher voice called out, and a flashlight beam played across the brush over their heads. They both froze as still as statues.

"Great. Perfect. Now we've got a fucking patrolman on our asses. I hate you, you know. I don't know why I associate with you at all." Eric muttered.

"Don't worry, dude... I totally got this. Just follow my lead. There's no way he'll come into the brush when there's lions about."

"Lions!? What the fuck are you talk..." Eric didn't get to finish his sentence.

"RRWAOORR!" Lain threw back his head and growled in what he obviously thought was a very lionlike scream. Eric just stared at him in disbelief. Lain looked down at him urgently. "Dude, I can't do this alone... he has to think there's more than one lion."

"Who's making those noises? Show yourselves or I'll get out the tear gas!"

"Tear gas and lions... who wins?" Lain asked hurriedly.

"You can play lion if you want... I'm not getting gassed because of it!" Eric hissed in reply. "Lions!? What the fuck!? Lion's haven't been naturally found in Africa for a hundred years!"

"Coulda warned a guy..."


	18. Planting the Seeds part 4

Author Note: Wow, you guys are really taking my inquiry about Gundams and running with it. I like it. I mean, its great, getting so many different opinions. And some of what you've said, you will see. Some sooner than later. And don't take this the wrong way, but a lot of your Gundam ideas are a little too "ultra-mode", in my opinion, to be used as is, but idea's can be germinated anywhere, and so I remain grateful. Making good, realistic Gundams is hard... you want them to be super cool and powerful and hard to beat and unique and all that, very much like designing a main character for a story really... but you have to remember to keep a sense of "the real". A Gundam should be strong in a lot of areas... but strong in everything is little fun. A weakness or deficiency is what makes a Gundam stand out, and what keeps your heart in your throat with "oh no, that weapon can defeat this thing real easy if they aren't careful" or "oh crap, he's weak in this type of combat, how is he going to get out of this now?" sort of situations. The Seraph is too defensive, it lacks offense at times, especially against munition based foes in large number. The Phoenix King lacks truely powerful long ranged weapons. The Vorpal's weapons are delicate. The Warmaster's best weapon is highly conditional, and its very restricted in crowded conditions. The Dawn Goddess loses a lot of punch when its not with the Phoenix King. Fusion Pulse Reactor powered Gundams need external cooling vanes or wings. Weaknesses don't have to be glaring, but they are as essential as any advanced control system or weapon, I think.

As for some questions people asked. For you, Kazuko... FRALA is a term from Chaotic Cosmos, the Isolation era, first introduced during the battle on the Moon. It stands for Focused, Repeatedly Amplified Light Array. What it is, is a very high powered, long range, continuous duration laser (coherent light) beam (blue-white in color usually). Very small caliber, usually in the 5 to 20mm range, but it can cut through pretty much anything in the 1.5 seconds the beam lasts, and is even used like a very long sword, cutting a swathe through a large number of enemies with a single shot. Because it is made of light and heat only, it is not affected by anti-matter fields (Positron Reflectors), since there is no anti-light wave. However, it takes a lot of power, and can only be fired every few minutes because of cooling concerns (waste heat... worst enemy of powerful beam weapons). At least, currently. And for your hydrogen missiles... the term you are looking for is hydrogen bomb, or thermonuclear, which is a fusion bomb and indeed far more powerful than a fission, or atomic bomb. They work by combining hydrogen atoms in a reaction basically identical to that used by the sun to generate heat and light.

As for Quantum Crystals... well, think of it like this. Everything is made up of molecules, which are made up of atoms. The pattern in which those molecules spend the greater part of their time is what determines whether the matter in question is a solid, liquid, gas or plasma. Different patterns have differing resistances to being broken by other patterns... the crystalline pattern is among the strongest found in nature. Just look at quartz, or many types of gemstones... those are crystals. However, their crystal structure only goes down to the molecule level, so things which operate on the level of single molecules or smaller can break them easily. A Quantum Crystal object is aligned in a crystalline pattern not only on the molecule level, AND the atomic level, but down one level of tininess further, the Quantum level, the level of the components that make up individual parts of an atom. That means to easily break that pattern would require an edge even finer than that. Not even magnetic fields are that sharply defined... they go down to atomic level. Quantum Crystal is the hardest and strongest material known, its just damn near impossible to make in any sort of large quantity. And this is all very basic and flawed... but thats the gist. And have your brother send me some reviews too. I like seeing large numbers of reviews pop up on my stats block.

To Rihaku: Yes, I'll definitely be covering Kira's Seed, and the whole nine yards of what it means to be an Ultimate Coordinator, where they're going and where they came from. It's going to be pretty much the entire second half of ED, that subject. Remember, Noah is also a Ultimate Coordinator, and he's the guy you're going to want to look to for answers (That chapter is going to be INSANE!). Well, at least "historical" answers... Kira's better on making his own observations. Kira does net security work for Morganroete Armories if I recall, I think it was in the intro chapter. Though I like your ideas about the tech. As for people being like sheep... well, think of how many smart people there are today, and how screwed up international politics are. Lots of flags were probably raised by plenty of smart people, but things still turned out like they have. I'll try to work it in, some people protesting besides the good guys, but it is really amazing what people will believe as long as its reasonably presented by those in authority. People ARE like sheep, at least when taken as an average of a whole population. And Kira's next Gundam has a name already, so far. It's the Lucifer (remarkably similar in tone to the Damnation name you chose though).

To Cipherknight: Heh. Too much of Noah's power? Do bear in mind he's Seed capable, and I almost always describe a Seed activation sequence and its consequences, especially for new characters... And the Phoneix King's Phoenix Feathers sound a lot like that Gundam you described, that crosses Wing Zero Custom and Freedom.

To Quadrupletree: You are SO, SO close my friend. So close. You have indeed hit the nail on the head with regards to Noah. Biotech... yes. Damn it, I gotta GET THERE!

To Farm7455: Look back at the Bane, and later the Independence in Chaotic Cosmos. The Mjolnir capacitors in the palms power up by vamping off other Mobile Suits power.

Whew, that was longer than I was expecting. But yeah, folks... I really do read your reviews, and they make a tangible difference to me and the story in progress! On to what you came to read!

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Shinn's door slammed open so hard that the door handle left a small dent in the wall when it rebounded off it. Shinn jerked out of his reading chair, spilling the plate of microwavable breakfast burritos he'd been splurging on for his morning meal all over the foyer carpet. What the hell was Jarvis thinking, storming in like that? It wasn't like his quiet, laid back roommate at all. But it wasn't Jarvis that marched in through the door. Nope, this morning it was Rey, already fulled dressed in his Knight-Commander regalia. Rey had an expression of utmost seriousness on his face, and a hurried pace to his stride that Shinn hadn't seen since that one time at Academy when Rey had almost overslept and had only five minutes to get dressed, eat breakfast and get halfway across campus to a simulator test or else he would fail and roll back two weeks of classes. Rey wasn't really the sort of person to panic... but the Rey he was seeing now was as close to being panicked as Rey had ever got, in his experience.

"What's wrong!? Terrorists... the Brotherhood?" Shinn asked, snatching at his tunic and trousers from wheere he had folded them and put them to the side of his chair the night before. They had re-acquired creases and smoothed out wrinkles by themselves over the course of the night, a nearly magical process in his opinion, and one he had actually yet to see occur... it was almost like supernatural uniform faeries came out and worked over the uniforms just as soon as he closed his eyes. It was a godsend, for a unit that was fussy about uniforms but at the same time wasn't very good at alloting its members any extra time to care for them. Shinn cast about for his pistol holster and beret, before remembering that he had put them in his bedroom the night before, as was usual. However though, he couldn't exactly just walk in and get them right now... Luna was borrowing his shower for the moment.

Rey seemed momentarily baffled, a nearly unique thing in Shinn's experience, as he stood in the middle of the foyer. The hallway behind him was still empty, and Shinn couldn't hear the sounds of anyone else getting rousted out of bed in a hurry, like he would have expected during a terrorist incident. "What? The Brotherhood... no." Rey replied shortly, blinking his eyes in surprise. "I'm sorry to barge in on you when you're on liberty, but I have a sudden priority tasking, and everyone else I could entrust it to is busy, because they're behind schedule! Pulling them off their current tasks will only further impede their progress, and I have both the SecDef and the SecGen breathing down my neck about our training progress as it is!"

"Priority tasking huh?" Shinn repeated, looking mournfully down at his burrito's splattered all over the floor. The clock on one wall showed that it was still before seven am in the morning. "Some priority to get YOU of all people all worked up about it."

"I got this dropped into my lap about fifteen minutes ago by the SecDef, who got it dropped in HIS lap about fifteen minutes prior to that! As things are, we've only got about forty five minutes to get ready for this! And this is on top of my regular day! I've been up since four in the morning, and I don't usually go to sleep before one in the morning! Even I can get frazzled, Shinn." Rey retorted, sighing heavily and wiping a hand across his eyes tiredly. It didn't help at all what the nature of this task was, nevermind that it had come totally out of the blue. Noah had never expressed any interest in the USN side of things before, he'd always seemed content to just know everything in his usual, smug manner, learning things by proxy through his intelligence networks or his electronic spies. But now he'd called and told Gil that he was on his way to Earth... to THIS base... in order to "inspect how his contributions were being put to use", whatever that was doubletalk for. It was true that many of the supplies the Solar Knights used, from their uniforms to their food and even their vehicles besides the Archons, were all provided by Borander subsidary companies... but again, Noah didn't care about stuff like that!

Of course Gil had gone into a minor meltdown, since Noah was, according to their joint agreement, supposed to be staying out of the limelight as much as possible, and definitely to be avoiding any direct interference in USN affairs, but by the time Noah had called, he'd already been on an orbit to surface shuttle approaching the atmosphere, and that wasn't the sort of thing you could just abort, no matter how much people might want you to. Besides, it was a private BoranderCorp transport, probably even automated or controlled by Noah directly... short of shooting it down, they couldn't stop him from going pretty much wherever he pleased. And while Gil had muttered for a short time about actually shooting Noah down as an object lesson, they both knew that wouldn't happen. Noah was far too essential to Gil's far reaching plans in his role as the Brotherhood leader to just kill. Rey was relieved... he genuinely liked Noah, would even tenatively call him a good friend. He would not like being at odds with him, especially over something as simple as a sudden trip that might be perfectly legitimate.

He'd said as much to Gil, who had snorted and asked him a tough question, namely that since when had what Noah done ever been one hundred percent legitimate? Rey had to concede the point... Noah was always playing an angle of some sort, even if it was one only he could see, or that wouldn't make sense to anyone else for months, even years. Still, Rey didn't have Gil's rancor towards Noah... he understood why Noah annoyed Gil so much, and he supposed dealing with Noah on a grand scale could be very trying... Gil didn't make small plans after all, and Noah was an absolutely massive variable that he couldn't control. Depending on what Noah did, could do or even didn't do, Gil's entire life plan could come crashing down around his ears. Gil wasn't the sort of person who liked relying on people he didn't fully trust, or whom he could not in some way control... but he had no choice with Noah. They were a pair of alpha males sharing the same small forest and hating it, but conzigant of the fact that they could do so much more together than they could apart. Or at least that was how Rey saw it.

Despite everything... the stress of his job, the stress of this new development, the other stresses that were part and parcel of his everyday life... Rey was happy, on a certain level, to be seeing Noah again so soon. He always felt more secure in his position, more peaceful and definitely more relaxed when Noah was around. They could talk shop again, and Rey could be genuinely impressed once more by someone who had capabilities that far exceeded his own in most areas, while still being able to show off some physical skills that would always have Noah shaking his head in bemused envy. It was too bad that he was so swamped with work right now... Noah had only said he was going to be around for a day or two, and Rey just didn't have the room in his schedule to put in more than a few minutes here and there for socializing with anyone, even people as important as Noah or Gil. But he definitely couldn't have Noah just wandering around by himself... it wouldn't be polite for one thing, and for another, the mere thought seemed to drive Gil into apoleptic fits. As if Noah was going to sabotage the Solar Knights... from what Rey had seen and knew, the Brotherhood had little need to send their leader to personally sabotage ANYTHING they wanted to.

But still, it wouldn't hurt to try and keep an eye on him, for his own safety as well as to placate Gil. Rey was genuinely worried about Noah's safety actually... his friend was no soldier, probably didn't even know how to use a gun, and had little to no fighting skills or physical training. He was a businessman and scientist, not a man of action like Rey. Africa was still not the most stable of places, politically, and while Gil would certainly find a large degree of grim irony in Noah being targeted by tribal terrorist groups, Rey was determined to let no harm come to his friend under the watch of the Solar Knights. He was even going so far as to consider it their first major mission, directly from the SecDef's lips! And that was why he was going to put his best people on it! Which led him to Shinn, of course. Well... maybe he should get someone else as well... Noah would not deal well with someone as confrontational and hotheaded as Shinn without someone there to moderate things a bit.

"Hey, Shinn... I'm done for the moment. Thanks for letting me borrow your shower. I know it was an awkward thing to ask..." Luna opened the door of Shinn's bedroom and half stuck her head out, still towelling her hair dry with one hand, while the other clutched the towel wrapped around her body for modesty's sake. She blinked and stared, shocked beyond words for a moment to see Rey standing right there, in full uniform. Shinn's eyes were wide as saucers, as he looked back and forth between Rey and Luna. Well, mostly at Luna, with her damp magenta hair beading moisture from the tips, and the pale skin of her throat and shoulders and arms, the way the towel bulged in all the right places, and was sheer in the other right places, and only covered her to just beyond the minimum of modesty. It was the first time he'd ever seen a girl in anywhere CLOSE to that state of undress, since even in ZAFT men and women had seperate living and bathing facilities except under the most dire and primitive of circumstances, which he'd never been forced to endure. "Eeep!" Luna slammed the door shut, ducking back behind it, her heart hammering with embarassment. Oh, this was no good at all!

"Lunamaria! Excellent! Just the person I had in mind." Rey called, pitching his voice to carry through the closed door. "When you're done getting dressed, join Shinn at my office in fifteen minutes! I have a priority task straight from the SecDef, and I need to put two of my best people on it! You two lucked out! Put everything else on hold, as best you can... I'll explain more at my office." Rey turned to Shinn, who was still gaping at his bedroom door. Rey changed the pitch of his voice to a more conspirital tone and winked at Shinn. "You have twenty minutes, Shinn. Don't be late, I'm serious about this. One of these days you're going to have to let me in on your secret, my friend. You work FAST, and not just on your Knightly duties! Am I not working you hard enough? How do you find the time?" Rey shook his head with envious exasperation. He wasn't exactly in search of recreational pleasures, but his time WAS limited, and he'd prefer not to die a virgin if he could at all help it, somehow.

"That is not... you are totally... I mean this isn't..." Shinn stammered, mind still filled with images of Luna in the towels, and thus completely disconnected from his voice and other intentions.

"Twenty minutes Shinn. Not a second more. And try to be mostly presentable, please." Rey stepped out the door and closed it after him, much more carefully than when he'd entered. Well, that was one major fire averted, even though he'd discovered a minor fire in the process. It was to be expected, in a mixed sex unit, these kind of relationships forming. He hadn't expected it QUITE this soon, and certainly not from Shinn and Lunamaria, but love was a very strange thing sometimes, wasn't it? Or might this only be one of those physical things? He could never tell the difference. It wasn't any of his business, as long as they kept up their work to a satisfactory extent. To be truthful, if anyone had the extra time to spare for fun and games, it would be Shinn and Luna, who's squadrons, except for some minor trouble with the hoverthrusters in Luna's case, were among the top three farthest along in their training schedule.

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As soon as Rey shut the door Shinn half collapsed against the wall, wiping at his eyes and brow with one arm. Now even Rey thought he and Luna were a couple! Rey, making insinuating comments to him! I mean, maybe he wouldn't MIND being an item with Luna, but she'd as much as said she wasn't sure about it! And now, there was no way he could just ask her, not like he'd kinda, half sorta wanted to, after much internal debate last night! He pulled on his tunic and trousers, scraping his hand across his jawline to make sure there wasn't any stubble. His facial hair didn't grow very fast, but it had been a while since he'd last shaved. He wondered again what sort of insanely troublesome thing could get Rey, Rey ze Burrel, one of the most self contained and assured people he'd ever met, practically on the edge of panic!? Was the SecDef himself stopping by for an inspection? It didn't seem likely... the entire base would be freaking out then.

Shinn left his collar unbuttoned for the time being... he didn't like constricting his breathing any more than absolutely necessary, even though he knew it was just something in his head, not a real air constriction. He still found himself tugging at his undershirt collar though, as he tenatively rapped his knuckles on his bedroom door. "Uhm... Luna... c-can... can I come in?"

"I'm still changing!" Luna replied, her voice muffled and still shaky. She pressed a hand over her heart as she struggled to get her tunic closed properly. Her heartrate was still a good twenty to thirty beats above normal, and only slowly dropping. Just about the last person she'd ever expected to see on an early saturday morning was the Knight-Commander himself! Especially wearing nothing but a towel! Double especially because she wasn't even in HER room! Her head spun just trying to contemplate all the assumptions and conclusions their Commander had to have just made with regards to her and Shinn! Bad enough the rumors Jarvis was likely to spread... now there was no higher authority to plead for succor to! He would hardly quash rumors he thought were true... he'd just make a public announcement of what he saw as a fact, and use THAT to halt the rumors. He'd as much as said that was his strategy for dealing with personnel rumors in one of the early training classes. What was she going to do!?

Shinn leaned into the wall, banging his head not quite unintentionally against it. He was ruined! Everyone was going to think he was some sort of playboy now. Worse, everyone was going to think Luna was some sort of playgirl too! He'd seen things like this happen in other teams, both during the war and a lot more often afterwards, and it was never pretty! Sometimes the only way a person could get out from under the reputation of being a philanderer was to transfer teams entirely and sometimes even bases as well! He was dreading the next joint exercise already... and that wasn't even going into what Lain was going to be like! Lain had had it out for him from day one, and Shinn couldn't figure out why, but he knew his rival wasn't going to pass up an opportunity this golden to kick him right in the balls as hard as he could! It wasn't a question of IF, it was a matter of WHEN. Even Rey was tossing digs his way... there would be no escaping this, if your commanding officer was in essence sanctioning it! He'd already made himself a target by excelling in the training exercises too.

"Uhm... Luna? I'm really sorry about this. I should have woken you up I guess, and walked you back to your room or something." Shinn couldn't find the proper words for what he wanted to say.

"It's not your fault. I should have known better to come to your room when I was so exhausted. I was asking for trouble." Luna replied, huffing as she pulled on her stockings. She slipped her feet into her boots and stamped several times to make sure they were tight. "And asking to use your shower wasn't the best of ideas. Bad enough that I sleep over, but that I undressed and took a shower in your room is... uggh, people are going to be IMPOSSIBLE!" She started wrapping her sash around her waist, trying to hurry as much as possible. She wanted to get over to her own room to change her undergarments before they reported for what might be a full day of duty, or more even. Bad enough that she had to make do with a shampoo with a scent designed for guys, she wasn't going to run around all day in day old underwear if she could even slightly help it! If she could make it over there sometime in the next four minutes, she should have enough time to change, redress and still make the Commander's deadline. It was going to be close though.

"How do you want to do damage control then?" Shinn asked, after several seconds. _Maybe, y'know, we could just make it true... then we wouldn't have to be embarassed. No, can't say that... only known her a week! Fuck! What do I do?_

"You and I know the truth. I came over for training help, fell asleep in your chair and spent the night by accident. Nothing too strange or unbelievable about that, given the schedule we've all been on." Luna decided the basic wrap was good enough... she'd just be taking it off again in a couple of minutes anyway! "As for the shower thing... let's play it by ear. Only the Commander saw that. Think he'll keep quiet? He didn't even bat an eye when I looked out at you two." She asked, though she flushed as well. _The Commander may have taken it in stride, somehow, but that look on Shinn's face... why am I smiling!?_ Luna slapped herself on the cheeks a few times. _Do I like Shinn? Well, I DO like Shinn... but do I like Shinn like THAT!? I've only known him a week, even if we have been around each other for twelve hours a day or more... is that enough time to tell if you like someone? What IS the right amount of time before you should figure something like that out? I'm so confused!_

"I don't think Rey will tell anybody. He's probably going to poke fun at us, in his own, unique way... but he's not the sort of guy that would go around babbling like a schoolgirl with juicy gossip." Shinn replied, after some consideration. "What might be most annoying is him trying to "accommodate" our "relationship"... he doesn't want it to become a big deal or a Unit wide spectacle. He could do all sorts of stuff, trying to "help". I wouldn't be surprised if Jarvis's room might become yours here soon."

"Co-ed berthing!?" Luna flushed even more. "But that's kinda..."

"Everyone... most importantly Rey... already thinks we're sharing a bed." Shinn pointed out, blushing furiously. "Sharing a barracks double occupancy suite is actually kind of tame, by that logic."

"Well, I guess I see what you mean." Luna placed her beret on her head and stepped out into the foyer. She hoped her blush wouldn't show, but from how red Shinn's face was, she didn't think he'd be one to point her embarassment out. "Let's get this plain between us now then. We are friends. Fellow squadron commanders in the same platoon. Members of the same elite unit. But we are NOT lovers, no matter what everyone else thinks, and though I'm sure we can work something out if we do get assigned to co-ed berths, I'm telling you now... I'm not really looking for a romantic relationship with ANYONE right at the moment. Maybe after things settle down some... but I just don't have the time or energy to get involved that deeply with someone else's emotions right now. Much less want to deal with all the other stresses. I've never even dated a guy before... during initial train ups in a new unit doesn't strike me as the best time to do date training also!"

"Makes sense to me." Shinn replied, his gaze slightly downcast. He mustered himself though, as Luna headed for the outer doorway. "Luna... I heard what you said. We'll work things out as friends for the time being... but I AM looking, I'm pretty sure, for a romantic relationship somewhere down the line. With someone. I agree though... I've never dated anyone before either, and during initial train ups seems like a very poor time to try and learn how."

Luna put her hand on the doorknob, but didn't turn around. "I see. Thanks for being clear, Shinn. I really hate it when things get all muddled because people aren't willing to talk to each other." She turned the knob and opened the door. "See you in a few minutes."

Shinn stared at the door for a long while after she'd left. It hadn't quite come out like he'd wanted it too, and it certainly hadn't gotten the optimal answer... but she hadn't slapped him down or denied him full out either, and that had to count for SOMETHING, didn't it? He was suddenly almost grateful that Rey had this mission for them... he needed something to distract him from all this confusing romance-not romance relationship stuff very badly! Something he could sink his mental teeth into, and worry at for a while, and then come back to matters of the heart at a calmer time. He hoped it wasn't something stupidly boring, like escorting a VIP or something. Well, he wasn't going to find out sitting around his room... and the longer he took, the more assumptions Rey was going to make, which was for the bad!

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"Hey, Sis... have a good night out?" Meyrin called, reclining back in her chair, notebook ostensibly open in her lap, though her attention was on the portable game system in her hands, as Luna came storming into their barracks suite. "You look well refreshed. So tell me... we all know he's talented with Mobile Suits. Does he have any... other... talents?"

"Don't even start with me, Meyrin!" Luna snarled, slamming open the door to her bedroom and hurriedly tugging at her clothes. "My morning has started out bad, and it isn't likely to get any better as the day goes on!"

"What, he didn't give you a goodbye kiss or something?" Meyrin asked with an impish smile, pausing her arcade stye fighting game. She sniffed the air a few times. "Hmm... nice, strong, masculine scent you have on you. Not easy to get that level of scent trading without some fairly heavy action going on..."

"I said don't start with me, Meyrin! Nothing happened! I went to his room to ask for some help with some Mobile Suit training, fell asleep in his chair, woke up the next morning, end of story!"

"Rumor has it that you guys were all over each other, tired or not. Love is like ice cream sometimes, you know... even though you've already had a full meal, there's always room for ice cream afterwards." Meyrin sat forward and set aside the game console for the moment. "Come on... I'm your sister... you can fess up to me. I'm not going to laugh at you or anything. Much. Hell, I'm envious... guys like Shinn Asuka don't just pop out of holes in the ground, you know!"

"There is nothing to be envious about! Shinn and I are friends! That's all. Friends! Nothing more! It was just like falling asleep at a friend's house by accident!"

"If by "friend's house" you mean the barracks room of one of the hottest and most sought after men on the base, I guess I see what you mean. And by "friend and nothing more" you really mean "man I see every day at work and wish I saw every day at home". That makes more sense to me." Meyrin kept the verbal poking going. Luna NEVER left herself open like this, this was going to be entertaining for weeks! She knew that her sister was probably telling the truth... it wouldn't be at all like Luna to really have a secret kinky fling going with a guy she'd really just met, no matter how hot he was... but she was so embarassed about it! Maybe something had "kinda" happened and she wanted to keep it buried. That would be interesting, and more possible. "What's your rush anyway? Morning formation is still a good thirty minutes away for you."

"Special instructions from the Commander." Luna replied, glad for a subject change. She glanced at her chrono... she was about fifteen seconds behind her timer. She'd have to move faster. It was all the talking slowing her down... but if she was silent, Meyrin would be absolutely horrible with her speculations and rumor mongering... she was like the tabloids, but worse because she knew so much about Luna already! "He was all worked up about something. I've gotta be at his office in less than five minutes!"

"Cool. Have fun with that. I'm probably going to hang around here most of the day, maybe go tanning later, might go out to lunch. Being a Mobile Suit pilot must really suck, with all that training and maintenance you guys have to do. I've been done with my schoolwork for almost a day now... this stuff is kinda simple, compared to what we work with in ZAFT. Its not bad tech, I suppose... its just not particularly impressive. It gets the job done, nothing more."

"I hate you. I've been working fifteen hour days all week, minimum! That's why I fell asleep..." Luna cut herself off before she could lead Meyrin back to that topic. "If you're that bored though, maybe you should volunteer for this special project too? Who knows, it might be really interesting. I didn't get the impression it was something that was strictly limited to us Mobile Suit pilots."

"I may not be a "real" soldier like you, Luna, but even I know better than to volunteer for something in the military. Why ask for pain?" Meyrin chuckled and homed in on the blood she sensed in the water. "Us? Plural? Who else got nabbed for this mission by the Commander? It wouldn't happen to be... your cutie pie Shinn... would it? What happened, you guys bump into the Commander on your way back from playing kissy-kissy in the bushes?"

"Yes, it's Shinn. Happy?" Luna pulled her trousers back on, not daring to look at her chrono. She was so going to be late, it wasn't even funny. "We both got the orders at pretty much the same time, about ten minutes ago." Luna left out the part about the Commander basically walking in on them as she was getting out of the shower. She really, really didn't want Meyrin learning about that. It was already bad... it would be hell if THAT part of the story got out. "I might not be back for a while, depending on what this mission is, so don't wait up for me."

"Aww, but I can't sleep without my big Sis around to tuck me in at night... that's why I'm so interested in who else you're spending your nights with, Sis. It's all because I never learned to care for myself on my own."

"Don't be bratty. It isn't cute." Luna headed for the door, still wrapping her sash around her waist. "And those video games will rot your brain. Go outside and play for once."

"Nothing to do outside though... everyone else is in school or on leave or doing other stuff." Meyrin complained sulkily, after the door had shut behind Luna. "I don't have any real friends to hang out with yet, thanks for realizing that, Sis! We aren't all so lucky as to be assigned to work alongside talented, smart, hot men all day long, fifteen hour workdays or not! All the other CIC operators are geeks... all they do in their off time is play RPG's or watch silly anime... no thanks!" Meyrin wrinkled her nose in distaste. "Most of them probably don't even know how to swim, much less want to go to a beach, or out exploring on the savannah!" Meyrin couldn't stay sulky for long though, not with all the free time she had on her hands. Too much free time even... she was at loose ends for most of the weekend. She'd worked too hard on her qualifications for the CIC, hard as that may be to believe... she had to wait for the others to catch up before they could do the multi-platoon exercises.

At length she found herself getting dressed in casual civilian wear, light blue skirt, white short sleeved shirt, a lavender neckerchief, plus her socks and tennis shoes. Maybe she would go outside, now that Luna wasn't here to feel vindicated. Maybe she would just wander aimlessly for a while, see what popped up. Maybe she might even try and follow Luna and Shinn around, see what they were up to, as long as it wasn't top secret or something. Luna denied anything going on, but Meyrin knew there was something between her older sister and Shinn... they were more than just friends, at least! Luna didn't fall asleep at a "just friends" place, no matter how tired she was. Maybe this whole "special mission" thing was a ruse, and she and Shinn were going off on a date... Luna was pretty cunning sometimes, she might resort to an elaborate charade like that, Meyrin supposed. At any length, almost anything was better than just hanging around a barracks room!

She was wandering in slow circles around the outside of the barracks a few minutes later, looking for lion tracks... several people had sworn they heard lions roaring late last night... when a different sort of roaring drew her attention upwards, to a sight that took her breath away. A shuttle was coming in for a landing... but this was no ordinary suborbital or orbit to surface shuttle! Well, it was of average size, and the same elongated delta wing shape that most such craft were, but this one was painted solid gold! Heck, if her eyes weren't lying, it looked like it might even be PLATED in gold! But that was stupid, wasn't it? Gold would just get melted off during atmospheric re-entry. But she wasn't aware of any structural, heat ablative materials that had the lustre of gold to them, and certainly wasn't aware of any shuttles built entirely out of whatever it was. Even in the vastness of space, a shuttle that looked like it was made of solid gold would have attracted SOME sort of notice, you'd think!

Moreover, what was a shuttle like that doing way out here in Africa, at a USN training base? She gauged the trajectory it was coming in on with a long practised eye... CIC operators in ZAFT were also qualified for air traffic control positions, it just made sense, with Mobile Suits launching and landing all the time. Her eyes widened. That was a priority one trajectory... you couldn't land any faster than this shuttle was, unless you were crashing! Whoever it was had some clout, to cut off the regular supply and personnel shuttles that constantly flitted through the airspace of the base. This close to Victoria Spaceport, air lifting supplies was easier and more efficient than land convoys. She found herself walking towards the landing strip and disembarkation concourses. She'd been looking for something interesting, and this definitely qualified. Maybe it even had something to do with what Luna had been talking about.

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Noah glanced out of the window at the African savanna stretching away to the horizon on all sides, dotted with occassional groves of trees and broken by the odd ravine or arroyo. Unlike the Africa of several centuries ago, precious few wild animals roamed the savanna's and jungles anymore. Countless species had been lost to habitat destruction and human industry... one of the great tragedies of modern times, in his opinion, was humanity's inability to live in harmony with nature on a sustainable scale. All of the top predators had either starved to death or been hunted for their pelts, while the herd animals they preyed on had become domesticated or also hunted to extinction for meat or hides. Many animals could only be found in zoos these days, and some were completely extinct. His own work had started bringing some back, and the Noah's Ark Foundation was working around the clock to preserve as much unique sets of animal DNA as possible, to prevent further extinctions through the use of cloning, but that was still a stopgap measure at best!

Of course everything would be changing soon. The entire world order would be completely rearranged during the great re-creation the Brotherhood was striving to achieve. Nature would at long last gain the adaptive and evolutionary capabilities needed to compete with humanity on an equal level, and humanity would gain the ability to perceive the community sense of self that would truly once and for all unite them in a common peaceful purpose, without war or strife or inequality! And he wouldn't have to feel so alone anymore, he could finally become what he knew he was supposed to be, the guiding light for the new age of humanity! Already the initial tests of the final production strain of Green EDEN were progressing nicely, as was the backup strain he was cultivating using himself and Rey as the test subjects. The side effects were about what he'd been projecting they would be, and were easily surmountable... at least in his and Rey's cases, since they were acquiring the required dosage in steps, a long term process that just wouldn't work for the production strain. It was the tragedy of haste that was truly the most regrettable.

There was nothing for it though... attempting to go the slow, easy route with the masses would result in even worse strife and war than humanity had yet experienced. When you took things slow, people had a nasty little thing called a choice, at least they did when they realized what was going on. Rey had no idea what the "medicine" for his clone disease that Noah was providing him really did, and besides he was totally under Noah's conditioning anyway... he'd eat dirt if Noah told him it was medicine. It wouldn't be that way for humanity as a whole. Questions would be raised. Independent studies would take place. Licences would have to be acquired. In the end all he'd end up creating that way would be the very controversy that Rau had always nattered on about. No, he had to take the choice, and the time to do anything about it, away from the masses, for their own good! Growing pains would have to be borne, and it wasn't like he was committing genocide or anything! People tended to get hooked on that eighty seven percent statistic... they didn't realize that he meant not an eighty seven percent death toll of all living things, but an eighty seven percent chance PER ORGANISM that it wouldn't be strong enough to withstand the process!

Statistically speaking, thirteen out of every hundred organisms of any particular species would survive the process and the associated hazards and risks that went along with it. Some of those would probably even thrive on it, especially the hardier species. Of course, there was always the chance that some of the more evolutionarily inexperienced or flawed species might not handle the sudden boost so well, and the death toll might be much higher among them, but they still wouldn't be wiped out or anything! The survivors would rapidly re-populate the population, within the first five generations by his calculations! Honestly, it wasn't nearly as bad as people thought it was... yes, lots of things, both people and animals, which was regrettable, would end up dying... but this was NOT the end of the world... it was the start of a better one! Humanity WOULD evolve. Nature WOULD evolve. Nothing less than a mutual and comprehensive evolution could possibly make the world truly peaceful!

The shuttle settled down with barely a creak or a whine onto the base tarmac. His shuttle, unlike most such models of orbit to surface and surface to orbit craft, was fully VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) capable, meaning he could land and take off pretty much anywhere on Earth, as long as his landing site was flat and big enough to accommodate the shuttle. It was going to be a necessary feature in the future, at least for the first few decades, when civilized society would still be recovering from the culture shock, and the greater majority of Earth based facilities would likely be inoperable. The shimmering golden hull material, similar in molecular composition to his car and several other personal vehicles he'd designed and created for himself, was naturally created a small positronic interference barrier on its surface, not strong enough to block anything or act as armor, like the Positron Reflector shields, but more than enough to push the air molecules around the shuttle out of the way, reducing friction on the hull exponentially, allowing the shuttle to reach extremely high speeds in atompshere and even regain orbit by itself, without the aid of a mass driver or special boosters, like some warships needed.

Noah stood, and the "window" in the hull vanished, the incredibly high definition TV display projected on the inner bulkhead of the shuttle registering his motion and correctly interpreting his likely intentions. He patted himself down one more time, checking to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Not that there was much to forget... pretty much any control device he had was routed through his wrist computer, and often had backups built into various other parts of his clothing as well. He took a small canister off of a nearby shelf and closed his eyes as he sprayed some of the cool mist inside on his exposed skin. He had no intention of allowing his fair skin to be harmed by the blistering tropical sun, and the nanites contained in the mist would act as a sort of skin hugging mirror, at least to the harmful wavelengths of UV radiation. His omnicromatic clothing would handle much of the rest of his bodily protection, against such discomforts as excessive sweating, chills or even insects and bacteria, using various nanocolonies pressed and woven into the fabric. Of less formal cut than the tuxedo he'd worn to Gilbert's party, he was still far from casual.

He had no idea, he'd realized when selecting his garments for this spur of the moment rebuttal of Cray's mocking challenge, what was supposed to be considered casual clothing for people his age. Nothing he saw on a quick glance through a couple hundred channels of daytime TV shows really appealed to him... almost everything exposed too much skin. He hated touching skin to skin with other people... it was bad enough at a distance, their thoughts and emotions pouring into his skull in a never ending tide... when he touched someone it was like they were shouting their every last single thought right into his ears. The only way he'd found to cut off the constant extra sensory input was to completely shield his powers, in essence wrapping himself in a double sided mirror on the psychic plane, hiding his mind from the view or touch of every other mind, though at the same time he could not see or feel out of his bubble either. Being reduced to a mere five senses made him feel exceptionally vulnerable and weak, and he HATED that!

However, he was curious, despite himself. He didn't doubt that he could socialize with people... he'd made friends with Rey and other people before after all. But he had to admit, he'd taken the easy road with them at first... they really hadn't had any choice but to like him the first few times they'd gotten together, even though as time passed he found he had to influence them less and less to keep getting the same emotions of friendship, and the same good feelings in himself. These days he barely even had to caress Rey's mind... only during those troublesome times when Rey started thinking about what he knew of Noah's plans, and how that didn't really mesh with what he knew Gil was trying to accomplish. And fairly regular contact between them allowed him to keep a regular vigil on that particular problem. Cray had no way of knowing, of course, that Noah already had someone to brag to about his plans, at least to some extent. That person was Rey.

Getting back to the topic at hand though, as the external door opened and the boarding stairs descended, Noah closed his eyes and furrowed his brow with intense concentration, imaging a geyser of silvery mercurial metal flowing up around him, conforming to his every contour, and gradually thickening. As every successive layer formed, his perceptions of those limited minds around him faded further and further, like candle lights being dropped down an infinitely long dark shaft. The constant gritty chatter in the bottom of his mind hissed and spat like a malfunctioning radio before descending into blessed silence, and Noah slowly opened his eyes. He staggered slightly, and put one hand out onto the nearby bulkhead. He felt slightly dizzy, and a little sick, but he knew it was all purely in his head... his mind was looking for inputs, for data about its surroundings that was normally constantly available, and now that it wasn't, he felt limited, constrained. Weakened. But he'd just have to deal with it, for a day or two. He hoped he could, that living like a regular "human" wouldn't drive him absolutely batty.

Noah stepped out onto the top of the boarding stairs and looked around. There was a small crowd, but they were all staring at his shuttle, or else talking to themselves or even walking away, their curiousity apparently already satisfied. He frowned... nobody even looked his way, for almost ten seconds. He was used to being the instant center of attention, the foci around which everything in the social world revolved, at least for as long as he wished it to. He almost dropped his shields right then and there, fighting the temptation to reach out with his instinctive talents and grab hold of those primitive intelligences that dared to even turn their backs on the Angel in their midst. Was acknowledgement of his special nature really all that high a tribute to ask from people? Most of the time, they didn't even know why, really, they were so hooked on him. It wasn't like he was taking their free will away though... they could still think what they wanted, do what they were doing... they just had to be aware of him too.

His clothing... long sleeved collared shirt with buttoned pockets on both breasts, long slacks, dressy looking shoes that were comfortable in almost any environment, belt and over it all an openfronted vest that hung to below his knees, with many interior and exterior pockets and additions, though you would have to look closely indeed to see them... shimmered and changed color, his shirt turning white, his pants black and his vest dark blue, with silverly flames crackling in real time across the lower portion. THAT got some attention, thankfully. People started to point and whisper to each other. Noah smiled, gratified, while at the same time getting annoyed for a different reason. A lot of people were smiling, which was normal he supposed, but some of those smiles seemed almost mocking. He couldn't hear their whispers from this distance, and he was cut off from their thoughts. For all he knew, they were were making fun of him! Though how, or for what reason, he could not fathom. There was nothing even remotely amusing about him!

Noah looked around, in vain, for Rey, or anyone else he might recognize. There was no one. Well, he had, he supposed, told Rey he wouldn't be arriving for at least twenty more minutes. And he hadn't given overly much warning to Gilbert either, who probably had warned Rey right away, but still, that had been less than an hour ago. From his recollection of the base schematics he'd memorized on the way down during re-entry, while the controls were mostly locked out anyway, he realized that Rey's office was quite some distance from the shuttle tarmac. At least a five minute drive, and who knew how long a walk... he didn't walk long distances if he could help it... a very inefficient mode of travel, walking. Wasted so much time. Noah slowly descended the boarding stairs, hoping someone he recognized would come out of the crowd to take him to Rey. He frowned, as he realized that he now had almost no idea of what to do next. This wasn't working out according to plan. Rey was supposed to be here, not be busy doing something that was likely unimportant in the long scheme of things.

"You look lost." A voice said unexpectedly from behind him. Noah jumped and spun, taking a couple of steps away from the person who'd snuck up on him, something that hadn't happened to him since he'd been old enough to crawl! His hand dipped into the inside of his vest, almost activating the control circuit that would awaken Phlegethion and Aether. They would be at his side in moments, ready and willing to slice to pieces or burn to ashes any threats to his person. He caught himself at the last moment, about the time his ridiculously slow physical senses caught up to what was going on. To a normal person, it would have all happened in less than a second, but Noah was used to operating much faster than that. He should have been aware of this girl before she got within twenty meters, should have known her intent and her most private of thoughts before she got within ten meters, and should have been able to slip his mind between her own nervous system controls and her body before she passed within five meters. She was only a meter away and he'd never even known she was there till she said something! Maybe he relied too much on his mind, and not enough on his other senses, he belatedly wondered?

The girl was giving him a quizzical look, but she wasn't making any threatening motions that he could detect. It was so frustrating, having to look at physical characteristics to try and figure out emotional states and intents! How did people live like this!? His shields wobbled, and he forced them into place once more. He would NOT take the easy way out of this. His own pride wouldn't let him. He WOULD prove Cray wrong... no underling could be allowed to cast such aspersions upon their master! His authority must be absolute! She was of a height with him, slim of build, with pale skin that was just starting to acquire the tanned look most people with fair skin acquired in this climates. She had on a much more casual ensemble than him, a light blue skirt that covered her to md thigh, plain white shirt that hugged her chest tightly, a lavender neckerchief around her neck, her dark pink hair done up in a pair of ponytails, one on either side of her head. Her eyes were a soft lilac-blue color. Noah had to think for a few moments, before finally deciding that she was definitely pretty. Not Lacus Clyne beautiful, but that was to be expected of a normal person.

For her part, Meyrin wasn't sure what to make of this character. He'd come out of the shuttle, looking like a lord surveying his own private domain, a secret smile half on his lips... but by the time he'd gotten to the bottom of the boarding stairs, which were gold just like the rest of his incredible shuttle, he was casting his gaze around like a little boy looking for his lost mother in a crowd at the park. He had seemed completely oblivious to her, lost in some deep thoughts or something, until she'd spoken up after looking at the back of his head for a few seconds. But he'd reacted with a speed that had widened her eyes... she'd had occasion to be around some people with good reflexes before... she'd seen Luna catch drinks knocked off tables before they fell more than a few inches, without spilling anything... but she hadn't even really been able to follow this guy as he spun around and darted a hand into his vest. Usually people with reflexes like that weren't the sort of people you could just walk up behind and startle.

She did know one thing though... he was absolutely GORGEOUS, the most beautiful man she'd ever seen! The knights in shining armor in the dreams of fairy tale princesses would look tawdry compared to this boy... young man, maybe a year or two younger than herself... standing in front of her now. He was about the same height as her, lean of build, but with obviously well toned and strengthened muscles... he was no ninety pound weakling. His skin was a creamy pale color, a few shades darker than albino, but paler than the brownish pink tone her skin was acquiring. Definite PLANTS skin, the product of a lifetime spent in artificial lighting and the excessively filtered sunlight of the space colonies. His physical proportions, the lines of his face, the symmetry of his body... it was all as near to perfect as she'd ever seen, more so than even most classical statues and modern day fashion mannequins! His hair, which was straight and slightly long, very similar in style to the Knight-Commander's actually, was a pale white-gold shade she'd never seen before, with long bangs that frequently brushed over his eyes, driven by the light breeze. The eyes themselves arrested her entire attention for a long few seconds... deep royal purple, with silver flecks and quite literally, somehow, small golden starburst patterns in the normally black pupil. Was that a Touch Up? If so, she needed to find out where to get it! She'd heard of starry eyed, but always thought it was a figure of speech!

The overall effect was slightly ruined by his choice of clothing, the shirt material and cut not matching well with the type of pants he was wearing at all, and who knew what he was trying to do with the vest, which was nearly as long as a trenchcoat, and looked more like you'd see a dorky academic explorer wearing in some movie than anything real. She smiled, and shook her head slightly... it was almost comical really... he obviously had no idea how funny looking his clothes were. There was something to be said for being comfortable in awkward looking clothes... but it was easy to be comfortable in just about anything if you didn't know any better. Some cultures in Africa were still used to wearing loincloths and sandals on ceremonial occasions and for parties, with no shirts for either sex. They were perfectly comfortable with it... Meyrin could NOT imagine being anything less than completely awkward and embarassed! He was frowning at her now, though even a displeased expression looked good on him. This was interesting with a capital I, that was for sure! This guy HAD to be the thing that Luna had been talking about... he screamed VIP to her eyes.

"Who are you?" Noah asked abruptly. He misliked the amused look in her eyes when she looked at his clothing. His apparel was the result of countless man hours of careful research and precise engineering! There was nothing at all amusing about it! "Are you my guide or something? Rey said he'd have someone waiting for me when I landed. Take me to Rey, now!"

"Whoah!" Meyrin held up her hands at the stream of words. "I'm just an off duty CIC operator, passing by on my way to nowhere in particular. I saw your shuttle coming in on a priority one trajectory and decided to have a look. You don't see golden shuttles dropping out of the sky every day, especially out here in the boondocks of Africa!" Meyrin craned her head around and stared up at the shuttle looming over them. "What IS that stuff its made of anyway? I've never seen the like."

"Its a propitiary technology." Noah replied, disliking her inquisitiveness. Questions were all right, he supposed... but he liked to be the one in control of a conversation, not this give and take he was seeing. He still wanted to know what she thought was so damned funny about his clothes! "I decided to come here something on a whim. Where's Rey?"

"Beats the hell out of me. The Knight-Commander is a very busy man." Meyrin shrugged. Came here on a whim, eh? First name basis with the Knight-Commander, eh? Who the hell had the kind of time and resources to take a private orbit to surface shuttle... apparently alone... on a trip down to Earth, to a secured USN military base of all places, on a WHIM!? Now she was really interested! Normally she'd avoid a VIP like the plague if she could at all help it... nothing good ever came of being around the VIP, that was a militarily assured fact. If anything bad was going to happen, it would happen when the VIP was around. It was just the way the universe worked, or so it seemed. But this was just too different, too strange, too interesting to give up on! "I'm Technician First Class Meyrin Hawke. Oops, I suppose I'm Knight-Technician First Class Meyrin Hawke now. Sorry, still getting used to that prefix. Who are you?"

"My name is Noah Borander." Noah replied. The expected light of recognition and awe failed to materialize in her eyes. She didn't recognize him. Didn't anyone watch the damned news anymore? Could he have made any MORE of an impression at Gilbert's party? He didn't think so. It was galling... here he was, the scion of the richest and most powerful commercial and industrial conglomerate in the PLANTS, maybe even in the entire USN, and this girl, this Meyrin Hawke, couldn't tell him apart from any other person she happened to bump into on the street! His only comfort in this situation was that she had at least reacted to his physical appearance... a tiny measure of recognition that he was forced to treasure, since so little was forthcoming! At least some part of the universe was working as it should... she had recognized his superiority in the very least manner! "Where is Rey? I want to go to Rey, right now."

"I told you I don't know." Meyrin replied, a hint of annoyance creeping into her voice. "He could be out on an exercise scenario for all I know. He's constantly working... getting the Solar Knights to function as a real unit isn't something that you can just snap your fingers and make happen you know! As for bringing you to him, well, since I don't know where he is, that's going to be pretty hard for me to do, don't you think?"

Noah frowned even more deeply. This wasn't working out like it was supposed to at all. Why was she being so difficult? "Bring... me... to... Rey." He ennunciated slowly and clearly, as if speaking to a particularly dense child, or one of the girls at the Institute for the Terminally Ill. Sometimes you just had to take things painfully slow with regular people. He was shocked when she leaned forward and got in his face. No one ever got into his face. Especially not girls, who were usually all too happy to fawn over him as much as he wanted them to. Even Gilbert Durandel didn't get into his face!

"I... don't... know... where... he... is!" Meyrin retorted, also speaking slowly and clearly, as if to a deaf person who needed to read her lips. Where the hell did this guy get off, talking down to her like she was some kind of jalfwit or retarded person? "I... can't... bring... you... to... him! Capiche!?"

"Don't you realize who I am?" Noah stammered, transfixed by her fierce glare, practically nose to nose with the girl.

"Don't know, don't care." Meyrin replied, turning up her nose and looking down it at him primly. "I'm off duty anyway. I'm under absolutely no obligation to help a petulant little boy like you. Find him yourself. Or buy a little patience with all your money and power or whatever, and wait the two or three minutes its going to take for him to send someone for you... believe me, I think he might have realized, what with your big golden shuttle, that his guest has arrived! But don't act all high and mighty towards me, when I just wanted to ask about your shuttle!" Meyrin turned on her heel and started to march away, head held high.

"Wait." Noah commanded, struggling to regain control of the situation. Had he even been in control in the first place? This girl, Meyrin Hawke, had just trampled all over him and he couldn't think of a word to say back... nobody had browbeaten him like that for more than a decade now! "Come back here!"

"You don't have any authority over me, Noah!" Meyrin called back over her shoulder, not stopping. "You're a civilian, I'm in the military. You can't give me orders. Especially when I'm off duty!"

"You WILL come back!" Noah shouted at her. He couldn't let her walk away. It would feel too much like a defeat, like she'd bested him! He HAD to be victorious. It was his RIGHT!

"No, I won't! You can't make me!" Meyrin retorted. His next words proved that a lie though.

"You will come back, or I will call Gilbert Durandel on his personal line and have HIM make you come back!" Noah shouted. He was pleased, slightly, to see her halt. He was less pleased because he'd had to use Durandel's name to do it... that implied that he needed Durandel's help, which was pure madness to think! It was very nearly the opposite of the real relationship between them! But a desperate situation called for desperate measures. "I wouldn't think Gil would be happy to have his day interrupted for something so minor, but it doesn't matter to me! I'm a civilian, he's not my boss!"

"Y-you're bluffing!" Meyrin called back, though she had turned around, a bead of sweat trickling down her neck. This guy was a VIP. He had his own shuttle, and a gold one at that. Was on a first name basis with the Knight-Commander. He could get priority one clearance and take a solo journey that had to cost several million dollars round trip apparently on a whim. He was obviously used to having people jump around pretty much as he wanted them to. Maybe he really COULD call the SecDef up on his cellphone. She swallowed nervously. That would really ruin her day... hell, her YEAR. There was almost no limit to the sorts of nasty things that could happen to her career if the SecDef took a personal interest in making her life hell.

"Do I seem to you..." Noah asked, as the cell phone built into his shirt collar extruded its ear and mouthpiece armatures and flashed the holographic display menu in the air before his face. Circuitry in his concealing contact lenses allowed him to blink click through the various holographic displays his personal equipment used in a matter of seconds. At the same time, his shirt shifted to a dark gold color, his pants turned dark blue and his vest turned a russet red, with golden chain lightning patterns playing across his shoulders and down his front. "... the sort of person who needs to bluff?"

Meyrin stared, openmouthed, at the color changing clothes, and the most advanced cell phone system she'd ever seen. Cell phones were pretty small these days, but to have one built into your shirt collar, complete with voice activated commands and a fricking holographic control interface? Much less having clothes that could so drastically shift color and even patterns! She tried to think about how much stuff like that had to COST, and failed utterly. She swallowed again, harder. "Hold... hold on a second here. Let's not be hasty."

Noah smiled. Ah, this was a little bit more like it. He considered her again as she walked back over to him. She was definitely pretty. And she wasn't taller than him. He hated it when girls were taller than him and looked down on him. And she definitely had spirit. He decided that she would do. Cray had challenged him to go on a date, to try and make friends with someone. He'd gotten off to a rocky start, but now he was in the driver's seat again, and he could thus progress from there. Meyrin Hawke would be the subject matter of his rebuttal to Cray. It should be easy. Girls could never resist the allure of wealth and power, not to mention his physical looks. There was no way she wouldn't end up liking him. He despaired of having much fun in her company... intellectual conversation would probably be a waste of time with her. But he could still be friends with someone, even if they weren't on his intellectual level... just look at Rey! Noah reached out and grabbed her by the wrist once she was close enough.

"Hey! What the hell do you think you're doing!? You can't just grab people without their permission!" Meyrin protested. She tried to yank her hand away. Nothing happening. His grip was like iron, though thankfully he wasn't squeezing so hard as to be painful. But his hand was like a shackle around her wrist. Even when she took hold of his wrist with her other hand, she couldn't get him to budge. She really needed to spend more time at the gym, and pay more attention in self defense class... Luna would have broken this guy's nose if she'd been grabbed like this!

"You are coming with me. We are going on a date. We will be friends." Noah told her, with a smile he hoped was sincere looking. He wondered what he was supposed to do now though. Besides the base layout, he didn't know much about the surrounding area. He was still considering what to do when Meyrin's open handed slap caught him across the cheek, crushing his cell phone armatures and rocking his head to the side. His cheek stung mightily, and the cell phone armatures flopped limply onto his collar before slowly retruding into the dormant state. He stared at her in shock, one hand brushing his stinging cheek, his eyes wide. No one had ever struck him on the face before in his life. His mother, Zelda Borander, had spanked him once or twice when he was very little, but once he figured out how to conditioner her mind, she'd stopped that sort of behavior altogether. It was such a suprise that he quite forgot to summon his guardians, like he would have for most physical assaults.

"I ain't going nowhere with you, much less on a date! I don't even know you! For all I know, you're some kind of creepy pervert, who's going to try and date rape me or something! As for friends, no fucking way! Get your hand off me!" Meyrin shouted angrily at him. She turned her head and started shouting at the crowd of technicians and other off duty Knights that were gawking at the shuttle from a doen or so meters away. "Hey! Hey, could someone help me out here!? This guy's touching me when I don't want him to! Someone help me!"

"You hit me..." Noah said softly.

"Damn right I did! That's what happens when you grab someone without their permission! I'm gonna do it again if you don't let go right this instant!" Meyrin raised her free hand menacingly. "HEY, A LITTLE HELP HERE!?"

"What's going on over here?" A burly man, dressed in the grease stained coveralls of an on duty shuttle mechanic, stepped up to them from the side. He'd been admiring the graceful lines of the shuttle when he'd heard Meyrin calling out. He saw Noah's hand on her wrist, and the unhappy expression on her face, and his face took on a harder cast. Nobody liked it when guys picked on girls, and when those girls happened to be part of your unit, and the guy picking on them was some stranger... well, you stood by the Unit. That was a cardinal rule of the military. It didn't matter if you hated someone, or if you would normally even be beating the shit out of them yourself... if you saw someone from the Unit in trouble with outsiders, you helped the Unit, and sorted out stuff later. "I think you should let her go, mister, nice and quick like."

"This does not concern the likes of you." Noah retorted, glaring at the unwanted interruption. Meyrin's hand swung for his face again, but he was ready this time, and he caught he wrist before she could more than half complete the attack. He pushed her arm away and then stepped around to her side, twisting the arm he'd grabbed first back and around with him, into an immobilization hold he'd watched Rey use several times in practice. Meyrin squawked with discomfort, but he made sure to cause no permanent damage... that would likely irrecoverably taint the chances of making a positive social contract with her, he was fairly certain. Kind of like kicking a puppy... once the puppy figured out where the abuse was coming from, they would never trust you in the future. "Meyrin Hawke and I are going for a short flight. We will be back before tomorrow. Be sure to tell Rey."

"Like hell you will, motherfucker!" The mechanic took a long step forward, hands balled into fists. "Let her go, right this instant or I'm going to call the MP's... after I smear your face across the tarmac!" He turned his head and shouted at some of his crew nearby. "Yo! We got flight ops in trouble over here!" He was just turning back to the kid and the girl when an invisible, irresistable heavy weight slammed into his upper body and bore him to the ground, cracking his head painfully against the hot tarmac. He blinked, dazed and confused, and then let out a shriek of shock and fright as Phlegethion, a black armored dragonform robot with glowing red eyes, materialized on top of his chest, Mirage Colloid cloak disengaging, pinning him the the ground, razor sharp teeth flashing in his face. "HOLY SHIT!"

Noah took his hand out of his vest and smiled. Satisfactory. He'd only set her to intimidate... as long as the big man stayed mostly still and quiet, and didn't set off any of her warning instincts, his bruised skull would be the worst of his concerns. Meyrin was goggling with shock, as was most everyone else who could see Phlegethion, and with the leverage he had on her, she had no choice but to be pulled after him as he headed up the boarding stairs once more. She tripped and stumbled, forced to edge up the stairs sideways, but at least she wasn't actively fighting him anymore. Once they were most of the way up the stairs, Phlegethion pounced off the mechanic's chest and stalked over to the base of the stairs, hissing and growling at the crowd of soldiers that were slowly pressing closer.

"Hey! Hey, help me! I'm being kidnapped here! HELP!" Meyrin shouted, finally getting over her shock at seeing the mechanical dragon. She'd heard of robot guards, but they were usually like turrets, or at best dog like things that could track people down by scent and point them out for more conventional security forces. The black dragon moved like something that was alive, barely like a machine at all! It was as graceful as a panther as it loped across the tarmac, wings beating ever so slightly for control as it skidded to a halt at the bottom of the stairs, claws digging into the asphault and rasing sparks. A group of off duty Knights had been making their way towards the stairs, calling out for Noah to cease and desist, but they screamed and scattered backwards when the dragon quite literally breathed a twenty foot cone of white hot FIRE at them! Asphault bubbled and ran half molten, and a cloud of black smoke rose into the air along with the heat shimmer. No one was injured, but everyone drew well back from the dragon-construct, not wanting to chance a fiery death.

Noah pulled Meyrin into the interior of the shuttle, and hit the toggle that raised the boarding stairs. Phlegethion crouched on the bottom of the stairs, wings spread, back arched and head lowered in threat posture, until the stairs were halfway up, before she backed rapidly into the shuttle. A few seconds later, the boarding hatch sealed closed, along a line so fine it was invisible to the naked eye. Noah pushed Meyrin into one of the plush cloned leather seats scattered around the foyer like interior of the shuttle, and turned away, the holographic controls popping up in front of him in response to a brief hand gesture that interacted with the interior motion detecting computer system. Meyrin popped right back up out of the chair, hands raised the punch at Noah from behind, but she stopped well short when Phlegethion's head whipped around towards her and the dragon-guardian growled warningly. Meyrin shrieked and stumbled backwards when a second dragon, this one white with amber eyes, appeared out of thin air on the other side of her chair. Aether daintily considered this intruder, and dismissed her as a non-threat, putting her white armored head back down on her forelegs and curling her tail around herself once more.

"As long as you don't make any provocative actions, like trying to interface with the controls or damage the interior or do harm to me, Phlegethion and Aether will not bother you." Noah said over his shoulder, as the shuttle slowly propelled itself straight up into the air on jets of blue flame. On the inside though, all they felt was a slight sensation, like being in an ascending elevator. There was no vibration, no noise, and currently anyway, no windows to the outside world active. "Sit back and relax, Meyrin Hawke. Our date is just starting."

"I wanna go home..." Meyrin whispered in a small voice, carefully sitting back down on the chair. "Sis..."

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	19. Tending the Crops part 1

Noah was still trying to figure out exactly where he wanted to go on his and Meyrin's date, so for the moment he was having the shuttle fly in a wide holding pattern over the Victoria spaceport area. He'd been over the Solar Knight's base, but had reflected that there might have been some rancor directed at him from the soldiers on the ground, due to their misunderstanding of the situation. And until he got into contact with Rey, which should be happening very soon now, there was no telling what the soldiers might do, especially if they believed he really had kidnapped this Meyrin Hawke girl. His shuttle was unarmed and almost unarmored... it's only defenses were speed and a Mirage Colloid field he desperately hoped he would not need to use. It would give rise to all sorts of awkward questions about how he had access to that technology. No, safest bet was to put some distance between himself and anyone who might try and track them down. He had the shuttle change its registration ID just to be safe, and changed the outer color scheme to a more usual white and grey and blue trim pattern.

A chime sounded, and his detailed satellite topographic maps of the surrounding few thousand square kilometers revovled around him, switching from a three hundred and sixty degree landscape being projected on the floor to a one hundred and twenty degree arc at chest height, to allow room for another one hundred twenty degree arc to form the viewscreen for the incoming call to his private comm line. "Ah, Rey. Thank you, I was starting to think you'd never call me." Noah smiled, pleased to see his friend and fellow clone. "How is that medicine I sent you working out, by the wa..."

"Noah, why did you kidnap one of my Knights?" Rey cut him off, somewhat brusquely. He had a very sour look on his face, Noah had to admit. He almost looked angry even, though that was hardly credible. Rey would never get angry at him, of all people!

"I have kidnapped nobody!" Noah protested, astonished that Rey could think something like that was even possible. "There was no guide waiting for me like Gil said there would be, so I found one for myself, is all."

"Where is Meyrin Hawke? Is she safe?" Rey asked, his eyes flickering to the side in a way that suggested to Noah that he was matching gazes with someone off screen from where Noah could see.

"Rey! You should know that no place in the universe is as safe as in proximity to me!" Noah chided, shocked that his friend... his FRIEND, of all people, could be insinuating that he would do harm to someone like that!

"I remember what you did to Meer Campbell." Rey replied, his voice very quiet. "Was she safe too?"

"That situation is entirely different from this one." Noah retorted, allowing a hint of his anger to show. How dare Rey question his motives! "You and Gil should never have tried to decieve me like that! It's an insult to me, and an insult to Lacus Clyne! Punishment had to be given!"

"So you say. It's not very hard to "punish" an unarmed girl who is only doing what people she respects have asked her to do! Pardon me for saying so, but you disappointed me, Noah... I thought you were better than that, than taking out your anger on subordinates who have little choice but to do what they are told!" Rey shook his head. "Strike at the hand, not the weapon it holds, right? That's what you told me once. Breaking weapons doesn't stop the enemy from coming back later, with new and bigger ones... only by disabling their hands can you defeat them!"

"I was angry." Noah replied, wishing they could move on already.

"That isn't an excuse for sending your dragons to maul her to death! Some reports even say she was sexually assaulted before death! How could you do something like that!? She wasn't a perfect person... but she wasn't a bad girl either. She just wanted to help people!"

"She accepted money to impersonate a person the world respects in order to manipulate public opinion behind a man with dubious motives! She made her choice with free will!" Noah snapped, more than tired of this conversation. "She was all over me at the party... you saw that. I offered her a ride home and, well... you know how it is between men and women..." Well, that wasn't strictly true, but there was no way Rey was going to be able to call him on it. Meer had gotten everything she deserved, and nothing more. How DARE she presume to impersonate an Ultimate Coordinator!? And for MONEY! Maybe killing her had been a little much... Phlegethion and Aether had only supposed to frighten her into silence, but they were jealous instruments, prone to shocking violence against targets of their envy. He had not been surprised to learn they had taken "silence" to mean "kill". He was surprised to see that Rey had taken it so hard though. Had perhaps Rey been interested in her?

"I know some things... and suspect a lot more." Rey replied darkly. "Your own motives aren't exactly..."

"My motives are noble and fundamental to bringing about peace and prosperity for nature and humanity for all eternity!" Noah cut Rey off fiercely. "I will END war and strife and jealousy fueled suffering, Rey. I will remove inequality, once and for all! Coordinators... Naturals... I will annihilate the distinctions that hold us apart and forge anew the meaning of the word Human!" Noah clenched his hands into fists. "You are the last person I would expect to question my motives, "cousin"!"

"We aren't real cousins..." Rey said, though his eyes were downcast and his voice very quiet.

"Yes, we very much are!" Noah retorted with a sigh. "I have explained this to you before. Every clone made with the flawed process contains some of Albert la Flaga's genes! It's the reason that the cure I'm working on affects both of us! Rau was his surrogate son, as were you, but I was incubated at a later time, using different cells that were mixed with his! We are as much cousins as Kira is my brother, though he does not realize it! We share the same fundamental genetic code, except for a few sequences here and there! We are family, Rey... we are the only family we have! Family is supposed to trust one another!"

"I do trust you, Noah... but..."

"You listen to Gil too much sometimes, cousin." Noah took a deep, calming breath. "You need to remember to see my side of the story too. I understand you are worried about this Knight of yours, this Meyrin Hawke... but I promise you I will return her safely to you before I return to the PLANTS! No harm will befall her! I need her for a little social experiment, is all. Just a day or two of her time is what I need."

"I was going to send two of my squadron commanders to escort you around, you know. If you had waited another two minutes we wouldn't have needed to have this conversation at all." Rey leaned back, away from the screen and rubbed his brow with one hand. "You have no idea the kind of chaos you caused me, swooping in and apparently abducting her like that!"

"Oh. Sorry. I didn't see anything wrong with it. She was the one who accosted me first."

"You're serious, aren't you?" Rey shook his head in exasperation. "Noah, people tend not to like it when other people drag them around like dolls, you know! You can't just grab people off a military base, on or off duty, and then disappear with them in your shuttle! That's a crime in the USN!"

"I'm just borrowing her..."

"You can't deal with people like they're possessions!" Rey groaned. He badly wanted to pound his head on his desk. "Her older sister is one of my best squadron leaders. Do you have any idea how hard it was to stop her from taking an Archon out after you!? You're putting me in the position of damaging the delicate relationship between a commander and his subordinates! I need them to trust and respect me, or else our battle efficiency will be worthless! She almost gave me a black eye a few minutes ago!"

"Sorry, Rey." Noah shrugged slightly. "So if I take her without your permission even though she's not doing anything for you right now, that's stealing, huh? But if you give her orders, then it's okay for me to take her pretty much anywhere, whether she wants to or not? Funny system. I'll never understand the military. I guess I should probably let you give her those orders then, huh?"

"That would be good, yes. It's about the only way I could keep Lunamaria from leaving, by transferring her mission to Meyrin. She's still not happy, mind you... you'd best be careful not to dally long when you drop Meyrin off. Lunamaria Hawke is a dangerous woman." Rey shook his head. "What is this social experiment anyway? I need to know so I can phrase the orders properly."

"Oh. It's nothing serious. I need her to go on a date with me." Noah smiled, glad that they had moved past the tension of earlier. His smile faltered a bit at the incredulous look on Rey's face. "That's not a problem, is it?"

"Noah, I can't order a girl to go on a date with you." Rey ground his palms into his eyes in frustration. "That is so far beyond my level of authority that its not even funny!"

"Then have Gil do it." Noah suggested. "That should be enough authority right?"

"NO! Even Gil doesn't have that kind of authority! Not even the SecGen has that power! Her family MIGHT be able to tell her who she should date, but that's different entirely from a military order! People date people when they like each other, in a romantic sense! The military can't touch that sort of thing, at all! She has to love you... or at least think she does... before she'll go on a date with you! And kidnapping her off the middle of the base in broad daylight won't make her love you, I am almost entirely positive! The opposite if anything!"

"This is more complicated than my initial research suggested." Noah muttered with displeasure. He'd thought this would be an easy fix to Cray's challenge. Had he actually been fooled by that BCPU!? Was that even possible!? Well, he was committed now... giving up at this point would be too great a personal humiliation to be borne! "I appear to have made a few mistakes, Rey."

"You think!?" Rey snapped. He could feel a migraine coming on, and a welling nausea in his stomach. It was getting towards that time of day... he needed to take another dose soon. Just as soon as he finished dealing with this emergency. "Look, just let me talk to her, okay? I'll straighten things out for you as best I can. I can't promise that she'll be anything like what you're expecting, but I can probably keep her from regarding you as an evil kidnapper, and that's probably the best you can hope for at the moment. Is she nearby?"

"She said she needed to use the washroom a few minutes ago. Given that she hasn't returned yet, I imagine she's trying to hide in there, or something. Phlegethion went with her, so she shouldn't be doing anything too foolish. I will connect you directly to her, hold on a moment. Call back when you're done."

"No, wait! If she's in the restroom then..." Rey's voice cut off as Noah brought the maps back up to full size. Mt. Kilamanjaro maybe? Or the Congo river perhaps? Africa had a lot of places it could be a lot to fun to visit on a date.

----------------------------------------

Meyrin nervously eyed the dragon for the umpteenth time. It hadn't done anything besides sit there on its haunches since it had escorted her to the shuttle's bathroom, which wouldn't have been out of place in the penthouse suite of a five star hotel, but its dark, watchful presence oppressed her something fierce! She'd been entertaining a far fetched personal fantasy about climbing into the air ducts, or ambushing her kidnapper with a towel taken from the restroom for a garotte, but with the dragon right there the entire time, she hadn't had a chance to do more than her business... and even that took more time than usual. She didn't like having other people in the restroom with her, especially when it was an actual bathroom and not a public restroom. She supposed the mechanical dragon wasn't really a person, per se, but it seemed a lot more alive than any artificial construct she'd ever imagined! It scratched at its head with its foreclaws, gleaming red eyes meeting her gaze for a moment, before letting out a low hiss of challenge. Meyrin hurriedly looked away. She'd seen the thing take down the mechanic, and didn't rate herself as having much chance against it, especially in close quarters!

Oh, but what had she ever done to deserve this nightmare? Who would expect to be snatched out of the middle of a well guarded USN military base like that? It was the sort of thing that happened in bad action novels! Her day had been going so well too. Boring perhaps, but she was beginning to see a lot of good things about boring! She was never going to complain about a boring weekend ever again! And she was certainly never going to walk up to another pretty stranger, not without her sister there to back her up! Getting kidnapped once was more than enough, thank you very much! Hopefully, Luna and the Commander would be working out a rescue mission soon, and she would be back in her own bed before too much longer. She was comforted by the thought of Luna... her older sister would tear hell itself apart to save Meyrin. This pretty bastard had no idea who he was messing... Meyrin lost her pleasant train of thought, which featured many images of Luna beating the pulp out of Noah, when a chime sounded and a section of wall in front of her turned into a videocomm screen.

There was nobody on the other end of the comm, just a high backed office chair, turned away from her, that looked faintly familiar. "H-hello?" Meyrin asked, shooting another glance at the dragon, which was engrossed in a study of its talons, or so it seemed.

"Meyrin Hawke?" The voice of Knight-Commander ze Burrel asked, somewhat tenatively. "Are you... presentable?"

"Wha... oh!" Meyrin blushed scarlet. She'd finished up a while ago, she'd just been staying in the bathroom because she didn't want to be around Noah. She stood up, and the comm screen moved up to her new head height, a very impressive trick she had to say. Was this whole shuttle wired like this? "Yes, sir! Knight-Technician First Class Meyrin Hawke, present and proper, sir!"

"Are you all right, Knight?" Rey turned his chair around, hoping the relief wasn't plain on his face. Damn Noah just didn't understand the concept of privacy when it applied to other people! "You haven't been hurt or assaulted have you?"

"Well, he twisted my arm something good! Sir." Meyrin replied, rubbing at the arm in question. "But no, other than forcing me onto this shuttle, and keeping an eye on me with one of his dragons, he's left me pretty much alone, thank god! I thought I was going to be raped for sure, or something else horrible! When are you coming to free me!?"

"Ms. Hawke... I think that there are some things about this situation that I should properly explain to you." Rey hedged, his stomach roiling and heart pounding. He forced himself to ignore it. Just a little bit longer. He could take the medicine in just a few more minutes! "Noah Borander is a... very important person."

"That doesn't mean he can just..." Meyrin started to protest hotly.

"Let me finish." Rey cut her off. Damn, but these Hawke's could be fierce! "Noah is... well, I suppose you might understand it best as socially retarded, though he would be very angry if you used that term around him. He doesn't know how to act normally in society. He was coming to us because he needed some personnel for a certain... private experiment. Obviously, in the normal course of things he would have gone through me, as his point of contact, but there was a misunderstanding about timing, and he arrived before the people I had selected to assist him were ready. He met you, and figured that you were the person I was sending to assist him."

"So it's all just a big misunderstanding then!? He didn't catch on to me shouting desperately for help at the top of my lungs that maybe I didn't want to go with him!?" Meyrin said incredulously.

"He's not used to people telling him no. Ms. Hawke, let me stress something with you... Noah Borander is probably the most powerful and wealthy individual you will ever meet in person. Even the Secretary of Defense often has no choice but to do as Noah Borander asks him to, within reason. He also happens to be a good friend of mine. None of this excuses his conduct with regards to you, but... there isn't much we can really do to him."

"I'm going to sue his ass into the ground when I get out of here! Sir."

"Ms. Hawke, how much would you try to get from him? Assuming you even beat him, when he could hire not just the best lawyers in the PLANTS, but ALL the lawyers in the PLANTS, if need be." Rey smiled weakly. "Noah Borander could drop two million dollars in large bills on the street, and it wouldn't be worth his time to bend over and pick them up."

"Oh. Wow." Meyrin tried to imagine that level of wealth. It explained the shuttle certainly. "Okay, so he gets to buy his way out of punishment. Whatever. I want to go home!"

"I see here that you've finished all of your preliminary qualifications as a CIC operator. Indeed, I've gotten glowing reports about you from your supervisors." Rey shuffled some documents on his desk as a nervous habit. He hoped she couldn't see the sweat beading out all over his face and neck. His gut felt like it was burning a hole out through the bottom of his body, and he could feel his heart start to beat arrythmically. Just a little longer... "You were on regular weekend liberty at the time of the incident, with no duty..." Rey gritted his teeth. "No duty until Monday. Is this... correct?"

"Uhm... yes, sir?" Meyrin wondered what he was going towards. The Knight-Commander didn't look so good all of a sudden. Kinda like a drunk person gets right before they pass out and need to go to the hospital. "Are you...?"

"Don't worry about me." Rey clutched his hands to his stomach under the cover of the desk. "Little hot in here, is all. Ms. Hawke, I hate to do this to you, but I'm afraid I'm assigning you to a temporary duty. You will be propely recompensed... upon your return..." Rey gagged slightly, feeling the bile rising hotly in his throat. Just a little more... "But for the meanwhile, you are to assist... Noah Borander... in his... investigation, to the best of your ability. He has given me his word that he will behave in an honorable and gentlemanly fashion from this point... on. Give him a little... slack... but... stand up to him... as you see fit. I am... looking forward to... hearing your... report. You are... dismissed... Knight!" Rey ended the call in a rush, his entire body feeling like it was melting. He was racked with heaving coughs, and his eyes wouldn't focus. Warm wetness splattered from his mouth down onto his desk, as he scrabbled desperately in a desk drawer for the vial of dark green fluid that was the medicine.

At last, feeling like he was about to pass out and die, Rey found the vial, and he slammed the hypodermic cap onto his leg, right through the uniform trouser. There was a brief hiss and the green fluid inside discharged into his bloodstream and tissue. It took several seconds, but his symptoms began to rapidly fade. Noah promised that this medicine would eventually cure them of the problem of their shortened life spans, but the side effects were pretty... well, missing a dose wasn't exactly an option! He looked with dismay at the blood spattered documents on his desk. Cleanup was going to be a bitch this time. He tried not to look too closely at the blood, which was riven through with greenish streamers in places. Noah said that was normal, that the green spots were where the medicine was currently working on fixing his body. He didn't have much choice but to trust him on that score... he couldn't exactly just go cold turkey on this stuff now that he'd started taking it!

Rey opened the channel back to Noah again. Crisis averted. Hopefully. Noah might have picked the wrong girl for his experiment though... she was no lovey-dovey, she was a Hawke!

---------------------------------------------------------

"Isn't the view beautiful?" Noah asked, nodding at the giant volcano rising up in the middle distance, snow capped peak glinting in the early afternoon sunlight. He'd decided on a compromise eventually... they'd spend some time on the savannahs, hop over to the congo river jungle for an early dinner, and then go back to Mt. Kilamajaro to spend the night. He crouched down and trailed his hands through the grasses and low bushes that dotted this part of the savannah, smiling at the prickle against his skin. Ahh, glorious nature. Was there ever anything so grand?

"Yeah. It's sure great." Meyrin wasn't even looking towards the mountain, but rather back at the shuttle, a half mile or so away. Her voice was flat and monotone, and her mouth twisted in a wistful frown. "Can I please go home now!?"

"You have orders to participate in my dating experiment from your Commander. Somehow I doubt that this is your best ability. You aren't acting very girlish." Noah observed calmly. He'd found that gettting mad and yelling at her didn't work out at all. She just got madder at him, and got even less cooperative. At one point in time she had just stopped walking altogether, on the way over here. He'd tried to drag her, but it was impossible for any distance. Only after much cajoling, and even walking off without her for a while, had she grudgingly come after him. She couldn't get back into the shuttle without him anyway, and there was nowhere else to go for kilometers in every direction. By staying calm he'd actually found her to be passably rational and capable of holding conversations, at least when she wasn't trying to make him mad by being obtuse.

"What do you know about girls anyway? You practically kidnapped me, dragged me out into the middle of nowhere, forced my boss to give me orders I don't want, and are holding me against my will, hoping I'll play a game with you I have no interest for! I tell you, I'm acting like any sane girl would in this situation! Other good things I might try include screaming, crying and trying to claw your eyes out with my nails!" Meyrin retorted.

"I'd advise against that last thing. Phlegethion already does not like you. She thinks you are too noisy, and not properly respectful. She would... enjoy... stopping you." Noah replied casually. Phlegethion perked up, her black head rising out of the brush and grass a few meters away, having heard her name. Seeing that Noah didn't need anything, and that Meyrin was behaving, she dropped her head back down and continued to prowl, investigating this big new place for anything dangerous. "I said I was sorry." Noah added.

"Sorry doesn't cut it for things like this!" Meyrin pouted. "Besides, you were lying."

"Lying? What do you mean?" Noah asked, carefully. He had not realized she had picked up on that.

"I mean you didn't mean it when you said you were sorry! You said the words, but it didn't reach your eyes or your face! You aren't sorry... you're just upset I won't play along, and you're trying to coerce me into it!"

"If I wanted to coerce you, I could do it." Noah muttered. She shot him a wide eyed look of slight panic.

"T-the Commander said y-you were going to b-be a gentleman!" She protested, edging away from him. "He-He'll get really mad if you d-do anything FUNNY!"

"Rey can't stay mad at me." Noah answered, with a shrug. "And even if he does get mad, so what? What's he going to do? Come after me with one of his Mobile Suits? I designed eighty percent of the systems in the Archons, I can shut any one of them down at any time with a control signal from my wrist comp." He looked up and saw her edging away. "Stop that. I was making a point, that though it is within my power to coerce you, I won't. I told Rey I wouldn't for one. For another, that's hardly the sort of social experiment data I'm looking for. Anyone can coerce a girl, if they have the strength or power or opportunity. Going on a successful date with one is altogether harder. And a date is the experience I am looking to have."

"You got a real strange idea about what sort of places are good for dates! And you were still lying to me about being sorry! Girls don't go out with guys they don't trust... and I sure as hell don't trust you!" Meyrin sneered at him, though she did stop moving away. Noah considered her response for a time, mulling over what he'd learned. So trust was the issue at stake, was it? That was no good thing... Noah trusted no one. Even his closest subordinates had their own agendas and could conceivably betray him at any time. Even Michael, were he ever to re-assert his original personality, could betray him! If he couldn't trust them, how could he trust this strange girl he'd only barely even met?

"What... what can I do to earn your trust then?" Noah asked, trailing his hands through the grass again. "And where would you rather go? Look around us. Can you imagine some place more perfectly peaceful than here?"

"Trust isn't something that can be quantified and tacked on to certain actions like a price tag!" Meyrin snapped at him. She looked around and shivered, despite the warmth of the day. "I wanna go home. Its so empty and big out here... I feel so small..."

"I like feeling small." Noah told her. He sat down on the ground and lay down on his back, looking up into the depths of the sky, like an ocean suspended overhead. "It reminds me that there are things still much greater than myself. And that even the biggest of things can be affected by the actions of a small number of exceedingly tiny by comparison things." He paused for a few seconds. "Do you not enjoy nature?"

"I like nature just fine... I like beaches and parks and forests, though I've never been to one of those, and mountains and oceans... they awe me. But I like my creature comforts too... I like ice cream stands, and restrooms, and cell phone networks and all the benefits of civilization. Being out here, basically alone... its frightening." Meyrin replied. She hugged herself and shivered again.

"It's quiet out here. I don't have to worry about crowds, and noise, and being around all the things that remind me of all my heavy responsibilities. I can be me, out here, without anyone else affecting me." Noah sighed with enjoyment. It was too bad he had to maintain his shielding... it would be nice to be able to listen with all his senses, and not be blasted by the feedback of a million lesser minds, clawing at him with innumerable fingers of static. But if he dropped his shields, it would only be a matter of moments before he began to coerce Meyrin, whether he meant to or not, and that would render the entire experiment pointless! He lay there for a minute or so and then sat up, dust raining off his garments, unable to find purchase on the nano-film covering the fabric and his skin. "Let us go for a walk. May I hold your hand?"

"No, you mayn't." Meyrin clasped her hands tightly together. "I don't hold hands with creeps."

"I... don't normally like touching other people. Skin to skin." Noah admitted, standing up. "It... well, it has adverse consequences for me, most of the time. But... holding hands on a date is what people do, right? How am I supposed to get any data if I can't even fufill the basic parameters of the experiment?"

"Shoulda thought of that BEFORE you kidnapped me!" Meyrin told him nastily. "Look, if you wanna go for a walk, I'll walk... much as I don't like you, you're the only other human being around for kilometers. I don't think I could stand being out here by myself, and I can't go back to the shuttle without you. But I'm not touching you with a ten foot pole unless you force me to!"

"Very well." Noah sighed. This was not going as he'd planned it out, not hardly. It was a good thing he had a lot of freer time now that Durandel was busy training these Solar Knights, before they moved on to what Durandel thought was stage 2 of their "joint plan", and was really only one of the latest in a long line of smaller steps towards Noah's own goals. "You do realize that the longer it takes me to acquire this data, the longer I have to keep you out here with me?"

"You do realize..." Meyrin said in return. "That if you keep me out here past Monday, you really WILL have kidnapped me, and my sister is going to come after you with all the devils of hell and scatter you across half of creation in order to get me back?"

"I am not afraid of your sister."

"You have not MET my sister."

"Your pardon... but your sister has not met ME." Noah rejoined, heading off in a more or less random direction. Meyrin followed a few steps behind, watching him carefully for any sudden movements or other indications he was going to try anything on her.

"You don't exactly look like the most bad ass of Coordinators, you know?" Meyrin told him. "You're stronger than me, but that's not saying much. I think Shinn could probably rip one of your arms off if he wanted to. And given that he and Luna are all kissy-snuggly, I'm guessing he very much wants to. Very big bonus points for saving your crush's sister and all that. Lain'd probably be itching for a try as well."

"My greatest strength isn't my body, but rather my mind." Noah answered, with a shrug. "I can out think most problems before they even become problems. And if I can't plan around it, I can devise a technological solution to it."

"Look how that worked out for your date experiment!"

"I am not perfect." Noah refused to rise to the baiting. "Not yet anyway."

"Arrogance alert, yeesh!"

"Look upon me and tell me truthfully that I am not the most physically beautiful male you have ever seen?" Noah challenged.

"Think much of yourself!? Besides, why should I be truthful when you won't be!?"

"I think... you misunderstand what I meant by that. I spoke not with pride when I made that challenge. I do not look like I do because of any effort on my part... I look like this because I was designed to."

"What, you're telling me you're some kinda android or something? I mean, I guess it makes sense, given your lack of a personality, or human values!"

"I am not an android. You're a Coordinator, Meyrin. Your genes were manipulated with a purpose while you were yet unborn, in your mother's womb. And yet, the mother's womb still exerts its own biological changes upon the embryo, which is why so few Coordinators actually turn out exactly as their parents had requested. They are all subtly flawed in some way. And those flaws compound over time, with each successive generation, as the genome grows ever more refined and manipulated. Such compounded flaws lead to an inevitable conclusion that halts the cycle, eventually."

"Wait a minute... you're talking about ICD, aren't you!?"

"Among other things, yes. I too am a Coordinator, Meyrin. But my genes were tinkered with, refined, carefully built according to a very specific plan before I was even a fertilized egg. Not only that, but I never once entered a female's womb, throughout my birth cycle. There was no biological interface to allow random errors into my genes. Unflawed by the womb, the compounding effect does not touch me, or anyone who shares my state of genetic perfection. The progeny of such unions also would be perfect, having two perfects to draw from, there would be no errors or flaws creeping into the process. Such Coordinators as I are called Ultimate Coordinators. We are the few, the ones who actually turned out like George Glenn would have wanted. We do not suffer from ICD... indeed, one might even regard us as the cure."

"This is way over my head. Slow down..." Meyrin shook her head a few times, trying to figure out what Noah was going on about. "Are you saying you can cure ICD?"

"Yes, I can. In fact, I am less than a month from a method that will cure ICD in one hundred percent of all cases."

"You're lying again..." Meyrin accused, eyes wide. "I haven't heard anything about that... it should be all over the news... people would be lining up to be cured already, no matter the cost!"

"There will be no cost. Well, no monetary cost. I am planning to distribute my cure completely free of charge. I am going to go so far as to make it mandatory, actually. Not only will it cure ICD, but it will cure ALL forms of genetic disease and disorders."

"That's not a cure... that's a miracle!"

"So many have said. Is it so hard to imagine such a thing being possible?"

"YES! There are hundreds... thousands of the most brilliant scientific minds in the business working around the clock trying to figure out JUST ICD... and you're saying you can cure it in a little over a month? And not just ICD, but ALL genetic disorders, no matter WHAT? Is that unbelievable? YES! It's a fantasy... a pipe dream!"

"Those thousands of geniuses are looking at the problem from entirely the wrong perspective." Noah replied dismissively. "They are also using the wrong methods in their attempted cures. The compounding flaws that produce ICD and many other genetic disorders are fundamental parts of those same genes... anything that operates on a less than fundamental genetic nature won't affect them, whether it be chemical, viral or bacterial in nature. Curing ICD is simple, with the proper tools. With the ability to fundamentally change DNA, in real time, during the life cycles of living cells, its almost easy actually. Indeed, curing ICD is only a mere BYPRODUCT of my work."

"Nobody has tools like that though! Manipulating DNA in living cells on a fundamental level... you're talking about changing a persons genome at the most basic level when they're already past the zygote stage! That's impossible! You can't do that one cell at a time, the immune system would flush out the changed cells as fast as you could change them... you'd have to do it to ALL the cells of a body at once! Even Touch Ups don't CHANGE the genome, they just temporarily add onto it! What you're talking about is completely impossible!" Meyrin protested.

"People once said that flying was impossible. Or going into space. Or creating Coordinators. Or even human clones. All were considered impossible. None of them are."

"Clones! Gimme a break already... I can't take much more of this drivel!"

"Meyrin Hawke. I tell you this with utmost seriousness." Noah turned and looked her in the eyes, having reached a small escarpment, leading down into a mud filled depression. A large warthog reclined in the mud, enjoying the coolness as he basked his other side in the afternoon sun. He was a magnificent beast, and Noah could not wait to turn more of his attention to him. But he was in the middle of a conversation. "I can cure ICD. I will cure ICD. I have the tools already at my disposal, I am merely perfecting the process at the moment. When my cure is perfected, I will distribute it to the entire world without asking for anything in return. I am doing this because I really do want to make the world a better place! Am I lying, Meyrin?"

"You... don't seem to be." Meyrin looked at him closely. "But that doesn't mean you're not. Or that you aren't deluding yourself. The stuff you're talking about... we don't have that kind of technology yet! Distributing it all worldwide for free? I don't understand. I understand charity... but that's beyond charity! People would pay any amount for what you're talking about, to be cured AFTER the fact! They will throw money at you even if you don't want it!"

"Money. Money is imaginary! It's a completely made up concept! What do I care about money!?"

"If you think like that, I could use a few million dollars..."

"Have it! Have as much as you want! I'll get you a card with an unlimited balance on it if you want it. I can make one as soon as we get back to the shuttle. Enjoy it while you can... as soon as I distribute my cure, money will cease to have any meaning at all! Wealth will be determined in an entirely new fashion!" Noah cast his eyes up at the sky for a few moments, imagining the day to come. "Inequality will cease to exist..."

"How is a genetic medicine going to cure inequalit... AHHHH!" Meyrin started to ask, stepping up beside him, likewise squinting her eyes up at the sky, trying to see what had caught his eye. The dry, crumbly dirt that formed the sheer side of the hillface cracked and gave way in a small avalanche beneath their combined weight. Noah leaped backwards and remained on the hill, but Meyrin's reactions were not so smooth, and she went flailing down the slope amid the clouds of dust and clods of rust red dirt. It wasn't far enough of a drop to be extremely dangerous, nor was the drop perfectly sheer, so it was more an extremely fast slide than a fall, but Meyrin hit the ground hard with one foot leading and twisted over, falling flat on her face and being partly buried by the dirt falling from above. She tried to jump to her feet, but her twisted ankle gave way under her weight and spilled her to the ground again, down on her hands and knees in the mud pit.

Normally that would be a merely unfortunate thing, getting her clothes all dirty, adding insult to the injury of her sprained ankle, especially this far from any clothes washing mechanism. However, the warthog, a proud older male, was not pleased in the slightest with all the noise and ruckus interrupting his midafternoon sunbathing and mudbath. Snorting and squealing with indignity and mounting rage, the wild pig struggled to his feet, sending sheets of mud and dirty water flying everywhere as he reacted to this unwelcome intrusion on his privacy. His bristly mane stood up straight along his back and head, while his stubby tail snapped back and for like a short whip as he settled his beady eyes on the intruder, who was splashing and floundering in HIS mudpool! It was tiny, probably barely a yearling if that, but that was no excuse for blundering into HIS mudpool! He grunted and pawed the ground, mud geysering from the impact of his foot. He would charge, and gore this intruder with his tusks, snapping bones, splitting hide and trampling what was left into the ground with his feet before taking his leisure once more!

Noah didn't need his mental powers to tell him that this warthog was angry. The grunting, squealing and gnashing of teeth told him that. The way the enormous animal shook his massive head and pawed the ground told him that it would be charging very soon, wickedly sharp tusks to the fore, ready to impale and gouge and rip before the incredible mass of muscle and bone crushed what was left into the mud with the momentum of its passing. Meyrin didn't stand a chance... the warthog would crush her neck and chest with a single blow of its head, and grind her body into paste beneath its feet. With her twisted ankle and the thigh deep mud limiting her mobility, there was no way she could avoid the charge either. She was dead, it was that simple. Animal related deaths in Africa were rare these days, but not totally unheard of. Warthogs were vicious, mean spirited creatures when disturbed... they had been known to chase people down over hundreds of meters before goring and trampling them to death. He considered what he was going to tell Rey... bringing back the mangled remains should be proof enough that he had no hand in her death, right?

Despite his analytical thought path though, Noah was surprised to hear wind whistling in his ears. He realized that his body was in motion, that he was in fact in the process of jumping down from the hillside into the mud pit. Why would he do something like that? The mud pit was dangerous. The warthog could easily trample him when trying to get at Meyrin, or might attack him after killing her! He bent his legs to cushion his fall and strode quickly through the mud to stand between Meyrin and the warthog. The hog eyed him with its wicked red eyes, and did not seem impressed. Nor should it have been... it would go through Noah like a morning mist before pulverizing its original target, Meyrin, with minimal effort. Time seemed to slow down. His shields started to unravel, though he doubted he'd be able to affect the warthogs enraged brain in time. Even full body paralysis would be deadly to them from sheer momentum. The hog began its charge. Meyrin yelled something inarticulate.

A white blur slammed into the warthog from the left front side, even as a black blur hit the back right leg. Claws and teeth that were designed to cut through solid steel sheared through warty hide, muscle, blood and bone with hardly any resistance at all, powerful nerve affecting poisons pumping deep into the hog's body from hypodermics in the tips of the talons and fangs. When even that wasn't enough to take the threat down, twin cones of white hot plasma fire scorched outward, burning the flesh from the hog's flanks and head, charring down through the bone and cooking the internal organs in their own boiling fluids. The hog tottered, took another half, limping stride, and collapsed onto its side. It had taken all of five steps towards Noah and Meyrin, and was still a good four or five feet short of them. A black armored tail whipped around and a sharp report sounded, following a brief flash from the tip of the tail and a splatter of cooked blood and brains from the hog's head. Phlegethion always liked to make extra sure, when the safety of her master was in question.

Noah collapsed to his hands and knees, his eyes blurring with tears. He could hear Meyrin sobbing behind him, but she was relieved, while he was stricken by the greatest of sorrow. There was no reason that the magnifcent warthog had to die. If it hadn't been for a cosmic twist of fate that placed Noah and his robotic guardians in this place, at this time, it would be a human lying twisted and broken in the mud! A human, of which there was an nearly inexhaustible supply, vs a noble beast, perhaps one of the last of its kind alive in the wild! How was that fair!? How was that equality!? Nature could be so cruel sometimes! But why... why had he intervened!? Why had he interceeded upon the behalf of a human, a lesser Coordinator he did not even know!? What could compel such an illogical course of action from him? His word to Rey about her safety wasn't it... he'd written her off from the moment she fell! Why had he jumped, placing himself in danger, triggering Phlegethion and Aether? No experimental subject was worth his life!

"You... y-you... you saved my life..." Meyrin stammered, plainly shocked. Noah was no less surprised.

"NOO! Why!? Why did you have to die!? DAMN IT! Why!?" Noah slammed his hand down into the mud, tears running down his face.

"I... I didn't die! You saved me!"

"I..." Noah spun on her, eyes flashing with rage. He stopped himself before he hurled himself upon her though. He supposed it was natural for her to think that he had been intending on saving her life the entire time. Maybe it was even true... he could think of no other reason for him to endanger himself, and murder a helpless animal, other than because it advanced a vital plan, even if he could not tell which at the moment! Surely he would never choose to save a human over an animal unless there was an overriding reason... thinking anything else was folly! He forced composure onto his face. Whatever the reasons for his actions, now that the scenario had passed, it was time to revert to previous concerns. He could analyze himself later, when he could have time to himself. "I... am glad you're all right." Noah extended a hand to Meyrin. "Can you stand?"

"I think s... no." Meyrin put a little weight on her foot and sank back to her hands and knees with a groan and grimace. She looked at his hand like it was an entirely new organism that she'd never encountered before. "It might be broken. I don't know if I can walk." She tenatively reached out and took his hand. She gasped with surprise as he knelt down next to her and slipped his arms under her knees and across her back, after pulling her arm around the back of his neck. "What are you doing? You'd better not be..."

"If you cannot walk, then I will have to carry you." Noah replied, picking her up with a grunt of effort. She wasn't very big, but he was fortunate she was a girl, and light... he could never have carried a male of his own size for any distance. "I have medical supplies in the shuttle, and I am a trained doctor. But a mud pit is not the best place to conduct an examination of your injury. Put your arms around my neck, please... its hard balancing you as it is."

"You'd better not be doing anything funny! I'm watching your hands!" Meyrin replied, though she flushed slightly and did as he asked, hugging her arms around his neck to help support her weight. She watched the mud slide off his skin and clothes like it was water off a fish's back. "How is that..."

"More propitiary technology." Noah replied, his breathing already somewhat heavy, and he had barely taken her twenty meters. He really needed to focus some time on utilizing his physical talents more often... he would always be strong, and fast, and possessed of good stamina, due to his genetic makeup, but relying on baseline abilities was proving to be most arduous, and he did not like it. He was an Ultimate Coordinator... he should be able to carry two or even three times this much weight all day long without getting too tired. He'd let himself get lazy and sluggish... it was offensive!

"Damn. I don't suppose you'd be willing to share that one with me too? While you're giving me an unlimited credit card line..." Meyrin smiled, though her chuckle was turned into a gasp where she jarred her ankle when he stmubled slightly climbing a less steep slope out of the mudpit. She looked down at her mud covered body. Her clothes were completely ruined. She perked up a little though... maybe now she could finally go home... he wouldn't force her to wear mud covered clothes for the next two days would he?

"Accomodations might be possible. It's not like you're going to reverse engineer my technology." Noah huffed and puffed. The shuttle looked unfeasibly far off. But he refused to let himself stop. He just stopped paying attention to his aching legs and arms, and the burning in his chest. He found the feeling of Meyrin pressed against his chest to be very distracting, but it was a good distracting. It definitely helped keep his mind off his physical exertions. It was an interesting phenomenon. He'd heard of something like this before, but he'd never thought he would experience it himself. Physical sensations had never focused his mind much, indeed, he often focused his mind to ignore physical sensations entirely. It was novel.

"When you say stuff like that it makes you sound so arrogant, you know that? Like you think no one else could possibly ever be as smart as you are. Maybe you are smarter than me... you're the rich and powerful one after all, you must be doing something right that I'm not... but intellectual smarts don't count for everything!" Meyrin observed. "Even if you are super smart, flaunting it to everyone all the time isn't going to make you any friends. Showing off your talents has a time and a place, but forcing everyone's face into your so called superiority is an ugly, distasteful habit."

"I have over twenty top level degrees in subjects ranging from Neurobiology to Quantum Mathmatics to Advanced Materials Engineering... is it so much to ask that people acknowledge my dedication and abilities?" Noah asked, keeping his eyes on the shuttle as it inched closer.

"If you are smart, BE smart... let your accomplishments speak for themselves. Constantly rubbing it in is just narcissistic bragging. You know you're smart, you're obviously proud of it... isn't that enough? Why do other people all have to bow down before your smarts too? Why do they have to bend their pride before yours? Just because you have talents doesn't mean other people don't! You aren't the center of the universe! You want me to stand in awe of you... why don't you stand in awe of me first, for once!?" Meyrin challenged. "Ever heard the saying "Before you criticize, you should walk a mile in the other person's shoes"? Why don't you try looking at this from how someone other than you yourself would? If you're so smart, that shouldn't be that tough of an intellectual exercise, should it?"

"You talk... alot." Noah replied, after a few more steps. "Has anyone ever told you that you need to be less verbose?"

"My sister, all the time, though she just says "Shut up, Meyrin". I may be a loud mouth at times, but that doesn't mean I don't have something important to say a lot of the time too!" Meyrin looked up at him, and the way he was sweating and turning red. "You know, you don't have to carry me all the way there in one go. If you're tired, you should stop and rest. My ankle hurts, but I'm not bleeding to death or anything here. There's no rush."

"I am an Ultimate Coordinator. This should be no trouble to me..."

"Well, excuse me for noticing, but it DOES seem to be trouble for you! I can't tell you how many Knights had difficulties on the first day of Unit wide physical training down here... it is HOT out here, and that sun is murder! If you push yourself too hard and get exhausted or dehydrated, you can really get hurt, even die! I don't like you, Noah... you're rude, arrogant, untrustworthy and pushy... but I don't want you to die. Especially because that would leave me stranded out here alone for who knows how long."

"Your concern is touching. I am glad to see you hold me in such regard." Noah smiled faintly, and slowed his pace. He would not stop, but maybe he didn't have to go at a quick trot after all...

"Sarcasm now? That's almost a human thing." Meyrin was quiet for a minute or so after that observation. She didn't want to say anything, but her ankle was really hurting now, and so were the various other contusions and bruises she'd suffered in the sliding fall. She didn't even want to look at her ankle, she didn't want to see how badly it was swelling up. Her skin itched where the mud was drying. Her arms were sore from holding up part of her weight. The mud stank in the sun. All in all, not one of the better times she'd ever had. Still, she found herself strangely calm. She felt... safe, for some reason. Nevermind that she was still basically a captive of a potentially pervy, arrogant SOB... she couldn't exactly forget how he'd jumped in front of that monstrous warthog, shielding her with his body even though it was likely a hopeless gesture... she found, quite suddenly, that her head was tucked comfortably against his chest and shoulder, and that she was actually relaxed. Well, as much as one could be in her situation anyway.

"Are you all right? You sighed a lot just now."

"Concerned about me? Or about having to cut short your date experiment?" Meyrin replied archly.

"I am not sure." Noah found himself admitting. "Does the latter necessarily preclude the former?"

"What? You expect me to believe you CARE about me for my sake now?"

"I am not sure." Noah repeated. "I am just... not sure... what I feel about you."

"That's the most normal thing you've said to me since I met you." Meyrin chuckled, and hissed when she rubbed her ankle against her other leg by accident. "Owww..."

"Almost there..."

---------------------------------------------

"I can't believe your first aid kit includes a full surgical tool set and THREE full twenty oz canisters of Curaga! How did you get that much? You hardly see more than two or three oz capsules outside of major hospitals! You need a government clearance to even buy the stuff!" Meyrin commented, staring with undisguised awe at the bandage Noah had set around her ankle. She'd been quietly impressed by his careful and professional assessment of her ankle, which he had determined was only badly sprained, and not actually broken, despite how much it had swelled up. He had gently cleaned the mud away from her foot and calf, before smearing on the faintly greenish gel in a thick layer around the points of greatest swelling, before wrapping over her leg from midfoot to mid calf with a type of cloth bandage she'd never seen before, that was incredibly soft to the touch while also seemingly being as strong and supportive as a full on cast and brace! "Why did you even use Curaga on a sprain? Surely ice would do, right?"

"I designed Curaga." Noah replied nonchalantly, making sure the bandage was on tightly, but not so tightly as to put undue pressure on the limb. "One of my subsidaries is the primary producer and supplier. Ice would work, but Curaga, even this diluted form, will have your ankle back to almost normal before tomorrow morning, as long as you don't further injure it by putting excess weight on it."

"Haven't given up on this date experiment of yours, have you?" Meyrin half smiled, shaking her head. "You certainly are persistent."

"I am currently bored, with no other major project to take up my attention. Even the production of my great cure is largely automated at this point, and only requires a fraction of my attention to maintain."

"Why don't you go out and socialize with your peers or something then? Go see a movie, or go to the beach, or take a vacation?" Meyrin wondered.

"I have no peers. I could buy and sell the next wealthiest corporate owner in the PLANTS a hundred times over at last count. Rey is busy with this project of Gil's." Noah shook his head in mild exasperation. He looked up at her. "This IS a vacation."

"I'm your vacation!? You, coming all the way out here to throw my life into disarray out of the blue... this is just an idle vacation for you!? Bastard! And to think I was starting to think you weren't so bad either..."

"Please don't be offended, that isn't what I meant. My entire life is something like a vacation, I guess. I work when I want to, and pursue leisure when I want to, though many people cannot tell the difference between leisure and work when it comes to me. I am often one of them."

"Lifestyles of the super rich eh? So is this whole date experiment just idle leisure, or is this something actually important to you? Look me in the eyes when you tell me!"

"It... it started out as idle leisure. Now though, as I said before... I'm not sure. I find myself strangely engaged, when I did not expect to be." Noah held her gaze for a few seconds. She looked away first, muttering inaudibly to herself.

"Fine..." Meyrin said at length, with a long sigh. "I suppose I should thank you for saving my life back there. Even though its your fault I was even in danger in the first place... what you did... that was... incredible. I've never seen someone so brave! What possessed you to jump in front of me like that?"

"Temporary insanity, I think." Noah shrugged, still trying to figure that out himself. "When you fell, you left the zone of protection offered by Phlegethion and Aether. When I jumped, I put myself in danger, and they reacted as they have been... programmed." Noah decided that it was probably not a good idea to explain to Meyrin just what sort of process went into the control chips for his robotic guardians. Many of the girls who's minds he had used had probably been like Meyrin in a lot of ways. He felt an odd disquiet, like a brief flash of nausea in the pit of his stomach. Was this that infamous emotion, guilt, at last rearing its ugly head? Strange... he'd never felt it before...

"They moved so fast... blurs! And they came out of nowhere! How do they just appear out of thin air like that? Where did you get them? They're the most amazing robots I've ever seen... nothing at the shows up in the PLANTS is even close to them!" Meyrin thought she might be babbling a bit, but she figured that was her right... she'd almost died back there, for real! That warthog was going to be in her nightmares for weeks! She looked around. Neither the white or the black dragon was anywhere within view, though she knew they had to be nearby. She shivered. It was creepy. The grass here was tall and thick... but not THAT tall and thick, to conceal something that big and that noticably colored.

"I designed and built them myself." Noah said proudly. He decided to skip past a full explanation of their capabilities. Meyrin was a member of the USN military, and he was discovering that she was quite a bit sharper than she looked. She would be almost sure to know that Mirage Colloid cloaking technology was banned to all but the USN military. Despite his obvious ties with the USN military, there would be no way he as a private citizen would have access to it. "I find them far more effective than bulky men with pistols and sunglasses wearing well tailored suits, which seem to be the norm for personal protection in the private world. Big men with guns are intimidating I suppose, but a fire breathing, razor clawed dragon with poison teeth? Nobody in their right mind will mess with that!"

"What about the versatility of human guards though? Meyrin argued. "They can plan and adapt much better than robots, to a fluid situation. And aren't they delicate... they seem so graceful, I'd be afraid of them getting damaged!"

"Think about what you've seen them do. Do they seem particularly hampered or unable to adapt to a fluid situation as far as you've seen?" Noah smiled when she considered and then shook her head slowly, an impressed look crossing her face for a moment before she quashed it. "And can you keep a secret?"

"You, trusting ME with a secret?" Meyrin mocked, goggling at him in an exaggerated fashion.

"It's not a very big one. I wouldn't get in much trouble at all, really..."

"Yes, I'll keep your secret. Sheesh, I was just messing with you!"

"Transphase Shift armor." Noah replied, shaking his head. He wasn't used to being "messed with". With his powers he would normally automatically know when someone was being truthful or not, or serious or not. Not being sure was frustrating, but he found himself getting less annoyed as time passed. Meyrin didn't seem to mean anything by it, other than picking at his pride and ego when she seemed to think he was taking himself too seriously. He was surprised to discover that he was actually learning a few things from interacting with her. Garnering a slightly new perspective even. How quaintly interesting. "You couldn't kill Phlegethion or Aether with a direct hit from an RPG, much less hand weaponry."

"That's military tech!" Meyrin protested, staring at him.

"Old military tech, yes. I have the rights to the patents for it. You can buy almost anything in the ALU with enough money." Noah shrugged. "They sold a lot of old Alliance tech during their reformation, to generate initial funds for their government. Don't look at me like that... its perfectly legal, if beyond the means of most individuals, to utilize Phase Shift technology for certain interests, including self defense."

"How did you program them to be so lifelike then?" Meyrin asked, digesting the information. Noah was definitely a surprising person, and he seemed to take his personal safety very seriously. More seriously than anyone else she'd ever heard of. What was he so afraid of? He was rough around the edges, but she found it hard to believe that he could have enemies gunning for his life, even if he was super rich!

"With very hard work." Noah replied, standing up and stretching. It was the truth... harvesting the psyche from one of his patients was gruelling work, that often took most of a day to complete. It was hard enough on him... on the unfortunate patients, it was enough to kill them. He'd learned from his first experiment with Melanie though... leaving them unbound was not an option. They would claw themselves to bloody shreds if he didn't keep them restrained, even if they were normally comatose. He didn't feel like telling Meyrin all that though, that the reasonably intact minds of two terminally injured girls, conditioned to worship him as a god, formed the cognitive centers of Phelegthion and Aether's mainframes. He had an inkling that she might not understand the necessity, or the nirvana that both girls were currently experiencing in their new, mechanical bodies. It was just a hunch.

"Fine, be secretive then." Meyrin accused, though with little heat. She could hardly expect him to explain all of his personal protection secrets to her just like that. She accepted his hand up without hesitation this time. She looked down at herself and frowned. She was still caked in mud, her clothes ripped in spots from the tumble she'd taken. She looked a very bad mess, except for her bound up ankle. Noah saw her expression, and looked her up and down himself. "I don't suppose..." Meyrin started to say.

"You should probably take off those dirty clothes." Noah observed. He thought about the portable vat of Red EDEN in the cargo compartment. It should be enough, for a small job like this. "I'll make some new ones for you. Ones like mine."

"Color changing and everything?"

"Whatever you want." Noah shrugged. He reached out and put his hands on her shoulders. "Here, let me help..." He barely dodged away from the punch she aimed at his nose. A white and a black dragon head popped out of the bushes behind Meyrin and hissed, but Noah held up a hand in a placating motion. "What was that for?"

"Pervert! You can't just undress a girl!" Meyrin shouted at him, hugging herself protectively.

Noah looked around, puzzled. "Why are you embarassed? Look around, there's no one around for kilometers. Underneath the shuttle, even satellites can't see you."

"YOU'RE AROUND!" Meyrin hollered, face flushed red. "I barely even know you, and you're trying to strip me out of my clothes while you look on!? I don't think so! I'd rather be covered in mud!"

"Well, you can't stay covered in mud. It's a health hazard. Who knows what sort of bacteria and germs are caked into that stuff? Look, I'll turn around and close my eyes, okay?"

"That's not good enough! You'll peek!"

"I won't peek."

"Like I believe that! You're a pervert!"

"Stop saying that. I just want to help you out."

"Help me out by helping me into the bathroom aboard the shuttle! I'll change in there, and use the sink to get as clean as possible. You can be productive by piloting the shuttle back to the base at the same time." Meyrin ordered.

"Okay." Noah agreed, realizing it was probably time to compromise. "Just hand me your clothes through the door when you've got them off."

"Pervert! No! YOU CAN'T HAVE MY CLOTHES!" Meyrin took a threatening step towards him, wincing as she hobbled on her injured foot.

"I need the raw materials in order to make you new ones!" Noah explained hurriedly, not wanting her to stress her ankle any more. He pointed at her clothing. "Those are beyond repair. But I can use the basic materials, mud and all, to build you new clothes, though you'll have to wait until tomorrow for them to be ready. Plus I need them so I can make sure the new clothes fit you properly. Unless you'd rather let me measure you once you've cleaned yourself off..."

"No, thanks!" Meyrin found herself blushing now. Noah WAS trying to be helpful, he just didn't seem to realize that he WAS ASKING FOR A GIRL'S CLOTHES! It was like he wasn't expecting her to value her privacy or something! Or that he would already know everything private about her, so displaying her body would hardly be cause for further embarassment, in his mind. She wasn't sure where he got off, having an attitude like that, but she'd already seen he was definitely a sheltered guy, with little idea how to be proper in the real world. Reclusive genius, model of. "Fine. If its necessary, I guess I'll give you my clothes, after I get into the bathroom. But you'd better not do anything gross with them! I'll be watching you!"

"How is it that this date experiment has turned into you ordering me around while I make or buy you things, and I get little to nothing out of it?" Noah questioned, as he helped her up the boarding stairs. She laughed loudly, and he looked at her with yet more puzzlement. "What's so funny?"

"You just described the essence of dating, from a guy's standpoint! Looks like your experiment is a success!"

"It doesn't feel like one..."

"That's because you haven't yet realized how satisfying doting on girls is."

-------------------------------------------

"So how do I look?" Meyrin asked, twirling around in a spin. Her foot barely even twinged at all. True to Noah's prediction, her sprain had healed almost completely overnight. Well that it should, considering her bandage and salve amounted to a good couple hundred thousand dollars worth of medical supplies! She put her hands on her hips as she spun around to face him once more, and the pressure sensors woven into the waistband activated the color changing properties of her skirt and shirt, striping the black skirt with red, and turning the white shirt dark blue with silver stars that slowly spun and cascaded in swirling patterns acroos her back and shoulders.

Noah looked over at her from where he was manipulating the controls that were landing the shuttle, just outside the Solar Knight's base. It was very early in the morning, before most of the base was even up. The shuttle's engines were on maximum stealth mode, limiting noise and heat and vibration as much as possible. He was still unsure of the feelings of the greater part of the Knights, despite Rey's assurances that there were no hard feelings. In Noah's experience with the military ego, there was ALWAYS hard feelings whenever someone's feelings or pride or reputation got trampled or pricked. And thus he was opting to return Meyrin and be well away before the Knights could organize any sort of impromptu ritual of revenge. It would also be why he would not leave the shuttle itself either. It never hurt to be too cautious. Besides, he would really hate to lose all this progress with Meyrin, just because he was forced to fend of her sister with force if she tried to harm him because of this misunderstanding. "You look pretty."

"Just pretty?" Meyrin pouted slightly, touching her waist again, shifting both skirt and shirt to a dark green with yellow flower patterns. She touched her waist several more times, rapidly shifting through color and pattern styles, searching through her new "virtual closet" for an outfit she hadn't yet "tried on". "How many options are there?" She muttered with awe.

"You are not the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, even with those clothes. Pretty fits you." Noah answered. "As for options, I loaded twelve hundred different color and pattern permutations into the control circuits, with the option of adding more later if need be."

"Twelve hundred!?" Meyrin smiled broadly. She'd never have to shop for civilian clothes again, at least when it came to spring and summer wear. "Oh, and by the way, for date data, when your date asks you how she looks, its considered courteous to tell her she looks gorgeous, or beautiful or exquisite or something else very complimentary, even if you have reservations in truth. Its one of the few situations where an exaggeration or small lie is okay, even expected. Given your standards though, I guess pretty isn't exactly bad, is it?"

"I believe it to be the second best term I know, for females. Thank you for the data though. I will bear that in mind for the future."

"You assume there is going to BE a future."

"You do not wish to participate further in this experiment? It would be troublesome to start anew with another subject." Noah considered his options. "I suppose I could get Rey to order you again, but I think I would be correct to assume that would likely irrecoverably taint further data gathering, yes? A real date should not be coerced in any way."

"I'll think about it, let me put it that way. You aren't nearly as bad as I thought you were. You're really weird... but overall, I think its a mostly harmless weird, with much room for improvement, assuming you put the effort in." Meyrin stopped changing her outfit colors, though it took an effort of willpower. It was so cool! "And these won't get dirty either?"

"They will repel any non-industrial adhesive substance passively, and industrial adhesives can be removed with a simple wash cycle. They will not get wet, will stay cool and breathable in any environment, and will conduct sweat away from your body and decompose it, automatically. The skirt is imbued with a small static charge that will prevent it from flipping up or flying around in microgravity or most mild wind currents. Both shirt and skirt will smooth out wrinkles and creases on their own when removed from the body, or can be programed to create and maintain them in whatever locations you desire. Both items can also shrink or enlarge up to one and a half sizes, in case of future gain or loss of size and mass. They will not rip or tear or fray under normal wearing circumstances, and will resist cutting or puncturing from less than military grade edges. They are also flame impervious, up to a temperature of fifteen hundred degrees." Noah explained the various features he'd decided to include. He'd gotten quite carried away during the night, unwilling to intrude upon her as she slept in the bathroom to ask what she wanted for features, he'd just decided to add as many as he could think of.

"I can't imagine how much this has to cost... how did you make this in just one night!?"

"It cost me nothing but a little time. And that will have to remain my secret for now. Perhaps I'll tell you at a later time? If there IS a later time."

"Well, thank you! I'm not sure it entirely makes up for all the problems you caused me, but its a step in the right direction." Meyrin felt the shuttle touch down. Noah opened the boarding hatch for her without being prompted. "You are learning quickly."

"I do that." Noah smiled briefly. She'd been right... making something for her had given him a ridiculous amount of self satisfaction. An interesting emotional illogicality. One he might have to repeat... just for the sake of scientific observation, of course. He looked at her for a few moments. "According to my research, it is customary for a date to end with a parting kiss..."

"Your research is a little one sided there." Meyrin looked over her shoulder at him from the doorway. "Girls will kiss a guy goodnight after a GOOD date, but almost never on the first date, no matter HOW good it was. And forgive me for being blunt, this was NOT a good date for me, Noah."

"Ah. I see." Noah blinked. He'd have to check his sources once more. Much of his research data had turned out to be partially, or even fully incorrect. That was not a mistake he could allow to occur again. Something stopped him though, from just letting it go at that. "Will I see you again?"

"You have more personal freedom than I do. You can make time to see me any time you want." Meyrin replied with a shrug. "A better question to ask is whether I WISH to see you again."

"Do you?"

"I think I might want more than one set of clothes like this. It strikes me as a gift best delievered by hand." Meyrin told him with a cryptic smile. "Thanks for taking me home. I'll try to convince my sister not to shoot you on sight." She turned and headed down the stairs without waiting for a reply. She'd reached the bottom when Noah called out to her from the doorway above.

"Thank you, Meyrin, for my first date! And don't forget this!" Noah tossed down a small box, into her hands. The boarding stairs began to retract into the side of the shuttle, and it started lifting off at the same time. The exhaust breee barely even stirred her skirt, which would normally have been whipping around like a flag in a tornado. She squinted down at the box in the reflected light from the base spotlights and the faint light of dawn creeping over the horizon. She opened it and stared at what was inside.

"Hey! Hey, wait a moment! I can't take this! I was joking!" Meyrin shouted at Noah, but the door to the shuttle was already shut, and the craft itself rising like an express elevator on its VTOL jets. No way he could hear her. The shuttle sped away into the pre dawn darkness, heading for orbit, leaving her standing in the grassland, staring up after it, a bewildered expression on her face. "Drat." Meyrin muttered. She looked down into the box again. "What am I supposed to do now?" She picked out the black, flexible metal card, with her name and ID number and even photo embossed upon one side, the data strip on the other side being a dark green color. Her fingers trembled with nervous energy. She'd been joking, really, about the money thing. Apparently Noah hadn't realized that.

Because he'd just given her a corporate CEO charge card, with access to who KNEW what sort of credit reserves! Just thinking about it was enough to give her goosebumps. All well and good to say you didn't care about money... but he'd really just given her this! It made her wonder, just how much of the other stuff he'd said that she'd thought was a joke or delusion he was actually serious about. The goosebumps grew worse.


	20. Tending the Crops part 2

"I still fail to see your point, Chief Representative. What is the exact nature of the objection you have to our plan for securing world peace for this and future generations?" Gilbert Durandel asked, a very concerned expression fixed upon his face, hands tented in front of him on the table that had been provided for the USN delegation to this international summit. He was the senior USN delegate present, and was totally in his element, despite being in the heart of enemy territory, so to speak. What better place was there, after all, to hold a summit on world peace relations, than the ever crusading nation of Orb? He'd not been surprised when Orb had announced its intentions to hold such a summit, only a few short weeks after he and Icarus had started their ambitious build up of the USN military forces. His political opponents had to strike at him quickly, before his projects built up too much political and buearacratic inertia to be stopped for years, if ever. Still, striking at him now also played into his hands, allowing him the opportunity to make a decisive point while remaining completely in the public eye.

"My point, Mr. Secretary, should be self evident I think." Cagalli replied, gritting her teeth and showing outwardly a blandly polite smile. It took practice, that level of self control. Especially for her. "I am wondering how it is that we can assure peace by arming ourselves for war? I should think that history, such as the later 1900's and early 2000's AD, would show us many examples of the follies of thinking excessive force of arms would garuantee peace. Terrorists were not impressed by aircraft carriers and armored regiments then, what makes you so sure that the Brotherhood, or those like them, will be impressed with this Solar Protection Fleet or your Solar Knights unit now?"

"Well, we can't just sit by and do nothing!" The representative from the FNE, one of the senior senators from the old Atlantic Federation, spoke up bluntly, trying to infuse his words with as much weight as possible. He did not appreciate the way the political winds were blowing around this conference. It was supposed to be an equal forum of discussion for all factions... it was turning out more like a public debate session between the USN Secretary of Defense, Gilbert Durandal, and his political opposition in the form of Orb's Queen and Chief Representative, Cagalli Zala-Attha and her various chief supporters, including her husband Ambassador Athrun Zala. One other chief supporter had been a definite surprise to every delegation as they'd entered the conference hall. Lacus Clyne sat quietly, if resolutely, in a chair just behind Cagalli to her left, within easy speaking range of the table, if not actually AT the table. Lacus held no actual political position, but such was her world wide esteem, everyone knew that should she choose to speak, the floor would be hers, ceremony notwithstanding. That she chose to sit with Orb was a very blunt statement that raised the hackles of anyone who supported Durandel.

"So any action, even the wrong action, is preferrable to no action?" Cagalli inquired with a piercing stare. "Mr. Senator, pardon my bluntness, but that sort of thinking too often leads directly to tragedies on an international scale for me to accept it as valid. Sometimes taking no action can be just as effective, if not more effective, than just taking action blindly and without due consideration."

"Surely you aren't serious?" The PLANTS ambassador asked, a note of shock in his smooth voice. "We cannot let things stand as they are, with the Brotherhood free to strike as they please! I should think that the recent terror attacks, as well as the even more recent slump off in the frequency of those attacks, would very well demonstrate the effectiveness of the USN's need for action, and the benefits of the actions it has taken. There has not been a Brotherhood related incident since the inception of the Solar Protection Fleet and Solar Knight projects three and a half weeks ago! What do you call that, if not making an impression?"

"The Brotherhood is both wiley and cunning." Durandel answered, enjoying the brief look of unhappiness on Cagalli's face as he usurped her moment of reprisal. "Just because they have slackened their attacks off from their initial breakneck pace does not necessarily mean it is because of any actions by USN or member-state governments. These people are not standard terrorists, I think we can all agree."

"I definitely agree with everything you said just then." Cagalli replied. "We have no proof whatsoever that the creation of the Solar Protection Fleet or the Solar Knights has anything to do with the current lull. They might just be gathering their forces, or rebuilding their resources. They didn't exactly get off scott free in their attacks."

"Thanks largely in part due to heroic efforts by Orb and its Gundams." Durandel nodded pleasantly. He could tell she was wondering why he was being so apparently supportive and friendly. Little did she know that it was SHE was supporting him, by raising these very doubts, giving him all the credible excuses he'd need when the time came. Orb might have been his greatest political enemy, but he would not be in the position of power he was in today without them either! Just by publicly standing in opposition to the famous Cagalli Zala-Attha was worth a huge public controversy that netted him a wide range of supporters, who sometimes supported him just because he was against Orb! "However, your arguement lacks balance, Mrs. Zala-Attha. While we have no proof that the Brotherhood is lying low in fear of the SPF or Solar Knights, neither do we know for sure that they are not hiding for that very reason. Isn't it the safest course to strengthen ourselves while we have the chance, in case of the worst, rather than hoping for the best and not being ready in case it falls through?"

"Hear, hear!" The FNE senator exclaimed. "Exactly my point. Better to have and not need, than need and not have!"

"The definition of need tends to change once you have." The ALU representative said in a quietly nasal voice. "A nation state or organization with the power to take what it wants by force may suddenly decide that "Have" is synonymous with "Need", to the detriment of anyone weaker than them. A strong military exists to be used, and will find a use for itself if no expected enemies present themselves. I agree with the Chief Representative... while the outcomes of the three incidents have been undeniably tragic, it is also undeniable that they have been strong victories for our forces, and not the Brotherhood. We seem to be doing just fine with the strength we already have."

"So you would then rely upon Orb's Gundams for protection? Must we run screaming to Orb's skirts every time we are confronted with a problem? Are we not autonomous nations!? I cannot speak for your people, sir, but in the FNE, we like to solve our problems ourselves!" The senator replied stiffly.

"To refuse a gift, freely given in the spirit of peaceful cooperation, in order to pursue a path dictated by outdated ego and overinflated pride, would be wrong in the eyes of my people." The ALU ambassador retorted. "Is that not what nations are supposed to do for each other... offer help in times of need? Why not take advantage of a strong ally when they offer their aid? Isn't that what we would be doing anyway, with these Solar Knights? The only difference I see between the Solar Knights and Orb's Gundams is who gives them their orders. Obviously, the Solar Knights work for the USN, through the office of the Secretary of Defense. It is less obvious who the Gundams work for, though past history suggests to me that they operate with the best interests of everyone constantly in their minds."

"The Gundams cannot be everywhere. Two of them are effectively confined to Orb most of the time, no offense, Chief Representative, Mr. Ambassador." Durandel pointed out, steering the conversation back into his hands. "Mr. Yamato, Mr. Elsman and Ms. Haw are all Orb citizens, living in Orb. Mr. Joule is a citizen of the PLANTS, where he lives. There are only five Gundams. The world and near space are far too huge a place to be protected by just five Gundams, no matter how powerful. Besides, casting no undue aspersions, but you are exactly right, Mr. Ambassador of the ALU... the Gundam pilots are indeed semi-independent, more private individuals than professional soldiers. What would we do, hypothetically speaking, if we called for aid and they exercised their constitutionally assured right to say "no"?"

"Commander Joule is under contract to ZAFT, his agreement with us does not include such an option to refuse." The PLANTS ambassador said. He tapped his fingers on his desk. "I still think though, that Mr. Durandel makes a good point. If the Gundam pilots were to be unable, for whatever reason, personal or political, to answer a call for help... what then? Must we rely on private citizens to protect our public interests? With that line of reasoning, we should just disband our militaries altogether, and completely privatize national security! Before long, we'd only be able to tell the terrorists from the police by who was getting paid MORE!" He shook his head. "No. We formed the USN specifically to deal with threats to humanity as a whole. I move that the Brotherhood is such a threat. We should make use of the channels and organizations we established for our mutual protection before we go swapping and trading favors like youth gangers! And if the organizations we have currently cannot do the job they are intended to do, then reorganizing and improving them would be the logical course of action!"

"I am not convinced that the Brotherhood, for all its power, is nearly the threat to humanity that you make it out to be." Lacus spoke up. The room went silent, everyone turning their attention to her, waiting to see what the greatest peacemaker of modern times had to offer in terms of wisdom. "Or rather, I am convinced that the Brotherhood COULD be such a threat, but is instead holding itself back it a very disturbing fashion."

"Distrubing, Ms. Clyne? Could you elaborate?" Durandel prompted. He kept an eager, attentive expression on his face, but inwardly he fluttered a bit. Lacus Clyne was an unexpected variable. He had not expected her to get involved this early. Had they pushed things too hard, too fast? It was sheer bad luck that she'd been personally involved in the Switzerland incident, perhaps that had galvanized her into more rapid action. In any case, her presence in Orb's camp was definitely unwelcome. He would have to be very careful. Antagonizing Cagalli Zala-Attha was good for controversy ratings. Antagonizing Lacus Clyne was basically political suicide. He met her cool gaze calmly, wondering what she was searching for in his eyes. Whatever it was, she would not find it.

"Gladly, Mr. Durandel. Both on my own, and consulting with terrorism experts I trust, I have reviewed the three terrorist actions to date in great detail. In every case, the level of planning and organization, not to mention technology and preparedness, of the Brotherhood forces, should have been enough to cause FAR more damage than what actually occured. One such incidence could be attributed to skill on the part of our forces. Two could be attributed to great good fortune. Three in a row? Why is the Brotherhood holding back? Galileo could have been wiped off the map for a fraction of the effort expended to cause the chaos the Traitor did. A major city could have been enveloped in the Haunted's deadly fog, not an isolated mountain town. The Tormented could have attacked any one of a half dozen major population centers, and caused an incident equalling or even exceeding Purgatory Day, but instead it broke down a few houses and was driven back into the sea. Yes, the casualties in each case were tragic and terrible, and my heart goes out to those who lost loved ones... but we cannot let our sympathy for people blind us to a greater truth!"

"Maybe they're just trying to make a point! They would hardly be the first terrorist group in history to base attacks not on their maximum damage, but on their degree of political spectacle." The FNE senator suggested. "Besides, they're religious nutjobs, a fringe apocalyptic cult! I think we might be giving them too much credit... they're lashing out randomly, if with good planning."

"Mr. Senator, please, don't be foolish!" The ALU ambassador replied with a sigh and a shake of his head. "The Brotherhood has produced not only its own unique Mobile Suits, but also its own Gundams. Some of their technology is more advanced than anything I know to exist in ANY member-state or the USN. Even Orb or the PLANTS cannot match some of their technology. They may be religious, and they might even be crazy... but they are the farthest thing from random! We aren't giving them too much credit... we are underestimating them by far!"

"You do make a good point though, Mr. Senator." Cagalli cut in. "My intelligence reports indicate that the Brotherhood is doing EXACTLY what you say... striking targets based on political or media attention, not the amount of physical damage or loss of life that could be inflicted. The question is WHY? Why, when they possess the technology and manufacturing capabilities to mass produce highly advanced Mobile Suits and Gundams, when they appear, to our best guess, to be stronger than any military force in human space save a full fledged member-state... why hold back? Religious signifigance? My experts don't think so. Ego? Unlikely in the extreme. No, the Brotherhood is following a very careful plan, making very strong political points at very specific times."

"What are you insinuating, Mrs. Zala-Attha? That someone is directing the Brotherhood for their own political profit!?" The FNE senator scoffed. "Are you accusing one of the other sovereign member-states of using the Brotherhood as catspaws? Thats preposterous! We've all been targeted by these maniacs... we are all equally at risk!"

"They would be poor catspaws if they let their allegiance be known so obviously, by not attacking a certain faction." Athrun spoke up. "Merely looking at their choice of targets will tell us nothing... we've already acknowledged the fact that they choose their targets based on media attention or political value, not because of how much damage they can do to a member-state or the USN. We aren't accusing anyone of anything, at this point in time. We just want to point out this highly suspicious trend." Athrun met gazes neutrally with Durandel for a few moments. "It's just a friendly warning."

"Well, thank you very much for your insight, Mr. Ambassador of Orb." Durandel said, leaning back in his chair slightly. "But we have gotten slightly off topic here. The question is not what the Brotherhood is doing or even why... it is whether or not the continued funding and production of the SPF and Solar Knights is feasible and legitimate. I say that it is. We cannot ensure the safety of our citizens without growing stronger than we currently are. We also cannot rely on semi-private soldiers of fortune to protect us! I can respect the power of Gundams... but they are an relic even in their modernity! Gundams can inspire people... but they cannot protect them! It is the job of soldiers, regular, highly trained soldiers, using the best gear and weaponry available, who truly protect people. We have police and military forces for a reason... entrusting their purpose to the Gundam pilots is to endorse vigilante-ism, in my opinion."

"You see Kira as a vigilante?" Lacus asked, her voice cool. For his part, Kira barely even looked up from his chair behind Lacus. He barely seemed to be paying attention at all, though anyone who knew him could tell easily that he was almost hyper-alert.

"Whatever his qualities as a person, Ms. Clyne, he holds no current military rank. He is a private citizen, with the power to destroy an entire combined arms regiment if the mood struck him. If that isn't a vigilante, what is?"

"Is it not also vigilante-ism on a certain level to create a unit that responds only to two people's orders, only one of whom has direct contact with them and can decided where they go? They may be soldiers, but they are more like a private army than a true military force. Perhaps if we had a little more transparancy and access to the Solar Knights, I might feel less disquieted about their purpose." Cagalli replied.

"I can arrange an inspection if that would please you. Do bear in mind that the more layers of bueracratic control that we impose, the less effective such a specialized direct response unit will become. I am sorry you feel distrustful of the Solar Knights, but do remember that they hold their allegiance to the Office, not the Officer... they are not MY private army, they are the first line of defense of the USN Secretary of Defense, whomever that might be, or the Secretary-General, whomever THAT might be. I have no ambitions other than to serve the USN to the best of my abilities."

"Come now, we shouldn't cast aspersions upon each other like this. Especially not the noble Mr. Durandel, who is a gleaming example of all that is good about politics! Do you not have reason yourselves to be thankful for his rather unique viewing of certain matters?" The FNE senator pointed out with a small grin. He was about to go on, enjoying a chance to needle the Orb ruler, whom he privately loathed... young girls had NO PLACE in politics, other than as eye candy, in his opinion... but a sudden tremor shook the entire room, and without warning all the lights winked out. There was several moments of darkness, filled with voices shouting for calm and information in equal quantity, before the lights slowly flickered back on. "WHAT'S GOING ON?" The Senator demanded angrily.

The main doors to the conference room opened and several men and women bearing weapons and body armor stepped quickly in and looked around, assessing the room for any danger. Satisfied, Cyprus Finch removed his helmet and tucked it under one arm, as his Stormhound special secuirty detachment spread out around the room, baleful blue demon eyes glaring, twisted hound faced masks intimidating the political delegations into cowed silence. The large, deadly looking guns in their hands helped on that score too. Cyprus made his way towards the Orb table and stopped before it smartly, almost like a soldier reporting for duty in a non-stressful situation would do. "WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS! EXPLAIN THESE SOLDIERS!" The Senator continued his bombast, until an absolutely huge man, seven feet if an inch, and seemingly carved from solid granite muscle, took a long step forward and stared down at him, causing him to shrink back into his chair, stammering.

"What's happening, Cyprus?" Athrun asked, watching Glory dominate the FNE diplomat with sheer physical presence. If only things were that easy on the political front.

"It is not yet fully clear, sir, ma'am." Cyprus nodded his head at both Athrun and Cagalli. "Explosions consistent with military grade explosives have been reported in multiple locations throughout the National Palace. There is as yet no evidence of a follow up attack or other operation in progress, but to be safe, we are locking down the premesis as we speak. No one will be allowed to enter or leave until we have determined the cause of the explosions and any possible reprecussions. This may be an assassination attempt, or a terrorist action, or maybe something completely unrelated. All I know as of this instant is that our security has been penetrated deeply. It has the earmarks of a Brotherhood operation already."

"How do you mean, Lieutenant?" Durandel asked, curious to see what this man considered the signs of a Brotherhood attack. He'd been expecting something of this sort, of course, but he had not expected anyone else to just leap straight to the Brotherhood.

"Our physical secruity is the best in the USN, Mr. Secretary. The Orb National Palace is one of the most air tight locations in the world, in terms of safety. The only people I've yet encountered who have shown the merticulous planning skills and technological aptitude needed to so deeply compromise my security barriers without using an overt attack is the Brotherhood. I'm still trying to figure out how they got that Martyr into Aurora base without anyone being the wiser." The room trembled again. Cyprus put his helmet on once more, to better access the complex comm network. "Quentin, you assured me that you'd discovered all the bombs. What was that?"

"Sir, I have found all the bombs that look like bombs! There is shit blowing up here that must have been planted YEARS ago. I have seen a chair I have sat in a hundred times over the years go up like a plastic model filled with cherry bombs. I don't know what to tell you... other than this penetration of our network is almost complete. The bombs are part of the building!"

"I see. Stop the bombs, Quentin. That's an order." Cyprus signed off before his subordinate could reply. Quentin would figure something out. He was a Stormhound. That was their job. He was just about to doff his helmet again when he picked up an incoming priority transmission, from outside the National Palace.

Lacus watched the leader of the Stormhounds stiffen. "What's wrong, Cyprus?" She asked, even as the display screen of the conference room flickered to life, fritzing with static before slowly resolving into a picture of blue sky, blurry greenery, concrete and then more sky. A winking red icon at the top of the screen read "Live", and they could all plainly hear the sounds of exertion coming from the TV's speakers.

"For those of you... just tuning in... this is Karen Wayne, of the Federated News Network!" A female voice gasped, clearly winded from a long run or other strenuous physical activity. "I am reporting live from Los Angeles Sprawl, on the eastern coast of North America! The city is currently under attack by the Brotherhood of Humanity! The situation here is chaotic... fighting rages from street to street, as city and provincial police and military forces endeavor to contain the attackers. They... they're getting massacred! Los Angeles Sprawl is being invaded by the Brotherhood! We need help here!" The camera cut to a view of two FNE Cavaliers flying low across the cityscape, before being riddled by explosive fire from below, tearing them both to shreds of melted wreckage in an instant. Three Brotherhood Zealots rose into view, linear rifles spitting high speed explosive death at some other target in the streets below.

"The bastards!" Cagalli shouted, standing up and glaring at the TV, like she was trying to reach in and tear the Zealots to pieces with her bare hands. "I've had more than enough of them involving innocent civilians in their attacks! Come on, Athrun... Kira... we'll make sure they never rear their heads again!"

"Sit down!" Cyprus countermanded, as the three of them had started for the door. Every head in the room turned to look at the Stormhound. "The building is unsecure. Nobody leaves this room until the all clear is given!"

"But there's people who need our help!" Cagalli protested. "And I'm your boss, you can't tell me what to do!"

"I have permission from Colonel Kisaka to shoot you in the leg or other disabling, nonvital location if I deem it necessary to prevent more serious bodily harm or death." Cyprus told her icily. He put a hand on the butt of his pistol. "I understand how you feel. But it could very well be a ruse meant to lure you out into a vulnerable location. There is one room is this entire complex that I know to be safe. That is THIS room. It is my duty and responsibility to keep you safe... even from yourself."

"If you shoot me, Kira and Athrun will..."

"Mr. Yamato and the Ambassador will do as they see fit, as will I. The important thing is that you will be safely unable to run out and get blown up by an IED or other form of explosive death." Cyprus cut her off. "This is definitely a Brotherhood operation, likely meant to keep the Gundams bottled up here while their ground forces accomplish whatever their goal in LAS is. Unfortunately we have little choice but to allow this plan of theirs to succeed, at least until the situation at the National Palace around us becomes stable. We still have secure comms in and out, and a tactical briefing is being prepared for the situation in LAS as we speak. If something needs being done, then order it done... you cannot do everything yourself."

"Ingenious tactics." The ALU ambassador shook his head in pained admiration. "Could they have predicted this summit, and its potential attendees, so flawlessly? It hardly seems credible, given that even the leaders of the various member-states have only known of this meeting for a couple weeks. Snaring two Gundam pilots was a given... trapping Mr. Yamato here with us must mean their plan has succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. You still think we're overestimating them, Senator?"

"Damn it!" Cagalli slammed her fist down loudly on her table. "Ysak and Katie are still up in the PLANTS. There's no way they could get there in any sort of useful time! With the three of us trapped here, that only leaves Dearka and Miriallia. But the Warmaster is no good in an urban setting!"

"Not every problem is best solved by a Gundam leading the charge." Alkire opined, from over by the door. He and Ramierez had shifted over to oh so casually block it, just in case the kids decided to just say "to hell with it" and went for broke. He hoped that wouldn't happen. Cagalli he could handle. Athrun was a very big if. And Kira... well, he was hoping Ramierez would figure something out for Kira, cause he was drawing one hell of a blank. "I mean, sure... send the Warmaster... but send some backup too, you know. The Warmaster's a support model, right? Let it support. Miriallia knows what she's about."

"Well, don't you think you should ask if they even WANT your help, before you go giving orders?" The PLANTS ambassador suggested archly. "If that were happening in the PLANTS at least, I'd.."

"Be politely requesting our help." Lacus finished for him. "So far Orb has the best track record against the Brotherhood out of any part of the USN. Or would you rather let people die over a point of national pride?"

"We would of course be grateful for any help offered to us in our time of need." The Senator spoke up, his face drawn and pale. He had family in the LAS area. "From Orb, or the USN?" He looked hopefully over at Durandel.

"The Solar Knights have completed their initial train ups. I had hoped for more time... but we cannot let this go." Durandel agreed, flavoring his words with some misgivings. "I shall send out orders immediately after I learn more about the situation, such as the number of enemy Mobile Suits, and a report on what happened initially."

"Get me Dearka and Miriallia, and the Special Projects squadron leader!" Cagalli ordered Cyprus, reluctantly taking her seat. "Have them prep the Warmaster for super-sonic transport, using the ultra-large transport. The sooner it gets in the air towards LAS, the better. The Special Projects squadron can catch up in transit."

"Are you sure you want to use the M-7's? They're barely out of stress testing." Athrun reminded her.

"If there's a Brotherhood Gundam at LAS... and I don't see why there wouldn't be... I don't want to send people in five year old Mobile Suits against it if I don't have to. We saw how that worked out against the Tormented. With an unknown number of Zealots, and possibly Martyrs as well, we need to send the best we have. I don't think we can afford any less." Cagalli replied, with a worried frown. "I'm just hoping eight M-7's will be enough, but that's all we have at the moment."

"Suspicious timing, don't you think?" Kira whispered, squeezing Lacus's hand comfortingly. _Just when we were talking about what we would do if many of the Gundam pilots couldn't respond._

_I'll admit it is convenient. I can't get a solid reading on Mr. Durandel though. He's got a very ordered and disciplined mind. I'm just not practised enough to pierce through his surface thoughts to what he's really thinking about. Maybe if Katie were here, she might be able to... but that would hardly be ethical!_

_Ethics aside, even if we couldn't do anything about it now, we could at least be sure whether or not this is an accident or an "accident", and build up from there. I'm all for the sanctity of mind and privacy, Lacus, but I think we're running into that "if you have the power, and choose not to use it, you become somewhat responsible for what happens later" sort of thing._

_Its a thin line. I'd prefer not to tread it if at all possible. He seems dedicated enough to combating the Brotherhood at least. He could be faking, but he seems to really dislike them on a personal level. I don't see why he'd be faking though... the only people who know of my powers are in the Orb delegation._

_Well, at least we have Dearka and Miri free still, plus Orb's newest and most advanced mass production Mobile Suit. That should be more than enough to deal with this latest incursion, especially if the Solar Knights are worth half of a damn._

_It still doesn't answer where they are coming from though. We should have found an organization as large and powerful as the Brotherhood by now!_

_Mr. Waltfeld said he'd gotten some leads from the old Clyne Faction network up in the PLANTS. Maybe we should go there when we have a free moment? Maybe you'll be able to pick something up there. Katie may be better at single targets than you are, but no one has your level of wide area perception, Lacus. Well, that's what Katie says anyway._

_Have you been talking mind to mind with Katie again? Better be careful... Ysak will get jealous._

_As long as you don't, I think I'll manage._

_Believe me, I've nothing to be jealous of her about._ Lacus placed her free hand idly on her stomach, a casual gesture Kira would probably barely even notice, much less read anything into. She carefully kept a portion of her mind blocked off from him. It was far too soon to be completely certain of course... but there was hope. There was always hope.

-----------------------------------------------------

"Perenor Flight Lead, this is Camelot Zulu Five. Confirm final readiness checks for pre-launch sequence?" Lain listened to his radio squawk at him. He didn't answer for a moment, even though his squadron was all locked down and ready to go. There was one final touch to add, before he could fully say he was ready to be launched into high orbit with the rest of the Solar Knight's Second Platoon. They were the duty Platoon for the day, with First Platoon being on an intensive training cycle and Third being on a rest cycle. Damn it all, but they'd only been a half a day from rotating to their own rest cycle, and the Brotherhood had to go fuck everything up good and proper! Bastards had no consideration! He'd been banking on a trip to the beach with the rest of Second Platoon in order to make some good time with Luna. Fortunately, despite his initial misconception, he'd discovered through much detective work and informant pay offs that Luna and Shinn WEREN'T actually a couple, like everyone thought. Yet. They were supposed to be moving in together by order of the Knight-Commander sometime soon.

Lain needed to stake his claim before the stresses and joys of living together drew them together for real! But to tell the truth, that was one of the farthest things from his mind right then. He reached inside the breast pocket of his flight suit, which was black and gold and white in opposite color scheme to the Archon, and removed the finishing touch, that final detail that made a Mobile Suit really his. The Knights didn't actually have permanently assigned Mobile Suits unlike most military units... there was a ready reserve maintained, and pilots were assigned machines according to some arcane computer generated mechanism Lain didn't fully understand. The idea being that any Archon was good enough for any Knight, that all Archons would be equally well maintained and tuned. Today would be the first acid test of the system. Still, no good pilot, in Lain's estimation, would ever go to battle in a machine that wasn't at least slightly personalized, something to give it soul and focus the mind.

He stuck the photograph, showing Lain himself, and his mother and father, standing in a park back home in Orb, in Hameya City, the ceremonial and cultural center of Orb, on the slopes of Mt. Hameya itself in the middle of the main island, just below his main screen. Everyone was smiling and laughing in the picture, even the young man in the wheelchair in front of Lain. Jason, his younger brother, was pointing off the side of the photo, a delighted and awed expression on his face as he gawked at the parade that had been going by on the street nearby. Jason had been confined to beds and wheelchairs for most of his life, victim of a rare genetic disorder that slowly degenerated his conscious and unconscious muscle control, eventually proving fatal as the victim's heart stopped beating. It was untreatable with current modern medicine, and Jason would never have lived to see twenty. He was fourteen in that picture, and he'd died when sixteen, one of the hundreds of thousands of victims of Purgatory Day, when the Earth Alliance unleashed the Merciless Gundam in Nara-Attha City during a peaceful anti-war protest.

"Still thinking of you Bro, even now. Even always. It'll never replace you. Ever." Lain muttered, patting the Archon fondly, his mind stuck in the past. He shook his head and smiled, reverie over. Now that he'd rearmored his soul in the skin of righteous anger, it was time to show the world why Lain Debora was not the man you wanted as your enemy. "Camelot Zulu Five, this Perenor Lead. All final readiness checks complete. Perenor Flight ready for launch. Let's show those bastards who the Solar Knights are!"

"Order on the comm lines! Admirable sentiment, Perenor, but let's keep this professional until AFTER the mission is complete." Camelot Lead ordered brusquely. "Take the example from Gawain and Lancelot flights. Galahad Flight Lead, confirm final..."

"Final readiness checks complete sat." Eric answered, cutting his superior off. "I confess to feeling some of Perenor's eagerness, sir. It's high time we did the job we came here to do!"

"Arthur Prime, this is Camelot Zulu Five. All Camelot flights prepped and ready for launch sequence. Camelot Base is also primed and locked down, all systems charged, all operators standing by. All support stations report green by green across the board. Solar Knights Second Platoon is ready for quick response combat launch!" The Knight-Lieutenant relayed to the command post, back at the Solar Knight's training base. He himself was currently aboard the CIC mothership ship, a VTOL Electronic Warfare style cargo jet that would coordinate the actions of the four flights making up Second Platoon. The mothership was contained in a disposable, breakaway shell that would protect and streamline it during its high speed, low orbit launch from Victoria Spaceport's mass driver to the operational area over Los Angeles Sprawl. Using the Victoria mass driver as a deployment tool meant that the Solar Knights could respond anywhere in the world within an hour, by varying the angle and speed of their launch, using the Earth's own gravity to slingshot themselves down to trouble areas from orbit.

The mothership would be following a slightly more sedate course than the Mobile Suits themselves, which were also locked into a disposable shell, rather like an enormous arrowhead in shape, that would reduce air friction and grant aerodynamic stability during their flight to the drop point, where it would blow itself to pieces and allow the sixteen Archons inside to descend under their own power, using their ablative gel units to survive the punishing heat of atmospheric re-entry, until they reached the point of operable flight, around fifteen thousand feet above the ground. Until that point, except for their life support and communications systems, the Archons were in complete power down mode, to ensure maxmimum combat time on the battery. Some people might be concerned about an orbital drop in a basically unpowered hunk of metal, but the Solar Knights were fairly used to the procedure by now, after a solid week of intensive hands on training.

"Camelot Zulu Five, Arthur Prime, acknowledging all Camelot flights and Camelot Base ready for launch." Knight-Commander ze Burrel replied, a fierce smile on his face. Two minutes, fourteen seconds faster than the best training launch time yet. "Good hunting, Camelot. Fight with honor and strength! Launch at your order."

"Arthur Prime, Camelot Zulu Five acknowledges order to launch. Thank you, sir. We'll make you proud." The Knight-Lieutenant ended the call. "Camelot flights and base, launch now!" He directed, grinning with effort as the G forces of the mass driver hurling the mothership onto its ballistic course pulled him back into his padded acceleration couch. The CIC bridge shook and vibrated with the stresses of launch, the various technicians and operators holding on with white knuckled grips as the mothership broke the sound barrier twice over before even leaving the ramp of the mass driver. For unpowered flight, they were MOVING. Hell, even for powered flight, for a jet the size of the mothership, they were likely breaking speed records. And this was going to be normal for them... it would take some getting used to.

For their part, the sixteen pilots in their Archons also did their best to hold on as their own transport shell was launched, scudding along the powerful magnetic catapult rails like a paper airplane being thrown by God's own hand before the tremblors died away as the shell arced into the upper atmosphere and air resistance started dropping away. Fortunately, the pilots were practically immobilized except for arm and leg motions by their chair restraints, and most were used to a certain amount of turbulence and shaking while in flight. They recovered in seconds, and went about the various tasks that soldiers indulge themselves in while waiting for action to happen with no way to adjust the outcome themselves, at least for the moment. Some tried to nap. Others read books or played video games, or ate smuggled in snacks. For their part, the four squadron leaders joined a videocomm conference, wanting to go over again the situation and their plan for resolving it, in the manner of good junior officers.

"I still can't believe I got stuck with "Perenor"." Lain said, with mild exasperation, as he and Eric waited for Shinn and Luna to sign on. "The Questing Knight? Come on, do I look like the sort of man who would gainlesssly pursue something I was fated to always chase and never catch? I know when I'm beat out, there's no way I'm at all the sort to struggle on a hopeless, endless quest! I wonder what's taking Shinn and Luna so long? They better not be sending each other private messages!"

"Oh, I don't know... I think its apt at times." Eric replied, turning his head away for a moment to hide his smile. Lain was stubborn in his insistence that he had a chance of climbing into Luna's pants, but Eric just couldn't see it. Lain was looking for a fun relationship... good times, late nights, lots of kinky sex... the kind of lifestyle he fondly imagined all Mobile Suit aces were destined to live. Lunamaria was for one not seeking a relationship at the moment, in her own words, and were she to want to, she'd probably be looking for something sweeter and more romantic than the rough and tumble "college girlfriend" Lain preferred. In short, she'd probably much rather have someone like Shinn, who wasn't so forward and pushy and wild, for lack of a better term. No, Lain could quest after Luna all he wanted, but that really WAS a beast he could not catch, in Eric's mind.

Eric wasn't sure himself what he thought of Lunamaria and Shinn. They were two of the best pilots he'd ever trained with, that was for sure. He wished he could see a fight between Shinn and Ashino... he had a feeling the red eyed Coordinator might be able to give his friend and old Commander a handful. Maybe not beat him outright... Ashino had been "designed" with the purpose of defeating people exactly like Shinn on their own terms after all, but Shinn'd definitely make things interesting. Luna was one of the best support pilots he'd ever had the pleasure of guarding his back, always there when he needed her with precision firepower. Not many pilots like hanging back from the front lines, waiting to be called in to strike by their friends, but Luna seemed to positively savor it, which was a large part of why she was so good at it, he was sure. Liking your job was important.

Lunamaria was definitely cute... he'd initially thought about trying his hand for her himself, after all. But now she was more like a cousin or niece... yeah, she was cute, and pretty, and you definitely noticed that she had womanly qualities... but he couldn't make himself actually be interested in her anymore. To be honest, he was also looking for a fun relationship, like Lain was, and Luna wasn't the right girl, at least right now, for that sort of thing. She was still kind of awkward and unconfident, especially when it came to her body and sexuality. She said she'd never even dated a guy before, and Eric didn't doubt her. Some guys found that sort of inexperience and implied vulnerability to be a major turn on... not so much him. He wanted someone who was willing to take the lead sometimes, and surprise him with their nature. Someone kinda like Meyrin, Lunamaria's little sister and Second Platoon's primary CIC operator.

Meyrin was definitely the more outgoing and sociable of the Hawke sisters, and she was even cuter than Luna, in a party girl sort of way. She definitely struck Eric as the sort of girl who would initiate a wild and crazy night just as often as he himself would, and she was a lot more comfortable and confident with her body and what to do with it. She didn't exactly put herself on display... but neither was she seemingly unaware of all the men looking at her, like Lunamaria often appeared to be. However, ever since that odd and disruptive weekend, when that high and mighty VIP he'd never actually gotten to see had shown up and practically kidnapped her for two days, Meyrin had been... different. More subdued and introspective a lot of the time. She'd been tantalizing a number of men, including Eric, with half implied willingness to go on dates before then... she cut all that off after the VIP visit, and firmly, if politely, rebuffed any more direct attempts at contact. Who knew what was up with that... there were too many rumors for him to make heads or tails of to be honest.

Eric sighed, and forced, with some regret, his thoughts to the mission at hand. Man, he really needed to get laid, but he needed to get through this mission before he could work more on that pressing need. Getting dead in the first fracas with the Brotherhood would really suck, and so he resolved to try and keep his head in the game better. "I don't think Galahad is particularly well suited for me either, but who am I to argue with the Knight-Commander? Ah, Shinn, Luna, there you are." He acknowledged as their faces appeared on his screen, splitting into thirds. "Have some comm trouble?"

"Just making sure we had some of our special maneuvers down correctly. Nothing gossip worthy." Lunamaria replied, with a stern inflection on the second statement. She was really getting tired of living her life under a microscope, especially because there was absolutely nothing truthful about the rumors that everyone was talking about! She and Shinn were friends, nothing more! She was pretty sure she'd managed to get that across to everyone in Second Platoon, but that was barely a third of the piloting corps, and there was still a much larger number of support corps personnel too. Small steps, she guessed. It wasn't going to be any easier when her room was due to be changed to a co-ed berth with Shinn at the end of the week, per Rey's unhelpfully helpful orders. The Knight-Commander was being a damned pain in the ass... he just wouldn't take her seriously on the subject! If she didn't know better, she'd almost think he was enjoying her and Shinn's discomfort!

"Yes, it would definitely not come across very good in the AAR if I were to get shot in the back by Luna and disabled. Our next training period would make Hell look like a dream vacation, if we slip up that badly on our first major mission." Shinn added, his face composed and set. Eric thought Shinn was being more withdrawn and formal than was usual even for him in a serious situation, but he supposed he knew why too. They'd heard that Orb was also sending forces to the area, by request from the FNE government. Eric wasn't completely sure what Shinn's beef was with Orb, all he knew was that there was one hell of a raw wound buried there somewhere, and Shinn wasn't doing much to let it heal. He'd laid off Lain slightly, but still, Shinn wasn't exactly endearing himself to the Orbites among the Knight's ranks with his continually cold and judging attitude towards them.

Lain on the other hand couldn't have been happier to hear that they were to be nominally fighting alongside his countrymen, even a Gundam. They weren't yet sure which Gundam had been sent, or the size or composition of the Orb forces, but such details should be forthcoming before they reached their drop point. They didn't have to work with the Orb forces, which would actually be beating them to the combat zone by some ten to fifteen minutes, but everyone agreed that not trying to coordinate their response with them in some way was a sure recipie for disaster. Especially given the size of the Brotherhood force in the LAS area. Reports were still somewhat sketchy, but even the most conservative information suggested at least ten to fifteen Brotherhood mass production models present in the engagement zone, while the worst case scenario put the number at closer to twenty five. Quite how so many terrorist machines had managed to launch a surprise attack on a large metropolis was unknown, but definitely a hallmark of a true Brotherhood attack.

As yet, there was still no sightings of a Brotherhood Gundam, of any of the four previous encountered, or anything new. Of course, with the Traitor at least, with its ability to disguise itself as almost any Mobile Suit, that was hardly a garauntee of its absence, but a direct attack like this one did not seem to be a good place for such a specialized Gundam. Nor was there any signs of the killing fog that the Haunted apparently created as tactical cover wherever it went. That really narrowed things down to either the Tormented, with its sonic attack and close combat capabilities, or the as yet unknown machine, for the moment known as Amethyst, due to its purplish crystalline appearance, at least as far as known Brotherhood Gundams went. Of course, who knew how many Gundams they had, they might be encountering something completely new.

"The Orb forces will be coming in from the coast, and will try and push the Brotherhood forces inland, into less built up and more open areas. Perhaps towards Fault Line Park, that's the largest open area in the nearby region." Lain said, confident in his knowledge of Orb strategies and tactics. "That way they can put themselves between the city and the worst of the battle. Any idea how bad things are in terms of city damage?"

"From what it looks like, things actually aren't that bad. Though that's definitely a relative term." Lunamaria replied with a deep frown. Cities were no place for Mobile Suit battles, in her opinion, and that of any right thinking person! "Collateral damage has been extremely limited, with only a few blocks truly destroyed, none of them in the denser built areas of the city. The Brotherhood seems content to take down anyone or anything that tries to stop them, while causing the maximum possible panic amongst the civilian population, but they aren't going wild. Indeed, they seem to almost be being careful NOT to damage the city too much. Lord knows why, but I'm grateful."

"Nothing these guys do makes any sense!" Shinn complained. "They attack a CITY for fucks sake, but then try hard to not damage it? Why not spare themselves the trouble, and attack a military base or target, where they could just attack normally? Its monstrous, but if I were to attack a city, I'd destroy it, not just fuck around and wait for people to show up to stop me! And why now? What's so special about now? They were quiet for almost a month, and now they go nuts, sending a fricking entire PLATOON of their mobile forces out at once? This has GOT to be the majority of their strength... why are they risking it so blatantly?"

"Hopefully that's something we can figure out after we grind them into the trash where they belong." Eric answered. "Our best intelligence indicates a high probability that the Brotherhood's mass production Mobile Suits are actually controlled remotely, which accounts somewhat for their suicidal tendencies. We should keep our sensors peeled for any sort of odd frequencies or signals being sent to or from them. I don't expect the enemy to be so obvious with their control signals, but who knows, we could get lucky. The idea of a remote controlled Mobile Suit is far fetched enough, maybe they thought to hide in plain sight?"

"Thats a good idea. We should have the mothership do a wideband search as well, while they're overhead. The quantum bandwidths are going to be real hard to pin down, but who knows, like Eric said. We might get lucky." Lain agreed. "By the time we get there, Orb should hopefully have pushed them out of the city proper. We'll be dropping in from on high, how do you guys want to play it? My inclination is to charge merrily in from the top and flanks, guns blazing in one fell swoop, but I've been known to be headstrong about these things before, perhaps there's a better way."

"Well, it depends on the strength of the Orb forces." Shinn replied, his voice slightly tense. "If they're strong, we can crush the Brotherhood between us, hammer and anvil style. If they're barely holding on when we get there, we can't just push the Brotherhood against them without making the situation more complicated. Orb M-4's are well built Mobile Suits... but they're kind of old, to be used against this large a force of Brotherhood machines. I don't want to let my dislike of Orb get in the way here... but how much use are Guardians going to be, even with a Gundam?"

"Well, I can't claim to know the mind of the Queen personally... but if I had to guess at what the Chief Representative would do, then I'm betting she sent the Special Project's squadron, for precisely that reason." Lain answered thoughtfully. "Like you say... M-4 Guardians are great Mobile Suits... but they're almost a generation out of date. There would need to be a lot of them to compete on equal footing with this many Brotherhood machines... too many to deploy as quickly as Orb has. No, I'm sure of it, even before we talk to them. Its gonna be the Special Project's squadron. And that means M-7s, not M-4s."

"You've talked around these M-7s before. Care to give us anything more concrete? I mean, I understand its something of a matter of national security, Lain, but it could mean our lives! And we're going to be working with them anyway, they're not going to have much choice but to let us become familiar with their capabilities, and vice versa!" Lunamaria stressed, staring Lain meaningfully in the eyes. She watched him struggle internally for a few seconds, her good sense and the instinctive desire to protect the knowledge entrusted to him at war with each other. At length, he sighed and shook his head, reaching forward to momentarily touch something below his main screen that she couldn't see.

"Okay, fine. Just don't go telling everyone I blabbed about this. I might be a Solar Knight now, but this is top secret, eyes only type stuff here. I could really lose my ass if people started thinking I was leaking Morganroete Armories secrets." Lain sighed again and considered how best to explain. "I was surprised actually... the Archon and the Dawndrake... thats the M-7, by the way, are actually similar in a lot of ways. They don't have quite as many types of special gear as the Archon... no Mirage Colloid, no ablative gel dispensors, no hoverthrusters, and their battery isn't quite as good. Same combat life, it just doesn't recharge as fast. But they got HiMat wings, they got a scale system for underwater movement, they got Vari-Cameras, and they got Solar Rechargers, just like us. They also got the ability to change into a ground, sea and air based Mobile Armor form for expanded capabilities in those environments, plus regular Mobile Suit form. In pretty much every form they're at least as fast and maneuverable as an Archon... in jet form they can hit almost 2500 mph in a straight line."

"What about weapons?" Eric asked, somehow not very surprised to learn that Orb's newest mass production Mobile Suit had similar basic capabilities to the USN's Archon. If Orb was good for any one thing, it was definitely producing quality Mobile Suits. He thought about the FNE's new Panzerwulf Mobile Suit and shrugged slightly. Well, the FNE was never going to build a more graceful and refined Mobile Suit than Orb anyway. The Panzerwulf's were very FNE in style... like a blow to the face with a twenty pound sledgehammer, and about as precise, but they definitely got the job done better than Cavaliers or Strike Daggers. He'd heard some interesting things about the pilots for the initial production run too, but now wasn't really the time to be concerned with that.

"Eh. Hard to say. About the same level, but done differently. I might give the slight advantage to them, depending on whether or not the Accelerated Impulse cannons work out as they're supposed to." Lain replied after careful consideration. "Primary weapon is handheld in Mobile Suit form, and becomes turret-like in other forms. Its a combination 225mm linear cannon and 150mm hyper-impulse cannon. Each shoulder has a 120mm gatling cannon on it. The head has two 15mm beam CIWS, an upgrade I really wish we had. Also, there's a chest mounted special weapon, taken from the old Liberty Gundam. A Gugnir Cannon. For those of you not familiar, it's basically an EMP wave emitter, hits about a seventy five meter frontal cone. Don't get caught in one, it'll totally wipe your OS. Unit has to be stationary to fire it, and its only available in Mobile Suit form, plus the short range... its a special situations weapon, definitely. For melee it has wingsabers in jet and submarine forms, plus a beam saber in Mobile Suit form, and an electrically charged whip that's part of its Citadel Shield. Finally, it has HAC armor, just like the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess... in short, its immune to plasma beams of all sorts."

"Those things are monsters!" Luna exclaimed, both impressed and slightly worried. She'd thought the Archon to be the pinnacle of all in one Mobile Suits. The Primal definitely beat it out in each specialized aspect area, but not in all areas at once! These Dawndrakes didn't precisely beat the Archon out... but the gap was a lot narrower than she'd thought it would be, and she wasn't sure which design was trailing the other!

"Queen Zala-Attha really likes her Mobile Suits, what can I say?" Lain smirked at her reaction. "MA has always had loose purse strings when it comes to Gundam technology and offshoots of it. In computer simulations, the Dawndrakes have consistently proven able to defeat any of the five original Gundams, sometimes even two at a time! They give even the simulations featuring the Freedom or Justice a run for their money, though thats largely because of the HAC armor."

"Simulations aren't everything. I blew the arms practically off the Liberty, and I was just in an Efreet at the time. No way that would have ever happened in a simulation, but it sure did in real life." Shinn pointed out, a faint hint of smugness in his voice at the demonstrated point of defeating Orb's superior technology. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about needing to save Orb's bacon... they can damn well take care of themselves! Especially if they have a Gundam along."

"I hope its the Phoenix King! I've always wanted to meet Athrun Zala!" Lunamaria succumbed to a momentary fantasy episode. So what if she'd idolized the man... what unattached ZAFT female HADN'T?

Lain and Shinn traded uncomfortable glances. Both hoped for quite the opposite of Luna... neither of them needed a fourth point to this triangle. "Yeah, the Phoenix King would be awesome." Lain said, his voice somewhat muted. "The Ambassador is a bad ass pilot. I got to train against some of his simulator data once. Totally got my ass owned."

"If what I saw them do during the Denver incident was any indication, I don't doubt you there." Eric agreed, shivering. "I kinda want it to be the whatsitcalled... the Seraph. I mean, come on... who DOESN'T want Kira Yamato on their team? He's the best. Plain and simple. He took out SIX Brotherhood machines BY HIMSELF in under five minutes! With ONE attack practically! He might be able to carry the battle SOLO!"

"What about the Vorpal? Commander Joule is a great man, that I wouldn't mind meeting. I might've died at Galileo if he hadn't exposed the Traitor like that." Shinn mused.

"Uh, no thanks. I've had my ass handed to me by the man before. He's nearly as much of a badass as Athrun Zala, but he's a little too headstrong for my taste. He tried to take on Porta Panama by HIMSELF. He got REAMED because of it too." Eric answered, shivering at THAT memory too. "Besides, the Vorpal is up in the PLANTS. Even if they launched BEFORE the news report got out, they'd still get there an hour after the battle ended."

Before they could speculate further, an incoming transmission from the CIC mothership cut into their meeting. "We've made contact with the Orb forces." Their Knight-Lieutenant said without preamble. "I'm glad to see you already seem to be considering tactics and strategy. Orb will be pushing the Brotherhood east from the coast, towards Fault Line Park. They will form a barrier between the city and the enemy, and fight a holding action there, until we can drop in from above and the flanks to roll up the enemy once and for all. The Gundam will be available for fire support on the following transmitted frequencies, assuming all goes well. Do be advised that though lightly populated, the Fault Line Park area is still an urbanized location... care should be taken when calling in fire support missions."

"Fire support, sir? The Gundam won't participate directly in the battle?" Shinn asked, puzzled. Wasn't the point of Gundams taking the center role in any battle plan?

"Not if all goes well. The Warmaster, I believe its called, will be directing the Orb contingent while coordinating with our own CIC operators to synchronize our forces as much as possible. If the plan works out as discussed, you probably won't even ever see it, though the Orb forces assure me that its presence will definitely be felt upon the battlefield. Oh, and you should update your IFF and targeting systems with this temporary patch they transmitted to us. Apparently this Warmaster mounts a new type of ECM jammer that will completely screw over any non-attuned targeting systems within a fairly large radius, even going so far as to mess with Phase Shift and other passive systems. That could prove... unfortunate, as they put it. Tactical plan is being transmitted now. Will contact you again for last minute discussions just prior to drop. Camelot Zulu Five, out."

"Oh, fuck." Lain blurted, once their platoon commander signed off. "This is not particularly good."

"What isn't? Strong fire support is very useful!" Luna admonished. A fire support Gundam? Cool!

"Yeah... but the last time Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww piloted a fire support mission in this kind of scenario, it didn't exactly go very well." Lain answered, eyes drawn to his photograph. He didn't blame the pilots of the Grand Buster for what happened, though he knew some did. They had done the best the could with that terribly fucked up situation against the Merciless, and his brother had died because of it. But it wasn't their fault the Merciless had taken cover behind a hospital and used it as a hostage shield! "No, not well at all..."

"When was that?" Eric asked, puzzled to see Lain not happy to have a Gundam in support. Everyone knew Orbites were totally head over heels in love with their Gundams. They'd marry em if they could.

"Nasty little time called Purgatory Day." Lain told them shortly. There was a long pause from the other three. "Yeah..."

---------------------------------------------

"This is NOT going to turn into another Purgatory Day!" Miriallia insisted, as Dearka paced back and forth nervously between the feet of the crouching Warmaster. Even crouching, as compacted as possible, it still almost completely filled the cavernous hold of the ultra-large super sonic transport, built to act as sort of an airborne super-freighter for the richest and most powerful of shipping companies, transporting hundreds of tons of cargo thousands of miles around the world in a single day. "This time we aren't dealing with a homicidal madman in a Gundam!"

"You're right. Instead we're dealing with ten to twenty apocalyptically minded religious nutjobs in quasi-Gundams. I'm sure it will be MUCH more cut and dried than Purgatory Day." Dearka retorted, voice dripping with sarcasm. "We might as well not even deploy until the Dawndrakes push them out of the city, if they even can. They are slightly outnumbered, you know!"

"Pessimistic thinking is MY pre-combat shtick, thank you!" Miriallia retorted back. "You're the one who's supposed to be trying to reassure me!"

"The last time I tried that, I ended up kissing you, and you told me that it was no good as a reassurance strategy! What do you want me to do... tear off your pants and do you right here? I can't muster that sort of thing on the drop of a pin, unlike Athrun!"

"There's no need to be crude, Dearka." Miriallia sighed and shook her head at him in exasperation. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but you need to lighten up a little. Bring back that devil may care Dearka I couldn't understand but still fell in love with back in Switzerland. I'm just as stressed as you at the thought of bringing the Warmaster into a crowded urban area, but we're the ONLY ones they could send! Everyone else is either too far away or trapped, possibly under attack themselves! What did you want to do... tell them to go screw themselves, we can't handle the stress of being asked to save innocent lives if it happens in a city?"

"That's not... no. That's not what I mean to say." Dearka leaned back against the Warmaster's leg with a sigh. "I know that we're the only ones they could send, and I'm glad to go and do what I can. I'm just not sure my conscience can take another hospital, you know? I'm barely hanging on as it is, with this ICD bullshit... I'm not sure how much more emotional torment I can take before I snap, Mir."

"Hush about that ICD. I've told you before a thousand times. It doesn't MATTER to me, Dearka. I love you anyway!" Miriallia enfolded him in a tight embrace, tucking her head against his collarbone and pressing him firmly into the Warmaster's leg. "I always will, even if you do frustrate the hell out of me sometimes!"

"Thanks, Mir... I love you too. More and more each time you remind me what a stupid ass I am sometimes." Dearka put his hands on her back and head and held her close. "Its not like we can just turn the other cheek and let these bastards treat the world like their own personal playpen. If they've got a problem or a point to make, have them make it peacefully. Its not THAT hard, especially in this day and age." He paused and held her closer. "Maybe I lied a little bit. I can kinda be like Athrun, now that I think about it..."

"Ahem! We are en route to a combat mission, you know. And there ARE other people aboard this aircraft. Honestly, how can you seriously be in that kind of mood so suddenly!? You were ready to sink into depression thirty seconds ago! Now you want to... ugh! I don't understand men!" Miriallia complained, though she smiled into his chest.

"What can I say... you wanted me to relax... and that's relaxing..."

"Ehhh. No! I can't get horny in this kind of situation! Just thinking about it is weird!"

"Well, I think thats about the most conclusive proof I've seen today that you aren't a guy... because it doesn't seem weird to me at all. In fact, it seems pleasantly normal. I totally think we should do it. We got an hour."

"No! We have better things to do!" Miriallia blushed and pulled slightly away, before he could get too carried away. "We need to coordinate a better plan than just sweep and hold with the Dawndrakes. They are outnumbered, like you said, at least until the Solar Knights get there. Speaking of them we also need to work more closely with their CIC, so we don't end up placing a Magnus shell right on top of them. They might not appreciate that."

"They might not... I dunno if Cagalli would mind too much. She's pretty sure that they're just an excuse for Durandel to build a private army of goons with Mobile Suits. I'm not sure she's wrong." Dearka reluctantly turned his mind to business. "I'm somewhat concerned about using the Magnus near the fault zone. Normal weapons aren't going to affect a subterranean fault line... but the Magnus is not a normal weapon. I'd really hate to trigger an earthquake while trying to save the city."

"Dr. Simmons is working on modelling just that scenario as we speak. She should have data for us before we deploy." Miriallia was glad to see Dearka was throwing himself into real life and the current situation again. Honestly, he really needed a distraction, and though she detested the idea of combat as a distraction from personal problems in life, at the moment she was willing to grasp at any straws that presented themselves. Dearka's emotional balance was slipping, and she wasn't sure how much longer she could fight the flood that was coming, at this rate. She wasn't even sure if she should fight it, or just let it all come out and pick up the pieces afterward... but they could hardly afford that kind of time during the current crisis! She looked out of one of the porthole windows, catching a glimpse of color in the sunlight. "Those Dawndrakes sure are something, aren't they?"

"Hell yeah. They're practically Gundams, just without all the calories." Dearka smirked. He looked out the porthole as well, at the formation of four Dawndrakes flying at their port wing in Jet form, with their legs folded up and canted forward, toes up underneath the 120mm gatling cannons on each shoulder, exposing the more powerful jet turbines inside the thighs of the Mobile Suits. The Mobile Suit's arms were folded across its back, holding the linear rifle/hyper impulse cannon straight along the backbone, in the middle between the extended HiMat wings, looking like bat rather than bird wings. A spiked tail descended from the back of the machines, where the shield was stored, the tail being the electrified whip. It was the angular bat wings and tail that gave the Dawndrakes the "drake" part of their name, at least when in silhoutte in Jet form. They were painted in fiery reds and yellows and oranges, which matched well with the nigh frictionless golden joints they had in common with the Gundams (they look like Epyon from Gundam Wing, just with extra weapons and different colors, and a weapon emitter instead of the big green gem on the chest).

"I could almost pity those Brotherhood idiots." Miriallia mused. "Well, maybe not. Say though... there's no reports of a Gundam there. An enemy Gundam I mean..."

"Oh, there's one there. I don't see as to why they'd change their tried and true modus operandi this time. Their gundams, save the Tormented, like to hang back and stay hidden as much as possible. For once, its a strategy that plays into OUR hands, not just theirs. Nobody can match the Warmaster in a ranged duel, especially not with the Dawndrakes as backup. It's just too bad we can't use the Spear of Ares in atmosphere."

"Heh... that would be like using a sledgehammer to crush individual ants."

"When you want something dead, there is no such thing as overkill..."


	21. Tending the Crops part 3

An atonal noise from one of his secondary monitors brought Michael Genesis out of his semi-doze daydream. He blinked, his mind firing aimlessly for a second or two as he remembered where he was and what he was supposed to be doing. He slowly got to his feet, uncrossing his legs and stretching his arms, the Vengeance glinting in the sunlight for a few moments before the Liquid Crystal armor adjusted its color patterning to a duller hue. No sense in giving away his position with a tell tale sparkle, like that of a sniper scope or pair of binoculars that always warned people in movies when they were being watched or about to be ambushed. Not that the enemy were particularly nearby, at the moment, but he liked to think it was one of his hallmarks that he wasn't as careless and hard headed as the other Apostles. Not that he put much stock in the bosses semi-religious rigamarole anyway... some kids made imaginary friends, or went on imaginary vacations... Noah wasn't content with such pedestrian pursuits. Instead he created a whole bogus religion, just so he could enjoy it, as far as Michael could see.

It certainly wasn't to justify whatever it was that Noah was planning on doing to change the world. As far as Michael had ever seen, Noah had never needed to justify himself to anyone but himself. He didn't need anyone's approval for his actions, and he didn't really care about their disapproval either. In fact he even seemed to expect disapproval from others. It might have had something to do with how he'd grown up, with his parents both always too busy to have much time for him, and them getting annoyed and shooing him away whenever he tried to show off to them, interrupting their own work. George and Zelda Borander had worked themselves into early graves... sudden heart attacks, the both of em. Within a week of each other. Who'd have guessed such otherwise healthy Coordinators would just up and drop dead? Strange world sometimes. One of the best arguements he'd ever seen for not taking life so seriously, and making sure to get plenty of rest and relaxation time in... who knew when you were going down, best to enjoy life to the fullest! He tried to impart that philosophy to Noah when he could, but the kid was way too serious... driven almost... by his quest to change the world in his unknown but apparently fundamental way.

Michael had been pleasantly surprised to see Noah actually take a short vacation recently, going down to Earth to visit his friend Rey at the Solar Knight training base. It had been completely out of the blue, but Michael wasn't sorry to see it. He'd told the kid many times that he was going to work himself into an early grave, just like his parents... had he really listened for once? It seemed mind boggling, since Noah didn't make a habit of listening to anyone except himself. Well, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Michael always said. Just went to show, some people really could make the apparently impossible, possible. He froze for a moment, struck by something he could not name. Like his day dream, it flickered at the edge of his consciousness, just past his ability to recollect. The noise from his secondary monitor reminded him of where he was again, and he frowned, displeased with himself for getting so wishy-washy during an important mission. The most important mission yet, actually, which was why he was here personally.

"What's happening? How did you lose your Zealot?" He demanded of the hapless pilot who's IFF beacon had winked out.

"They came from... behind. From the sea! Bats... bats made of fire!" The tremulous voice of the Brotherhood pilot replied. He sounded like he was in the middle of a bad Waft trip. Worse luck him if he was... a battlefield was no place for being on hallucinogenic drugs, and if he was wiped during a mission, Noah would demand more than a few fingers as repentence! Michael accessed the last data transmission from the sensors of the destroyed Zealot and grunted. The shapes really did look kinda like bats made of fire. Or maybe dragons, with that tail like thing behind them. Of course, what they actually were was Mobile Suits, of a new type he wasn't familiar with. They zoomed and flitted through agile and distracting patterns in the air for a moment, easily avoiding the desultory fire from the Zealot in question, before blue-red beams of compressed plasma spat from their head regions and the Zealot transmission faded to static.

"Dumbass! Those are Mobile Suits! They came from the sea, eh... okay, gentlemen and ladies... our dance partners have arrived at last! You all know the plan... fight hard, make em sweat, beat em up good if you can... and lead em out here. Make em think they got you on the run, and then the rest of us will turn the tables on them. We're actors on a stage here people... let's make this look good!" Michael smiled in a predatory fashion, the Vengeance's fingers clenching and unclenching in anticipation. "And remember... don't harm the city any more than necessary. We aren't here to raze this place or massacre the citizens. Collateral damage is unacceptable!"

"But... Apostle... didn't the Prophet say that collateral casualties were not a considera..." Another Zealot pilot asked, her voice subdued.

"I'm the commander on the ground here! You leave the Prophet to me, and do as I tell you! I say don't harm the city or its citizens, and if you don't wanna play along with that, by all means, speak up now and I'll pull your plug, both on your toys and in real life when I get back!" Michael retorted harshly. _Yeesh. Buncha lousy terrorists. Can't believe these are my "comrades"! Ah well, sometimes to win you have to play with the dirt for a while. Maybe some of them will get it, eventually... you can do as much with smoke and noise and mirrors as you can with explosions and massacres... more even, since it's damned hard to win the hearts and minds of dead people! With a lot of luck, we won't have to kill too many of the Orb forces... we aren't even here to kill them, if the poor sods only knew it. Sometimes there are things worse than death..._ "Keep your eyes peeled for a Gundam too... most of them are supposed to be tied up and unavailable by other forces, but one may have slipped through our nets!"

"What do we do if we see it? Destroy it?" Another Zealot pilot asked eagerly.

"Not even slightly. Avoid it. Leave it to me." Michael replied. "You guys are the smoke... I am the fire today." He eyed a timer counting down on one of his displays. He knew the displays weren't actually there, that it was all a sort of holographic hallucination being projected on his eyes by equipment inside the Vengeance's confined cockpit space, but he found it comforting to see at least some parts of a traditional cockpit. "Remember, we don't have all that much time. Make this look good, but make it quick, people. You are all expendable, in the end, as long as you lure them out of the city and into the ambush zone. If ten of the remaining eleven of you have to be reduced to scrap, and the last one halfway there, then it'll make things harder, but you will still have succeeded."

"ALL HAIL THE BROTHERHOOD! ALL HAIL THE PROPHET!"

"Right, right... pay fucking attention, would you!? I'd still prefer not to have you all destroyed, if possible." Michael sighed. He longed for the days of... his mind blanked again. He could have sworn he'd served with real soldiers before... strange. He'd had to learn all his skills somewhere, and he didn't think he'd learned in the PLANTS. Whatever, not the time for idle rumination. He crouched down again, dropping the Vengeance back into full cover of the trees and hillside, in the middle of the national park area above the infamous San Andreas fault zone. Covered in shadow once more, his outer skin... outer armor, he forced himself to remember that he and the Vengeance WERE not one entity, despite how it felt sometimes... his outer armor returned to the translucent purple hue he favored. He looked around, even though his other sensors were more than adequate for finding the details he was looking for... human habits were hard to kick.

Concealed under rough camouflage netting, courtesy of the Vengeance, currently almost entirely powered down as an additional precaution against being found out before time, the eight extra Zealots and four Martyrs of the ambush force waited for his activation signal, that would return control to the pilots on board the Great Endeavor back in the PLANTS. Michael found the idea of remote controlled Mobile Suits personally distasteful, though he couldn't deny their effectiveness for what the Brotherhood was trying to do. With Noah's ground breaking Red EDEN nanological vats, which could convert any material to any other material when provided with enough energy and time, constructing new Mobile Suits was a simple matter of time... about twelve hours for a Zealot or Martyr, with the Great Endeavor running at full capacity. It brought new meaning to the term "mass production". Getting new pilots, even only marginally qualified ones like many Martyr and Zealot pilots were, would still take a great deal more time than twelve hours.

He winced as another of the city strike force Zealots IFF icon disappeared from his awareness sensors. Right in the middle of the slowly retreating formation... hmm, those Orb machines were good. Better than he'd expected. Not only new models, but elite pilots too? Orb was serious about this. Michael smiled. Excellent. Just as Noah wanted. Let them send their best, to be crushed under the Brotherhood's iron fists! Let the entire world see just how helpless the vaunted Orb really was, compared to the enemy standing before them! This was no hit and run operation, at least not this part of it... Orb would come on, expecting to encounter some stiff resistance, but they would not be surprised by their ability to push the Brotherhood forces back, inflicting losses while taking relatively minor damage themselves. After all, that was what had happened every other time so far. And without a Brotherhood Gundam in the area to tip the scales... as far as they knew anyway... they would pursue, conscious that the entire world was watching their heroics.

There was only one problem... the entire world WAS watching. Watching with bated breath... would Orb beat the numbers again? Would that miniscule island nation once more show the whole world up? It would certainly look that way... until it all went horribly, totally wrong. Which was his job. Noah had told him that whether or not LAS survived the humbling of Orb was unimportant, but Michael had taken that to mean that if LAS survived then Noah wouldn't be unhappy. He'd said unimportant, not expendable. Surely the re-created world to come would still need cities to live in... why destroy something only to have to rebuild it later? Besides, it would be wrong to kill so many innocents just to get at someone else. Michael understood that, in the long term, their deaths today would be seen as a great and admirable sacrifice for the cause of human evolution... but he wanted to see as many of them enjoy the new world as possible, if he could. Maybe he was just soft inside. Well, so be it... he was pretty sure he could live with being soft inside.

Realizing that it would be some minutes yet before his forces lured the Orb units into ambush range, Michael opted to do a final readiness check on the Vengeance. He obviously couldn't try out some of the higher powered systems, like the Positron Reflectors in palms and the wing tips, because the heat dissipation flare from his cooling wings would be easily visible for miles once the FPR started cycling up. He held his hands up, and popped out the two meter long fingertip Quantum Crystal blades, first one at a time, then all five on one hand at once, then the other hand, then both hands at once. The QC blades slid in and out with barely a twitch of his fingertips, sliding out of the Liquid Crystal Regenerative armor smoothly and easily, like ice forming from water. His forearm armor rippled and rose up into spiky ridges as he deployed the twenty five meter long heat whips, though he didn't shunt excess reactor heat to them for stealth reasons. Satisifed in the smoothness of their deployment, he retracted them and reached up to the sword slung crosswise across his back.

He eased the QC zweihander off his back, twenty five meters long from hilt to tip, and almost three meters wide at the base of the blade, a crystalline solid from hilt to tip down all the way to the subatomic level. It glittered, even in the shadows, the fractional edge sharper than an electron microscope could see, able to cut protons and neutrons, the basic building blocks of atoms, in half. Depending how he gripped the sword and how he tilted his head, the blade was opaque and translucent in different spots, like an enormous unbreakable icicle. The blade could part any protective armor known to man like it was soft cloth, and was entirely proof against melting or heat based attacks, as well as any conceivable physical damage, short of a meteor falling from heaven or something else absurd. A Citadel Shield lightwave barrier would stop it... usually... and a Positron Reflector would devour it just like it did any normal matter, but that was it. It was just too bad it took so long to make... the sword and fingerblades had taken almost a year and a half to grow with the Red EDEN vats, one crystalline molecule at a time.

Michael understood, from talking with Noah, that the Vengeance incorporated a sort of Red EDEN microsheath around itself... that, given time and power, the Gundam could repair itself and its armaments should they ever be damaged, even if nothing was left but the torso and reactor, with no outside assistance whatsoever. Indeed, from what Noah had said, in the case of most minor damage, pretty much anything less catastrophic than total loss of a limb, it was by far cheaper and faster to let the built in systems repair the Gundam, rather than return to a maintenance bay. Ten hours, was what he'd said... ten hours to regrow a hand if lost. It seemed impossible, but really, Michael had the feeling the kid was bored by it... that such an amazing technology was somehow old news to him, a sort of interesting antique that he'd already moved well past. Well, as far as nano-reconstruction went, maybe that was true... take the LCR armor, which was essentially a big nano-soup, like molten glass that was controlled by electrical signals, the current paths and outputs determining the shape, translucency and color of the armor.

His inventory of the built in and standard weapon systems complete, Michael turned his attention to the extras he'd decided to bring along for the current mission. Noah had wrinkled his nose with surprise and mild disbelief when he'd seen what Michael had ordered brought out of storage. "You're going to use those RELICS?" Had been his question, delivered in exactly that tone of voice that said he considered Michael to be marginally insane, or else just really stupid. "Those have been sitting in the vaults for almost three years now... my weapons research is generations beyond those prototypes!"

"Well, then you won't miss these at all, will you? Good, I was worried you might get upset if I broke them." Michael had replied cheerfully. He shook his head now... Noah sometimes didn't seem to realize just how far ahead of everyone else he sometimes was. Yeah, maybe this tech WAS three year old prototypes... but that didn't mean the rest of the world wasn't about ten years away from even getting close to thinking about making them! He had to admit, after studying the instruction manuals for them, that they certainly were obviously prototypes, with quirky flaws that had no doubt driven Noah batty those years ago. Kid could never be satisifed unless things worked perfectly like he designed them too... even if they did what he wanted, but had little side effects or problems, he sometimes scrapped a whole project and started anew. Michael wondered how much incredible technology had been discarded like that, because it didn't match up to Noah's perceived designs. A disgusting amount, he was sure... tear inducing, from an engineering standpoint.

But back to the weapons. The Vengeance lacked any sort of ranged punch, disregarding its astounding ability to use its speed and maneuverability to close to melee distance in a matter of seconds, almost regardless of the initial distance between him and his foes. Sometimes getting up close and personal wasn't the best answer. Michael was decent in the up close arena, and the Vengeance helped him become truly exceptional... but he didn't prefer it. He liked to take down foes efficiently... and there were few weapons as efficient as a good gun, in his opinion. The 300mm QC spear driver was a slim, rifle like weapon almost as long as the Vengeance was tall... almost twenty meters from stock to muzzle. It was a weapon designed for a machine with a NIC equipped pilot, since it was single shot and had to be manually reloaded, in a fashion similar to that of a black powder rifle, i.e. it was a muzzle loading weapon, versus a clip or breech loading weapon like most modern guns. The internal firing mechanisms were too bulky and delicate for any more modern reloading option. The weapon functioned like a railgun, hurling a three meter long QC tipped spear up to three thousand meters in a straight line, at very high speed. The penetrating power was ungodly, though the damage actually not that incredible, depending on where it hit.

The other weapon he'd taken for today's little farce was smaller, more of a large pistol or carbine than a rifle, easily able to be fired with one hand. It was also designed for NIC operated machines, being single shot and breech reloading, kind of like a grenade launcher or old style double barreled shotgun. Additionally, the focusing mirror on the front end had to be swapped out every couple of shots, which was at least better, from what he understood, than the original model it was a miniaturized copy of, which had needed mirror replacement after every shot. The cartridges it fired were about the size of a medium sized suitcase... each containing a twenty kiloton category nuclear bomb. The bombs weren't actually fired though, and nor did they really explode. Instead the energy of the explosion was converted to pure X-ray radiation and channeled into multiple beams, which were fired at the focusing mirror and recombined into a wider angle radiation beam of extremely high power, that destroyed targets by bombarding their molecular structure with heat, exciting it until they destabilized... melted, exploded, caught on fire, evaporated, it all depended on the volatility of the item in question.

It was a nasty weapon, all things considered... it reduced vehicles and Mobile Suits to melted, radioactive slag, assuming the cooking off of their power and ammunition didn't blow them apart. People popped like balloons filled with blood tossed into a raging furnace, and the very air within the beam sometimes ignited and burned. The effect was identical to that of the GENESIS space laser that ZAFT had used to almost wipe out the Earth during the end of the First Valentine War, or the Cyclops systems of the Earth Alliance... just on a much smaller scale. Noah called it a 660mm hand held Radiation Cannon. It had a long range, somewhat attenuated by being in atmosphere, and though the caliber of the barrel was only two thirds of a meter, the actual beam was closer to ten meters in diameter, more than wide enough to cause devastation to multiple targets at once with the same shot. However, firing multiple times without hours long cooldown periods could cause it to become unstable and possibly fizzle or even explode, which would not be happy making for its user. He hoped he wouldn't have to use it at all... it was a "just in case" tool.

"Beeeep.... beeeeep...." Two more IFF icons winked out within seconds of each other, amidst shocked cries from their pilots, their simulator controls shutting down as the control interaction signals cut out. Michael grunted with annoyance... only a couple of minutes had gone by, and a third of the initial strike force had been taken out? That was much faster than he'd been expecting. Were the Orb pilots really that good? He only saw eight of them on his screen... already the odds were even? "What the hell are you guys doing out there? Standing around, sniffing Waft? You had a thirty percent advantage in numbers, now they've completely evened the odds! Honestly, I'm ashamed to be on the same side as you guys!"

"Beams aren't having any effect on them! They're flying all over the place... never seen Mobile Suits fly so fast, Apostle! They're like fighter jets!"

"Well then switch to guns! You've got linear cannons and machine cannons, and missiles too... don't tell me it didn't occur to you to use em! Green beams are pretty, but if they don't work, DON'T USE THEM!" Michael was surprised though, despite his exasperation. He'd watched the footage of Randolf's encounter with the Phoenix King, and the way the Orb Gundam had weathered plasma beam attacks like they were spring showers... but who'd have thought they'd put that kind of defensive hardware on a mass production model! Beams were becoming the weapons of choice these days, because of the relative prevalence of Phase Shift technology... maybe the days of plasma beams dominance of the weapon systems were numbered, with this new Orb armor. Or his own LCR armor for that matter, which was also impervious to beam based weapon damage, though not because it absorbed the heat, but rather because it reflected heat energy using tens of thousands of mirrorlike facets at the point of impact, dissipating the beam before it did any damage. He somehow doubted though, that the Orb armor could rebuild itself when damaged, unlike his own Gundam's armor.

"They've also got those damn Citadel Shields... and these guys are good! They're fighting in pairs, they never leave themselves open! And they're constantly in our faces... most of their attacks don't penetrate the Phase Shift, but I my screen is shaking so hard its like I'm a pebble in a tin can! I'm starting to get a headache just looking at it."

"Poor baby... can you imagine what it would be like if you weren't playing it like a game!?" Michael retorted without pity. "Be thankful all you see is vibration... each of those 120mm shells is hitting you hard enough to blow a house to flinders. They could kill you through sheer kinetic shock, assuming you weren't safely up in the PLANTS!"

"Beeep... beeep.... beeeep..." Michael stared at his screen, incredulous. Three IFF icons, just like THAT? "I'm warning you dopeheads right now... the Prophet ain't gonna be happy when he watches this sensor recording. You guys are getting raped out there... what's the deal? Have we not given you every conceivable advantage!?"

"My Phase Shift suddenly stopped working." One of the recently destroyed Zealots said in a sulky voice. "Stupid machine broke, that's why I died."

"System lag got me. Stupid latency. Popped up real high all of a sudden... something was weird with my armor too." Another added.

"SHUT THE HELL UP WITH YOUR LAME EXCUSES! YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SOME INTERNET MMORPG!" Michael snapped at them, before reigning in his temper. They weren't soldiers... hell, in some cases they were still just kids, tied up in their religion and their deathless combat ability. Weaklings. The kids in HIS day were... damn it, his train of thought totally slipped away from him just then. Stupid memories.

"But... but... my Phase Shift stopped working too... I got blown up by a bunch of missiles! Missiles!" The third recently deceased Zealot pilot complained, in a disbelieving tone. "What a piece of crap... we got a bunch of defective machines!"

"I'll tell the Prophet you think his machines are defective. I'm sure he'll be very agreeable. Our comms ARE recorded, dumbfuck!"

"My l-life f-for the Prophe..."

"Oh, shut up. If you don't have anything productive to say, butt out of this comm channel. I don't need the distractio..."

"OMIGOD! It's HUGE! RUN! RUN! RU... damn..." Another Zealot's IFF icon disappeared. "I almost made the corner too..."

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Michael yelled, drawing a prolonged silence on the comm line. "Four units lost in under a minute!? You've gotta be shitting me! Ain't nobody going home early tonight, kiddos... we're going to be doing some remedial training until your eyes bleed! That's if the Prophet doesn't decided to ask for all your fingers, and maybe mine too! Shit!" Michael chewed his lip. "What was huge, anyway?"

"There... there was another Mobile Suit. Way back behind the other ones. It was massive! Gargantuan! At least half again as big as my Zealot! It was still about a kilometer away, down a street. Didn't you get a picture?"

"Your video transmissions are total junk... you get your cameras blown away or something?"

"Until I died, I hadn't even taken a hit... though right at the end there, my Phase Shift also started going funky... turning off and on for no good reason. My targeting systems went to hell too... never seen such jamming!"

"Jamming huh..." Michael considered the evidence. Four machines, downed in under a minute, all complaining of things going wrong with their armor and control systems just before they were destroyed. Yeah, he didn't need a neon sign, thanks. Looks like Orb had managed to slip a Gundam into the area after all... it sure wasn't the flaming bat squad, or else they would have had this problem from the get go. What kind of jamming gear could affect a passive system like the NIC controls or Phase Shift though? What was the range? Was it consistent, or a pulse thing? Damn, too many unknowns! "All remaining units, maximum retreat, NOW! Pull out of the city... I don't care if it looks like you're turning tail and running... because you ARE! We NEED to get them further outside the city."

"Why though...? The Prophet said..."

"FUCK THE PROPHET! Because I said so, and I'm the commander right now! He left it up to me to execute the details... do as I say, unless you want to find out how pissed off he can REALLY get! What he did to Mary... that was a JOKE!"

"You... saying such a thing about the Prophet..." The pilots seemed fundamentally shaken.

"Yeah, well, maybe I'll go to hell for it. It's not the issue at hand! We've got eight Orb Mobile Suits... damn it, couldn't you have even DISABLED one... plus a Gundam in the area. We still outnumber them, but the rest of us can't engage until you losers lure them into our range! We don't have time to FUCK AROUND any more! Pull back, full speed, and wait at the indicated coordinates." Michael pinged an area on his tactical map and transmitted the data to them. "Do this right and we can still pull our asses out of the sling. Work with me here, people... keep your heads IN the game!" Michael turned off his comm system. "Damn! Damn! Shit! This is going to be closer than I expected..."

-------------------------------------------

"The Pandemonium ECM System is working out even better than I'd expected it to." Miriallia commented, with a slightly smug grin on her face, as she watched the smoke rise from the shattered shell of the Brotherhood Zealot lying in the street, about a kilometer away. It had backed into view, firing at some of the Dawndrakes that had been progressively herding it and its comrades out of the city proper and into the outlying suburb belts, and had half turned towards them before recoiling in a completely human expression of shock, stumbling backwards almost amusingly. It had turned to run, not the best of tactical decisions certainly, but by that point in time Dearka had already locked onto it and fired a salvo of shells from their four torso mounted 375mm artillery howitzers. The fin stabilized shells could correct their flight path to a certain degree after leaving the barrel, certainly more than enough to account for the two and a half strides the Zealot managed before they plowed into its back.

Had it's Phase Shift been operating normally, the impacts probably wouldn't have done more than throw the Zealot forward to the ground like a man hit in the back by a small car... painful certainly, but definitely not as profound an effect as being basically explosively dismembered, the arms and legs cartwheeling away like fireworks as the torso disintegrated under the punishing impacts. There was some small collateral damage... smashed windows, a crushed car or two, a small fire in a cleared lot... but otherwise the destruction was confined to the street and the wreckage of the Zealot. "Nice shooting, by the way."

"He couldn't have made it much easier for me." Dearka paused to wipe a sheen of sweat off his brow. He almost hadn't been able to force himself to take the shot, but he didn't want to admit that to Mir, who was too worried about him as things were. "Running away in a straight line, not even trying to dodge or interpose his shield... a three year old could have made that shot."

"Well, for a three year old, you're doing pretty good." Mir let her smile grow as Dearka chuckled. She couldn't hear him laugh often enough these days. "Little over eight minutes until the Solar Knights reach their drop point, maybe two or three after that until they reach the engagement zone. Hell, at this rate we won't even need any backup."

Their comm system crackled for a moment, before Miriallia adjusted the gain... despite everything, the Pandemonium was still a prototype, and not without its flaws. It was beginning to jam their own comm lines too, and would probably eventually go after their targeting and passive electronic systems as well. They'd need to turn it off before that happened obviously, run some more tests on it, figure out where it was over-reacting. "Sir, Ma'am, this is Salamander Lead... remaining Brotherhood forces are pulling back at maximum speed... running away even. We have so far accounted for eight Brotherhood kills between my Squadron and you. At this rate we should be able to mop them up before the Solar Knights even drop. Quite a feather in her Majesty's cap, I should say. Permission to pursue further?"

"Go ahead, Salamander. Flush em out for us, and send us some targeting data. If you can group them up in a relatively clear location, we might be able to end this infestation with a single shot. They appear to be withdrawing towards Fault Line Park, just as we wanted." Miriallia replied. "How are you guys holding up? You look like you're running a bit low on expendables."

"True enough, Ma'am, but isn't that their purpose? Shells not used against the enemy might as well not have been carried into battle at all. We've so far managed to avoid taking anything worse than minor damage... lost a few external weapon mounts, Salamander Five lost his gun arm... stupid bastard is buying us all drinks when we get home, remember that Farlye!"

"Dawndrakes performing all right? From what I hear, they're still pretty much fresh from the ranges." Dearka enquired, his professional curiosity piqued.

"A few bugs, here and there sir... nothing we didn't really expect. Some shakiness and stickiness in the joints during Mode transformations, a few power consumption problems... nothing frightening. I'd say these bad asses are going to be ready for the big time stage with only a few more tweaks and tunes. As for how they handle... well, sir, I'd always wanted to pilot a Freedom..."

"That good eh? Damn, might have to try one out myself sometime." Dearka mused.

"Sir, if I could legally marry this machine, I think I would. As things are, we might end up having some illegitimate children together, if she keeps being this fucking sweet, pardon my language, Ma'am."

"Don't mind me. Not only am I a journalist, I'm a part time sailor and a CIC operator. I don't blush easily. Anymore."

"I was about to say..." Dearka smirked at her.

"Besides, Sir, Ma'am... that monstrosity you're piloting is enough to give me jealous shivers too. I mean, yeah, maybe it doesn't fly like a hummingbird, but whatever you guys are doing to their Phase Shift armor... keep it up, please! And I can't stress enough what a psychological advantage it is to us to have a Gundam covering our butts with the big guns. Everyone is always a bigger bad ass when they're tougher, older siblings are around to back em up. Though I have to say, I have not yet been impressed with the quality of our enemies. Their machines are amazing... but the pilots... they suck."

"That seems to be the general consensus." Miriallia agreed, turning her attention back to her CIC screens. "They're grouping up, just past that line of cliffs, out in the national park area. If they think they can get away, then they've got another thing coming! Still, it makes me wonder... we were pushing them back before, but why the sudden retreat? They obviously don't care about their lives, if they're even in those machines, and not controlling them remotely!"

"We've killed eight, with four more remaining. How many more of them can they have? They must be trying to cut their losses. Mobile Suits aren't made in a day, you know, especially advanced ones!" Salamander Lead replied confidently. "We're moving to surround them from the air as we speak. Locking on with laser designators as we see them. Feeding you targeting data."

"Receiving it. Mir, handle the data feeds while I prep the Magnus. Stupid motherfuckers will never know what hit em. Salamander Lead, I'm going to put my foot down on these terrorists hardcore... if you could clean up the mess, maybe take one partially intact, I'm sure Dr. Simmons'd be real appreciative. Mind you stay a healthy distance away until the Earthshaker hits though..." Dearka winced at the thought.

"Roger that, sir. Though from what I remember of the tech specs, I don't expect to find much. That's one hell of a big gun you got, sir."

"If you only knew... oh, fuck that was on an open comm, damn it!" Miriallia found herself flushing. Damn her inability to tell when the comm was on or not... this wasn't the first time something like this had happened! She needed a big red sign saying "Open Comm" on her screen, badly! The chuckles from the mostly male Salamander squadron, and from Dearka, didn't make things any easier. She focused herself on inputting the targeting data being fed to them from the Dawndrakes, and tried not to feel the heat on her ears and neck.

Dearka jumped the Warmaster forward another kilometer and a half, clearing the city proper and landing in a large, park like space. Perhaps a sports complex or maybe just a environmentally conservated area. Whichever it was, he didn't really care. It was open, relatively stable ground, with good lines of sight throughout their forward arc. Still smiling at Miriallia's inadvertantly public compliment and appraisal, he scanned their surroundings, looking for any sign of threats. Besides the odd plume of smoke from back in the more built up areas of the city, where the remains of the other eight Zealots were smouldering, there was nothing. Far in the distance to his front, about a kilometer and half to two kilometers way, he saw the fiery colored shapes flitting through the air in a circling pattern that were the eight Dawndrakes. Occasional tracer fire from the shoulder gatling cannons or a blue-red lightning flash from their rifles would streak down to the distant ground, but they didn't press their attacks closely, waiting for the big hammer to drop.

Unlike with the old Grand Buster, the Warmaster didn't need to deploy any additional support struts from its legs and body before firing the upgraded Earthshaker Magnus. This was both because the Warmaster was larger and stronger and better braced internally than the Grand Buster, and also because of the improved recoil dissipation systems on the Magnus itself. Dearka checked to make sure the clip of shells was firmly seated, and that there were no problems with the feeding and loading mechanisms of the cannon itself. A misfire or backfire would be more than merely annoying... it could be catastrophically fatal, especially if the other reamining shells were to blow up as well. It would be like a small nuclear explosion. He forced himself not to think about it... the gun would not jam. He wouldn't let it. He cocked the weapon and removed the first safety, loading a shell into the firing breech.

He then took the data Mir was feeding him, relayed from the Dawndrakes slaved targeting computers as they kept their laser rangefinders on the grouped Zealots. The Magnus tilted up and to the side, taking into account atmospheric conditions, including humidity, wind speed, wind direction and dozens of other tiny variables that could possibly affect the placement of the shot, no matter how slight. The computer bleeped at him, showing all green in terms of computations. He double checked them with a few seconds of thought, and couldn't see any errors, glaring or minor. Dearka removed the second safety and put his thumb on the trigger. He looked at Mir, and they shared a smile of trust and mutual enjoyment. It took both of them to bring out the Warmaster's true potential, and there was few better feelings in their world than a mutual accomplishment. "Fire in the hole!" Dearka exclaimed, mashing down the trigger. The Warmaster's frame shivered, vibrations from the arm humming through the bottom of their seats for a few seconds, with a sound like a ceramic plate being tossed from a roof onto a sidewalk resounding in their ears.

The muzzle flame jumped almost ten meters from the Magnus's barrel, propellant fumes jetting from the barrel louvres in a steaming cloud of fire and smoke. By the time the first shell had gone a hundred meters, the second was already being levered into the breech, ready to fire. The spent shell casing, glowing white and dull cherry red with absorbed heat, flipped lazily through the air before crashing to earth with a "BONG!" sound like a falling churchbell, indenting itself into the soil. A small cloud of dust and loose debris recoilled away from the Warmaster in a circle, carried by the sonic shockwave of the weapon's firing, the same disturbance shattering windows for three blocks in every direction and stunning any living being within a quarter kilometer for a few seconds. The muzzle flash was so bright that it was visible from low orbit, a brief spark of light against the earth tone background of the world.

Salamander Lead watched with stunned awe as the Earthshaker shell flashed past his squadron, falling almost straight down from the heavens onto the bunched up Zealots hiding behind the crest of the hill below, shields raised protectively over their heads to guard against the strafing runs by the Dawndrakes. The shell didn't land right on top of them, though it did land within a few meters of them... and with the Earthshaker, close was certainly good enough. The flash of light was enough to put pinwheels of blue and purple spots in his vision, a geyser of shattered rock and burning earth rising almost a hundred and fifty feet into the air in a thirty meter radius around the point of impact. Trees were smashed to splinters and overturned like a child kicking sticks set upright in the ground, leaves and pine needles exploding off their branches in a green wave that pulsed outward like a ripple in water. The Dawndrakes quivered in midair from the shockwave, and scorched soil splattered against some of their undersides, splashed upwards from the ground several hundred meters below. Smoke and dust clouds rose thickly, like a volcanic plume, from the impact site.

"Oh, hell yeah!" Salamander Three whispered into the dead silent comm. "Cannot confirm, but targets look to have been... comprehensively annihilated!"

"You went long by about three meters... might want to adjust your scope, Sir, Ma'am!" Salamander Seven joked. "Lord knows, you've gotta be damned precise with that whopper!"

"Hit an unexpected updraft at around the seventy five hundred meter mark, tilted the angle of descent a little. We'll correct better next time." Miriallia replied, rolling her eyes. "Pretty soon we'll be shooting into teacups, just you watch."

"I don't doubt it, Ma'am... I don't doubt it." Salamander Lead shook his head admiringly. Poor bastards probably never knew what hit em. "All right, Salamanders... lets go down and pick up the pieces. Keep the gugnir's charged and ready... I don't expect to find too much more than shrapnel down there, but we might get lucky. If we do, lets try and take it whole." He started his descent, transforming, with a few herks and jerks, into Mobile Suit form on the way, wings sweeping around to his back, arms unfolding from over his head, legs reattaching themselves to the hips... all in all, it took about three seconds. Longer than it should... they were hoping for less than two. Still, he had damn few complaints about the Dawndrake's combat abilities so far. "I'd be grateful if you'd keep an eye out for us, Sir, Ma'am... this should be the last of em, but I'd sure feel better with our big brother keeping his watchful eye on us."

"Don't worry, Salamander Lead... tempting as it might be to fire my other big gun and work the kinks out of THAT targeting system, I suppose we'll hang around for a little while." Dearka replied, shooting a lopsided smile at Mir, who batted at him, face flushed.

"Roger that, Sir." Salamander Lead grinned. "We'll try and make this fast. Large weapons require a lot of maintenance after all."

"I hate you." Miriallia told Dearka, trying to be cross. "Must you make a public spectacle of my slip ups?"

"Hmm... yes?" Dearka replied, leaning back in his chair and stretching a little. "You don't drop gems like that every day, you know. The sentiment is appreciated, by the way."

"Don't let it go to your head." Miriallia admonished, though she was secretly glad to see him having fun. If she had to be embarassed because of it... well, so be it. Not that she was planning on making a habit of making a fool of herself for his benefit... but every once in a while... well, she had pride to spare for him. She looked back at the city behind them. "I guess there wasn't a Brotherhood Gundam after all... or else they ran away once they saw us steamrolling their goons."

"I am consistently unimpressed with these Brotherhood pilots." Dearka mused. "It seems stupid of them to keep giving people like that control of expensive war machines, regardless of whether or not they can control them remotely. It doesn't add up with the rest of their capabilities... the planning, the secrecy, the ability to make these Gundams and Mobile Suits in the first place... surely they could come up with some trained pilots, besides their Gundam pilots?"

"And even they aren't exactly Redcoats." Miriallia added, thinking similar thoughts. "The only one so far that even put up a real fight is the Tormented. The Traitor didn't even ruffle Ysak's hair, and the Haunted only gave Athrun a few problems because of the fog... once he'd licked that, he dominated the Haunted. It seems such a waste... or like maybe the Brotherhood leaders, whomever they are, were choosing people not based on their talents for Mobile Suits, but on other qualities? Like maybe loyalty, or the ability to follow questionable orders without moral complaint?"

"That's a strange thought... but you're right." Dearka leaned forward. "Though I suppose for the type of attacks they've been pulling, these odd, not as destructive as they could be deals, maybe the barely competent people they have are good enough. It doesn't take much skill to terrify people with a Mobile Suit when they're civilians after all. I wonder what they were up to today... there's no USN presence here, no military base, they didn't make any public demands, or political threats. They just showed up in force, started blowing shit up randomly, and waited for us to show up and kick their asses back into the stone age? Something is VERY strange here..."

"Pardon me, Sir, Ma'am... but we're done checking out the impact crater. I should stress the term crater." Salamander Lead whistled, standing on the lip and looking down into the eight meter deep depression in the rocky ground. "Haven't found much even identifiable as a Mobile Suit part... nothing bigger than a car hood certainly... and a compact car at that! Phase Shift armor and all, these bugs are pretty well squished. Maybe we can salvage something from one of the ones we took down in the city. We're wrapping up here and..." Salamander Lead turned his head, hearing a strangled cry over the squadron comm. Salamander Eight, standing across the crater from him, suddenly swayed and toppled forward, landing with a crash and sliding in a cloud of grit into the crater bottom. "What the hell!? What happened? Jim!? Jim, what the hell happened!? Did anybody see if something hit him?"

"I thought I saw a brief flash of light... like on a mirror or something, from off to the northeast, over by those hills." Salamander Five replied, doubt tinging his every word.

"I don't read any major damage, sir... but Jim's... Jim's DEAD, sir!" Salamander Six cried, disbelief and sorrow strong in his voice. "His vitals just dropped right off, before he even finished sliding! I don't see any impact marks or armo... hold on a second.... what the HELL?"

"Report! Stay sharp! Shields up, backs together, don't let your guard's down!" Salamander Lead ordered. "Big Brother, we've got possible enemy contact back here. One of my men is down, dead."

"Dead?" Miriallia was shocked. "All your IFF icons are still fine."

"Salamander Eight is dead, vitals gone. We're still trying to determine how... his Dawndrake appears... dammit, give me a report, Six!"

"Sir... there's a fucking hole in his back, right behind the cockpit area! It's only about a foot in diameter... can't hardly see it unless you zoom in real close. Looks like something you'd see using a hole punch on a piece of cardboard... never seen a hole that neat in Mobile Suit armor! There's no fragmentation of the surrounding plate... its almost like it was cut with a blade!"

"FRALA... no, the HAC woulda stopped that. Plus, that'd be a DAMNED big FRALA... we'd have seen the beam, no problem." Salamander Lead considered, as Six turned Eight over. He looked over when Six swore heartily. "What now!?"

Six swallowed heavily. "B-b-blood, sir! The hole goes all the way through the Dawkdrake... and theres blood just spilling out of the hole in the front! Oh god... Jim!"

"Hey! There's that flash agaAARRGHG!" Salamander Five flinched and then its arms drooped, before its thrusters fired and hurled it forward, out of formation until it hit the hillside and toppled over, lying as still as a corpse. Through the settling dust, Salamander squadron could see another neat, precise hole punched through the torso armor, right over the cockpit. Salamnder Five's vitals, which had been going crazy ever since he'd screamed, flatlined and stayed that way with a mournful howling beep.

"EVERYONE, EVASIVE MANEUVERS!" Salamander Lead ordered, his face swelling with fury. "We've got ourselves a sniper! Keep your shields over your cockpits, the bastard is targeting US, not the machines!" As the squadron scattered he got back into contact with the Warmaster. "We've got two men down over here! Some sort of super-penetrating sniper weapon... goes right through our armor like it isn't even there! Two pilots down already, enemy not in sight! Request you get over here as quickly as you can, please!"

"On our way... OH!" Miriallia's long range scanners began registering new icons. "OH FUCK! Salamander Lead, you have inbound bogeys, enemy Mobile Suits... more Zealots and a few Martyrs... eight of the first, four of the second."

"Roger that, I see them... came right out of the woods, guns blazing. We'll try and do what we can, but we can't get bogged down in a battle with that sniper out there! I've never seen the like... like a hole punched right through them!"

"A trap? But why didn't they spring it earlier?" Dearka wondered, even as he started jumping the Warmaster towards the fracas behind the hills ahead of them. He could see missile contrails and explosions jetting up smoke... the Dawkdrakes were getting hammered by the surprise attack, which had caught them seperating to confuse the sniper, which wasn't the best positioning for weathering large numbers of ammunition based weapons, which were the primary armaments of the Zealots and Martyrs. He swore... in a matter of moments they had gone from being the victorious elite, to being hard pressed. "When are the Solar Knights gonna be here!?"

"Not for another five minutes! I've appraised them of the situation!" Miriallia called back. "Oh SHIT!" Salamander Four's IFF icon winked out, replaced with a "signal lost" tag. Counting the dead pilots in Salamander's Five and Eight, the Dawndrakes were down to five effectives already, and all of those damaged or partially expended from the previous battle! "They're getting swarmed!"

"I'm hurrying, thank you! Fat ass here doesn't exactly sprint like a forest hind!" Dearka retorted, as the Warmaster landed on the hillcrest, knocking down trees and shaking the ground with its arrival. Several of the Dawndrakes were already desperately defending themselves from melee and point blank attacks from Zealots, while others zoomed and zipper overhead, chased through the sky by relentless barrages from the Martyrs. "Get away from them!" Dearka shouted, pointing the Warmaster's left arm at the Dawndrakes in melee. The red-blue crackling hyper impulse beam fired from under his shield was joined by a veritable double river of green beam blasts from the twin 57mm gatling beam cannons also under the shield, each pumping out four beam blasts per second. The firestorm washed over the melee combatants, being harmlessly absorbed by the Dawndrake's HAC armor. The three Zealots, with Phase Shift, already suffering disruption from the Pandemonium ECM, were rather less fortunate, being blown apart and cut into pieces by the hail of energy bolts.

At the same time Dearka sent flights of missiles from the shoulder launchers into other Zealots, knocking them about with the concussion waves and spoiling their aim, keeping them on the back foot for a few more preciois seconds for the Dawndrakes to recover. He oriented on the four Martyrs and opened up with his torso howitzers, the Warmaster stutter stepping with recoil for a moment as he stomped down the hillside, throwing out artillery shells every other second from each barrel. He hosed the gatling beam fire back and forth, creating a wall of plasmatic death that kept the Zealots scrambling backwards, ducking behind their shields. Missiles and railgun tracers from the Martyrs detonated on the hillside all around them, or struck the Warmaster directly, as effective as spitwads against the double thick layer of Phase Shift armor. More concerning were the twin hyper-impulse blasts fired at their chest, but Salamander Lead swooped down from the heavens, shifting into Mobile Suit form from Jet form, spreading his wings and taking both blasts harmlessly on his body, acting as a shield for the Gundam.

"Thanks for the save!" Miriallia called, her voice somewhat shaky from the close call. The Warmaster wasn't designed for up close and chaotic battlefields like this one. Oh, they were doing all right, the shock of their sudden appearance and the tremendous unleashing of firepower kicking the Brotherhood ambush forces back onto their heels, but they still had the advantage of numbers, and at close range the Warmaster was vulnerable, especially to beam attacks and melee weapons.

"Keep up the pressure! Only a few more minutes!" Salamander Lead replied, skewering a Zealot through the stomach on a red-blue plasma blast from his rifle, shearing the torso from the legs. He swerved around a flight of missiles from a Martyr, and hung poised in the air before it, Gugnir cannon sparking with pre-discharge energy. "Nighty nigh..." Sunlight flashed along a line that passed through the Dawndrake from side to side, completely through the chest before disappearing off into the distance. Salamander Lead hung there for a few more seconds, his vital signs screaming as his life's blood sprayed from the stump of his neck, coating the ceiling and sides of his cockpit, his hands still tense and ready on his controls, before the Martyr corrected itself and blew the helpless Dawndrake to pieces with sixty missiles fired point blank into its chest.

"There! I see you, motherfucker!" Dearka crowed, orienting on the position the flash of light had originated from. "Hide and seek is over!" He launched missiles and a salvo from his howitzers, blanketing that hillside in explosive death, blasting away the foliage and hopefully either destroying the sniper or at least forcing them out in the open. "Not so much fun no... oh fuck." Dearka's voice got very quiet, as the smoke cleared and he got a clear look at the sniper. Miriallia gasped as well, a fissure of fear running through her core. The sniper stood in plain view, almost casual in its stance, despite the devastation of the burning hillside around it, firelight glinting off its translucent purple armor facets, turning parts of it blood red with reflected light. It's eyes flashed pinkly at them, and it slowly lowered its knife edged, nigh triangular wings, which had been canted forward over its shoulders, tips to the front, energy field projectors in the very tips irising closed, dropping the Positron Shield that had guarded the Gundam against the Warmaster's firepower.

In it's hands, the purplish crystal Gundam held an enormous, slim barreled rifle, into the muzzle of which it was methodically loading a long, spear like missile, the firelight winking brightly from its tip. The enemy Gundam did not look particularly perturbed to have its blind destroyed. If anything, it seemed almost glad that it didn't have to hide anymore. Reloading complete, the Gundam brought the rifle up to its shoulder and tilted its head, sighting in with very humanish motions.

"Oh no you don't!" Dearka spat, bringing up his left arm and blasting away with the 325mm hyper-impulse cannon and 57mm beam gatlings. To his shock, the Brotherhood Gundam didn't even try to dodge, didn't even raise a palm or wingtip to use its anti-matter shields. It just stood there, calm as could be, sighting in its next shot, as the energy bolts struct its refractive skin and splattered like paintballs against a steel wall, stray energy spraying away uselessly in all directions as whatever armor system the Gundam had weathered the onslaught like it wasn't even happening. Deflected shots and splashed energy added to the conflagration growing around the Gundam's feet, but that was the most noticable effect of Dearka's attack, unfortunately. He and Miriallia stared into the enemy Gundam's eyes as it pointed its rifle right at them and pulled the trigger.

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Michael grunted unhappily. He'd had them dead to rights, they'd left themselves totally open to attack him! Why had he missed his shot!? What had made him jerk the QC spear driver down and to the side at the last moment like that, at the very instant he'd pulled the trigger? He could have taken the Orb Gundam down good and hard, the easy way, with a foot wide hole right through the pilot's chest! That would have totally broken the other Orb machine's morale, and put them on the definite right track for accomplishing their mission. But no... he'd shied away at the last moment, and instead sent the spear through their right knee, ruining the joint and basically crippling the machine... but why? WHY? Why this reluctance to kill them? Why would he avoid killing Dearka Elsman or Miriallia Haww, the pilots of that Gundam? Michael gritted his teeth and began loading the next spear. He would NOT shy away this time! No matter how much it made his gut twist!

-----------------------------------------

"We're... alive?" Dearka whispered, lowering his hands from in front of his face, thrown up in a reflexive gesture. Miriallia was doing similarly, down in front of him. "Uh... he had us."

"Yeah..." Miriallia agreed, her entire body shivering almost uncontrollably. Her life had passed before her eyes there for a moment. "Right knee joint is totally destroyed. The leg is holding up its share of the weight for the moment, but moving is out of the question. I suppose that answers my question about whether his weapon can penetrate Phase Shift armor, as well as HAC armor. I don't like the answer." She held a hand to her throat and took deep breaths, trying to calm herself before she started retching, a very nasty response to utmost terror she sometimes experienced.

"That thing's just like the Pulsar... no, better than the Pulsar! We're way out of our league here!" Dearka took hold of the controls again, the only way he could keep his hands from shaking. He hit the triggers for the howitzers again, but had to walk the fire back towards the enemy Gundam, his aim was off that much. He tried to be calm, but it was hard... he should have been dead! The enemy Gundam had HAD them, cold! He shivered and stared as the enemy Gundam's wings canted forward again, projecting twin fields of reddish energy that absorbed his howitzer shells in brief flashes of light that were not at all as impressive as the explosions should have been. Behind his nigh impenetrable screen, the Gundam continued reloading his sniper weapon with precise, efficient movements. It wouldn't be long before it was ready to fire again.

Seeing this, and knowing the Warmaster would have no such good luck a second time, Salamander Two broke away from the two Zealots he had been duelling and rocketed at the enemy Gundam, ignoring everything else. With the Warmaster around, they could at least have a chance of holding on... if it were defeated or destroyed, then the Dawndrakes would crumble soon after, from despair if nothing else... though the power of the enemy Gundam would probably considerably shorten their resistance. He fired his weapons as he came on, but they all just disappeared into the reddish fields without a trace, like shooting down a hole with no bottom. Discarding his rifle, he snatched out his beam saber as he skirted around the edge of the fields, to come at the enemy from the side. The fields shimmered and dropped away, the Gundam's wings re-orienting around on its back in a seamless transition that made the Dawndrake's own movements seem clunky, as the Gundam sidestepped his chopping slash.

Salamander Two's Dawndrake staggered backwards, armor splinters spitting from its head, as the Vengeance spun its rifle around in its hands and slammed the armored butt into the Dawndrake's face. Salamander Two was savvy though, and he turned the backwards momentum of his stagger into a whirling lash with the electro-chain attached to his shield, swinging for the enemy rifle. If he could blow that away, then the enemy would be badly weakened! Instead though, the Gundam took on hand off the rifle and snatched out, grabbing hold of the lashing chain and halting it well short of the rifle. Salamander Two triggered the electric shock, sending megavolts of electricity coursing into the enemy Gundam. He smirked... the Gundam pilot might as well have licked a finger and stuck it into a wall socket, it was the same damn thing as grabbing the chain! Blue lightning arced and crackled as it flowed along the whip and into the Vengeance's arm.

The LCR armor on the Vengeance's right forearm shimmered and rippled, spiking up in ridges and geometric figures as the conflicting currents ran through the gel like structure of the armor. The disruption traveled up the arm to the elbow and stayed there, before gradually smoothing out, the overwhelming power of the FPR more than easily overcoming the brief outside current from the chain. The Vengeance popped its fingerblades and sliced the chain into shreds, before sweeping a leg around and kicking the Dawndrake's shield from its grasp. Spinning around, the Vengeance brought its rifle up to its hips and fired as it bore, piercing the Dawndrake's chest and impaling Salamander Two through the heart, most of his chest just disappearing as the QC spear continued through him without slowing, punching out through the back of his Mobile Suit and disappearing into the distance. The Dawndrake tottered and slowly fell over backwards, inert and still, blood leaking from each side of the hole.

The Vengeance discarded the QC spear driver for the moment, having used all the spears he'd thought to bring. Instead, the Vengeance's right hand dipped to its side, drawing out the carbine sized, broad muzzled hand cannon that was magnetically clipped there. The Vengeance spun the pistol around its fingers once and then popped the breech, left hand palming a shell from the container on the back of its waist and slotting it home into the breech with a single slick motion. The breech chamber snapped closed and the ready light on the back turned from red to green, the barrel beginning to spin as it built up the fields that would channel the energy of the nuclear cartridge. The Vengeance pointed it at the Warmaster for a few moments, before jerking its arm away and into the melee, where the remaining three Dawndrakes were being beset on all sides by Zealots and Martyrs. The Vengeance's finger twitched and pulled the triger.

Dearka and Miriallia threw up their hands again, flinching back from their screens as an enormous beam of multicolored light spat from the pistol muzzle, easily ten to fifteen times the size of the muzzle itself, carving without mercy or pause into the small valley betweeen the hills, melting a furrow as it went, destroying everything in its path, be it friend, foe or environment, with equal ease. Mobile Suits bloated like week old corpses, before exploding like firecrackers in a microwave, while the ground turned to glass and trees turned straight to ash, without even a glimpse of flame. Rocks turned to magma, and the very air twisted and warped with excess heat energy. Steam, smoke and heat distortion waves rose in a cloud from the trench, which was almost a kilometer long before it slowly tapered away, surrounded by a much larger burn zone of blackened cinders and spreading flames.

The three Dawndrakes had weathered the storm of heat energy intact... at least to first glance. Though glowing red hot in many places, their HAC armor had proven proof against the storm of thermal radiation. Too bad the same could not be said of their internal mechanisms or pilots, which had melted and popped and charred very quickly under the radiation bombardment. The Dawndrakes were left as nothing more than shells, like cast off beetle carapaces, their insides running molten and liquid out through their joints. Green and red sparks fritzed through the air around the Radiation Cannon in the Vengeances hand, while white smoke leaked heavily from inside the barrel, and in a great cloud when he popped the breech, discarding the slagified remnants of the first cartridge before sheathing the weapon once more, twirling it a few more times around its figner as it brought it down. Only a couple Zealots and a Martyr were left of the Brotherhood forces, most having been destroyed by the radiation blast... but there was only the Warmaster left of the Orb forces, and it had a crippled leg.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT? I've never seen a..." Dearka trailed off. Well, he HAD seen a weapon kind of like that, but that thing had been HUGE... the size of a space station! Who could put that kind of thing into a fucking pistol!? It defied belief, but the evidence was right there in front of him! That was a fucking hand held GENESIS space laser! Dearka swallowed hard, as the enemy Gundam spun the pistol like a cowboy from a movie and holstered it, slowly turning to regard them, almost speculatively.

"Heh heh... thinks he's a cowboy... heh..." Miriallia didn't know why she was laughing... her eyes were wide enough to feel like they would fall out of her head, and her mouth was dry with terror, but for some reason the stylistic flourishes the enemy Gundam pilot had added seemed like the funniest thing in the world to her right then. Talk about overacting! "Talk about callous... blew away half his own guys, just like that!"

"Yeah, but he blew away ALL of our guys in the process!" Dearka gritted. He sent missiles and more howitzer shells at the enemy Gundam, while using his gatling beam cannons and hyper impulse cannon to keep the other Brotherhood machines at bay. No sense in wasting energy attacks on that bastard, they'd just bounce right the fuck off, unfair as that was! Of course, when the Gundam used its palm Positron Shields to just absorb the firepower directed at it, it hardly mattered WHAT he fired, did it? "Please tell me the Solar Knights are right on top of us!"

"They'll be dropping any second now... but that still leaves fall time!"

"Down to the wire then, huh!? Well, no sense holding back now!" Dearka swung the Earthshaker Magnus around to point more or less at the enemy Gundam. "Tremble before our wrath!" He shouted wildly, squeezing and holding down the trigger.


	22. Tending the Crops part 4

Author Note: Have no fears, Cray fans. He will eventually show up. Just bear in mind his nature... once unleashed, he doesn't exactly re-leash very easy. He and the Revenant are an unstoppable juggernaut... which is very kickass, but also very limiting. Once I start using him, pretty much everything will have to revolve around him until he gets concluded, and I want to save that for something more important than a set up arc, even one like Tending the Crops, when you guys first see more concrete hints of Noah's plans, and the more pivotal scenes of Durandel's early plans. Remember, the Revenant is three hundred feet tall, and lacks Mirage Colloid (well, I never said that, but it does)... even the Brotherhood is going to have trouble hiding THAT after it gets deployed. I saw a review that asked why Mu's Gundam is called the Vengeance. I'll admit, its a departure from my other Brotherhood Gundams, which are themed to their pilots. Maybe its because the Vengeance's true pilot has yet to appear. Perhaps. Or maybe I'm just messing with you.

Now, Rihaku... you should know better than to assume. And while you and I are often thinking alike, I'm not sure I am nearly as bold as you seem to be insinuating. Of course, you did hit upon a connection, so I can't say your all wrong either... your idea of "dark kira" is definitely going to see some use. I just gotta get to it. Huge plot twists like that don't just fall out of the blue, in my stories anyway. And, Asmus... I think you rate Noah's concern for the Clyne Faction pilots too highly, at the moment. He tends to think on a larger scale than just a group of people, no matter how skilled... at least for the moment. He would target Orb, or the USN... but singling out Dearka and Miriallia would be beneath him, at least in his mind (currently). Someone asked if I'm Shinn X Lunamaria... I'd have to say most likely yes. It seemed a more believable relationship to me than Shinn X Stella (Who I have NOT forgotten about, it just takes time to work her in). Shinn/Stella seemed more like a chance meeting to me (besides, I did something kinda like that with Ashino already), whereas his relationship with Luna was much more deliberate, on both their parts.

Here's a question for thought. I think its relatively obvious by now that Lacus is going to have a baby sometime. If/when she does... what would be a good name? For a boy or a girl... not sure I know which it will be yet (coin flip, maybe). I mean, I have some thoughts myself... maybe I'll like yours better. Kira and Lacus aren't exactly common names (at least to me), what WOULD they name a child, in your opinion?

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"Camelot Zulu Five has reached the target zone. Discarding atmospheric streamlined shell, starting engines, entering power flight. All EWS, ECM and CIC stations manned. Orbital drop of Camelot squadrons due to commence in T minus sixty. All stations, report readiness and assess initial battlefield conditions." The Knight-Lieutenant ordered briskly, unclipping his safety harness as the mothership finished slowing down from its halway around the world catapult flight. There were a series of low roars and shuddering thumps as the external shell's explosive bolts detonated and hurled the pieces away from the mothership, the metal impregnated and mirror reflective surfaces also acting as chaff to confuse and distract any hostile targeting systems that may have been trying to lock on to the arriving electronics warfare jet. He stood up and strode towards the bridge, smiling and nodding at the various sunken crew stations as he passed by, boosting morale and steadying any shaky last minute nerves with his calm and professional demeanor.

"Meteorology... skies are clear, atmospherics are steady, no signs of precipitation or clouds. Hot, clear, sunny, bright... flight conditions optimal. Evidence of smoke and dust clouds from surface indicate severe disruption of ground by heavy weapons. Ground conditions sub optimal, visibility limited to twenty meters or less in combat zone."

"Weapons... automated 20mm CIWS turrets armed and loaded, chaff launchers primed, flare launchers primed, ECM up and running at maximum combat efficiency. No sign of enemy targeting systems trying to lock on to us."

"Sensors... sweeping area. Combat zone still in flux, primary combat area moved to under optimal drop location. Allied forces hard pressed, despite earlier reports. Casualties suffered, allied forces heavily outnumbered. Total number of enemy forces... nine units. Six Zealots, three Martyrs. Wait one... we have an anomaly. Massive heat source detected, off scale levels of thermal emissions. Scanning files... no matches to current known Mobile Suits or combat vehicles. Bringing visual sensors to bear... no luck, too much dust and smoke in the air. Possible enemy Gundam, unknown type and capabilities. Recommend utmost caution until threat level verified."

"Electronic Warfare... sir, we're getting a lot of interference on almost all bandwidths... our allies ECM seems to be working TOO well, despite the codes they sent us. We're seeing a lot of activity on the deep Quantum bands... perhaps the theorized enemy remote control signals. Attempting to isolate and jam, but those Quantum bands are slippery. We need more specialized gear to really have much chance of affecting them. We're adding our own jamming to the mix, but its like spraying a garden hose into a river sir... I just can't tell if its having any effect."

"CIC... all Archons of Camelot Flights, check in please and verify status." Meyrin relayed to her sister and the other three flight leaders. She studied her screens, to which was relayed data from pretty much every other station on the ship. Because she was the one basically acting as the control point for the Mobile Forces, she needed to know pretty much everything that was going on in a battle zone, all at once, all the time. There was no telling what sort of information might become suddenly vital, that little extra edge their forces needed to snatch total victory from the jaws of defeat. Her ability to sift through the deluge of data and pick out the relevant bits, and relay those to the people in need, could quite literally mean the difference between life and death. CIC operator wasn't a job for people who couldn't stand high, constant stress, or who couldn't mulitask at an incredibly high level.

"Perenor Flight, armed, awake and ready for drop!" Lain replied with an eager grin.

"Galahad Flight, all pilots green, all systems verified ready for drop." Eric reported, running secondary systems checks that didn't directly concern the drop even as he commed with Meyrin.

"Gawain Flight, checking in ready, verified drop ready." Lunamaria wanted to say more, but an open comm line to the mothership wasn't the best time or method for talking with her younger sister. She just hoped her tone of voice conferred the needed message of support and trust. This was going to be the first time that Luna had gone into combat with her sister as CIC, and she knew they were both nervous. It was a huge responsibility, and adding in the safety of a family member didn't make it any easier. Still, Meyrin was one of the best there was... she'd been selected for the CIC position at Project Primal right out of Academy, which was about the most top secret and elite Mobile Unit in ZAFT currently, which was why Knight-Commander ze Burrel had tapped her for the Solar Knights instead, despite her lack of actual combat time.

"Lancelot Flight, all ready and eager for drop. What are ground conditions, CIC?" Shinn answered, clenching and unclenching his hands on his controls as the seconds counted down to drop time. He felt consumed by fires of impatience and energy, battering at his self control, demanding to be release in the fury of combat. He too was grinning widely, though he didn't realize it.

"Wait one, Lancelot." Meyrin replied. "Knight-Lieutenant, all Camelot Flights verified checked in and ready for drop. Drop in t minus twenty five and counting. Transmitting initial battlefield analysis to Camelot Flights now. Permission to brief drop, sir?"

"Permission granted. CIC, brief the drop. Pilots, bring us around in a wide circle and maintain altitude three thousand meters or greater. I want plenty of warning if one of those bastards tries to pull something funny. Sensors, prioritize analysis of possible enemy Gundam... I want the goods on him ASAP!" The Knight-Lieutenant sat down in the command chair, between and above CIC and Weapons stations, looking at his own screens, which were similar to the CIC operators in that all data gathered by the mothership was routed to him for review, allowing him to act as a backup CIC operator and also maintain total awareness of how his vessel, the jet in this case, fit into the picture of the overall battlefield.

Meyrin chewed her lip as she scanned the info being sent to her for a couple of seconds, fitting the raw data into the mental outline that she would use to condense it into something useful for the pilots, who were relying on her briefing to make sense of the torrents of sensor images and computer analysises they were recieving from the mothership. If the Solar Knights had been a pure Coordinator unit, she could probably have sufficed with just the data transmittal and a few highlights of the most pertinent info, but many Naturals, even the most elite ones that were in the Solar Knights, sometimes had trouble processing that much data all at once, and so it was her job to filter things a bit for them. "Listen up, Camelot Flights. The situation groundside is becoming critical. Orb Mobile Forces have suffered nearly fifty percent casualties at last report, and are quickly sustaining moderate to severe damage even as they fight on. The Warmaster is currently still operating, and has entered near point blank range. The battle is currently raging practically right under you, in the middle of the national park area, between two ridgelines."

"What happened!? Last report you gave us five minutes ago had Orb wiping the floor with the Brotherhood! How could they suffer a reversal so quickly!?" Lain protested, his eyes wide with shock, his hands twitching with rage on his controls. He KNEW those guys in the Special Projects Squadron... they'd been drinking buddies of his! He'd trained with them... even LIVED for a while with a couple! Even outnumbered... with a Gundam in support he could hardly imagine a situation that would be able to overwhelm them so thoroughly so quickly!

"Exact cause of current combat situation is unknown, Perenor Lead. Our best guess is that the Orb forces drove the Brotherhood out of the city and pursued without waiting for reinforcement, only to be led into a trap, possibly with extra Brotherhood forces, including an as yet unknown Gundam." Meyrin replied, with a wince of sympathy. These were Lain's friends maybe, countrymen certainly. He'd been so confident in them, had been saying that the Solar Knights probably wouldn't even be needed after the Dawndrakes got through with the Brotherhood. Now they were being crushed, and might not even survive long enough to be relieved by the Solar Knights. "Sensors is currently trying to identify enemy Gundam and get us an estimate of its abilities. So far the dust and smoke have prevented us from getting a good look at it, but the thermal signature is unlike anything I've ever seen before... its blocking out everything around it for a dozen meters in every direction... like a small star! There's also six Zealots and three Martyrs remaining, the presence of Martyrs, which did not appear in the city, lending more credence to the ambush theory."

"Like a small star..." Eric repeated softly, calling up the sensor sweeps of the enemy Gundam onto his main screen. He blanched almost at once, his face going very pale and sweat beading up on his brow and neck. "Unknown my ASS!" Eric shivered and gulped loudly. It sure as hell wasn't unknown to him... he'd NEVER be able to forget this kind of thermal reading, and the type of Mobile Suit it belonged to, and the type of devastation it was capable of wreaking, pretty much as much as it wanted to. "That's the fucking Pulsar... or something very much like it!"

"The Pulsar...?" Shinn mulled the name over in his thoughts, and found himself sweating as well, though for slightly different reasons. He'd fought alongside the Pulsar for a brief time on the moon, and had been deeply impressed both by the pilot's skill and the power of the machine. To think that they were now likely going into combat against such a powerful foe... it made him excited! He lived for such challenges as this!

"I take it that's a bad thing?" Lunamaria asked, disliking the shaken tone in Eric's normally steadfast voice. Not much bothered Eric... he was a real veteran soldier, one of the most veteran in the entire Solar Knights actually, who'd fought in most major battles of the Isolation era, almost all of them alongside some of the best pilots the Isolation had to offer. If something could freak Eric out it had to be...

"Eh. It's just a Gundam. All the Brotherhood Gundams have been kind of lame so far, why should this one be any different?" Lain chortled. Like Shinn, he was now positively looking forward to being able to test his mettle against this new foe, and getting some damned payback!

"Drop in t minus six and counting." Meyrin cut in as a reminder. "Four... three... two... one... DROP!"

Several tens of thousands of meters above the circling mothership, more explosive bolts detonated and decorated the upper atmosphere with more metal scrap that mimicked in many ways the radar and sensor profiles of the Archons as they descended through the atmosphere, more decoys in case of hostile defensive anti-air weapons or interceptors. It wasn't needed in this case, but it was standard protocol... the Solar Knights would only infrequently be possessed of completely detailed information on the capabilities of the enemies in their drop zones, and even then it was possible to fall victim to a deception. Better safe than sorry. Using small jets of air to maneuver in the near vacuum of the extreme upper atmosphere, the Solar Knights adjusted themselves into a formation that, when viewed from the top down or the bottom up, would look like two diamonds of eight Archons, with the outer diamond consisting of Gawain and Galahad flights, trailing about a thousand meters behind and above the inner diamond, consisting of Perenor and Lancelot flights.

"Gawain Flight, confirmed all Archons detached and dropping in formation. Commencing final readiness checks."

"Galahad Flight, all Archons detached and dropping in formation."

"Perenor Flight, all Archons in formation and ready to go. Bring em on!"

"Lancelot Flight, all Archons entering the atmosphere in controlled fall state, in formation and ready for battle."

"You were saying, Galahad Lead?" Meyrin prompted, after they completed the formal post drop readiness checks and confirmations. "We don't have anything in our sensors banks about this Gundam, anything you can offer us would be very helpful. T minus one hundred ten to powered flight. Combat zone is..." Meyrin cut off as a huge flash of light from the ground below momentarily made the ground appear to be glowing like the surface of the sun, before dying away after a few seconds. The sensor tech who'd been peering closely at his camera displays at the time sagged back in his chair, moaning and clutching at his eyes, temporarily blinded and stunned by the sudden flare, his cameras dead and black, burned out. Backup cameras came online, as the other sensor displays wobbled and warbled with alarms and warnings.

"Cut those sirens! Sensors, report origin of sensor alarms! What the hell was that flash of light!?" The Knight-Lieutenant ordered, blinking spots out of the corners of his eyes... he'd just been taking his eyes away from the camera screen when they flashed like a photographer taking a picture, only ten times as bright.

"Sir! We're reading an enormous discharge of neutron, gamma and alpha radiation on the ground below! Levels consistent with the prolonged activation of an Alliance era Cyclops system, but much more confined in scope. It appears focused into some sort of beam weapon discharged FROM the enemy Gundam! Four Zealots and two Martyrs have been utterly annihilated... he shot his own side, sir! Wait... no... Orb forces... Orb forces appear to be annihilated sir! The Warmaster is damaged, and the Orb Mobile Unit has been... wiped out."

"He took out nine Mobile Suits in ONE SHOT!?" The Knight-Lieutenant gaped, swallowing heavily as he fought for his composure. "Estimate on range and recharge time of enemy weapon? Are we in danger?"

"Possibly sir. No estimates on enemy range or recharge rate at this time. We're on backup sensors pretty much across the board sir... the primaries were all looking at him when he fired, and they're shot with overload feedback!"

"Camelot Zulu Five, this is Gawain Lead. What the HELL was that burst of light we just saw? I could see it through the thermal shockwave!" Lunamaria demanded, blinking the harsh line of purple and black from her vision, staring blearily through the rosy red shimmer of dissipating heat in front of her, as her Archon plunged nearly straight down through the atmosphere, at an angle of descent that would see it flame out from friction if not for the ablative gel covering it in a semi-liquid, friction reducing, heat diluting sheathe. The Archon rocked and shuddered and trembled around her, shaking her like a bad theme park ride, but she was getting used to it. It felt like the Archon was just seconds away from spinning out of control and flaming out... and while that was in some ways true, this shaking and rattling was actually the sign of a good drop.

"It was... an unknown form of extremely high energy radiation weapon, fired by the enemy Gundam. Range and recharge rate currently unknown. Damage potential... off the charts. He just annihilated nine Mobile Suits with a single blast... six of them his own guys! The Orb unit has been... wiped out. The Warmaster is still operational, but looks damaged. T minus eighty three till powered flight."

"That's too long! They won't last that long!" Lain protested, his voice raw, a murderously grim expression set on his face. "We need to get there sooner!"

"Belay that, Perenor Lead!" The Knight-Lieutenant cut in harshly. "You guys are going as fast as you safely can. The Warmaster will have to fend for itself. Its a Gundam, it should be fine..."

"Bullshit!" Eric retorted. "Fine!? Sir, did you not SEE what just happened? That blast was visible from ORBIT! He wiped out more than half a platoon in a single shot! Sir, I am familiar with the basic capabilities of this type of enemy Gundam, and I tell you with utmost seriousness... the Warmaster does not HAVE eighty seconds to spare! It probably doesn't even have TEN seconds to spare, but it might get lucky... we have to do something!"

"Roger that. This is Lancelot Lead, to Lancelot Flight. Maintain normal drop rate and position. I don't want anyone to follow me. CIC, I'm entering powered flight, setting course as transmitted." Shinn replied, his voice cold, his eyes set. Riding to the rescue of an Orb Gundam wasn't exactly his ideal situation, but he had to bear in mind what Luna had said... it wasn't the fault of EVERYONE in Orb what had happened to him. His blame should be rightfully directed at the nation's leaders and government, not its citizens, who were his responsibility to protect, now that he was part of the USN. Even if they happened to be Gundam pilots who should have known better than to try and do everything themselves.

"Lancelot Lead, this is Camelot Lead... you will do no such thing! Maintain current drop rate and formation! Entering powered flight at your current speed and altitude is insane!"

"Genius and Insanity are two sides of one coin, sir. I can handle it, and so can the Archon. Power... on. Entering powered dive." Shinn replied, the shaking and shuddering of his Archon intensifying dramatically as the HiMat wings unfolded and his thrusters kicked him in the back, sending him hurtling towards the green and brown ground below like a spear hurled from heaven. He cut out warning klaxons and ignored the rising temperature in the cockpit. He'd read that Kira Yamato had once survived an orbit to surface transition in his original Gundam... there was no reason Shinn shouldn't be able to do the same in an Archon three generations more advanced than the original G weapons! He'd need to change his flight suit when this was all done, but if that was the sacrifice required, so be it.

"Lancelot Lead, if you don't pull out of that dive right this instant, I will have you court martialed for disobeying orders!"

"You can court martial me if I fail, sir. If I succeed, I won't even demand an award, how about that?" Shin gritted his teeth in an facimile of a smile.

"Knight-Ensign, if you fail... you'll be dead, a smoking crater on the ground!"

"Win-win situation for him then." Lain observed, shaking his head in admiration. He'd been planning on doing something similar, but they were still too high up. Another ten seconds and he'd be on Shinn's tail. Damn Coordinators and their higher physical tolerances... he was stealing the damn show! Ah well... at least it was for a good cause!

"Shinn!"

"I know what I'm doing, Luna... don't worry."

"You're such a reckless idiot! Who are you trying to impress!? Damn it, you'd better not die... I'm going to punch your lights out afterwards!" Luna scolded, wondering why her own stomach was fluttering so wildly all of a sudden.

"Shinn... don't let that Gundam get close to you, it's powerful like you wouldn't believe..." Eric warned.

"I've fought beside the Pulsar before. I'm well aware of what it can do." Shinn answered tightly. Though it did beg the question of what he was going to do once he got down there. Eric was right, the enemy Gundam, if it was even close to the Pulsar, was far out of his weight class in terms of pure capability. It would depend on whether the pilot was as top notch as his machine or not. If not, then Shinn might be able to make up the difference with his skills. If so... well, he hoped that wasn't the case, to put it mildly. He focused on even getting to that point... at this speed, and with the extra air drag created by his deployed HiMat wings, even a slight error could send him spinning out of control to his death, because he'd black out from the G forces and not be able to pull out of the fall. He blinked, seeing huge explosions curling up at him from the ground below... from above they looked like small volcano's erupting on the ground. Man, what was he throwing himself into down there...?

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Michael weathed the first Magnus shot using all four Positron Reflector shields, the two in his palms and the two in his wing tips. The force of the detonation, as the massive shell, which was too large and heavy to penetrate the outer magnetic film of the fields, and thus could not pierce them in order to be annihilated by the antimatter molecules contained within, struck his shields was enough to push the Vengeance backwards, feet digging furrows in the ground, entire frame shaking with the effort. The ground shattered and collapsed in a half cirle around the point of impact, like a giant fist had reached down and snatched up a handful of dirt, while smoke and dust blasted into the air in an enormous geyser of pulverized stone and melted dirt. The fire and light from the explosion roiled and coilled around the Vengenace's shields like a living thing, trying to caress and devour the Gundam behind the energy barriers, but to no avail.

The second Magnus round struck the shields in the same spot as the first, buckling them slightly, feedback stress causing smoke and steam to rise from the Vengeance's palms and wingtips, joined by flashes of red and purple lightning around the emitters themselves as they struggled, even with the FPR at maximum power, to absorb and redirect the titanic explosive forces of the Earthshaker shell. Once more the Vengeance was propelled backwards, its heels skidding and sparking on the rocky ground, splintering trees and bushes with its legs and back. Quick as only a top level pilot connected to a NIC system could be, Michael dropped the Vengeance flat on its back and held his shields at an angle, suspecting that the third direct hit in such a short time span might be the one that proved that even normally invincible shields could be battered through with enough brute force. So instead he glanced the third shell up and away from him, not providing enough of a solid impact to trigger the payload, instead causing the eight ton munition to skid and flip through the air before landing on the hillside a few hundred meters upslope, exploding there and taking the top pretty much right off the hill.

Michael rolled the Vengeance to the side and handsprung up to a thruster assisted sprint, one hand reaching up to snatch out the QC zweihander from his back as he dashed to the side. He could feel the crosshairs of the Warmaster's Earthshaker Magnus and other weapon systems tracking him, only a few scant meters behind his scrambling form. He brought the Vengeance to a sudden halt, going from an almost four hundred kilometer per hours sprint to standing still in less than a second. He stutter stepped, regaining his balance and then altered course, burning straight towards the Warmaster, not sprinting anymore, legs only feet from the ground as his thrusters propelled him like a bullet towards the Orb Gundam. As he got closer and closer, sparks and arcs of bluer electricity started dancing and crawling across the Vengeance's outer armor, the LCR rippling and twitching as the Pandemonium ECM began to interfere with the electrical currents holding the armor in its current shape and coloration.

Michael had miscalculated though... Dearka and Miriallia had experience with Pulsar class Gundams, and their incredible maneuevering capabilities, including the ability to go from max speed to total stop in the blink of an eye without causing harm to the pilot or Gundam. So instead of tracking his aim far past the suddenly inbound Vengeance, Dearka grinned and settled his crosshairs directly on its rapidly approaching form. This guy was good, but he wasn't Frost, thank god. His reactions were top notch, but not even close to the primal, instinctual movements he'd seen Frost use while in the Pulsar, when the Pulsar would sometimes seem to be an entirely new type of being, more than human or machine! He fired his howitzers and Magnus, calling for Miri to brace herself, as they were likely to take some backwash damage from the almost point blank explosion. Dearka brought up their Citadel Shield, hoping it would mitigate somewhat the damage.

Michael saw his miscalculation at the last moment, as the Magnus pointed in his face and blasted fire at him like the very mouth of hell, accompanied by the four smaller gouts from the 375mm howitzers on the Warmaster's chest. There was no time to bring his wing emitters around, no time to even take his hands off his sword. Michael stopped the Vengeance dead in its tracks, jammed his feet onto the ground and stabbed the tip of the QC zweihander in the ground, its flat facing the incoming shells as he braced himself behind the wide blade. Now would be the true test of the resilience of Quantum Crystal! The quintet of shells struck at almost the same time, and dust, fire, smoke and light obscured everything in a firestorm almost forty meters across. The Warmaster stumbled backwards under the concussive force of the blasts, sparks and oil squirting from its impaled knee joint, barely keeping its feet.

When the smoke and dust cleared some, the QC sword still existed, whole and unscratched, though it lay on the half molten earth untended at the bottom of a eight meter deep crater in the ground. Splatters of a viscous, off-grey semi-fluid smoked and fizzled all around the crater and some of the surrounding crater... blasted off gouts of LCR armor. Of the Vengeance itself there was no sign. Dearka cautiously limped the Warmaster to the edge of the crater and looked around. The Magnus still had one more shell, and he was not feeling at all unsettled about using it, even if the enemy Gundam was half blown apart already. He'd turn the bastard into atomized dust, and not feel a bit sorry, given what the enemy Gundam had done to the Dawndrakes and its own forces with that radiation pistol. His sensors suddenly screamed alerts, and Miriallia cried out, as the Vengeance, which had flown pretty much straight up out of the worst of the explosion, landed behind them, QC fingerblades already extended, slicing deeply into either shoulder of the Warmaster, wrecking the missile tubes and more importantly, the twin Pandemonium ECM emitters.

The Vengeance looked like hell warmed over, dark grey internal skeletal structure visible in large patches across its body, especially on the front of the arms, torso and legs. Half of the face armor was plain gone, exposing dull grey cheek structure and even wiring. One pink camera eye lens was gone and the other was heavily cracked. The Red EDEN microsheathe and LCR systems were in overdrive mode, finally able to operate coherently again now that the Pandemonium ECM was down, drawing material from the ground under the Vengeance's feet and the dust and smoke swirling around its body to create more of themselves, fabricating new armor at a visible pace, stretching it across the exposed structural frames and adding layer after layer, regrowing the Vengeance's skin like a monster out of a movie. The Vengeance's profile slimmed down, becoming more skeletal as armor shifted and flowed to cover all areas equally, with armor layers moving from undamaged locations to exposed locations, even as the armor started to bulk back up. Cracks in the remaining camera eye slowly began fusing back into a seamless lens, though fully repairing the eye and replacing the other would take hours.

"No fucking way!" Dearka howled in protest, trying to stagger the Warmaster around to draw a bead on the Vengeance, which was getting less damaged looking by the second! Already there were no more exposed structure or skeleton, and the armor was starting to shimmer and return to the translucent purple hue, from the off-grey base state. In a minute here, except for the eye, there was going to be no outward sign he'd even HIT the bastard at all! "How the HELL is it doing that!?"

"I can't believe what I'm seeing." Miriallia whispered. "I've heard of automated self repair systems... but those are just concept designs... wishful thinking! And those are large scale, macro-robot type systems designed for space colonies and large spaceships! This thing is just putting itself back together, out of thin air as far as my sensors can detect! Its almost supernatural!"

"Well I'll just have to blow it apart again then!" Dearka growled. "What are the other Brotherhood machines doing?"

"Keeping their distance, it looks like. I don't think they want to get between two Gundams brawling."

"Whats our damage looking like? Damn it, stop MOVING!" Dearka cursed the Vengeance, as it continually, almost casually sidestepped around the Warmaster as Dearka hobbled around in a turn, mobility totally compromised by his wrecked knee joint. "What about the Solar Knights?"

"A little bit under a minute for the Knights. Our knee is about to fall off, especially if you keep stressing it like that. Pandemonium ECM emitters and shoulder missile tubes are all destroyed. His claws went right through our armor like it wasn't even there... despite being physical blades. Definitely better than the Pulsar could manage. We've got one shot left for the Magnus, and about forty percent ammunition for the howitzers. Beam weapons are still doing just fine, little good that it does us against him." Miriallia's voice was exhausted, almost monotone. Too much stress, too much excitement, too much near death experience... she was wrung out, emotionally and intellectually, and starting to get there physically. "I think our number may have come up..."

"Don't talk like that! We survived everything up to this point! We've been in worse situations! Frost was a hundred times as bad as this guy, even if the Pulsar was less advanced! Even Cray was worse than this cold ass motherfucker! We beat those guys, we'll beat this one! I am not going to die! I am not going to die until I've given you children, started our family, somehow, someway!"

"But, Dearka... you..."

"I don't care about the ICD... if it takes forever, then I'll find some damn way for us to live that long! I won't die here, like this! I was stupid to let something I couldn't change affect me so much... but I won't just roll over and let it happen anymore! I can beat it, just like I can beat this bastard! I can beat him with your help, just like I can beat ICD with your help! You, Mir... your help!"

"Odd time for a "new you" resolution... but I guess life or death is the best emotional cruicible..." Miriallia smiled faintly. Her smile faded with a screech of rending, bending metal. The Warmaster stopped turning, knee joint warped and jammed beyond any further movement by the constant twisting stress of the turn. "Oh, fuck..."

The Vengeance moved in a flash, diving into the fresh crater, pouncing on its sword, turning a front flip, planting its feet on the far lip of the crater and bouncing back at the Warmaster, twisting in midair to bring the sword down from on high. It happened so fast neither Dearka or Miriallia had time to cry out, until after the fact, as the Warmaster's right arm, as well as the Earthshaker Magnus, dropped with a rumbling CLANG to the ground, sheared neatly and cleanly away at the shoulder joint. The Vengeance spun, bringing the sword back up, bisecting all four howitzer barrels at an angle, lopping them off to fall with a metallic clatter. The sword came back down, only to deflect in a shower of golden lightning as Dearka barely managed to interpose the left arm Citadel Shield to prevent them from being split into two. The Warmaster teetered, knocked off balance, unable to move its right leg to compensate. The Vengeance sidestepped and brought the sword around from the vulneable right side, though for an inexplicable reason the blade turned flat on just before the blow landed, so instead of being cut in half at the chest, the Warmaster was knocked sprawling, face first into the crater, where it lay, unable to regain its feet, especially with only one arm and leg working.

Michael worked his jaw, staring at his hands in perplexed fury. So close, so many times, and he STILL couldn't kill them!? What was wrong? He should have diced the Warmaster to pieces with the first blow! He stabbed the zweihander into the ground nearby, not trusting himself to swing it properly anymore. He took out the 660mm Radiation Cannon, without stylistic twirls this time, and slammed home another nuclear cartridge. This ended NOW! The green ready light blinked on and he pointed the pistol with both hands into the crater, at the helpless Warmaster's point blank back. There were no other targets to distract him this time! Just this one enemy remaining before the mission was complete! His time was almost out... less than thirty seconds before the Solar Knights showed up and they entered phase three! "Good riddance!" Michael snarled, finger tightening on the trigger.

Even as the barrel started spinning, building the pre-discharge fields though, a thin missile with an elongated, needle like armor piercing head sped down from the heavens directly overhead and pierced the 660mm Radiation Cannon right through the middle of its cartridge housing. Red and bright blue and green lightning spat in all directions from the punctured weapon, the fields inside destabilizing, no longer directing the imminent detonation of the pocket nuke inside the cartridge. Michael stared at the ruined weapon in shocked horror before hurling it away from him as hard as he could, Positron Shields springing to maximum potency life all around his frontal arc. Red and gold light streamed brightly from the backfiring weapon for a few seconds as it sailed through the air, before the missile at last detonated, bursting the pistol asunder and scattering the nuclear bomb before it could explode. There was a brief strobe of red-green-yellow sparks in the air from a single millisecond long radiation pulse, but that was it. No point blank nuclear bomb detonation, which would have probably spelled doom for everyone within a hundred meters, shielded or not.

"Who... where!?" Michael swore, seeing a Solar Knight's Archon speeding down at him from several hundred meters up. How had he gotten here so soon, nearly twenty seconds ahead of Noah's inside information gleaned timer!? His timer was being fed to him by a pirated signal from the very mothership of this Solar Knight! It couldn't be wrong! Well, he reflected as he took up his sword and prepared to meet the charging newcomer, it WAS wrong. No time for regrets! It was time for phase three! He wondered how he was going to explain to Noah why he wasn't able to kill a single Gundam, with all of his advantages... his head really hurt right now!

------------------------------------

"Radiation weapon destroyed." Shinn's report brought smiles and a few cheers to the faces of the people in the EWS mothership. Even the Knight-Lieutenant, who'd been brooding on the thrashing his authority had taken because of Shinn's disobedience, and just how he could ethically express his displeasure to Lancelot Lead... without choking, knives, guns or nooses being involved... managed to crack a relieved grin for a moment or two. "Moving to engage enemy Gundam. Allied Gundam appears crippled but still alive."

"Reinforcements on the ground in fifteen seconds, Lancelot Lead. Just keep him busy." Meyrin relayed. She was astounded, privately, at the risks Shinn had taken. Was he wanting to impress Luna THAT much? Men could be so stupid, thinking that reckless valor was a surefire turn on for girls. Luna'd learn him good for making her worry about him. Perhaps even more than usual because they were so close... despite her protestations to the contrary. "Zealots and Martyr moving up on you from behind."

"I see em." Shinn acknowledged, activating his hoverthrusters as he transitioned from flight to ground operations, HiMat wings tucking themselves neatly onto his back once more, as he drew the combination sword and accelerated impulse cannon. He fired the rest of his initial salvo of twelve missiles at the enemy Gundam, but the faintly reddish shields projected from the wing tips gobbled them up like they hadn't even been fired. Likewise the beams from his twin shoulder mount, splashing against the reddish fields before dissipating harmlessly. He narrowed his eyes, gauging his timing, feeling the blood rush through his body, the impulses sparking along his nerves, his buried rage at the unfairness of life and his sorrow building, funneling into the channels he prepared for them, providing fuel for his actions. Some men fought cold... Shinn, he always fought best hot, when he was practically blanked out from rage. And he was good at inciting the anger within himself for that purpose, if less good at stopping himself afterwards.

Missiles and railgun tracers hammered into Shinn's back, messing with his balance, but he corrected almost without thinking. His mind was greying out, a great dark void opening in his soul, through which infinite space dropped a reddish seed or nut, like something you'd expect a tree or other large plant to grow from. Though there was no top or bottom, nor sides, nor scale to this void he saw, the seed still managed to strike a definite surface, hard enough to burst asunder in a spray of gold and red sparks that illuminated an entire universe. Shinn blinked, unaware of the washed out state of his eyes, as he moved past the vivid hallucination, turning to face the three remaining Brotherhood Mobile Suits, besides the Gundam, which seemed content to observe behind the safety of his shields for the moment. Let him watch then!

Shinn pointed his sword at the first Zealot, blue-purple accelerated impulse blast arrowing out to strike the Zealot on its shield, boring through the thick armor and exploding through the other side like point blank shotgun blast of ravening energy, searing bright, smoking holes through the torso and arms, before secondary explosions from the power reactor and stored ammunition pumped and twitched the Zealot and blew its arms, legs and head off on jets of flame. Shinn guarded against a trio of intense green beams and a pair of red-blue hyper impulse cannon shots behind his shield, sideslipping on his hoverthrusters like an figure skater dodging a pair of hockey players as they tried to bull rush him. His shoulder beam cannons blew the back of the second Zealot's head out through its face, decapitaing it even as a second blast from his sword tip cannon blasted a three meter wide hole in its torso and dropped it smoking to the ground.

The Martyr spun with great agility, bringing its shouler beam cannons and wrist mounted hyper impulse cannons to bear again, but in his Seed rage, Shinn was moving on a level the other Corodinator could not comprehend. He whirled in close to the Martyr, shield slamming one arm wide, sending flights of missiles streaking fruitlessly off to blast fountains of rock and dirt from the hillsides, before slicing the other arm off at the shoulder, also destroying the railguns and beam cannon on that shoulder. Shinn cut off his hoverthrusters and braced one leg on the ground, thrusting his knee into the Martyr's gut and staggering it further. His sword whipped around and gutted the Martyr, almost cutting it in half at the waist. Shinn reactivated his hoverthrusters and skated well away by the time the Martyr's stunned and confused operater remembered to trigger his self destruct device, immolating the Martyr and the surrounding area in flame.

"Oi! You coulda saved some for the rest of us!" Lain complained, diving down at the head of the formation of Solar Knights who hadn't defied direct orders and possible death by using their thrusters to speed their fall. Lain pointed his sword at the enemy Gundam and blasted away, though the beam failed to penetrate the reddish fields the Gundam used as protective devices. "Damn... the hard way then eh?"

"Take the left, I'll take the..." Shinn cut off, desperately defending himself as the Vengeance launched itself at him, moving with such grace and speed that Shinn was left speechless. The QC sword blade crunched into his interposed Citadel Shield and cut slightly through to score the physical shield itself in a shower of golden sparks, before the insistently reforming lightwave barrier forced the blade away. Caught with no leverage on his hoverthrusters, Shinn was pushed backwards awkwardly by the kinetic force of the blow, and then slammed even further backwards when the Vengeance flipped around in a somersault and kicked off from Shinn's shield with both legs, flying back at the rest of the unit. "Bastard!" Shinn snarled, face burning with anger at being used as a trampoline!

Eric didn't waste any time on anything tricky... he just cut loose with all his weapons at once, hoping to at least slow down or distract the enemy Gundam pilot. It did little good, the beams, even the accelerated impulse cannon blast, struck the Vengeance full on and just bounced off, while the missiles missed wide and long, unable to match their velocities to that of the Vengeance at such close range. Other Solar Knights cried out in shock and complaint as their own beam blasts were likewise passively negated, and their missiles and hurled grenades went long or short or wide as the enemy Gundam entered a dazzling set of evasive manuevers that would have left a pilot in a normal machine in a hospital, passed out from G force stresses!

Luna sheathed her own sword-cannon, after seeing three blasts in a row strike the enemy Gundam in the torso and head, with all the net effect of water from a garden hose. It was disconcerting... she'd fired the sword-cannon plenty of times on the range, she KNEW it was a very powerful and destructive weapon. What the HELL kind of armor was that anyway? With missiles and grenades not even getting close, and beams being ineffective, Luna started casting about for an alternate strategy. She supposed she could try and close to melee with the physical edge of her sword, like Lain and Shinn were attempting to do, but she'd never been more than a middling hand with the sword... her love and interest lay in ranged weapons, the heavier the better! She spotted something that drew her like a moth to flame. "Oh! Pardon me... I'm going to borrow that, if you're not using it?" Recieving no reply, she took that as acceptance, and began prising the Earthshaker Magnus from the grip of the Warmaster's severed right arm. "Let's see... how does this thing work..."

Lain skated in close on the Vengeance's left side, staying just out of sword range, just harrying the bastard, keeping him occupied as Shinn closed in from the other side in a pincer strategy. Other members of Perenor and Lancelot flights were moving in from other directions, hemming off avenues of retreat and limiting the options of the enemy Gundam just by their physical presence. Or that least that was the idea. The enemy Gundam didn't seem very impressed. "You should surrender while you have the chance!" Lain called over the international channel. Might as well try some mind games, couldn't hurt, right? "We have you surrounded and heavily outnumbered! Your allies are dead! You cannot beat us. Surrender and we shall treat you with honor, as the code of the Solar Knights demands."

"I am the Apostle of Vengeance. I do not surrender." Michael replied, with a faint smile. Palavering with the foe... oh how the mighty had fallen. It was required for phase three though. Rau would be turning over in his grave right now if he could see this! Who was... Rau... though? Micahel shook his head and focused on the here and now. The Solar Knight did have one point... Michael was starting to get surrounded. Noah would be beyond wroth if the Vegeance were to be captured. He might have that heart attack Michael was always afraid he was heading towards, and it was Michael's duty as the kid's protector and guardian to ensure nothing harmed his charge! "I have defeated Orb and its Gundam, why should I not just defeat you too?"

"Like to see you try, loony!" Lain darted forward, beam blade deactivated, sword whirling for the Vengeance's back. His arms jarred as both of the Vengeance's wings slammed down onto his sword, accepting a cut to deflect his thrust downward into the ground. And the cut shimmered and flowed away like it had never been, almost as soon as the blade pulled away from the wings. Lain stared openmouthed at that occurence, momentarily stunned with shock. Her barely got his shield up in time to deflect a backhand swipe of the Vengeance's hand, QC fingerblades extended, scoring through his Citadel shield to gouge across the physical shield beneath, even poking all the way through at one point. The wings came back around and down, and pointed their emitters in Lain's face, irising the ports open and slamming the Positron Shields open into his front torso, picking the Archon up and throwing it backward like a punch from a giant.

At the same time, Michael brought his sword around in a one handed horizontal sweep that deflected up and wide off Shinn's Citadel shield in a deluge of golden sparks. Shinn stamped forward, thrusting with his blade to score deeply into the armor on the Vengeance's leg. However, he only nicked the structural bone, and within a second of him pulling the sword away, the armor had reformed to perfection, leaving no trace of the slight internal damage. Michael adjusted his stance and put both hands on his blade this time, swinging down from on high with all the power of the Vengeance's frame behind it. Shinn's shield rose to meet it, and was cleaved halfway through before the QC blade jarred to a halt, having scored a deep gash through the Archon's left shoulder, destroying the missiles mounted there. Sparks and flames shot from the smooth edged cut, armor panels flexing and warping because of the severed internal structures. Shinn growled with anger, the left shoulder being almost fully disabled by the lucky hit. He cut around with his sword, but the Vengeance met the oncoming blade with the talons of its right hand, freshly removed from the jammed hilt of the sword.

Shinn's sword spat lightning and smoke for a second as its top two thirds fell away from the bottom third, sheared cleanly and easily through by the Vengeance's claws. Disarmed, Shinn started to fall back, before diving forward, right hand unsapping a Mobile Suit grenade from his hip and slapping it onto the Vengeance's lower chest, adhering it with magnetic locks. The Vengeance slammed its legs into him, knocking him away, but it was too late, the bomb already planted. Or it should have been, except for the NIC system, which allowed Michael to disdainfully peel the limpet grenade away with his hand and discard it harmlessly to the side, something a regularly controlled Mobile Suit or Gundam would have been unable to do. The Vengeance spun, both hands on its sword, causing the other Solar knights, who had steadily been creeping closer, to step or slide back a little, all wary of the unimaginably keen edge of the sword.

"Don't move a muscle." Lunamaria ordered, having finally figured out the Magnus. Or so she desperately hoped, as she pointed it, her Archon staggering with the weight and stress placed on her unreinforced arms, at the Vengeance from about fifty meters away. "Stay back, everyone! Keep him surrounded, but don't get in my line of fire!"

"Bravo." Michael complimented. "However you should have just fired!" His wings swept around, Positron Shields winking into existence between him and the Magnus, as Luna squeezed the trigged, smoke and shards of armor spalling off from her arm and legs joints because of the strain. The Earthshaker shell struck the fields dead on and detonated with a thunderclap like the world being shattered, the shockwave staggering the other nearby Solar Knights and the pyrotechnics blinding everyone for a few moments, as smoky cinders and half vaporized rock rained down across them. Lunamaria gaped, her eyes wide, an envious fluttering in her stomach as she stared at the destruction only a single shot had wrought. Lucky Orb Gundam, getting to use such a sweet weapon all the time! She'd give her... her... well, maybe not THAT... but something close to it... to be able to use a weapon like the Magnus all the time!

"Did I get him?" Lunamaria asked tenatively.

"Yes and no." Michael replied, the Vengeance rising on stately thrusters from the debris cloud. The sword was sheathed across his back, having been freed from Shinn's shield by the force of the Earthshaker blast. "I no longer feel the need to spar with you. My mission has been accomplished. All hail the Brotherhood!" The Vengeance hung there another second more, blue-purple energy splashing fruitlessly from its armor, before it zoomed straight upwards on a massive column of thruster flame, moving faster than their sensors could update a position for on their tactical maps. As far as the sensors were concerned, the Gundam might as well have vanished between blinks of the eye. The colossal sonic boom left behind knocked the Solar Knights sprawling, ears and heads ringing painfully. The thruster plume was visible in a two hundred mile radius, even in the middle of the day. It formed the outro of every major news channel's special report on the incident, with the common header "When will they strike again?"

----------------------------------------

"This is Karen Wayne, reporting live from the outskirts of Los Angeles Sprawl, in the aftermath of a recent terrorist attack by the organization commonly know as the Brotherhood. Several hours ago, more than ten Mobile Suits of the Brotherhood design known as "Zealots" appeared out of the harbor and started spreading mayhem and violence throughout the city, targeting municipal government structures and public safety strucutres first. The first responders from nearby FNE military forces were strongly rebuffed, due to the Brotherhood using the city and its citizens as a hostage against retaliation. Calls for help to the USN and international community were answered by Orb and the USN, both of whom sent units of Mobile Suits to fight off the terrorists, the newly founded Solar Knights being the USN unit sent. I am currently standing next to the wreckage of one Brotherhood Mobile Suit, destroyed by Orb's forces when they chased the terrorists out of the city and into the foothills of the nearby Fault Line Park, a national monument, after a long and pitched battle." The camera zoomed out from the red headed anchorwoman, showing the scattered and smoking remains of a explosively dismembered Mobile Suit.

"Reports about what happened next are still sketchy, but this is what we know so far. The Orb forces, accompanied by the Gundam known as the Warmaster, pursued the terrorists into the foothills and were apparently ambushed by MORE terrorists, including an as yet unseen Apostle Gundam. The regular Orb forces were wiped out, and the Warmaster crippled and nearly destroyed by the Brotherhood. If it were not for the timely and heroic efforts of the USN's Solar Knights, Orb would have lost everything. As things are, the Solar Knights quickly and efficiently destroyed the remaining terrorist Mobile Suits, and forced the Gundam, going by the name of Vengeance, to flee for its life. I think I am not alone in wanting to wish these brave new heroes of the USN and the world a very dear thank you for their efforts. Without their intervention, there is no telling what sort of catastrophe might have occured. This is Karen Wayne, in LAS, signing off." The TV clicked off, shortly before a flung shoe smacked resoundingly into its sceen.

"GAAARH!" Cagalli howled, dropping her other shoe and turning her attention back to the punching bag she'd had set up in another corner of their private suite in the National Palace, hammering her fists, elbows and shins into it with feeling. "Solar Knights this! Solar Knights that! They hardly even mention the Orb contribution! The fact that we destroyed over sixty percent of the Brotherhood forces before the Solar Knights even arrived! The fact that eight good men lost their lives, and Dearka and Miriallia almost the same... and its buried! They make it sound like we barely even did anything but show up and get our butts kicked! Long and pitched battle!? We chased them out of there like scared cats from a barn! I hate the world media! They just say what Durandel wants them to say!"

Athrun eyed the TV, but it seemed undamaged. He slowly got up from the couch, putting the remote down on the table and turned to face her. He just stood and admired her in frank admiration for a few seconds, as she huffed and puffed and battered her rage out against the heavy, water filled canvas bag. She was lovely, and even more lovely when she was angry, especially when it was directed anger, that focused her thoughts and gave rise to solutions, eventually. It was just a matter of surviving around her until that point in time. Or directing all that extra energy to other pursuits. He eyed the door. It was DEFINITELY locked this time. He'd made sure of it himself. And then reprogramed it anyway. The damn Stormhounds would have to BREAK the door down if they wanted to walk in on them now! "That's true. Shall we prepare a press release of our own? I think the footage we recovered from the Warmaster might tell a truer story."

"Wouldn't do any damn good! He'd just make it seem like we're trying to grandstand, and steal more credit than we deserve!" Cagalli thumped a fist into the bag, and followed it up with a jabbing knee. She'd changed into a loose martial artsy type outfit for this workout. This was planned rage, or rage with a plan, depending on how you wanted to look at it. She thought better when she had strong emotion to focus her mind. Anger was easy. Especially these days. "Orb, despite your efforts, isn't exactly popular with other world governments. Everyone still thinks we're a bunch of upstarts, just because we're only one small island, but we have full member state status! The FNE, the PLANTS, hell, even the ALU... they'd all be tickled pink if they could annex us into their power bloc! No, they're all too willing to see us get our noses bloodied, and they're smirking behind their condolences!" Her elbow hammered into the top of the bag and she swung around in a roundhouse kick.

Athrun approached softly and quietly from behind, not wanting to clue her in on his intentions just yet. She was enjoying her "Mad Time", and wouldn't take favorably to him adjusting it to something a bit more mutually exciting, unless he took her by surprise and gave her no choice. "Whatever his flaws, Durandel is certainly a master of manipulating the media. Even our own news stations are reporting his story of events, and already I'm starting to hear things from the other Royal houses raising misgivings about how you are handling international affairs for Orb."

"Buncha jackals!" Cagalli snorted, dropping a combination of jabs into the bag, shaking her head to dispel some of the sweat in her eyes. "Always willing to follow my lead when the going gets really tough, but in peace time, when I need some extra support, they back away like I was red hot! They'll be trying to get me to give up being Chief Representative here soon... and with too many more events like this, they might get the backing they need to force it through Parliament! Unlike Durandal, I'm not so good with twisting things to look good for me... I tell it how it is, not how it best suits me to have it appear!"

"Honesty is a burden when it comes to being a political leader." Athrun agreed, stopping behind her, close enough to reach out and grab her. "The people may love you for it, but your own government is consistently exasperated by you, and that goes ten times as much for other governments. You would not believe the things I hear about you when I go to ambassadorial conferences... I dare not repeat them here and now, for fear of you destroying that poor bag outright."

"They can suck it up, and so can the bag! I don't care much either way if they don't like me... as long as they'll work with me in the interests of the common good, that's all I need from them! I get results, remember... way better than their fucking compromises ever could!" Cagalli punched one more time and then straightened. The hair rose on the back of her neck, as she sensed the presence behind her. She began to turn, suddenly realizing Athrun wasn't on the couch like she'd thought.

"I dunno. Some compromises can bear great fruit." Athrun clasped her to him in a tight hug.

"Hey! I'm thinking here! What the hell do you think yer doing!?" Cagalli protested, squirming in his grip, arms pinned at her sides. She may as well have been struggling in the grip of a Gundam, for the good it did her.

"Such as this one." Athrun smiled, reaching suddenly up with one hand to tilt her face up to meet his coming down. Her eyes widened greatly as their mouths met, and then narrow with fury. She tried to push him away, but he kept her confined, riding out her initial displeasure, waiting for her resistance to melt and mellow a little. This was the first time they'd both been alone together for weeks, and nobody was going to bother her in her current enraged state, so it was high time he took a personal hour. Or two. He slowly released her lips once she stopped squirming and writhing so much, her eyes un-narrowing and staring up at him with an expression of slight confusion. "I know you like your Mad Time... but you can get mad anytime."

"H-hey... I'm supposed to be working here! So are you!"

"This is work. I've dedicated my life to this work." Athrun replied, kissing her again. He brought his hand up from below and gently applied pressure, causing her eyes to skyrocket open and her pupils to dilate. He picked her up and took her back to the couch. "It's hard work too, sometimes. But very enjoyable." He breathed in her ear, as they lay down.

Once they'd both worn themselves out, they sat together on the couch and Athrun flipped the TV back on, though to a neutral station with the volume very low, while Cagalli fetched lounging robes for the both of them to replace the somewhat well used garments they'd discarded at various points during the course of things. Once they were both proper, Cagalli unlocked the door on Athrun's advice, not needing to have it broken down now that they had finished up. She returned to the couch and sat down with a sigh, before leaning against his shoulder and chest. "You know, I really had a good Mad going there, until you interrupted me. Who knows what sort of problems I could have solved if you hadn't cut it short!"

"That's the first complaint I've heard in almost two hours. Glory be." Athrun replied lazily, his head canted back on the armrest, eyes closed. "Remember to take your morning after pill... this wasn't a totally planned event after all... I didn't exactly have time to get dressed up for it."

"Thanks for your concern. You could have just, you know... been a gentleman." Cagalli retorted softly, her own eyes drifting towards a doze.

"Since when I have needed to be a gentleman these past few years?" She didn't have to see Athrun's smile to be able to picture it. His smug tone of voice said it all. God but it bugged her sometimes... and comforted her other times. "I was just thinking that getting pregnant might not fit in so well with your plans at the moment."

"I'm... not sure." Cagalli replied, after a few seconds consideration. "I mean... I'm ALWAYS going to be busy, even if I give up being Chief Representative, which I have no intention of doing unless they force me out kicking and screaming. And it's not like I don't have people I could rely on to watch the soup for me, once I needed the time off... Kisaka, Lacus, Kira, Murrue... even you to an extent. Though maybe I should exclude Lacus and Kira... they might be busy themselves."

"Oh really?" Athrun asked, cracking an eye to peer down at her.

Cagalli bit at her thumb in mild constrenation. Lacus had wanted her to keep it a secret! Oh well... who was Athrun gonna tell anyway? "Well... I'm not supposed to talk about it, but... yeah. They've been trying for a while now. But don't tell Kira!"

Athrun snorted. "I think Kira MIGHT be aware, given his role in the process. I sure as hell am, and I don't know many guys that would NOT be!"

"That's what I said, but Lacus still wants to keep it a secret. Doesn't want him to know how often they failed, I guess. Something about bad for his self esteem and not wanting to trouble him and... Lacus sort of crap. She's even going so far as to sneak slips from MY pregnancy test kit because she's afraid to buy one herself! Talk about weird, eh!?"

"You have a pregnancy test kit?" Athrun asked, blankly.

"Well, condoms and birth control, even these days, aren't PERFECT, you know! And you DON'T have ICD, thank god, so technically, accidents are possible! Especially since you haven't been a gentleman about it since the end of the Second Valentine War!"

"You're the one who told me, because of the efficiency of condoms and birth control, that I didn't HAVE to be a gentleman about it anymore because we are married!" Athrun pointed out. "All you gotta do is ask, you know!"

"Since I'm so OFTEN able to at that point in time!" Cagalli retorted, somewhat fondly. "But back to the topic at hand... I mean, if Lacus is trying... why shouldn't we? I think Katie might be trying to force the issue with Ysak too, sometime soon."

"Uh..."

"I mean, we'll be left out at this stage! Except for Dearka and Mirialla... damn it but ICD is so fucking unfair! But I don't want to be the only one in my peer group who doesn't when they have the option to!"

"Uhm..."

"So yeah... uhm..." Cagalli fidgeted with her hands for a few seconds. "Aren't you going to say something?" She craned her head, looking up at Athrun staring down at her, eyes wide with a stunned expression on his face. She wrinkled her nose at him. "Don't look at me like I just shotgunned you out of left field. You telling me you never even considered this?"

"It was... uh... NOT in the front of my mind." Athrun hedged. "I mean, I know how biology works... but I... err... well... pregnancy by peer pressure?"

"Babies aren't things that only happen to other people, dumbass." Cagalli thumped him not so lightly on the chest with her fist. "I don't wanna go through it all by myself, from a feminine standpoint! And Lacus is the one that started it all! Don't you want our kids to grow up with our friend's kids?"

"Kids!?" Athrun started edging away from her. "Plural? More than one?"

"Yeah... what's your problem... you got the EASY job!" Cagalli latched onto him, unwilling to let him retreat. "If we try now, our son or daughter will probably have at least one or two good friends to go through school with, right from the get go!"

"The way you're thinking about this is totally alien to me! Your logic is flawed! You can't just spring this sort of shit on a guy out of the blue!" Athrun protested.

"Hey... you're the horny bastard who dragged me away from my Mad Time, and refuses to be a gentleman! Be grateful I'm even involving you in the process, rather than waiting to spring it on you after the fact, like Lacus is sorta doing for Kira!"

"I am so going to grind up birth control pills and mix them into your donuts and morning tea. You can NOT just spring this on me! Kids!?"

"It's decided then. Now we have to start thinking about names."

"It's not even slightly decided!"

"You'll do it if you know what's good for you. Unless you want me to insinuate to Ysak and Dearka that you just CAN'T perform, and not cause of ICD."

"Hey now! I can't believe you're going to resort to BLACKMAILING your husband into getting you pregnant! Are you even listening to yourself!?"

"I'm only going to resort to measures you make me resort to, like always. Just play along like a good little boy and I won't have to hurt you. Too much. Some days."

-------------------------------------

"So what's this info that your friend sent you that's so important?" Dearka asked, as Waltfeld took his travel bag and heaved it into the back of the van with just one arm, though it had taken most of Dearka's strength to get it down the stairway from his quarters aboard ship using two hands. Then again, that WAS the robot arm.

"Dunno. Dicosta wouldn't say. Said he couldn't trust the comm lines. Poor guy's getting paranoid... spending too much time in Intel work does that to you. He seems to like it though. Just said he might be onto some leads that would finally blow this whole Brotherhood fiasco wide open. Dicosta's never failed me before, and its not like I'm doing much else that can't be put on hold. Same for Murrue." Waltfeld shrugged, taking Miriallia's bag next. "You sure you two want to come? Not so many hours ago you two had to practically be cut out of the Warmaster, since it was lying on its front and they couldn't get heavy equipment close enough to pick it up."

"Yeah, we're sure." Miriallia replied firmly. "We got banged around a little, but really, compared to some of what we've been through before, it wasn't so bad. Besides, we've noticed a few things ourselves that makes us want to check out the PLANTS a little more thoroughly."

"Like the portable GENESIS X-ray laser that the Vengeance used to roast those poor Dawndrake pilots, and almost us as well!" Dearka added, with a shiver. "That whole Vengeance Gundam is based off a ZAFT design. From what I understand, we never figured out who built the Pulsar. Maybe it was the Brotherhood... though it scares me to think they may have been active THAT far back!"

"It's a very real possibility." Cyprus stuck his head out of the passenger seat of the car. "The Brotherthood may have indeed been influencing events from behind the scenes for more than a decade by now. Their true reach may never be known. And it might be better that way."

"Uh, sure." Dearka agreed. "Why are you coming? I mean, I can see Mr. Waltfeld and Ms. Ramius, me and Mir have our reasons, so do Kira and Lacus... but why you Stormhounds?"

"I am bored as FUCK!" Alkire replied laconically, from the driver's seat. "Besides, I want to see my daughter. And her pale haired, blued eyed, star crossed lover boy too. I gotta put the squeeze on him and get him to buy that ring for her I KNOW he's been meaning to but keeps forgetting..."

"Uhm... because the Lt gave me one of those looks and said "Ramierez... come with me"?" Ramierez answered, shrinking away from another neutral glance from his boss. "Besides, its common fact that you lot are helpless outside your Mobile Suits..."

"And sometimes even inside them too. I tell you, it was more luck than skill that even let us touch that Vengeance." Dearka replied, shaking his head.

"I still have some access to the old EFSOU and Blue Cosmos intelligence networks in the PLANTS." Cyprus said, staring off into some unnamable distance. "They aren't people who can be re-activated by just anyone though, if they can be re-activated at all. And what Ramierez says is true... you will need security, especially if we do happen to stumble upon pertinent info regarding the Brotherhood. I'm sure they won't be passive about letting us poke around."

"Too bad Cagalli and Athrun can't come to throw around the heavy political firepower. What's up with that emergency Parliament meeting?" Miriallia asked, as she climbed into the van.

"World opinion is starting to turn against Orb, or rather against Chief Representative Zala-Attha, for her continued opposition to Secretary of Defense Durandel's USN re-armament plans, iincluding the Solar Protection Fleet and the new media darlings of the Solar Knights." Cyprus explained. "Likewise, dissident factions within Orb's own government, especially in some of the other Royal families, who have long disapproved of Cagalli for many reasons, are starting to see this as an opportunity to finally replace her with someone more mallable as head of state. The subject of this emergency meeting in a day or two is whether or not to support the USN re-armament plan. If her enemies can get the majority needed to over-rule the Queen's decision on this matter, then she can basically kiss her tenure as Chief Representative goodbye, because her enemies will know they have the strength to bypass her when they want to."

"So... what are the odds?" Dearka asked, shocked to hear of this unrest so close at hand.

"Very, very close." Ramierez replied casually. "Too close to make a sure bet, lets put it that way. All depends on a whole lot of factors... maybe even what some people have for breakfast that morning!" He smiled briefly. "Mrs. Zala-Attha is one of the most admirable people I've met... but the things I admire her for, make a lot of politically powerful people HATE her guts, and they won't waste an opporunity to stick it to her cellblock style if they can."

"Cellblock style? I'm not sure I want to know." Murrue commented, shaking her head.

"Right in the ass, with her shirt pulled over her head and the showers running to hide the noise. Ahh, prison." Ramierez chuckled. No one else did, just shooting him various forms of glares. "Yeesh, so it was a dirty image, sue me."

"Shut up, Corporal, and save me the trouble of making you." Cyprus suggested. He turned to Alkire. "Okay, Major Jones, lets get this show moving. We're due to meet Ms. Clyne and Mr. Yamato at the National Palace, and from there its on to Hameya's Attlatl Mass Driver and on to the PLANTS. Our "special packages" are already being loaded, and arrangements are being made at customs in the PLANTS."

"Uh, this is another thing I don't want to know about, isn't it?" Murrue commented. "I'd really hate to think we're doing something illegal, that might cause exactly the sort of incident that could really hurt Cagalli in this Parilament meeting."

"There will be no incidents, and therefore no problems, Captain Ramius." Cyprus answered calmly.

"And we should believe that because...?"

"I'm the best, and I work only with the best equipment."

"How nonspecific."

"You get used to it." Alkire muttered. He had little cause to complain though. One of the special packages was very special to him. He couldn't wait to drive it! Automated cars, his ASS!


	23. Snakes in the Grass part 1

"Watcha writing there, Mary?" Jean Dylan enquired, poking his head around the edge of the Tormented's leg and peering down over Mary O'Brien's shoulder into the paperbound notebook she was furiously scribbling in. The book was balanced somewhat precariously on her hunched up knees, braced by her mangled left hand, which only had a thumb, pointer and middle finger now, after that stomach churning act of contrition the Boss had made her go through as punishment for royally fucking up her mission, despite the fact that it still turned out sort of okay in the end. He shivered, glad the Boss hadn't taken that view with his own less than completely stellar mission. Dylan didn't think he'd have been able to cut off his own figners like that, much less scar the wounds closed on a white hot coal! Although, it would probably be better than whatever the Boss had threatened as an alternate punishment...

Mary started, having been so engrossed in her diary that she had not hear Dylan approach. She hugged the notebook protectively to her chest, denying him more than a glimpse at her scratchy handwriting, and glaring up at him most fiercely, deeply resentful of this invasion of her privacy. Just because they were sharing the same stealthed drop pod, didn't mean she wanted to associate with the slimy bastard! She once more longed for the original mission arrangements, which had paired her with Randolf instead of Dylan. Not that Randolf was a much better person in her eyes, but at least he kept to himself! Dylan was always poking his nose where it didn't belong, like a grimy ferret listening in to other people's business! She supposed that he couldn't help himself... he was a Traitor, it was his lifestyle, learning secrets and selling them to the highest bidder... but she didn't have to like it, or him! But Randolf had been called away by "urgent business" just prior to launch, and now she was stuck with this pestilential rat for the next few days!

She didn't expect him to be of much help during the mission either, despite the importance of this second chance that Noah had graciously given her. They were going back to Orb, to put the final nail in the coffin, as Noah had said. She wasn't sure exactly what he meant by that, but he seemed happy. And if she could make him happy, then she would be ecstatic! To see that angelic smile once more... oh, but it made her head light and her heart flutter, no matter their difference in age! He was her beautiful savior, her knight in shining armor, and she would do anything for him, to remain in his favored place, kneeling at the side of his chair! She remembered, dimly, a time when she had not felt this way about him... but it was so long ago, and so faint, it was like a bad dream! She could not imagine not loving him to the exception of almost everything else anymore. And he loved her in return, she knew... why else would he do these things he did for her?

"Fine, be that way." Dylan grunted, leaning back against the leg of the Tormented, hands stuck casually in his pockets, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. He looked up at the bare metal leg and body of the Tormented and sighed. "Ya know, despite all the blood and gore and other shit you put on there, I like the Tormented a lot more when it's a naked girl. I wish the Traitor had that option under it's disguise list... would save me a good bit of trips to the porn stash in the men's bathroom. I don't suppose you'd turn it on for me, would ya...?" Dylan gauged the heat of her glare, which was enough to burn some men. "Guess not. Not a very friendly sort, ya know!"

Mary stood up and gestured for him to leave her alone, glaring hard into his eyes. He didn't seem bothered, the creep. She carefully closed her notebook and marked the page she'd left off on, before taking a stack of notecards from another pocket. She carefully wrote on one, bracing it against the other leg of the Tormented with her maimed hand, before flicking it at him perfunctorily.

"What do I want?" Dylan read from the card. He looked up and smirked at her. "Mary, girl, I never thought you were gonna ask. The list is long, m'dear... but at the moment I'm kinda cold and lonely. How about you gimme some of your heat... you know, a friendly thing, between Apostles? It'll help pass the time, I promise. It don't bother me none that you're ugly and vicious." Mary intensified her glare, with a baring of her teeth as well. She scribbled furiously on a notecard, even though it was just one word.

"Noah?" Dylan quirked a brow. "Oh yeah... you think you're the Boss's sugar girl, that's right. Silly me, trying to come between you and the Boss. I mean, it's not like he doesn't have a whole BUNCH of hunnies who he could score a booty call with... floods of em, really! I mean, look at him... he could walk into a high school or college pretty much anywhere and have a regular old orgy without even having to get chicks drunk, just based on his looks, much less his money!" Dylan picked up the next card, which she'd practically hurled at him like a knife.

"Love?" Dylan snorted. "Mary, if there's one thing I know about the Boss, its that he don't know HOW to love! He knows how to make people love HIM... just lookit you, for crying out loud! But he doesn't know how to return that kind of emotional investment! He got raised wrong... you think normal, well adjusted, loving kids build organizations like the Brotherhood? Build Gundams like the Tormented or the Traitor? Nah... the Boss loves himself, and his goal, whatever the FUCK it really is... but he ain't got any more room for love for rejects and monsters like us! Well... there might be that honey-pie down on Earth... I heard some of the Boss's private shuttle crew talking about it... found some discarded panties in the cargo hold, ya know, covered in mud. Kinky guy, for a sixteen year old, eh?" Dylan gauged her reaction. "On, that's a surprise to you? That's too bad, I'm sorry."

"Trust him?" Dylan chortled as he read the next card. "Thar's your first mistake, matey. I don't trust the shifty eyed pretty boy farther than I can throw a Gundam. Hell, if he weren't paying me so much, I'd have gone and found a hole, then pulled it in after me months ago! There is something seriously NOT RIGHT with the Boss... he's a crazy psycho, ya know what I mean? Started his own apocalyptic religion, think's he's going to change the world, think's he's an angel with magical powers and shit... none of this seems strange to you? Goddamn girl, you got it bad. You really think he's keeping you around cause he plans to hit yer cootch sometime? Why should he? Why should Noah FUCKING Borander settle for a used, scarred, maimed, eager puppy bitch like you when he can have the pick of the world's smartest and most beautiful and richest women? He shouldn't, that's right! And he won't! He's gonna use you like a carnival freak and then discard you when he's done. Same for the rest of us! But you can't see that, eh? Stupid bitch."

Mary pulled a knife instead of another card, pointing it menacingly at Dylan. He stood up straight and slowly started backing away, hands out placatingly. "Now now, don't go getting all soft skinned on me, ya hard boiled whore. Maybe I am rude and crude... but I'm also right... somewhat. Or else why the fuck are you getting pissed off, eh? No... you can tell yourself what you want, but we aren't anything special to him. Convenient tools, easily manipulated... or bought in my case... and then tossed away when he doesn't need us anymore. Get used to it. Accept it now, trust me, it lessens the pain later. You ain't got no friends... but that doesn't mean you ain't got people in the same shitty boat you're in. Is it so wrong for two doomed shitheads like you and me to share some physical pleasure? Its the only fun you and I are gonna get before we get the last goodbye, ya know! Aight, aight... put the knife down. Ya need some time, I get it. Just think about it though, Mary. I ain't lying here... we're birds of a feather, in the same shitty cage!" Dylan backed cautiously out of the Tormented's bay and into his own.

Mary waited a few minutes to make sure he was really gone, before she dropped the knife and fell to her knees, leaning heavily against the Tormented's ankle. She wanted to go back to writing in her diary, the record of her thoughts and dreams that she merticulously maintained, so she could read them to Noah when next they had time together... but she couldn't even muster the nerve to look at the notebook at the moment. Tears blurred her vision. She didn't believe him! Dylan was a lying, cheating, dirty bastard! He didn't know anything! He thought everyone was as cruel and evil and filthy as he was! But Mary knew... Mary knew it wasn't a lie! She wasn't just a tool! Noah loved her, just as much as she loved him! Even if... even if there WERE other women, they were the tools, not her! She couldn't... nothing else could be true! She had maimed herself out of love for him... it couldn't all be false! It couldn't!

-----------------------------------------

"It's been too long since we came to the PLANTS. It's just too bad that we couldn't have come under more relaxing circumstances, ne?" Lacus commented, staring out the porthole at the PLANTS stretching away on all sides of them, with the truly massive shapes of the new E-PLANTS rising in the distance, dwarfing the original PLANTS even though they were still many months from being completed. The blue crystalline hourglasses seemed to positively glow with life, and there was a whole new type of glow only she could see, by closing her eyes and expanding her senses to their utmost limit, boosted a bit by her hand entangled with Kira's. The glow of the largely peaceful and content minds that made up the PLANTS society was as bright as any sunlight reflected from the solar mirrors, and much warmer to bask in.

"I don't know. I'm pretty relaxed right now." Kira smiled, squeezing her hand. They were confining themselves to mostly out loud speech, in case their friends wanted to join in to the conversation. While they could communicate much more rapidly and efficiently and on a much deeper level using their Newtype bond, that same bond excluded everyone else, especially if they weren't also Newtypes, and they both felt it would be rude and discourteous to shut out all their friends just because they couldn't access the mental realm. He eyed the pink ball clutched protectively under her other arm. "You didn't have to bring THAT though, did you?"

"What? Mr. Pink's home is on the PLANTS too. I'm sure he misses all the other Haro's. Don't you Mr. Pink?" Lacus queried the globular demon under her arm. It fritzed out a nonsense reply... its voice box was getting old and starting to break down, somewhat to Kira's relief. Better static than inane comments and random swearing. He didn't know where the Haro had learned to talk, but it was like a child... it would repeat anything it heard, no matter how dirty or inappropriate it was. Kira caught a glimpse of Alkire sighting in on the Haro with an imaginary rifle, and had to fight off a smile, remembering what had happened a few years ago at Lacus's house, when Alkire and Mr. Waltfeld had modified a paintball gun and used it to "hunt" Lacus's flock of Haro's in the early morning hours when she'd still been asleep. "Mr. Pink is getting old. He's been acting weirder and weirder these past few years."

"I could never tell." Waltfeld spoke up, with a straight face that belied his sarcasm. "It's always been an annoying little bugger." He traded mildly eager looks with Alkire though... both of them were hotly anticipating seeing the unflappable Cyprus Finch deal with the personal privacy invasion that the horde of Haro's at Lacus's house, where they were planning to stay instead of at a hotel, always inflicted on new guests. It had driven them both nuts the last time they'd been there... would the infamous Cyprus Finch finally meet his match in the faceless polychromatic swarm of bleeping, cheerfully swearing bouncing balls? The betting was intense, to say the least. Odds favored the Haros, which were an insidious form of evil akin to the devil incarnate, by common agreement.

"He's not annoying, he's cute." Lacus refuted. "And helpful. Though he is usually getting into trouble somehow or other. And he seems to have taken a dislike to Kira, which is unfortunate."

"That's putting it mildly. It tries to break my nose whenever it see's us shooing the oprhans away so we can have some personal time." Kira commented with a frown. "I'd almost swear Athrun has altered the programming a little, as revenge for how I acted towards him and Cagalli in Switzerland, but he would have changed it back by now, he's not that vindictive. And it always flees and hides whenever he's around anyway, so I don't think its a program thing. Although it hasn't undergone any maintenance in the last few years... I really need to crack it open sometime and dig around inside, make sure it's not an electrical hazard or something."

"He's just getting antsy. He wants to come home, see all his friends again." Lacus retorted confidently. "I know. I can feel it sometimes."

"Its a... machine." Alkire pointed out, as gently as he could manage. "It doesn't have a mind to sense."

"Who's the expert here, you or me?" Lacus replied, arching an eyebrow. Alkire held up his hands placatingly. "You don't have to humor me, I know it's silly to think that Haro's have minds... they're just toys really. But I can sometimes feel thoughts from Mr. Pink. Maybe its just my imagination playing tricks on me, or echoes of other people... I don't exactly have this Newtype thing completely nailed down, you know."

"Anyway..." Dearka opted to change the subject before it became too uncomfortable. "How are we going to play things once we get all docked and through customs and such? Ysak and Katie said they'd be waiting for us with transportation once we got out. Off to Lacus's house then?"

"Who needs their transportation anyway?" Alkire said with a gleam in his eyes and relish in his voice. "This time I brought my own damn car... no manually operated cars... FUCK THEM! Er... pardon my french."

"I can see you're going to be a danger already." Murrue commented with a sad shake of her head. "They use automated car systems in the PLANTS and other space colonies for a reason, you know. Its to prevent road rage and the endemic traffic accidents Earth suffers from. You're going to cause mass havoc if you go treating the roads here like you would Earth streets."

"It's just for emergencies..." Alkire sulked.

"Well, Dicosta wants to meet with me as soon as possible, so I think Murrue and I will head off to his place sharpish, see what we can turn up while the rest of you get settled in." Waltfeld replied thoughtfully.

"Good idea. Ramierez will accompany you for safety's sake. The Major and I shall escort the others to Ms. Clyne's house, and from there I will get into contact with my own possible contacts." Cyprus decided. Everyone looked at him for a few moments.

"Who the heck put you in charge?" Murrue asked challengingly. "We don't need an escort, thanks. Andrew and I are both trained military officers, I think we can take care of ourselves."

"Are you armed?" Cyprus asked.

"Is Ramierez?" Murrue countered.

"Uh, not yet, but I will be..." Ramierez answered quietly, not wanting to get dragged into the crossfire.

"Captain Ramius, Commander Waltfeld, both of you are excellent military officers, with skills far beyond my own when it comes to commanding warships in battle and acting as senior commanding officers." Cyprus said after a couple of seconds of meeting gazes with Murrue. "However, gathering intelligence, counter insurgency operations, and anti-terrorism are as much my purview as main line warships are yours. I am the expert here, please try and trust my judgement, even if you don't like me personally. My primary goal is keeping you all alive and unharmed. We're going up against the Brotherhood in what may be their stronghold here... as Mr. Elsman and Mr. Yamato have already found out first hand, their soldiers are inclined to shoot first and not bother investigating afterwards. If we startle or disturb people like that, things could become very violent very quickly, it is in our best interest to be as prepared for such eventualities as we can."

"We shall do as Mr. Finch says. Like he has said, he is the expert in these situations." Lacus spoke up. "Much as we relied on Mr. Jones for guidance and protection during the early part of the Second Valentine War, so now we should put our trust in the people who know what they are doing best. The thought of violence pains me, but I have seen for myself what the Brotherhood is capable of, and I do not doubt that what Mr. Finch says is true. When provoked, as they most likely will be, if we discover anything concrete, they will come after us with prompt and deadly force, and we need to be ready for that. Mr. Waltfeld, Ms. Ramius and Mr. Ramierez will go to Mr. Dicosta and get his information, while the rest of us will go with Katie to my old house and wait there for them, and we will decide what to do from there."

"There's the Lacus we all know, leader of the Clyne Faction, laying down the law. I wish I had my camera, so I could do a few dramatic pose shots." Miriallia joked. Everyone shared a chuckle, except for Cyprus, who grinned for moment, but it was almost the same thing. Their cargo/passenger shuttle shivered slightly as the docking clamps locked into place and the boarding tunnels were extended to the passenger and cargo compartments. Cyprus, Ramierez, and Alkire went to go make sure all the cargo, of both legitimate and illegitmate sorts made it through the proper inspections and whatnot. They had been very secretive about how they were going to get all their "extra" gear into the PLANTS, which had the highest immigration security of any member-state, but they had been perfectly confident nonetheless, almost relaxed even. Waltfeld was a dual citizen of both PLANTS and Orb, so he was assured of a relatively fast trip through customs, despite his robotic arm. The same held true for Dearka, and especially Lacus, though her fame caused almost as many delays to sign autographs as it did speed things along.

Miriallia and Murrue went off into a seperate line from Kira, because of the various quick medical examinations and other more private checks all people traveling to the PLANTS from a non-self contained environment, such as Earth, had to endure. It was all in the name of public safety and health... though Coordinators were usually unaffected by most diseases and viruses that bothered Naturals, no one wanted to take any chances with some sort of suber bug, like Ebola-2, getting loose in the relatively cramped living conditions of the PLANTS and starting an epidemic. Beyond even that, there was still the possibility of bio terrorism, though much of that threat had diminished with the implosion of Blue Cosmos after the Isolation. Also, there was the drug trade, though most expensive designer drugs were actually made in the PLANTS and exported out, rather than the other way around. Still, some people tried to bring in bulk raw materials for drug making or other unsavory pursuits, including a small but dangerous illegal arms trade that supported the drug trade, and using surgery to hide contraband inside people's bodies had been old tech for centuries now.

Kira bore up under the inspections and probes and questions with good humor. It was just part of travelling... he remembered going through a similar series of tests and evaluations, actually much more detailed in fact, when his family had moved to Heliopolis from the Moon all those years ago. It was faintly distressing, in a sadly amusing way, that Lacus was whisked farther and farther ahead of him, practically breezing through even the most arduous tests, signing autographs left and right, posing for a picture now and again and generally enjoying the fruits of highly public worldwide adoration. The fact that her ID and gene tests confirmed that she was the REAL Lacus Clyne, and not one of the innumerable legion of impersonaters, made her appearance a major deal, apparently. Whenever Kira tried to intimate that he was, like, with her, people just gave him strange, pitying looks and shook their heads. Like there was no way he could be close with Lacus. It grew faintly offensive after the third or fourth time... he wasn't that unattractive!

He had just cleared the last major medical exam, and was waiting for his passport to be stamped, when it all went wrong. The automated stamping machine ate his passport and wouldn't give it back, for starters, displaying a red warning text and error code he couldn't make heads or tails of. The attendant came over after a minute or two, seeing he was having problems, and took a look at the machine. After reading the error code very carefully, three times in a row, Kira watched the man stiffen and begin to sweat slightly. He looked nervously over his shoulder at Kira, who tried to keep a patient look on his face. He could damn well see the exit, it really sucked to encounter a snag right at the end! "So, what's the problem? Technical malfunction?" Kira asked, curious. That sort of thing was rare in the PLANTS, which generally only used public technology that practically never broke down or had problems, because it was just that... public technology. It had to be idiot proof, and damn near unbreakable.

"S-something l-like that, yes, sir." The attendant replied, eyeing him like he was about to leap on the man and tear his throat out with his teeth. Kira smiled for the man, hoping he'd calm down. It was just a technical malfunction. Kira wasn't going to rave and shout and cause a scene over something so banal, like some people might. It was annoying, but there were much more important things in life to worry about than a short delay. "Just wait right here, s-sir. I need to make a quick call..." The attendant sidestepped away from him, never turning his back as he edged over to a wallcomm, hiding the display from Kira with his body. Kira sighed and tapped his foot impatiently, striving to put his nervous energy, another affliction of the change in his biology he'd suffered a few years ago from having his SEED sprout, to some sort of use. The attendant stayed by the wallcomm, even after he finished his call, shooting nervous looks over at Kira every so often, looking away before they could meet gazes. It was very odd behavior for someone calling a tech rep to come out and fix a simple problem.

Almost five minutes had gone by before a squad of more heavily built men pushed their way out of the crowd of travelers from behind Kira, while a second, similar squad appeared in front of him, past the passport stamping machines, blocking the exit passage. They were all clad in ZAFT Military Police uniforms, complete with not so subtle body armor on their torsos and legs and visored plastic helmets on their heads. The visors were opaque, preventing him from getting a good look at their faces as they advanced on him from all sides, the customs concourse going silent as people edged away, pointing and whispering, wondering what was going on. Kira wished he could tell them, because he was lost! They hefted nightsticks, extendable batons and even a few taser batons, fingers tensing on the activation switches. Kira eyed those with care... he'd had one jammed into his armpit before, during a disasterous series of events at Sai's wedding, and it HURT. Not an experience he was eager to repeat. "Can I help you?" Kira asked the nearest security officer.

"Kira Yamato?" The man asked, though it wasn't really a question... Kira's name and picture ID were displayed on the malfunctioning passport machine right next to him.

"That's me, yes. Something wrong, officer?" Kira asked, a sudden bad feeling easing into his gut. _Lacus..._

"You could say that, Mr. Yamato. Put your hands on the machine where I can see them please. Now." The officer put his hand on the pistol holstered at his waist, in a way Kira could not possibly misinterpret as anything but a direct threat. Kira complied, wondering what the hell was going on. The officer drew the pistol, and Kira tensed. So did all fourteen security officers, their gloves creaking on their clubs and tasers, other hands reaching for more pistols. Kira relaxed at once, realizing that antagonizing these men would be a very poor move on his part. The officer pointed his gun at the back of Kira's head from several feet away. "Do not move a muscle unless I direct you to, Mr. Yamato. I am placing you under arrest, because of the warrents out for your apprehension. The warrents say you are a dangerous man, Mr. Yamato... I hope you don't show me, because otherwise you'll be a dead one, do you understand?"

"Warrents out for my arrest?" Kira was dumbfounded. "That can't be right!"

"The computer system doesn't lie, Mr. Yamato. Humans do. You'll pardon me if I don't trust you. Especially considering what you've done. You've got a lot of nerve, showing your face in public, thinking you can just waltz right into the PLANTS!" The security officer's tone was ugly, fierce, angry. Kira wondered what the hell these supposed warrents said he'd done? "Pat him down. Declare any weapons you have now, Mr. Yamato... it won't be good if we find something you tried to hide from us!"

"I am completely unarmed." Kira assured the man. "I hate weapons of all sorts." _Lacus, there is a relatively big problem here. Security Officers are arresting me, saying there are warrents out for my apprehension. They seem very angry and tense. There is a gun pointed at my head right now, but I think as long as I remain calm I should be fine._ Kira kept perfectly still as a pair of security officers waved a scanning wand over his body, and used their hands as backup. They weren't particularly gentle or careful about their procedure, at least when it came to terms of his comfort. At length they seemed satisifed that he was indeed unarmed.

_I can't get close to you. They've got the entrance blocked off. Even though I proved to them that I'm the real Lacus Clyne, they won't let me through. They almost tried to have me escorted away into "protective custody", but Mr. Waltfeld stopped that. I don't know what's going on._ Lacus's mental voice was tinged strongly with worry.

_Don't worry. I'm sure its all just some sort of misunderstanding. A bug in the system or something. It looks like they'll be taking me to the Police station soon. Make sure and tell Cyprus everything... he'll know what to do. I'll see you in an hour or two, probably, and then we'll go home to your house together. Be sure to keep in touch with me just in case though._

_I will. I love you, Kira._

_I love you too, Lacus. Eck... handcuffs a bit tight, ow..._ Kira grimaced as the plastic binders were tightened excessively around his wrists, forcing them behind his back and biting into the skin of his wrists. These security officers seemed to be a very grim and grumpy bunch, standing around him in a tight group, shoving him at the slightest sign that he was stepping out of line or not moving fast enough as they escorted him into the service corridors, away from the crowds of the customs concourse. He wondered what had crawled into their coffee and died, to use an adage of Mr. Waltfelds. It must have been something pretty nasty. "I don't suppose someone could explain to me what it is that I'm supposed to have done now, could they?" Kira winced as a toughened glove whapped him sternly across the back of the head. It was not a friendly tap. "Um, ouch?"

"Shut up, you slime." One of the security officers retorted. "We're hauling your degenerate ass in on charges of first degree kidnapping, first degree forceful molestation, first degree extortion and those are just the big ones! You're lucky you came quietly... once we saw your rap sheet, we were looking forward to taking you down the hard way."

"What!?" Kira almost stopped walking for a moment, prompting a lot of shoving and pushing, causing him to stumble forward a few steps before regaining his balance. "Kidnapping, extortion... MOLESTATION!? That's a bald faced lie! Who the hell did I commit these fantastical crimes on?"

"That's where you're pissing us all off, motherfucker." An officer grabbed Kira hard on the shoulder and "accidentally" directed him into the wall. Hard. "Watch where you stumble, you sick bastard. I'd hate to think you were resisting arrest. Well... maybe not me... but you'd hate for US to think that!"

"Bastard thinks he's funny!" Another officer gritted, kicking Kira hard in one ankle. "Going throughout the medical stations bragging about the company he keeps, and now he wants to ask us who he commited a crime on? Don't play stupid, motherfucker, or I'll beat your brains out of your twisted skull until you ARE stupid! Lacus Clyne, that's who! Oh, the boys in general holding are gonna love being able to get their mitts on you! You picked the wrong girl to kidnap, extort and molest, I can assure you of that!"

"But Lacus and I are... erf!" Kira protested, turning his head away, rolling with the punch to his jaw that one officer launched. "Hey!"

"Don't you say her name, shithead! You don't get to say her name any fucking more! That's resisting arrest right there, guys... look at him try and twist out of my hands like that! Detain him, by any means possible! Show him he can't get away with molesting the songstress of the PLANTS! For Lacus Clyne!"

"Wait a minute! That's not tru... agh! Ow... he.. agh!" Kira curled himself into a protective ball on the ground, as the officers clubbed and punched and kicked at him in a group. He could have stood up, even under the onslaught, and made a break for it. Probably could even have made it too. But that would have really been resisting arrest, and that would be all the excuse they needed to use more powerful force, perhaps even guns, to "stop him". And it would make him a fugitive, which would definitely not help matters any. Still, just letting them beat the crap out of him was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. _Lacus... _Kira never got to complete his thought, as a stun baton stabbed down and jabbed him in the neck, the fifty thousand volt charge blasting apart consciousness and replacing it with darkness.

------------------------------------------------

"That doesn't make any sense at all." Cyprus frowned, staring back into the customs concourse with flinty eyes. "I would know if any of you, much less Mr. Yamato, had any sort of warrent or other police warning out concerning them. If Mr. Yamato had indeed had such a thing, then I never would have allowed him to come with us. But Mr. Yamato is one of the most stringently law abiding people I have ever met. This leads me to one of two conclusions. One, the simplest and least likely explanation is that it is just a technical error in the computer system. A misunderstanding. The other, not as benign and far more likely explanation is that this is a deliberate attack perpetuated against Mr. Yamato and the rest of us, by parties unknown. Perhaps even the Brotherhood, though if it is them then I despair of us actually learning anything of note while we are here, and we may very well all be in life threatening danger right now."

"Have you not gotten anything more from him?" Katie asked a very distraught and only barely holding herself together Lacus, sitting in the back of the car Katie and Ysak had brought for them, staring around her with tear blurred eyes as she looked for something that could not be seen, but was normally just "there" in her mind.

"Nothing..." Lacus replied in a very quiet, steely voice. "He was in pain... he called out to me in pain... and then he went out like a light being turned off. That was almost twenty minutes ago."

"Only twenty minutes!? He might have just gotten clipped on the head or something. He'll come around in an hour or so. Dearka's knocked himself out for longer than that just falling backwards in a chair." Ysak replied, with a confident smirk. An unsettled, crying Lacus Clyne was deeply distrubing to him. It made him more than a little uncomfortable. A crying girl was more than a crying girl, when it was Lacus and he was him. As a Latent, even with his merticulously maintained mental shielding, her powers could leak into his mind very easily, affecting his mood or even his control over his body. Most of his shielding was directed towards Katie anyway, in keeping parts of his mind private from her constant curious probing. Katie was a scapel stabbing down from above... Lacus was an ocean welling up from below. His shields were crap versus her.

"Thanks Ysak, but Kira's a little bit tougher than that these days." Lacus replied, brushing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "It would have to be something pretty serious to knock him out for this long. I've seen him take electric shocks that should have sent him to the hospital with only a slight wince of discomfort and no lasting side effects." Lacus looked up at them. "Well, there is nothing we can do about it at the moment. I have faith in Kira's ability to take care of himself. If this is an attack directed at us, then maybe the Brotherhood is worried. They must think we're on to something major. We all need to be on our guard, against both regular attacks and more unconventional ones like what happened to Kira."

"The safest place right now would be familiar territory, so we should get to Ms. Clyne's house as rapidly as possible. Once we are situated there, Ms. Clyne and I will investigate these allegations against Mr. Yamato and see what we can do about exposing the falsehoods." Cyprus directed. "Mr. Joule, Ms. Belaruse, Mr. Elsman and Ms. Haww will wait at Ms. Clyne's house for Captain Ramius, Commander Waltfeld and Ramierez to return from their intelligence gathering mission. Major Jones will stay with them, along with our... uh... getaway car, and wait for further developments."

"Don't you be knocking my car, Lt! This thing will save your life one day, trust me! It's a thing of deceptive beauty and awesome power. In its way, its more powerful than any Gundam ever built!" Alkire declared proudly. He patted the hood of the heavily modified convertible ferrari sports car, which was painted a slick black color this time, with silver sword wielding angel designs on the hood and trunk.

"And how do you figure that?" Dearka asked, eyeing the car askance. "Yeah, it looks pretty badass, but better than a Gundam? Yeah right."

"Ever tried to pull up to a drive through in a Gundam? How about an outdoor movie? Got a parking space for your Gundam outside your house? Eh, wiseguy? Not only is this thing a veritable armored fighting vehicle, but I can use it as part of my everyday life too. I'd like to see a Gundam that can do THAT!" Alkire retorted. "Besides, the sound system has to be felt to be believed."

"I'll take your word for it." Miriallia shrugged. She shot a concerned glance at the back of Lacus's head, and shivered when Lacus turned around and nodded slightly at her, meeting gazes for a moment. Once more, that Newtype thing... it was just so weird. Lacus could literally FEEL Miriallia looking at her, could read her emotions and interpret them as thoughts. It was creepy, even for a friend like Lacus! Usually she didn't make it so obvious, but with her as distraught over what had happened to Kira as she was, obviously she was not as controlled as usual. It was affecting everyone around her, making them jumpy, making them worried, antsy. Ysak especially looked like he was suffering, almost twitching with nervous spasms, blinking his eyes frequently like he was fighting back tears he couldn't shed. Katie and Cyprus were the only two who looked like they were fully in control of themselves.

"Katie, I'm going to have to ask a very personal favor of you and Ysak when we get to my house." Lacus spoke up.

"Um... I think I know where you're going with this. I'm not sure it's going to work." Katie replied, chewing her lips.

"I have to at least try. Assuming its okay with you and Ysak. I know you and Kira can connect, and that I can connect with Ysak. Whether or not I can Resonate-Amplify with him, we'll have to see. But if I can't sense Kira by myself, I'll need to get a boost from somewhere."

"Um... okay, I guess I can understand your duress. I'd probably ask the same thing if I were in your position. But I want you to try and do some more of those Harmony-Amplifying exercises with me sometime later... its different when two Actives mingle their powers. I know it feels strange, and that you sometimes get some of my memories... and I get some of yours, which neither of us like... but its a very intruiging path."

"Don't I get a say in this?" Ysak protested. "I mean, this is my mind we're talking about here, and my abilities!"

"You have all the inherent abilities of a microphone. Shut up." Katie replied mercilessly. "Though a damned cute microphone sometimes, I have to admit. Besides, its Lacus Clyne... aren't you male Coordinators always going on about how much you'd be willing to do anything to help her out if she asked? You do dream about that sometimes, you know."

"Those are VERY PRIVATE DREAMS!"

"Heh heh... oh Ysak..." Dearka snickered. Katie turned a sweet look upon him, casually reaching out a hand to touch Ysak across the back of his neck, skin to skin.

"You think Lacus Clyne looks good in WHICH swimsuit, Dearka? Shall I extrapolate?" Katie winked cruelly at him.

"You... you just looked into my head!?" Dearka turned very pale. "Don't do that, please!"

"Oh calm down, I just skimmed some of your deeper surface thoughts. Though it is somewhat telling that thoughts like that are only deep surface thoughts for you, versus deeply buried subconscious dreams for Ysak."

"That's kind of rude, Katie. Reading people's minds without their permission." Miriallia bristled slightly. "Please don't do that to me or Dearka again."

"Sorry, sheesh." Katie shrugged and took her hand off Ysak's neck. "Things'd be so much easier if everyone was a Newtype, then I wouldn't have to worry about offending people so much."

----------------------------------------------

"Well, this is the coffee shop that we're supposed to meet your friend at." Murrue looked around the smallish outdoor cafe, which was overlooked by a park on one side, and overlooked a largeish lake, complete with sandy beach on the other. Birds twittered, leaves rustled in a light breeze and sailboats bobbed peacefully out on the lake. It truly was an idyllic scene, and not one she'd ever have expected to see on a space station. Truly, the PLANTS were a special place. In the middle distance, the sheer blue Exo-Glass walls of the PLANT rose up like a translucent curtain reaching up to heaven, with the massive incomplete shape of Epoch Two, one of the three new lines of E-PLANTS, hovering in the horizon like a metallic moon. She'd read somewhere that the E-PLANTS were even going to have small mountains in them, besides just the central spire that all PLANT continents sported. That would be a sight to see... mountains, in space!

"Dicosta's getting a sense of style. This is a much classier place than he usually hangs out at." Waltfeld smirked, as he waited for the order he'd placed to be delivered. His nose twitched at the aromas coming from the preparation booth. Who knew how long they would be here before Dicosta arrived... his old aide's comm had merely said to be here at around this time, and take a table near the lake side of the shop patio, so having done that, Waltfeld was settling back to relax. He idly looked around, trying to see if he could spot Ramierez, but he had to hand it to the Stormhound... Waltfeld couldn't see the man anywhere, and he knew what he looked like and what clothes he was wearing. That made him relax a little more... if Waltfeld couldn't spot their "backup" with his inside knowledge, then the chances of any concievable enemies spotting him had to be even more remote.

The very idea of needing a "backup" or of even being attacked in the open, on the PLANTS, was frankly laughable to him. He couldn't deny that the PLANTS had its seedy spots, like all major cities did, where it might not be completely safe for the innocent and unwary to walk around, but they were far from such places. Besides, he and Murrue were hardly innocent or unwary. Woe be to the goons who thought they could walk up and intimidate the two of them. Waltfeld almost hoped it would be that easy... he was itching to try out his arm on some of these Brotherhood bastards, especially after what had happened to his house! Repairs were going to take years, and cost tens of thousands of dollars! His insurance didn't fully cover terrorist attacks by Gundams, an understandable oversight on his part he thought! Maybe they should just scrap the whole thing, write it off, and move somewhere else.

Murrue seemed to be thinking the same thing. She sighed and looked around some more. "You know, Andrew, upon seeing the PLANTS again, I think that it might be time for us to try and explore a wider range of housing options, now that our seaside bungalow has been... well..."

"Extensively un-renovated." Waltfeld supplied the euphanism. "Housing is at a premium here in the PLANTS... we'd probably only be able to afford a large apartment, for the same price as the house payment we're making now."

"Things should open up a little, once they finish the E-PLANTS. I was thinking, maybe we could downgrade to an apartment now, start building up a nest egg, and put a big down payment on some property in one of the E-PLANTS... once we've had a look at whats available, of course. I've heard they're already selling lots, and they're going fast. We should get in while we can." Murrue replied thoughfully. Inwardly, Waltfeld's heart leapt with joy. Their living arrangements had always been somewhat casual before, even with the joint payment. Murrue was sounding a lot more serious about things now... maybe it was time to dip into the ole savings account and buy some special finger jewelry for her.

"I might have an inside line on some very nice property. I know people." The man sitting at the table behind them, who'd been reading the news on his portable computer, half turned away from them ever since they sat down, said, glancing up at them and meeting gazes with Waltfeld. Waltfeld stared, as the man winked at him slyly... it was only after almost another ten seconds of careful study that he realized with a start that the friendly stranger was actually Dicosta! Waltfeld was impressed... his aide and friend looked nothing like his old self... I mean, they were like older and younger brothers practically, though much more formal, and Waltfeld still hadn't recognized him! His hair was black, his eyes blue, his skin pale, with slight scars and freckles that were never there before. Some of the changes looked like they might even be semi-permanent Touch Up genetic modifications, which weren't exactly a casual or cheap disguise. Waltfeld forced himself not to react outwardly any more than he had... no sense in ruining Dicosta's disguise by making a scene.

"Is that so?" Waltfeld replied neutrally, trying to sound like a wary but vaguely interested stranger. He watched Dicosta put a hand into his open fronted jacket and withdraw a small electronic device, which he studied intently for a second in the palm of his hand. Dicosta put it away again and seemed satisfied. Waltfeld noticed that his friend was wearing a concealed carry holster and pistol, which was unusual in the PLANTS, where even the Military Police generally didn't go around armed with guns except on military bases or in emergencies. That Dicosta felt the need to be steathily armed was concerning... perhaps he'd been underestimating the level of their danger. Murrue looked at him strangely, and then glanced several times at Dicosta in disguise before a quickly concealed looked of surprised realization crossed her face. She hadn't noticed him either, obviously, though he'd been there the entire time they had.

"We should be okay for a little while, sir." Dicosta said, keeping his head on a slow swivel, taking a sip of his coffee as he did so. "I haven't seen any biological eavesdroppers, and my electronic detector says we're free of bugs as well. My friends in the woods say they haven't found anyone either, though they aren't one hundred percent on that. Some think there might be someone they haven't found yet, so I'll have to be quick."

"We have an ally in hiding as well. He might be the guy your "friends" are missing. He certainly good enough to not be seen like that." Waltfeld replied quietly. The conversation died away and they ignored each other as the wheeled server-bot arrived with Waltfeld and Murrue's drinks.

"Perhaps. You'll have to pardon me if I don't take that chance sir. They're good, they are... frighteningly good." Dicosta answered, once the bot was out of hearing distance, and he'd consulted his little remote again.

"By "they", you mean the Brotherhood?" Murrue asked. Dicosta winced, as if struck.

"Please, Ma'am, don't use that term out loud if you can. "They" gives us at least a chance of dissembling, if they hear you coming after them by name, they'll be quick to take direct action. They can strike at almost any time, from almost any place. I don't know how far they've penetrated the civil and military structures. Extensively is all I can say. They probably even have people inside Section Nine Intelligence, despite our best efforts."

"Section Nine? Never heard of it." Waltfeld grunted, sipping his coffee. He could barely taste it, too distracted by other matters. Dicosta smiled slightly.

"Good to hear that, sir. Means people are doing their jobs right. We're a sub-department of ZAFT Military Intelligence, let's put it that way. Focus on Anti-Terrorism, both foriegn and domestic, as well as Comptur Security. I really can't say more. As far as most people are concerned, our organization doesn't even exist." Dicosta sipped his coffee again, maintaining the posture of disinterested strangers conversing. "It's because of the problems of the enemy's skill at counter-intelligence that almost all of our real progress in uncovering information from them has come at the hands of privately hired investigators, who could operate under the radar, as long as we kept it a secret that we'd hired them. I lost contact with one of our best hired contractors, Adam Corvis, a few weeks ago. His last report had said that he'd found something really big, and that he was going to find some real proof, the stuff we'd need to take concrete action against them. He's since disappeared, and I doubt he's alive anymore."

"They do play for keeps." Waltfeld acknowledged, thinking of the atrocities he'd seen and heard about the Brotherhood committing before. "So it's all a dead end then?"

"No, sir. Corvis sent me quite a bit of his notes through the mail drop, just in case he did end up... missing. I haven't really been able to follow up on them myself... I can't trust my own co-workers anymore, and I know I'm being watched a lot of the time. Thus this disguise, amongst other measures. I can't move freely, and if they think I've got important info, then I might be finding out what happened to Corvis personally very quickly. The networks and commlines aren't safe... we learned THAT early on. Lost almost ten agents in the first few days before we realized what was happening. That goes for everything... not just civilian comms... EVERYTHING, even the most secure of military comms. If its electronic, don't trust it. That's the new credo we live by... and die by, or so it seems."

"It's really that bad?" Murrue eyed the people passing by on the sidewalk nearby, fighting a growing sense of paranoia.

"Ma'am, it's worse than I can possibly say. I can hardly sleep anymore. This is a larger, more powerful conspiracy than anything you can imagine, outside of the pages of fiction. It may have tens of thousands of members across the PLANTS and the rest of the USN. We are up against people with more advanced technology than us, an apparently unlimited supply of money to spend, and fanatical devotees in every strata of society. Paranoia is the only survival mechanism we have on our side against them." Dicosta shivered, despite the sunlit warmth. "When I get up to leave I'll pass you what information I have in written format... Corvis's original notes. They're a bit scattered, and they're missing the pages concerning his major find... I think he may have had those with him. From what I've been able to determine, he found two other sites he wanted to investigate in person. One is the Borander Institute for the Terminally Ill, a special needs hospital on Aprilius Ten. The other is a drug ring being operated on December Four, by a man known as Hazy, with connections to a place called Ark Biotech Laboratories, also on December Four."

"Drug ring?" Waltfeld asked, distaste in his voice.

Dicosta nodded, signalling for his bill in the same motion. "Yes, they seem to use smaller time drug lords for money laundering and recruiting purposes. We have some theories that they actually control all the major drug rings, and heavily influence most of the minor ones. This Hazy is supposed to specialize in the more expensive designer pleasure drugs, things like Waft and Spiffy and FourX... he's got some political connections of his own, keeps himself under the radar pretty good. Apparently he's actually had some direct contact with the enemy, which is why Corvis wanted to investigate him. Be careful though... those small timer drug lords can be pretty vicious and violent, and they're probably armed reasonably well."

"Oh, we brought countermeasures for that sort of thing. Some very scary people. World leaders in dealing with precisely that sort of situation." Waltfeld again vainly glanced around trying to find Ramierez. The man was a damned ghost! "Thanks, Martin. I appreciate you taking the risk to help us out."

"Think nothing of it, sir. I'm glad to help you out any time. And really, if you can get some hard evidence for me, that would be helping everyone. We have no idea what they are up to... but its big. Huge. Monstrous. So big that even though we've gotten thousands of pages of documentation on their activities, we still have no idea what they're really after. I'm getting near my wits end. Say hello to everyone else for me. Sir, Ma'am." Dicosta nodded one more time, swiped his card on the server-bot, and then stood. He staggered, as if unsteady on his feet after sitting for so long, and a small notebook fell into Waltfeld's lap. He covered it quickly with his hands, as Dicosta apologized and then wandered off, just another stranger on the sidewalk after only a few steps.

"Is he going to be okay?" Murrue asked, after a few minutes of them sitting together and sipping their coffee. "I can't imagine living your life in fear like that can be very good for your health, even if the enemy leaves you alone."

"Dicosta's tougher than he looks. He put up with me after all, and I was never the easiest of people to work directly for." Waltfeld shrugged and smiled. He finished the last of his coffee and signalled for their own bill. "Looks like we're going to have to split up though... waste too much time and look too suspicious if we all went to both locations."

"Think we'll find anything of note?"

"Discosta wouldn't have given us these notes if he thought we wouldn't." Waltfeld paid the bill, and they turned to go. And found themselves staring at Ramierez, who was casually leaning against the railing that seperated the cafe patio from the sidewalk. He was casual as could be, whistling and staring idly out at the sailboats. Murrue and Waltfeld shared a glance... they'd only turned their backs for a moment when standing up, and now he was right there? Creepy. "How did you...?"

"Trade secret. Nice try though." Ramierez replied shortly. "I'd give him a B+, by the way. Not a bad disguise, not a bad location. Drop was a little clumsy, and he spent too much time mouthing off with his jaw visible... talented folk could have lip read with a telephoto lens without too much problem. But not bad, for a professional who's only ever worked on the "light" side. His support team needs some work though... needs more experience in countersurveillance in an urban environment. I could have killed a couple if I wanted."

"Save that sort of thing for the drug lords."

"Drug lords? I'm already liking the sound of this. Reminds me of my youth..."

-------------------------------

_Kira! Kira! Kira Yamato! KIRA!_ Kira grumbled at the voice in his head to shut up and leave him alone. He felt like shit, and the yelling wasn't helping matters. He just wanted to go back to sleep for another few minutes... few hours... few days... few... _KIRA!_

"What!?" Kira jerked his head up and blinked his eyes in the dim light. "Owwwww...." He groaned, rolling his neck and shoulders, which stung sharply, like he'd suffered bad sunburn or something. He had a definite crick in his neck, and a class eleven out of ten migraine headache pounding in his skull. He hadn't felt this terrible in years, he was pretty sure. He could barely see straight, much less think straight, though as he gasped for breath, things slowly came into focus, his eyes adjusting to the dim light and his headache diminishing slightly. His tongue rasped in his mouth, and his throat hurt... he was really damned thirsty, and his throat was raw. He smelled a faint stench of bile emanating from his shirt, and saw some damp stains that might have been cleaned off vomit. This was mildly concerning... he couldn't even recall the last time he'd puked on himself, or think of what could cause him to do so.

He tried to sit up... or sit up straighter as the case actually was, since he was already sitting in a chair. It was a metal chair, and it had no padding, its straight back digging into his upper back as he'd been slouched in it. He tried to raise a hand to brush his hair out of his eyes, but it was no good... he could not move either from the rather painfully bent behind his back position. He couldn't feel his hands, come to think of it... there was something biting into the flesh of his wrists that was doing a damned good job of cutting off the feeling and major blood flow. Plastic binders of some sort, he couldn't turn his head enough to get a good look. His arms were threaded through the chair back in a way that would prevent him from standing up, unless he took the chair with him. He tried to stretch his legs, but found his ankles similarly bound to the legs of the chair, also with plastic ties. The ties had slight give when he tensed his muscles, but contracted when he stopped pushing... he wasn't sure he could break out of them, even with SEED assisted strength.

Seeing as he wasn't going anywhere for a while, he looked around, taking in his surroundings. The room was small, and made mostly of metal, painted grey and off white, with a plain metal table bolted to the floor in front of him, and another, more comofrtable chair across the table from him. No help there... there had to be thousands of rooms like this throughout the PLANTS, if not all with the same furniture. He supposed it was the Police Station, one of those interrogation rooms where they held people waiting for their lawyers. He didn't remember calling a lawyer though. Maybe Lacus and Cyprus had set something up. Kira's eyes flew wide open as he remembered the shouting that had woken him up. _Lacus? Are you there?_

_Kira! Finally! I've been searching for you for hours! I was at my wits end! We went to the Police Station, but they said they'd never even heard of any warrents for your arrest! We had them check the system three times... they have no record of arresting you at all, much less transporting you to the processing cells! Oh... your mind went away and I couldn't find you! I was so worried, Kira!_

_I'm okay, Lacus. Not feeling very good, but I suppose that's normal. They hit me with a taser baton a few times... kind of like at Sai's wedding. Knocked me right out._ Kira licked his lips and grimaced at the coppery taste on his upper lip and cheeks. _I think my nose may be broken, theres certainly a lot of dried blood on my face. Feels like they worked me over pretty good, whoever they are. They were accusing me of... of kidnapping you, and extorting you and... and... molesting you._ Kira felt hot anger rise in him at the mere thought of the baseless and slanderous accusations.

_What!? How could anyone think that sort of thing about YOU and ME!? That's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard!_

_I agree. But they seemed to really believe it. Boy, did they ever... they didn't like me at all. And they weren't afraid to show it with their fists and feet and clubs and the tasers and... nevermind that, Lacus. I'm okay. I don't know where I am, but I'm not dead, and I'm not going to die. Worry less._

_I shan't. I can't, Kira! I've got a general idea of where you are... one of the Martius Colonies, maybe Martius 2, maybe Martius 3. I can't narrow it down any more than that, even with Ysak helping me. I'm just broadcasting at those entire colonies right now... who knows what sort of bleed through other people are experiencing right now..._

_Ysak? I had no idea that was even possible, though I suppose he is a Latent too..._

_It doesn't work nearly as well with him as it does with you. Katie thinks its because we don't really have an intimate bond... mere friendship isn't enough to really get a big boost, apparently. You have to know the person, know them like you know yourself. But that's not important! Kira, I'm not sure what to do! Searching two entire colonies will take days, weeks even! And since it doesn't seem like the police are the ones holding you... you could be in life threatening danger right now!_

_If they wanted to kill me, Lacus, they could have done it easily while I was unconscious. I think they just want to shake us up, maybe try and use me as a hostage against the rest of you. Cyprus will know what to do. I don't like him, but I can respect his skills in this kind of situation. We have both Alkire AND Cyprus, plus Ramierez up here with us. Whoever these people are, even if they ARE the Brotherhood... they don't know who they're messing with! And there's you and Katie, with Ysak!_

_I am preparing some very choice words for when I find those people who abducted you... and beat you... and accused you of those horrible lies! You, kidnap, extort and molest ME? Thats insanity! We love each other more tha life itself... can people not see that!? Is it not obvious enough? What MORE should we do to showcase the nature of our relationship to the world?_

_I don't know. Maybe we need a major political scandal, like what happened to Athrun and Cagalli. A videotape of you and I on a twister mat, a la nude._

_That's not funny Kira._

_I suppose not... uh... hold on..._ Kira directed his attention away from his mental conversation, feeling the warm embrace of Lacus's mind and emotions slip around him like an invisible shroud, easing his discomfort and reinforcing his willpower and determination. The door to his room opened, just wide enough for a man to step inside, and then the door was shut, before Kira could get any sort of good glimpse at the dim passageway beyond. The man who entered the room did not turn up the lights, seeming to prefer the dusk like atmosphere in the room. He took what looked like sunglasses off his face with a small sigh of relief, and then folded them up and put them in is front shirt pocket.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Kira Yamato." The man, who was in late middle age for a Coordinator, somewhere between sixty and eighty, with a grey-white moustache and a full head of grey-white, well combed hair, said without congeniality. "I take it from your blank look that you do not recognize me then?"

"Have we met?" Kira asked, searching his mind for this man, with his pale, almost fishbelly white eyes. He would have thought odd, almost cataracted eyes like that would have stuck in his memory, but he just couldn't place this guy. Not his voice, not his skin, which was pasty and almost oily in sheen, like plastic or synthetic over much of its surface, not his hair or build or clothing, which was just a plain dark blue jumpsuit. Nope, not familiar at all.

"Briefly. I'm not surprised you don't remember. You had your mind on other matters at the time, and your view was obstructed for much of the time." Randolf replied, studying the arch-corrupter. He didn't look like much, wrists and ankles bound to the chair, blood and snot and dried vomit staining his face and front, hair disheveled, eyes bleary. Just a punk kid, really, who'd gotten the shit kicked out of him by the righteous defenders of Lacus Clyne's honor. Oh, how they'd snarled when they'd read those falsified arrest warrents. The hatred on their faces for this boy-demon... he felt such a kinship for them at that time! It was too bad that it was all generated by false reports, but the bastard was damned, damned good... he left almost no evidence of his crimes! Indeed, Lacus Clyne herself was exhibiting an extreme case of Stockholme Syndrome, clamoring for his release at ZAFT Military Police HQ only hours after his arrest. Watching her cry and sob and carry on was heartbreaking... but he recognized it for what it really was... a poor, abused girl, seperated from the man who had addicted her to himself, and the pangs of withdrawal were as painful as any felt by the most enthralled of drug addicts. She would wean off him in time, though the process would be painful. It was the way of things.

"I don't suppose you could loosen these binders on my wrists and ankles, could you? I promise not to try and escape or anything, unless you try to hurt or kill me. But I can't feel my hands, and I'm relatively worried about longer term..." Kira requested, trying to be calm and polite.

"Shut up." Randolf cut him off sharply. "I could care less about your discomforts. Do not mistake me, Kira Yamato... I hate you with all my heart. You have destroyed, perhaps irrecoverably, one of the few things that was ever truly beautiful in this world, dragging it down into your world of filth and corruption, and I cannot forgive you for that!"

"I don't even know who you are! What did I do to you!?" Kira protested, shocked at the raw emotion bleeding through the man's voice. _Lacus? Do you have any idea what's going on?_

"Do to me? Kira Yamato, what have done to me PALES in comparison to what you have done to the world! I can forgive and forget what happened to me... we're both soldiers, and I bear you little ill will for your tactical masterstroke that resulted in my scars and burns! I CANNOT FORGIVE NOR FORGET THOUGH, YOUR CHOSEN MEANS OF DECEPTION! THAT PURE, SHINING BEACON OF LIGHT YOU SULLIED WITH YOUR SEDUCTION AND TURNED AGAINST THE WORLD FOR YOUR OWN SELFISH GOALS!" Randolf screamed, spittle flying from his jaws, unable to properly express his loathing for this creature in the chair before him, even yelling at the top of his lungs.

"You're talking about Lacus? I don't know what you me... AGHR!" Kira twisted his head to the side, rolling with the roundhouse punch Randolf thundered into his jaw as best he could. it wasn't easy while bound to the chair, which creaked and tottered as his weight shifted. He tested the plastic binders again. No dice... they were much thicker and stronger than the usual handcuffs or plastic zip ties law enforcement used to restrain criminals. A freaking enraged gorilla might have not been able to break loose from the bindings around his wrists... someone, somewhere was apparently familiar with his exceptionally great physical capabilities and had taken measures to keep even him in a SEED rage contained, unlike that time in JIHAD. "Hitting me doesn't do either of us any good!" Kira spat some saliva, which was tinged with pink from where his lips had mashed against his teeth and gotten scraped.

"I beg to differ! It's a rather carthartic release of years of pent up sorrow and hatred!" Randolf retorted, though he did not strike again, folding his hands across his chest. "I am indeed talking about Lacus Clyne. Maybe they didn't beat you enough... you're still thinking rather clearly."

"Unlike you!" Kira shot back. "Do you honestly believe I kidnapped, extorted or molested Lacus!? How can you possibly think something that crazy!?"

"While the charges that brought you to me were made with false documentation, that does not mean that the charges themselves are untrue! Don't lie to me, you bastard! I know the truth of what you've done to Lacus Clyne! You have manipulated that sweet, trusting girl into loving you, into considering you the sole purpose for her existance! You have addicted her to your simple physical lusts! You have warped her from the guiding light of a peaceful humanity into a vessel for your own sick amusement! You have corrupted her into a lying, false SHELL of what she used to be! Why, I still cannot fathom... what depths a person must fall to, to want to so desecrate someone as inherently wonderful as Lacus Clyne... oh, what a foul thing you are, Kira Yamato!"

"You are a goddamn lunatic! I love Lacus! I love her more than anything! She is my life! And she feels the same way about me! We are connected on such a deep, intimate level that there is no way you could possibly understand the true level of our devotion to one another! We are two halves of the same whole! We are not perfect, but we TRY!" Kira was opening his mouth to say more when Randolf punched him in the face again, a straight jab that caused blood to drip from his nose and his head to swim with agony. Randolf followed the jab with an uppercut that knocked Kira overbackwards, head bouncing painfully on the floor, chair clattering loudly. Kira could hear Lacus shouting inside his head, but the impact with the floor made everything scrambled for a few seconds.

"LIES! Stop with your lies!" Randolf ranted. He stood over Kira and kicked him in the gut as hard as he could, smiling as he heard the breath whoosh out of the little bastard. He crouched down as Kira coughed and gasped for breath, blood pooling on the floor under his cheek from his busted up nose. "You can't decieve me, Kira Yamato. I know what sort of filth you are. I've known Lacus a lot longer than you have... I have the perspective to see what others do not... how she has been twisted and debased by your presence, your actions!"

"You... don't make... any sense..." Kira panted, wincing and spitting to keep the blood out of his mouth. He felt like he might have chipped a tooth, and the side of his head that had hit the floor first throbbed distractingly, almost blocking out the fiery pulsing in his abdomen. He was pretty good at taking a blow, the self defence training he'd gotten from the members of TEMPEST during the Second Valentine War adding on to his natural resilience, but being tied to a chair made it real hard to put that training to use. And Randolf was pretty strong, in good physical shape, and he knew how to hit in order to hurt. This was not good. _Calm down, Lacus..._

_How the hell am I supposed to be calm? I can feel your pain swelling up inside of me! It's making me sick to my stomach! He's hurting you, Kira! Hurting you, hurts me!_

_Maybe I should bring that up... but he seems to get angrier every time I try to talk about you or argue... Oww..._ Kira twisted up his face as Randolf tweaked his broken nose vicously.

"Don't zone out on me, you bastard. Pay attention." Randolf sat back on his haunches and glared down at Kira. "My name is Aireg Randolf. I was, at the point in time when we crossed paths and I first became aware of your perfidy, a Commander in ZAFT. It was during the Second Valentine War, right after ZAFT retook Gibralter Base. You and your lackey's in the Clyne Faction were retrieving the Archangel from its burial location, and you destroyed one of my patrols, though you spared the pilots. One thing I have never understood about you, Kira, is your apparent dedication to not killing. You kidnap, seduce, rape and manipulate Lacus Clyne, but you won't kill people? You are insane, seriously disturbed. But thats no excuse for your actions. Nothing could excuse your actions. You USED Lacus Clyne to draw my men and I into the open, got us to lower our guard, and then had her send out a signal to your allies, who attacked us from behind and massacred my entire command!"

"Wait... I remember... yeah, the desert." Kira muttured, wincing with the pain in his face and gut. "I thought you were dead. Lacus thought you were dead. She felt horrible, that you thought she'd set you up. Maybe you didn't have time to see it, but those were Blue Cosmos Gundams... they weren't our allies, the exact opposite! They were trying to kill us! One of them was specifically trying to kill Lacus!"

"So you say! But there were no witnesses, beyond those under your direct control! You did well, eliminating anyone who could possibly contradict your version of events, even your so called enemies, those Blue Cosmos Gundams! You made Lacus Clyne a party to a betrayal involving Blue Cosmos! There is no worse sin!"

"Frost would never work with me or Lacus, you stupid bastard. He wanted to skin her, rape her and kill her almost ever since he met her! You think we were working together with that monster!? Did you not hear him, at the Battle of Denver at the end of the Isolation? Did you not listen to him talk to Lacus with the whole world as an audience? Do you think we were working WITH him? Nobody worked WITH him... Frost had no friends, no allies! He was his own side! You could no more ally with Frost than you can ally with an earthquake!" Kira could barely muster anything stronger than exasperation. This whole conversation was so ludicrous as to be surreal. This Randolf was clearly completely off his rocker. That was frightening, because there was no logical arguement Kira could make to him that would do any good. Randolf had his version of events and could not be convinced that it was a fantasy, conjured by a deranged mind as a comforting explanation for a very stressful event that had been misinterpreted. And clearly, Randolf was not afraid to take his self created hatred out on Kira. Not a good situation.

"Bah. Spare me your stories, Kira. I know the truth. And soon so will the rest of the world." Randolf stood and considered for a few seconds, before booting Kira in the chest a couple of times. He listened to the groans and smirked. "Don't worry... I won't kill you, though you might sometimes wish I had. No, killing you would be too simple, too easy, too quick a punishment for your sins. It is clear to me that you treasure your control over Lacus Clyne, your domination of her existence. It's like a drug to you, it gives you reason to live and inflates your sense of self identity! And so THAT is what I shall take away from you, forever! If I have anything to say about it, you'll never see Lacus Clyne in the flesh again! I've enough evidence to convict you of those very same crimes you were arrested for! It is too bad that I'll need to fool the justice system with manufactured evidence, but it cannot be helped... you covered your tracks too well for me to play fair!"

"Listen to yourself... you're going to lie, because I lied too well for you to prove I'm lying? Maybe it's just because I'm NOT lying... that Lacus and I are... Ugh!" Randolf stamped his foot down on the side of Kira's head and ground down hard, shutting him up with a pained groan.

"When I want your opinion, I'll be sure to let you know in no uncertain terms, filth." Randolf retorted coldly. "Save it for the courtroom, little good though it'll do you. Everything has been arranged by my friends. No PLANTS lawyer with any pride will defend a slimeball like you, who commited such crimes against Lacus Clyne! Your sister is going to be too busy with her own problems down in Orb to be able to spare any time for your problems up here, until its much too late to request extraditing you down to Orb! In a day or two, you'll be lanquishing in solitary confinement in the deepest parts of the PLANTS prison system, and you'll never see the light of day again... if you even live for longer than a few weeks. Even criminals have the decency to love Lacus Clyne! Only the lowest of the low would dare hurt her like you have... I'd imagine you'll find more than a few people upset with you!"

"What... gives you... the right to... make these accusations anyway?" Kira gritted out, his words somewhat muffled by Randolfs foot pushing down on his cheek and jaw. "You said you knew Lacus longer than me... but she doesn't know you!"

"Ah, a sad tale that is." Randolf shook his head. "Well, I wouldn't want you to think I'm just some nutjob... telling you some of the history that gives me the right to judge you might help put things into perspective for you a little better!"

"Too late for that nutjob thing... owrh!" Kira spat a glob of blood mixed with a few tooth fragments as Randolf kicked him in the mouth, his tongue and cheek smarting from where he'd bitten down on them. Teach him to make smart comments while tied down and helpless at the mercy of someone who hated his guts. _Kira..._ He heard the deep concern in Lacus's thoughts, and tried to put on a brave face for her. It wasn't working very well... he was too beat up to be able to put much effort into blocking out how bad he was feeling.

"You'd do well to lose your smart mouth quickly." Randolf advised, pacing slowly around Kira in a circle, like a desert vulture circling a tempting piece of carrion. "I was... am... a long time friend of Lacus's parents, Siegel and Elaine. I went to college with them, back when the PLANTS were first being built, before they got married. They were dating at the time, and I was often the third wheel... but we had a good thing going. Siegel was the intellectual type, I was the sporty type and Elaine was the party girl that met us both halfway. I'd never met such a sweet, caring person as Elaine... truly, at least when she was sober, there was no more perfect match as her and Siegel. It was a given that they'd end up getting together, though they didn't actually get married until about ten years after our days in college together. We'd drifted apart, them and I, after college, but we'd kept in infrequent contact. Because you see, while she was sober, Elaine was definitely Siegel's girl... but when drunk or in a fey mood, she and I were the real couple."

Randolf stared off into the past, his milky eyes moist with memories. "Their marriage was not nearly as idyllic and stable as it appeared publicly. Elaine had a wild streak in her as wide as she was tall, though you'd never know it unless you got to know her well. Intimately well, if you will. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I was never particularly successful in romance myself, except when it came to Elaine. We kept up an on again, off again affair for basically as long as we knew each other... never really planning things out, just getting together for some mutual adult pleasures every so often when the mood struck us. I think Siegel eventually started to figure it out, and that was shortly before their marriage started going downhill, even though Lacus was born during that time."

"I backed off for proprieties sake at that point, or tried to anyway... Elaine had a daughter to take care of, and Siegel's political career was really taking off. We were still friends, despite the strain the never acknowledged but still known affair caused. Elaine didn't handle it at all well. She started having mood swings, and began to drink more and more heavily. I... I was weak. I did not break things off when she came to me in search of fun and games that Siegel would not provide for her, being too concerned for the greater world picture at the time, and for Lacus herself. It was the wrong thing to do... Elaine was not a bad woman, just a weak willed one when it came to worldly pleasures, and not particularly good at planning ahead. She felt so guilty for cheating on Siegel, and for neglecting her daughter, whom she really did love with all her heart. Eventually... well, eventually she ended up going too far. Siegel kept it quiet, and I don't think Lacus herself ever found out this truth, but Elaine didn't die in a freak traffic accident. Well, she died in a traffic accident, but it was because she got liquored up to the gills and then drove her car into a building at one hundred and twenty kph... deliberately." Randolf blinked back a tear.

"She just couldn't take the guilt anymore, you see. The continual betrayal of her husband's love for mere physical pleasure, the neglect of her daughter's life... it ate away at her until there was almost nothing left of her original personality. I blame myself somewhat... I should have been a better friend. I should have never continued the affair after her marriage and especially not after Lacus was born! The guilt gnawed at me too, and I swore I'd make it up to Lacus and Siegel as best I could, in whatever limited way I could. Siegel pretty much cast me out after Elaine's funeral... he blamed me to an extent, and he was right to do so. Can you believe that at one point in time he was thinking about making me her godparent? Oh, the waste I made of life, just for a few nights of physical pleasures!" Randolf shook his head bitterly. "I was a fool. I vowed to protect Lacus Clyne from suffering as her mother had, from being victimized by so called friends who would take advantage of her gentle and trusting nature! But again I was weak... I allowed myself to become lax, to trust in Siegel's ability to protect her!"

"Of course, Siegel died, and you came into the picture, carrying her off like a bandit to his lair, while I was trapped down on Earth fighting for ZAFT in China, oblivious to the occurence. By the time I found out, you'd already established the Clyne Faction, and had cemented your hold on Lacus herself! There was no way I could do anything, especially because Lacus herself had no idea that I was anything but a distant acquiantance of her father's! I ended up giving up, for a while, until that time in the desert. I had thought, for a while, that she had managed to throw off her shackles... talking with her, right before your ambush, that was the feeling I got... of a spirited, free willed young lady, exactly the sort of girl Siegel and Elaine would have wanted her to be! But then the totality of your evil grip was exposed to me, in a hail of shells and plasma blasts that almost killed me... should have killed me! But it didn't, and I have finally returned to do things the right way, protecting her like I should have the first time!" Randolf drew back his foot and kicked Kira in the back, right at the kidney's, as hard as he could, digging in his toe. Randolf smiled at the gasping scream.

"I could have turned out like you, if I were a less decent man at heart, Kira Yamato. Maybe that's why I hate you so much. It's never pleasant to confront a darker reflection of yourself!" Randolf reached down and grabbed Kira by the shoulder and hair, and hauled him back upright, coughing and groaning, still twisting and shaking from the kidney shot. "Well, that's my sordid tale, the condensed version anyway. I'm protecting Lacus from you for Elaine and Siegel's sake, because they are unable to. Its not even close to enough, but its all I can offer them."

"Lacus... Lacus..." Kira stammered, fighting for breath. The pain in his lower back and abdomen was almost overwhelming. "Lacus... forgives you for your past, you may be interested to know."

"Lacus doesn't know about my past, and I intend to keep it that way. I don't want to burden her any more than you already have!" Randolf kept his hand in Kira's hair and slammed his head down on the table, smearing it with red splatters. "As far as she'll ever know, you just disappeared one day and never came back. Clean cut, the easiest way to move on."

"You're wrong." Kira mumbled, barely audible, speaking though smashed lips and a bloody mouth, his eyes almost swollen shut and his head swimming. "You don't know Lacus at all if you think that. Lacus and I... are connected... like I said before. You may not want to hear this... but at this point in time... there is no way to seperate us. She... can't move on, any more than she could get past not being able to breathe... or eat... or sleep... or perform any of the functions of life... anymore than I could do the same..."

"All drug addicts say similar things before rehab. None of them think they can live without their fix. They're wrong, and so are you!" Randolf snorted. He pressed Kira's face against the table, grinding it back and forth for a few seconds before letting go and stepping back. He waited for Kira to start lifting his head, and then kicked the chair over again, once more slamming Kira's head on the floor. Randolf shook his head in mild exasperation. "I'm done talking with you. Someone will be along eventually to clean you up, but I wouldn't hold your breath too hard. Helping out someone who's hurt Lacus Clyne isn't high on any Coordinator's to do list. Good bye, Kira Yamato. I'll see you again in court, as they haul you away to an empty existence where you'll never be able to hurt anyone ever again!" Randolf turned on his heel and put his protective glasses on again, before striding out the door to go clean the blood off his clothes and hands. He was practically skipping, for the first time since he was a teenager. One more thing right with the world, at last!

"Lacus..." Kira mumbled, as unconsciousness started to creep in. "Don't cry... I'll be... okay..."

---------------------------

"CRACK!" Katie's head spun around, wide eyed, seeing the gigantic fissure appear in the glass wall of the enclosed patio gazebo in the Clyne Mansion's back yard. The treated glass pane was split from top right corner to bottom left corner, pretty much all the way through both layers. She slowly turned her head back around towards Lacus, at the same time edging a few more inches away on her tiptoes, as Lacus slowly took her hands off of Ysak's chest. For his part, Ysak scrambled backwards, rebuttoning his shirt and pressing himself up against another glass pane, as far from Lacus as the confines of the gazebo would allow him, a terrified expression stark on his face as he looked at her. Katie gulped audibly as Lacus turned to look at her, her eyes washed out in a SEED fueled rage. She could feel the inferno of energy boiling inside Lacus's mind. The pink haired princess of the PLANTS was more than a little pissed off. She was more than fuming. She was in a full out, nigh berserk state.

"Um... so you found Kira then?" Katie asked, not at all liking the way Lacus's hair was twitching and tossing slightly, as if in a light breeze... though the air inside the gazebo was quite still. Lacus was truly terrifyng when she was this angry, this uncontrolled. She was manifesting entirely new powers, ones she could never do while in a normal state of mind. Katie was pretty sure she'd just broken that glass while using Ysak as an amplifier... hopefully the hair twitching was the best she could manage unamplified.

"... Yes." Lacus replied, shortly and neutrally. Katie swallowed again... Lacus was twice as scary when her voice was emotionally dead. It took one hell of a lot to get Lacus that angry. "He is... in duress, but there is nothing we can do for him at this time."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Katie said meekly, ducking her head, shooting a concerned glance at Ysak, who had one hand over his heart, as if it was trying to bust out of his chest. "Um... you're causing Ysak some duress too..."

"I need to be alone for a little while." Lacus answered. "I don't want to lash out at someone when I'm like this. I don't know what I might end up doing."

"Is Kira okay?" Katie forced herself to ask, as Ysak sidled painfully around the edges of the gazebo, headed towards her and the walkway leading to the rest of the house.

"No. He is badly beaten and hurt. And I had to sit there and feel him take it, from a man who is using lies and self deception to justify his actions. A man who thinks he is protecting ME is hurting Kira!" Lacus's hand curled into a fist. A teacup clattered on the table, as if jostled, though no one was particularly near the tea table. Ysak and Katie both stared at the cup, which stilled after a second. Ysak began edging a lot faster. "This same man... no... nevermind. Send someone to get me once you've decided who is going to investigate what." Lacus stared off into the distance, tears gathering at the corners of her washed out, metallic sheened eyes.

"I'll send Cyprus. He seems the most immune of all of us to Newtype powers, for whatever reason." Katie decided, talking out loud to try and keep from running away in terror. She took hold of Ysak's hand and they headed away from Lacus at a walk. A very brisk walk, and they did not look back, their shoulders hunched as if expecting a blow.

"Aireg Randolf..." Lacus muttered to herself, once she was alone. "I pity you, and I can forgive you for your crimes against my mother and father, because painful pasts deserve a chance to heal... but I can't forgive you so easily for your crimes against my own heart! If you think you can take Kira away from me and..." Lacus touched her stomach, splaying her hand flat against her abdomen. Tears dripped unnoticed down her cheeks. "I shall not let it happen. Kira is part of my soul!" Her other hand clenched, and this time the teacup shattered completely, though she barely noticed. "I love you, Kira... We love you! Hang on for us, just a little while longer!"


	24. Snakes in the Grass part 2

Author Note: As you may have noticed, Snakes in the Grass is going to be a pretty... visceral... arc. Not going to pull many punches, I tell you now. Getting towards the middle of the story now, moving into the main plot. The cast, for the most part, has been assembled. The stage has almost been set. Snakes is going to be a longer arc... probably at least six parts. Be prepared to wince... some of these events might stretch the "T" rating a little bit, though certainly no worse than Frost ever did... I tend to have a more generous view on what Teens are capable of handling with maturity. Many people seem surprised that the events of last arc happened so soon. Thank you. I'm glad to hear you were involved enough in the story to not notice its roughly one third of the way done already. I may not have mentioned it as much, but thats just because if I were to go into chapters of detail on the miniplots, the story would be about twice as long, and would drag on at times... so bear with me if I have to jump around with the miniplots a little, or if they seem rushed.

People also seemed surprised that Lacus is pregnant "already". Do remember that they've been trying for a year and a half before the start of the story... its more "finally" than "so soon?" And no... Noah could not, even in Seed mode, probably not even Resonate-Amplifying, if he even knew that was possible, crack glass or shatter a teacup like that (though damaging a Mobile Suit is still way beyond anything Lacus could hope to do, even with Kira around). Noah's powers just don't run towards that much Telekinesis, though in other areas he can, and will do things Lacus couldn't even touch. Liking the names, keep em up. Good guess Asmus. You and Noah/Durandel think alike.

And now, on with the show.

--------------------------------------------

"Doesn't really look like a hospital." Katie commented, peering through the binoculars at the Borander Institute for the Terminally Ill. "More like a college campus or something." She panned her view across the extensive gardens, complete with groves of trees, a small creek, several ponds and plentiful open, well maintained grassy lawns. Hedgerows and flower beds, along with less traditional rock gardens, were interspersed throughout the grounds, connected by meandering sidewalks and pathways, with plentiful shade trees providing protection from the heat of the reflected sunlight. If it weren't for the people in wheelchairs being pushed around by brightly uniformed attendants, she would never have guessed it was a hospital at all. Her eye caught on a figure in the far distance, beyond the range of the simple binocs to focus on, practicing tennis against some sort of automated opponent on the far side of the walled in garden complex.

"Well, at least according to its self description, its actually more a research complex, that also serves as a care center for its patients undergoing various experimental procedures for their rare and otherwise untreatable conditions, rather than a standard hospital." Ysak replied, pouring over the data he'd compiled from the net on his portable computer. "It doesn't have an emergency room or anything, and it doesn't accept patients unless they go through a rigorous examination process first. From what I understand, they only accept people that aren't responding at all to normal treatments, or have conditions for which there IS no treatment currently. They also seem to prefer people with no immediate family, or they have the family sign waviers resolving the Institute of blame in case of death due to these experimental procedures. It's sort of like a last chance before giving up totally sort of thing, I guess. Seems kind of... ugly, to me, but I guess if I was desperate, I might consider something like that." His tone was highly doubtful.

Alkire studied the Institute complex through his own set of binoculars, from the front seat of the ferrarri. It was on automatic control for the moment, gliding along in the slow lane. It hurt his automotive pride to debase the proud machine so, but he had to admit, peering through binoculars while driving manually was a good way to end up as a patient in the damned Institute, who apparently had a lot of people in deep coma's suffered during accidents, vehicular or otherwise, among the patient list. There were three main, dormitory style buildings arrayed behind a multistory, more modern in aspect central tower, plus a variety of outbuildings, including one tat he was pretty sure was a sort of crematorium, for disposing of bodies and other medical waste. The patients would be in the dormitories, along with some administrative type offices and support structures, like cafeterias and storage rooms, while the actual research and medical procedures would take place in the main tower. The grounds seemed to be there for the benefit of the families showing up to wheel their comatose or dying family members around in wheelchairs. He supposed he could understand the idea, but it still gave him the creeps... no thanks, let him die with dignity!

"Security looks pretty lax. Just a wall, a few electronic sensors, and some unarmed security guys who spend way too much time sitting around or smoking." Alkire commented, stowing his binocs and taking manual control of the car. "Maybe it's tighter inside the buildings themselves, but I doubt it... its tough to hide serious security inside a hospital with fragile patients. I'm finding it really hard to believe this is a Brotherhood site at all. I'm pretty familiar with terrorist groups and their methods of operation, the places they like to hang out... this place looks more like a TARGET than a base!"

"Maybe that's the secret to their success. Hide in plain sight... no one would expect this place to be a haven for terrorists." Ysak replied, his hand idly inching over the seat between him and Katie to slip around her waist, teasing at her hips and back. It was a five minute drive at least to the Institute, and he saw no reason he couldn't relax a little bit before the tension of the investigative mission.

"Oi." Alkire spoke up after a few seconds, as Katie was smiling and shifting her body towards Ysak. "I don't care what you kids do in your own apartment, when I'm not around. But if you don't get yer idle hands off my daughters ass while she's sitting in my car, I'm going to break your fingers, scar-boy. Just because she's my adopted daughter doesn't mean I'm going to give up the chance to be an overprotective bastard of a father."

"Dad..." Katie mock whined, smiling as she put her arms around Ysak's neck and leaned towards him impishly.

"Don't "Dad..." me! The least he could do is properly propose... what fiancee's do, or what husband and wives do... thats none of my business! But if you guys wanna keep things informal, living in sin and all that good shit, I'm going to keep BEING a Dad about things!" Alkire retorted. He glanced up in his rearview mirror. "Hey! You'd better not start making ou... Katie... I'm warning you...!"

Katie released her lips from Ysak's for a moment and touched her tongue to her lips. "Sorry Dad, what was that? I was too busy making out with my boyfriend to hear you."

"Do not push me, young lady!"

"Well, I know one person I'm never going to let watch us get ready to launch the Vorpal." Ysak muttered, after coming up for air the second time. He say Alkire's gimlet eye in the mirror and met it unwaveringly. Alkire was just messing with them, enjoying being a parent. Or so he was pretty sure. Ysak tightened his arms around Katie, pulling her more firmly against him and lying down more fully on the back seat, to an accompanying squeal of delight from Katie, and no doubt a frown from Alkire. "Try not to turn too suddenly. I'd hate to make a mistake in this position." Ysak taunted with a smirk.

"Yeah, you're funny, Ysak. So funny, you might just end up WALKING funny... after I shoot you in the knees." Alkire grumbled. He smiled, now that they couldn't see him. "Honestly, don't young people have any shame these days?"

_Not really._ It took Alkire a few moments to realize that Katie had not spoken aloud. He swallowed and kept the car steady, with a great effort of will. He knew that she was a Newtype or whatever, and so was Ysak... but... he had to agree with Miriallia and Dearka. It was just plain weird sometimes!

_Heh. You should have seen what Lacus did. It'd make you WISH she'd just talk in your head. I would NOT want to be the sons of bitches who hurt Kira when Lacus catches up to them. Oh... God... No..._

"Could you talk out loud, please?"

_Could you stop being a prude about me and Ysak?_

"Oh, so its THAT sort of game, huh? Okay dear... do your worst. I firmly stand by my right to disapprove of your inappropriateness."

_You do not want to see my worst, Dad. Especially not when I'm Resonating with Ysak. I could forcefully transplant the memories of what its like to have sex with him into your mind, if I want to. Shall I?_

"I could also then tear his balls off with a rusty fork."

"I think we should stop this line of conversation..." Ysak sat up, somewhat regretfully. Katie wiggled at him, adjusting her position on the seat, but he refused to be drawn back in. Alkire's voice had started to get that flinty tone that told Ysak that pushing too much further might actually get the Stormhound angry, which would be bad. He really never wanted to find out what it would be like to really set himself at odds with the older man. Ysak was pretty sure he could take him in a fair fight... but he knew Alkire never fought fair if he could help it. He would be perfectly capable of using rubber bullets and a high powered rifle to convey his true displeasure, or any number of other personal attacks, without feeling guilt about it at all. "So, any last minute changes to the plan we discussed?"

"I see nothing glaring to correct." Katie sat up as well, combing her slightly mussed hair back into place with her figners and patting her clothes straight again. She shot a smoking glance at Ysak, and a mental nudge. _Later._

Ysak twitched, having to force himself to concentrate on the here and now, with that kind of intent laden promise bouncing around his head and memories. "Okay, so Katie and I will actually do the searching, after we "get lost", while Alkire remains in the parking lot as back up. We split up to cover more ground, with Katie and I staying in contact mentally. If either of us finds something, we contact the other and get the hell out. We can come back later in more force, once the others get back from their own investigation. We're just here to find out if there IS anything to discover, not to blow it all open ourselves. Ideally, nobody will see us, and we won't have to cause a commotion at all. In and out, nice and easy... and then we go home and wait." _And fill up time with "Later"._

"You two are talking to each other behind my back aren't you!?" Alkire accused, seeing the wide eyed glances they were exchanging. "Bad enough with cell phones and email and instant messengers and texting... at least parents can monitor that shit! There's no way I can keep track of what you guys are doing in your heads! Damn it!"

"Don't worry Dad... we keep the mindsex down to a minimum with other people around."

"The fact that you even have such a ready term for it makes me want to shelter you, and throw Ysak down a flight of stairs... except that I know its YOU who's the one who's initiating most of it..." Alkire continued to grouse. "I have no problems with the plan as is. I think we picked the candy job here. Get in, wander around for an hour or so, probably not find anything, and then go home. Good... gives us time to talk with your mother about your behavior, assuming she's got some time off duty to spare."

"What makes you think Raine would be at all bothered by my behavior?"

"The small part of my mind that likes to think there is decency remaining in this sad world."

"Ah, the senile part, I understand. Do you know what she told me during her "the birds and the bees" talk?"

"How fortunate I am, to have an adopted daughter like you. And don't tell me ANYTHING about that."

"I love you too, daddy."

--------------------------------------

Noah had a free second, as the ball ricocheted from his racket and streaked back over the net at his opponent, so he ran a hand through his hair, combing the few stray strands back into place as he waited for the inevitable return, his legs loose, his center of gravity low, ready to pounce in any direction. He forced himself to think about other things than the complex algorithms that governed where the automated tennis machine would place its return shot, if he wasn't careful he would calculate where it was going to send the ball next, and that removed almost all of the challenge from it. Given that he was only playing to wind down from his morning workout, that would entirely ruin the point of the exercise. He put his mind into concentrating on maintaining his mental shields in a semi-permeable state, that would make him appear to be just another Stump to all but the most detailed and skilled of mental scans. There had been a lot of activity on the mental planes recently, just as he'd been hoping for.

Allowing Randolf free reign to kidnap Kira had allowed Noah to in turn gauge the depth of Lacus's Newtype abilities, when she inevitably tried to search for him, like a barnacle scraped off from its pier piling trying to latch back on before it was swept away and lost forever in the ocean. He had to admit... he was impressed and even somewhat disquieted. For a while there she had bestrode the PLANTS themselves like a giant invisible colossus, peering down like an Angel from on high, the power of her desperate search leaking into dreams and the subconscious minds of thousands of Stumps, causing shivers and nervous starts and the hearing of voices that were not really there, just below the level of audibility. Noah didn't think he'd ever be able to do something like that... his own ability to broadcast was severely limited. He could barely even talk to his "patients", even though they were trapped in deep coma's, about as suspectible to mental communication as Stumps could get.

There was nothing wrong with his ability to recieve though, and although the strength of the response was far greater than he'd been expecting, he'd still had plenty of warning, plus her attention was directed elsewhere, giving him plenty of time to damp himself down to a point where he could observe her while being extremely unlikely to be observed in turn. Not that she even looking for other Actives at all... no, she was a lost puppy looking for a favorite bone and that was it, and once she found it she fixated on it. Of course, the abuse Randolf was likely subjecting her dear Kira to had likely done a lot to help cement her attention. He'd been able to feel her outrage like a live ember burning into his tongue! Such emotions! Such strength! Truly, she was such a worthy being! It was only fitting, considering that she was a true blue diamond from a meteorite, to use a phrase he'd read in some old journals that had been lying around the lab he'd been born in, after he'd come back there in his early teens during a fit of nostalgia.

Noah stepped off from the line, dashing forward smoothly and lunging into a forehand volley, snapping the tennis ball back across the net again. He was distantly aware of the sunlight on his face, and the sweat on his skin, and the slight burn in his muscles as they cooled down from the much more extensive exercise regime he'd put himself through earlier in the morning, but most of his attention were on any of a dozen different subjects and plans and scenarios. One of those was Lacus Clyne... truly, she was the one for him, the Eve for the new world he was creating. She was the very essence of the new race he would be creating, the forerunner of the new humanity! Of course there was the problem of getting her to see his point of view on things... she was a very emotional person, and very controlled by her feelings. There would be significant problems along those lines. But nobody said Adam and Eve had to love each other! Indeed, it might be better for the world if they kept their relationship more... businesslike.

He considered a more pleasant situation, his mind turning to another pink haired girl that was eating up more and more of his thoughts of late. It had only been a few weeks since the rather dismal dating experiment he'd had on Earth, but he still found himself missing Meyrin quite a lot, and it had been growing worse every day, until finally he'd resolved that he would go down there this very night and see her! He hadn't talked to her directly since she'd gotten off his shuttle that morning weeks ago, but he'd been keeping tabs on her through contact with Rey. She was probably celebrating right now, on time off because her unit of the Solar Knights had compelted its first major combat operation successfully! The fact that it had been a victory over his own forces didn't mean he was any less happy for her, nor did the fact that the victory was completely pre-ordained in any way, somehow, diminish the value of her success in his eyes. Was this rose colored tint that he had when considering her accomplishments and life that thing people called infatuation? It was very interesting!

He was so caught up in his thoughts of her that he actually missed the next return from the teniis machine, the ball bouncing and whacking against his shin before rolling away. He winced absently and rubbed his shin, flicking his other hand in a visual signal that shut the machine off before it could launch any more balls. His concentration was broken, he just couldn't keep his mind on the game. It would have to be cooldown enough. He appreciated the new feeling of muscle tone and strength in his body. The disgraceful state of his physical capabilities in his first encounter with Meyrin had been a burning shame. He hadn't been able to sleep for the embarassment! Thankfully, with his new exercise regime, that sort of thing would never be a problem again. His body learned and toned fast, all it took was effort and willpower. And he had more than enough of the latter... enough to accomplish anything he set his mind to!

He stretched and tossed his racket away idly. Someone would pick it up for him, the same way they would clean up his water bottles and used towels, and all the scattered tennis balls, and pretty much anything else that he did not deign to bother himself with. His tennis clothes, short sleeved shirt, shorts and tennis shoes, began absorbing and decomposing the little sweat he'd worked up, preliminary cleaning before he got into the showers. He hated being dirty, or being around things that were dirty. He understood the necessity of it sometimes, especially when it came to Brotherhood tasks, but that didn't mean he had to let it be a part of his personal life if he had any choice in the matter! He wondered what presents he should bring to Meyrin this time. She'd seemed shocked by the cash card he'd provided, and she hadn't used it yet. He'd have to explain to her again... money truly was meaningless to him, and not just because he had so much of it! She should spend it on making herself happy while mere money could still accomplish that task!

She had seemed to really like the clothing he'd converted her old, mud ruined clothing into. He'd had a few more sets made in her size, for all seasons of weather, and of different styles. Though shifts in color and pattern were of course almost infinitely possible for the omnichromatic clothing, they still could not change from being a short sleeved shirt and skirt into long sleeved shirt and pants, or a singel piece dress. He'd have to put some thought into the concept... there was absolutely no reason he shouldn't be able to branch out from LCR armor to something acceptable for clothing. He also had a variety of bathing suits made for her... the number was probably excessive, but he had no idea what style she liked, so instead of chancing a wrong guess, he had one made in every major style. She could always throw out or give away the stuff she didn't want. He'd been planning on making some sleepwear for her too, but a moment of consideration had led to him holding off for now. Better to take things a little more slowly, despite how he felt... he didn't want to overwhelm her, or chance offending her by assuming she wanted everything he had to give. Better to ask her and see what she wanted, and then get it for her.

He was frankly surprised how much he cared about what she felt or thought about him. This had never happened to him with regard to anyone else, save his parents, and that had died away, withering like an unwatered vine by the time he was only seven or eight. His parents had been far too busy with their own lives to have a moment to spare for his adoration or his problems. He found himself imagining the smile on her face when he surprised her with new gifts, and his entire body felt lighter and filled with energy, despite the residual tiredness from the workout and cooldown. Meyrin could never be his Eve, but that didn't mean she couldn't be the girl for him! He forced himself to reign in his racing emotions... he was straining his shields for one, and for two this was all still conjecture... she might very well despise him, or think he was too weird and strange, or too young even... there were a hundred ways things could go unfavorably for him with regard to her, and precious few ways for things to turn out as he hoped, depsite his best efforts! Of course, that would just make a happy ending all that much happier, for its rarity, should he be lucky and skilled enough to achieve it!

He also still had a lot of work to do today, before he had time off at night to go down to Earth and see her. He had an early afternoon meeting with some major BoranderCorp shareholders... people he privately despised and were largely meaningless, considering he personally owned over eighty percent of the stock of the Corp, though that was hardly a publicly known fact. He had to humor them, make them think they mattered, keep them fed, watered, fat, dumb and happy, like the livestock they basically were, so that he could continue on directing the Corp's assets and resources as he saw fit. Both to further enrich the company, and by extension himself and them, and for far more important tasks as well. After that he'd promised himself a few hours of tweaking some of his Gundam's systems, as the Brotherhood's namesake Gundam entered its final stages of construction. The multilimb NIC programming was still too buggy for his liking. He would be satisfied with nothing less than perfection in his Gundam! Some minor changes also needed to be made to the control suite in his private quarters aboard the Great Endeavor.

But before all of that, he had set himself a task that would eat up almost all the morning, and demand from him the utmost in concentration and willpower. In its way, it would be a far more intense workout than he'd ever put his body through, and he'd likely be sweating worse at the end of this procedure than he did after even a full hour at max resistance on the full body exercise machine! The preparations had been made while he was out on the tennis courts, everything would be ready and in its proper place for him when he arrived at the crematorium. It just made sense to hold the procedure there... it made disposing of the waste material so much easier, rather than requiring a trolly-bed and likely an escort, to make sure the condition of the body was not accidentally revealed on the way to disposal. There were of course restraints in place... but the subjects showed a truly distressing ability to befoul and deface themselves during the extraction and stimulus phases, which made cleanup very messy at times. Best not to make things any more complicated than need be.

This newest project was more ambitious than previous generations. Not in the degree of intelligence he was extracting and burning to electronic form, which he doubted he'd ever do better at than with Phlegethion and Aether, who were almost fully sentient, which had special problems and considerations all its own. No, this time he was only extracting a relatively minimal amount of creativity plus the usual levels of devotion, loyalty and intellectual comprehension, plus the ability to recognize kinship with other like things. Phelegethion and Aether had not required that... they'd been twin sisters before their rebirth, and the loyalty and mutual love had largely transferred into their new incarnations without him having to do anything. However, his next project... well, nobody had that many sisters, or even brothers, were he inclined to use male subjects, which he wasn't. He had to create that sense of sisterhood this time, but earlier experiments had shown it was impossible to instill that kind of feeling in multiple subjects without also compromising their loyalty to him, which was unacceptable of course, in guardians like them.

His solution was elegant, if he did say so himself. Noah was barely aware of his body going through the motions of showering and cleansing his body, his mind already almost fully on the task ahead. If he could not modify multiple Biological Intellegince Interface Chips to feel loyalty to each other and himself at the same time, then he would simply take ONE BIIC and make multiple copies of it, like making a backup of a computer hard drive. The process wasn't nearly so easy of course, which was why he was striving to make the base BIIC as simple as possible, to make sure nothing was lost in copy degradation. It would eventually be like letting a brain damaged idiot loose in a house of mirrors... unable to tell themselves from the reflections, they would treat the reflections as if they were themselves! Or so he hoped. There would probably end up being one "primary" BIIC, which would always be the first to take action, and from which the "reflection" BIICs would take their cue, but that was okay. He was planning on making almost fifty of the things... he'd gotten the idea, he was somewhat disgruntled to admit, even to himself, from Athrun Zala's "Zim" mouse robot that he'd given to his wife, Chief Representative Cagalli.

His "Zam" rats would be a little more useful than just a pet though. They would roam through the sensitive areas of the Great Endeavor, the places only Angels like him were allowed to tread alone, and keep them inviolate, using pack tactics to overwhelm and overpower intruders. Each individual Zam was about the size of a large terrier, made of a heavy armored shell, regeretfully too small to mount a big enough battery for even Transphase Shift armor. The Zam clans would have to rely on numbers, small size and speed for defense, rather than the advanced armor and stealth technologies Plegethion and Aether sported. They were still armored, which would provide protection against most forms of small arms fire, in a limited fashion. For offensive purposes they had claws and teeth, sharp enough to cut through steel like cheese, plus small flamethrowers in their jaws. Unlike the dragon's self recharging versions, the Zam rats would need maintainence to recharge their flames, but they would be potent single use weapons. The rats would also be packed with explosives similar to antipersonnel mines, allowing them a last ditch offensive option.

The robot bodies were already made, it was now a matter of procuring the BIIC chips to put into them, and impressing upon them the nature of their mission, then allowing them to get used to their reincarnated bodies. Phlegethion and Aether had taken months to adapt, he was hopeful that the Zam clan would not be so handicapped, because of their limited intelligence and self awareness. He got dressed in his standard everyday clothes of slacks, long sleeved collared shirt and loafers. A robe similar to that which he wore when masquerading as the Prophet of the Brotherhood for the sake of his fanatics would be in the crematorium, waiting for him to put on over his normal clothes. This was both to act as a sort of surgical apron, in case any... mess... went airborne and splattered as far as to reach him, and to get the BIIC intelligence used to seeing him in the robe, since that would be his most common form of dress aboard the Great Endeavor.

His ears and peripheral vision alerted him to the presence of his three Harbringer bodyguards, keeping a "safe perimeter" around him as he headed for the crematorium. He sighed at their obtuseness... he was used to the utterly undetectable nature of Phlegethion and Aether, rather than this barely out of sight, "disguised" protection. As if janitorial or medical orderly uniforms would really fool people dedicated to trying to hurt him... they probably wouldn't even care about collateral casualties, regardless of whether they were bodyguards or innocent bystanders. It was a form of mess, really, and he despised it... but there was nothing to do but bear it, at least for a day every month or so. Because of their almost fully sentient natures, Phlegethion and Aether needed... special maintenance every so often. It wasn't maintenance of any mechanical sort... it was more like sleep, really.

Not merely rest, since even when in low power mode when not in direct use, they were always awake, awaiting a command transmission from him, or a condition triggering one of their response mechanisms. He had to lull them to sleep with his powers, practically back down into the coma levels he'd pulled them out of during their BIIC translation, and soothe them with pleasant dreams of paradise and their old bodies. They didn't even remember what their old bodies looked like, indeed they looked different every dream... it was just the feeling of being back in a human form, doing things like a human would, even if it was all imaginary, that helped balm and support their minds, preventing them from fracturing or degenerating. Humans were not dragons, after all, and being a human mind in a dragon body, especially a mechanical one, put a lot of wear and tear on the mind controlling the mechanical systems. Phlegethion and Aether would be ready by the time he went down to Earth, but until then he was on his own, except for the Harbringers. He felt lonely.

One of the Harbringers was holding the door open for him when he arrived at the crematorium, but he ignored the man, who took no offense, awed merely at being allowed to be so close to the Prophet while he worked his great magics, allowing the very power of the Angels to conduct from heaven through his mortal coil! He closed the door after the Prophet entered, his two fellows taking up position outside, to provide warning in case anyone tried to enter during the process. The third Harbringer helped the Prophet shrug into his ceremonial ritual robes and then stepped back without needing to be bid, his eyes resolutely fixed on the far wall, away from the table and equipment that had been set up near the shuttered portal that fed the medical incinerator. He wanted badly to stare at the girl lying naked save for plastic restraints on wrists, ankles, neck and waist on the table, who was very pretty, but he dared not, for fear of drawing the wrath of the Prophet. This was a holy pilgrim, ascending to heaven to take on a new mortal form... lewdness towards her was a terrible sin!

Noah trailed his hands along his patient's skin absently, as he relaxed his shields, peeling them away from his mind like a flower blooming open, casting the semi-permeable, intangible sheathes away to dissolve like morning mist in the mental space surrounding his mind. It felt SO good, like standing up and stretching after being confined in a prison too small for his body for hours at a time! He always wondered, for a few seconds, before logical and reason reasserted themselves, how he could ever stand to limit himself like he did at times? He forced control on himself, yoking his powers to the task at hand and damping down on everything else. Running wild was fun, but not very productive or admirable. To have power and not use it was reprehensible... but to have power and misuse it... that was truly disgusting! He could not even imagine the shame he would feel if he allowed himself to run rampant around Meyrin, and ended up forcing her to become something she was not... he wanted her to love him, not be his slave! Love without free will was no love at all!

_Hello, Sally. How are you feeling today? It's a very special day today, I hope you're ready. I'm going to cure you today... you'll finally be able to open your pretty green eyes and walk and run and play in the sun again! Isn't that wonderful!?_

_Oh, Noah! Thank you, thank you, thank you! I swear, anything I can do for you, my love... anything! Let me do it! Please! I love you! I love you forever! You are my savior! Save me from this endless nightmare! I want to walk! To sing! To dance! To eat food with my mouth... to... to...!_

_Yes, my dear. You shall. You shall live again, after today. And as it happens... there is a task you can do to help me..._

_Anything! Anything at all! Please! Please! Noah, please let me help you! Anything!_

_Good. I knew you'd say that, Sally. You make me happy._ Noah smiled, brushing his hands across her lips, his eyes lingering on her chest for a moment before he forced himself to concentrate more. Sally was a girl in her prime, but her body was just waste material, no matter how enticing it was. He might as well allow himself to feel lustful about a bag of fertilizer, because that's all her body really was! By this time tomorrow her old physical form would be enriching the soil of the Insitute's gardens, alongside all the other former subjects. Perhaps she'd provide the energy to make some flowers bloom. It was a poetic image, he thought. Noah sat down and brought the electronic systems that would draw the data from his stimulation of Sally's mind and psyche and turn it into usable electronic data online. He checked her gag one more time, making sure it was not loose or worn... the last thing he needed was someone investigating screams, and thus the gag. A lesson learned from hard experience. They always screamed. _I'll tell you about it soon. Now hold on tight... this may sting a little._

Noah exhaled and reached into her mind with all his strength, grabbing hold of those emotions and memories he could make use of... and then he began ripping them up and away, digging in his thoughts like steel claws and sawing and tearing away at the vapidity and mush that was her mental state, like a wolf gnawing gobbets of meat off the carcass of a fresh kill. His electronics lit up with computations and data started writing itself to the chip. Sally's eyes flew open, though she remained unconscious and her entire body tensed and jerked uncontrollably on her table, muscles straining and bones creaking as quiet mewling and choking noises came from her gagged mouth. Veins and tendons stood out on her arms and leg and neck, and her face started turning red from the overstimulation of her every nerve and thought, her chest shuddering as her nostrils flared, trying to suck in air she was constantly releasing in a choked wail of excrutiation.

Noah felt the sweat starting to stand out on his forehead already, but he was calm and relaxed... he'd done this often enough by now that he knew when the process was going well, and when it wasn't. So far, green lights across the board. Better than normal even. At this rate, he might even have time for lunch at Norman's before his afternoon meeting. That would be nice. He'd have to remember to take Meyrin there sometime, assuming she let him. He permitted himself a small daydream on the subject, tuning out Sally's grunts and groans and futile struggles. Reincarnation wasn't quite the boon the stories and fables made it out to be... the world wasn't that nice and perfect. It was too bad. He wondered what Meyrin's favorite food was?

-------------------------------------------

Katie staggered and tripped, falling to her knees, skinning them on the sidewalk pavement. she barely even noticed that minor physical discomfort, pressing her hands to her temples as she was, fighting to slam up her mental shields in order to block out the deluge or screaming agony, beyond anything she'd ever imagined being able to feel, as it slammed into her and almost swept her away. She felt her consciousness start to fade away and she gritted her teeth, both physically and mentally, digging her nails into her scalp and using the small pain to focus her mind and thoughts, building a bulwark of focus and concentration that gradually allowed her to shut out the inferno of pain raging around her. She found herself gasping and sweating from the effort, tears in the corners of her eyes and her entire brain throbbing with a terrible headache, but compared to the initial rush of emotion, it was a relief! She hurt, but she could function! Katie clambered back to her feet, dusting off her skirt and wincing at the raw scrapes on her knees, now that she wasn't distracted enough to ignore them.

_WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!?_ Ysak screamed in her head, fighting to hold his own mental barriers against the onslaught. His mental voice was very tinny and quiet, almost a whisper, as he was basically forced to try and shut off his entire mind from her, unable to filter finely enough to shut out the emotional storm without also shutting her out as well. Katie could feel him biting down painfully hard on his lips, even to the point of drawing blood, in order to keep the mental excrutiation from rendering him a sobbing, useless ball. _It sounded like a girl being torn limb from limb... slowly! Oh Gd, I've never heard anything so horrible! It won't stop! It's everywhere! Oh FUCK IT HURTS!_

_I don't fucking know! I've never felt anything like this! It's almost like a death echo... like what happened to Chanel... but I've... I've NEVER IMAGINED something like this!_ Katie tried to walk and ended up staggering and almost falling again. It was taking almost everything she had at the moment just staying upright. She clenched her fists and forced herself to get past it, blocking out and dampening down her mental receptors to the point of near deafness, as she did sometimes around Lacus, when she was exercising her powers using Kira as an Amplifier. She opened and re-shut herself off in short blurts as she communicated with Ysak. _Its horrible! What could cause a person to react like this!? It's like something someone would make if they were being cooked and eaten alive! It's not even FROM A NEWTYPE... that's just some regular GIRL! What the fuck is going on!?_

_It's bleeding through... to everyone around me!_ Ysak replied, from one of the patient wards, where he'd been searching for evidence of any secret rooms or other hiding places. Nada, so far. He could hear heart rate and brainwave fluctuation monitors spiking all around him, their steady, almost monotone "blip... blip... blip" turning into "blip-blip-blip-blip-blip"! _These people are in vegetative states! They wouldn't respond like this if you stabbed them with a red hot knife! ARRGH! OWWW!_ Ysak steadied himself on a wall, clutching it like a drunk. _Let's get out of here! I think this qualifies as something strange!_

_Good idea. I'll join you in a moment._ Katie responded, turning her head towards the crematorium, a few dozen yards away. Two bulky men in janitorial uniforms were hanging around outside the doors, apparently just taking a break. However she could feel the source of the psychic trauma inside the crematorium, and that put a new perspective on their apparent idleness. They were really a bit too big and tough looking to be just janitors... and they didn't have any cleaning supplies with them. Disguised guards? That's suspicious all right. _I need to check something out first._

_Katie! We agreed to go as soon as we found anything strange! This isn't really a find, but..._ Ysak protested vehemently. He sagged harder against the wall and had to fight not to vomit. _It hurts so much... I need to get out of here! This is not a good place to be!_

_I agree... but I can't just walk away from someone in that kind of pain! It's coming from the crematorium. There looks like there might be some disguised guards outside. I'm going to go take a closer look._

_KATIE! Godamnit! DON'T! Let's get the hell out of here... we can come back! With everyone! Something is seriously fucked up here!_

_It'll just be a moment..._ Katie turned her mind away from the conversation, in essence "hanging up" on him. Ysak could be such a worrywart when it came to her. Like he never took risks that made HER worried! It was always perfectly okay for him to make HER worry, at least that was how he sometimes acted, but he didn't like it going the other way. Overprotective male syndrome. It wasn't enough that she could outshoot him, and sometimes even out fight him on the combat mat... she was a girl, and that was that to him. Annoying chivalry! It had its time and place... but she knew what she was doing. She was pretty sure anyway. She tried to act innocent and lost as she wandered over towards the crematorium, not making any attempt to hide or disguise her intentions. The ground was too open for anything other than a overconfidence strategy to work. They'd see a girl in a skirt with skinned knees, and nothing more... until it was too late. It'd be better if she could use her powers to gauge their level of readiness, but she dared not open herself up so close to the heart of the maelstrom she could feel.

"This area is closed to the public." One beefy "janitor" said, holding out a hand, and incidentally revealing the tell tale bulge of a concealed pistol holster under his arm to her trained and experienced eye. He was looking at her with more annoyance in his eyes than anything... plainly he didn't consider her a threat. His buddy was too busy taking her shirt off with his eyes to really have much room in his mind for much else. Not very good bodyguards, very unprofessional. Just about the right speed for religious fanatic terrorists though. Katie edged closer, putting a unsteady stagger into her movements, wishing she'd thought to perhaps unbutton her top few shirt buttons before approaching... these idiots were exactly the type to get distracted by feminine assets, even on guard duty. "Come back in a few hours."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Katie watched them both standing there, completely relaxed and unwary as she got within arms reach of them. "I fell down and got turned around. I'm afraid I'm kinda lost. Could you guys please point me towards a first aid station, so I can get some bandages." Katie swayed on her feet, as if feeling faint. "Oh... I don't feel so good."

"Don't look so good either." The other guard commented, looking her up and down. Clearly, from his smirk he was referring to her complexion, not her appearance, which he seemed to rather like. The pig. Katie let her swaying intensify, and stumbled towards him, as if falling again. He put out his hands to catch her, looking faintly surprised, but not suspicous.

"Oh... I'll feel better in a moment." Katie muttered, grabbing him by his outstretched arms and tugging him closer, off balance, while pouncing upward with one knee extended, right between his legs. He "WHUFFED" and his eyes went very wide and unseeing from the pain. A bladed hand chop to the back of his neck helped him to the ground, eyes rolling partway up into his head from the effects of the nerve strike. His friend was spinning towards her, his reactions good if nothing else... about what she'd expect from a Coordinator really. Too bad for him that she trained against Ysak all the time... and Ysak was a lot faster than this guy was. Katie's sweeping foot caught the other man behind his left knee, chopping the limb out from under him as it went numb, and he fell forward onto her extended knuckle punch to the base of the throat. His throat closed in reflexive pain and he gagged and flopped for a few seconds before he too succumbed to unconsciousness.

"See... I feel great now!" Katie commented with a victorious smile. Still, she didn't waste time, not even to strip the men of their weapons. They weren't going to be out for long, but she only needed to peek inside, maybe get a snap shot with her camera phone, and then she was totally out of there! The door wasn't even locked, and Katie kicked it open violently, just barely turning the knob enough to free the mechanism, before leaping inside, braced in a ready crouch, camera phone held ready in her back hand. It took her a moment to adjust her eyes to see well in the dim interior versus the bright outside, but the moment of disorientation passed quickly. To be replaced by dumbstruck horror.

The interior of the crematorium wasn't that big... just large enough for two trestle-type tables, feeding onto slightly angled ramps with rollers on them, that would allow bodies and bags and other forms of disposable medical waste to be fed into the twin mouths of the incinerator, there to be reduced to safely biodegradable ash and cinders, that were then made into fertilizer, as was the custom for dead bodies in the PLANTS. It was creepy sometimes, seeing blooming beds of flowers rooted in soil that was composed of dead human remains, but it made sense for the closed and resource limited environment of the PLANTS. Nothing could be allowed to go to waste in the PLANTS. One of the tables was empty, and looked faintly disused. But it was the other that drew her eye, and numbed her mind with shocked disbelief. All sorts of advanced and incomprehensible looking computer equipment was bunched around it, on either side, silvery wires leading from sockets in the machines up onto the table.

On the table itself, with the wires inserted into her skin and flesh all over her head, was a girl. She was nude, and comprehensively strapped to the table with restraints around wrists, ankles, waist and neck, plus a gag in her mouth. Her eyes were open, and bleeding from the corners, while blood also leaked from her nostrils, ears and the corners of her mouth, where her teeth had scraped her cheeks and lips raw even with the gag in place. Her fingernails were all torn up and the fingertips themselves bloody, skin abraded away down to the bone as she clawed at the stainless steel table she was bound too, her entire body jerking and spasming like someone in the middle of a grand mal epileptic seizure! If it weren't for the restraints, she probably would have fallen off the table in seconds. Little mewling cries and sobs escaped from her, the remnants of screams that died in her throat, now hoarse from constant effort. This girl was the source of the psychic trauma exploding outward across the Institute, of that Katie had no doubt! And little wonder, considering the torture she seemed to be undergoing, though there were few physical marks.

"Hey! How dare you interrupt this holy ritual!" Another beefy hand dropped heavily on her shoulder from behind. Katie reacted without hesitation, dropping her phone with a clatter, she put both hands on the man's wrist and tugged forward and down, sticking out her hip and using it as leverage with a grunt to toss her assailent forward and to the ground with a surprised yell. She kept her hands on his wrist, rotating his arm around painfully and bending it awkwardly behind his back, before she stamped down with her heel on the back of his head and bashed his face against the concrete floor, breaking his nose loudly and splashing gore across the pavement. Katie kicked downwards again, and his struggles tapered off, brought down by blessed unconsciousness like his two friends outside. Katie was just bending down for her phone when she spotted the fourth figure, besides the tortured girl on the table.

The robed and cowled figure sitting in a padded folded chair by the head of the table the girl was restrained upon looked up, his hands stilling from the rapid typing on the keys of his computers and other machines. Unlike the three guards, he was slim of build, actually not that big at all, not much taller than her. Ysak would be bigger than this guy by several inches, and a good thirty pounds. Still, Katie froze, struck by an aura of strength and power radiating from the robed man that went above and beyond anything physical charisma could account for, especially considering she couldn't even see his face. Katie swallowed hard, her throat dry, as the robed figure slowly stood up. Katie realized that the pyschic maelstrom had died away as well, as had the screams and struggles from the bound girl. Her entire body relaxed and limp, drool flooding from her mouth, her face going slack and eyes fluttering closed. Moments later, the stench of bowels voiding filled the room, and Katie realized the girl had just died, unable to handle the sudden cessation of whatever terrible process she'd been undergoing.

"A waste." The hooded figure said suddenly, turning towards her. "I was barely twenty percent done. I was going to set a new record with her. But then YOU had to interrupt me, Katie Belaruse! How inexcusably rude of you! You have no idea how many days of conditioning and effort you have just set at naught! Sally was perfect for this project... finding a new subject will be very annoying!"

"Who the hell are you!? What the FUCK IS GOING ON HERE!? WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT GIRL!?" Katie gagged on the smell of bodily waste, mixed with the coppery smell of fresh blood. "I've never felt such agony! What could do that to a person! HOW DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM!?"

"Well, there's a number of answers to that last question." The hooded figure tossed back his hood, revealing a face of such startling physical beauty that Katie gasped in awe. Perfectly symmetrical facial features, flawless skin, luminous purple eyes sparkled with gold in the pupils and white ash blond shoulder length hair that seemed to fairly float around his head like an angelic halo... she'd never seen anyone so beautiful! Even Ysak couldn't hold a candle to this guy! It wasn't until she started feeling attraction well up inside her that she realized his beauty was enhanced by more than just physical looks. He was... "The simplest is that I read your mind."

"Read my..." Katie took a step backwards. She dropped her shields, now that the maelstrom had quieted, because of the girl's... Sally's... death. She took another step back, sweat beading over her face and neck, her eyes wide, pupils dilated with surprised panic. "You're a Newtype." Katie whispered, looking at him with all her senses. "An Active... like..."

"Like you? I think not." The young man smiled at her, but his eyes were hot with anger. "I am an Angel, a genetically perfect soul... you are just an accident of fate! My name is Noah. Don't bother trying to probe me for more... theres no way someone like you could penetrate MY shields."

"Arrogant motherfucker!" Katie muttered, trying anyway. She was disconcerted to find that he was speaking nothing but the truth... she could see him, blazing on the mental plane, right there in front of her... but he was even less readable than a Stump! She couldn't get ANYTHING from him! Pushing at his mind was like trying to tear down a solid steel wall with her bare hands! "What the fuck were you doing to that poor girl!? How could you not feel what you were making her go through!? What sort of monster are..."

"I am not a monster." Noah refuted. "The process is painful, but that is just the way of things. She would have thanked me for it after I was done."

"She's DEAD! You killed..."

"Death is less permanent than you might think, with the right technical setup. But don't worry yourself about that." Noah let his eyes capture hers, narrowed gaze meeting wide eyed gaze. "Oh... don't go..."

"Like hell I won't!" Katie turned to run for her life and sanity. She'd never felt anything like this guy before! It was like encountering a pissed off Lacus, or close to it anyway! There was no way that she could contend with this dude, not when she wasn't ready, and was still recovering from the battering Sally's trauma had dealt her! She made it exactly one step before her entire body locked up tight and wouldn't respond no matter how much she strained and jerked at her muscles. "How the..." Her mouth stilled in mid sentence, clamping down tight, almost biting her tongue.

"Silly Natural... what do YOU know about being a Newtype? You're nothing but an aberration... a mistake of nature!" Noah sighed and shrugged his shoulders, as he turned her around and marched her back to stand in front of him, eyes rolling and blinking in stunned fear. "You honestly think you can just barge in on me in the middle of a delicate process, and just run away afterwards? No... I'm afraid such blatant disrespect can't go unpunished. I'm going to have to grind you into the dirt!"

_YSAK! HELP! THERE'S A...!_

"That's enough of that." Noah tightened his mental grip, choking off her beepcall as surely as if he'd choked off her throat if she was talking verbally. Noah gritted his teeth in outraged concentration, gesturing in a clawing, snatching motion with one hand to aid his focus. Katie went even stiffer, eyes rolling up in her head as he closed off all links between her mind and conscious actions, dropping her into a fugue state deeper than dreams, down into the level of a vegetative coma. With a vindictive twist of his thoughts he tied up the mental pathways the brain trod while waking up, ensnarling her in her subconscious. It wasn't permanent, he'd stopped short of that... but she wouldn't be waking up for a few days without outside help from another Newtype. She collapsed bonelessly to the floor at his feet, like a doll dropped by a careless child. Noah glared down at her, his anger only barely vented. The logical part of his mind was urging him to spare her, saying that having another Active around to study would be of great benefit.

The rest of his mind was focused on her disrespect to him, and the temerity of her breaking in during his delicate experiment and causing him to leave off too early in the process, killing Sally before the proper time and wasting weeks of preparation! No, her experimental value was worthless compared to the desire to punish, humiliate and destroy her that was welling up inside him. A Newtype, and an Active at that, born as a Natural! It was abhorrent! He knew they had to exist of course... but to think he'd encounter one personally! He regarded her with the same loathing most people had for tarantulas. The mere sight of her made him want to crush her under a heavy weight! He crouched down over her, without really thinking, conjuring up pleasant visions of her annihilation before he realized his hands were moving on a sort of autopilot. He rolled her over onto her back. She wasn't bad looking, for a Natural, he guessed. Not even a dim candle compared to someone like Meyrin or Lacus, but not ugly. He flipped up her skirt, almost in an afterthought.

"Feh. Light blue?" Noah shook his head, watching himself move from a distant part of his mind. He felt no attraction to this abomination of a Newtype, but he wondered just what sort of stimulus might prove too much for his coma to contain a response to. Well, he didn't expect ANY stimulus to wake her from the coma, other than time, but he supposed he might be able to justify a little... probing. To be on the safe side. In order to know for future reference, in case he ever had to coma-fie someone else. He hooked a finger in the band of her panties and tugged them down and off. Just a girl. Nothing special. He reached out with an almost tenative hand... she'd be sure to react, if she could, to THIS! He was so engrossed in waiting for a reaction to his touching that he kind of lost track of the seconds... and his surroundings. He looked up when a shadow fell across him from the doorway.

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Ysak had been running towards the crematorium ever since the psychic inferno had suddenly died down, with a final cry that sounded disturbingly like a sigh of relief. His head was still stinging and throbbing from the battering at his mental senses... being a Latent really sucked sometimes! All the Stumps around him had calmed and quieted almost immediately, shrugging off the weird feelings tickling at their minds from beyond the grasp of consciousness with the same ease that they dismissed any sort of nightmare or other warning from the subconscious. Not so lucky or fortunate was Ysak... he'd be feeling residual echoes of that torment for days, he was pretty sure. He still felt like vomiting, but now it was also because of worry... Katie was so impulsive sometimes! She was completely going counter to the agreed upon plan! He'd been half afraid she was going to do something like this if they found something... she liked to meddle. He'd been confident he could talk her out of it though... but in the aftermath of the psychic onslaught, he'd barely been able to whisper to her, even before she tuned him out!

He could still feel her emotions, sort of... enough that when she felt shock and hatred and fear and loathing he definitely picked up on those. And began moving a lot faster. It took an awful lot to get Katie THAT worked up... he hadn't felt her react so strongly since some of the times they'd encountered Frost during the Isolation! And anything approaching a Frost kind of situation was not a place he wanted her to be, especially alone! The crematorium came into view, with what looked like two men lying unconscious on the ground outside... the guards Katie had mentioned likely. Ysak flipped open his cellphone and hit the first speed dial, which he'd set to Alkire's phone for today. "Alkire! This is Ysak! We've got a big fucking problem!"

"Goddamn it!" Alkire replied, jumping up from the front seat and popping the trunk. He'd been having a nice relaxing sit, looking up at the sky, just content to enjoy the pleasant climate while he waited for Ysak and Katie to come back, fruitless and empty handed. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy. "What is it?"

"Katie's in trouble! At the crematorium!" Ysak's response chilled Alkire's heart, before it speeded up into overdrive. He tore open the travel case in the ferrari's trunk and snatched out the disassembled parts of the silenced sub-machine gun from inside. He began the process of re-assembling the weapon, a procedure he had practiced blindfolded so many times he could do it with or without being able to see in under forty seconds.

Ysak was about to say more when Katie's panicked beepcall struck him like a hammer to the side of the skull. _YSAK! HELP! THERE'S A...!_

_There's a WHAT!? KATIE!? KATIE!? WHAT'S WRONG!? KATIE!? FUCK!_ Ysak began sprinting for all he was worth, eating up the last hundred yards to the crematorium doors in a blur. He passed the men lying groggy and semi-conscious on the ground without a second glance, unable to think about anything besides getting to Katie as quickly as possible. He'd never had her just cut out in mid beepcall like that before! One moment she'd been there in his head, just like she always was... and the next she was GONE! Gone like she'd never been there at all! He couldn't feel her thoughts, her emotions, NOTHING! Even when she fell asleep, she never just cut off like that, and never so totally! His heart was in his throat when he burst into the crematorium, and saw Katie lying there limp on the ground, a young man clad in bloodstained robes crouched over her, his back to Ysak and the door. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM KATIE!" Ysak leapt at the man from behind, foot swinging around in a roundhouse kick.

Noah realized he was under attack by about the time Ysak had started talking, and within the instant his mind had re-engaged and alerted him to Ysak's presence and intentions. He was aware of Ysak's thoughts as they happened, before they could be translated into nerve impulses and motions. It wasn't precognition... more just that he knew what Ysak was going to do before Ysak could do it. Noah brushed through Ysak's flimsy shields like cobwebs... as a Latent Ysak was completely vulnerable to even a weak Active, and Noah was very far from weak. His entire mind was opened like a book for Noah to read, and his every move might as well have been telegraphed with fireworks and a PA announcement. Noah ducked under the kick and rolled to his feet on the other side of Katie's comatose body, swaying away from two follow up punches from Ysak, letting them slide just past his face. Noah smirked... let the stupid Latent think he had a chance, there was no way that...

"**YOU MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD!!**" Ysak roared, having looked down and seen Katie's skirt pushed up around her stomach, and her lack of panties. At the same instant, he spotted the light blue undergarment clutched in Noah's left hand. Ysak could not have described his thought process in the following moments if he'd tried. This bastard had been... had been... Ysak watched the dark blue Seed fall through the infinite void of his mind, detonating with the force of a hundred nuclear bombs, to fill him with the energy of an erupting volcano, magma filling his blood and igniting his organs with his fury. This bastard had been pawing and groping at Katie while she was unconscious and helpless and hurt and... and he was SMIRKING!? Ysak stepped forward and brought his fist around so fast the pretty boy never even saw it move, from windup until it slammed into his left eye and knocked him reeling backward into the nude, bloodstained corpse of a girl strapped to a table! The pretty boy collapsed to his hands and knees, shaking his head and groaning in pain. It wasn't even CLOSE to enough!

Ysak pounced forward and grabbed the bastard by the hair, yanking him back up to his feet and sinking his fist into the bastard's gut deeply enough to make his own knuckles hurt. Spittle and bile sprayed from the molester's mouth, his tongue standing out in agony as all the breath rushed out of his body and he doubled up around Ysak's fist. Ysak thundered another punch into the side of the son of a bitch's head, splitting the skin over his knuckles and flooring the degenerate creep, blood spilling from a split scalp to stain his hair and drip down his face as he lay stunned on the ground. Ysak drew back his foot, ready to totally level the fucker with a boot to the jaw to put his lights out good and proper, once and for all even! Breaking a neck wasn't too hard in this situation, and he was definitely pissed off enough to not care about whether the guy lived or died, right at the moment! The bastard had been enjoying molesting Katie while she was helpless... there was no more sure way to enrage Ysak, other than causing her grievous harm!

Noah shook his head, shocked and dazed, his vision bluury and his thoughts fuzzy. He hadn't counted on the Seed... who'd have guessed that this Latent Coordinator also possessed an awakened Seed!? It wasn't quite like a true Ultimate's Seed... the level of increase wasn't the same, the "taste" of the Seed was dry and sterile... it was just a regular Seed, like which lay dormant in the greater majority of humanity's masses. It would never germinate, never bloom into the next stage! In a way, this white haired, blued eyed, scar faced bastard... this Ysak Joule... was an abomination as great as his girlfriend, Katie Belaruse! A mockery of a true Ultimate Coordinator! Close was NOT good enough... to be so close but not true... it was a worse condition than just being a regular, bovine Natural! Flawed diamonds were even more worthless than plain glass! And a flawed diamond could never be allowed to stand before a pure diamond and emerge victorious!

Noah watched a brilliant white Seed, glowing with an internal light, pure and clear and bright like the very substance of heaven, golden sparkles bleeding off from all surfaces, fall through the whirling vortexes of his soul to detonate in a blinding flash of gold and white, recreating the universe in a new, more perfect form! Noah stood, twisting his jaw out of the path of Ysak's kicking foot in the same motion, reaching out with a hand to guide the flawed Coordinator's foot to the side, pushing him off balance as Noah's mind ripped its way into Ysak's Seed fortified mind like a diamond egded saw boring into soft wood. Ysak was reaching out in slow motion, one hand going back for balance, the other, bloody knuckles bunched in a hammering fist aimed at Noah's nose. Noah watched the punch come, his mental grip once more totally enveloping Ysak, like a man cupping an egg between his hands. Noah grinned widely, and then clamped his grip down as hard as he could, his own hands bunching into fists at his sides in reflexive motion.

Ysak stopped dead, his eyes bulging out of their sockets as his body jerked to a total halt, complete paralyzation of all voluntary muscle movements. No matter how much he raged, how much he swore and cursed and cried inside his mind, he couldn't move in the slightest. It felt like every joint in his body was being held in position by Gundams! He stared into Noah's eyes, which were a washed out purple, golden starbursts bright amid the dull metallic background. It was like staring into a pair of miniature dusky skies. Ysak tried to swallow nervously, and could not even manage that. His body was in total lockdown, and he couldn't have even pissed himself if he'd wanted to. This guy was an Active Newtype! That was what Katie had been trying to say! And he had a Seed! And he was looking at Ysak like Ysak might look at a particularly disgusting spider on the bathroom wall.

Noah slowly raised a hand, fingers splayed, and held it in front of Ysak's face. "Heh. Away with you, flawed one!" Noah clenched his hand into a fist, bearing down and twisting his power deep in Ysak's subconscious, in a different way than what he'd done to Katie. This was no disabling move. Noah put all the fear and shame and surprise and anger he'd built up from Katie's interruption, as well as the surprise beating Ysak had given him, and focused it into a single malicious thrust. And stopped Ysak's heart and lungs cold in his chest. Noah's pitiless smile grew wider as he watched Ysak's eyes go very, very wide, as he tried to breathe with nonfuctioning lungs, before the slow realization came into his mind that his heart was no longer beating either. Ysak collapsed to the ground, paralyzed from head to toe, even down to involunatry muscle movement.

"Uck... eg... he..." Ysak's mouth worked, but without his lungs drawing in air, he could not speak. Noah looked down at him, and stamped down on his hand, feeling bones crunch under the Seed strength assisted blow.

"Good riddance..." Noah commented, turning on his heel, grinding it on Ysak's smashed hand. Noah cast his eyes over Sally's blood and shit stained corpse and the BIIC machinery, then looked down at Katie, breathing slowly and evenly, body relaxed, skirt up above her hips. He wasn't in the mood anymore. For any of it. "... to bad rubbish." Noah finished. His Harbringer "guards" were coughing and gagging as they clawed their way up off the ground, prodded insistently by stinging bursts of muscle spasms created by Noah in their bellies and legs to chivvy them awake. Noah stared at them and shook his head slowly. Completely worthless, the lot of them. Barely good enough for menial tasks. His wristwatch pulsed and vibrated, indicating an incoming comm. There were only a few people who had that number, and only one who would be so inconsiderate as to call at this time of day. Noah wondered what that parasite Durandel wanted THIS time?

"Clean this mess up. Dispose of these two intruders with the rest of the waste." Noah ordered, forcing calm onto himself. He let the Seed assisted power fade, and brought himself back under control. He touched a hand to the side of his head and grimaced at the warm, sticky feeling of blood welling from his cut scalp. Damn that Ysak, that really HURT! His left eye was already swelling closed too... he'd have a huge black eye at this rate! A little Curaga cream would clear it right up, but he'd be half blind for most of the day! What a lousy inconvenience! Noah doffed his robe and discarded it to the side, stepping out into the morning sunlight without looking back.

"Bivth! Broth my nobs!" The interior guard complained, prodding Katie with his toe as his friends came to stand over her with him, his face a mask of blood. They stared down at her with angry eyes, ignoring Ysak's still, unmoving form, which was lying nearby. "He saib disbose... dibn't say we coulbn't get somb bayback!" The Harbringers looked at each other and smirked malevolently, their hands going to their waists.

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"Comm accepted, voice only." Noah directed his collar cellphone. It wouldn't do at all for Gilbert to see him in this state of disarray. Noah composed himself, clearing his throat to make sure his voice was steady. No weakness. No pain. No problems. He was in control. He was totally in control. "What can I do for you this morning, Gil? I'm sorry but you caught me at something of a bad time... I hope voice only isn't a problem for you?"

"To be honest I prefer it." Durandel replied, leaning back in his chair, twirling a pen between his fingers as he projected his calculating mind down a half dozen different paths at once. Not having to look Noah in his damnably perfect face was something of a nice change. Sometimes Durandel wished someone would manage to punch the little bastards lights out, just so he could see him beat up and groggy, just like any other punk teenager who'd gotten in over his head on something, but he dismissed the idle fantasy. Noah was too careful by half to ever suffer that sort of setback or personal disgrace. He wasn't invulnerable... but he was the sort of person who either was fully alive and in control, or else teetering on the brink of collapse, right on the verge of death. There was no inbetween... all or nothing. Durandel was about to get to the point when he heard some odd noises in the background of the call. "What's all that heavy breathing and grunting?"

Noah poked his head around the corner of the crematorium and looked inside. He looked away quickly, a digusted frown on his flace. There were altogether too many clothes lying on the floor. His poor, soiled eyes! He looked down at his hand and jerked, opening one fist and throwing away the piece of light blue clothing he'd been clenching onto. He wiped his hand futiley against his pant leg, grossed out. Nasty! Those were her... yuck! Now he'd gone and contaminated his hand... he felt the need for a full body wash again! He turned away from the crematorium and headed towards the Institute's gym showers again. "Don't worry about it Gil. It's just... some rutting pigs. Always in season, you know how it is. Nasty beasts."

"Ah, so you're at one of your cloned meat factories. Huh." Durandel sighed and crossed out the bonus checks for his intelligence agents he'd been planning on handing out for the end of the month reward for their supposedly sterling efforts in keeping tabs on Noah. According to them, Noah was supposed to be doing some sort of private pet project at his Institute for the Terminally Ill this morning, but he'd just heard differently with his own ears. He supposed it was true... you did learn something new every day. Two things even. He'd thought all cloned meat animals were sterile, for one, and never really lived long enough to mate anyway... and he'd finally found an animal that Noah DIDN'T like. He wondered what it was about pigs that could make the damned animal lover consider them "nasty beasts"?

"So what can I do for you today, Gil? I hate to be rude, but you did catch me right in the middle of something relatively important." Noah sounded faintly annoyed. Durandel smiled. Finally, he'd managed to get to the bastard, and not the other way around! Usually it was him who had to fight not to yell and tear out his hair when dealing with his partner, not the other way around.

"I have a problem. His name is Markov Ashino." Durandel answered. He didn't feel the need to say more... both because Noah was more than smart enough to figure it out for himself, just from that, and because he wanted to see if Noah would admit to figuring it out. Usually he played at being disingenuous, maybe if he was annoyed he would reveal his own monitoring of Durandel, perhaps enough enough for Durandel to figure out how he did it...

"You want to get rid of your own Gundam Pilot huh?" Noah was in no mood for games right now, whether he was in control of them or not. His face hurt. His stomach hurt. His hand felt filthy. He'd suffered a relatively major setback... talking to Gil was among the LAST things he wanted to do right now. "Why should you need my help for that? You sent him out to the asteroid belt... surely you can just send Rey and a few others to covertly erase him. No one cares about what happens out there."

"I don't need your help to kill Ashino, or destroy his Gundam." Durandel was practically cheering with joy... he'd never heard Noah so flat and unhappy. He hoped the bastard got used to it... he'd be feeling like this a lot more if things turned out like Durandel was planning for them to! "I've already allocated more than enough forces to accomplish that task. What I want you to do is allocate forces to wipe out MY forces, after they complete their task of course."

"Can't trust your own people not to talk is it? How pitiful."

"We can't all be served by religious fanatics." Durandel retorted with a sniff of disdain. "I've sent a squadron of Champions, plus a reinforced platoon of special forces soldiers. It would be best if they were to just disappear."

"Very well. I'll cover up your dirty work. You'll never hear from any of them again... your Gundam Pilot or your elimination force." Noah didn't really care at this stage. He'd send some Zealots and a couple Martyrs and just blow the asteroid station and anything around it into dust, before or after the USN forces did their job. He just wanted this conversation to be over.

"Is there anything you want from me in return?" Durandel enquired politely, sensing Noah's growing desire to hang up and get back to whatever he was doing.

"Nothing. Just keep to the deal we agreed upon."

"Nothing? Not even some free time with whats her name... Meyrin Hawke? You seem to have taken a fancy to..."

"Don't mention her name to me like that ever again." Noah's reply came back so harsh and commanding that Durandel found himself pausing in mid taunt. "What Meyrin and I do has nothing to do with the Brotherhood, or either of our plans or anything other than me and her, as two individuals. You want to do something for me, Gilbert? You can shut up and leave Meyrin and I alone. How's that? Good bye." Durandel listened to static for several seconds before cutting the comm line himself. He was smiling widely. He'd finally found it... a chink in his "partners" armor! Oh, but it was shaping up to be a truly good morning already!

Noah was just about to enter the gym when his watch pulsed again. He stared down at it balefully. If it was Gil, calling him back to test him... "WHAT!?" Noah demanded, answering the call voice only again. There was a long moment of silence.

"G-great P-P-Prophet..."

"Hurry up! I haven't got all day!"

"Y-yes, Great One! Automated security systems have detected a break in at one of our storage Arks... one of the ABT warehouses on December Four."

"So eliminate the intruders then! The animals are all sedated and secured for transport already... a little gunfire won't disturb them!"

"Yes, Great One... but according to our sensors, Lacus Clyne is among the intruders... and you said that we should never..."

"Take no action." Noah brought himself up short. Lacus Clyne... how cunning. He smiled and turned away from the shower, physical discomforts forgotten in the face of this new challenge. "Observe them from a distance, and keep them from leaving, but do not otherwise bother them. I will be there shortly. Am I clear?"

"Entirely, Great Prophet! We eagerly await your holy presence!"

"Indeed." Noah hung up. Lacus Clyne... just the balm his tortured nerves needed! So she was curious about his Arks, was she? Maybe it was time for Eve to become aware of Adam...


	25. Snakes in the Grass part 3

Author Note: Well, I got a lot of good reviews on Snakes part 2. As expected... it was definitely the kind of chapter that sparks reviews. As will this one hopefully, though in different ways. Keep it up and bear with me... I'm going to try and keep things more balanced with good stuff happening to people as well as bad, but its' going to seem like its all doom and gloom for a while here... this is a major power play in the works here. Just try not to panic... I'm still the "good ending" sort of guy. Always darkest just before dawn and that sort of thing... though dawn is still a ways away. Yes, there is definitely a disparity between the cold, unfeeling, insensitive almost to the point of being evil Noah of the Brotherhood, and the more human side he shows around Meyrin. That's intentional... even Hitler managed to fall in love with someone after all, and you can bet his wife didn't think he was a monster. And though I hesitate to compare Hitler to Noah, their motivations are somewhat similar... making the world a better place, for a "superior race" of humans, in their minds. They just got twisted at some point along the way and... well, very bad things result. Though I can promise there will be no ethnic cleansing in this story... quite the opposite really... Noah wants to give everyone, even the animals, the same chance at ascending to Angelhood...

Kaz, did your brother get those Gundams I sent to him in a review reply?

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The "gym bag" thumped against Alkire side as he dashed across the Institute grounds towards the crematorium. People were looking at him funny, wondering what his rush was, but at least the gun was out of sight. He had a feeling that getting the police or security forces involved in this thing might not be the best plan. From what that guy Dicosta, Waltfeld's source had said, the Brotherhood could pretty much be considered to own and control most public support organizations, at least when it came to terms of keeping things quiet and secret. There were probably all sorts of specific orders and secret plans just waiting to go into effect if trouble was called in from this Institute. No, this was still a "black" situation, even if two thirds of the team was... incommunicado. They must have dropped their phones. Yeah. That was it. They hadn't responded to his frantic calls for the last two minutes because they just didn't have their phones with them... oh god, he hoped it was something stupid like that.

Alkire knew he was lying to himself. Ysak had called it out... Katie was in trouble, at the crematorium. Ysak had obviously gone there as well, but he hadn't called back after that. That was a very bad sign. Ysak was, after all, a ZAFT redcoat, one of their most elite and experienced soldiers, both in a Gundam and outside of one as well! Even if the other guys were Coordinators too, Alkire was hard pressed to think of a realistic scenario that could possibly account for Ysak just disappearing off the face of the comm net, without even a cry for help. Ysak and Katie had once almost broken out of the most secure installation in all of Blue Cosmos, by themselves, racking up quite a body count along the way, and that was BEFORE they'd gotten their whole psychic bond thing together. He and Raine sometimes played two versus two paintball against Ysak and Katie, for fun and also for mutual training. Despite having about a decade and a half more practical experience, and two or three times the training level of Ysak and Katie, Alkire and Raine very infrequently won those games... the two kids worked so damn well together it was like fighting one person, in two bodies!

And that wasn't even covering what they could do if they got together. Alkire didn't really know how the hell it worked, or why... he wasn't sure anyone did, even Katie and Ysak themselves... but when they got close, when she could touch Ysak, skin to skin... well, Katie's Newtype abilities would suddenly hit the ntirox boosters and she could do all sorts of stuff she was normally unable to do... such as mentally contacting non-pyschics and who knew what else! Apparently Lacus could do the same thing with regard to Kira, hell even without touching him sometimes. Alkire had been unconscious the last time Lacus had done that, but from what he heard, that wasn't a bad thing! She'd reached out and touched nine tenths of the fucking world and made them stop in their tracks! Made them just stop, instantly, for a few moments, whatever they were currently doing, no matter what it was. Anyone who could hear her voice was affected. And she was aiming that all at Frost, not even trying to affect other people! It boggled the mind, and gave a man weak knees if he dwelt on it too long.

The crematorium came into view, its doors shut, and Alkire put his game face on. He unzipped the top of the gym bag and put one hand inside as he slowed down from an all out sprint to something more stealthy and balanced. The assembled sub-machine gun in the bag was reassuringly heavy and solid. Unlike most such weapons, it was not made of plastic or polymers. It wasn't designed to evade metal detectors, or to fold up inside a coat or any of those other things that usually made the type of weapon so popular amongst terrorists and criminals. No, this particular weapon was designed to take the power of an assault rifle and just put it into a smaller, more portable package, while retaining the stopping power, as much of the ammo capacity as possible, and the customization options of a larger weapon. He scanned the nearby area, but saw no sign of guards or other security systems.

It was during this initial scan that Alkire saw something that totally blanked his mind for a second, before explosive fury roared directly out of the pits of his soul and into his active body. A piece of light blue cloth, fluttering in the breeze where it was caught in the bushes by the doors to the crematorium. A pair of women's panties, half wadded up and discarded by someone who had no use for them. Alkire didn't need to go over and look closer to have an idea of whose they might be. Light blue had always been one of Katie's favorite colors after all. And though she was a very forward girl and... well, lewd wasn't the right way of putting it, but she definitely lacked many social inhibitions common to females of her age... she wasn't the type who would just throw away her undies in the middle of a mission! Which meant that someone had taken them off her, which meant that she must be in pretty damn serious trouble, because the Katie he'd raised would never stand for that sort of thing if she was even marginally capable of resisting!

Alkire snatched the gun out of the gym bag and settled the tactical strap around his shoulders, snugging it into place against his armpit as he trotted towards the doors. They were probably locked. He raised the gun and put three rounds through each of the door handles, the bullets leaving the gun with "chuff-chuff-chuff" noises barely louder than a man clapping his hands due to the silencer. He didn't waste time on a proper tactical entry... his little girl needed him! Alkire put all his strength into his boot as he slammed it into the crack between the doors and blasted them open with a tremendous "SNAP-CRASH!" of rending metal and splintering plastic. Alkire stormed the entrance with the sub-gun up and aimed wherever his eyes went, a bestial snarl of barely contained rage stamped on his face.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" One of the men, naked from the waist down, who was crouched along the left side of the room shouted, turning in shocked surprise as the door was battered down without warning. Alkire turned and oriented on the man, his eyes passing over the contents of the room without really seeing them. All his attention was focused on the group of three half naked men, who were scrabbling frantically for discarded gun holsters amongst the clothes on the ground, one of them rising from between the naked legs of... Alkire saw who was on the ground and opened fire on the men in the same instant. Prisoners be damned, intelligence be damned, these... these bastards had been... been RAPING HIS DAUGHTER! His first three round burst took the shouting man right in the face, blowing his head off from the jawline up, spraying the wall with red and purple clots of matter and small shards of bone.

The second man was almost to his feet, his pistol holster in one hand as he clawed at the butt with the other, unable to free it in his haste because of the safety strap holding the gun in place. Alkire tracked the gun down and put two bursts into that man's chest, the high penetration, hollow point rounds blowing fist sized holes in the man's unarmored back as they punched entirely through him, liquefying his heart, lungs and upper stomach and throwing him back to slump awkwardly against one of the trestle-tables used to feed bodies into the incinerator. Alkire turned his dire attention to the third man, the one who was still standing over Katie, with an expression of hate and terror mixing on his face. His pistol was out of reach, his friends were dead, he was naked from the waist down, backed against a wall, with nowhere to run. He was a Harbringer, and not afraid of death... but this was not a very dignified or worthwhile death! This death facing him stank of failure and shame, not glory!

Alkire tracked his aim down yet farther, realizing in his rage that this was not very professional of him, but the desire to punish, to hurt, to revenge himself and Katie, even slightly, upon these bastards, was too strong. He switched to single shots and fire three times. The first bullet struck the man between the legs, blasting his groin and lower abdomen into bloody shreds. The second struck a little higher, at an oblique angle, eviscerating the man, sending his insides tumbling to the ground at his feet in gory loops. The final shot went low, and struck the right kneecap, ripping the joint apart and severing that leg from the knee down. Knocked back by the kinetic force of the bullets, one leg mutilated, the Harbringer toppled over backwards, a terrible wail tearing its way out of his throat, the shock of the massive injuries too much for his conscious mind to handle. He struck his head sharply on the wall, twisting it hard to the side and back with a very audible "CRUNCH!" of snapping bone. The man gurgled once, and twitched, then went completely still.

Before the Harbringer had even fallen over, Alkire had dropped his gun and rushed to Katie's side, falling to his knees and gathering her into a tight, protective embrace. She was still breathing, deep, even breaths that belied her utter, frightening stillness and limpness. She was covered in blood from the waist down, but that was all from her assailants, as far as Alkire's quick visual search could confirm. He couldn't find a wound on her, no gunshot entry or exit wounds, no blade gouges or cuts, no bruises from blunt trauma, no marks around her neck indicating choking. Her hands had no defensive injuries, no scratches on them, no skin or blood under her fingernails, no signs that she'd managed to even slightly defend herself against the men who'd been... Alkire forced himself to not think about it. Finding his analytical side was very hard under these conditions... goddamn it, he wasn't immune to emotional trauma like that bastard Cyprus seemed to be! After a few deep breaths, Alkire managed to struggle into a semblance of professional control, though tears still leaked from his eyes, and he sobbed for breath as much as anything.

Something was very wrong with his precious little girl, and it wasn't just that her skirt was pushed up over her hips! She had no injuries, not even bruises, aside from the... usual complaints in her intimate region. Alkire pushed her skirt back down into a modest position, uncaring that it was stained with blood and internal organ matter. Better filthy than uncovered. Despite having no injuries, she was completely unresponsive, to shouting, to pinching, to light slapping across her cheeks even. Hell, she'd just been lying there and... and letting it happen! That wasn't the Katie he knew! Her eyes weren't unfocused when he peeled them open, she showed no signs of a hit on the head, or of inhaling fumes or gas, or even of being injected with a sedative drug. As far as his medical training and experience could tell him, she was fine... there was no reason for her to be unconscious! And not just unconscious, but totally limp, almost vegetative! He'd seen people with mortal wounds that were more animated than Katie was! But her heart was still beating, if slowly, and her breathing was fine, deep and even. She was comatose, but there was no reason for it!

Alkire looked up with a start... here was Katie... where was Ysak? There was no way that Ysak hadn't beat him here. And if Ysak had seen this happening to Katie, Alkire wouldn't have needed to kill those bastards... Ysak would have torn them apart with his bare hands already! Alkire couldn't think of a thing, not even traumatic amputation, that could keep Ysak from Katie's side in this sort of situation. Well, there was one thing but... Alkire saw another limp body lying on the floor, against the metal wall of the incinerator, pushed roughly out of the way of the three men before they got started on Katie. "Oh fuck. Ysak?" Alkire called. There was no response. "Ysak!? Come on man, give me something!" Alkire gently set Katie down on the ground, there being nothing he could apparently do for her besides hold her and weep. He scrmabled frantically over to the limp body, which was indeed Ysak. Ysak's knuckles were split open, apparently he'd been punching something pretty hard, and one hand was crushed and half mangled, looking like someone had been hitting it with a hammer, or perhaps grinding their foot down on it. Alkire seized Ysak by the ankle and dragged him out away from the wall, his heart jumping in his chest as he felt... or rather didn't feel something important.

Alkire touched his fingers to Ysak's wrist and neck just to be sure, and leant his head over Ysak's mouth at the same time. "FUCK! FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK!" Alkire shouted, the color draining from his face. No pulse. No breathing. FUCK! "GODFUCKINGDAMNIT YSAK, DON'T DO THIS TO ME! DON'T DO THIS TO KATIE! SHE'LL NEVER RECOVER IF SHE WAKES UP AND YOU'RE GONE!" Alkire slapped Ysak hard across the face several times. No response, but Alkire was slightly heartened to notice Ysak's skin was still warm, not deathly cold. It hadn't been but three minutes or so since Ysak's last call to him! There might still be a chance! People had been brought back from the brink before, some of them after a lot longer time than just three minutes! Alkire immediately began emergency CPR, compressing Ysak's chest several times before bending over and breathing into his mouth to inflate his lungs. "COME ON, DAMN IT! BREATHE, YOU FUCKER! BREATHE!"

As Alkire compressed Ysak's chest, pumping his heart for him and trying to get it to jump start itself, he noticed that besides his hand injuries, Ysak was also almost completely untouched. Some scrapes on his face, but those had probably come from falling down or being pushed against the wall. "This doesn't make any fucking..." Alkire breathed into Ysak's lungs. "... sense! Why the fuck are you dead!? There's not a fucking mark..." Alkire breathed again. "... on you! C'mon kid, work with me here! Live! Live! Pump, you bastard! Breathe! Goddamn it, don't you dare go dying for real on me!" Alkire breathed again. He felt Ysak's heart tremble under his hands, but it died away before turning into a true heartbeat. "Fuck! Damn it, don't tease me, you son of a bitch! You're going to fucking live, you hear me!? You're going to live, and you're gonna marry my daughter, and you're going to have kids and you're going to live a long and fucking full life, for decades after I take my own dirt nap, you hear me!? You do NOT get to die here! That is not an option for you, you fucker!"

Shortly thereafter, as Alkire was drawing back from a breath, Ysak coughed and sputtered, and Alkire felt the damn kid's heartbeat come back to full strength, just like that! It was like a switch had been flipped, and suddenly the kid was almost fine again! The recovery was so rapid, Alkire wasn't even sure it had anything to do with the CPR he'd been administering! One moment Ysak had been, clinically at least, dead... the next his heart was pumping along right as rain, and his breathing, though interspersed with coughs and gags, was definitely enough to keep him alive unaided. "I don't fucking get it." Alkire sat back, sweat pouring off his face and down his chest. "What the fuck happened to you? I've never seen anything like this. You just forget how to breathe and pump your heart or something? Don't fucking scare me like that, you damn Coordinator! What the hell did you poke your noses into anyway?" Alkire raised his head and looked around the interior of the crematorium.

"Jesus fucking Christ." Alkire muttered, taking in the vista of complicated computers, still hooked up by silvery wires to the corpse of a nude, blond haired girl lying on the other trestle table, slowly drying blood still leaking from the orifices of her face, her hands clawed to bloody ruins, the table stained and stinking under her body. She was fucking strapped to the table, held down like a torture victim, which very well might have been what she was! Though, other hand her hands, which looked to be self inflicted damage, and the internal bleeding showcased by her bloody tears, bloody nose and bleeding ears, she didn't have any fucking marks on her either! Alkire shivered, creeped right the fuck out. "What the hell was going on in here!? Shit, this is like something from sort of freaky horror flick. Mad scientists and that sort of bullshit!" Alkire dragged Ysak, as gently as he could, over to lie next to Katie. He clasped Ysak's less injured hand in both of Katie's. "Right, you dumb bastard... you don't ever fucking let go of her again, you understand? I can't take this sort of shit! Don't ever scare me like that! And help her get better... she needs you, kid. She really does."

Alkire picked up his gun and eased the battered doors to the crematorium shut again. There was a lot of stuff in here he couldn't explain, and he didn't feel like getting pinned with the blame for this by some innocent bystanders. Or hell, even not so innocent bystanders... they'd nabbed Kira on false charges, why not him? He had gunned down three men in a murderous fury after all... it wouldn't be too much of a stretched to cast him as the bad guy in this situation. Making tracks was sounding like a very good idea. Katie and Ysak needed medical treatment, that was definite. Maybe he'd missed something, something a real doctor would be able to see... it wouldn't be the first time. He was a soldier, not a fucking doctor! Alkire checked the body of the man whom he'd shot in the head. There were several tell tale tattoos... the winged eye with beams of light extending from it. That completely confirmed it then... they'd fucking found the Brotherhood all right. Found it, and gotten their asses handed to them! And somehow Alkire doubted the three rapists had been the sort to be operating all those computers... someone else had been here, and was gone. Maybe the same someone who'd done... whatever it was... to Ysak and Katie.

He flipped open his phone. He needed to warn Cyprus and the Pink Princess and the others... the Brotherhood was on alert, and they played dirty. For all he knew, the others might be walking into a trap right now! The phone rang... and rang... and rang some more. "Voicemail!? WHAT THE FUCK, LT!? TURN YOUR FUCKING PHONE ON!!" Alkire shouted, staring in disbelief at his phone. He tried Ramierez's phone. Same result. The same for Lacus's, and Dearka's, and Waltfeld's... this was NOT GOOD! Why were all their phones off? It didn't make any sense? Were they being jammed? Hacked? Or were they just somehow out of a service area? None of those made much sense... though they didn't look like much, the cell phones that the Stormhounds used were made by Morganroete Armories as well, and were garuanteed to work pretty much everywhere, being almost impossible to jam, detect or track! But why would Cyprus fucking Finch, the most by the book man Alkire knew, have turned off a vital communications device? "God DAMN IT! I don't have fucking time for this! Shit! SHIT! We're going to have more than words when I see you next, Finch!" Alkire muttered, as he began thinking about how he was going to get Ysak and Katie to his car without causing a scene.

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Earlier that morning...

"Are you sure you want to come with us, Lacus? I mean, what about..." Miriallia started to ask, eyeing her friend with a concerned look. Lacus wasn't looking particularly good... her face was even paler than usual, the angles of her face very marked and visible, her eyes surrounded by shadows, her eyes themselves red and itchy looking. She looked like a girl on the edge of a complete breakdown, and Miriallia could barely even imagine what a breakdown from Lacus would be like. It might very well turn into a small scale natural disaster, if what Katie and Ysak had said about that teacup was true. It was definitely not something Miriallia wanted to be nearby for if it did happen, much less say, trapped on a shuttle with, in transit to December Four, like they currently were. Sometimes a screaming, sobbing, bawling tantrum was healthy for the soul... she'd had them before. But what might be carthartic for Lacus's soul might be very detrimental for everything else around her.

"Kira will be fine without me for a little while longer." Lacus replied, her voice steely and composed, turning her head to meet Miriallia's gaze. Miriallia was relieved to see that Lacus's eyes were still the periwinkle-lavender color they usually were, not the washed out, metallic shade they became when she was truly on the verge of being out of control. "I am... dealing with it. There is currently nothing that I can do to help or change Kira's situation. Even if I were to go to those colonies, I have no idea where he is exactly, and even with Ysak around, which he isn't, I can't focus clearly enough to pinpoint Kira beyond a general several kilometer radius. My talents just aren't that precise, and Katie doesn't have the level of bond with Kira needed to home in on him. My powers are not infinite, or all reaching... I can do many things other people can't, but the scope of what I can't do is still infinitely large."

"Besides, getting you to go off alone, or in a small group, might be exactly what the enemy wants to have happen." Cyprus cut in from the seats in front of them. "They would know of course that tormenting Kira would distress Lacus, and likely cause her to lose her focus in an attempt to save him. It would make her vulnerable, to either capture or perhaps even assassination. The enemy might not even be after Kira at all, despite what you... overheard..." Cyprus twitched his lips at the thought of being able to listen in to a conversation by being pyschically connected to the person hearing the words in person. It did not seem possible, but Lacus Clyne was not a girl given to flights of fancy. It would not be the strangest thing he'd ever seen her do that seemed impossible but was quite real. "They could very well just be using him to get to you. Its a situation I am... familiar with. I live in fear of it every day, with regards to Wrenn. This could all also be a ploy to get us to leave off investigating a sensitive location, and rush into a prepared trap. It rankles, but we cannot let the plight of one distract us from the benefit to many."

"Could you say that if it were Wrenn that was in trouble?" Lacus asked quietly. There was a long pause.

"No, I could not." Cyprus answered at last, equally quietly. "I despise the hyporcisy, but I could not. I am not that strong a person, unlike you, Miss Clyne."

"You're strong enough to admit such a weakness openly." Lacus replied, with a faint smile. "I'm not sure I could have done the same."

"Are you sure that just walking into this "Hazy's" hideout is the best course of action?" Waltfeld asked from across the aisle. "Martin seemed to be of the opinion that these small time drug lords were heavily armed and hyperviolent... just kicking down his door and barging in seems to me to be a very risky course of action."

Cyprus seemed glad for the change of topic, almost eager to be away from his and Lacus's moment of personal connection. "That is a possibility, but also bear in mind, Commander Waltfeld, the psychology of these people. They respect strength and power, nothing else. If we try and take the soft route with them, asking them for their help nicely, they'll see us as beggars, or worse, clients. They'll try and sell us the information we want, and they won't hesitate to lie, cheat and attempt to threaten us in order to get the best deal possible, while selling us useless crap, because we haven't a foot to stand on. We don't know what is true or what isn't... they could tell us anything, and we'd never know it was false until it was too late. These people are scum, not honorable folk like most of us."

"If we can show them that we're the ones in control, that we're more badass than they are, then they'll be forced to give us respect. They might not like it, but at heart, most of these people are cowards. They're kids and cast outs, people who couldn't make the grade in regular society, whether through personal circumstances, personal flaws, or, very rarely, circumstances beyond their control. They talk tough, and act tough, but most of these people are marshmallow puffs inside when things get gritty." Ramierez spoke up. "They may outgun us, but they have no training, and no guts for a real fight. If we take down a couple, hard, the rest will fall into line. It'd be best if we do it without killing them too... if we start killing em off, they'll be culture-bound to seek us out and get payback, or esle they'll lose the respect of all their peers, which is pretty much a death sentence for them."

"So we'll intimidate an entire gang of drug runners into giving us information?" Murrue asked, doubt strong in her voice. "Just kick down their door, rough a few up, and then somehow avoid their retaliation long enough to get useful information out of them? I think you might be underestimating them a little. Besides, other than the four of us, plus Dearka, we don't really have that many people that good in a fight like this, and I'll admit I'm leery of saying I'm good in a fight like this... I'm much better on the bridge of a warship than I am in room to room gunfighting."

"Shock and awe tactics like this are hardly new." Cyprus answered with a smile. "And we won't need anyone besides myself and Ramierez for this. Oh, I'll be sure to distribute firearms and appropriate gear before we go in, but really, just leave it all to us. If any of the rest of you are forced to draw a weapon, then we will be in a situation where we no longer need to worry about the condition of these criminals... it'll be us or them. To be honest, I'd prefer to just have Ramierez and I go in alone, to handle this, but I cannot justify leaving the rest of you unprotected, so you'll have to come with us."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence in our ability to take care of ourselves." Dearka muttered.

"Pardon my caution, Mr. Elsman. But considering what happened to Kira, who is one of the few people I was totally sure could take care of himself in almost any situation without help or advice from me, you'll have to forgive my knee jerk reaction regarding the safety of everyone else." Cyprus replied firmly. "You're a Redcoat, Mr. Elsman... don't think I don't respect your capabilities, or that I don't value your contributions to our strength. I could never pilot a Mobile Suit, much less a Gundam like you and Ms. Haww do. However, you've been a civilian for almost five years now, and your areas of expertise do not include operations like this one, while mine do."

"Shut up and listen to the experts huh?" Dearka leaned back into his chair. "I really hate being told that, especially when people are right."

"So the rest of us just need to act tough and mean? That shouldn't be too much of a problem." Waltfeld grinned. He looked at the heavy bags sitting beneath Cyprus and Ramierez's chairs and shook his head. "I still can't see how you got that much stuff through customs. PLANTS transportation security is the best in the world, honed against years of Blue Cosmos terrorists."

"I used to be a Blue Cosmos terrorist." Cyprus reminded them. "They never caught me. And that was before I had the technology of Morganroete Armories on my side. I can't give you the specifics, but suffice it to say we used an adapatation of Mirage Colloid technology to facilitate the entrance of our gear to the PLANTS. It was the first time we'd ever used the stuff in a non-training scenario, but it worked just great. Another success for MA to file in their records, even if they can never admit to having made it."

"What about Ysak, Katie and Alkire?" Miriallia asked. "Are you sure it's okay to let them go off in such a small group?"

"The Major is one of the best soldiers I've ever had the honor of working with, and his adopted daughter has learned basically everything he and the other Major have to teach. She could be a Stormhound if she wanted, and I would be glad to have her, even without her Newtype abilities. Believe me, if Ysak ever leaves ZAFT, and I can get the funding, I've a mind to offer him and Katie positions in the Stormhounds, as our anti-Mobile Suit wing. The three of them will be fine on their own, especially for a likely dead end like the Institute. It's a glorified nursing home... the chances of an actual Brotherhood presence there are extremely slim."

"What about where we're going?" Dearka wanted to know, somewhat uneasily. The last time he'd encountered the Brotherhood in person, he'd almost died, several times.

"Also unlikely. This information is weeks old... its far more likely that the Brotherhood has already moved away from these locations, once they discovered Mr. Corvis. However, they may have missed something, and they are almost certainly still in contact with their drug runner allies, so this tip is still worth pursuing."

"Well, that's a relief. I honestly don't know if I can take another face to face confrontation..."

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When the door to the seedy, underground bar in one of the older and less well maintained sections of December Four blew inwards off its hinges in a cloud of smoke and sparks, none of the members of the Hazy gang were at all prepared for it. No indication of trouble coming their way had been received from either the posted sentires or any of the several automatic security systems, ranging from a camera surveillance system to broken glass in the entrance passageway. As far as they'd been aware, everything was hunky dorey, just another day in paradise. Or something close to it anyway... one could get to paradise with their products, it was only the length of the stay that was in question. And that was largely controlled by the depths of the client's pocketbook. The Hazy gang specialized in the expensive shit... premium Waft, all grades of Spiffy and premium FourX, plus a few more select, made to order cocktails for the VIP patrons.

Several gang members were clustered around a table set up on the dance floor area, concentration focused on the delicate manipulation of chemical vials as they prepared another batch of high grade Spiffy. As an injected chemical mix that directly affected the pleasure centers of the brain, stimulating them into an orgasmic overdrive for several minutes at a time, where even the mere act of living was enough to get a person off uncontrollably, Spiffy was a drug in very high demand. Well, part of the demand was in repeat users... the stuff made you feel so great, but coming down off the high was killer, almost literally sometimes... people had been known to commit suicide out of depression that would not lift for hours after the hit. Another hit would make the "blackness" go away, for the duration of the hit anyway. Repeated hits were poisonous... six to seven normal sized, ten milliliter hits in an hour would kill an adult human from internal bleeding of the brain. The better the grade, the longer the high... ranging from a few minutes to most of an hour. Crafting the true high grade product was almost an art, and was a very delicate process.

A very delicate process that was absolutely ruined by the door basting off its hinges, sending plastic shards sailing across the room to crash into the table, knocking over the test tubes of chemicals and beakers of pre-batch Spiffy, spilling several thousand dollars worth of potential product uselessly onto the floor. Curses and shouts filled the air, as other gang members pushed themselves away from the bar, drinks in one hand, knives, clubs, and other improvised weapons in the other, while yet more sat up from where they were lying on the booth seats, befuddled expressions on their faces at the commotion, lost in individual hallucinations brought on by "product testing" of the FourX and Waft, which were an upper/aphrodisiac pill and a upper/hallucinogen inhalant very popular amongst the younger generations. Both were moderately addictive, and the selling of them formed the bulk of the gang's day to day profits, since even low grade Spiffy was a hundred dollars a hit. The same price would buy a weeks supply of Waft boards or FourX pills.

Shocked, stunned and pissed off at this blatant disrespect, the members of the Hazy gang, who ranged from age thirteen to the lower twenties, uniformly clad in their gang colors of red and green and black, though in no particular order or style, stepped towards the empty doorway, cursing and demanding that the bastards who'd done this come forward and show themselves, and to get ready for the beat down of their lives in the process! They got their wish, kind of. A couple small, metallic objects sailed into the room, rattling and bouncing along the floor. Perhaps the gang members could be excused their slow reactions... most of them were high, or drunk, or both... but regardless of the reason, few managed to turn away from, flee or even slightly mitigate the damage done to their remaining senses by the two flash/concussion grenades, which detonated with twin thundercracks and bursts of blinding light, which further dismantled the ability of the gang members to do anything but stand there and blink for a few seconds, hands over their ears.

They were completely unable to stop the two wolf lean and dangerous shapes from pouncing fluidly through the door, seperating to cover the room from different angles, working with a smoothness and precision that was frankly awesome. They were both clad in white, grey and black patterned urban camouflage uniforms, with web belts and straps festooned with all sorts of weapons and items of gear on their legs, belts, chests and backs. They had no human faces, instead they had the heads of demonic snarling dogs, with glaring blue eyes that were like frozen laser beams. The Stormhound battle mask was an intimidating sight to even professional soldiers... to a bunch of delinquents, many of them high on powerful halluciongens, they were a terrifying, unmanning, curl up into a ball and whimper sort of experience. One such curled up whimperer was trying to be cunning though, and he leapt to his feet as one Stromhound passed him, angel blade knife unfolding into his hand with a "click". He stabbed at the appariations unguarded back.

The ganger wasn't entirely sure what happened next, no matter how much he thought about it later. His stab never landed, that much was sure. Somehow the intruder moved out of the way of the attack, sent the knife flying across the room, and sent the ganger crashing back to the ground on his back, arm twisted and dislocated at elbow and shoulder, stunned and out of breath. The last thing he saw for several hours was the boot heel descending towards his face. Another ganger stood up suddenly from behind the bar, pistol in either hand, his arms trembling with nerves. He never fired either weapon, instead dropping them with a panicked shriek as both demonic figures oriented on him and opened with their their assault rifles on full automatic. The stattaco thunder of unsilenced automatic weapons filled the bar, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass, splintering wood and bouncing lead as the two Stormhounds hosed down the upper part of the bar area with a full clip each, shredding the shelves and sending thousands of dollars of liquor cascading in multicolored streams to the floor. They dropped their clips and slapped in new ones, almost in unison.

The Stormhound on the left clenched his secondary trigger and sent a 40mm grenade up into the ceiling over the bar area, blasting a huge hole in the ceiling and causing all the lights in the bar to flicker for a moment as smoke and glass dust billowed. The Stormhound on the right used the 10 gauge shotgun that was his secondary triggered weapon to blow gaping holes in the pool table, bar and several parts of the floor, always aiming near people but never actually hitting them with anything but debris. The left Stormhound fired several more short bursts of autofire into the air, always aiming above head height, stiching small craters in the top of the walls above people's cowering heads, trying not to hit people, but to overwhelm them with the sound and sight of the powerful weapon firing, to cow them and keep them scared to move. Meanwhile the right Stormhound selected his victim and marched over to him, yanking the twenty year old, one of the men that had been concoting the batch of Spiffy, and who had taken cover near the pool table when the commotion started, to his feet roughly with one hand on his collar.

Before the ganger could even blubber in protest, he was slammed backwards, bent over backwards on the pool table, his feet off the ground, his head just below the foot wide hole the shotgun shell had ripped up in the middle of the table. The Stormhound kept his other hand on his rifle, just in case someone tried something surprising, while his partner roved the bar slowly, also keeping his eyes on people. "Where is your boss! Answer me!" The Stormhound demanded, putting his snarling mask right up in the ganger's face. The young man went white as a sheet, sweat popping out all over his body in terror.

"I... I... I ain't telling you shit!" The ganger found his backbone at last, or so he thought. He lost track of the world for a moment, until his face crunched painfully into the felt covering the table, one arm trapped under his chest, his other stretched out to the side, his body held down with a knee digging into his spine. He jerked and screamed a little when the rifle slammed down beside him, smoke still trailing from both muzzles, the smell of chemical propellents stinking in his nostrils.

"One more chance before I get unpleasant. Where is Hazy?" The Stormhound asked, his voice hissing with static and respirator noise, sounding very much like a beast from hell to the ganger.

"F-fuck you!" The ganger retorted. Who the hell did this guy think he was? Some sort of gung ho cop? He had fucking rights! This bastard couldn't do shit to him!

The Stormhound held up one hand, and his partner, passing by the bar, picked up a sixteen oz tapered beer glass and poured out the dregs inside, then tossed it through the air to the interrogator. The Stormhound caught it, flipped it around in his hand and then shattered it about halfway up its length by cracking it down on the edge of the pool table. The ganger's eyes got very wide indeed, and he started to struggle again, crying out in wordless denial as the Stormhound inverted the broken glass and slammed it down on the ganger's outstretched hand, held in position by his hand on the ganger's wrist. The young man screamed, a wordless howl of pain that made men flinch and gag in sympathy throughout the bar, as the Stormhound slowly ground the broken glass back and forth, jagged edges scraping through bone and biting into the table beneath, blood squirting and flesh tearing. The Stormhound twisted the glass one more time and then left it there, embedded in the gangers hand.

"Where is Hazy?" The Stormhound asked, his voice exactly the same as before he'd mutilated the young man's hand. The ganger could not answer, sobbing and mewling with agony, staring with wide, almost unseeing eyes at his brutalized hand, which hurt like it had been set on fire. The Stormhound held up his hand again, and caught another beer glass, shattering it into a wicked instrument just like the first. He held it next to the young man's head, letting the light glint evilly off its shattered edges. "This one's going into your face, unless you start talking."

"Jesus Christ! Help me! Oh God, fuck it hurts!" The ganger whimpered, tears running down his face. "H-hazy's in the back, with the girls! Don't hurt me anymore, please! Please... put the glass down, oh my God it HURTS!"

"Thanks. Have a nice day." The Stormhound let the man go, dropping the glass to break on the floor and picking up his rifle. The ganger promptly passed out, in a mixture of terror and relief. Nobody else in the bar made a peep, afraid to even move less they draw the attention of these ice cold motherfuckers. They'd seen some pretty brutal shit, but the cold calmness with which the demon-dog headed man had tortured the information out of their fellow sent chills through the blood. Messing with these dudes was a quick way to being a bag of fertilizer!

"Good work, Corporal. Nice improvisation, with the broken glass. Good use of tools at hand." Cyprus complimented his subordinate, once Ramierez had rejoined him by the bar.

"I thought it got my message over pretty well, thank you sir. Though I got the idea from the sarge-major, to be honest." Ramierez replied with a shrug. "You think they're smart enough to have a booby trap guarding the boss's room?"

"These guys are small time. They rely on their reputation and their relative numbers to keep themselves safe, plus the political connections of their boss. I highly doubt we'll encounter anything surprising, still, we'll proceed with caution." Cyprus answered. He looked around the bar area one more time, taking a few seconds to fix as many of the subdued gangers with his icy blue electronic gaze as he could. He tongued his external mic. "Nobody moves until we get done talking with your boss. There's plenty more glasses where those came from, and I'm looking to practice my technique on anyone who catches my fancy."

Ramierez took point, as was his habit, since he was the recon specialist of the Stormhounds, or the seniormost one anyway, now that they were getting back close to full company size, rather than just a single platoon. He led the way down the short hallway behind the bar area that led to the administrative and storage rooms for the bar. The first few doors he passed were unlocked storage rooms, filled with boxes of both bar supplies and crates of raw chemicals and other substances used in the manufacture of drugs. Ramierez touched the incendiary grenades hanging on his web belt, but let go of them without arming one. It would be personally satisfying to torch the drugs, but burning the bar down would negatively impact the secrecy of the overall mission. He'd have to settle for merely scaring the ever living shit out of the gang boss. The third door on the left had light spilling out from under the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor. Ramierez held up his hand in a signal for halt, though he knew that the Lt had already seen the same thing as him. It was all part of the procedure.

Cyrpus dropped to one knee and faced back down the way they'd come, rifle held to his shoulder, targeting optics in his helmet linked with those in the scope of his rifle, the light amplification cameras making the entire hallway as bright as day, though slightly washed out in shades of green and grey. He hardly even noticed anymore, unless he focused on it. At the door, Ramierez took out an extendable rod and smeared the tip with some quick acting adhesive. He extended the rod to its full three foot length and stabbed the sticky end down on the doorknob. The door was almost certainly locked, if the gang leader had any brains at all, but Ramierez was just checking for the reaction he was expecting. He jiggled the doorknob loudly, miming someone trying and failing to open the door. With the nervous, terrified state the gang boss was likely to be in, after hearing the explosions, gunfire and screams from the bar, he was probably on a real hair trigger. It could happen to anyone... even the sarge-major had once been gulled with this trick, by Asmodeus.

True to Ramierez's expectations, holes appeared in the thin plastic faux wood of the door, as the gang leader or someone inside emptied an entire clip of 9mm submachine gun bullets through the door into the "intruder" beyond, also known as the far wall. The holes appeared too quickly to get a real count, but judging from the spacing of the holes, and the fact that the door wasn't completely chewed to splinters, Ramierez felt pretty confident that they were dealing with a small subgun, like the old Uzi, or maybe just a custom 9mm handgun, made with an extended magazine and autofire capability. Twenty shots at most... noisy, impressive looking, but not altogether useful at ranges of more than about twenty feet. "Autopistol, twenty rounds, reloading." Ramierez commed, diving and rolling past the door, coming up on the other side, with not a single shot being fired. Slow motherfucker... Ramierez could swap clips to a weapon like that in a second, second and a half at most.

"Concur." Cyprus replied, moving up to the other side of the door. He swapped out the 40mm HE grenade in his launcher for a 40mm IBM (Incapacitating/Breaching Munition), which was basically a 40mm sphere of very hard rubber over a dense plastic core. It wouldn't kill someone if it hit them, but it could break bones and knock an adult human down and out with even a glancing hit, or blast a cheap door open from kinetic impact even better than a breaching shotgun could. On the other side of the door, Ramierez prepped another flash/concussion grenade. "Three... two... one... breach!" Cyrpus counted down, pulling his secondary trigger on "breach", propelling the IBM right into the door handle, shattering the locking mechanism and ripping the door inwards, against the swing of the hinges. As soon as the door was out of the way, Ramierez flicked the grenade inside, bouncing it off the walls to impart a trickier trajectory to the bomb, so that by the time those inside realized they had a grenade in the room, it would already be... the walls rattled and a flare of light came from inside the room as the grenade blew.

Cyprus was the first through the doorway, crouching low and going left, while Ramierez stayed high, right behind him, going right. The room wasn't all that big, just a large, windowless office with a small cot in a indentation in one wall. A large screen TV was on the back wall, its display cracked and spitting sparks from damage from the grenade blast. A stoned girl was lying, mostly naked, on the cot, a stupefied expression of wonder on her face as she propped herself up on one arm, blinking slowly as she recovered her precious few senses from the grenade explosion. Another girl, less out of it, though no more clothed, was huddled against the wall across from the doorway, bowel clenching terror stamped across her face and puddled on the floor underneath her as she cowered away from the demons charging into the room. There was no sign of the drug lord, but both Stormhounds knew where he was... there was really only one place... under the desk. They didn't have to exchange words to know what to do... they aimed their weapons to glance shots from the top of the desk and into the TV wall, then both opened up with full autofire again, carefully tracking their aim around to do maximum damage to the desk and room, without actually hitting the person hiding from them under the middle of the desk.

The girls screamed and cried, clapping their hands to their unprotected ears as the assault rifles roared and spat lurid flames from their muzzles in star shaped dissipation patterns, the sound deafening, bone shaking even. Debris bounced and flew through the air in every direction as the wall coverings fragmented and shattered, sparks flying from the cheap plastic covered metal of the desk as bullets chewed into it, scattering explosions of paper mulch and electronic parts from the items stored inside the desk drawers. Ramierez reloaded while Cyprus was still firing, and kept his boss covered while he reloaded as well. The silence after their weapons went quiet was shocking, broken only by the sobbing of the girls. "Get out from under the desk." Cyprus ordered coldly. He fired a single shot into the top of the desk, drawing new screams, from three sources this time. "Now, or the next one won't be a near miss! Throw the weapon to the side as you get up, or my friend will blow your hand off."

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!" Hazy yelled, scuttling out on his hands and knees, hair undone and messy, no more clothed than his girlfriends, a modified machine pistol held in one white knuckled hand, which he threw away from him like it was red hot as soon as he could. The half loaded clip slipped out of the weapon in midair... he hadn't even been able to fully reload the weapon, due to the interruptions caused by the flash grenade, and the completely professional storming of his room. "WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU BASTARDS!? WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT WITH ME!? FUCK, LOOK AT WHAT YOU FUCKING DID TO MY PLA... OWWGH!" Hazy was shut up when Ramierez stepped forward and grabbed him by his dark purple-blue hair, the exact same shade as Athrun's and slammed his head back into the wall. "FUCK ME!"

"We'll get to that, if you make us." Ramierez growled, low and threatening. "You got any more buddies, aside from those losers out in the bar? Talk, motherfucker, or I'll make you WISH you had!"

"GODDAMN! Don't fucking hurt me, man! I ain't done nothing to you guys! I don't even fucking know who you are! Jesus fucking... AAGH!" Hazy yelled again as Ramierez pulled him away from the wall and slammed him down on the bullet riddled desk, bending him over, feet on the ground, face on the desk, long, waist length hair spread out around him, unbound from the ponytail he usually kept it in these days. Cyprus was herding both girls onto the cot in the meanwhile, binding their hands with plastic binder ties in the process, though given how drugged up, drunk and scared they were, he doubted either would be much threat even if unrestrained. "Goddamn OWWW! FUCKERS!"

"I ain't accustomed to asking twice." Ramierez breathed in the guys ear. The hair color, and the emerald green eyes were somewhat disconcerting... if it weren't for the location, the length of the hair and the slight differences in body type, he could almost mistake this guy he was bending over and preparing to make talk for Athrun Zala. Of course, if what the info that Martin Dicosta guy had given them was right, that wasn't too much of a surprise... this guy was supposed to be distantly related to Athrun... a cousin, if Ramierez remembered right. Just went to show, a family tree could produce good apples and bad ones. "But I'll make a special exception for you, on the condition that if you fuck with us even slightly, it'll be TWICE as bad for you. Are those goons in the bar your only guys around here?"

"FUCK! YES! JUST THE GUYS IN THE FUCKING BAR!" Hazy grunted, tasting blood in his mouth and feeling it trickle down from cuts on his face, and from his nostrils. "Who the hell are you guys anyway?"

"I'm asking the questions here, limpdick." Ramierez reminded him, grinding his face into the desk to accentuate his point. Cyprus took out his phone and started dialling the others, who were waiting outside for the all clear signal. "Tell us everything you know about the Brotherhood!" Ramierez demanded harshly, putting his rifle down on the table where Hazy could see it, with a heavy "thunk". Ramierez gathered Hazy's hands together behind his back and zip tied those together as well. Hostage management 101... take away freedom of movement.

"I don't know what you're talking... AOORGAGH!" Hazy started to protest, before his words turned into a howl of incredible pain, as Ramierez unclipped a cylindircal grenade from his belt and rammed it against Hazy's ass, twisting and grinding it into place, unmindful of the welling blood. "FU-FUCK! AAGGHH! ERGGAHHH! MOT... MOTHERFUCKER!" Hazy complained, eyes staring wildly, tears starting from his eyes, coughing up pink snot as he gagged and choked on the pain.

"Wrong answer, shithead. I warned you about what would happen if you tried to fuck with us." Ramierez said in a conversational tone, once Hazy had stopped screaming and started gasping. "You were worried about getting fucked? Well, now you got an incendiary grenade shoved a couple inches into your rectum... keep fucking with us, and I'll show you an interesting chemical reaction your drugs will never let you experience... ever smelled white phosphorus as it melts flesh? Can you imagine how that has to feel, as burning metal eats its way through your muscles, boiling blood, charring nerves, searing bones, eating away at you no matter how much water or sand you throw on it, until it eats entirely through you? Believe me, motherfucker, even though I don't know you from Adam, I'd be real happy to give you that experience. Parasites like you, making their living off degrading other people's lives, make me sick at heart!"

"FUCK!? F-fuck! Don't... please... fuck!... SHIT! AWGAWD! P-please!" Hazy complained, before groaning again as Ramierez bopped him on the head with a fist. "Alright! Alright! I'll tell you... I'll tell you anything, everything! Just don't... don't kill me! Pull it out! Pull it out! Oh GOD, pull it out!"

"We'll see. Depends on whether I like what you tell us. For the moment though, just sit tight, until the rest of us get here. Believe me, you don't want to have to go over everything twice." Ramierez replied coldly.

"What? Oh... the background noise... just us getting to know our friend Hazy." Cyprus said into his phone, replying to a question from Captain Ramius. "Yes, he's being very cooperative now. Almost eager even... ready to spill his guts, anything to relieve that burning sensation caused by guilt. Don't mind the mess in the bar area, we're in the back room. We had to go a little harder on them than I initially planned. Anyone feeling squeamish might want to stand outside the room though, and put in those earplugs I gave you..."

Hazy was staring at Cyprus's phone with terror. "Goddamn it! I'll tell you stupid motherfuckers anything you want, but please, for both our sakes, turn off the damn phones! Don't you know who you're messing with? They're IN the phones! ALL phones! They're listening to us right the fuck now, while you're talking! Anything electronic is an eye or an ear for them! FUCK, that burns! MY ASS!"

"And turn off your phone as soon as I hang up. The enemy might be listening, according to new info from our source." Cyprus directed. He hung up, and then turned the phone off. A small price to pay, they could always turn them back on at a later time. It took a couple minutes, but at length the members of the Clyne Faction finally made their way into the back room, various looks of distaste and displeasure on their faces. Cyprus could not muster the energy to care... let them have offended moral sensibilities, they could accost him for his effective methods after they learned what they came here to learn. He could deal with being thought to be a brute by his employers... it was nothing if not the truth, when he needed it to be.

Hazy stared at Lacus uncomprehendingly, tears of a different sort welling from his eyes. "Meer? Is that you, baby? Oh God..."

Lacus was somewhat taken aback... this was probably the first time in her life, since her initial pop debut, that anyone had mistaken HER for someone else, rather than the other way around. She glanced around the ruined room, with dozens of bullet holes marring the walls, floor and desk, the TV shot to hell and back, a puddle of what smelled like urine on the floor in one place, and spatters of bright blood on the desk and the wall behind the desk, from where the young man that looked disconcertingly like a younger, long haired Athrun had been apparently manhandled by the Stormhounds. Lacus set her face in a frown of disapproval... this was all a bit too unnecessarily violent for her to like. The young man staring at her had his face all twisted up with some sort of terrible agony, and Ramerez was hovering close behind him, blocking her view of anything below his waistline. "No... I'm Lacus Clyne, I'm sorry."

"Lacus... Clyne?" Hazy mumbled. He snorted, spraying a faint mist of red onto the desk. "Aren't you all? Meer was the spitting image of Lacus Clyne too, when she wanted to be. Sounded just like her, looked just like her... hell, she probably even fucked just like her, for all I know... Lacus impersonators learn all these weird details nobody else knows..." Hazy coughed again, and smiled crookedly. "Hell, I used to do the same thing to my cousin... knew him better than he knew himself, prolly. Worked real great, until five years ago, when he got fucking hitched to that Natural bitch down in Orb! No way I could fake people out after that point... bastard ruined my life!"

"Your life based off pretending to be Athrun Zala?" Dearka arched an eyebrow. "What kind of life is that?"

"A damn comfy one... do you even have any fucking clue how popular Athrun Zala is amongst our generation? Girls were throwing themselves on me, practically begging me to fuck em, and take their money! I was making an easy ten, fifteen grand a month just in gifts, and all I had to do was touch up my makeup and hair dye every morning and buy a few surplus ZAFT uniforms! I never had to sleep alone... hell, I usually had two or three girls at a time... they didn't care about the crowds, they just wanted to fuck Athrun Zala... and I granted em that wish! Until he got married, and became a public figure, and then nobody would buy off on it anymore!" Hazy retorted, wincing as he shifted his legs, trying to ease the inferno in his ass, until Ramierez pinned him in place with one hand.

"Somehow I find it difficult to pity you." Miriallia commented dryly. She eyed the two mostly naked girls on the cot sideways. They were both out of it, staring blankly at the walls and giggling every so often, very quietly. Miriallia shivered... she just couldn't understand why people would do that to themselves... was life truly so terrible that running away from it with chemical assistance was so attractive? She didn't think so.

Cyprus caught the direction of her glance. "Don't spare any pity for scum like him." Cyprus recommended icily. He knelt down by one of the girls, and gently tugged her head to the side, baring her neck, upon which there were several tiny, raw puncture wounds, where the flesh was flushed a darker pink in a circle around the puncture. "Track marks, from Spiffy injections. Self users inject in the arm or leg... you only see jugular injections like this when the drug is administered by someone else, usually to a subject that is already mostly incapacitated by alcohol or other drugs. As you can see, she has several such marks... implying to me anyway that she is kept leashed on medium to high grade Spiffy most of the time, controlled either by the riotous pleasure or the soul crushing depression. It may have been weeks since the last time this poor girl was in anything approaching a truly aware state of mind. Anyone care to guess why, and who was administering the doses?"

"H-hey! She asked for me to..." Hazy protested, sensing the mood in the room turn decidedly unfriendly. Ramierez bopped him on the head again with his fist to quiet him.

"All right, we're all here, you can start talking. Tell us everything you know about the Brotherhood, or else you know what'll happen!" Ramierez directed. He twisted the grande slightly, drawing a much more twisted expression of dazed agony on Hazy's face, and several explosive gasps as he fought for a scream that would not pass through his raw throat.

"What are you doing to him?" Murrue asked, frowning heavily.

"Making sure he talks truthfully." Ramierez replied calmly, knowing that unless they came around the desk there was no way they could see what method he was using. "Don't worry about him... he won't die or suffer any lasting damage, as long as he doesn't mess around."

"Believe me! I'm happy to tell you fucks about the Brotherhood! The Brotherhood never done me any good... they've ruined my business, bossed me around like a slave, beat my friends and me up, hell... they even killed my girlfriend, Meer! Fucking kidnapped her, raped her, then cut her up with knives and used a flamethrower to burn her face off, inside her own apartment! You think I want to work with those motherfuckers!? I'd kill em all, if I could... but they're just too damn strong! Too damn... strong... Meer... baby, I'm sorry... I couldn't..."

"Concentrate." Ramierez suggested, jiggling the grenade slightly.

"FUCK! Okay, what do you want to know? I mean, I don't know all that much... they only contacted me when they wanted to! I'm pretty good with chemicals... its why I got into make drugs and selling em, once the impersonation gig dried up! I ain't big time, I know... but me and the guys get by, enough to have some good times every now and again... just making a living you know?"

"I'd prefer not to." Waltfeld retorted. "Mr. Zala, you were given every advantage you could have wanted from your family... a great education, plenty of support, loving parents... and you threw it all away because you were too lazy to want to work! You just preferred to feed off the success of others in your family, or now, by running drugs!? What a goddamn fucking waste of a person!"

"Yeah, I get that bullshit a lot, from you high and mighty types, just like my parents used to do, or cuz and his bitch. Always wanting me to go out and make something of myself... well, I went and did, and now you're still bitching! Maybe making drugs isn't something you guys think is cool, but I make people happy! You want to know how many fucking ICD victims I have on my client list? I can't cure their conditions... but I can make the world a brighter place for them!"

"By selling chemically addicting pleasure for an hour at a time, lining your pockets in the process!?" Miriallia was stunned to think anyone could possibly think they were doing good by selling illegal drugs.

Ramierez took hold of one of Hazy's pinky fingers and twisted it up and back, away from the direction fingers normally bent. There was a series of wet snaps as the bones broke, followed by a bellowed scream from Hazy, and looks of disgust on the faces of the Clyne Faction members. "We're getting off topic here. Let's stayed focused, hmm?" Ramierez said calmly, as if breaking a finger was a standard method for redirecting a conversation. Well, sometimes... "We can debate the moralities of running drugs another time."

"MotherFUCKER!" Hazy sobbed, though there was little feeling in his words... he was just too stressed out to care about anything but getting this over with as quickly as possible, and then getting to a hospital! "They contacted me to get some specialty drugs made... large quantity batch shit, genetically tailored to things... different types of animals I think. Paid a lot of money. I wasn't going to ask no questions, given the kind of cash they were handing out. Even though making the shit they wanted... sedatives... was time consuming and expensive to make. Bought this fucking bar with the profit left over from that deal. They had us deliver the shit to this warehouse, over in the Technology district, over by the border with the Industrial district. Owned by a company called Ark Biotech Laboratory's. They're the guys that make those newfangled Mini-Pets... the ones that are all the rage these days... you know, the cloned, sterile, miniaturized exotic animals."

"So you delivered the drugs. What then?" Ramierez prompted, teasing Hazy's other pinky with his gloved fingers.

"Gahh! We dropped the shit off, a bunch of real scary motherfuckers... Harbringers, they called themselves... took custody of the shit, paid us off and that was it! I swear! It was a one time deal! That was a couple months ago! Oh, they did ask for the formula I used to make the drugs, and I sold em that too... made a nice little side profit. That was the end of it! I never saw em again! I mean, I wouldn'ta minded another contract like that... who doesn't need more money, right? But then... then Meer somehow got tangled up with them. I don't know the circumstances... she got this brand new gig, working as a Lacus impersonator for some bigwig, pulling down twenty grand a month easy! Lucky bitch... but she was sweet... we stayed together, ya know? Oh, we saw other girls, other guys, all part of work... but we were the real deal, Meer and me! And then she got kidnapped, and raped and then cut up and mutliated, her fucking HEAD BURNED OFF... all in her own apartment! Never was no police investigation... it all got swept under the fucking rug! But I did some looking myself, called in some favors... and there it was... the FUCKING BROTHERHOOD did her!"

Hazy curled his hands into fists of rage, unmindful of the pain of his broken pinky. "Rotten bastards! I was gonna do an old fashion gangland drive by on their asses. Made plans, got people together, bought the guns and everything... used their money to do it too! But they caught wind of it before I could get it off the ground... thats when I learned about the phones, and figured out just what sort of monster I was trying to take on. They just took five of my boys... never saw em again, and put the rest of us in the emergency room, pretty as you please! Honestly... you guys are some pretty badass motherfuckers... you've gone and fucked me up like I never even imagined possible... but you still ain't NOTHING compared to the Brotherhood! You hear me, NOTHING!"

"Got anything else productive to say?" Ramierez prompted menacingly.

"Warehouse number five! Number five! Look for the caduceus with gene-sequences instead of snakes! That's the building! I didn't see any guards, but these guys are good... they could have a small army in there and I just didn't see em! And keep your fucking phones off, if you do nothing else! That's all I fucking know! I swear! I swear! Thats ALL! Please, let me go! It hurts so much!"

"He's telling the truth." Lacus said after a few moments of studying Hazy. "He doesn't know anything more." Lacus avoided looking with her mental senses at the two girls on the cot... their drug fogged thoughts were like a stinking stain of decaying paint on the mental landscape. She pitied them, but there wasn't much she could do for them... she could easily sense the dependency they had for the chemicals coursing through their bloodstream. Rehab might very well kill them by this point. Still, she couldn't just leave them here, in this hell of their own choosing. "Let's go. We've learned what we came here to learn. Release him. Bring... bring those two girls with us. We'll drop them off at a hospital on our way to this warehouse."

"You're lucky she's such a softy." Ramierez muttered into Hazy's ear. "Cause I was going to decorate the wall with your brain otherwise." He waited for the Clyne Faction members and Cyprus, as well as the two drug whores to leave the room.

"Fucking untie me! Pull the fucking grenade out!" Hazy demanded.

"Sure thing." Ramierez smirked inside his mask, fiddling with the grenade. "Ooops! Oh shit!" Ramierez commented, miming panic. He dropped the grenade pin and spoon on the desk next to Hazy's wide eyed face. "My hand slipped... all that blood ya know. Oh well... nice knowing ya!" Ramierez called over his shoulder, hoofing it for the door.

"HEY! WHAT THE FUCK!? YOU CAN'T... FUCK... HELP ME! HELP ME!" Hazy flopped and jerked, his hands still tied behind his back, panicking, entire body puckering up as he waited for the grenade to explode and fill the room with burning metal paste, capable of melting solid steel. He fell off the desk, landing painfully on his side, and then the grenade went off... with a muffled "Fzhssssh" of escaping smoke, a bright red color that quickly filled the room and leaked out into the bar area beyond. Hazy was unaware though... he'd passed out with terror as soon as he'd heard the grenade "detonate".

------------------------------------------------

"There's warehouse number five." Dearka reported, lowering the binoculars. "Doesn't look very special at all. Just another bulk goods building, like the other ten or so around it. I don't even see any security guards."

"If it really is a Brotherhood location, I wouldn't expect them to make it obvious." Cyprus replied, his mask sitting on the seat beside him, a light jumpsuit pulled on over his urban combat fatigues for the drive over from Hazy's bar. The jumpsuit bulged grotesquely from all the gear hidden under it, but it was only there to keep people from noticing at a glance that Cyprus and Ramierez were in full combat gear, not truly disguise them. "The area does seem curiously quiet though... I would have expected more people to be around... loaders, workers, inspectors, that sort of thing. I haven't seen a person on the street in several minutes."

"They're probably all underground. A company that can afford to have this many bulk goods warehouses is more than rich enough to have most of their support infastructure built into the substructure. The only reason they have doors on the surface at all is for ease of transporting goods." Dearka replied knowledgably. "My family's food silos work on a similar setup. Kind of like icebergs... the part of the building we can see is only a small part of the actual structure. I'd say each of these warehouses goes two or three times as deep into the ground as it rises into the air."

"That's a pretty damn big building. Big enough to serve as a Mobile Suit hanger." Ramierez opined, his voice speaking out of Cyprus's helmet, since Ramierez was back in the other car... van actually, with Lacus, Miriallia, Waltfeld and Murrue, while Dearka and Cyprus scoped out the premises. Dearka had to fight down a brief sensation of pride when Cyprus had selected him to work as his recon partner. Like he cared what the Stormhound thought about him... well, maybe a little. It was always nice to be respected by a leader in a field, and to be able to lend real expertise to a potentially important mission.

"Not really." Miriallia's voice also came out of the helmet. "Big enough to hold one, sure, maybe even store one lying down... but a hanger? It doesn't have an exit large enough to handle a Mobile Suit. I suppose it doesn't preclude the Brotherhood from having one in there, but the moment it launched it would tear the building down around it. Besides, why would they put a Mobile Suit there... inside a PLANT, its much easier to use other types of security, that don't cause such a big scene."

"Besides, why deliver sedatives tailored to animals to a location that services a Mobile Suit?" Murrue added. "It doesn't make any sense, tactically or strategically. It would be more expensive and time consuming to have the materials dropped off at one place, and then shipped elsewhere, than just have them brought directly by the maker to the final place of use. It's not like the Brotherhood needs to worry about people like Hazy selling them out to the authorities... as far as the minor criminals can discern, the Brotherhood might as well BE the authorities, with the power they wield."

"Standard chain link fence, automated gate. Do you think you can hack it?" Cyprus asked, planning their entry.

"If this was a regular warehouse, sure, no problem." Dearka answered. "A secret Brotherhood location? Doubtful. At least, not without getting caught."

"What kind of security systems?" Cyprus asked, taking notes on a small notebook. Working low tech was no strange thing to him... it almost made him nostalgic for the days when he WAS a Blue Cosmos terrorist, operating in the PLANTS, relying only on his own wits and the materials he could scrounge to provide him with the means to achieve his goals, working against a society that had more advanced technology than anything he could encounter down on Earth. He'd long ago learned to rapidly wean himself off relying on technology to get his job done. He only kept using his helmet in this case because he and Ramierez had agreed that the special high frequency blurt-bands used by the tactical comms were extremely unlikey to be monitored or hacked by their enemies, unlike the cell phone transmissions. The cell phones and pretty much every other electronic, transmit or recieve capable device they had were safely turned off, and put in a sealed bag, just to be safe. They could turn them back on afterwards.

"Internal and external cameras, electronic locks on the interior doors, maybe some motion sensitive lights... thats standard stuff. Again, with the Brotherhood who knows... it could be filled with all sorts of deadly booby traps." Dearka considered, and pre-empted Cyprus's next question. "If it's standard layout, then the upper part, the part we can see, is going to be general supply and auxillarly storage, plus the administrative offices and janitor closets, that sort of thing, with a couple of large freight elevators in the floor. Judging by the size of the building, I'd say we're looking at two elevators, each about fifteen meters square. Access to the lower levels is through the elevators, or an emergency staircase on the north and south corners of the building, though that'll have an alert alerm on it if the doors are opened. Probably five or six storage levels, and then the support stuff at the very bottom... power conduits, water and waste pipes, other utility stuff like that."

"Get all that?" Cyprus asked.

"Yes, sir. Sounds fairly easy. We'll go in through the fence, let the decoder do its thing on the outer door, and play it by ear from there. We've got a few of those scramble boxes that Morganroete gave us... that should take care of any electronic surveillance systems, at least for a while. We'll have to be relatively quick though... I can't promise more than thirty or forty minutes before things start coming back online, and they may respond sooner, depending on how much their security guys care about errors in their system." Ramierez replied thoughtfully. The van came up behind the car that Cyprus and Dearka were in, and they eased towards the fence, which was right on the street line.

"I don't sense any human minds in the area, besides us." Lacus told Ramierez, after a few moments of eye shut concentration. He eyed her warily, and she didn't have to read his mind or his emotions to get a handle on what he was thinking. "Relax... I could care less about what goes on in your head, Mr. Ramierez, and in my current state, I doubt I could read your mind if I tried."

"I see." Ramierez kept eyeing her, though now he was looking at her choice of clothing... one piece dress, with elbow length sleeves, done in rather conspicious white, pink and light purple, complete with stockings and medium heeled shoes. Rather fetching, especially with her hair done up all proper, but that wasn't his concern. "That's not exactly the best choice of clothing for a recon raid, you know. And did you have to bring that Haro along?"

"I completely forgot to pack my skulking clothes, your pardon." Lacus replied frostily. "Next time I'll be sure to bring my stealth dress. As for Mr. Pink, he comforts me... and I need that right now."

"Aight, aight... don't bite my head off." Ramierez held up his hands placatingly. Note to self... don't push Lacus when Kira was in danger. You'd think he'd learn, given how many times he'd ended up on her bad side in similar situations... three or four times running now, counting those times in the Isolation. "Just don't blame me if it gets all dirty and torn to crap."

"I think I might have bigger concerns to worry about, but thanks for the warning." Lacus eased up. She knew she was snapping at people who didn't really deserve it, but she hadn't started out in the best of moods, and the encounter with Hazy hadn't done anything to improve her mood. _Kira... hang on... I'll be there soon. Somehow._

Breaking into the building was easier than any of them had expected... Ramierez used some special shears to cut a hole in the fence, using sticky putty to glue the cut out section more or less back in place once they were all through, and then hustling back over to the rest of them to slap a flat grey box on the outside of the electronic door lock. He had another small box, black this time, winking red LED lights on its outer edges strapped to his waist... an electronic scrambler, that sent out pulses disabling most electronic transmission devices of the sort that were common to security systems in a fifty meter radius. After a few seconds, the yellow LED lights on the lock decoder turned green, and the door clicked open. Ramierez led the way again, with Dearka and Waltfeld close behind, followed by the rest, and then Cyprus at the rear. The door clicked shut behind them and relocked. That was the first unexpected thing.

The second unexpected thing was that the interior of the building was well lit, unlike most such storage locations, which tended to keep lights dim and few and far between, to save on electric power costs. The bright lighting made it very easy to see the tall and large shipping containers that filled the aux storage floor in neat rows, stacked almost up to the ceiling. The shipping containers were of all sorts of different sizes and even shapes, though most were roughly boxlike, with small holes cut into the sides all over. They were assailed with a strong musky smell, that Cyprus quickly recognized as the smell of a large number of animals kept in close confinement for quite some time. He stepped up to one of the larger shipping containers, as others peered into other containers nearby. He was surprised to see what was inside. A large quadrupedal animal, looking vaguely like a horse, but with black and white stripes for coloration, lay curled up and restrained on the floor of the container, sides moving slowly up and down as it breathed in a deep slumber. Tubes fed into its body provided nutrients and sedatives to keep the zebra asleep, and a trough behind it used chemicals to dispose of wastes. A tidy arrangement, for long term storage of a living animal.

"There's a snake in here!" Dearka jerked back from the cube he'd been looking into. "A big one!"

"A lion in here." Miriallia added. "It's asleep though... looks drugged. Kind of like they do for animals when taking them between zoos."

"Well, I guess we found out why they were buying animal sedatives." Ramierez commented, peering into the largest container he could find. "A freaking rhino? Haven't those been extinct for like a century?"

"Only a century?" Waltfeld replied, his voice very shaky. He was pressed back against a wall from a roughly man sized cage-container, trembling slightly. "Cause I'm pretty sure that large, bipedal lizard asleep inside that cage has been extinct for a great deal longer time than that!"

"Are you saying there's a dinosaur in there?" Murrue's voice was disbelieving.

"I'm saying there's a large, bipedal lizard that looks VERY MUCH like a dinosaur in there! Whether or not it IS a dinosaur... well, I'm not a paleontologist! How the hell should I know if its real?" Waltfeld retorted. He wiped sweat off his brow with his biological hand. "What the hell is all this stuff? A menagerie? I haven't seen some of these animals outside of old picture books! Not a single one so far lives outside of a zoo, as far as I know anyway. What the hell is going on here?"

"There are... a lot." Lacus said quietly, staring down at the floor. She hadn't detected them before, because she wasn't looking for animal minds, much less sedated animal minds. Now that she was trying to look for them, she could see them all around. Hundreds of them... maybe thousands just in this building! "This entire building is filled with animals."

"All of them sedated and prepped for transport, it looks like." Cyprus commented. He peered in at Waltfeld's dinosaur and stared. The man wasn't hallucinating... unless Cyprus was losing his mind, that was a velociraptor lying there, snortling in its dreams, wickedly clawed hindlegs twitching as it hunted imaginary game. He shook his head and stepped away from the cage. How the hell was that possible? Such animals had been extinct for millions of years... was cloning science so advanced now? He hadn't thought so... but the proof was right there in front of his eyes. What were they going to clone next... humans, god forbid? "Let's search the building... maybe we'll find some transportation manifests, or something that will tell us how these animals got here, or where they're going to be taken."

It was about forty five minutes after they began searching the building, not having much luck in finding anything of value in terms of information, though it was quite an experience, seeing all these rare and extinct animals in the flesh, when Miriallia let out a shout of shock and surprised fear, prompting everyone to return from the first underground level to where she and Murrue and Lacus were compiling an inventory of the animals they had seen thus far. Miriallia had been going over to one of the cage-containers to confirm a fact... that every animal they had seen thus far was male, which was hard to discern in many cases, but that did seem to be the general trend. She'd just been standing up from couching down to peer into the cage when something jumped on her from the side, coming around the corner of the container row in a low, fast moving blur before it pounced, bearing her to the ground and pinning her underneath its weight, face down. She tried to push herself up, but it was standing on her back, and it weighed only ten or twenty pounds less than she did... it wasn't budging.

Murrue and Lacus looked up and both froze stock still. There was a two foot tall tyrannosaurus rex standing on Miriallia's back, snuffling at the back of her neck as it pinned her to the ground under its weight, three toed clawed feet gripping her shirt for traction. Mirialla couldn't turn her head enough to see what was holding her down, but she could feel the cold skin nuzzling her neck, and feel the drool dripping on her upper back, and hear the snorting and clacking of very sharp sounding teeth. She concentrated on keeping very still, not wanting to provoke whatever it was, as she turned beseeching eyes on Lacus and Murrue. Miriallia did not take much comfort from their shocked and horrified looks. She cringed... was it that bad? What was it? A vicious dog or something? Just her luck...

"Holy mother of god." Dearka swore softly, as he vaulted up from the freight elevator and ran over towards where Mir was. He skidded to a stop when he saw the situation, unable to believe his eyes for the moment. There was a miniature T-rex menacing Mir! It was surreal! He wondered if he hadn't inhaled some Waft fumes at Hazy's bar, and was only now feeling the effects. The T-rex eyed him warily, and clacked its jaws over Mir's neck, drooling on her some more. Damn, the thing looked ravenous! Or maybe even rabid... could T-rex's get rabies? He didn't know, and didn't want to find out! "Mir, honey... don't move a muscle!"

"Thanks... I figured that much out myself..." Miriallia retorted quietly, barely moving her lips. "What... is it?"

"Um... don't panic... but its a T-rex."

"A WHAT!?" Miriallai froze again as the mini-dinosaur stamped down with one leg hard to keep her still as she reflexivly jerked, dipping its head down into her line of vision with a rumbling growl that turned into a rather shockingly load roar-scream, letting her see right down its moist gullet, past the shiny fangs. It snapped its jaws at her face, clacking them closed just sort of her skin, before drawing back and going back to nuzzling her neck, like a man cuddling a steak before chowing down on it. "Eeeep." Miriallia commented, more of a sigh than a word.

"Just... relax. I've got this." Ramierez reassured her, bringing his rifle up to his shoulder and sighting in. "This might get a little messy... but the blood is not going to be yours, okay?"

"Cease fire!" A new voice commanded, just before a softball sized, dodecahedral (one hundred sided) polygon ball floated into view, descending from the ceiling. It was blue with silver edges, and tiny LED lights on the bottom edges. It reached roughly head level and then hung there, defying gravity. Mr. Pink, who had been sitting quietly under Lacus's arm for most of the morning, suddenly perked up, LED eyes flashing excitedly, flapping its wing panels as it tried to bounce out of Lacus's grip, to no avail as she kept it protectively cuddled close. The last thing she needed for it to do would be hopping over towatds the T-rex and aggravating it, perhaps prompting it to attack Miriallia. "Achilles will not harm her. He's just playing."

"Just playing?" Waltfeld asked, arching an eyebrow at the floating ball, which was the source of the voice. "He plays rough then. Who the hell are you, Mr... ball thing?"

"Merlin!" Mr. Pink squeaked joyfully, at last wriggling out from Lacus's somewhat distracted grip, before bouncing eagerly across the floor to roll and cavort beneath the floating ball. "It's been days and days and weeks and weeks! You never came to see me like Noah promised!"

"Wait-a-minute... Haro's can talk?" Waltfeld eyed the hyperactive pink ball, which had the voice of a fourteen or fifteen year old girl. He thought briefly about all the Haro's he and Alkire had shot... if they could talk then...

Lacus stared at Mr. Pink without comprehension. Mr. Pink had never talked before, not in all the years she'd owned him. Well, he made nosies, but those were completely different from complete sentence structures... and in a female voice? That wasn't right... Mr. Pink had always been a, well, Mister. "Mr. Pink?" Lacus asked cautiously, her tone dumbfounded.

"That's not my name! Stop calling me that, you stupid bitch! God damn, you can't imagine how much I hate that name!" Mr. Pink retorted angrily, rolling around in a tight circle.

"T-time o-out!" Dearka held up one hand, with the other pressed to his throbbing forehead. "Mir is being held down by a playful, miniature T-rex... there's a floating ball thats giving us orders... and that damn pink Haro has the voice of a young girl and is telling Lacus off? What the fuck did I inhale at that bar?"

"My name is Melanie, not Mr. Pink! I don't know where you got that name from... I've always been Melanie, from the day I was born, up until my... boating accident." Melanie the Haro rolled around a few more times and then hopped up, trying to rub against Merlin, hovering above, but she couldn't bounce that high in gravity. "Then Noah gave me this new body and..."

"Hush, Melanie." Merlin directed, in Noah's voice. Melanie rolled around slowly in contrition. "They took you away down to Earth, that's why I never could talk to you. Did you do as I asked?"

"Yes! It was SOOOO boring though! They're so DULL! They never did anything cool... I've got gigs and gigs of compressed video files of them just puttering around their house for forever! I did my best to keep her protected... but it was hard... that brown haired meany kept locking me in the closet every night. I can play the sound files of what they were up to... it sounded pretty kinky actually, sometimes. I never would have guessed Lacus was the sort of girl to do those things..." Melanie complained.

"Send me the files in burst format. I'll browse them at the appropriate time." Merlin directed. "Achilles, come... let her up already." Achilles obediently hopped off Miriallia's back, with one more nuzzle and clack of his shiny but very blunt teeth, and then trotted over to crouch under Merlin placidly, nudging Melanie in curiosity.

"Who are you?" Cyprus asked, aiming his rifle at the floating ball.

"I am the Prophet." Merlin replied archly. "That is all you need to know for the moment. You may also refer to me as Adam, if you wish."

"And what do you want, Mr. "Adam"?" Cyprus prompted. He was going to need to rinse out his brain with some serious meditative exercises once he had a chance... this was too surreal, even for him.

"I've already gotten what I wanted, from Melanie. Otherwise, I'm just here to talk. You should feel honored that I would deign to waste the time, but my morning has suddenly become a lot freer, unfortunately." Merlin replied arrogantly.

"You... programmed Mr. Pink... to spy on me and Kira?" Lacus asked slowly, trying to work her mind around the concept.

"MY NAME IS MELANIE, NOT MR. PINK!" Melanie shouted, eyes flashing brightly as she hopped up and down in agitation. "CALL ME THAT ONE MORE TIME, YOU DITZY BITCH, AND I'LL ZAP YOU GOOD!"

"You'll do no such thing, Melanie. You are not to harm Lacus Clyne in any way, and you know it." Merlin retorted firmly. "Programmed? Not even hardly, Eve. Do you mind if I call you Eve... its more a title than anything else."

"I prefer to be called by my name, which is Lacus." Lacus replied, feeling light headed. Mr. Pink had been spying on her for the Brotherhood? For years? How the... but... all those times Mr. Pink had gone after Kira had been... but... "Why is that a title? Aren't you referring to Eve, from the christian bible?"

"Indeed I am." Merlin replied, seeming pleased that she'd picked up on that. "You and that Eve are very similar, Ms. Lacus, though you may not understand why. Suffice it to say you are both the first females of an entirely new race destined to dominate the world. Technically, I should not term myself Adam, because I am not the first male of that same species, but I am the father of it, so I took the title for myself."

"You're not making any sense." Murrue complained. "Eve was the first human woman, according to christianity... Lacus is also a human woman. How can she be an entirely new race?"

"You think Lacus is just a mere human?" Merlin answered, an amused tone in his voice.

"Well she sure as hell ain't some kind of alien!" Miriallia protested. "I mean, she's... different from a lot of people, but she's still a human being, like anyone else!"

"Feel free to believe that drivel, if it makes you feel better about yourself." Merlin said smugly. "The truth of the matter will become apparent soon enough. I'd advise you not to try and fit Lacus the Eve into your narrow definition of humanity within my hearing too often... I find it disrespectful when lesser beings seek to generalize what they don't understand about the Angels."

"Angels? I'm not an Angel." Lacus retorted, getting very tired of this mysterious conversation.

"Oh, you are indeed an Angel, Lacus. As am I. As is Kira. Poor Kira... such a sad thing, whats going to happen to him, yes?" Merlin taunted. Everyone there winced and switched their gaze from the floating ball to Lacus. Achilles the T-rex whimpered quietly and hunched down in a posture of submission, and Melanie rolled quickly backwards to "thunk" against a shipping container. Various grunts and quiet snarls came from the animal cages around them, as their deep dreams were disturbed by Lacus's anger.

"You hurt Kira?" Lacus asked, very quietly.

"Me? No, not even close. I rather like him, in a familial sort of way. I wouldn't be the man I am today if it weren't for him!" Merlin said cheerfully. "However that is not to say I am unaware of his situation. Would you like me to do something about it? I can, you know."

"But aren't you...?" Lacus started to ask, caught off balance by the offer.

"Your enemy? No. Not unless you force me to be. I loved you, Lacus, with all my heart and soul." Merlin admitted. "I used to think that you were the only fit woman to be my partner. I was wrong there, and since that pleasant discovery my ardour for you has cooled to a mere family level. We are two of a kind, Lacus, the seeds of a new race of humanity. Adam and Eve, if you will. There will be a time when I come for you, my Eve, to take you away with me and safeguard you through the likely turbulent changing of the age of humanity, but fear not... my interest in you is now completely scientific in nature. I want to find out what cosmic chance allowed you to come into existence naturally, at the very time I did, through the work of men."

"You aren't making any sense." Lacus protested. "New ages? Two of a kind? New race? What are you..."

"It will make sense in time, dear Eve." Merlin bobbed lightly. "What do you think of this Ark? Impressive, is it not? With these magnificent animals, and the tens of thousands more in the other Arks, I will repopulate our ravaged Garden, and give all of nature, in all its glory, the same chance at ascension that I will generously grant to the current humanity!"

"Don't change the subject on me!" Lacus retorted, anger welling up in her again. "What do you know about where Kira is? You said you could do something about his situation?"

"I know everything about where Kira is. I know you listened to Mr. Randolf's conversation with him. Such a misguided man, Mr. Randolf is... it makes him very easy to control. I suppose it must be... uncomfortable... to learn about his relationship with your mother, yes? Don't worry though... I screened your genes several times once I found out... your father is indeed Siegel Clyne. Mr. Randolf is right though... he'll be able to put Kira away for years and years on those trumped up charges, and theres not a thing you can legally do to stop him. Nor can you find him... your powers aren't that precise." Merlin began slowly floating in a circle as if pacing. "Oh whatever shall you do, Lacus? It would just break your heart to be seperated from your love, wouldn't it?"

"Don't taunt me..." Lacus warned.

"Do it! Lash out! Show them all how different you are!" Merlin egged her on. "Show them how an Angel rages! Show me your power again! It is so beautiful!"

"How do you know about my powers?" Lacus asked, her voice icy, as she fought for self control. She wanted to just reach out and crush the floating ball into scrap... she was pretty sure she could do it too... but...

"I should think that would be obvious." Merlin replied with a sniff. "I'm frankly surprised you never caught on to Melanie, really... I guess hiding in plain sight really works, and an unassuming face is the best disguise."

"What do you mean?"

"Why don't you LOOK at Melanie again, now that she's fully awake." Merlin advised. Lacus stared at the ball for several seconds, before turning her gaze... and her mental attention... to Mr. Pink. It only took a moment, and then she reeled backwards in horror, almost falling over, if Dearka hadn't caught her and lowered her to a sitting position, tears beading in the corners of her eyes.

"How... horrible! How could..." Lacus breathed, staring at the traumatized, fragmented mind of a fourteen year old girl, glowing brightly inside Mr. Pink.

"Horrible? I suppose some might think of it that way, but I disagree. Tell me, Melanie... do you regret me taking you out of your old body and giving you this new one?" Merlin asked.

"Well... it did kinda hurt... but I was... trapped in my body. I got hit by the propeller and then almost drowned for seven minutes... I was pretty much dead, trapped in a dream I could not wake up from. Until No.. until you came along and gave me those dreams, those wonderful dreams, where I was me again, and I could do all the things I used to do, and feel love and enjoyment and peace again! It's not always fun in this little plastic ball, and I can't remember things long term very well... but I can move! And talk! And see, and hear and even smell a little! It's not quite the paradise I thought it would be... but it is life, and I didn't have that until you gave it to me! I'm forever thankful!" Melanie replied mushily.

"You're saying there's a real girl's mind inside that Haro?" Ramierez asked, his face pale. Lacus nodded slowly. Ramierez turned his head to the side and gagged, spewing bile onto the ground at his feet. "Motherfuck..."

"All those times I felt feelings and thoughts... those weren't echoes of other people, or my imagination?" Lacus felt similarly sick to her stomach. It was an abomination! An impossible medical miracle... but to take a person and put them into what was basically a toy, and use it to SPY on people... that wasn't altruism! That was the worst kind of taking advantage of someone! It was slavery! "Oh my God, you poor girl..."

"Save your pity for someone who wants it, bitch!" Melanie retorted. "I'm happy as I am. You could never understand what its like to live in a coma! The only thing that was near as bad was having to pretend to be your little toy for all this time! You're seriously such a stupid, silly, bitch! I can't stand you! I hope you die! And I know what you're up to in the bathroom whenever you go over to that other bitch's big house! You always bring me in with you, its not like I have any choice but to know! You're soooo stupid! It's not gonna work... you been trying for years! Maybe something IS broken inside you, or broken inside him! Maybe you oughta try sleeping around a little, put some spice in your life... something, anything, other than this lovey-dovey perfect girlfriend-boyfriend shit! It makes me sick, watching the two of you! I just wish I coulda zapped him a few times, rather than just trying to bash his brains out, but he never made any threatening moves... too bad. You deserve to be beaten up a little, you're so stupid!"

"This is... pretty fucking intense shit." Dearka muttered to Miriallia.

"This is fucking CRAZY shit, thats what it is." Miriallia replied. "What a nasty little girl, to say such things to Lacus, trying to hurt her. I feel like I'm dreaming."

"Shut up, you ugly Natural!" Melanie rotated around to face Dearka and Miriallia. "Don't even get me started on you two losers! Ohh... I've got ICD... OH NO! OH NO! WHAT SHALL I DO... WOE IS ME... WOE!" Melanie paused. "JUST GO AND BLOW YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF ALREADY AND SHUT UP, WOULD YA!? God damn, but you're such a broken record! Maybe if you didn't cry so much your dick would work properly... oh wait... nevermind... that's impossible, for you! Though I guess I can't blame you, looking at her... if I was a guy, I wouldn't be able to get her pregnant either! Peeyuuu, talk about gross, she's not even cute!"

"Lacus... I am going to break your Haro." Miriallia stood up, a frozen look of determination on her face.

"Melanie, you shouldn't be so vulgar." Merlin reprimanded.

"It's not MY fault she's an ugly Natural neanderthal, is it? Ook, ook, spread your legs a little wider, ya greasy chimp-whore, maybe if ya lost all that hair down there he wouldn't get lost trying to find your pearly gates! Though I doubt it... from the look of ya, you'd need a freaking safari expedition to get through THAT bush!" Melanie blew a raspberry at Miriallia, though she did roll farther away.

"Melanie!" Merlin's voice was much more commanding and harsh. "Save it."

"But I've got years of frustration pent up! I haven't even gotten around to that damn MOUSE!"

"You're making me angry, Melanie!" Merlin warned. Melanie flashed her LED eyes in a panic and promptly shut up. "We got off track, I apologize. We were talking about Kira, and his situation." Merlin floated up closer to Lacus and lowered his voice conspiritially. "What if I could give him back to you? Whole, hale and healthy? What would you say to that?"

"I'd say that it sounds too good to be true. What do you want from me?" Lacus replied, standing up again.

"I already have everything I really need, my Eve. Just ask, and I'll be glad to deliver. It would make me happy to be able to help you out." Merlin answered cheerfully.

"Just ask...?" Lacus muttered. Well, she'd give it a try, but she wasn't holding out much hope... if wanted to play games, she didn't have much choice but to jump headlong into it at this point. "Fine. Please give Kira back to me, unharmed."

"It shall be done. He'll be dropped off at your house in three hours. He'll recieve the best medical treatment available... you probably will barely be able to tell he even got his nose broken in the first place."

"Just like that?" Cyprus asked, sceptically.

"Yes. Just like that. Like I said, I don't bear Kira any ill will, if anything I have several causes to be grateful to him. You are all free to go, or stay and look around this Ark as much as you like. I don't care... I really don't. At this point in time, there is almost nothing you can do to affect my plans in any way. I'd ask that you not wake the animals up... the poor dears might hurt you by accident if they are woken up in a strange environment. Oh, and don't mind Achilles, Merlin or Melanie... they won't bother you any more, though you won't be able to make any phone calls or take any pictures with Merlin around, I'm afraid... he jams such things, much like those pathetic black boxes on Mr. Ramierez's belts are trying to do."

"Are you part of the Brotherhood?" Waltfeld asked, trying to lure more information out of the talking head-ball. "What about this place? What are you planning?"

"Mr. Waltfeld, I don't feel inclined to tell you my plans... I'm not a meglomaniac like that. Good bye, Eve, and others... I look forward to greeting you... some of you... after your soon to come ascensions. Good afternooon. Remember... three hours, at Lacus's house... someone might want to be there to greet Kira." Merlin recommended, before floating away from them, to hang up by the ceiling, well out of reach.

"Just like that..." Lacus muttered, before turning for the door. "I'm going home. I don't expect him to keep his word but..."

"If he's okay with us looking around this place freely, then we won't gain anything from the information here." Ramierez said with a frown. "We might as well leave. This place gives me the creeps anyway."

"What about the Haro?" Waltfeld jerked his hand at the pink ball, which was being nudged about by Achilles.

"Leave it. I never want to see it again." Lacus replied, hugging herself as if cold. "I'm... getting rid of ALL of them, when I get back."


	26. Snakes in the Grass part 4

Author Note: I've gone through my email, and will be checking my profile email account again, if anyone wants to send me PM's, for whatever reason. I saw a few of the recent ones, and I'm honored and flattered that people would include my characters and ideas into their own stories... its a wonderful compliment, thank you. I unfortunately deleted the message before starting this reply, but whomever wanted to do that side story, or "Gaiden" I think you called it, after Chaotic Cosmos chapter 16, by all means PLEASE DO SO. I would love it. And consider this overarching permission to everyone else... I have no qualms about people borrowing or expanding upon my work... if you want to run with something, by all means, go where it takes you. If you like it, tell me about it... if you don't like it, oh well, hopefully you had fun. This is going to sound slightly arrogant, but really, I have little fear of my work being plagarized... writing style is like a very unique signature, I think, and I'm confident my writing stands out as my writing.

Hmm, review replies, let me see. Mixed feelings on the Haros. Do I hate them? Well, they annoy me, certainly. Altogether they're a bit too easy to dislike in my opinion... I understand the principles of comic relief, but I feel its a role better enacted by a full on character, rather than a bouncy pink robot ball. Besides, if I WAS going to try and spy on Lacus Clyne, bugging her Haro or Haro's would be a great way of doing it. Same way for assassinating her even... green Haro hops up, anti-personnel mine inside, burbles and "KABOOM"... no more Lacus. The things, upon reflection, are a menace, disregarding even their annoying swarming habits. Let's see, starting at the bottom... Archangel2385, the reason Alkire didn't go SEED mode is because he can't. All humans may have the Seed, latently, but only a very few can actually use it. And like I said in my review reply, Cyprus used a gun with the Seed during his fight with MAGOS and Frost. Sai's wife's name was Vanai. And if you were trapped in a pink toy ball for five years, unable to speak, I wonder how you'd feel.

Asmus, yes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Hazy at the moment... he's good for illustrating the not so good sides of PLANT and Coordinator society, so yeah, he'll probably be back eventually. Good idea about Melanie and the Zam clan. Shoulda thought of that myself. And yeah, the Clyne Faction will pretty much know Noah is the antagonist here soon. Trick is... what the hell are they going to do about it? So far he hasn't done anything to them that a court would believe... taking people to court for mindrape, putting you in a coma or attempted murder by remote heart stoppage won't get you far with most judges... but it is always good to know someone out there is being big and nasty and bad-guyish, I suppose.

Is there something more sinister to Noah just up and letting Kira go? Well, he did promise to help Randolf take Kira down... but he never really specified when. And you're very right... as a fellow Ultimate Coordinator, Noah definitely holds Lacus and Kira in higher regard than he does poor Randolf, who is, however useful, still just a pawn/tool. Of course, trampling all over Randolfs plans doesn't exactly endear the two of them to each other... hmm... I wonder if this might be more foreshadowing for something else... well, I'll let the story tell that, eh? Rihaku... well, I know that is what I've said, that the Brotherhood is minding every electronic comm device in the PLANTS, and even on Earth. That is what everyone believes anyway. And its not that far fetched... the National Security Agency in the United States does something similar, though really its just a search for key words or certain phrases, not actually listening in to everything said. If I had to be more specific I'd say the Brotherhood does exactly that... they have automated programs searching for words like "Brotherhood" or "Terrorists" or "Borander" or other such things, and whenever they get a hit, it then goes to another program for recording, and is then passed through several more filtering programs before it ever gets to anyone human. Because of the advanced state of computers in Cosmic Era, this probably happens in a matter of seconds. Are they really "listening" to everything... no. But that's the impression they like to keep people under.

Regarding your other question, about the Biological Intelligence Interface Chip characters... Melanie, Phlegethion, Aether, the Zam Clan, and, in some ways, Frost... yes, they are rather deluded. But that is because they aren't whole minds... just the parts of those minds Noah wanted to draw out and use, from people who suffered severe mental and physical trauma before they even got hooked up to the BIIC machine. They're all "damaged" at the very least, if not totally insane. Second part of it is harder to say... not sure if even I know. I mean, from one standpoint, since the original body dies, I suppose the actual consciousness is transplanted. One the other hand, he's using electronic means to record data stimulated from the mind, which is what actually encodes on the chip, and that would make it a copied consciousness. Does a copy become an original if there are no other originals or copies around, especially as the BIIC's only have vague memories of their time before being BIIC's? Feels like I'm getting into Ghost in the Shell territory.

Noah calling Lacus Eve is kinda creepy... but everyone was off balance just from the finding of the animals in the Ark, much less being addressed by a floating dodecahedron, with a fully intelligent Haro-girl and a two foot tall T-Rex in attendance. It'll get commented upon later. Turyaza... well, yes, Noah/Meyrin is in many ways similar to Ashino/Jean. Like I said in my review reply though, there are some differences I'm hoping to explore. Ashino was a victim, kidnapped as a child, given no choice but to become a BCPU, and everything since then has been him warring against his internal programming... man vs machine, on a soul level. Whether or not Noah is a victim... well, thats something you'll have to decide for yourselves at the conclusion of ED. In any case, he's got ALL the choices Ashino never had... its just a matter of which ones he takes, and whether his involvement with Meyrin is what pulls him away from the brink... pushes him over it... or keeps him centered upon it.

In any case, on with my show.

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"... and once more, I'd like to stress that despite the tone of my arguements, I have nothing but the highest degree of respect for Queen Zala-Attha and her firm, steady guidance of Orb through its trials and tribulations, both past and present. It is merely her intractable and frankly irrational opposition to the current USN military policies that concerns me, and concerns me deeply enough that despite my personal feelings, I have seen no other option but to come forward and make my case to Parliament as a whole." Unato Ema Seiran, head of the Seiran family, most prominent of the other four Royal Orb houses, said, his well modulated voice calm and firm, nary a hint of any internal thoughts he might be having crossing his placid, somewhat saggy face. He looked up from the microphone on the speaker's booth on the floor of the Parliament hall, regarding his fellow members of Parliament with piercingly beady eyes behind his blocky orange glasses. The legislative assembly hall was packed to capacity today, for this emergency meeting he'd managed to create, through much political maneuevering. Unato smiled inwardly as his gaze passed across the Royal Observation Booth, on the center of the second level of the assembly hall, directly across from his podium. Today was a day of reckoning, a day of repayment, of a history of wrongs done to him and his family being righted. He was enjoying himself, he could not lie.

"Smug bastard." Cagalli muttered, meeting Unato's gaze squarely, though she kept a confident smile plastered across her face, her lips barely moving as she spoke just loud enough for Athrun to hear her from the chair next to her. Her fingers tangled with his below the balcony lip, out of sight of anyone on the floor below, reassuring her with the steady, unyielding grip. It had been a long, painful day so far, and it was looking like it wasn't going to get much happier in the next four or five hours. Cagalli was glad of every last iota of support that Athrun could give her at this point in time... at least one person wasn't abandoning her or stabbing her in the back! It felt at times that everyone else certainly was! She cursed herself for a fool, for not realizing how her own actions and policies had been formenting this degree of discontent in her very own backyard! She'd only ever been trying to do the right thing for the world, was that so wrong? Apprently, it was.

"He definitely has an arrogantly triumphant poise to him." Athrun agreed. Unlike Cagalli, he wasn't obliged by political custom to appear calm, controlled, happy or anything else pleasant, and he was taking full advantage of that to glare daggers at Unato, the same way he'd done for all the previous speakers that had presented arguements against Cagalli during this emergency Parliament hearing. There had been precious few members of the legislative body, none of them very senior, who had opted to argue in favor of Cagalli's current course as Chief Representative. Athrun was pissed at himself for allowing Cagalli to be entrapped by this sudden surge of discontent... he took it upon himself to not only smooth things over with foreign diplomats, but also to keep Cagalli's sharp edges from cutting the pride of her own supporters too deeply... but if today was any judge of his efforts, then he was a dismal failure in that regard. Not only did it rankle because of that, but he was as aware of the truly dangerous nature of this first questioning of Cagalli's authority as was Cyprus, or any major political analyst.

Simply put, if Unato Seiran, and his supporters, which were most of the old guard and senior members of the legislature and judiciary, could get the voting support, the seventy percent majority they needed to over-rule Cagalli's decision to oppose the USN's Solar Protection Fleet and Solar Knights initiatives, then Cagalli could kiss her reign as an effective Chief Representative goodbye. Once the political opposition won one victory, they would then press harder on other issues, eventually garnering the majority support to over-rule her on those as well. It wouldn't happen all at once of course... but if Cagalli lost today, then that would be the mortal wound that would in the end eventually kill her administration.

Bluntly, many of her policies, however well recieved they might be by the public of both Orb and the rest of the USN, chafed like rough sandpaper to the political sensibilities of even her staunch supporters. Cagalli was well known as a political maverick, heedless of the rules at the best of times, when she wasn't actively breaking them! She allowed no "pork" into her public works bills and pretty much did her best to put commercial-political lobbyists out of business. She played no favorites and came down like a ton of bricks on anyone that tried to play things a little shady with their influence or insider knowledge, even if it was to her indirect benefit. She granted no tax exemptions to the rich, gave no bailouts for failing companies, and was frankly a merciless bitch when it came to dealing with the "woe is me" complaints from various people and organizations coming to her for money to help fix their own, largely self caused problems. Orb had publicly provided health care, and a "safety net" version of social security, but it only paid for up to two months of inactivity, unless there were medical or other special, case by case considerations. In her opinion, if you weren't willing to make an effort to help yourself, then Orb wasn't obliged to make your effort for you in the slightest. No free lunches, sorry... survival of the fittest and law abiding only.

Not only that, but she was a young female national leader. Sexism was publicly a thing of the past, but still, in reality, only in the PLANTS were women a truly equal part of politics, facing not even the slightest bit of prejudice or extra expectations that they did in other governments. Some of the nations of the FNE had had female leaders before, but they were abnormalities in the system, and few lasted longer than a single term of office. Too many cultures in the world were still disdainful of the concept of women as leaders for their administrations to be very productive or effective. Even in Orb or other Royalistic Democracies, with both a heriditary ruler and a democratically elected government that did the actual work of running the nation, the people usually running the show were male, regardless of the gender of the heriditary ruler. Of course that also brought up the point that Cagalli was both the Queen, the heriditary ruler and the Chief Representative, which was a post relatively synonymous with Prime Minister or President, being the person in charge of the actual Government. Such a thing wasn't completely unknown in Orb's history, since her father, Uzumi Nara-Attha had been both King and Chief Represenative, but again, it had always been a male before.

As if all that wasn't offense enough to the sensibilities of the traditional elements of the government and the other Royal families, but she was married to Athrun Zala, had indeed taken his name for her own instead of forcing him to take hers, which was Orb custom when an outsider married into a Royal family. While again, publicly Athrun Zala was widely admired and beloved, especially in the PLANTS, which lent Orb significant diplomatic advantages with the Coordinator nation, many senior political figures in Orb and throughout Earth still blamed him for the sins of his Father, and were highly suspicious of his motives at the very least. No, Cagalli Zala-Attha had done precious little to endear herself to many important political figures in her own government and elsewhere... but up until recently, she'd enjoyed such an overwhelming degree of public support no politician would have dared speak out against her, for fear of ruining their own career to no advantage. But that had changed, with the defeat of the Orb Special Projects squadron outside LAS, and the triumph of the Solar Knights. And like a house built of cards, no matter how impressive it was, when the support wavered in the wind, so did the entirety of the building.

Cagalli saw Unato gathering himself for another long winded, rambling, and subtly self righteous series of speeches. It was almost like the man was trying to bore her to death or some sort of impulsive action. She snorted quietly... she may be idealistic, but she wasn't naive. She wasn't going to throw herself at the mercy of the wolves any more than she had to, or tie the noose around her own neck for him either. She was keeping her fiery temper under tight check today, helped by Athrun's quiet, steady presence. Nothing would get to her today, no matter what was said or how preposterous or self serving it was. She was totally untouchable... an ice sculpture! There would be no public scenes from her, for Unato and his cronies to latch onto and use as fuel for their "concerned public citizens" act. She didn't like acting with such stifling political decorum... it felt like she was being false to herself, and worse to her father... but she could make the sacrifice when needed. She was shocked that her opponents didn't seem to realize that. "Your pardon, Lord Seiran, but could I ask for a short intermission before you continue? I'm sure we could all use a brief respite, even from such important business as this." Cagalli spoke into the microphone cunningly concealed into the banister in front of her.

Unato closed his mouth, eyeing her fiercely, obviously wondering what sort of devious political ploy this was. Cagalli just looked back at him calmly. To be honest, while it would be nice to have an ulterior political motive, a backup plan she was implementing during the break that would kick Unato's support out from under him in one fell swoop, that wasn't the case at all. She didn't have anything like that level of support, that much had been made agonizingly clear to her during the speeches and testimony preceeding Unato's. No, she just wanted to take a break, go to the bathroom maybe, get a cold drink, maybe get a breath of fresh air to keep her head clear... perhaps even find a convenient punching bag to tear apart for a few minutes... simple staples of life like that. They'd been going for close to three hours straight since the last break, and they'd been at it since early in the morning.

"Well, what I have to say is very important, Mrs. Chief Representative, but I suppose a ten minute recession wouldn't hurt." Unato allowed slowly, still maintaining eye lock with Cagalli, trying to bore into her mind, looking for the slightest hint as to her intentions. She didn't give him a thing. She must have been practising... usually Cagalli was an open book, her emotions and thoughts plain upon her face. It allowed her to be disgustingly endearing to the public, but it also made it easy for experienced hands like Unato to read her moods and intentions to their own advantage. Not today though. He shrugged inside... it didn't really matter. She was doomed, and every person there knew it. It was all but over, except for the crying. She could thrash and protest all she wanted, she was practically interred in her political grave already, from the moment the public had started questioning the wisdom of opposing USN SecDef Durandel after LAS. Unato stepped away from the podium and headed over towards the Parliament seats reserved for the Seiran family, where his closest supporters were not being nearly so self controlled in their wide smiling jubilation as he was.

Cagalli waited until she and Athrun, along with Kisaka and their two Stormhound escorts of the day, the towering Sergeant-Major Glory and Sergeant Kurtz, had reached a private study-office along the outer edge of the Parliament building and she and Athrun had gone out onto the outside balcony before she allowed her calm smile and placid expression to fall away to reveal the firestorm beneath. She kicked the wrought iron balcony as hard as she could, unmindful of the pain in her foot, her hands gripping the sun warmed banister so hard that her knuckles turned entirely white. She desperately wanted to yell, wordlessly even, just to let the pressure inside out, but she dared not, not in semi-public like this. Athrun's arms encircled her gently from behind, and he pulled her back into him in a tight embrace, resting his cheek on the top of her head, her hands clasped with his before them. Cagalli sighed and relaxed slightly back into him. "Well, this hasn't been a very fun day." She murmured.

"Well it could be worse. They could be shooting guns at us." Athrun replied with a smirk.

"I'd almost prefer that. Then I could shoot back. Right now I just have to sit there and smile confidently, like none of this bothers me." Cagalli sighed again, more heavily. "I can't even daydream about stomping them all flat with the Dawn Goddess... if I miss even the slightest detail, it could be the final nail in my coffin." She looked up at the nigh cloudless blue sky. "I wonder how Kira, Lacus and the others are doing. I wonder if they've found out anything concrete yet."

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Athrun smiled. "I'm hard pressed to think of anything that could slow down Alkire and Cyprus together, much less Kira and Lacus. And then there's Ysak and Katie to consider. Hell, they'll probably just use those mental powers of theirs to figure out where the terrorists are coming from without even leaving Lacus's house, for all I know. No, there is absolutely nothing to worry about with them, trust me. If anything, they're probably even more bored than you and I are. The chances of them actually finding anything concrete out about the Brotherhood is very slim, and the chances of actually encountering the Brotherhood even slimmer."

"I was expecting a call at least though." Cagalli shrugged. There were a hundred reasons why their friends had not yet gotten in contact with them... for all she knew, they'd been trying, she was just too wrapped up in the Parliament meeting to answer her private comm lines. She debated checking her messages, but decided against it. Like Athrun said, there was no reason to worry... she could check up on them after they got this damned emergency meeting out of the way, whichever way it went. Cagalli glanced around furtively for a moment, not seeing anyone else within easy line of sight. Athrun had already loosened his embrace, intuiting what was going through her mind. He bent his head down as she turned to meet him, and their lips met for several long, enjoyable seconds. "Thanks. I needed that worse than a cold drink." Cagalli whispered, resting her head against his chest.

"Happy to provide necessary sustenance when called upon." Athrun smiled, touching his forehead to hers, lifting her chin with one hand for a second round. "If it's any further consolation, I'm pretty sure I saw some of the older Representatives snoozing, even during their so called hour of victory. Unato bores them just as much as he does you and me. I don't think he'll last long as Chief Representative, assuming he can even force people to elect him."

"Excuse me? Are we making out or discussing political problems?" Cagalli asked breathlessly, cutting him off with another kiss before he could reply.

"Just striving to make the most efficient use of time available." Athrun grinned, once he had his lips to himself again. "It pains me to say it, love, but I think we'd best consider how we're going to deal with not being in charge anymore."

"Take a long vacation, start acting like real Royalty again?" Cagalli's own smile was somewhat bitter. Not for her the life of idle luxury... she couldn't turn her eyes away from the world when it needed her, even if the world wanted to turn its eyes away from her. "Do you really think I have no chance?"

"I think that we both underestimated the degree of animosity between us and many of the movers and shakers of the other government branches. We saw how everything was getting done the way we wanted it, and didn't stop to consider how bitter and angry it was making people privately. I hate to admit it, but we've caught the short end of the stick here... Durandel's policies, no matter how suspicious we find them, have captured the public eye, and his political acumen has captured the support of the traditionalists across the world. He's a man who plays by their own rules, and he plays better than any of them, which they respect and admire, even if many of them don't like him personally. He's a natural leader in their eyes, whereas us... well, we lead just as well, but we step on a lot of toes to do it. People I thought before this morning to be staunch supporters of us were among the first to testify against us, and many more followed their lead. Not preparing for the worst at this point in time would be stupid." Athrun replied more seriously.

"So what should I do then? Just give up and resign myself to eventually having all my major decisions that are unpopular with these damn traditionalists get overrulled, one at a time?" Cagalli's distaste for that idea dripped from every word.

"You, give up?" Athrun's tone was sardonically disbelieving. "I don't think that's possible, nor smart. I'm just saying that maybe we should do a strategic reconsideration... we've probably lost this battle, but this battle is not the war. I think we should fight this thing to the bitter end, go down kicking and screaming and biting and clawing, so to speak, even though we know we're going to lose. It'll feed their egos, while at the same time it'll make them hesitant, make them waste resources, political and otherwise. It'll give us time to work something else out, while they re-marshal themselves and search for truly overwhelming force, to prevent us from making a scene again. The last thing either side wants is to make this dissent a major public issue, but when it comes down to it..."

"The public is still largely mine." Cagalli finished softly. "It's playing dirty, but sometimes you have to get covered in blood and guts in order to come out ahead. It hurts them more to make this a public scandal, and the same for whatever the next disruption down the line is. I can take having the press crawling through every aspect of my life... I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of! I wonder if Unato and his friends can hold up so damned well against such scrutiny!? They want me to go down in flames, well then so be it... but I'll drag them through purgatory with me, and may the righteous and worthy be the ones to make the crossing to the end!"

"There's the vicious girl I love so much." Athrun chuckled. "Who tried to kill me even after I spared your life and then saved it. Unapologetic and unwavering to the last."

"And if things go really sour, I can always resign from being Chief Representative of my own free will, and choose a sucessor myself. Letting them override me is bad enough, I won't let them humiliate me by impeaching me!" Cagalli growled. "Morganroete Armories is majority owned by me, once you get through all that legal bullshit, and I'm still the goddamned Queen of Orb... I didn't want to be, but they MADE me be Queen, so now they're damn well stuck with me! Maybe I'll choose that bastard Unato... or better yet his son, that turdball Yuna! He'd be thrown out of office before he even got to sit down behind my desk!" Cagalli chuckled at the image. "They may be united against me, mostly, but they're hardly united in the real sense of the word. I kinda like that idea actually... if Unato wants my job so damned bad, maybe I should GIVE it to him! Everyone would think that he and I were in cahoots about it, and his own allies would murder him in his bed, politically speaking. I'm still young, I could step back in after he makes a bloody hash of things and fix it with a little work."

"It's worked for opposing political parties for centuries." Athrun acknowledged. "No matter how badly they may have sucked the last time they were in control, after letting the opposition royally fuck up for a few terms, they find themselves cast in a golden light, buoyed up by the "well, they can't POSSIBLY be as bad as the last guys" philosophy. Politics is so wonderful that way. I mean, I'm leery of the idea of putting Unato, much less Yuna, in charge during this crisis with the Brotherhood, but really, there's always going to be a crisis of some magnitude going on somewhere, so I suppose there really is no "good time" for this sort of thing. And since they'd both go crying to the USN for protection, at least we wouldn't have to worry about too much of a negative impact on the lives of our citizens. All the responsibility for protecting people would go to the USN."

"Wouldn't we be playing into Durandel's hands by doing that though?" Cagalli chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I mean, speaking of just Orb, individually, by resigning and letting Unato or Yuna or someone else take the flak and ire from everyone for a few years would probably be not too bad a thing, for us personally and for Orb in a long term sense, but I still can't bring myself to trust Durandel even slightly. I can't prove a damn thing, but I just know that there's more to the timing of these terrorist attacks than just pure chance! He's dirty... he's fucking filthy! For all I know, he's in control of the Brotherhood, or working closely with whoever is! You're right, pretty much anyone I choose to succeed me would run to the USN for support and help. I could fix the damage my own people do to Orb... I'm not so sure I could fix what Durandel would do to us after a few years of sinking his damn claws in!"

"Thorny road." Athrun agreed. It wasn't like he had the answer for everything. Or even many things. Like Cagalli, all he could do was suggest what he thought was the best course of action, and do his damndest to follow it to the best conclusion he could. This time it was he who cut her off with a kiss... he didn't see any more advantage in continuing down this line of thought for the moment. They lost themselves in the feel of each other, and the warm sunlight of the early afternoon, for some time, until a polite clearing of a throat from the doorway leading back to the office interior brought them back to the here and now, flushed and slightly out of breath. They both turned their heads towards the source of the cough, slightly embarassed by having lost track of time.

Kisaka had an eyebrow cocked at them, though the expression on his craggy face, while not exactly a smile, was still quite benevolent, at least to those who were familiar with him. He glanced down at his wristwatch and then brought his gaze back up to regard the two of them, amused at their sheepish looks. As if he'd never walked in on them when they were doing things a great deal more embarassingly private than simply holding each other and kissing. It was almost chaste behavior, considering some of what he'd seen or heard of them doing. He could hardly begrudge them seeking solace within their mutual affection considering the events of the day, and the likely aftermath. They were still very young people after all, barely out of college age. He tried to imagine himself at their age, in their position. The image wouldn't come to mind, it was just too preposterous. He'd been a sullen, self centered and altogether not very pleasant young man when he was their age, certainly not the sort of person that would make even a slightly acceptable national leader.

"How much time left?" Athrun asked, keeping his arm around Cagalli's waist and keeping her close. One of many plus sides to a formal marriage... he was no longer obliged to keep his hands to himself in public, regardless of the audience, and a big screw you to anyone who tried to disapprove of him for it. "We were, uh, discussing political strategy, and well, kinda got caught up in it and..."

"I wish my political strategy discussions went like yours do." Glory commented dryly from within the office. "I might actually get into politics with THAT kind of incentive. We still got about ninety seconds, don't worry."

"I dunno, I wouldn't give me too many ideas, Sergeant-Major." Cagalli retorted with a wicked smile, as they walked back into the room, arm in arm. "I was just considering a nasty strategic booby trap involving free willed resignation and designation of my own sucessor. While it would be amusing for me to set one of my enemies up for a fall by selecting them, it might also be interesting to put someone completely new in office... I mean, really, how badly could you screw it up? Not any worse than Unato or Yuna, certainly."

"It'd be kinda hard to do worse than that vermin Yuna." Kurtz acknowledged with a wide grin. "You could take a shit on your desk and it'd be a better Chief Representative than he would. Be of better character and smell too."

"There's an image for my private gag list, the next time I need to induce vomiting." Cagalli muttered with a queasy shiver. "Chief Representative Glory has a nice ring to it, I should think." She added, getting her composure back.

"Uh, no." Glory held up both his hands in a firm negative. "Thanks, but I don't do so well living under a microscope. Though I'd definitely recommend the Lt..."

"Yeah, not going to happen." Cagalli answered, with a different sort of shiver. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure he'd do a pretty good job, but I wonder how many Representatives would suffer "mysterious accidents" or "sudden disappearances" with him in charge?"

"Surely not too many more than the number of them that tried to get cute with him like they're getting cute with you." Kurtz's grin grew even wider. "Sometimes you've just got to burn the house down to get all the roaches out."

"You could put Kira in charge. Technically, as your brother, he's a member of the Royal family." Kisaka suggested, almost idly. The room went quiet at that thought.

"Tempting." Cagalli said after a long moment of consideration. "It would definitely give him something to do with all that damned energy Lacus complains about. But for all his faults, I do like Kira, and he is my little brother. It would be just too mean to dump this on him, and Lacus has enough problems without vicariously dragging her into it as well."

"So wait, you care too much about Kira to dump it on him, but you'd dump it on me without hesitating?" Glory asked mournfully. "It's so nice to be loved..."

"It's the fate of underlings to suffer under their master's will." Cagalli replied mercilessly. "If you don't like it, make a union, and then I can roll my eyes in exasperation at you just like I do to everyone else."

"A union? Please, I do have some personal pride." Glory grinned. "Besides, if I didn't like suffering, why the hell would I be a Stormhound?"

"A question I ask myself most mornings, Sergeant-Major." This time it was Kurtz's turn to be mournful, drawing smiles from everyone else. Kisaka led the way back to the Royal Observation Box, with Athrun and Cagalli behind him and the two Stormhounds in back. They arrived scant seconds before Unato was due to resume his speech, he was already down at his platform, eyeing the ROB and the clock alternatively, obviously hoping that they would be late, so he could subtly criticize Cagalli for not giving the emergency meeting its due respect, but she appeared in her designated position before that minor dream could become a reality. Unato shrugged inwardly and shuffled his notes, though he really had no need of them. He'd been preparing this speech for a long time, all it took was some minor modifications to incorporate recent events, the basic structure and tone was unchanged.

He was just opening his mouth to pick up where he'd left off when the entire Parliament building vibrated sharpely, not just once, but several times in quick succession, before the sound of thunderclaps echoed mutedly from outside. The vibrations were intense enough to cause Unato to lose his balance for a moment, and he flailed until he grabbed hold of his podium to steady himself. "What the hell!?" He shouted, looking around in cunfused indignation. What the devil was this disturbance? An earthquake? A volcanic eruption? A freak thunderstorm? Nothing seemed plausible. Unato turned his eyes up towards the ROB and blanched, because the Stormhounds and Colonel Kisaka were in plain view, weapons drawn and ready, listening intently to some reports over their comm system. Unato's face went even whiter as the two Stormhounds donned their helmets, something which they never did except before imminent confrontation as far as he knew.

"Mrs. Chief Representative... I demand to know what is going o...!?" Unato dived for the floor, along with almost everyone else as the roof caved in without warning, a huge hole being blasted in it by an large object screaming down from the heavens. The object impacted in the middle of the Parliament floor, crushing dozens beneath its bulk and gouging out a deep crater, the shock of impact throwing shrapnel and debris around the room like a tornado going through a junkyard, scything down other members of Parliament, aides, masters-at-arms and other sundry personnel who were in attendance without regard to status or preparedness. Dust, smoke and debris rained down from the ruined roof, settling onto the object, which fritzed and hazed, fluttering in and out of view as its damaged Mirage Colloid cloaking system fought to keep it hidden from sight, even now that it had largely accomplished its goal.

Automated grenade launchers on the top part of the drop pod whirred into action, belching canisters of smoke and tear gas in all directions, while a jamming array went to work on cluttering up the commonly used frequencies for tactical radios and other personal comm devices. The two armored boarding ramps slammed downwards, revealing the greenish foam filled interior of the drop pod. Fighting their way out of the shock absorbing foam like men wading through thick mud, a ten man squad of Brotherhood Harbringers, in full armor and helmets barged out of the interior, five men to a ramp and immediately began clubbing those people who had survived the drop pod's landing to the ground, firing their eeriely silent linear rifles into the air to keep people cowed and ducking away from the explosions. Half the squad, including two men with beam cannons, rushed for the stairway that would take them up to the second level, dashing through the firepower directed at them by the Stormhounds and other security forces like it was a mere spring shower, bullets sparking and bouncing off their limited Phase Shifted armor and helmets.

------------------------------------------

The Traitor was already shimmering as it uncloaked from Mirage Colloid, taking the form of an Orb M-4 as Dylan landed outside the Orb National Palace grounds, a couple of kilometers distant from the Parliament grounds, where the cloaked drop pods carrying the infantry Harbringers were crashing down like invisible steely hailstones, pounding huge divots in the lawn and even crashing right through the top of the building in a spectacular explosion of stone rubble, glass shards and wooden splinters. Seconds later and about a kilometer higher up in the sky, the two larger cloaked drop pods burst asunder, spilling out the Tormented, already covered by its Holoshroud's standard guise, as well as four Zealots, deploying from the pod with the ease of longtime ZAFT orbital drop veterans, which those particular pilots were. Caught off guard, the Orb anti-air defences opened up sporadically, but could not stop the Brotherhood forces from descending and taking up close defensive positions around the Parliament building.

The smaller infantry pods burst open, as automated grenade launchers and twinned .50 caliber machinegun turrets on the top part of the pod began spinning, spitting smoke, tear gas, incendiary and frag grenades, as well as yammering .50 caliber tracers in all directions, pinning down or slaughtering anyone within a fifty meter radius of each drop pod, to give the four ten man Brotherhood squads time to disembark. As they fought their way out of the thick green foam that had exploded into the interior of the pods in order to shield them from the worst of the impact with the ground, which came at close to terminal velocity, with only last second braking thrust applied for a minimal slowdown, several squads came under fire from quick responding Orb security forces, but their Phase Shifted body armor and helmets allowed them to shrug off the rifle bullets with ease, and their return fire, consisting of explosive armor piercing arrows and bright green beam blasts, quickly cleared away the opposition.

The Harbringers sprinted mightily for the Parliament building, blowing the doors open with 15mm bolt and beam blasts, or else just battering them down with their shoulders trusting to their unyielding armor to protect them. Meanwhile, the drop pod automated weapons ran out of ammunition and fell silent, though their powerful jamming arrays continued to operate, blanketing the area around the Orb National Palace and Parliament building with sensor and comm static strong enough to drown out even military strength devices. The Zealots and the Tormented used their weapons to sever surface and subterranean power, comm, water and personnel access connections between the Parliament building and the rest of the Palace complex, aided by maps and schematics of the area hacked from Orb's National Security Headquarters by Noah. Speed was critical in the first phase of the attack. They had to take as many hostages as possible, preferrably two in particular, and then seal off the area from conventional access.

Dylan made sure to keep out of sight of the other Brotherhood forces... though his IFF should show up as friendly to them as well as to Orb, he didn't trust the trigger happy Harbringers. If they saw an Orb Mobile Suit, they were likely to shoot at it, and he didn't need that kind of crap on his plate. It was his job to mingle with the Orb response teams and sow havoc, slowing them down as much as possible, while the other Brotherhood forces took care of any direct assaults. Whatever happened, they could not afford to let Orb resolve the situation, that was their prime directive. They were to hold out as long as they could, until the proper players arrived and they could move into stage three of the plan. If it looked like Orb was going to break them, then they were under orders to just kill everyone, especially the two principal hostages, and cause as much collateral damage as possible before fleeing. Dylan was glad he didn't have that job... he had trouble with killing people face to face. In a Gundam it was different... but he didn't know if he could shoot someone while they were right there in the flesh.

Dylan winced and flinched away from the direction of the Brotherhood forces, as Mary strode a safe distance away from the Parliament building and then cut loose with her Banshee's Wail, shattering several smaller administrative buildings, flinging dirt and bits of landscape around like a child destroying a sandcastle and blowing out windows for a kilometer in every direction. Dylan smiled grimly... if Orb didn't know they were under attack before, they sure as hell did NOW! He settled back to wait for his moment, circling away from his drop point. It wouldn't do to be seen as the first responder in this case, no, not at all. He didn't trust his acting skills that far, it was best to blend in with a crowd and wait for an opportune situation. Goddamn, but he didn't get paid enough for this sort of stuff, did he?

-----------------------------------------

"Goddamn it!" Kurtz swore, dropping out his empty magazine and slamming in a full one to replace it. "That fucking armor!" He popped his head back up over the balcony edge, but the five man team he and Glory and Kisaka had been trying, without success, to supress was now out of sight, underneath the overhang between the second and first floors, headed for the stairs. He snapped off a few well aimed shots at the Harbringers still down in relatively plain view on the Parliament floor, but his shots deflected harmlessly from helmets and shoulder pads in showers of sparks. He gritted his teeth... either the Brotherhood had upgraded its head protection since Switzerland, or now they were wearing their combat helmets, whatever the reason, they now had near total protection! Clouds of black smoke and pale yellow tear gas occluded his vision, even his thermal sensors in his helmet, and he was forced to turn away from the targets below, for fear of firing blindly and hitting civilians.

"And me without my Shrike." Glory lamented, though he remembered how the minicannon hadn't exactly been a surefire method of taking these bastards down in Switzerland either. He cast a gimlet eyed glance over at Kisaka, who was half sheltering, half consulting with Athrun and Cagalli. "Any luck with outside comms, colonel?"

"We had them for a moment, but we've lost them since. Very strong jamming, very advanced." Kisaka replied tersely, a frown stamped on his face. "They've even cut the land lines, and the power lines as well. The building has internal generators, but those won't last forever, and the enemy will likely take them down quickly as well. There seems to be a rather significant Brotherhood presence around us... how the hell did they get so close? How could they catch us by surprise? Orb's defence systems are..."

"Just as vulnerable to a well planned terrorist raid using inside information on our defenses as anyone else." Athrun interrupted, checking the load on the pistol Kisaka had procured for him. "Even with our security patrols and sensor sweeps, our Vari-Camera's have a maximum range of five hundred meters. That... thing... is something like the orbital drop pods ZAFT used to attack terrestrial locations in the First Valentine War. By the time it was close enough for our sensors to strip away the Mirage Colloid, it was less than a second from impact. We have anti-orbital defense plans, but we always assumed they would involve warships or else a large scale, very visible drop... we didn't account for Mirage Colloid cloaking tech being applied to drop pods. I'd like to know how the cloak survived atmospheric interface, but that's something we can hopefully find out later, once we get out of here."

"Well, its obvious that they're coming after me." Cagalli racked the slide on her own pistol. She was glad that the clothing that the Chief Representative was supposed to wear to meetings like this was just a slightly more ornate version of the purple slacks, purple jacket and cream shirt that formed her usual day to day uniform. At least she could run and maneuver in this clothing... if she'd been caught in a dress... ugh, it didn't bear thinking about! "Athrun and I are the two most important hostages in the building, obviously they want to take us alive."

"It's not certain." Kisaka's frown deepened. "Recall how they treated their hostages in Switzerland... they executed them barbarically, and then sent others out to die of hypothermia. Living hostages doesn't seem to be their main priority. And neither does necessarily getting out of the situation alive. We've yet to capture a living Harbringer, remember."

"Ya, these guys are complete nutjobs." Glory commented with a heavy sigh. "They don't go down easy, and even if they do go down, they aren't always out. I'm not sure we have enough ammo between us five to kill even one of them, much less five, plus who knows how many more. Running like little girls... no offense, ma'am... is our best hope."

"Too late for that... damn it, how the hell do they know the building so damned well!? Yoww!" Kurtz yelled, firing a long burst out into the hallway before rolling desperately away, just inches ahead of the bright green plasma blast that bisected the doorway and set the door itself alight. More strobing green energy bolts pierced through the walls and flashed by over their crouching heads, sizzling like man sized racks of bacon dropped onto half molten steel. Explosive bolts blew torso sized chunks out of the wall and ceiling, covering them in dust and splinters, with Athrun throwing himself on top of Cagalli, and Kisaka throwing himself on top of Athrun. Cagalli squirmed uncomfortably under all the weight pinning her to the floor, but she supposed it was better than getting shrapnel in the back, though she detested the idea that she needed to be shielded!

"Grenade!" Glory bellowed, as several cylindrical objects came bouncing into the box through the holes in the wall. He kicked one out through the open door, caught a second and heaved it off the balcony and then dived headlong on top of a third. _This is going to hurt a little bit..._ He thought, already tensing up, feeling time slow down a little bit as Kurtz missed his kick of a similar grenade. The two flash-bang grenades went off at once, glowing brighter that the sun for a few seconds as the air shook with concussion waves. Kurtz staggered back, arms up shielding his face, even with his helmet filters at maximum. For his part, Glory felt like he'd just grabbed an armful of live coals from a firepit and hugged them to his chest. The flash flare wasn't long lasting, but that didn't mean it wasn't fucking HOT all the same. The concussion blast, trapped between him and the floor, rattled every bone in his body and left a deep bruise from collarbone to crotch across his front, even as his body armor smouldered and frayed. He gasped for air, the breath well and truly knocked out of him. _Well, at least it wasn't a frag or incendiary... I guess... ouch..._

Protected from the worst of the effects of the flash-bangs by his training and helmet filters, Kurtz blinked errant spots out of his eyes and then opened fire, full automatic, hosing down the doorway as the Harbringers tried to bull rush in. He went through most of a fifty round clip in a little under two and a half seconds, fighting the recoil the entire time to keep his aim more or less centered on the doorway, though he had tracked up from waist to shoulder height by the time he ran out of bullets. The Harbringer that had been in the doorway was now lying limply across the hallway, bullets holes deeply scarring the walls on either side. There was no blood, and the man's armor was still unscratched, but apparently the sheer kinetic force of taking an almost full clip of 7.62mm assault rifle rounds at near point blank range was too much for the solider inside the armor to handle, and he was definitely down, either unconscious or dead.

Kurtz scrambled to reload, as another Harbringer stepped into view, linear rifle with mono-molecular knife mounted on the bayonet clip dragging a thin line through the wall as he brought it to bear, heedless of the 10mm pistol rounds ricocheting and deflecting from his torso, shoulders and head, courtesy of Kisaka, Athrun and Cagalli. One hand fumbling for his next clip, Kurtz squeezed his secondary trigger and jolted the Harbringer with a 10 gauge solid slug shotgun round right to the sternum, knocking him backwards, shotgun slug dropping to the ground between them like a flattened steel mushroom. The shotgun's unbraced recoil twisted the MAAR-274 out of Kurtz's grip, clattering to the ground at his feet. Kurtz dropped to his belly, clawing for it, wincing and gasping as the explosive bolt from the enemy's weapon sliced deeply across the top of his shoulder, right through his armor, before flashing away to detonate near the roof. Though not a direct hit, which probably would have killed him, his right arm was all but useless now, and the wound both deep and bloody.

"Fire in the hole!" Glory croaked, flipping a HE grenade out through one of the holes in the wall. The Harbringers in the hall reacted less quickly than Glory or Kurtz had, constrained by their bulky armor and the fact that there were three of them crowded together. The grenade blast blew the legs off one of them below the knee, and hurled his two friends several feet backwards, dazed and stunned, trailing smoke from charred spots on their armor. The same blast almost entirely demolished the wall between the box and the hallway, and set much of the floor and ceiling alight, much to the detriment of the legless Harbringer, who screamed and flopped helplessly, blood jetting from his stumps with the smell of cooking meat as the flames rolled over him. Kisaka grunted in pain, yanking several long splinters of wood from his side and back, shooting Glory a disagreeable glare as he clamped his free hand against his wound. "Hey, it shut em up, didn't... fuck...!" Glory started to say, as the shotgunned Harbringer leapt forward into the box, still eager for more.

Kurtz was there, firing from a half crouch with his pistol in his left hand. His accuracy was down, but the range was point blank anyway, and the Harbringer was so large and bulky he was almost impossible to miss. The 10mm hollow point bullets shattered on the Phase Shifted armor, and Kurtz cried out as he was shoulder charged backwards, his booted feet skidding on the carpeted floor. Two shots went wild into the ceiling as the Harbringer swatted the pistol out of Kurtz's hand with the butt of his rifle before reversing the weapon and slashing it downward, bayonet blade to the fore. Kurtz jerked backward, but his back encountered the railing and his dodge was stopped well short. The mono-molecular dagger blade sliced cleanly through the front of his helmet, shorting out one of the baleful blue eyes and severing the demonic muzzle. Kurtz screamed in agony and blood spurted as the blade edge likewise carved down through his face and left eye, bisecting his lips and cleaving his jaw open down to the bone. Kurtz fell to his knees, still screaming, good hand clamped to his half blanded face, right hand still hanging limply from its bloody shoulder.

Sergeant-Major Glory pounced upon the turning Harbringer like a bear falling upon a wolf, knife in one fist, still mostly breathless from the flash-bang impact but fighting on regardless. Taller and bigger than the Harbringer, even in his armor, Glory slammed the man backwards into the side wall of the box like a football player making a very rough sack, leaving a man shaped crater in the hardwood wall and driving the breath from the Harbringer. Glory jammed his knife into the middle of the man's faceplate, so hard the knife blade snapped when it couldn't penetrate. Still, the impact alone cracked the Harbringer's head back into the wall again, with a sound like a cermic plate being thrown onto pavement from a great height. Glory took hold of the stunned Harbringer's head in both hands and twisted sharply, putting his shoulders into the motion. There were several sharp "POP" noises, and then the Harbringer dropped to the ground, still and dead, his head staring back over his own shoulder, no longer attached to the spine.

Glory retrieved the Harbringer's linear rifle and spun, ducking down and rolling to the side, acting on well honed instinct, as two beam blasts from the Harbringers the HE grenade hadn't maimed passed through the air where he'd just stood, so close that his body armor caught fire on the back and blisters raised themselves along his spine. Glory didn't stop to draw a full breathe, much less put out the flames or cry out in pain. He didn't have that wondrous ability the Lt. called his "Focus", which let him do practically superhuman things when the situation got totally nuts, but he did have a lifetime of brutal combat experience to draw upon, and a ferocious will to live that was surpassed by very few living people. Glory charged the other two Harbringers, swinging his stolen rifle like a club, swatting the beam rifle from the hands of the one on the right, even as his foot thundered up into the crotch of the one on the left. Glory felt something in his foot break, but like the flames, he paid it no mind for the moment.

The right Harbringer snarled something incoherent and snatched for the knife on his belt, but Glory caught his arm before it could complete the motion. The Harbringer's armor was proof against physical impacts, much like Phase Shift armor on Gundams... but it was still just a cloth like, semi-rigid armor. It provided no real support for the tissue inside the armor, which was still just a regular human being, or a Coordinator anyway. This lack of structural reinforcement allowed for greater mobility when wearing the armor... but it also made the Harbringers vulnerable to certain types of hand to hand combat. Little things like being spun about like a weight on the end of a rope and slammed into a door frame, then having their arm yanked backwards and twisted awkwardly, while their knee was kicked out from under them. As the Harbringer collapsed sideways with a squawk, Glory twisted more on his arm and brought down his free elbow on the twisted shoulder, dislocating the joint. A further twist dislocated the elbow, and then the wrist as well. Glory didn't stop there either, wrenching the arm as hard as he could, he smiled when he heard the wet noises of bone spearing out through flesh from the inside. Compound arm fracture, after multiple dislocations... very painful, very nasty, potential for permanent damage.

Glory turned from the screeching ruin of the a man he'd made to find himself staring at the muzzle of a beam rifle from about five feet away. Too close to dodge, too far to stop. Damn. Looks like his number was finally... Athrun appeared out of nowhere, leaping up into a very pretty flying kick to the side of the head that connected with enough force to leave a dent in the far wall of the hallway, with the unfortunate Harbringer's head still in the dent. Athrun snatched the beam rifle from the Harbringer's grip before it could even fully loosen, and he wasted no time or mercy on the man before turning it's business end around and blowing a charred hole right through the middle of his chest, armor notwithstanding. Kisaka almost leapt on Glory from behind, Cagalli's outer jacket held in one hand as he beat frantically at the flames blazing merrily away on Glory's broad back, his other hand still clenched to his bloody side. Glory pushed Kisaka roughly away and staggered on his broken foot, before slamming his back several times into the wall, smothering the flames. "How's... Kurtz..." Glory coughed, all the adrenaline suddenly draining from his body.

"Not good." Cagalli called in reply. "He passed out, from shock I think, and he's still losing blood fast! His eye is... gone. He was lucky his head didn't get cut in half!"

"That's a... Stormhounds luck, alright..." Glory grinned weakly. "He's only down... an eye... versus an entire... head!" He was dimly aware of Athrun putting the stolen beam rifle to use incinerating the other Harbringers lying around the hall, both the injured ones and the dead ones, just to be sure. A survivor, Athrun was. Good head on his shoulders. "All right... let's be on our way. No telling when more bad guys will show..." Glory saw Kisaka and Athrun looking wide eyed down the hall past him, and he didn't need much more warning than that! The two of them darted back into the observation box, skirting the flame drenched floor, coughing on the thick black smoke. Glory tried to follow them, but his broken foot... actually a broken ankle too... buckled when he put weight on it and he fell to his hands and knees in the doorway. "FUCKING...!" Glory gritted his teeth on the rest of his exclaimation, tasting blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten down on his cheek and tongue.

He sat down and turned as best he could, linear rifle coming up to his shoulder, prepared to make the Harbringers have to go over his dead body, literally, before they could get through the doorway. He was not prepared though, to come face to face with another concussion grenade, which actually bounced off the front of his face mask just before detonating. The world went white and hot, and then black and cold, and Glory knew no more, his helmeted head leaving its own divot in the floor. Kisaka had just been returning to pull Glory fully inside the room, and he caught much of the debilitating effect of the concussion grenade full on as well, stumbling backwards, blinded and stunned to fall heavily as he tripped over a chair, leaving a gout of blood on the ground as he hit on his injured side.

Athrun blew the head off the first Harbringer to try and step over the unconscious Sergeant-Major Glory, the ravening green energy blast plucking the man's head away neat as you please, leaving a charred stump that trailed greasy smoke as the corpse toppled over backwards. This obviously caused some constrenation amongst the other Harbringers, who had obviously not expected to find an enemy with one of their own weapons, capable of ignoring their otherwise nigh impenetrable armor. Still, they were far from intimidated, and far from unprepared for this sort of situation. Instead of rushing the chokepoint and allowing themselves to be cut to ribbons by the beam rifle, they threw more grenades, a mixture of tear gas and flash bangs, and kept the grenades coming as they slowly edged forward and then finally broke into the observation box from three directions at once, blasting in through the side walls and charging in through the doorway as well.

Athrun wasn't nearly as incapacitated by the flash bangs and tear gas as the Harbringers could have hoped, and he seperated one of them from his arm with a semi-wild shot before a clenched fist drove into his gut and knocked him to his knees, coughing and gasping, only to gasp worse as he inhaled the irritant gas instead of fresh air, in a very painful cycle. He was still trying to rise, hearing Cagalli cry out in rage and pain, when a rifle butt descended on the back of his head and laid him out cleanly on the floor, the Harbringers crowding around their prize hostages.

----------------------------------------

"All right, gentlemen, the situation isn't good." The gruff Orb General who was taking command of the situation said grimly, eyeing the glowing display of the situation map in the back of the Mobile Command Vehicle. "They caught us with our pants down, but right now isn't the right time to assign blame. We have confirmed visuals on four of the Zealot type of mass production Mobile Suits, plus that disgustingly freakish Tormented Gundam that the Chief Representative and the Ambassador drove away outside Morganville. They're all hugging the Parliament building, so that's going to make any sort of direct attack very dangerous to us. So far we have no idea how many members of Parliament have been taken hostage, but the number could be anywhere from several dozen to more than a hundred, plus the Chief Representative and the Ambassador themselves! So far we have recieved no demands from the terrorists, and have had no contact with potential security forces or survivors inside the building."

"There are an unknown number of Brotherhood ground troops within the building as well. Reports range from twenty to more than fifty, all armed with those explosive arrow shooting rifles or those beam rifles, plus many grenades and who knows what else. They've also got that damnable armor that acts like Phase Shift... bluntly put, we don't have anything capable of taking them down, not without risking causing damage to the people inside." Major Raine Belaruse, the senior Stormhound present, while Alkire and Cyprus were up in space, added quietly. "Unlike in Switzerland, these guys have armored helmets as well. They're vulnerable to energy weapons, some types of hand to hand combat that don't rely on impacts, as well as large explosions. Other than that, they're pretty much invincible. We've had no comms with either Colonel Kisaka or the Stormhound detail guarding the Queen and her husband, so their status is unknown. Can't we do anything about that comm jamming?"

"It appears to be coming from those cloaked drop pods that the enemy infantry deployed from. We're working on disabling them right now, but its a tough situation. We can't just send forces out to attack them while they have hostages! They've got most of the legislative branch in there, plus the Chief Representative and the Ambassador!" The General growled, stabbing his finger down on the digital representation of the Parliament building. "Is there any chance we can go through some of the underground access tunnels and get the hostages out? I can't do much besides stand here with my hands tied until we get our people out of there!"

"All the access tunnels we've tried so far have been closed by precision weapons fire from the enemy Mobile Suits. It's like they knew where everything that connected the Parliament building to its surrounds was... I think we have a major breach of information security here!" Raine replied fiercely. "I have almost twenty Stormhounds ready to go in on a moment's notice, but we can't deploy with the Mobile Suits outside! We can be inside in less than a minute, all you have to do is keep the Mobile Suits off our backs."

"It's too risky, Major! One wrong move from us and they'll..." The General protested. Raine slammed her own hand down on the situation table.

"Sir! Don't you recall Switzerland!? These bastards take no hostages! The longer we wait, the more time they'll have to slowly torture our people to death in horrific ways! These people are suicidal fanatics... they don't have any egress from this situation! They came, they took, and now they're just going to hold out as long as they can and hurt us as bad as they can! For all we know, the Queen and her husband, as well as everyone else, is already dead! Just sitting around out here, crying and clutching our heads in our hands... thats what they WANT us to do! The longer we wait, the more time we give them to kill any hostages they might already have! What if the Queen is being decapitated right the FUCK NOW!? What if she's next!? What if she's only got five minutes to live!? Are you just gonna sit here and worry about what might happen until it DOES happen!?"

"But..."

"For fuck's sake, GROW A PAIR, General!" Raine snapped. "It's crunch time, what's your decision? Fold, or call?" She stared the older man squarely in the eye. There was a long moment of silence, as the various aides and junior officers stared, dumbfounded at the confrontation... it wasn't every day that a junior officer got in a senior officer's face like that. Those Stormhounds sure as hell were something else... ballsy bastards, even the women! At long last the General smiled, hard and tightly.

"Orb does not negotiate with terrorists." He said quietly. "Get the M-4's and M-7's ready for a blitz assault! I want infantry forces on standby to support the Stromhounds at a moment's notice! Get the medical teams prepped for emergency deployment! I want construction crews waiting with equipment in case the building goes down in the crossfire! Move it, we have lives on the line here, people! Major Belaruse, the go code for this little party is going to be..." The General trailed off, as did the hubbub his orders had spawned, as a loud explosion tore through the air from nearby. "What the HELL was that!?"

Raine jammed her helmet onto her head and threw open the door to the MCV, taking the stairs down two at a time. "This is the Major... what the fuck is going on out..." Raine was cut off by a whistling sound that grew louder and louder and louder, before a terrific explosion knocked her to her knees at the bottom of the stairs. Smoke and fire gouted skywards from across the parking lot where the MCV and its attendant vehicles, including many press vans scattered amid the clutter of armored troops transports, tanks, supply vehicles and secondary command vehicles, had set up camp, some several kilometers from the Government District. A squadron of M-4's stood guard around the perimeter, and many more M-4's and even a few M-7's were in evidence on surrounding blocks and streets. They were all looking frantically for the source of the attacks, but there was nothing nearby, not even anything Mirage Colloid cloaked! Artillery fire maybe... but the observation units reported no fire coming from the Brotherhood machines...

Raine only noticed because she happened to be looking at the M-4 at the very rear of the parking lot when it turned from its "guard" position almost casually, its hands moving in very un-Mobile Suit like motions as it took something from within it's hip and slotted it onto the end of its rifle, which it then pointed at the MCV, again casually. No overt threat, just a pilot pointing his weapon in the direction he was scanning, the same as pretty much everyone else around him was doing. But Raine had seen the fingers of the Mobile Suit actually brush THROUGH its hip, like the hip wasn't even there! And then there was the unstilted, smooth motions... Raine realized what she was seeing, having reviewed the sensor logs Ysak and Katie had sent back from Galileo. "WATCH OUT! IT'S THE TRAIT...!" Her exclaimation, which was broadcasted across all comm bands her helmet could access, at least those not being jammed currently, was cut short when the MCV blew up behind her, victim of one of the Traitor's 300mm rifle grenades. Raine was hurled forward by the blast, landing roughly on the pavement and rolling for several meters before slamming into the side of a APC.

She lay there, semiconscious, as more explosions bloomed all around the parking lot, as other parts of the Orb forces began to realize that not all of the friendly forces were truly "friendly", though most realized too late, as there were so many Mobile Suits flying and dashing around it was difficult to keep track of any of them, much less one specific one, especially because it never targeted any Mobile Suits. In the confusion, Dylan activated his Mirage Colloid and opened up with his 20mm CIWS and finger mounted .50 caliber machineguns, as well as the arm mounted 40mm grenade launchers. Though Orb's Mobile Suits could see through Mirage Colloid at close range, in this sort of chaotic situation, few pilots had the concentration to pick out a moving sensor image that radiated the correct IFF signals but could not be visually seen amongst all the moving sensor images with correct IFF that could be visually seen. Invariably, most pilots connected the sensor image with one of the Mobile Suits they could see, that was approximately in the right position.

By the time things started getting back in hand, and the junior officers who had not been in the MCV had gotten the Mobile Suits and other forces to stop flying around erratically, the Traitor had re-emerged from Mirage Colloid cloak and was out of sight of the ruined parking lot to boot, circling around, waiting for another chance to cause chaos. Dylan smirked... he'd probably bought a good hour or so of confusion time by wiping out the guys in charge, just like that! Who needed a super-weapon type Gundam... Mary and her Tormented couldn't have accomplished what he had with duplicity through direct force no matter how hard she tried! The trick was not to do the same thing twice... they'd be better organized next time, and he couldn't count on being so lucky as for them to panic like they had then in the future. Well, maybe there were ways they could make them panic... people tended to do such irrational things when their leaders lives were in danger, after all...

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	27. Snakes in the Grass part 5

Cyprus watched Major Jones pace back and forth in front of the door to the guest bedroom on the ground floor of the Clyne Mansion. He'd been doing that ever since Lacus and Miriallia had gone inside, about an hour and a half ago. Each time Major Jones passed in front of the door his entire body tensed up, and his fists tightened so much inside his gloves Cyprus could hear the leather creaking and knuckles popping. He debated mentioning something to the Major about how allowing the stress to get to him so much was for one thing not conducive to good health, and for another completely counterproductive to their current situation, but further reflection brought him to the conclusion that biting his tongue was probably the best course of action for the moment. The Major's situation was an alien one to Cyprus, who had never had a family, either as a child himself or until recently with Wrenn. He wasn't especially enamored of the idea of children in the first place, and was unsure of his ability to be any sort of good father were he and Wrenn to eventually have one of their own. The mere thought was more than mildly unnerving.

Still, he could, at least abstractly, understand the bond of family, that emotion like love that could so affect people when their family was hurt or endangered, driving them past their normal limits to do things that they otherwise would not do, or even could not do. To be entirely honest, Cyprus had definitely been caught off guard when the first thing to greet him when he opened the door to the Clyne Mansion after they'd returned from their disturbing and somewhat fruitless search of the Ark Biotech Labs warehouse was Major Jones's fist to his jaw, which had connected with total solidity and had been strong enough to knock him down on his ass. He shook his head slightly, disappointed in himself for being caught off guard like that, even when entering a friendly building. Especially when entering a friendly building... had he not chided Athrun on the dangers of assuming you were safe in familiar locations!? Major Jones had stepped right over Cyprus's somewhat dazed form and grabbed Lacus Clyne herself by the collar and lifted her slightly off the ground in his unrestrained fury. Certainly not very professional of a man who was charged with protecting her life, but the Major hadn't been in his right mind at the time.

Nor was Cyprus sure the Major was in his right mind even now, much later, judging from the pacing and fist clenching and body tensing performance he was witness to. At least he'd calmed down from the ranting, gesticulating, abuse spouting phase he'd gone through during the first few minutes after they had reunited at the Mansion. For several moments Cyprus had been concerned that the Major was intending real physical harm to Lacus, and perhaps anyone else who got in his way. He'd thought the Major might have suffered some sort of attack, been poisoned or drugged or otherwise had his mind and morals compromised by outside forces. Well, in a way they had... his concern for his adopted daughter and her lover had overridden pretty much every iota of self control the Major had possessed, and the fact that he had been unable to contact Cyprus and the others to warn them of the possible Brotherhood threat, and the attack upon Ysak and Katie, had done much to excaberate his rage.

However, Lacus had remained perfectly calm, even as the Major had shaken her, demanding that she do something to help Katie, who seemed to have suffered some sort of attack that left her comatose, even vegetative, with no physical wounds or other signs of trauma. Cyprus was still less than sure of the details on what had happened... the Major had not been entirely coherent in his demands at the time, and he refused to be drawn on the subject, another unprofessional habit, until he was assured that everything possible had been done for Katie. Nor could Cyprus ask the other potential witness, Ysak, since he was also closeted in the room with Lacus, Miriallia and Katie. In truth, Cyprus thought it likely that the Coordinator, despite his elite Redcoat status, was even more disabled by the condition of Katie than the Major was, because of his extremely intimate relationship with her, even down to the level of some sort of mental and emotional link that was beyond Cyprus's ability to comprehend, though he could not deny its existance. It was unlikely that he'd be able to get anything concrete from Ysak either, at least until Lacus did whatever it was she was doing in there.

That was one of the greatest weaknesses of the ZAFT military forces, in Cyprus's opinion. It was all well and good that the Coordinators intellectual and physical abilities were so superior at such a young age that the PLANTS could recruit from fifteen year olds and up, and still field a highly competent and deadly force that had proven to be more than a match for the Earth Alliance and even the Isolation several times over, despite their extreme numerical disadvantage. However, Coordinators of that age group lacked emotional stability, and the habit of tossing them together in mixed sex units did nothing to help matters, in his professional opinion. It may be somewhat good for morale in a peacetime or low threat situation, but in a serious war, with high casualty rates, the potential for emotional damage was tremendous. The youngsters had no idea how to deal with their burgeoning romantic feelings, brought on by mid puberty, and when the subjects of those feelings died or were badly hurt... well... emotional shocks hurt even worse than electrical ones, and could do even more permanent damage.

They had enormous trouble seperating emotions from logic, even on the battlefield or in other life and death situations. Of course, that was an affliction common throughout humanity, but it was definitely most visible, in Cyprus's opinion, in ZAFT's uniformly young Mobile Suit Corps. Yes, definitely a weakness... in his current condition, Ysak would be no use in a serious fight, if one were to occur, and piloting a Mobile Suit would be right out. The Major's combat efficiency would also likewise suffer tremendously. Was that an intention of the enemy attack? Cyprus could not rule anything out, not after the disturbing events at the ABT warehouse. Their foe, the Brotherhood, seemed to almost enjoy taunting them and keeping them off balance, even when it was plain, to him anyway, that they could crush the Clyne Faction members and the Stormhounds without too much difficulty, should they choose to.

He smiled slightly... hubris was definitely a failing of this Brotherhood leader, this "Noah" that the... self aware Haro toy... had mentioned. Cyprus shuddered... even he didn't want to think about the implications of what that pink ball with the young girl's voice was. Or had seen and recorded. He distinctly remembered Lacus bringing it with her to many top secret meetings... he should have destroyed the thing right then, but by the time he'd realized what it was, it was too late, and he hadn't wanted to risk provoking the enemy, since they were definitely at his capricious mercy. Cyprus stared off into the middle distance as he tried to organize his recollections of the incident at the ABT warehouse.

He put aside, for the moment, whatever the over-arching purpose of the so called "ark" with its hundreds of sedated, prepped for transport exotic animals was, and tried to concentrate on the oddities. Such as the floating ball, which the Haro who called herself... itself... Melanie had referred to as Merlin, and which had projected the voice of someone who claimed to be a "Prophet" or "Adam", but was likely this person called Noah, whomever that was. Cyprus was not religious himself, but he definitely understood the various religious references... Adam being the first man created by Christianity's God, whereas Noah was a man chosen along with his family to build a great boat to carry them and enough animals to repopulate the world safely through a divine flood, while everything else was wiped out by the wrath of God. Given the religious nature of the Brotherhood, or the apparently religious nature anyways, he thought it reasonably safe to consider this "Prophet/Noah/Adam" as someone very high up in the Brotherhood's ranks, perhaps even the ultimate leader, given his apparent in depth knowledge of the purpose of the "ark".

Noah's referral to Lacus Clyne as "Eve", that being the first woman created by Christianity's God at the same time as Adam, was... creepy, if he had to chose a term. Reading the words Noah had spoken, without having heard their tone like Cyprus had, one would likely assume that this Noah was indeed a religious extremist, like thousands of others of that ilk throughout history, who thought they were divine or semi-divine or agents of the divine, their every action, no matter how despicable, sanctioned by some ultimate higher power. But when listening to the man, Cyprus had gotten the feeling that Noah, despite his usage of terms like "Adam", "Eve", "Angel", "Garden" and such, that they were more like code words than religious terms. Noah was obviously a meglomaniac, and felt the common need to brag that such people often manifested. However, he didn't want to just come out and tell them his plans in intimate detail, so he cloaked himself in a pretence of fanatcism and used those key code words. Cyprus was familiar with the process... Asmodeus had used it before, and had taught the principles to Cyprus for terrorist ops with Blue Cosmos.

One thing that especially concerned him was Noah's reference to Kira as an "Angel" along with Lacus, and his claim to kinship with them. Given that Kira and Lacus weren't related, Cyprus took the claim of dual kinship to be something other than in a genealogical fashion. And that was frightening, because as far as he could think, that meant that this Noah was claiming to be an Ultimate Coordinator, just like Kira was. Cyprus frowned in frustration... there was so much he didn't know about this Ultimate Coordinator phenomenon. Asmodeus had told him a few things, once, about an advanced gene-working project headed by a Dr. Ulen Hibiki that was working on refining the so called "flaws" out of the Coordinator birth process, but Cyprus had been in his middle teens when that man died, and even he couldn't remember every passing little thing he'd ever been told. Cervantes and Asmodeus had known more, but apparently the knowledge was too secret to even confide in him, and now that both men were dead, and Blue Cosmos crushed and scattered, there was little he could do to glean the information now.

Kira himself professed to know almost nothing about his origins and situation himself, and Cyprus believed him, mostly. Kira knew SOMETHING he wasn't sharing, but Cyprus didn't think it was anything more than basic background, which while still helpful to build off of, was hardly the sort of ground breaking clue he needed. Kira had been raised by foster parents after all, he hadn't even figured that out until late in the First Valentine War, after a visit to the Mendel Colony in pursuit of Rau le Creuset. Cyprus had learned that much from listening to gossip amongst the crew of the Archangel. Past that though, all was shrouded in mystery, and it was still some time before Kira would be returned to them, if he even was to be, which Cyprus didn't feel was likely. Why go to all the trouble of kidnapping and framing Kira, their strongest Mobile Suit pilot, only to let him loose apparently on a whim? Surely the Brotherhood was better off without Kira in the picture... despite Noah's assurances that there was nothing that could be done to stop him, Cyprus knew that was an exaggeration and a lie brought on by the meglomaniac's pride. Cervantes had thought himself invincible too, and look how that had turned out!

He smirked sourly. This was definitely shaping up to be a standard Brotherhood scenario. Too many conflicting factors... no matter how he twisted and turned it in his mind, it wouldn't make sense. It was obviously part of some gargantuan plan, but even with all the data he'd compiled from the other Brotherhood attacks to date, he still could not see either the beginning or more importantly the end of the Brotherhood's plan. It seemed likely that the Brotherhood was working closely with SecDef Durandel, but there was no positive proof, despite their best efforts. Was Durandel using the Brotherhood? Was the Brotherhood using Durandel? Where they using each other? Durandel seemed on the up and up, which implied one of two scenarios to Cyprus... least likely was that Durandel really was a spotless and noble as he appeared. The more likely scenario though pointed to Durandel playing a long term game of his own, also of such large scope that Cyprus could not comprehend it with the limited information he had at present. He intensely disliked this feeling of blundering around blindly, while shrouded giants chuckled in grim amusment from the shadows above.

Unable to stop himself, Cyprus started to look at the facts again, even though he was starting to get a headache from all the running in circles, but he was interrupted by the door to the guest room opening. Miriallia came out and shut the door behind her, before Cyprus could get a glimpse inside. Major Jones stopped pacing as well, and turned a high intensity look in Miriallia's direction. She bore up well, though it might have been through pre-occupation more than anything else. She seemed to marshal her thoughts for several moments, before she noticed Alkire's look. She smiled at him. "She's going to be fine, Alkire. Don't ask me what Lacus and Ysak did, or how, but they've managed to help her. She's still asleep, but Lacus can... well, "see her mind again" to use her words. I took care of her... physical complications as well." Miriallia dropped her eyes and her tone broke slightly on that last sentence. _How could anyone do something... gah, don't even think about it!_

"Oh... thank fucking god!" Alkire muttered, putting a hand on the wall to help brace himself upright, all the tension going out of his body all at once. He made no effort to hide the tears of relief leaking down his face. There was no shame in a man crying for a loved one's plight. "I... I didn't know what to do... I couldn't figure out what was wrong... oh god, Katie..."

"It's going to be all right." Miriallia wasn't exactly comfortable with the thought of comforting the man, or if he even needed her comforting, but just standing there without saying anything felt almost cruel. "She should be waking up in an hour or so." Behind her the door opened again and Lacus came out, looking more than mildly exhausted. She tottered on unsteady legs, before Ysak steadied her from behind, also stepping out of the room, his face streaked with tear tracks identical to Alkire's and one hand all bound up in a temporary cast. "Oh, Ysak... I thought you were going to stay..."

"I will." Ysak cut her off, his voice hoarse and husky. "But I'd prefer to get debriefed out here so she can rest, and there's stuff you guys NEED to know about what happened."

"I appreciate the courtesy." Cyprus replied, as gently as he could manage, despite his eagerness for new information. "I know it is harsh, but the things you discovered could be vital to our survival, and though it would not be pleasant to interrogate you while you were by her side, I would have had no choice had you not come out to us. Why don't you start at the beginning?"

"Well, Katie and I split up to investigate the Institute, but there wasn't much to find. The place is just a regular hospital, at least as far as I could determine. There was absolutely zero sign of a Brotherhood presence in any of the buildings I searched, and the same for Katie." Ysak said slowly, recalling the morning. "We were just about to call it quits when... well, I don't really know how to explain it. If you can imagine a tornado, but made of pure psychic pain, I guess that would be close." Ysak looked at their faces and grimaced. "Yeah, I didn't think you'd get that. I don't know how to describe it... it was like when Lacus sings a song and puts her power into it... but instead of making you feel good, this was a girl screaming in agony, like she was being broiled alive and devoured in the process! It, well, it hurt like I'd pressed my face to a red hot stove, except it was all inside my head. I never, EVER want to feel that sensation again! And it wasn't even coming from a Newtype... it was just a Stump!"

"I didn't feel a thing, in case anyone was wondering." Alkire volunteered grimly.

"You may not have, but all the people around me, in coma's and persistent vegetative states, they definitely were getting bleed through as well. Stumps are apparently about as open to Newtype powers as they can get while in a deeper than unconscious state. You could have cut these people's heads off with a power saw and they wouldn't have twitched, and they were practically convulsing under this occurence, which convinced both Katie and I that it was definitely a pyschic phenomenon." Ysak replied. "I could barely even move, to be honest, that's how bad it was. I told Katie that we'd definitely found something strange, and that we should probably get out of there. She agreed, but she wanted to check out one more thing before we left... the source of the trauma, which was the crematorium where the Institute got rid of medical waste and pre-processed bodies for turning into fertilizer."

"Not very smart of her." Cyprus commented.

"Hey!" Alkire protested.

"No, he's right, it was stupid." Ysak agreed. "Katie's willful like that, we all know it. Hopefully she'll learn from this... close call." Ysak bunched his good hand into a fist. "I know I've learned a few things..." He shook his head and gathered his thoughts again. "I was pretty much disabled by the psychic pain, until it suddenly just went away, after a brief crescendo. Like, one moment it was there, practically driving me to my knees, the next I heard... well, it felt like relief, scary as that is... and then there was nothing. The people around me went back to their coma's, and the pain was gone like it'd never been there. I did have a slight headache, but it was nothing like the inferno I'd been in... it wasn't MY pain I was feeling, it was someone elses... and they were no longer in pain. No longer alive actually, but I didn't find that out until later. Of course, I too headed to the crematorium, contacting Alkire on the way."

"But you ran on alone, without waiting for backup?" Cyprus raised an eyebrow slightly. Ysak nodded his head.

"Yeah, I was stupid too. There's no excuse, but... well... Katie was in trouble. I could feel that much. She tried to call me for help, but she just... cut off in mid thought. I've never had that happen before. It was like she went from awake and struggling to even less than unconscious inbetween thoughts. Even if she'd been knocked out, or gassed, or drugged or hell, even shot... she should have been able to finish a single thought! Time... well, time moves differently inside your thoughts." Ysak shrugged, struggling to find the words to convey to them, other than Lacus, just what it was like to be connected like he and Katie were. "I admit, I panicked."

"Anyone would have, in your situation." Lacus said quietly. "Believe me, I would have. I can't even imagine Kira just... cutting out. It would be like turning around, looking in a mirror and finding out that my torso is gone. Even when he gets hurt... when he was being abused by that Aireg Randolf, he was still thinking and feeling strongly. Even when he's asleep and dreaming, or not dreaming, there's still Kira, there inside me. If that presence just... disappeared... I can't imagine..." Lacus trailed off.

"I made it to the crematorium rather quickly... but not quickly enough." Ysak gritted, his eyes moist again with a mixture of frustration and rage. "There were poorly disguised guards lying on the ground outside, with the marks of hand to hand combat on them... Katie's work, I have no doubt. She's really very formidable... she took down three armed Coordinators before any of them could draw a weapon! She just... wasn't formidable enough." Ysak's uninjured fist clenched tighter. "When I got there she was already in this coma state Lacus just helped her out of, and there was this guy crouched over her. Young man, somewhere in the fifteen to eighteen year old range, I'd say, slim build, tall... not very physically powerful. He had the looks of a male supermodel... I'm the furthest thing from gay, and I was in a panic and pissed off, and I STILL noticed how attractive he was! He had skin like... like Lacus's! And a perfect face, and white-blond hair that looked like something you'd see on a portrait of an angel! And his eyes..." Ysak shivered. "Except for the gold speckles, it was like looking into Kira's eyes..."

Cyprus grunted and leaned forward avidly. That was definitely an interesting comparison to make, especially in light of what Noah had said at the ABT warehouse. "He doesn't sound like someone who would have caused you, or Katie, much of a problem, for all his apparent beauty."

"I didn't think so either, but I couldn't even hit him initially! It was like he knew what I was going to do before I could put action to thought!" Ysak shivered harder. "As it turns out, I think that's exactly what was going on. The guy is a fucking Active Newtype. That's the sort Lacus and Katie are, in case you didn't know." Ysak swallowed hard. "I looked down to see if Katie was all right and... and I freaked. The bastard had been groping her while she was unconscious, had her panties in one of his hands, that motherfucking bastard! Pushed me right over the edge, into the Seed Rage. You know what I'm talking about, Cyprus... Kira says you can do it too. I'd almost forgotten about it... I hadn't been under that kind of emotional stress since the end of the Isolation. I got in several good hits... gave him a shiner he won't forget soon, lacerated his scalp, bruised my fist on his stomach, I hit him so hard. I have to admit, I was surprised... he didn't look like much, but I've gone hand to hand with a BCPU before, and he didn't take the blows much worse than Cray ever did."

Ysak sighed, long and hard. "I was just about to level the bastard off with my foot... I'd probably have broken his neck, and I would have been smiling, that's how mad I was. I never got the chance. He... he has a Seed too, just like Lacus and me and the others." Ysak hugged himself at the memory. "He stopped me dead in my tracks... again, Cyprus, you should know what I'm talking about... remember that time outside Orb, when Lacus... well..."

"I remember very well." Cyprus replied, flicking a brief glance at Lacus, who looked faintly ashamed. "So he took away your control of your body with his powers?"

"And how! I couldn't have pissed myself, and I was scared enough to do it!" Ysak answered fervently. "He stared me in the eyes, and that was when I saw he had the Seed... your eyes become washed out and metallic when you're in the Seed rage... something to do with the way the chemical content of your blood changes... to be honest I never really cared to look into it. His eyes were like that... just like Kira's get. I've had occasion to meet Kira's gaze when he was in a Seed rage, and let me assure you, this guy was that same level of intensity. Maybe it was just because his eyes looked just like Kira's, except for the gold sparks, but I was fucking petrified, even without the mental lockdown!"

"So he then knocked you out?" Miriallia asked.

"No." Ysak smiled crookedly, without humor. "He then killed me."

"WHAT!?" Dearka had come around the corner, coming into the conversation definitely at the wrong time. "What the fuck are you talking about!? I mean, you don't look good, but you're far from dead!"

"Thanks to Alkire, yes." Ysak replied quietly. "The bastard chuckled and said "Away with you, flawed one!" in that nastily superior tone, just like that. He clenched his fist, and my lungs stopped working and my heart stopped beating. Just like that. The bastard stopped my FUCKING HEART!" Ysak sagged against the wall, trembling. "I can't even describe what it was like... terrifying is the very least of it. Hearts don't just STOP... even a heart attack has warning signs! And my lungs were frozen too! I don't know how he managed to influence my autonomic bodily functions, but rest assured, he did it! He put Katie into a coma she couldn't get out of, and then he stopped my heart and lungs the same way! I blacked out as he broke my hand by stomping on it... I couldn't even scream in pain! I fucking DIED, clinically speaking!" Ysak's face was as pale as milk.

"Hey, man... you okay?" Dearka stepped forward, a concerned look on his face. "You look terrible."

"I feel terrible. I'm not okay in the slightest." Ysak sunk down into a crouch against the wall. "I couldn't protect Katie. I couldn't even protect myself..."

"By the time I got there..." Alkire picked up the story after it became evident that Ysak was unable to continue for the moment. "Ysak had been clinically dead for about three minutes. No heartbeat, no breathing... he wasn't faking nothing... he was DEAD. I didn't notice that initially... I was rather preoccupied with those three... three... grrrh!" Alkire couldn't find an curse strong enough. He lapsed into a very grim, almost detached state, forcing himself to speak in a near monotone, disengaging his mind from what he was saying. "The three guards Katie had disabled had recovered by the time I arrived, and they were busy taking advantage of her vulnerable state and lack of clothing to rape her. I shot them down in a fury, and I'm not sorry about wasting the potential for intelligence in the slightest. I couldn't find any traces of a struggle or injuries on Katie, nothing that would explain her comatose state. I couldn't find Ysak for a little while, until I saw his body pushed up against the wall. It was then that I discovered his lack of vital signs. I began emergency CPR, and in the process searched him for injuries. Like Katie, he had none, besides some scrapes and the busted up hand. I couldn't figure it out."

"After about a minute of CPR, and several false starts, he just... got better, all at once." Alkire frowned. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I was overjoyed... but he went from dead to not dead like a switch had been thrown. I guess the bastard's ability to keep your heart and lungs stopped wore off or something. Maybe he got too far away... there was no one else alive there besides the three of us, and no body matching your description. You'd be more expert on that stuff than me. I just couldn't understand it... still don't! I managed an extraction and came straight here, after trying to contact the rest of you fuckers and failing several times. WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU TURN YOUR PHONES OFF!?"

"The Brotherhood has constant electronic surveillance on all comm devices and networks in the PLANTS, at least according to the source we interviewed." Cyprus answered calmly. "While upon further reflection I find it hard to believe they are in reality actively monitoring all comms... the sheer data volume would be beyond the scope of any computer system I can imagine... a more passive monitoring is very possible, even likely. They probably have programs searching for certain key words and phrases, such as "Gundams", "Brotherhood", Terrorists", etc, and then proceed to turn on more active monitoring to those sources. Its still a monstrous achievement, any way you look at it. I wish our own intelligence budget could accomodate that level of spending, required to keep such an effort going." Cyprus shook his head in mild envy. "In the interest of preserving the secrecy of our mission, futiley I now realize, I deemed it best to enforce a comm blackout until our investigation was over. It was a misjudgement on my part."

"A misjudgement!?" Alkire snorted loudly, glaring for a few seconds before he took hold of himself again. "Yeah... nevermind me. I'm a fucking wreck right now. You did what you thought was best... its unfair of me to blame you for that. I'd probably have done the same in your situation, with that information." Alkire did not apologize for decking Cyprus earlier though, and didn't really have any intention of doing so. Nor did he think Cyprus would seek out an apology... they had an understanding. God forbid, if anything ever happened to Wrenn, and Alkire was apparently willfully unable to provide aid when Cyprus expected it, Alkire would have expected Cyprus to do more than just deck him.

"Let us hold this dicussion somewhere else, if there is going to be any more yelling." Lacus spoke up, her voice steely. "Katie's physical injuries were minor, but the degree of mental trauma is beyond my ability to discern. I don't think she's going to have any memory of her ordeal after Noah... whom I'm sure we can agree is likely the name of that Active Newtype... put her into a comatose state, but the mere fact of being so completely dominated by another person's mind and will is going to leave wounds all its own, as Ysak can definitely tell you. I'm sure, Mr. Finch, that I caused you no small amount of duress in a similar manner that time outside of Orb. Having your free will taken away, even slightly... its an abomination! There is no excuse for using your powers in such a way!" Lacus's tone was quiet, but very heated.

"Good idea... there's still more I need to tell you about what I saw inside that building, besides just what happened to Katie and Ysak, but we should probably bring Captain Ramius and Commander Waltfeld into the loop as well, so we don't have to repeat this fucking mess any more than needed!" Alkire agreed. "I could use a cold drink too... hell, I could use a fucking drunken binge, but I don't think that's a good idea!"

Cyprus stood up from his chair, as Miriallia and Dearka helped Ysak back into the guest bedroom with Katie. He was staring off into the middle distance again as thoughts whirled and connected, before breaking apart and reconnecting again in his calculating mind. Noah. Leader of the Brotherhood. Active Newtype. Seed capable. Angel. New race. Ultimate Coordinator, what did it mean? The possible implications were... dire.

--------------------------------

"YOU LET HIM GO!?" Randolf bellowed, storming into the private shuttle bay where Noah's shuttle was being prepped for the journey down to Earth. It was an almost entirely automated process, and the only person around was Noah, standing at the base of the boarding stairs, talking on his personal comm while Phlegethion and Aether, woken from their restorative trances, maintenance periods over, ferried packages and cases of goods into the shuttle interior, pausing only to snarl warningly at Randolf's aggressive stance. He could give a fuck what those monstrous things thought right now, he was so enraged! He'd only stepped away for a few hours, to take care of some of the other legal set up for his prosecution of Kira Yamato! But in those few hours, the bastard had managed to break free and escape... or so he'd at first thought when he got back to the empty cell! "HOW COULD YOU JUST LET HIM GO!?"

Of course, Kira had not broken free or escaped, Randolf had rapidly learned, after starting to tear the place down around the ears of the people he'd put in charge of keeping Kira contained. They'd looked at him with puzzlement, concern and some fear, before confiding in him that orders had come down from higher up than even Randolf, from the very highest of the high actually, that Kira Yamato was to be given full medical treatment and then brought to the Clyne Mansion at the earliest opportunity, there to be released. They'd even erased all the falsified documents and evidence he'd had created... the charges he'd put into the PLANTS police system... everything... all of it GONE like it had never been! All on orders from NOAH! Randolf was madder than he'd ever been, his face livid, veins throbbing, one fist clenched at his side, the other set firmly on his pistol holster in an overt threat he would never have considered making under regular circumstances.

"Oh, so you found out about that. I suppose its for the best." Noah replied mildly, turning to face his underling. His depth perception was shot for the moment, because of the Curaga patch stuck over his bruised eye, and the similar wrapping on his split scalp made his head feel swollen, but it was plain to even just his one eye, not to mention his mind, that Randolf was furious, practically berserk. He'd anticipated a negative reaction of course, but this was beyond even what he'd thought likely. "It would not have been good to leave you up here in your current mood, that is for sure."

"WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!? YOU PROMISED ME! YOU PROMISED!" Randolf ranted, not slowing down in the slightest as he bore down on the man who was nominally his leader, his supposed ally, not quite a friend certainly, but someone Randolf had thought he could count on to understand how he felt about this matter with Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne! The depth of the betrayal was... staggering! Almost as bad as the one he'd felt when he'd thought Lacus had turned on him and his men in the desert! "YOU PROMISED ME AND YOU LIED TO ME! YOU LET HIM GO!?"

"Yes, I did. I encountered an overriding concern that required it." Noah shrugged, waving off Phlegethion and Aether's concerned threat postures. He could handle Randolf, no matter his berserk rage. In truth, he was almost looking forward to a confrontation... he'd been in a foul mood all day, and was not inclined to be patient anymore! It was time Randolf became more fully aware of his true place in the scheme of things! "I take it you object to my decision?"

"OBJECT!? YOU LIED TO ME, YOU LITTLE BASTARD! YOU SAID I COULD HAVE HIM... YOU WENT TO ALL THE TROUBLE OF HELPING ME GET HIM, AND YOU SAID I COULD DO WHAT I NEEDED TO DO! AND THEN YOU JUST LET HIM GO!? ARE YOU INSANE!?" Randolf stopped just short of Noah, looming over him, spittle flying from his jaws as he screamed down at the shorter Coordinator.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't yell in my face." Noah refused to lean back, or even look Randolf in the face. "I can hear you just fine if you speak normally."

"LISTEN HERE, YOU TREACHEROUS..." Randolf laid his free hand on Noah's shoulder. And then froze in mid rant, eyes rolling desperately around in his head, his entire body frozen into stillness, tongue standing out from his mouth, unable to even sigh, much less yell. He struggled to swallow, but couldn't even manage that... his muscles just wouldn't respond to him!

"It is time for you to listen to me, Aireg." Noah replied into the sudden silence, as he brushed Randolf's hand off his shoulder contemptuously. Noah waved a hand at a nearby stack of storage crates. "Take a seat, and be quiet like a good boy, and let us talk like rational men." Quite against his will, moving stiffly, like an automaton, fighting his own body the entire time, Randolf tottered over and sat down on the crates, his mouth easing closed, muscle control returing to his body, at least from the head up. The rest of his body might as well have been encased in stone for all the good his frantic muscle commands did him.

"WHA..." Randolf clamped his jaws shut on his exclaimation, biting down painfully on his tongue before he regained control of himself again. "What the hell...!?"

"Did you really think that all my talk about the power of the Angels was just bunk and propoganda for the Harbringers?" Noah asked with a contemptuous smirk. "Come now, Aireg... you should know by now that I don't bluff like that. I think you and I need to have a little talk. Obviously you have some concerns about how I conduct my business, and your true place in the bigger picture. You may be concerned that I don't value your service, or my commitments to you. You may think that I have been decieving you all this time, just using you, leading you on by the nose, feeding you juicy tidbits to keep you faithful. In a way, that is true... you can think of yourself like a puppy, Aireg. As long as you do what I tell you, I'll give you encouragement... feed you treats, reward you with information and support, however you want to see it. But that doesn't mean I'm going to spare you the rolled up newspaper when you turn and bite the hand that feeds the moment the treats stop coming, or you don't like the way I set my own, much more important objectives before yours!"

"So you've just been lying to me this entire time!? You never had any intention of helping me save Lacus Clyne!? You never cared about putting that slime, Kira Yamato away forever!?" Randolf demanded, though in a more normal tone of voice. He struggled to draw his gun and shoot the traitorous bastard in his tracks, but he couldn't even twitch his fingers!

"That's not a very nice sentiment, Aireg." Noah commented, shaking his head sadly. "And you're over-reacting. I have not been lying to you about my support of your goals with regard to Lacus and Kira. If anything, I find your unwavering, fanatical dedication to her safety and well being to be very noble and admirable. She's going to need people like you watching over her in the dangerous times to come, during the Great Re-Creation, when the backlash against us Angels will be the strongest, at least until the uninformed masses realize the futility of the reaction. As for Kira... well, I never have borne him any specific ill will, unlike you, but neither do I regard him with much special favor. He's done me a few good turns in the past, unknowingly, but nothing requiring me to stick my neck out for him."

"Then why did you betray me!? Why did you let him go!? I was this close... within hours of achieveing my dream... and its all ruined now!" Randolf almost felt like crying.

"So letting you beat the snot out of him wasn't enough for you? You are a very needy puppy, Aireg. Perhaps I've been too soft with you, spoiling you. I told you that I would help you take Kira Yamato out of Lacus Clyne's life, and I intend to keep that promise. But I will do it in a manner that I see fit, at a time of my choosing! Not yours!"

"You said that time was now! You told me I had free reign!" Randolf accused.

"I was wrong. It happens to the best of us." Noah shrugged. "Like I said, an overriding concern came up requiring his release. It was most unexpected."

"What kind of concern could override such a valuable task as getting rid of Kira Yamato!? Is he not one of our most formidable foes!?" Randolf was dumbfounded by the thought.

"His formidability is exaggerated, and confined to a few, relatively small scale abilities. Oh, he may be the most skilled Gundam ace alive, but really... so what?"

"SO... so what?" Randolf tasted blood in his mouth from his bitten tongue, his tone incredulous at the dismissal. "He has the power to single handedly turn the tide of major engagements! He's one of the major reasons no nation would ever think of attacking Orb overtly! Even the Vengeance might not be enough to compete with him... for all his skills, Michael is still just a Natural!"

"You assume the Vengeance is the pinnacle of the Brotherhood's military might." Noah smiled gently. "Rest assured, Aireg, that I have taken Kira well into account. Other events from today have further convinced me that I am more than capable of dealing with him, in or out of a Mobile Suit, as the situation demands. As for the concern... well, I should think you would understand. Lacus Clyne asked me to set him free, so I did."

"Lacus asked... you FOOL!" Randolf choked on his anger for a minute or so before he calmed enough that Noah let him speak again. "Are you not familiar with the patterns of abusive relationships, Noah? She's under his control, she's dependent upon him, like a drug! Of course she thinks she wants him back... he's made her reliant upon him! She doesn't realize she's being decieved..."

"I'll thank you not to insult Lacus so grievously." Noah retorted icily. "Whatever your perception of her, she is neither misguided, decieved nor naive. She is an Angel just like me... such things are beneath her. Whatever the reasoning behind her betrayal of you, you should have no doubt that her love for Kira Yamato is genuine, and his in return! It doesn't mitigate the fact that he is using her, but on an emotional level, they are more deeply connected than you could possibly imagine!"

"I disagree. She's a young girl and..." Randolf found his mouth clamped shut again. How the hell was Noah doing this!? Hypnosis? It didn't seem possible.

"The blind should not disagree on colors with the sighted." Noah sighed. "Lacus's requests have far more weight with me than any of your feelings or concerns, Aireg, to be blunt. You are a servant, a useful one, but a servant nonetheless. She is a peer. Can you understand the difference in priority there?"

"I understand..." Randolf muttered angrily. Oh he understood plenty all right! Noah was a young fool too! And if he thought Randolf was just going to let this go then...

"Plotting against me is a very stupid idea, Aireg." Noah interrupted his train of thoughts. "Oh don't look so shocked... you think just keeping you from moving is the limit of my Angelic abilities? I am far more than you can possibly imagine as well. You don't have to like my decisions, but you do have to follow them. Be patient. Your time will come. Be ready to accept disappointment at the edge of victory though, or to take your reward at any time. Things don't always go according to plan, after all." Noah checked his chronometer. "I should be going soon... you're cutting into my personal time, which is not doing much to endear you or your concerns to me, Aireg."

"You're just going to walk away?" Randolf was stunned. "I'm going to kill you when I get the chance!"

"If it amuses you to try, go for it. I could use a game to keep me occupied." Noah retorted in a bored tone of voice. "Just don't forget the true nature of our relationship. I am the master here. I will tolerate your plans, and work them into my strategy as I see fit, much as I do for Dylan, Cray and Mary. But in the end, you work for me, and that is all there is to it! The power rests solely with me, I merely lend it to you as need be!"

"What if I just run, and turn myself in to the authorities? I could blow your whole plan wide open..."

"You can try, but then I'd be forced to kill you. You should know the reach of the Brotherhood, Aireg... and you should also know that the true depth of its reach is beyond what even you know! Besides, what do you really know anyway? Nothing you know, other than the location of the Great Endeavor, is truly vital! And in a relatively short time, even that will be a moot point, since EVERYONE will know!" Noah turned away contemptuously. "Your best interests still lie in serving me, and you know it. Even if I am lying to you, you still have a much better chance of protecting Lacus as an Apostle than you ever could elsewhere! Especially now that you've done such horrible things to her true love... do you think she'd be happy to see you now, Aireg, after what you did to Kira? I'm of half a mind to LET you go talk to her, just to watch her flay you down to permanent incoherence!"

"You are despicable." Randolf's tone was worn out. Noah had a point, damn him! He was in too deep now! Even if Lacus's feelings for Kira were the result of manipulation, they were still very strong, and with the man himself now free, and no Brotherhood resources at Randolf's beck and call, there was NOTHING he could do! If he went to her now... forget what Lacus would do to him, Kira himself wasn't likely to be very forgiving! They sure as hell wouldn't listen to him... he'd be lucky to escape with his life, and it would all be for nothing! It rankled, to let such a chance slip away... but there would be another chance, eventually! There had to be... "But you speak sense. I'm..." Randolf sighed. "As long as Lacus is safe, I can be content."

"In that, we are united." Noah answered firmly. "What is Adam without Eve after all, or children without their mother? Her role in the future is too central for her to ever risk being put in danger at our or any hands! There will come a time when she well join us on the Great Endeavor, and I shall then give her into your protective custody, Aireg. At such point in time, Kira will have ceased to be a concern of hers. Permanently." Noah thought about the tissue and marrow sample he'd had the medical techs extract from Kira during their treatment of the injuries Randolf had inflicted. Yes, he would be able to use those to create a countermeasure for Kira, definitely. Though Angels would be largely immune to Green EDEN as a matter of course, all it would take would be a few tweaks to change that around, for a small sample, and genetically tailoring it to Kira would then be the work of a few hours. He would not survive contact with the countermeasure, that much Noah was certain of. All too easy. Noah regarded Randolf with his mind, feeling the sullen resentment still smouldering inside. A further demonstration would probably help make things even more clear.

Noah walked up the stairs to the shuttle, since Phlegethion and Aether had finished loading the packages. Behind him, Aireg's gun hand curled into a fist, and then extended the fore and middle fingers stiffly. "What!? What the hell are you doing to me!? Noah!? NOA..." Blood squirted from Randolf's lips as his teeth gnashed down. Tears of pain started from his eyes, but his agony stayed silent, his muscles clenched and immobile. Noah turned at the top of the stairs and tossed Randolf a sardonic wave. Randolf's stiffened fingers slammed downward as hard as his arm could manage, spearing the fingers into the unyielding metal of the storage crate, bending them both backwards unnaturally with a series of quiet snaps and crackles as the bones broke in multiple places. Randolf's eyes went very wide, and his face flushed dark red, but he still couldn't even gasp out loud.

"Oh... that looks painful. You shouldn't hurt yourself like that, Aireg." Noah commented lightly. "You should be more careful... I'd hate to see you slip like that with a knife in hand. You should go get that looked at... I hear broken fingers are some of the worst pain around. Exposure to vacuum when the shuttle launches probably won't help matters much either." Noah hit the door control. "You're free to go. Have a nice evening... I will."

"AGGHRH!" Randolf screamed, in several types of pain, as the shuttle door closed, cradling his mutilated hand in the uninjured one. He barely managed to get through the air lock before the shuttle bay expelled its atmosphere. _God DAMN that brat! This isn't over! I won't forget this treatment! I won't let it end here, Noah!_

------------------------------------------------------

"KIRA!" Kira barely had time to turn as Lacus leapt into his arms, rocking him back against the side of the main doorway. The fact that one eye and most of the rest of his face was covered with Curaga laced bandages barely troubled him at all... he didn't need to see Lacus with his eyes to know where she was, once he was within a mile or so of her. He hugged her tightly to himself, even as she did the same in return, clinging to him with the strength of desperation and hours of untold worry. His back twinged slightly, though it was also taped up with more bandages, wrapped over a more than generous smear of the nigh miraculous Curaga bacterial gel medicine, as were all his other injuries. The Brotherhood sure didn't skimp on its medical coverage... Kira was guessing he was wearing about a half million dollars in bandages right now, and that was just a rough estimate! The pain was almost entirely gone already, the Curaga combining with his body's already formidable healing capabilities in such a manner that he probably wouldn't even have bruises by tonight.

The healing feeling of having Lacus in his arms was worth more than any amount of bandages could ever be, and did at least as much to better his sense of wellbeing! He felt slightly dampness on his uncovered cheek and smiled wryly, as he lifted a hand to brush at his uncovered eye. He was not ashamed of crying in this sort of situation, but all the same... Lacus was doing enough for the both of them at the moment. He could let his own terror and pain and worry come out later... right now he still needed to be the strong one, for Lacus's sake. She'd been in just as much pain as him, if not more, spending most of the day knowing he was hurt and in danger, and being unable to do anything about it. Kira shivered... he didn't think he could have handled that kind of strain, not even a tenth as well as Lacus did, repeatedly! He put his hand on the back of her head and hugged her closer still, leaning his face down to take in every sensation of her he could, burying his face in the top of her head as he made quiet soothing noises.

After a minute or so, he lifted his head, eye now dry and focused, and looked around. Dearka and Miriallia were standing across the foyer, standing well clear for privacy's sake, arms around each others waists, with glad smiles on their faces. Miriallia looked a little teary eyed herself, and Dearka noticed Kira's glance and returned him a cocky wink and a thumbs up. Ysak and Katie weren't currently in evidence, and neither were Alkire or Ramierez. Murrue and Waltfeld were standing by the door to the pantry area, likewise looking heartily relieved to see him back, even if he did look kind of like a reject from a mummy movie at the moment. The only person that didn't look enormously overjoyed to see him was Cyprus, who stood in the middle of the foyer, in that not quite parade rest position he opted when waiting patiently for the right moment to begin his business. Kira smiled slightly... he would have been more surprised if the nigh impertubale Cyprus had been smiling and waving... even his constant militaristic bearing was comforting right now.

Seeing Kira at least was more fully in control of himself once more, even if Lacus was still attached to him like a limpet, as if afraid he would disappear like a morning mist if she were to take her hands off him, Cyprus strode forward and extended a hand for a brief handshake. "Are you in any pain?" Cyprus asked directly, appraising Kira's appearance.

"Some, that Randolf guy worked me over pretty good. Even with the outstanding medical service... these are Curaga soaked bandages, even I don't recover that fast." Kira shrugged slightly, impeded by Lacus, who was rubbing at her own face with the back of her arm now, leaving two large damp patchs on top of the utilitarian shirt he'd been provided with by the medical techs to get out of his blood and vomit stained clothing. The shirt and trouser ensemble was a little big and baggy on him, but it was better than no clothes at all, and much better than showing up like he'd just gotten the living shit beaten out of him by a raging madman. It might have been the truth, but he was glad he didn't have to rub Lacus's face in the gory aftermath any more than she already had been. "But all the same, the medical attention they gave me was first rate, or even better than that. I don't think my nose is even going to be crooked, despite being broken a couple times."

"To be honest, I'm surprised to see you." Cyprus folded his arms across his chest. "No offense, but if I was them, I'd have returned you in a body bag. Or multiple body bags, depending on what kind of message I wanted to send. Brutal and callous as it may sound, suffering through a bloody beating while bound to a chair means to me that you got off kind of lucky. If you'd been dealing with real professionals, they'd have just shot you in the head the moment they had a chance."

"Thanks, I feel better, knowing I was lucky." Kira rolled his eye in sarcasm. "Let's just not talk about what happened, if we can, okay? It won't do any of us any good to go back through the ordeal step by step."

Cyprus frowned. "I understand your reluctance to upset Ms. Clyne and the others, Mr. Yamato, but an extensive, detailed debriefing of your experience at the hands of the enemy might yield vital information that could help us prevent a similar occurence from happening again, to you or anyone else. Even when under the harshest of interrogations, a captive can notice a surprising amount of details, and I've no doubt you'll be able to provide us with a wealth of details that while might not be important individually, could help us piece together the bigger puzzle, along with the other information that we've recently gleaned."

"Speaking of that, what have you guys managed to find anything out while I've been... gone?" Kira asked, recognizing the logic and truth of what Cyprus was saying, but not desiring to acceed to the procedure right now. Maybe after he and Lacus had some time to work things out themselves, but it was too soon. Emotionally speaking, he was almost totally worn out now that he was back and relatively safe, and he could feel that Lacus was running on empty too. Too much more stress and strain and either one of them, or perhaps even both of them might suffer a breakdown, and now was far from a good time for that sort of minor catastrophe! "Where's Ysak and Katie and Alkire?"

"Well, Mr. Yamato, you aren't the only one who's been through an ordeal today. Indeed, you might have gotten off the lightest of anyone." Cyprus's frown grew. He knew Kira was putting off the debrief, but there wasn't much he could really do about it. He had no actual authority over Kira, nor did he have a professional working rapport with him like he did with the Major. There was a large degree of mutual respect, but that wasn't enough to force the issue. And then there was Ms. Clyne to consider, who was definitely in one of the most fragile and dangerous moods he'd ever seen her in, since that time in the Isolation outside of Orb. All it would take would be a word stressed wrongly, and Cyprus had a feeling the mama bear would take that as a direct threat to the safety of its cub, with unknown but definitely violent results. He'd been informed of the teacup incident by Katie and Ysak, and the cracked pane of glass was still there, plain to see. Discretion was wisdom, in this case.

Kira tensed, not liking the sound of that at all. He'd suffered terribly at Randolf's hands... enough to put him in a hospital bed if it werent for the Curaga treatments. Cyprus wasn't the sort to exaggerate... if that hell he'd gone through was getting off lightly... "Are they all right?"

"No." Dearka spoke up immediately, his voice grim. "They are not all right. Their physical injuries, unlike yours, were very minor, but..."

"But Katie was put into a brief coma and raped, and Ysak almost died." Miriallia reported, her voice trembling as she forced herself to spit the words out, despite how horrid they were. "Katie is still sleeping off the aftereffects of the coma, and I've never seen Ysak so... weak... not since Chanel died."

"What happened!?" Kira sucked in a breath, stunned. He could barely imagine a situation arising with Katie and Ysak of all people, that could result in... "Wait... coma, and near death, but no injuries?"

"No physical injuries." Lacus's voice was barely above a whisper, her usually dulcet tones hoarse and scratchy and tremulous. "They both took a severe mental mauling though, Kira. They... they encountered an Active Newtype. Someone with powers somewhat similar to mine. Someone with a Seed like yours. Someone who took away their ability to consciously control their body, or even unconsciously in Ysak's case! Ysak had his heart and lungs stopped, and Katie was put into a deeper than unconscious state it took me and Ysak working together to pull her out of! I may have gotten a glimpse today of what I might end up doing by accident if I were ever to lose control... I... I'm very frightened, Kira."

"Shh. Don't worry about it, Lacus." Kira put both his arms around her again, cradling her against his chest. All the same, when he looked back at Cyprus, his eye was burning with intense anger. He felt exactly the same way as Lacus did about the removal of free will, and the immoral usage of Newtype powers. With great power came great responsibility... a responsibility to use that power to help those in need, not just for your own amusement and personal goals! Using Newtype abilities to hurt and even attempt to kill people... was deeply wrong to him! "A Seed like mine, and an Active Newtype to boot. That's disquieting."

"I came to the same conclusion. Other information we gleaned indicated that this Active Newtype, whom we believed to be called Noah, is very highly placed within the Brotherhood, maybe even the supreme commander. I know its personal information, but some of what he said to us, through a remote comm device during our own investigation of a potential Brotherhood facility, gave me the impression that he was, or at least thought himself to be, an Ultimate Coordinator like you, Mr. Yamato. He also seemed to think that Ms. Clyne was an Ultimate Coordinator as well... he called them two of a kind, and used the terms Adam and Eve. To be honest I'm still sorting through the information... its very confusing and conflicting... intentionally so, I believe." Cyprus replied seriously. "Any background information you could provide on just what an "Ultimate Coordinator" is would also be helpful."

"Huh." Kira chuckled, without humor. "Wish I could tell you. All I know is that it has something to do with being born in an artificial womb, with the entire process from fertilization to birth taking place in an entirely aritifical environment, to prevent any biological or situational variations creeping in from the mother's womb. I always thought it was kind of a stupid prefix... what's so Ultimate about a cookie cutter, made exactly as advertised baby anyway? And to the best of my knowledge, because Lacus was born from a biological womb, that would discount her being an Ultimate Coordinator, by the definition that I learned from Rau le Creuset at the Mendel colony anyway."

"Well, if they all turn out like you... a lot." Dearka chimed in. "I mean, think about it... if this Noah guy was born through the same or similar process as you were, Kira, he might have the same kind of abilities and skills as you do, or even worse, the kind of learning aptitude you do. And if he has Newtype powers as strong as Lacus's, and a Seed as strong as yours... well... that's pretty damned Ultimate, in my eyes. And he's obviously not as nice and cuddly as you are either."

"Well, I don't know if he's really like me... I mean, yeah, I was pretty special, I guess, during the First Valentine War and most of the Second as well... but I only really came into things after my encounter with the Pulsar, or Frost's blood, I'm still not sure which. That triggered something inside me, and it's results... well, you've all seen those." Kira furrowed his brow, feeling a massive headache start to come on. "Believe me, it sounds strange, but there's worlds of difference between my abilities now and what they were at Jachin Due. If this Noah is an Ultimate Coordinator, though I personally don't see how that's possible as my father, Ulen Hibiki, was killed shortly after I was born, and all his notes and processes destroyed, as far as I know anyway, then what kind is he? First stage... or second... or maybe theres even more beyond that? I haven't the slightest damned clue, I'm sorry. It's all conjecture."

Cyprus was just about to open his mouth to ask another question when a commotion from the entertainment room, where Ramierez had retired for a nap about an hour earlier, drew his and everyone else's attention. A second later, Ramierez burst out into the foyer, clad in his uniform trousers and a simple pale blue undershirt, frantically zipping and clasping on his uniform jacket, a decidedly wild and worried expression on his face. "Major problem, sir! Level one category! It's all over the fucking news!"

"Level one?" Murrue asked, taken somewhat aback at Ramierez's sudden appearance.

"Imminent large scale deadly threat to senior government officials." Cyprus translated, already running towards the entertainment room and the nearest TV.

Kira's blood turned to ice for a moment. "Randolf... mentioned something." He said, half to himself. "About how Cagalli was going to be too busy with her own problems to bail me out of the legal circumstances Randolf was falsifying..."

"What's that?" Waltfeld asked, having not heard him clearly.

"Its the Brotherhood." Kira's voice was cold. "They're attacking Cagalli and Athrun."

"Oh... fuck..."

--------------------------------------

"Owwwch..." Athrun groaned, fighting his way up the steep slope to full consciousness. His stomach felt like he'd just been hit with a baseball bat thinly coated with rubber, and his head hurt twice as bad as that! He tried to reach up a hand to massage the back of his neck, which felt sticky and raw, but he found that he couldn't for a very good reason. Namely that his hands were cuffed behind his back, rather tightly even, with standard plastic tie bindings, common to law enforcement and military organizations around the world. He fluttered his eyes open, coughing and spitting bile and runny snot from his mouth. He felt like absolute shit... his nose and mouth were burning, his eyes were throbbing and itching, his skin felt too hot, and then there were the aforementioned stomach and back of the head complaints. He felt crummier than he remembered feeling after he self destructed the Aegis.

He found that he was still in the Parliament building, though he'd been moved from the Royal Observation Box down into one of the basement offices. The room was barren of furniture, though it looked like a large office or perhaps a conference chamber. It was semi-crowded, mostly with people dressed in the purple jackets and trousers over cream shirts of the Orb Legislature. A few people were standing, but most were sitting or slumping against the walls, their clothing mussed and in disarray, minor and even not so minor wounds in frequent evidence on their bodies and limbs and heads. Crude attempts at medical aid, barely more than ripped up wads of clothing, were used as bandages over the worst wounds, but there was still plenty of blood in view, much of it fresh or only partly dried. Athrun did a quick head count and found that there were twenty people in the room with him. Could this really be all the survivors? Parliament had more than two hundred members, surely there couldn't only be a score left, even if a orbit to surface assault pod had crashed through the ceiling...

Athrun jerked his head around in a sudden panic. There was no sign of Kurtz or Glory anywhere... they could very well both be dead, especially Kurtz, with his severe head wound! Even worse, he couldn't see Cagalli anywhere! Nor was there any evidence of a Brotherhood guard or other watcher, but the closed door was undoubtedly locked, and it seemed to be the only entrance or exit. Athrun struggled to his feet, bracing himself against the wall as he waited for the brief dizzy spell to fade. So he had a concussion then... well, that was to be expected, considering he seemed to have been unconscious for a while. He forced himself to deal with the double vision and wooziness as best he could... there were more important concerns currently than minor physical complaints. He turned and walked over to the most aware looking of the nearby Parliament members. Athrun recognized the man, who had a broken wrist and bloody cuts all over his face, but couldn't call the name to mind in his current bleary state.

"Hey! What happened!? Where is Cagalli?" Athrun demanded, trying not to let his worry bleed into his voice too much. Everyone was bound to be in a fragile state, there was no sense in causing a panic by shouting and raving at people, despite how much he wanted to do just that. "Is this all the survivors?"

"Oh, Mr. Ambassador, you're awake! I'm relieved... you took quite a hit on the head. We were all very worried." The Parliament member looked up at him, his face worn and drawn. "The Brotherhood attacked the building just as we came back from the recession! They landed a cloaked drop pod of some sort right through the roof... it landed right in the middle of the floor! Oh, dear Hameya, it was horrible! I was lucky, my seat is near the walls... pretty much anyone from the center third of the Parliament seating was killed, almost instantly, whether by the impact itself or the flying debris. People were impaled... cut in half... blood and internal organs were..." The Parliament member broke off, his face going much paler as he shook his head at the terrible, fresh memory. "Most of the the people who survived the impact were disabled by the smoke or tear gas the bastards used, though I saw them shoot a few people as well, apparently just because they could! Monsters!"

"What about the Chief Representative!? What happened to Cagalli!?" Athrun pressed fervently.

"They rounded up those of us who could still move and brought us down into the basement. I was surprised... they seemed to know the building as well as we did, if not better! There's about a hundred of us left, by my rough count. They split us up, more or less at random I think, after binding us. They told us that as long as we stay in these rooms quietly, they won't hurt us... but none of us believe them. I saw what they did to Lord Seiran... oh dear Hameya, such things a man should not be made to endure before death!" The man stared into the distance, his eyes hollow, his tone broken. Athrun felt bad, but he nudged the man sharpely in the side with his toe.

"What about the Chief Representative!? Where is she?" Athrun was starting to lose patience, even though he knew the other man was suffering from shock, and it wasn't really his fault he couldn't focus well.

"The Chief Representative...?" The man shook his head a few times, and his voice was clearer when he spoke again. "She was in here for a while, several hours I think, you were both brought in together, though you were unconscious and she was only semiconscious. She didn't appear to be too badly injured... just incapacitated by smoke and gas, and being manhandled by those goons! She stayed close by your side, trying to get you to wake up, but about ten minutes ago they came back in and took her away. She fought them like a demon... I thought they were going to shoot her, to be honest, but they eventually just pulled her out of the room. She hasn't come back, and they made no mention of what they wanted her for, but it can't be good!"

"They're going to kill her." A sad, shaky voice commented from nearby. Athrun looked over, but it took him several moments to recognize the shivering, hunched over, rag clad man as Yuna Roma Seiran. For one thing, the heir apparent to the Seiran family was absolutly drenched in blood and offal, though little of it seemed to be his own. For another, he was almost curled up in a fetal ball, his clothing ripped and torn, trembling like a man suffering from a continuous series of minor seizures. Athrun noticed that Yuna's hands were not bound, but they didn't seem to need to be... the young man was clearly scared out of rational thought, traumatized by something terrible. "They're going to kill her just like they killed my dad." Yuna rocked back and forth, and let out a high pitched giggle that scratched on Athrun's nerves like fingernails on chalkboard.

"Shut up!" Athrun retorted, furious with him. Such words were not helping the situation, and the mere thought was enough to tear at Athrun's soul like icy claws. "Did nobody try and stop them!? Your hands aren't even bound! Did you just let them take her!?"

"Killed... killed... killed like a lamb at the slaughter..." Yuna chanted, eyes dilated and unseeing, his trousers soiled with his own piss and shit, hugging himself tightly as he rocked back and forther on the ground.

"I said...!" Athrun started to draw back his foot to kick at Yuna, to shut him up if nothing else, before he forced himself to stop. Yuna had obviously been unhinged by something, and while the bastard was a disgusting, corrupt coward even at the best of times, that was no excuse for Athrun to kick him and beat him, especially in his current traumatized state, despite how good it would temporarily make Athrun feel. He turned back to the Parliament member with the broken wrist and cut up face. "What did they do to Unato?" Athrun asked quietly. His stomach flip flopped, but he needed to know. While he listened and waited, the rest of him was working on a plan for getting out of the room, and then finding and rescuing Cagalli from whatever the Brotherhood was planning. He wasn't sure how yet, considering the odds stacked against him, but what was that thing Mu la Flaga had used to say about making the impossible, possible? Athrun could do that too, when the need arose.

The Parliament member shuddered and blanched. "It was..." He started to say, before being interrupted by the door to the conference room slamming open, drawing a round of flinches and shouts of protest from the other survivors, as three fully armed and armored Brotherhood Harbringers marched into the room, weapons at the ready. Two of them kept everyone in the room covered, while the third swaggered right up to Athrun and stared down at him.

"Ah, the Ambassador awakes at last! How unfortunate... for you! Come with us!" The Harbringer reached out and grabbed Athrun by the shoulder. Athrun gauged the strength of the man's grip, the unwary stance he was in, the overconfident tone in his voice... even with his arms behind his back, he could probably take this bastard. It was his two friends that concerned him... they looked ready and willing, even eager, to open fire on the hostages in the room. Athrun decided that discretion was the better part of valor for the moment.

"Take me to the Chief Representative." Athrun directed calmly. "If you're bringing me to her, I'll go quietly."

"He speaks like he has a choice!" The Harbringer commented in amusement to his two friends. "Typical Zala arrogance." He yanked Athrun forward and then pushed him again, in the middle of his back, propelling him towards the door. "As it happens though, we are here to take you to your wife. She's being a damned mule about cooperating with our demands... typical Natural, too stupid to know when it isn't in her own best interest to be uppity! So far, we haven't been able to "persuade" her to play nice. Hopefully you can help us convince her of the wisdom of cooperatng. If not..." The Harbringer just shook his head, pityingly. He looked around the room and snorted in disdain. "Buncha sheep." He muttered, as he pushed Athrun out the door, followed by the other two Harbringers.

Athrun kept his head on a swivel as the Harbringers escorted him through the basement hallways. He saw several more doors that he thought he remembered leading to similar conference rooms, where other hostages might be being kept, though there were no Brotherhood guards in evidence around any doors. Overconfidence? Or something more sinister? There was no way to tell. Every now and then they passed a two man patrol of Harbringers, and Athrun made sure to keep a careful count of the number of different soldiers he'd seen. The Harbringers escorted him up the stairs to the ground floor, where Athrun briefly glimpsed a lot more of their comrades milling around the main Parliament floor, around the now completely visible drop pod. They kept prodding him onwards though, up more stairs to the second and then third story, and down another hallway until they reached one of the offices at the corner of the building. Athrun was surprised... this corner office had large windows with good sight lines to other nearby buildings, plus a walk out balcony like the one he and Cagalli had relaxed upon during the intermission period. Hardly a secure room.

A pair of Harbringers edged out of the door to the office as they approached, lugging a large plastic sack between them, from which emanated the stench of offal and blood and raw meat in large quantity. The bottom of the sack was stained a deep, wet crimson, and already beads of bloody moisture were starting to drip from the middle of the stain. The Harbringers escorting Athrun all chuckled and nudged each other, though they seemed slightly disappointed in Athrun's lack of a visible reaction. If only they could feel his anger, then they wouldn't be thinking the situation was so amusing! But it was hardly the first mangled body, or mangled body in a bag, that Athrun had ever seen. He'd seen people killed by Frost first hand, and the remains of pilots who had burned alive in their cockpits, or been shredded by debris. He'd been there on the streets after Purgatory Day... what amounted to a corpse, even a fresh one, in a sack was far from enough to turn his stomach! Athrun strode confidently and steadily through the doorway, showing none of the trepidation and fear that was eating him up inside.

Thankfully, one of the first sights to greet him upon stepping into the room was Cagalli, who if not perfectly well, with a smoke stained face, blood stained hands, befouled clothing and teary, gas irritated eyes, was still very much alive! She was sitting in an armchair behind a desk in plain view of both windows, her hands bound seperately to each armrest of the bulky chair. Athrun looked out the window and did blanch slightly, because the Tormented, in all its sick glory, was standing not ten meters away, filling the view with its horror-grotesque appearance. That explained some of the vibration's they'd felt then... Mobile Suits landing outside. There was at least one Brotherhood Gundam, and who knew how many of their mass production models. The mere fact that this situation had been going on for hours indicated to him that the Brotherhood had a substantial Mobile Suit force in the area as well, to go with their ground force. Things were not looking very good.

"Athrun!" Cagalli exclaimed, jerking forward in her chair, her eyes and entire face lighting up for a brief moment before she fought herself back under control. The Brotherhood had brought him here just to get a reaction from her, and she'd already gone and given them one. Damn them.

"Cagalli." Athrun replied, more coolly, though the fires of intensity in his eyes were more than comment enough as to his feelings. He looked around the room some more, grimacingly slightly at the marks in one of the walls, that looked like blade cuts, likely from the Brotherhood's incredibly sharp knives. That entire wall, the wall directly opposite Cagalli, was splattered and sprayed with blood, and the carpet beneath it almost soggy with gore as well. There were three more Harbringers in the room, besides the ones who'd escorted him. Two of them were likewise drenched in crimson, much of it fresh, all over the front of their armor, with blades glittering in their hands, while the third stood back against the wall, lazily covering the room with his beam cannon.

"Oh, good... this should loosen her tongue a bit, I'd wager." The Harbringer with the beam cannon remarked. "Or maybe his tongue... it doesn't really matter."

"What do you want from us?" Athrun asked, as his escorts pushed him towards the blood stained wall.

"Not altogether much. We want you to read a statement to your media for us. Your wife has been very reluctant to do so, which has unfortunately caused several members of Parliament to take new jobs... as flower food!" The Harbringer who'd grabbed him down in the hostage room replied almost cheerfully. "It didn't matter how much we hurt them or cut them or burned them... she just kept crying and shaking her head and telling us that "Orb does not negotiate with Terrorists". Really, she's been hurting our feelings with her obstinacy... we had a pool going on how long she'd last, and she's already lasted much longer than I bet! I'm out almost a hundred virgins in heaven because of her stubborness!"

"You guys are sick." Athrun replied, his tone weary and contemptuous. "You really don't understand me, Orb or especially Cagalli at all. Nothing you can do, no matter how horrible it is, will get an ounce of cooperation from me or Cagalli. Orb does not negotiate with Terrorists. It's not an idle statement."

"I'm starting to think that maybe he has a point." One of the knife wielders said consideringly. "I mean, we've just about exhausted pretty much every form of creative bladework I can think of. Even if we skin him alive slowly after paring off his fingers and toes, castrate him, gouge out his eyes and cut out his internal organs while he still breathes, I just don't think it's going to get through to her, especially since we already did most of that to that fat, ugly geezer with the orange shades. She's one hard core bitch, for a Natural." He watched Cagalli's eyes burn with hatred. "Yeah, I think cutting up Mr. Zala might even be counterproductive. I mean, once he's gone, we will have DONE our worst, and lost a major trump card in the process."

"So I just walked all the way downstairs for nothing?" Athrun's head escort sighed in annoyance. "I'd better not have to walk very much in Heaven, to make up for all this trudging around on Earth."

"We're all going to be Angels! We'll be able to fly wherever the hell we want to go!" One of the other escorts said zealously.

"Well if knives won't work, what in the Prophet's name are we going to do?" This from the other knife wielder.

"Do not despair, Brothers!" The first knifeman replied cheerfully. "The Prophet provides for his flock. He anticipated a situation somewhat like this, though he decreed we should cleanse the souls of several sinners with our blades first just to be sure." The Harbringer sheathed his knife and rummaged around in his belt pouches for a few moments. "Get the manifesto handy for Mr. Zala. Mrs. Zala-Attha has exhausted my patience, its time she started participating more directly." His rummaging grew more intense for a second. "Thank the Prophet! I'd thought I'd lost them... here... bear witness to our salvation, Brothers!" The Harbringer displayed an injection gun and several hard plastic vials to his compatriots. An bright, intense pink-violet liquid swirled inside the vials, twenty milliliters of it per vial, and there were six vials. "One hundred percent pure Spiffy, street value of almost ten thousand dollars per vial, or so the Prophet spake to me. I'd hoped to be able to save them for the final confrontation, so we could all go out with a proper bang, but needs must, Brothers! Hold her head steady!"

"HEY! What the hell do you think you're..." Athrun protested, taking a step forward, before being roughly shoved back, linear rifles leveled at him from two directions.

"What am I doing, Mr. Zala? You don't get out into pop culture much, do you?" The Harbringer chuckled as he loaded the first vial into the injector gun. "I'm about to give your wife the most sublime ten minute continuous orgasm of her entire life. Spiffy overstimulates the pleasure centers in the brain, so that the slightest sensation, no matter what it is, releases massive amounts of endorphins and other pleasure inducing chemicals. With twenty milliliters of one hundred proof Spiffy in her system, I could scalp your wife with a blunt hacksaw and she'd scream for more! I don't believe I can stress to you enough how terribly addicting this brand of chemical pleasure is, Mr. Zala. Strong men and women, Coordinators even, have spiralled down into never ending addiction on hits of Spiffy smaller and much less pure than this one I'm about to give your wife. I'd rate her chances of being able to keep control over herself to be... nonexistant."

Cagalli tried to twist her head around and cover her neck, but there was no way she could get the kind of leverage with just her neck, while tied to a chair, to fight back against a former ZAFT soldier using both hands to hold her head steady against the backrest of the chair, neck bared and jugular vein vulnerable. She gritted her teeth, not trusting herself to speak in the current situation, though the panic and fear in her eyes tore into Athrun's heart more painfully than a billion knives ever could. One of the things Cagalli feared the most out of anything was losing control over her impulses. She liked splurging on herself every now and again, but the thought of just abandoning all self control in a glut of endless self satisfaction... it was abhorrent to her, anathema even. And the thought of such a state of mind being forced upon her, with attendant long term possible dependency... she'd definitely prefer skinning with knives!

"This doesn't have to happen, Mr. Zala." The Harbringer sounded almost sad. "I'd really prefer to share this Spiffy with my Brothers before we go to Heaven and become Angels, and no longer need wordly assistance, chemical or otherwise, to attain permanent bliss. But I have my orders from the Holy Prophet, and those orders include the reading of that manifesto, explaining Orb's withdrawal from the USN and support of the Brotherhood, by either you or your wife. If you won't oblige me, then I will have no choice but to inflict a living hell the likes of which you cannot imagine upon your wife. Have you ever visited a Spiffy rehabilitation center, Mr. Zala? This is a foul substance... even if the addicts can control their urges for more Spiffy, the withdrawal symptoms are so emotionally wracking that ninety five percent of them to turn other drugs in search of respite. A Spiffy addict that goes for more than three days without a hit is at a risk of sudden suicidal impulses five hundred times greater than average for their usual age group and ethnic category, and self mutilation is almost one hundred percent garaunteed. And most of those suicides are messy ones... involving things like swallowing broken glass, sliced wrists, slit throats, hangings, self immolation... its brutal, Mr. Zala. This is the end of your wife's life in this injector gun right here... its just going to take a little time before it catches up to her."

"Athrun..." Cagalli spoke up, her throat cracking with dry fear. The Harbringers all leaned towards her avidly, anticipating her begging for mercy. "If you do as these bastards say, I will never forgive you! Orb... DOES NOT... negotiate with Terrorists!"

Athrung hung his head, biting down on his lip so hard he drew blood, but he kept his gaze locked with Cagalli's. "I'll always love you, Cagalli, no matter what. We'll get through this." Athrun promised.

"I know." Cagalli closed her eyes briefly and then smiled at him. "They just can't understand..."

"And YOU people call US crazy!?" The Harbringer snarled angrily, pressing the injection gun to Cagalli's throat and squeezing the grip. There was a quiet hiss as a blast of air opened a pore in her skin and then shot the pink-violet liquid into her bloodstream. Cagalli closed her eyes again and shuddered, her entire body twisting in the chair as the drug mixed into her blood started to be absorbed into her brain. The Harbringers released her head and backed away with the injection gun, the man with the gun's hands were trembling with a mixture of rage and even a little fear. How could they be so calm even now!? What the hell was wrong with these people!? "Well, its too late to cry now... let it be on your head!"

"No. The blame here lies with you, and the man who told you to use the drugs as a method of coercion." Athrun replied, tears blurring his vision unashamedly. "It is not mine nor Cagalli's fault that you're a bunch of immoral bastards who stoop to using violence and disgusting methods like this because you are either too lazy or too stupid to use legal means of expressing your views! I cannot understand hating like you people hate. I find it hard to believe at times that we're even the same species."

"Shut up! You can't judge us! We're doing the Holy Prophet's will! This is a mission of redemption! We are Angels in training! You are all sinners... you deserve your fate, no matter how horrible it may be! There is no such thing as an immoral method for dealing with sinners!" A Harbringer retorted hotly, jabbing Athrun in the gut with his rifle but, hard enough to drive the breath from him and knock him to his knees. "Hah! Weakling!"

"Says a man hitting me when my arms are bound, my wife is held hostage and being tortured, I am unarmed, with a concussion, and he is wearing bulletproof armor and is carrying multiple advanced weapons?" Athrun answered scathingly. "Yes, I am very weak, like that. And proud of it!" Athrun forced himself to keep his eyes on Cagalli as she twitched and jerked in the chair, fighting her hardest not to let the drug induced pleasure overwhelm her, though her eyes were already half lidded and her breathing was becoming more like panting. Looking away would be giving these monsters what they wanted... a sign that they were breaking his will. He could NOT let them break his will... not with Cagalli's example to follow! He would NOT look away... he would remember every horrid moment of this torment, and he would pay it back to them ten thousand fold, when he had the chance!

"Well, that didn't work out so well." The Harbringer with the beam cannon commented petulantly. "That's an entire hit of good Spiffy, wasted."

"Not even slightly, Brother!" The Harbringer with the injection gun retorted triumphantly. "He may not be willing to cooperate, still, but once the Spiffy high wears off... ah, then we'll see what is what. The crushing black depths of depression of a Spiffy low are enough to break any person, eventually. If the first dosn't do it, we'll hit her again. After the second dose wears off there is no EARTHLY WAY that she'll have any resistance left... she'd eat her own babies alive, if she had them, for a third hit... reading a few words on a paper will be simplicity itself to ask of her."

"Wow, she's really getting turned on!" The knife wielding Harbringer commented, staring at Cagalli.

"Naturally. With a concentrated dose of Spiffy in her like that, she'd probably fuck that table if it grew a wang. Or hell, even if it didn't!" The Harbringer with the beam cannon stepped forward slyly, setting his weapon aside for the moment. He reached up for his helmet and unclapsed it.

"Brother, what are you doing?"

"Brother, I am not of a mind to waste a good Spiffy hit, even if its for the Prophet's Will. It has been almost three months since I last kissed a woman, and I'd like to go to heaven with a fresher memory than that. And since she's going to enjoy it anyway..." The Harbringer removed his helmet, revealing a pasty skinned, light green haired, blue eyed visage, with freckles and a crooked nose. Definitely a Coordinator... only people who lived in space full time had complexions that pasty. This guy didn't even look to Athrun like the sort that went outside much even in the PLANTS. "Normally the thought of making out with a Natural would be abhorrent, and it still is... I cannot understand how Mr. Zala deals with such filth on an intimate basis... but given that I will be abandoning mortality for Angel-hood shortly, I suppose I can swallow my disgust." The Harbringer leaned towards Cagalli from the side. "Aww, she's almost cute from this angle... look at her sweat and twitch... mmm, Spiffy is fun, isn't it, Mrs. Zala-Attha?" The Harbringer cupped her chin and turned her face to meet his, covering her lips with his.

Cagalli's eyes flew wide open, and Athrun shivered, because of the stark fury that he saw in them. He smiled a private, hard smile... these stupid bastards weren't thinking at all. He began gathering himself to move, rolling his shoulders back and forth to loosen his arms in their sockets. This was going to hurt, but pain was no longer a physical consideration of his. Just because the drug was forcing Cagalli to enjoy the forced kiss didn't mean it was paralyzing her at the same time, or preventing her from taking actions of her own. And Athrun knew better than anyone else alive that even the most overwhelming of pleasure sometimes couldn't stop Cagalli from doing whatever the hell she wanted, whenever the hell she felt like it! She was just stubborn like that. Athrun smirked as his keenly listening ears heard the sound of teeth biting into a soft, protruding flap of muscle and chewing their way through.

"FRUAAGGHHH! AGGHHHRA!" The Harbringer stumbled backwards, screaming incoherently and violently, with blood geysering from his mouth every time he opened his jaws. Cagalli's mouth was stained with blood from the nose to the chin, and she continued to chew for several appalled seconds before she swallowed the raw muscle. She couldn't help herself... despite the horror in her mind, it just tasted SO DAMNED GOOD! She hoped nothing else would come into contact with her mouth... in her pleasure inebriated state, she was sure she'd eat just about anything and like it, despite how she wanted to faint and vomit. "Well... they were right... it did feel good..." Cagalli mumbled distractedly.

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" The Harbringer with the knife staggered away from his compatriot, wiping bright, hot blood from his face shield. "She bit off his tongue and ate it!" Another Harbringer was making vomiting noises inside his helmet, and the rest of the others were backing away, staring with shock and disgust at Cagalli and their flailing, gagging, choking and especially bleeding companion. No one was paying the slightest bit of attention to Athrun, at least at the moment, and it was then that he acted. The green Seed dropped through his mind like a blazing emerald, before detonating with the sound of a million thunderbolts. Athrun leapt to his feet in the same instant, throwing both shoulders back violently in a rolling motion that disloacted both arms at the shoulder. Tucking his feet up, he somersaulted forwards onto the desk, landing with a painful "thump-thump" of his arms sliding back into their sockets, bound wrists now in front of him.

Athrun didn't waste a second, as the other Harbringers were already starting to react. He spun around like a top and round kicked the two closest Harbringers right in the head, knocking one down to the floor and sending the other reeling back into the glass windows, spiderwebbing them with cracks. Athrun then dived on the tongueless Harbringer, who was too busy screaming and bleeding to death from the mouth to resist as Athrun stole his knife, reversed his grip and sliced his bonds apart. Dropping the blade for the moment, as it was useless against the Harbringer's armor, Athrun instead grabbed up the set aside beam cannon, which he did not hesitate to turn on the still scrambling to react Harbringers. It was over in a matter of seconds, sizzling green plasma blasts, the same color as the molten rage in his eyes blasting off heads and scorching charred holes through torsos. Athrun blasted the tongueless man in the head once he had a chance, ending his miserable cries. He then turned the beam cannon on the vials of Spiffy that had fallen onto the floor, and vaporized them without pause, even though it set the floor on fire.

Still racing against time, Athrun snatched up the dropped knife and sliced it through the armrests underneath Cagalli's arms, the plastic bindings on her wrists being too risky a target given how much she was twitching and jerking, still fighting against her drugged mind with all her willpower. She was losing the battle. It wasn't really a battle a person could win, unless they could manipulate their own mind and force themselves not to feel any pleasure at all, and Cagalli could definitely not do that. Athrun debated grabbing one of the linear rifles too, as he slung the beam cannon over his shoulders, the power pack at his waist and gathered Cagalli up into his arms as gently as he could manage. Outside the window, the Tormented, alerted by the beam blasts from inside the room, was starting to turn around towards them. Briefly, Athrun entertained the fantasy of turning the beam cannon on the enemy Gundam at close range, but he knew it would be, at best, a mutual kill scenario, and that was unacceptable with Cagalli's life also in the balance. Instead, he sprinted for the hallway... it was high time that he showed the Brotherhood just what sort of hornet's nest they'd kicked!

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Author Note: Whew... Snakes in the Grass is taking longer than I'd expected. Three more chapters to go, maybe four depending on how things go, and then on into the next important step in Gardening Eden... Pulling Weeds (which is the Cray and... lots more arc). Oh well, I don't think anyone is complaining. Much.

People hate Unato and Yuna. Wow. I'm shocked. Can't you tell. Well, Unato got his here, and Yuna... well, he's too easy to hate, he's going to be around to soak up the hate vibes for a while. A quick death, even by skinning alive and torture, is too good for him. Not all politicians are bad, LordRevan... they just have largely bad raps, and the negative stuff gets reported a lot more often than the positive stuff. Though, a great portion of the politicians in my stories do seem to be villianous, so I guess I subconsciously agree with you at least. I'm not sure what you mean, Racher... how would Lacus's presence affect the attack on Orb? She's hardly omniscient, and far from all powerful. And she's very reluctant to use what powers she does have. Annoying things, morals. Get in the way of the 'splosions.

I daresay I should get a few more reviews for Snakes 5 than Snakes 4. Don't panic, AxC fans. Well... panic all you like, but don't quit reading. The Brotherhood sure seems to be doing a good job of getting on the extreme bad side of the good guys, aren't they?


	28. Snakes in the Grass part 6

Dylan read the text message report from the Tormented and almost crashed into a building, instead of turning at the T junction. He wasn't going more than a moderate amble, trying to blend in with the other Orb Mobile Suits carefully patrolling the city, all searching for him, which was the only reason he didn't begin an involuntary destruction derby. Which was a very good thing, because that definitely would have attracted some notice... the odds of a Orb M-4 just wandering through a city building in their own capital city were basically nil. The word was starting to get out that the Traitor Gundam of the Brotherhood was strongly suspected to be operating within the city, and it was getting trickier and trickier to stay out of trouble. Sweat was pouring down his body inside his flight suit... this was WAY more stressful than even Galileo had been, at least until the end. His capabilities were no longer unknowns... he was relying on luck, some minor skill and the fact that the Orbites were distracted by the plight of their political leaders... and those were a narrower operating margin than he liked.

Which was why, when he read the sudden text from Mary, which reported that both Athrun Zala and Cagalli Zala-Attha had apparently managed to do the impossible and not only get loose in the Parliament building, current whereabouts unknown, but they'd managed to kill six fully armed and armed Harbringers, who were SUPPOSED to be guarding them in the process, that he reacted so strongly! How the HELL did they pull THAT off!? Were all those Harbringers sniffing Waft and pumping Spiffy? What the FUCK was going on in that building!? Was it too much to ask to keep two young adults, neither armed and one of them moderately injured, under wraps for a few hours!? Dylan was starting to feel like the Boss must have when getting the reports of all those mission fuckups from Aireg, Dylan and Mary... and he didn't like it! "Well, on to fucking plan C then, I guess!" Dylan muttered caustically under his breath. Voice comms with his allies was out of the question... too great a chance he would be intercepted or overheard. A notepad appeared in his mind and he began writing on it, which was not nearly as easy as it sounded, because it was for one, creepy as fuck, and for two, he had to keep his arms and hands still or else he'd give himself away.

"Kill... them... now... god damn this is taking forever... fuck!" Dylan saw his muttered complaint appear on the virtual notepad, a figment of the NIC interface between him and the Traitor's CPU. "How the fuck do you backspace... damn it!" His words kept showing up on the virtual paper as they passed through his mind. "Jig... is... up. Destroy... what... you... can... oww, mindcramp... damn it... fuck... shit... motherfucker... how... do... you... turn... this... fucking... thing... off!?" Dylan winced... Mary was not going to be impressed with this message, he had the feeling. Maybe being mute had its own advantages, in this very specific case, where she was undoubtedly much more used to the mental gymnastics required to write without using her hands. She certainly didn't have to worry about random cusswords slipping into her messages. "Give... termination... orders... to... ground... froces... FUCK... HOW... THE... FUCK... DID... IT... MISPELL... FROCES... FUCK... AGAIN... FORCES... THERE... JESUS... FUCKING... CHRIST! Once... you... deal... enough... damage... bug... out... rendevous... at... pre-arranged... point! Send message." The words on the notepad turned red and then the notepad disappeared and Dyaln sighed with relief. "Fuck me... I can spell "rendevous", but not "forces"? What the fuck?"

Dylan swore vehemently as, within about thirty seconds of his message, he got a reply from Mary. Her text was drawn in virtual crayon, now two words the same color, like a four year old might do, despite its concise wording and perfect spelling and grammar. "What do I mean, the jig is up? Mary, godamnit, we just lost our two ace in the hole hostages, and given the briefs I read on them, we ain't getting em back. First thing that bastard Zala's gonna do is find an empty room with an outdoor window and then he and the Chief Representative are gonna be fucking gone! About three minutes after they get to a safe location, they're going to bum rush us, especially once the Zala's start yapping about how the Harbringers are murdering, mutliating and torturing the hostages. Anyone hostile to Orb in or around that building is now officially considered an open target." Dylan sighed. How the fuck was he going to put that into another text? "I'm glad you're fucking amused by my note, by the way. Such a great fucking time for humor." Dylan's voice dripped sarcasm. All the same, he called the notepad back to mind once more, and began composing his reply.

It turned out that he didn't get the chance to finish even the first sentence. There was almost no warning at all, as the rescue forces made their move. Dylan certainly was caught off guard... there hadn't even been a tiny blurb about an impending takedown operation over the few unjammed Orb comm channels. Then again, considering the rescue forces weren't FROM Orb, perhaps that was to be expected. Dylan's false patrol route, on a hillside several kilometers distant from the main Government district and the Parliament building, gave him a very wide and clear picture of what was going down. One of the four Zealots Mary had in support went up like a barn full of firecrackers, momentarily skewered on a bright lance of blue-purple energy streaming down from the sky overhead. There was no clear origin point of the energy blast, at least for a second or so, until the air shimmered and rippled, at multiple spots in the sky, several hundred meters above the ground. Eight Solar Knight Archons de-mirage colloided overhead, followed by eight more about two and a half kilometers overhead. The bastards had conducted a mirage colloid cloaked drop from orbit... just like the Brotherhood had!

"FUCK! They're here already!? God damn, time flies!" Dylan swore. This was earlier than they'd been told to expect. Looks like the higher ups had miscommunicated a little. Or maybe that bastard Durandel was trying to get cute. In any case, it was DEFINITELY time to get the FUCK out while it was still possible! Bad enough to be surrounded by hostile Orb forces, now there was a full platoon of Solar Knights in the area as well, and they weren't fucking around in the slightest! Given the surprised and even angry voice comms he was picking up from the Orb troops, it didn't look like THEY had had any idea the Solar Knights were about to kick the party off either, and they were NONE TOO HAPPY about the potential risk to their politicians and Chief Representative. Of course, the Orb forces could not know that their leader was already likely safe. Neither could the Solar Knights... which made this ploy very risky. Uncharacteristically risky.

Dylan narrowed his eyes in calculation, as the three remaining Zealots and the Tormented scrambled to defend themselves against the first wave of Solar Knights. Durandal and Cagalli Zala-Attha were infamous political opponents, everyone knew that. As far as Dylan was aware, Orb had not even requested help from the Solar Knights in this matter. Durandel had to know that sending them in anyway, especially without consulting or warning Orb first, was going to kick a damn big hornet's nest... especially if the Chief Representative and other important government officials got blown up in the crossfire. That would be a MAJOR black mark on the Solar Knights, and by extension on Durandel. It would be the USN interfering in a member-state's affairs without being asked... a very dangerous precedent to set, even more so with the potential for the death of a national leader in the balance. Nobody in the other member-states was going to just let that kind of cavalier attitude, and fast and loose leadership style go without remark or censure. It could very well foul up Durandel's entire career, and would almost certainly do so if Cagalli were to die. And Durandel wasn't the sort of man to take a chance like that.

Which meant, upon consideration, that since he HAD made the decision to send them in early and without warning, even though it was part of the plan anyway, for the Solar Knights to show up and save the day, that Durandel had an inside source on something. Or at least whoever was commanding this contingent of Solar Knights did. Dylan's keen nose for betrayal smelled a rat... and for once, it wasn't him. He found he didn't much care at all for being on the side of the betrayed... very nasty sinking sensation in the gut, and a clenching of the heart. The Solar Knights had commenced their attack right after Zala and his wife had broken loose, at pretty much the bare minimum time that the two of them could have gotten clear. With almost all comms jammed, except for the Brotherhood ones, that had to mean... that the Solar Knights were somehow tapped in to the Harbringer comm lines, at the very least! Dylan swallowed hard... it was likely that they had access to ALL channels, if they had access to one. But how'd they get ANY access... the Boss's domination of the comm networks was basically absolute... Dylan couldn't even understand the type of comm tech they used, much less imagine how it would get hacked or disrupted!?

Secure in the knowledge that the Chief Representative and her husband were as safe as they could be in the current situation, the Solar Knights had obviously decided, and rightly, that any further hesitation on their part would only put the situation back in the Brotherhood's favor. Once the dust had settled, they could claim secret intelligence sources gave them the info that the major hostages were safe, and that there hadn't been time to explain to the Orb forces or else the opportunity would have been lost. All things considered, if they won without too much damage to either property or people, there would be few people complaining about the pre-emption of Orb's authority, especially outside of Orb. That Orb had been unable to even defend or recover its own leaders from a terrorist attack was enough to make some of their rivals in the FNE and ALU smile... if the USN stepped in and cleanly and quickly put an end to the situation, saving the lives of the Orb leaders in the process... well, the FNE and ALU certainly wouldn't complain about the lack of respect of Orb's national authority, and even the PLANTS were likely to hold their tongues, considering the situation would have worked out for the best after all.

Very neat. Dylan found himself admiring the bold move, even as the Brotherhood Mobile Suits were steadily pushed back, away from the Parliament building, outnumbered and on the verge of being overwhelmed, even though the Solar Knights were holding back to avoid causing as much collateral damage as possible. The second wave of eight Archons landed smoothly in an encirclement pattern around the Parliament building, further blocking off any chance of a Brotherhood attack putting the rescue attempt to naught by destroying the building. The Brotherhood would be defeated, perhaps losing a Gundam or even two... Dylan could not imagine the well informed Solar Knight wasn't aware of the Traitor's presence, and his spine crawled a bit... was there a crosshair on him right now? Orb would be made to look even weaker and less effective than it already had been from the events at LAS. The Solar Knights would gain more glory and acclaim. The Orb leaders would owe their very lives to Durandel and his subordinates. And people would start to get used to the idea of the USN intervening without regard to national boundaries, "in emergencies". Which was a very vague definition that could mean pretty much anything the USN didn't like or wanted a piece of, Dylan knew. Yes, very neat indeed.

Dylan wondered if Noah had been aware of this all from the beginning, or if this was a political power play on the part of Durandel in their covert alliance. Dylan found himself breaking out in a bit of a cold sweat at the thought... if the Boss and Durandel decided it was time to stop pretending to be friends... well, Dylan sure as fuck didn't want to be around when things started falling out. Those two men were definitely at the top of his "do not ever FUCK with this person" list. Well, there was no sense in freaking out about it now... he might not even live out this betrayal, if it was even that. The plan was definitely screwed at this point in time. Another Zealot went down, skewered on three different sword blades from three different directions. The odds were getting worse, and the Zealot pilots were getting sloppy, already starting to give up. Bastards had no stomach for a losing battle, even one fought out in virtual reality, at least for them. Losing games were no fun after all. Dylan found he couldn't blame them... being the guy getting pounded wasn't his idea of a good time either. It was definitely time to be elsewhere.

Dylan began making his way down the streets of the city, headed towards the harbor area. Once he'd put some distance between himself and any other Orb machines, he'd mirage colloid and go out low, just over the wave tops, just to be sure. There was a bulk surface to orbit cargo container waiting for him and the Traitor at a BoranderCorp subsidary in the former Oceanic Union, which was had been a formal PLANTS territory since the end of the Second Valentine War. If he could reach the rendevous point and the cargo container, then he was home free. As he turned a corner, putting the battle behind him, something made Dylan pause. A sick feeling in his stomach, that was very unfamiliar to him. He stopped, and stood there for a minute, trying to figure out what it was. At last, an almost ludicrous idea came to mind, and he chuckled, though without humor. "Ah... fuck me... NOW... of all times!? It's not like I owe that bitch anything... shit... it is the same cage though, ain't it? The same, shitty cage..."

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Rey dropped his Archon back to the second line, swapping out for one of the reserve units. He'd taken direct command of this mission, both as a personal test and because of the delicate and sensitive nature of what the Solar Knights were doing. One mistake, one errant beam blast, even a misstep with the hoverthrusters... and it could all backfire on him, and even worse, on Gil, a hundredfold. He simply could not trust the responsibility to anyone else. This had to go PERFECTLY. There was no other acceptable outcome. So far, things were going according to plan... even better than planned, in some ways. Athrun Zala truly was a formidable man, breaking free during an interrogation and not only rescuing his wife, but killing six armed and well trained Harbringers in the process... it was incredibly impressive! Rey was unsure if he himself could have pulled something like that off! It was just too bad that Athrun was poisoned against Gil by his wife... Rey could easily imagine himself being able to greatly benefit from having Athrun as a mentor and peer. Such a waste.

Rey refocused on the battle at hand. Fifty percent of the Zealots had already been destroyed, with minimal collateral damage and even less damage to the Solar Knights. One of the two remaining was on its last legs, one arm half disabled, both shoulder mounted weapons gone, hard pressed on three sides by sword wielding Archons, while the other five active engaged Archons kept the last Zealot and the hideous Tormented occupied or pinned down. Rey allowed himself a small, hard smile... the Brotherhood had been taken completely off guard by the Solar Knight's sudden arrival out of the blue. Obviously they had thought themselves the only ones capable of a cloaked descent from orbit, even though Noah had included such a mission parameter in his design of the Archon. Of course there was no way for the rank and file of the Brotherhood to know that. That element of surprise had badly shaken the Brotherhood's usually fanatical morale, along with the sobering fact that they were now hopelessly outnumbered and seperated from the only thing that had been keeping them safe from Orb's forces.

He listened to the near panicked shouts and cries and conflicting orders being shouted by the Harbringers inside the Parliament building. He'd been given a device by Noah that allowed his Archon's comm unit to patch into the variable quantum comm bands the Brotherhood used for its communications and control signals... the handheld device would be destroyed at a later point, so that there was no evidence of a collaboration. They would tell Orb that they had acted on secret USN eyes only intelligence, and that there had been no time to bring Orb into the loop while maintaining the safety of the Chief Representative and other hostages. Orb would hardly have a foot to stand on to complain... considering that they'd done something almost exactly like this in the first Brotherhood terrorist incident, when the Phoenix King was deployed to Switzerland without regard to the authority of the USN or FNE. And unlike the Switzerland incident, this intervention by the Solar Knights would end up saving lives, not least that of Cagalli Zala-Attha herself! No, there would be way Orb could protest this usurpation of their authority, especially since they'd been sitting around with their thumbs up their asses for several hours, unable to do anything but futiley search for the Traitor!

The original plan, the one Noah and Gil and Rey had discussed, had had the Solar Knights springing into action another hour or so later than they actually had, with them circling at about the thirty thousand foot mark, still cloaked, slowly descending as the Harbringers did their best to incite the media into a frenzy with acts of barbarism, culminating in the public termination of Athrun Zala, or the display of his brutalized remains, depending on how things had turned out during the initial drop assault, an act that would be sure to drive a stake into the hearts of Coordinators everywhere, not just in Orb but across the world, galvanising yet more calls for action and support of the USN's security measures, present and future. However, the ingenous and daring escape perpetuated by Athrun before such an event could take place had forced Rey to begin the assault early, before Orb could be informed of the act and render the entire scenario worthless to Gil.

Rey had been intending to use the comm device Noah had given him to instruct that Cagalli Zala-Attha be taken to a place of great safety just before the Solar Knights began their attack, since the device not only tapped into the Brotherhood comms, but also disguised Rey's voice, making him sound identically to Noah's electronically disguised and modified public "Prophet" voice. The Harbringers would obey orders given to them by the Prophet directly without question... that was the beauty of true religious fanatics, eager to do whatever it took to advance their cause, even if it meant dying. Especially if it meant dying... after all, they all expected to become Angels after death. Rey snorted... such easily duped idiots. There were no such things as Angels. Some people were definitely extremely superior to others, but that was the extent of it. Well, it served Gil's purpose, who was he to argue? Rey reached out and clicked on the device.

"Harbringers! This is your Prophet! Our enemies draw near, and the time has come for your trials of ascension! Go now, drop all other tasks and repel any and all invaders on the outer building grounds! Do not stop to purge any hostages, or help any wounded... this is the time of your own re-creations! Makes haste! All hail the Brotherhood!" Rey rolled his eyes, wondering how the hell Noah could like spouting this kind of hyerbole and vainglorious crap. He was embarassed already, and he was only making use of it for a tactical ploy, with no one around to witness him doing it! He couldn't imagine speaking like that around groups of people, even fanatical supporters, without bursting out in laughter at his own ridiculousness. He turned off the voice disguiser, ignoring the chorus of zealous assent from the Harbringers. He switched to the Solar Knight comm system. "This is Knight-Commander ze Burrel. I am detecting movement inside the Parliament building. All reserve units, be ready for imminent enemy attack. Beware, enemy is known to possess man portable beam weaponry... it would be unbefitting a Solar Knight to be defeated by an infantryman!"

Even as Rey spoke, the first squads of Harbringers began hustling out of the Parliament building, screaming joyfully as they ran towards their own oblivion, determined to take as many of the supposed invaders with them as they could. Rey could only guess what sort of surprise it was for the Harbringers to discover themselves charging not a unit of special forces or regular army soldiers, but two entire squadrons of Mobile Suits. From the way even the fanatical shouts faltered and died away, he was guessing it wasn't an entirely pleasant one. Rey opened up with the four 20mm CIWS guns in his Archon's head and neck region, hosing down the sidewalk and lawn the fifteen odd Harbringers were sprinting across, raising a cloud of dust and smoke lit with bright firecracker like explosions. Rey saw a Harbringer go flying through the air, his entire body flaccid like jelly, crushed by the battering explosions even though they could not penetrate his Phase Shifted body armor. More Harbringers charged out of the building from other doors, shouting and yelling fit for a celebration, only to be gunned down by the CIWS and shoulder mounted beam cannons of other Archons.

Only a couple of the Harbringers even got a shot off, and most of those were linear rifle bolts that either missed horrendously or exploded harmlessly against the lower legs of an Archon. Here and there a bright green beam blast scored a little paint, or melted an arm length scar in an armor plate, but the 20mm beam cannons lacked the power to melt through a Mobile Suit's armor with just one shot, especially an ill aimed one. After a couple of minutes, no more Harbringer squads came sprinting out of the Parliament building, and Rey listened hard to their comm channels. They were all dead silent. Almost sixty bodies lay burned, crushed and dismembered on the ground. Rey listened to his Solar Knights react to the suicide charge... most were dumbfounded and slightly shaken by the insane attack by the infantry, regardless of their advanced weapons, but Rey detected no signs of disgust or regret. Good. The Solar Knights Gil would need in the future would need to be able to handle messy tasks without freaking out about it. Rey wished he could have had Shinn and the other members of Second Platoon here for this mission... they were turning into his all star team, and he wanted to be sure of their commitment, but it was regrettably First Platoon's duty day, and Second was still on leave after LAS.

"All reserve pilots, dismount and ensure the safety of the hostages inside. Intelligence confirms the number of enemy bodies to match the total number of enemy ground forces, but stay on your guards. Beware of any traps or other nasty surprises." Rey ordered firmly, turning back to the Mobile Suit battle. The final Zealot was hacked down even as he watched, losing all four limbs in a matter of seconds before being skewered throught the cockpit area from behind, courtesy of a rather graceful twisting maneuver executed by a hoverthrusting Archon. The Solar Knights were really very impressive, and things were still in the early stages... Rey smiled again, actually happy. The world was as it should be. Noah wasn't going to be very happy about the loss of his two Gundams, but Rey knew Noah would get over it... he could always build more. "Main unit, odd pilots divert to indicated location to intercept enemy Gundam designated Traitor. Buckingham Sierra Seven, uploading tactical maps, keep that slippery bastard pinned down, no matter who he looks like!" Rey pinged his map on top of the M-4 IFF beacon that currently was the Traitor, directing the Archons and CIC mothership after it.

Since the Traitor only assumed generic IFF codes, it was actually easy enough to spot, assuming you had access to all the specific IFF codes being used by the Orb forces, and could mix and match their locations until you came up with one that had an IFF beacon but no associated unit. It wasn't something you most people would think to do, especially in a chaotic battlefield, but with inside knowledge of how the Traitor's Holoshroud and stealth systems worked, it was almost trivial. Rey wondered if Noah might not teach him about the weaknesses of his Gundams next time around... that would be too bad, since they were magnificent machines, and Rey truly enjoyed pouring over their technical specs, and training against them as virtual sparring partners. You had to fight against the best if you wanted to better them, after all. He just wished he had a more complete data load on the Phoenix King and the Seraph, and probably one on the Vorpal as well... if he could start beating THOSE machines he would know he was truly good! It didn't matter to Rey that the pilots might be more skilled than he... with proper analysis of their combat styles and techniques, it was only a matter of time before he figured out a way to beat them. Anyone could be beaten... it just took enough knowledge and preparation.

"Even numbered pilots, with me. We're going to end this Tormented Gundam's nightmare once and for all!" Rey exhorted. He was eagerly anticipating taking on the Tormented for real, even though he'd had it dominated in the simulators for almost a week now. It was the third one he'd beaten, after the Traitor and the Haunted, though the Traitor's battle performance was so dismal he hardly counted it. He was moving on to the Revenant next... its size and awesome offensive and defensive power presenting a very difficult challenge in a one on one fight. So far he had not yet had a sucessful engagement with it... his Archon always got shot away before he could inflict critical damage, though he did usually last more than thirty minutes, which was better than he'd done when using an Elemental. It was a tough one all right... he'd have to put a lot of thought into it. And after that it would be time for the Vengeance... he could not WAIT, especially given how well Shinn had done against it! And maybe, after that, assuming Noah was in a very good mood, he might get to take a try at the Brotherhood... Noah had released no details on that one though, besides the fact that it was his "masterpiece".

Rey was tempted at times to drop by the Great Endeavor and try and get a sneak peak of it. It wouldn't be hard, with the kinds of access Noah had given him to the Brotherhood's primary base. All it would take would be a hooded robe, like what the Harbringers wore when off duty, and he'd blend right in. He knew all the passwords and keycodes for pretty much the entire place too, except for Noah's private areas. Rey was pretty sure he knew more than Gil did about the Brotherhood and its plans... he could not help knowing really, since Noah frequently talked with him about them, even before Rey had become leader of the Solar Knights. Rey felt bad, keeping the depth of his relationship with Noah, which was indeed nigh familial and not just good friendship like Gil thought, from his foster father, but somehow, it never felt like the right time to tell him, despite all that Rey owed Gil. He'd get around to it eventually... he'd sit down with Gil over a chess game and he'd let him know it all... the location of the Great Endeavor... the exotic animal shipments to Earth... the special modifications in progress to the atmosphere exchanging units throughout the PLANTS... even the truth about Green EDEN, which would rock Gil to his core! All of it... he'd unburden himself... but not yet. It'd keep. There was always something more important to do...

Such as taking down the Tormented, Rey thought as he brought himself back to the here and now, as he caught up with the three Archons he'd ordered to help him press the attacks vs the Tormented. Not that he needed their help, since he'd mastered all the stategies for countering the Tormented's every move, but appearances had to be maintained. "Spread out, and keep your distance. Don't stay within fifty meters for more than three seconds at a time." Rey ordered, his voice cold and steady. "Three point four seconds is the activation time for the sonic disruption weapon, and fifty meters is its maximum ensured destruction range. Be careful, the sonic waves can deflect ranged fire because of the way they push aside the air, like a sonic boom. Focus fire on the right arm and side, I will keep the left hand busy. Stay mobile, and be ready for a sudden close ranged rush at any time... the enemy is more agile than us, and of equal speed. You have to stay ahead of it, and cover each other. It's weapons are mostly short ranged, so as long as you stay at medium-close range, she can't hurt you. Mind your fire lanes, spare the city as much as possible!"

Rey paid no heed to the acknowledgements as he skated to the front of the formation of Archons, hoverthrusters slip sliding him quickly across the ground. The hoverthrusters were key in this fight, with their ability to change direction smoothly and rapidly, allowing him to duck in and out of her weapon's effective envelope. For all the power of the Tormented, it's pilot was still just a Natural, and not even a real soldier either. She took her job seriously, and she knew how to use the NIC system to her advantage in close combat, as well as the visual attack of the grotesque Holoshroud, unlike the Haunted or Traitor, and she had the incredible defense provided by the left palm Positron Reflector, but the Tormented also had many weaknesses. Its weapons were almost all focused on melee range for one, and the rocket launcher was ineffective against Phase Shift type armors. The Positron Shield could only guard against attacks from one direction at once. The pilot was very emotional, and could be easily goaded by a confident and skilled enemy, and was prone to ineffective rage driven actions when provoked. Already she would be off balance and scared, her Zealots destroyed, her fellow Apostle running for his life and abandoning her to her fate... once he helped desperation set in more firmly, it would be all over save for the killing blow.

Rey darted in, shoulder beam cannons blasting at her face, which she blocked with the Positron Shield, stumbling backwards slightly as she caught her balance. That was something else you had to bear in mind when fighting those equipped with a NIC system. They reacted like a human would... not like a pilot would. That was both to their advantage... and not so much. Mobile Suit pilots did not flinch from attacks directed at their machine's face, since that was just where the main camera and other electronic gear was... many Mobile Suits could continue fighting without a head, and even if not, it wasn't like a missing head was going to hurt the pilot. It was a different story for a NIC machine though, where a shot at the face was like taking a punch to the jaw... it made sane people flinch away, even unconsciously. Rey used the flinch to slide in close, blasting at close range with his accelerated impulse cannon, also fruitlessly due to the Positron Shield. He pressed in close, practically touching the reddish field edge of the Shield and then whirled past to the side, turning around to fire a quartet of missiles into the Tormented's back as he sped out of range.

The pilum missiles failed to penetrate the Tormented's Phase Shift armor, but the explosions shook the machine and sent her stumbling again, and by the time she recovered, Rey was well out of range. Rey knew that he could have taken a shot with his accelerated impulse cannon or beam cannons and perhaps finished the fight then and there. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time he'd taken advanatge of that headshot flinch to do such a thing in the simulators. But he had to make this look like a fight... if he took her down too easily, it might raise questions about why the other Solar Knights had proven less able. Unlikely, but why risk a thing if there was no need? Mary would know he could have killed her too, since she was far from self deceptive in combat at least, if not in matters of the heart, and she'd be humilated and enraged by the counting of coup. True to his prediction, the Tormented spun around and pounced after him, monomolecular trident in its right hand, electro-chain fully extended and sparking on the left forearm, finger claws popped and clenching into a fist of rage. In so doing she provided a lovely target for the three other Archons.

Beam cannons flashed and pink tinged beam blades cut through the air, only to be stopped cold by the reddish tinged Positron Shield as Mary was forced to spin around again to avoid being taken in the back. Her pursuit of Rey faltered and then came to a halt, though her retaliatory swings towards the other three Archons went wild and wide, as they reversed thrust and skated backwards like ice dancers. Rey saw the head of the Tormented's grotesque illusion start to disrupt and waver, and knew that Mary was preparing a sonic blast, even though there was no one in range. Still, it was an awesomely destructive area attack that would devastate the surrounding city, and might be enough, even outside the kill radius, to stun and confuse her opponents long enough to get her emotional footing back. Rey sniped at her with his accelerated impulse cannon again, interrupting the Tormented's motions as she spun around yet again to block the energy blast. If an opponent didn't give the Tormented time to fully charge its amplifiers and bring its arms down to its sides, it could not fire the CUSA weapon at full power, or without damaging itself. Rey might as well have had a control switch to turn off Mary's offensive weapons... with his in depth knowledge of how the Tormented functioned and fought, it was close to the same thing.

One of the other Archons dallied a little too long trying to make a killing swing with its beam sword on the next pass, and got his sword and sword arm entangled by the Tormented's electro-chain before he could zip back out of range. The Tormented jerked its left arm back hard, dragging the hovering Archon toward it like a kite on a string, before slamming its trident into the Archon's chest with a shriek of protesting metal and clouds of sparks. However, the mono-molecular edges of the trident could not penetrate the Transphase Shift armor of the Archon, though the impact itself stunned the pilot for a moment. The Tormented cocked its left wrist and began spraying the caught Archon with its four plasma flamethrowers, while at the same time sending a massive elecrical shock up its chain and into the sword and arm of its prey, blasting them off in a shards of superheated armor and melted circuits. The stricken Archon flailed backwards, armor starting to sag and run like chocolate under a blowtorch, wavering like a candle in hell.

At least until Rey came in from the back side and hewed the Tormented's left arm off at the shoulder with a single blow, using his shield to smash the Tormented, who had taken too much time on the other Archon and had neglected her own defense, forward onto hand and knees, trident falling to the street with a tremendous clang, edges digging deep into the concrete and leaving it sticking up at an angle. Rey disengaged his hoverthrusters, dropping the Archon to the street with a weighty metallic thud. "Get him clear and to an aid station immediately! I'll handle the Tormented!" Rey ordered the other two Knights, indicating the fallen Knight with a flourish of his sword before whipping it back down to take off the Tormented's right leg below the knee. Rey was not pleased that a Solar Knight had been injured, perhaps even killed, but it was the excuse he'd needed to end the fight quickly. The Tormented sprawled and bucked on the ground beneath him, trying to adjust to the sudden loss of the left arm and lower right leg.

"What's the status on the Traitor? Have you hunted him down yet?" Rey enquired of the Buckingham and the other four Solar Knights of the main line unit, as he prepared to finish the Tormented off.

"Sir! We were just about to contact you! Our deepest apologies sir, but we have lost track of the indicated IFF beacon. Target was headed in your general direction at last sighting. We are heading towards you now, but we have not detected any more generic IFF beacons without our range, and we have seen no evidence of mirage colloid being used." The CIC operator aboard the Buckingham replied, his voice puzzled. "Possibility of a new type of stealth system we have not encountered before."

"Unlikely." Rey narrowed his eyes. What the hell was that bastard thinking? The Traitor should have cut and run as soon as it was confronted with force, or even before hand. That was how it had responded in EVERY simulator battle. Its pilot knew he was no front lines soldier, that he was basically helpless in a stand up fight. He should have taken the most direct route out of the city and looked for a location to mirage colloid and run... heading back towards Rey, TOWARDS a battle, was nonsensical for Jean Dylan. Besides, there was no way, simply no way that the Traitor could have a stealth system that would safeguard it against the Buckingham's sensor suite, not at this range! Not with the inside knowledge Rey had of the Traitor's systems. There should be no way that the Traitor's IFF beacon could just disappear... Rey gritted his teeth, wishing that it was Camelot and not Buckingham up there... Meyrin Hawke wouldn't be having this kind of problem!

Well, he'd finish off the Tormented, and then he'd go and figure out what was up with the Traitor. One thing at a time. Rey kicked out hard with one leg, rolling the Tormented onto its side, ruining its meagre balance and sending it sprawling again. He raised his sword for a downward plunge that would tear through the cockpit region precisely, hopefully without setting off the self destruct or damaging the reactor and energy storage unit, either of which would cause the machine to blow itself to tiny pieces. That would be bad for collateral damage, and besides, Gil wanted to have a firsthand and upclose look at some of the Brotherhood technology, and this was the only way Rey could think to do it, short of taking him to the Great Endeavor personally. The mere idea made Rey sick to his stomach for some reason. Noah would be enraged. That thought made him even sicker. His balance and focus wavered for a second.

The beam blast came from behind and struck the Archon's forearm, just below the elbow, blasting the lower limb off, still holding the sword, sending it spinning through the air to slice heavily through a nearby building. Rey cursed loudly, a rarity for him, and turned, feeling slightly slow and clumsy when walking and not hoverthrusting. What he saw surprised him, which was never a pleasant sensation. The Traitor was bounding down the street at him at a dead sprint, shield held at least somewhat in the right position and beam bolts spitting steadily from the rifle in the other hand. The accuracy wasn't too bad either... Rey had to move his shield to stop a few, something he could practically do in his sleep, which was good, because he was still stunned slightly. Because he now knew why the generic IFF beacons had disappeared. The Traitor had turned off its Holoshroud and IFF masking systems... and though the Solar Knights had a record of pretty much every false identity the Traitor had, they had nothing on its true form. Rey had to admire the crafty son of a bitch, even as he opened up with his shoulder mounted missiles and beam cannons.

Bare of any concealing illusion, the Traitor didn't look like much. It was about as generic looking a Mobile Suit as was possible, because any sort of distinguishing marks might interfere with the Holoshroud. The original Duel would have looked positively sporty compared to this pale grey, slope shouldered, short limbed, Gundam-reject sprinting towards him. But for all its ugliness, the Traitor was still a Gundam, and because it was acting completely outside the simulated model Rey had practicised against, he found himself at a sudden disadvantage, not knowing what the man might do next, even though his own skills were still far superior! He activated his hoverthrusters again and skated backwards, leaving the fallen Tormented for a moment. For her part, the Tormented looked as surprised to see the Traitor as Rey was, especially when the Traitor stopped next to her and provided covering fire while the Tormented used a building and the Traitor to drag itself back up onto its foot. The Tormented's Holoshroud flickered and died, turned off as well, leaving two relatively nondescript Gundams standing there.

Discarding it's shield, the Traitor wrapped its arm around the Tormented's waist and then switched its beam rifle to that hand, while the other hand drew the 155mm shotcannon. Combining their thrusts, the Brotherhood Gundams lifted off into the sky and started making a beeline for the coast. The four Solar Knights detailed to destroy the Traitor in the first place swooped in, only to be blasted and suppressed by combined fire from the Tormented and Traitor, which was inaccurate but heavily concentrated, requiring the Archons to cover behind their shields, dropping back. Rey cursed again, slamming one hand down on his chair armrest. Working together, the Brotherhood Gundams were going to escape at this rate, their nuclear powered thrusters being more powerful in a straight speed running scenario than the Archons! If the Gundams were seperated, they could probably be picked off or sniped, but with them working together to watch each others backs, that was an unlikely to succeed strategy now! What had possessed Jean Dylan to turn back and risk his life for Mary O'Brien!? The man was a traitor! He didn't care about anyone but himself! This was unprecedented!

Rey forced himself not to get too angry. Victory was still... a tremendous flash of an explosion lit up the sky for a moment, and he looked up, daring to hope that an Archon had gotten lucky with a shot and taken out one of the Gundams. The luck however, was entirely on the opposite side. The Buckingham, eagerly pursuing the Traitor's newly confirmed IFF trace, had strayed into the extreme range of the Tormented's 500mm bazooka, her one remaining conventional weapon now that the trident was dropped and the left arm severed. A much better shot that Dylan could ever hope to be, Mary had not wasted the opportunity, and the Buckingham had paid the price for its eagerness. The cockpit was gone, as was much of the front quarter of the great plane, and it was spiralling down out of the sky in a definitely uncontrolled fashion, trailing smoke and flames as it arced through the midafternoon sky, before landing in the harbor with a tremendous splash, followed by a rumbling series of detonations as the engines cooked off and blew up, throwing water and steam and tiny pieces of wreckage high into the air. The Buckingham's IFF signal went blank. Twenty three Solar Knights, including the Knight-Lieutenant commanding First Platoon, gone, just like that.

"DAMN IT!" Rey punched his screen once, before regaining his control. "All Solar Knights, this is Knight-Commander ze Burrel! Break off pursuit and combat operations! We'll clean up the mess here... Orb can hunt down those crippled machines later! I want people sweeping the harbor area as soon as possible... there might be survivors from the Buckingham!" Even as he said that though, Rey knew the chances were bleak. The EWS jet had been at too low of an altitude for parachutes to work, and the entire crash had only taken a few seconds anyway. Most likely the entire crew had been pinned in their seats by the G forces of the spinning jet, or else thrown violently around the interior, before the impact with the water and subsequent secondary explosions ripped them all to pieces. Still, the effort to search had to be made... the human body could survive an amazing degree of punishment sometimes!

Rey's comm unit was lighting up with all sorts of incoming calls now, as the various Orb forces demanded to speak with the commander of the Solar Knight's contingent. Rey stared at the plume of smoke and steam that was the Buckingham's grave marker, and to the distant twinkling light that was the Traitor and Tormented receeding into the horizon, pursued by a variety of Orb jets and Mobile Suits. Rey hoped that the Orbites could take the Gundams down, but he knew, somehow, that it was unlikely. The Brotherhood Gundams would dive into the ocean soon, and by the time the Orbites got submarine capable forces into the area, the Brotherhood Gundams would be long gone. A missed opportunity! Rey really hated those. Gil wasn't likely to be jumping for joy either, even though the basic mission parameters had been accomplished. The Solar Knights would be lauded for their efforts, and lionized for their sacrifices... but Rey still felt like he'd lost. Total victory, or none at all! Damn that Jean Dylan and his insanity!

------------------------------------------------

"Ah. Noah. You look..." Durandel started to say, looking up from his celebratory cup of fine tea as his desk's comm screen activated, despite the fact that it was turned off. He sighed inside... another computer he'd have to replace. His secretary must think he was the clumsiest Coordinator alive, because he "spilled tea" on his desk's CPU at least three or four times per month, requiring that it be replaced entirely each time. How the hell Noah was getting in to the most secure computer system in the USN, Durandel didn't know, though he would have paid a lot to learn! He didn't think there were any Brotherhood plants on his staff, and the only other person with access to his personal computer was Rey, and he could trust Rey absolutely. It was definitely a conundrum. Just like the current situation... it was rare for Noah to call him so abruptly, and especially on his private comm line. Uusally it was Durandel who had to get ahold of Noah, which took hours sometimes, which was not a pleasant experience. Gilbert was one of the most powerful men in the enitre United Solar Nation... he was unaccustomed to waiting for someone to find the time to talk with him, he was used to people MAKING time.

"I am well. I just had... a minor experiment blow up in my face earlier today. It's barely even a bruise. It'll be gone by the time I land on Earth. Thanks for your concern though." Noah replied, waving a hand at the bandage still plastered over one eye, before Durandel could finish his judgement of how Noah looked. Noah wasn't in the mood for verbal sparring today, especially not as his excitment at the thought of being able to see Meyrin again started to grow overwhelming. Only another hour or two to go. He could hardly wait. But while he had no choice but to wait, he was taking care of some other tasks that had occured to him during the course of the day.

"I see." Durandel thought that might even be true, for once. Noah looked out of sorts to him... almost giddy even, despite the eye patch. Durandel smirked inwardly. Noah had ruined Meer Campbell before she could get her hooks sunk into him, and Durandel had despaired of ever being able to develop any solid intelligence on his so called partner through the intimate avenue. But now there was this situation with this girl, this Meyrin Hawke, that seemed very interesting. Hormones did rule, even when you were a enigmatic super-genius, or so it definitely seemed to him. The situation would require a very delicate touch... properly handled, this could be the in he'd been needing, to find out about what Noah was really up to. But he couldn't rush things, like he'd somewhat been doing with Meer. He could have no contact with Meyrin Hawke, or else Noah's supicions would be triggered, and then there'd be another dead potential spy and no intelligence gathered at all. It would all have to be handled through Rey, and slowly. Durandel was okay with that... Rey was very skilled, and they had plenty of time... it would be years before he was ready to move in earnest. "So what can I do for you?"

"You assume you can do something for me." Noah replied, somewhat testily. "Sometimes I wonder."

"Oh, so this is a personal call then? I'm flattered." Durandel replied, taking a sip of tea. Letting Noah rile him would play into the bastard's hands, though usually Noah was far more subtle in his mockery and antagonism. Durandel was intruiged... something was clearly eating at Noah. Maybe he'd be able to provoke something interesting out of him. The trick was staying calm and collected and polite. Noah hated it when Durandel remained unfailingly polite and very mildly sarcastic. "I can get you an autograph if you'd like, who knows, it might be worth something in a few years, or so I'd like to think."

"You're more right than you know." Noah answered, back to his more usual cryptic self. "Though what it's value will be measured in might surprise you."

"Might it?" Durandel replied noncommittally. He had no idea what Noah was babbling about now. Hmm, maybe the bastard wasn't as unbalanced as he'd thought. "Well, if this isn't a personal call, I'm afraid I'm going to need you to come to some sort of point. I have much work to do, especially considering the recent happening in Orb. I'd have to say, things worked out rather well, don't you agree?"

"Despite you jumping the gun and trying to go against the plan by capturing or destroying my two Gundams, yes." Noah frowned slightly. "Don't think I was unaware of your intentions. You'd be well advised to stick to the plan more closely in the future. If you can't follow a simple procedure, then I might have to take extra actions of my own, and that will be pleasant for neither of us."

"More work would definitely be something I would want to avoid." Durandel agreed, though he got the threat loud and clear. If Durandel kept pushing things, Noah was going to push back. Well, he'd been expecting that kind of response. If the little bastard thought Durandel was afraid of a shoving contest, when the time was ripe, well... he just hoped he continued to be so naive. Sometimes you had to push the boundary mercilessly if you wanted to stay in the game. But not yet... he'd back off for the moment. Lull and poke, lull and poke... like an ancient hunter baiting a wild predator. "My deepest apologies for any inconvenience Rey's overzealousness may have caused you. He was merely pursuing his duties as commander of the Solar Knights to the fullest, as would be expected of him by the public."

"The inconvenience is hardly worth mentioning. Things still turned out in your favor, didn't they? That's the important thing." Noah shrugged expressively.

Durandel narrowed his eyes slightly. "Yes, I agree. From what my initial reports say, Orb will practically beg to be allowed to join in with the other member-states in supporting the SPF and other USN security measures in the future. Having the USN save more than half of their legislature from tortured, barbaric deaths has generated a lot of gratitude, especially with the fact that they did not ask for our help being glossed over. It would have been better, of course, if Athrun Zala had been eliminated from the picture, but I suppose I'll have to content myself with the rather unfortunate situation of the Chief Representative. I don't have anything concrete, but initial reports say she suffered some sort of mishap that will compromise her ability to be a political leader. I'm almost sorry to see her go... she was entertaining at times, and just about the only real challenge my political career has faced, thanks to you. Still, with her out of the way, things should go much more smoothly from here on." Durandel paused a moment, but he had to ask. "What DID your people do to her anyway? I never would have thought she'd voluntarily resign, at least not so soon."

"My own details are somewhat sketchy as well, since almost all of my forces were completely annihilated." Noah's voice had no rancor. It was nothing less than what the plan had called for after all. "But if I had to guess, from what I provided to my Harbringers, and what sort of people Cagalli and Athrun are, I'd have to say its likely something to do with a rather nasty chemical reaction overstimulating the pleasure centers of the brain."

"A drug?" Durandel was actually somewhat surprised.

"At least twenty milliliters of one hundred percent pure, uncut Spiffy, yes. An abhorrent product, but it has its uses." Noah shrugged again. "You'll probably want to stay tuned to the news the next few days... the low after the high wears off, which should be in a few hours, will be most... devastating. My professional opinion is that she won't last the week out without at least two or three suicide attempts. The crushing depression is just that severe I'm afraid. Spiffy overstimulates the pleasure centers of the brain even when cut down to street dosages... the pure product actually burns some of that part of the brain out on a permanent basis. The damage from only twenty milliliters probably won't be incapacitating... she may lose her sense of pleasure from taste, or some minor tactile loss of sensitivity when it comes to generating pleasure, but if she took more than just one dose... well... what is life with no pleasure in it? Pre-death, that's all."

"How horrible. Maybe I should send her a get well soon card." Durandel's mouth jerked in a smile for a moment. "Or would that be cruel?"

"If you're going to send her anything, best do it soon. Like I said, she'll be feeling quite suicidal soon, too depressed to want to live unless she can get another dose of Spiffy, which will only make the problem worse. I've no doubt they can keep her safe from herself, at least physically... but the mental scars are... well, sometimes it's better to just let a person bleed out, yes?" Noah shook his head in abstract sadness. "Even if she lasts for the three weeks it'll take for her body to completely flush the drug from her brain, a Spiffy hit like that will stay with her, in one way or another, for the rest of her life. And she is just a Natural after all... yes, I'd definitely say you won't see her in a political office again. The stress of political responsibility would be enough to trigger more depression, and perhaps even a full relapse. Oh well... at least she had a good life up until now, right?"

"Indeed. She had her fun in the sun." Durandel mentally moved Cagalli Zala-Attha from the "threat" category to the "inconsequential" category. Well, now the Queen was off the board, it was time to move in his Knights and Rooks and Pawns to put the King in check. "I'll be sure to send my condolences to Athrun, once a proper amount of time has passed. Maybe I'll start up a donation fund for her. Do you think you could contribute a few million to a "Zala-Attha Fight Against Addiction Fund"?"

"Sure, whatever." Noah seized onto the topic at hand. "While I'm at it, why don't I throw in some funding for the SPF and other USN initiatives down the line, and for the Solar Knights as well."

"Well... I wouldn't turn such an offer down..." Durandel said slowly, wondering what had prompted this surge of seeming generosity. "You've already done so much for the Solar Knights... I might even have to accuse you of trying to subsidize them out from under me. And now you want to give more?"

"Please. I have the Brotherhood. What would I need of the Solar Knights?" Noah snorted. "I'm just a concerned world citizen, doing his part to secure the future for everyone. At least, that's what you'll tell the world when you make a press conference for it."

"You want publicity now?" Durandel was surprised. "Up till now you've wanted me to do everything I could to keep you out of the limelight. What changed?"

"That's not really your business, now is it, Gil? You owe me, and owe me big. I want some good publicity, and I'm going to pay you for it anyway, regardless of what you owe me. You should concentrate on that, and not worry so much about what I'm getting. It doesn't behoove a horse to guess why it's master puts honey in the oat bag."

"That's a rather uncomplimentary metaphor." Durandel retorted frostily.

"Regardless, that is the truth of our situation and you know it." Noah's voice grew equally cold. "I have given you much, and asked for little in return. I am about to make a significant commitment to your military projects funding, with no strings attached on how the money is spent. Its far from unreasonable to just ask for a little public pat on the head in return, is it? I don't care how you spend my money, you should not care why I want to give it to you, that way, we both get what we want. I still have the power to ruin you entirely, in a moment, Gil, remember that. Do as I tell you, accept my gifts as they come, play the part I ask of you and I'll help you get to a bright future beyond your wildest dreams. Are we clear?"

"Crystalline." Durandel muttered, fighting to keep his jaw from clenching. How DARE Noah just talk down to him, so dismissively! It wasn't like Durandel had no info on Noah's illicit activities either! If Noah could ruin Durandel, so too could Durandel ruin Noah! Durandel might be conspiring with terrorists, but Noah WAS a terrorist! "What sort of contribution are we talking about then? Anything to defray the costs of the Solar Protection Fleet would be very..."

"Transmitting the numbers now." Noah cut him off brusquely. Durandel watched the number crawl across the bottom of his screen, and started counting zeros. After he passed nine, he started frowning.

"Surely this is a joke." Durandel's eyebrows were climbing and his hand may have shaken, just slightly, on his teacup. "This is..."

"It's not a lump sum contribution." Noah assured him. "This is a five year payment plan, garaunteed payments on a monthly basis. So, divide that number by sixty, and you'll get..."

"That number is still too high!" Durandel's lips were pursed and he was gritting his teeth. "Don't toy with me... you may be obscenely wealthy but even you don't have THIS kind of money! No one would believe a contribution like this from a private source... its larger than the FNE's pledge! More than triple!"

"Doctor the numbers as you see fit, I don't really care what I get credited with. You should be able to figure out a satisfactory way of explaining the magnitude of my contribution without treading over the bounds of what people want to believe. It might even be for the better that you don't admit to all of it... will make it that much easier to spend on... other projects, right?" Noah smiled disconcertingly. "It's not all my personal money of course... I'm dedicating forty percent of BoranderCorp's entire monthly profits to this endeavor of yours, Gil. I've recently had a couple of rather funding hungry projects wrap up, and so I've got to put that money somewhere, or else it will go to waste! And its not like anyone is going to complain... less money you have to get from taxes, right?"

"I don't understand this sudden... you're going to put yourself out of business like this! Even over five years, fifteen trillion dollars is NOT possible!"

"Oh... I knocked it down from thirty because I thought you might balk at that."

"DON'T MOCK ME! If you're going to contribute, then contribute, I don't have time to play games!" Durandel stood up, his teacup clattering on the desk as he pounded down one hand onto the glassy top.

"Gil..." Noah locked gazes with Durandel. "For once, I am not mocking you. That money has already been accounted for and set aside. If you don't take it, I'll just have to do something pointless with it... build a elevator from the Moon to Earth or something. You don't have to trust me, but believe me... this is not a game, and indeed, I'm still getting a better deal than you are, or else I wouldn't be doing this."

"Fifteen... trillion..." Durandel groaned. It was too much. Literally, too much. Hundreds of thousands could be misplaced. Millions could be overlooked. Billions could be explained away. Trillions... trillions people took notice of! Even over the course of five years, explaining fifteen trillion dollars was... Durandel shook his head. He'd find a way, somehow. Commission a new class of ships. Build new space stations. Something. But now he HAD to know... what the hell had brought this on? It was almost like Noah was intentionally ridding himself of material resources, like he thought they didn't matter anyore, or wouldn't matter soon. It didn't make any sense! "Okay. I'll give you a press conference. I'll make you seem like the second coming of Jesus Christ himself."

"No need to go quite that far... I like the legend of Noah's ark much better myself." Noah smiled, and then glanced away. "Atmospheric entry coming up. Talk to you another time, Gil. I'll be looking forward to seeing you on the news tonight." Noah ended the comm before Durandel could reply. Durandel sat down in his chair and trembled.

"Fifteen... what is he up to? I may need to move sooner than I thought... he seems to be in some sort of endgame... damn..."

---------------------------------------------

Kira almost got shot down, piloting the comandeered helicopter taxi right over the roof top levels of Nara-Attha City without regard to laws or communicating with the City Flight Authority. If it weren't for some very hasty radio broadcasts from Cyprus, holding on for dear life in the co-pilot's chair next to him, plus Lacus radiating a calming sphere of reassurance and peace, subconsciously reducing the tensions many of the Orb forces in the city were still under, or at least those the helicopter passed close enough by, several Mobile Suits and anti-air vehicles would have taken snap shots at the racing flyer. Kira noted, even as he furiously concentrated on making a beeline to the hospital that he'd been told Cagalli and Athrun were being treated at, that though there were a few plumes of faint smoke still in the air, the city itself seemed largely undamaged, unlike the last time a major Mobile Suit battle had been fought within its confines. He supposed he ought to be grateful for small... or large in this case... mercies, but right now it was hard to focus on that, given how he was feeling.

His physical pain was almost entirely gone, save for a twinge of the nose or kidneys every now and again, when he turned the helicopter too hard or hit a patch of turbulence. The Curaga laced bandages and his own inherent recovering abilities had done their job, and now he was just famished, more than anything else. It had been several hours since they'd rushed from Lacus's house to the PLANTS spaceport, there to take an emergency diplomatic courier shuttle down to Orb. They'd made near record time, but it still hadn't been quick enough... the takedown by the Solar Knights had occured before they were even two thirds of they way to Earth, and by the time they'd landed in Orb, things had been "calm" in the aftermath for one and a half hours. Casualty counts were starting to come in, preliminary forensics reports were being filed, and the true scope of the tragedy was coming into focus, which was what was causing him pain now.

On a personal scope, Cagalli and Athrun had both made it through alive, the news of which had somewhat calmed the furious pounding in his heart... Cagalli was the only blood family he had in the entire world, and Athrun was his best friend. He tried to imagine a world without one or both of them in it, and shuddered... it would be almost as bad as losing Lacus. He knew he was exaggerating... humans could adapt to the most grievous of losses, given time and the will to live, but he almost preferred to think that he could NOT go on without them... the pain would be just too great. However, his heart had speeded back up again, and he'd started down the road that led to him basically stealing this helicopter taxi, with only Cyprus and Lacus managing to board with him, and rushing to the Orb National Hospital, when he'd asked to talk to Cagalli or Athrun, and had been told that Athrun was moderately injured, while Cagalli's condition was "unknown, but grave". The thought chilled his entire body, right down to the marrow, despite Lacus's surges of condolence and reassurance.

For his part, Cyprus had been trying to get into contact with the Stormhounds, but was having not altogether much success. Those people he did reach, such as Private Raven and some of the other new members had an incomplete grasp of the situation, as they worked alongside emergency rescue crews and the regular military forces to make sure the area was secure and help pick up the pieces of the mess. He could not contact Thomas, Sergeant Kurtz or Major Belaruse. Ramierez was working through more official channels as he and Captain Ramius, Commander Waltfeld, Elsman and Haw made their way to the city at a more sedate, land bound pace. Major Jones had elected to stay up in the PLANTS with Ysak and Katie, at least for a little while longer, until they recovered more fully from their mauling at the hands of the Brotherhood, while also disposing of the smuggled ordnance and supplies that Stormhounds had brought up to the PLANTS with them, and had not had the time to re-pack for smuggling back down to Earth in their rush to get back in time to make a difference, something which they'd failed at dismally.

Preliminary word from the ground though was that just less than half of Parliament had lost their lives in the terrorist attack and most of the rest were injured in some way, either during the initial moments when a mirage colloid cloaked orbit to surface infantry drop pod had crashed through the roof of the building and landed in the middle of the crowded Parliament floor, which had caused more than half the deaths and most of the non-fatal injuries, or during the hours where they were held hostage by the Brotherhood before the Solar Knight's rescue. Those who had been crushed by the drop pod or slain by flying debris had been the lucky ones... almost thirty men and women, of seemingly random choosing, ranging in rank from junior representatives to the most senior members of Parliament, including Lord Unato Seiran, head of the second most powerful Orb Royal Family after the Attha's themselves, had been brutally tortured to death by the Brotherhood. The reasons behind the premeditated carnage were still unknown, if there even were sane reasons at all! Cyprus was well acquainted with interrogational torture... it was a proven means of extracting information quickly, though there was an art to it, because people would say anything to stop torture, eventually, no matter if it was true or not. Even him... no one was immune to that instinctive response, under the proper stimuli.

However, from the somewhat garbled and incomplete reports of the survivors, the Brotherhood terrorists had asked no questions... they'd just started skinning people alive with their knives, apparently for the pure fun of it. The thought was enough to send a frissure of white hot anger through Cyprus's soul... he saw pain and death and other unpleasant things as useful tools, in the proper time, place and with proper reasoning requiring their use. To just wantonly kill and hurt and torment... it was an affront to every professional and personal sensibility he had! He knew the other two people in the helicopter, and the world at large, even including some of the Stormhounds, would have been somewhat surprised to learn it, but Cyprus did not enjoy the act of killing or hurting people, except in a handful of cases during his youth, and he regretted those, in retrospect.

Killing and hurting people was his job, his service to the world, and while he took joy from doing that service to the best of his ability, he took joy from the results... not the process. When he surveyed a hellish battlefield, and saw enemy bodies lying strewn about, torn apart by merciless and well coordinated weapons fire, and he smiled and felt good, it was because he was thinking of all those people who would never be hurt by those enemies again, not because of the smells and sights of death by his hand or order. Some people had trouble understanding that basic philosophy of being a soldier. At least they didn't pre-judge people, unlike much of the world's public. Or even if they did, they didn't let their pre-judgement get in the way of working together, and that was more than enough for him. He might be a cold blooded, hard eyed, child murdering, clinic bombing assassin, but he did that work because someone had to, and he was the best man he knew for the job, and because it made the world a better and safer place as a whole, not because he felt required to hurt and main because of personal, moral or religious motivations.

Kira brought the helicopter down on the expansive front lawn of the Orb National Hospital, rotor blades decapitating several ornamental trees with loud "Whop-THWACK!" sounds, sending shivers through the vehicle. Cyprus made a mental note to not allow Mr. Yamato to launch the helicopter again... a fatal helicopter crash would not be in the best interest of anyone but the Brotherhood. For his part, re-launching the helicopter was one of the furthest things from Kira's mind, as he was just desperate to get to Cagalli. With her situation "unknown but grave", Kira knew that if he found Cagalli he'd find Athrun too. He'd momentarily debated landing on the helicopter pad on the roof of the hospital, before his natural common sense and decency reasserted itself. The rooftop pad was for the medical helicopters only, and for good reason... those few minutes saved by transporting a patient directly from the roof to an operating room via elevator, not to mention the quick flight of the helicopter, could mean the difference between life and death for someone! If Kira landed there, and a person or persons died because the medical helicopter was delayed in landing, then he might as well have killed those people himself!

Kira didn't wait for Lacus or Cyprus as he unbuckled himself and raced for the hospital entrance. He was leaving himself very widely open, there was no way that Lacus could mistake how he was feeling, and he could feel his own worries echoed strongly by her own. Cagalli and Athrun were just as dear to Lacus as they were to him, after all. Her shoes and clothing weren't made for sprinting over grass or sidewalks though, and so she was forced to follow him at a more sedate brisk walk, hair whipping and lashing around her head like a living thing in the downdraft from the still slowing down rotors. Cyprus walked at her side, one hand on the spot on his hip where a pistol holster would be if he hadn't been forced to leave all weapons behind in the PLANTS. Technically he probably could have brought a weapon with him on the diplomatic courier, as a licensed governmental security employee, but they hadn't wanted even the slight delay of confirming his and Ramierez's permits and papers that would have required at the spaceport. He'd reasoned that with Mobile Suits outside, he and Ramierez would have at least a few minutes to re-equip themselves from the Stormhound armories before they had time to act. For now though, he was going to have to rely on his wits and his reputation as weapons in case of emergency... and in his case, that was often enough.

Fortunately for the hospital personnel, they recognized Kira very quickly, and Lacus instantly, and they were given no trouble when they asked for where Athrun and Cagalli were being treated. which was a good thing, because in his current half wild with worry state, Kira wasn't entirely sure he could rely on himself to be even passingly polite. The last time he'd felt somewhat like this had been in Denver just before the final confrontation with Frost... he'd half strangled Sai, broken Mr. Glory's wrists and beat up Cyprus during that incident, when Lacus had been hurt by flying glass due to his own mixed up reactions and instincts. Kira didn't think he'd choke anybody... but reach out and grab them, shake them a bit, get up close and personal... yeah, he could see himself doing that, in that coldly rational corner of his brain that was shaking its head in wonder as it observed his actions calmly and peacefully.

Cyprus was pleasantly surprised to learn that three Stormhounds were also receiving treatment at the hospital. The three he'd been trying to contact too, which accounted for why he hadn't been able to. Major Belaruse was still recovering from injuries suffered from being close to a large explosion, which had occured during one of the Traitor's attacks on the Orb command posts. Cyprus hadn't even realized that the Traitor had been involved in the battle at all... he'd been forced to rely on the news broadcasts for his information, which was frustrating, despite his skill at gleaning the utmost information from them. The news crews hadn't been particularly near the fighting, and much of the early footage had in fact been destroyed in an attack by the Traitor on the initially established command post. There were huge holes in his knowledge of the situation, past and current. Cyprus felt momentarily torn... his duty as a soldier demanded he stay with Ms. Clyne and Mr. Yamato, while his duty as a leader and a friend demanded he go to his subordinates and friends.

Those that he could go to anyway, at least meaningfully. Thomas was apparently in a post operative sedation period, drugged to the gills with painkillers to mitigate the pain from a internal compound fracture of the ankle, severe burns across his back, more minor burns and concussion bruises on his stomach and torso, and a moderate to severe concussion. Cyprus smiled with pride... Thomas may have lost a fight, but from the sound of his injuries, he'd gone down swinging at the very least, and Cyprus knew that his friend would have inflicted serious damage upon his enemies. And the wounds, while serious when added together, were still individually relatively minor, and Cyprus felt confident that his friend would pull through without any trouble whatsoever. He'd be back on his feet, or foot anyway, before the night was over. He'd tried to walk off a .50 caliber slug to the side before... a few burns, bruises, a broken ankle and a concussion would hardly slow the Sergeant-Major down at all.

The situation with Sergeant Matthew Kurtz, the other on duty security detail for the Chief Representative and Ambassador during the emergency Parliament session, was decidedly more grim. Severe lacerations suffered to the upper arm and shoulder, down to scoring on the shoulder and collarbones, requiring reconstructive muscle surgery to repair, which was still in progress. However the worst injury, which was also still being worked on, was massive lacerations to the facial area, including loss of an eye and damage to the jaw and underlying facial bone structure. The wording of the injury report was serious enough to make Cyprus wince for a moment. The injury was potentially life threatening, and the prolonged bleeding caused by the wounds before they were stopped had left the Sergeant even closer to death than he otherwise would have been. He'd been in the critical surgery room ever since he was flight for lifed by helicopter to the hospital after being recovered along with a room full of hostages, and the final prognosis was still unknown. Cyprus's heart sank... writing condolence letters to family and next of kin was perhaps the worst part of being an officer, next to hand delivering such letters. Kurtz was a fighter though, like all Stormhounds... Cyprus resolved to see the man as soon as he got out of surgery, even if he wasn't conscious.

"Go on and go to your friends, Mr. Finch." Lacus's gentle voice almost made him jump. She'd come back from the elevators, letting Kira go on ahead without her for the moment. "Kira and I will be fine without you for a little while. I'm sure Ledonir is with Cagalli and Athrun as well, and he'll have made sure they are as safe as it is physically possible to be. You staying by our side won't change that or make us any more safe. Tell them that I'll be by to see them as soon as I get a free chance. I don't know what happened in there, but I'm sure Cagalli and Athrun will want to thank them too. We are all truly fortunate to have such steadfast and courageous people as you and the Stormhounds protecting us."

"It's our job, Ms. Clyne." Cyprus still wavered, though he was touched by her concern, and the taking of the time for her to communicate it to him, even though he knew she had to be burning as badly as Mr. Yamato to go see Cagalli and Athrun. "That the Chief Representative and Ambassador were hurt at all is..."

"No. It's not a failing by your people or yourself." Lacus placed her hand on his forearm for a moment. "Nor is it a failure of your duty or obligations to go to them now. Indeed, I'd say it would be more a failure of you as a person if you did not. You've done your job as well as you always do, Mr. Finch. There is nothing to be sorry for. You and your subordinates did your best, and thats all anyone can ask of you or them. Don't blame yourself... blame the Brotherhood, if you must have a target for blame."

"Thank you, Ms. Clyne." Cyprus bowed his head slightly. "I'll be sure to tell them of your words, though absolving ourselves of blame is not something we're good at."

"And that's one of the reasons, Cyprus, that I think you and the other Stormhounds are really wonderful people." Lacus answered, before removing her hand and hurrying towards the elevators. Cyprus stared after her for a long few seconds. He waited for the elevator doors to close behind her, knowing very well just how almost supernaturally keen her ears were.

"And times like this, Lacus, remind me of why it is that I came to Orb in the first place." Cyprus whispered, before heading towards a different set of elevators.

-----------------------------------------

"Cagalli! Athrun!?" Kira almost broke the door to the dual occupancy recovery room down in his haste trying to push it open, before he realized it was a pull open door. The three heavily armed Orb soldiers standing outside the door had immediately told him which room they were in. The soldiers had also recognized Kira on sight, or else had been pre-warned by the hospital staff at the entrance, because they moved aside to let him enter without a word being spoken. The recovery room was relatively crowded, with a pair of very serious looking doctors, one male and the other female, plus Kisaka standing in plain view. Kisaka had his inner shirt off, and his outer uniform jacket unzipped, covering loosely the heavy bandages wrapped around his side and around his torso, while a variety of other patches and bandages attended to his other minor injuries, suffered during the confrontation with the Brotherhood. There was a very large and ugly looking black and purple and blue bruise on the middle of his forehead, where a rifle butt had knocked him out during the Harbringers subdual of Athrun and Cagalli after getting past the Stormhounds.

Still, he was standing on his own, only wavering slightly, ignoring the pointed looks and advice that he really should be sitting down from the doctors. He turned as Kira entered, warned by the shuddering of the door and by a call from the administration desk downstairs that visitors were on their way up. He was surprised that Kira and the others had managed to get back to Earth so quickly, and the business part of his mind wondered if they'd found anything out about the Brotherhood from Waltfeld's intelligence source, or if they'd been forced to return before making any headway. It seemed the latter was more likely... they'd been up there less than a day. Was that another goal of this insane attack by the Brotherhood? Kisaka clenched a hand into a fist quietly as he momentarily relived the attack... the Brotherhood would pay for this outrage! And they'd pay a lot more for what they'd done to Cagalli, who was all but a daughter to him!

"We're over here." Athrun's somewhat muffled voice replied from the left hand curtained off section of the recovery room. Kira stepped over to the part in the curtain and brushed his way inside the partitioned area. Athrun was sitting in a chair by the side of the bed, which had another curtain stretching from head to toe along the railing, hanging down from the ceiling, blocking the view of the person in the bed from anyone outside. Athrun was sitting with his hands in his lap, clenched together tightly, knuckles whitening every few seconds as he fought to keep his hands occupied. He was clad in a hospital gown, with an IV in one arm attached to a saline bag attached to the stand near the bedside, with a heavy bandage around his head and more dressings on other parts of his body, just like Kisaka. Kira breathed a quiet sigh of relief... if Athrun could sit up, then he would be fine, eventually. "You got here fast." Athrun noted, incredibly dispassionately, to Kira's perceptions.

"Cagalli?" Kira asked, both to see if she would... or could... answer, and if not, then asking Athrun for an update. "Are you..."

"I'm awake." Cagalli replied, though her voice was very soft and odd sounding to his ears. It wasn't weak... tired maybe, but definitely not weak. She didn't sound like she was fighting off pain either, or even dealing with painkiller sedation medicines. "I wish I wasn't, but I can't sleep like this..."

"What's wrong?" Kira asked worriedly, reaching out one hand to pull aside the bed curtain so he could see what the matter was. Athrun's hand snatched out and caught him by the wrist unexpectedly, stopping him several inches short of the curtain. "Athrun?"

"I... want privacy at the moment, Kira. Even from you and Athrun. Especially from you and Athrun..." Cagalli's voice was even softer, and Kira heard a sob, and then a groan. He shivered... he'd heard Cagalli groan like that before... but only when she and Athrun didn't know anyone was watching them or around when they started their foreplay before sex. Small vocal cues like that were one of the first signs he listened for before suddenly opening doors on otherwise quiet rooms when he was visiting them unexpectedly... it would be incredibly embarassing to walk in on them while they were... well, Kira had used to try and stop them from doing it at all, but it was now just something he didn't want to think about. Every living animal might have sex, but that didn't mean he wanted to consider his sister and best friend going at it.

Athrun saw the puzzled and disconcerted expression on Kira's face, and his heart sank. He and Cagalli had already gone over the situation, such as it was, with the doctors. He hadn't expected Kira and the others to return from the PLANTS so soon though. Athrun and Cagalli were still dealing with the raw facts themselves... bringing Kira into the loop was going to make matters even worse. "Cagalli... I'm going to go talk with Kira for a while. Do you think you'll be okay for a few minutes?"

"Don't... condescend me, you!" Cagalli's protest was broken by another pleased, excited gasp, totally out of place for the grim, sterile hospital surroundings. "I'm not a little girl with a skinned knee... I'm as aware of the situation as you are, much more so actually! I'll be... just fine. Not like I... have much choice, at the moment. Oh God, when will this feeling GO AWAY!? I've got this terrible itch and I can't scratch it! I still think these restraints are unnecessary!"

"Restraints!?" Kira was dumbfounded, unable to think of any reason why Cagalli would need to be confined to the bed by force.

"I'll explain it." Athrun said, his voice heavy. "And its the doctors orders, for your own safety, and you know it. From what they say, you might not be able to help yourself, when... when it happens."

"When WHAT happens!?" Kira demanded. "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG!?"

"Help me up." Athrun held out his hand, leaning on Kira for a few moments to let the bout of dizziness caused by the remnants of his concussion to fade. "Is Lacus here too?"

"I am." Lacus's concerned voice came from beyond the partition. "What's wrong? Why the curtains?"

Athrun stepped out of the partioned area, dragging Kira somewhat reluctantly behind him, keeping his hand on Kira's wrist to make sure he didn't do something regrettably impulsive, like throw back the interior curtain to see what was wrong. This was something that needed explaining, not that the explanations would make anything less painful. Indeed, it made it more painful than just bearing witness to a broken limb or ugly wound... modern medicine had been equal to the healing of those types of injuries for centuries now, and now they didn't even leave scars anymore. However, when dealing with a brain affecting drug, a chemical weapon by any definition of the term, while the symptoms were known, they didn't manifest externally. Cagalli still looked the same as she always did, there was no outward sign that anything was wrong. But internally... Athrun's eyes hardened anew. "Please, go over it again, in complete detail." Athrun requested of the doctors.

"Very well, sir. The privacy act does make provisions for next of kin, especially in situations like this where the patient is no longer considered competent to make binding decisions for themselves." The male doctor replied, his tone professionally cool, though his expression was filled with sorrow and empathy. This wasn't the first time he'd had to explain the effects of a mind altering chemical to family and friends of a patient, but he'd never imagined that the patient he'd been explaining about would be the Queen herself! How could anyone do something so clinically monstrous as to... he shook his head slightly... the family and friends needed him to be a doctor right now, not an enraged human being and citizen of Orb.

"What does that mean!? What the hell is..." Kira spoke up again, his tone heated. He shut up when Athrun gave him a glance filled with pure suffering.

"Please, Kira... just listen. There's no easy way to be told this." Athrun implored. He nodded at the doctors. "Please continue."

"Cagalli has been injected with a blood borne mind affecting and altering substance commonly known as "Spiffy" on the international drug trade." The male doctor stated, ignroing the appalled gasp from Lacus. Clearly Ms. Clyne had some experience with the drug... with all the charity work she did, he supposed it was almost inevitable she'd spent some time in various rehab centers, and the drug was fast becoming an endemic, especially among Coordinators afflicted with ICD, so she was likely to have some idea of what he was talking about. "Spiffy is a form of stimulant, and it primarily affects the central nervous system, especially the parts of the brain responsible for the release of the neurochemicals responsible for the feelings of "pleasure" or "feeling good" or happiness derived from physical or mental or emotional sensation. While affected by Spiffy, a person literally feels intense pleasure from every tiny little thing, from breathing, to the feel of clothing, to the slightest touch by another person, roughly equivalent to the sensation granted by a sexual orgasm."

"Spiffy is an unfortunately common, though expensive, recreational drug in use throughout the PLANTS, and to a lesser degree, on Earth. It is illegal everywhere, even on Luna, which has legalized most other forms of recreational drugs. The reason for this is because Spiffy is not just habit forming, like smoking or most other drugs, but instantly addicting, affecting the internal chemistry of the brain to in some ways REQUIRE the substance in order to continue functioning properly, and also because in even relatively small doses of one hundred to one hundred and fifty milliliters, it is fatal to humans, causing permanent nerve damage and overstressing of the heart and lungs, leading to cardiac arrest and death, or a persistent vegetative state. Obviously, with the relatively small dosage Cagalli recieved, that isn't our current concern, despite the potency and purity of the dose she was forced to take." The man continued. His female colleague took up the explanation for a moment when he stopped for breath.

"In plain terms, sir, what we're dealing with in this case is a unpreventable dependency on the substance in order to sustain the pleasure receptors of the brain. The full extent of the damage is still unknown to us, but in near overdose scenarios somewhat like this one, patients have often experienced long term degradation of their ability to excite those pleasure sensors without utilizing more Spiffy, with the problem growing worse even as it is temporarily assuaged by additional contact with the substance." The woman explained, somewhat awkwardly.

"Cagalli is addicted to Spiffy, and the damage caused by the addiction might prevent her from feeling pleasure from some physical sensations." Kisaka summed up, his voice nigh toneless. "Furthermore, if she ever takes more Spiffy, she'll regain the ability to feel those sensations for a short time, but the damage will become more severe with each additional dose, until eventually... after eight or nine doses... she won't be able to feel physical pleasure at all unless she's under the influence of the drug. It's less sure how the drug affects the ability to feel intellectual or emotional pleasure... most addicts complain of an all consuming sense of depression that smothers their minds until they take another hit, with severe self mutiliating and suicidal tendencies often manifesting if there is a prolonged period between doses."

"Is there anything that can be done?" Kira was swaying on his feet, stunned by the horror of what he was being told, his emotions a wild, formless storm inside him. He couldn't figure out how he was feeling... sad, angry, pitying, disbelief... it all was mixed up inside and nothing would present itself long enough for him to pick it out. He supposed he could just call the whole experience "trauma".

"Well, the body will flush the drug from her brain through natural processes in about three weeks, give or take a few days." The male doctor replied. "After that point, the cravings and depression should fade somewhat. However, her brain has already been permanently changed, at least to the degree modern science can affect. The craving for more Spiffy will be with her for the rest of her life. It's a matter of personal willpower, and a constant battle against the depression and the inability to be like she was before this tragedy. In some ways you could compare it to suffering the loss of a limb, or other massive, permanent physical injury. She won't be able to live her life the same way she did before the incident. Whether or not the inability to be the same is a major concern depends on the person. Some handle it better than others."

"The best thing you can do for her is be there to support her, unconditionally." The female doctor supplied. "This isn't a battle that anyone but Cagalli can fight, but at the very least reducing outside sources of stress will help her stay on even footing with the cravings. Avoiding stressful situations is very important... when we're stressed, we want to seek out comfort to combat it. Cagalli's ability to feel comfort has been damaged, and the only way she'll ever be able to regain her full ability to comfort herself, or be comforted by others, will only make the problem worse. Each additional hit she takes will push her that much closer to absolute dependency on the drug, where she literally will feel she cannot live without it. If that occurs, she'll have to go to permanent inpatient care... she won't be able to live outside of a bed or unsedated."

"By stressful situations you mean what exactly?" Lacus asked, studiously avoiding looking in Cagalli's direction with any of her senses. The image of the two drug whores up in Hazy's bar would not leave her mind, and the thought made her sick to her stomach. Cagalli could become like them, if she was unable to fight off the addiction. Of course Lacus had complete faith in Cagalli's willpower... but still...

The doctors looked at each other uncomfortably for several seconds. "Well, unfortunately, my medical responsibilites force me to say that any sort of political position is impossible, despite how I feel personally about the Queen's ability to handle herself." The male doctor answered. "Even if I did not declare her medically unfit for duty right now, the courts would force me to later. I'd have to look at the letter of the laws, but I think she should still be able to remain as Queen, since that is a largely ceremonial position with few stressful responsibilities. But she can't be Chief Representative, or anything else that requires daily problem solving and personnel interactions. Any serious stress could cause a breakdown, with a possible suicide or self mutilation attempt, or worse, an attempt to take another dose. Spiffy is expensive and illegal, but someone with the Queen's personal resources would not have too much challenge acquiring some all the same."

"Piloting a Mobile Suit or taking part in combat, even from the bridge of a ship, is also impossible. It would be almost certain to cause a breakdown, with potentially fatal results, even if she did nothing but lapse into catatonia." The female doctor added. "I'll write up a list of non-stressing hobbies and activites that I would recommend the Queen look into filling her day with. No sports, no major physical activites, nothing that could cause potential physical injury. You'll have to control what she watches on TV or in movies, or what she looks at on the networks. Anything which provokes extreme emotional reactions has to be avoided. In many ways, her situation has become that of a child, unable to take care of herself. The mere fact that she will still feel capable of taking care of herself will provide a stress in and of itself... her physical capabilities and desires are unchanged, unlike what happens with most severe injury patients, it is merely her ability to deal with the side effects of her actions that has been compromised. Anger, frustration, sadness, fear, embarassment... any of those emotions and dozens more besides, could all trigger a breakdown with potentially fatal results."

"No sports or physical activities? No TV or internet, basically. No politics, no Mobile Suits or fighting... what's left in Cagalli's life!?" Kira complained bitterly. "How is she supposed to fight off depression if she can't do anything she enjoys!? She shouldn't have to live in fear like that!"

"This is our professional medical opinion, sir, I'm sorry." The male doctor replied, wincing slightly. He was very familiar with this sort of reaction from family and friends of patients. It was always like this... the complaining about the unfairness, the directionless anger, the bitterness, the very real feelings of helplessness. It made his heart feel just a little bit heavier each time he had to break news like this to people... it was the hardest part of being a doctor, giving bad news like this. "Whether or not the Queen follows our advice is up to her of course... we can't force her to listen, at least initially, though if she does not listen, and ends up having a breakdown that requires permanent hospitalization, then the choices will no longer be hers. I cannot stress to you enough about the seriousness of this situation she is in... though she looks and might even act fine, she is seriously injured. She won't want to admit it. She'll try to pretend everything is fine. I have seen it a hundred times or more. She'll act just fine... up until the moment she slices her wrists open or tries to throw herself off a rooftop. The self destructive impulses stemming from the depression are sudden and unpredictable. She'll need to be constantly watched, and she's not going to like that, which is more stress."

"You'll need to change some things around the places where she lives and spends a lot of times. No weapons or sharp implements can be left in a place she can access alone. Someone needs to be with her, or at least within close visual range of her, at all times, especially during these first twenty one or so days while the drug flushes from her system. Many addicts have problems with other drugs or binge eating and drinking, especially drinking alcohol, so you'll have to watch out for that as well. She'll try and do some of the things that used to give her pleasure and comfort, and find out that they don't, so she'll try them to excess, possibly harming herself in the process. Addicts have scalded themselves or almost died from hypothermia because they could no longer get water hot or cold enough to bathe in comfortably, or gorged themselves to the point of sickness because they never felt full enough. She won't always realize she's overcompensating... its often a subtle thing that other people need to watch out for. It will seem to her like she's just doing what she needs to in order to feel good, it won't be until something goes wrong that she'll realize she is overdoing it, and even then she probably won't be able to stop." The female doctor continued on mercilessly. She didn't like this any more than the family did, but it all needed to be said.

"Especially in the case of an independent and free willed person like the Queen, the constant intrusion of other people into formerly personal and private aspects of her life, even if they are intimate partners or family, will be a constant source of problems. She's going to get angry at you for meddling, and for being controlling and overprotective, in her eyes. She's likely going to try and hide things from you when she tests the strictures of the safety mechanisms you implement. I won't lie, Mr. Ambassador... I've seen many usually inseperable relationships break up because of Spiffy addictions. She'll feel like you don't trust her to take care of herself anymore. And she'll be somewhat right... because you CAN'T trust her. She's not in full control of herself anymore, that's the plain facts. There are also often complications arising from the lack of pleasure derived from sex many addicts experience... she might feel that you aren't trying as hard to pleasure her or provide for her intimate needs, even though it is her ability to perceive and respond to your efforts that has been reduced. She may intellectually recognize the falsity of her feelings... but that doesn't mean she won't feel them all the same. In many ways, this is going to be much harder on you than it is on her." The male doctor looked at Athrun sympathetically.

"I'm prepared for that." Athrun said simply.

"We'll write up a full diagnosis and provide you with full details on what you need to do, in our medical opinions, in order to ensure her safety as best you can." The female doctor turned for the door. "She's still suffering under the effects of the high, and given the purity of the dose she had, and her bodyweight and a number of other factors, she should remain in a gradually diminishing state of pleasure for the next few hours before the withdrawal symptoms start. She's fully awake and aware and has refused sedation, so feel free to talk with her. I'd advise avoiding any stressful subjects though, especially once the withdrawal starts. The first twelve hours after the high ends are the most acutely dangerous, so we're going to have her stay overnight. Please don't do anything to change her restraints... they are for her own good, to prevent her from hurting herself during the withdrawal. By morning she should be calm enough that we can take them off. Please, call us if you need anything." The doctors both bowed their heads briefly in respect and then left.

Kira put his hand on the wall to help support himself. This was too much to take in all at once. He couldn't even imagine how Athrun had to be feeling... how Cagalli had to be feeling! "Athrun... I..."

"So, tell us about what you found out in the PLANTS." Athrun replied, staring neutrally at the wall like Kira hadn't spoken. "Did you find anything concrete about the Brotherhood?"

"But... Athrun... Cagalli..." Kira protested the subject change, until Lacus put a hand on his shoulder and shook her head at him. Now was not the time to rehash things a third time for Cagalli and Athrun.

"I wish we had good news, but all we discovered only led to more questions." Lacus said apologetically. "We do have one thing though. A name. Noah Borander. He might be the leader of the Brotherhood. He... claims to be an Ultimate Coordinator, and he is an Active Newtype. With Cagalli's permission, I'd like to instigate a political investigation of this person... we have no solid proof of wrongdoing yet, but we will find some if we dig deep enough, I am certain of it."

"Do it." Cagalli's voice came to them, barely audible through two curtains. "It may be my last act as Chief Representative... but I'm NOT going down alone..."

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Author Note: Well, this chapter actually kind of got away from me. Looked up and "holy crap, 18,000ish words!". Some of it pretty dense text too. Apologies for that. In truth, I was going to go into more detail at the end with Cagalli/Athrun/Lacus/Kira, but I was going up against my self imposed 20k words maximum for a chapter, so I guess it'll get covered later, back referenced during other events or else implied. The characters may need to say things and bring each other up to speed, but you the reader don't need me to repeat things more than I already do, hopefully. I know the tone of this chapter, especially at the end, is kind of down... but be like Cagalli and Athrun, and don't give up hope. It ain't gonna be easy for em, but they've made a living on dealing with bad shit and coming out stronger than before, eventually. But I'm glad to read your reviews and see that people are liking how things are going (or at least tolerating it). Makes me happy. Reviews are like treats.

Now I have a few questions. I've been looking and thinking, but other than the Attha's and Seiran's, are the other Royal families of Orb ever named? I ask because one of them is going to be taking over for Chief Representative of Orb, now that Cagalli can't (well, at least for the meanwhile), Unato is dead and Yuna incapacitated (though he WILL make a comeback eventually). Should I just make up my own, or is there something canon to use? Hmm, what else, let me think. Ah. What do people think of my... spotlight time sharing, I guess? Am I forgetting anyone you want to see more of (Ashino fans, wait for after Snakes 7 before you say anything) or giving too much attention to some others? Cyprus seems popular, which is good, because I like him, like writing him, and he serves as a very good contrast for the canon charatcers... a different sort of good.

I'm sorry if I seem impatient when asking you to review. I have too much free time on my hands, and that isn't a situation everyone is in, no matter how much we might want it to be. Most of you probably have many more important things to do than read my story and write me reviews, no matter how much I love them and wait anxiously for them to be posted. Forgive my selfishness. I usually like to see three or four reviews per chapter, and I'd love it if they were all at ten or more, though around three or four is when I usually start working in earnest on a new chapter. Well, I can't say that... sometimes I work regardless of reviews, but more reviews help me write more... consecutively I guess. I guess I can't really complain that I'm writing faster than some people can review, though of course I wish it was the other way around. I'm not even sure what I'm talking about anymore.

On to Snakes 7, where I will cease neglecting Ashino and will start getting on to the Noah, Shinn, Meyrin, Lunamaria and Solar Knights various and sundry scene once more.


	29. Snakes in the Grass part 7

Author Note 1: I should have put this at the end of Snakes 6, but forgot. A lot of bad stuff is happening to our heroes. It sucks. Its depressing. It might even have long term impacts on the characters (I should hope!). But its the best way I know how to make truly uplifting points (or so I hope), by making the protagonists go through such trials and tribulations, we the readers can emphathize with their problems, and get something meaningful out of it. Besides just the impression that Maderfole hates all his protagonists and wants to hurt them (I'm not saying anyone has accused me of that, but it may have passed through some people's minds). Which I don't... if I wanted to do that, I wouldn't need a plot, nor would I spend so much of my time writing long chapters. However, if I have to make things painful for them so that the happy ending is that much happier when we finally get to it... well, then... things turn out like they have been. In any case read on, bear witness to any suffering that may take place, and hold faithful to the fact that I will, eventually, pull it together into at least a semblance of real world happiness (with all that implies).

Yes, the girls have been having a hard time of things... but the majority... well, maybe I shouldn't say that. I believe the majority of my readers, at least those who respond with reviews, are male. Males react more when its a female that has something bad happen. Maybe its cause I'm a guy too (a male fanfiction writer, as defined on Rihaku's profile)... things just seem more intense when its a pretty girl that gets messed up. Although messing up a girl definitely has its side consequences for the male characters... Kira/Athrun for Cagalli, Ysak for Katie, etc. Though Ysak did die there for a little bit, and Kira did get the crap kicked out of him, even if he does heal fast. And poor Kurtz, even though he's a minor character. I dunno... I been trying to spread it around. Maybe its just that what has happened to the girl characters seems (and in many ways is) so much worse than what happened to the guys. And because, at the end of the day, they are girls, and nobody in the right mind likes to see girls hurt.

By the way... it may be none of my business... but now I'm curious about the gender mixture of my reviewers.

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Ashino considered the door leading into his private quarters aboard the USN Asteroid Belt Exploratory Station, affectionately known as "Abe" by the forty civilians and ten military personnel that made up its semi-permanent crew. With three lidded cafeteria trays in one hand, and a pair of drink canisters clutched in the other, there was no easy way to open the door. Sometimes artificial station gravity could be more a hindrance than a help. If they were in microgravity he could just let go of the drinks and let them hang there, hit the door activation button, and then recollect the drinks. Seeing as that wasn't the case... the station maintained a gravity about equal to that of the Lunar surface... he would have to get creative to open the door. Of course he could just knock and let Jean open it for him from the inside, but where was the fun in that? Adjusting his balance, Ashino leaned back on one leg before jumping slightly, kicking out lightly with a turning side kick that spun him around once and pushed him across the hall, before kicking off from the far wall and bounding in through the opening door, landing in the middle of the common room.

The door hissed shut behind him, re-forming its atmospheric safety seal in the process. This far out in space, with no other major USN or member-state facilities witin more than a half day's shuttle flight, redundant safety measures were more a requirement than an option. Every individual room within the station could be sealed off and used as a lifeboat, with several days supply of oxygen and emergency rations, in the case of an emergency. Sections of the passageways could also be sealed off and used as emergency life rafts as well. Not that there was much that was going to cause that kind of catastrophic damage to the station, built inside a hollowed out resource asteroid, like most such independent stations were, it was as well armored by the rock as any military fortress station, though its self defence weapons were much fewer and weaker. Besides a few anti-personnel rifles and pistols, plus the outer surface beam cannons guarding the hanger-dock entrance, the station was unarmed. Normally this was no problem... it was a civilian research station after all, not a military base.

However, in recent months there had been large spikes of activity from a group of people the news media dubbed "space pirates", which Ashino thought lent what they did an overly romantic aspect. They were no more space pirates than any other criminal fringe element that lived somewhere else than on Earth. In fact, from his few direct encounters with them during his time out here, he'd discovered that they weren't "criminals" at all, in the standard sense that they weren't law breakers out for self profit or enjoyment. No, these space pirates were terrorists. Not the new sort represented by the so called Brotherhood of Man, but an older, more entrenched and altogether less effective organization, frightening as that comparison might be, considering who they were. These "space pirates" were nothing more or less than a splinter group of Tiamat, the remnants of the Puritan Blue Cosmos movement recruited by Asmodeus Sark, the Hellhound, after the death of Cervantes Zunnichi and the establishment of the Isolation. Rabid Natural Supremacists and Coordinator haters, Tiamat had largely dropped off the map in recent years, being berefit of strong or centralized leadership, its cells would commonly commit foolhardy attacks and be wiped out in short order, often in vain.

These Tiamat space pirates were one of the better organized and led cells, from what Ashino had experienced. They didn't try suicide attacks, they didn't try and fight people that were stronger than them, well, not after the first time anyway, and they didn't let their personal credo's get in the way of their own survival. They had a base of their own somewhere out in the depths of the Asteroid Belt, where exactly he did not know, but he was getting closer to finding it every day. It would be nice if they would sortie out again and give him the chance to tail them back to their base, but after he'd wiped out three fifths of their Mobile Suits in the first encounter he'd had with them, leaving them with only two decrepit Strike Daggers to their name, they had turtled up and seemed to be laying low, hoping he would get bored or fed up and leave. If only they knew how much he wished he could do exactly that... this was no job for someone of his experience and skills!

But orders were, unfortunately, orders, and Ashino could not bring himself to disobey lawfully given, morality abiding orders, just because he personally thought they were a waste of resources and his time. If the SecDef thought that Ashino's personal presence out here in the Asteroid Belt was the best solution to this pirate problem, well then Ashino would do his best to be the solution the SecDef needed him to be, even if he privately thought that this was a job for a squadron of new recruits directly out of Boot Camp. He shrugged... the non-demanding nature of the assignment was almost like a vacation in some ways, especially because Jean was out here with him, finishing up her Social Sciences degree. Jean was studying the social changes people went through when living on small scale deep space stations for long periods of time, and so Abe Station was almost a perfect environment for her research material. That she could also be with Ashino for up to twenty hours a day was just icing on the cake.

Ashino set the food trays and drinks down on the table, the magentized surface holding them in place firmly. Living in low gravity constantly took some getting used to, but no more so than adjusting to microgravity, which he was also adept at. Jean was still using the shower, his keen ears told him, from the slow gurgle of water coming from the bathroom enclosure across the room. Showering in low gravity was a time consuming process, because water might come out of the shower head faster than it could fall to the floor and drain away if you weren't careful, which had led to several... messy... experiences during the first few weeks of Jean's presence on the station. You had to turn the water pressure down very low, and only spray water in spurts, using it more like a sink tap than an Earth shower. There wasn't much need to conserve water... Abe had more than enough for a crew complement three times its current size... but in the end, the most effecitve way to clean yourself was to take economy showers, using only as much water as needed to rinse the body wash and shampoo from you.

Ashino took out some of his dietary supplements from the drawer built into the side of the table and swallowed them with a squirt of fruit juice from his drink canister, and then took out a small vial of clear fluid from a gene locked box within the drawer. Unzipping his station coverall to the waist and shrugging his arms out of it, Ashino located the hard, rubbery nub on his left hip that marked the location of the supply interface of his artificial enhancement systems. Without constant infusions of the artificial stimulant gamma glipheptim, his bodily systems, both natural and aritificial, would start to degrade over a period of a month or so, eventually leading to death. His little armored box carried enough of the expensive medication, which was manufactured specifically for him, for another six months of semi-monthly top ups, and then he would have to either return to Luna for more, or have Jean go and pick some up for him, depending on how busy he was. He could not entrust the matter, which was literally life or death to him, to regular supply deliveries.

He was just finishing up, his mind temporarily straying to other matters, when a sound... or rather lack of a previous sound, caused him to lift up his head and smile. Jean smiled back, waving lazily at him from the door to the bathroom, having finished up her daily cleaning ritual and slipped into her own station coveralls, which were distractingly still unzipped to just below her belly button. Ashino froze stock still, trying to re-engage his mind... he couldn't help but be affected by her like this sometimes. He would just go... blank, with a mixture of happiness and shock. Much of the time he simply could not believe that this was really happening to HIM of all people! A real life, with love and affection and happiness... that wasn't what a BCPU was supposed to have! But somehow, he'd acquired one and he would never look back!

"If you don't watch out, I might start charging you money to undress me with your eyes like that, Ash. You think ten dollars a minute is a good rate?" Jean asked, cocking her head at him impishly, shoulder length brown hair drifting through the air languidly, still slick wet from the shower. "I see you brought lunch. That's good. You'll need the energy soon."

"Will I?" Ashino's mouth was suddenly dry, despite the juice drink. He brushed his hand over his mouth to disguise the licking of cracked feeling lips. "I hadn't realized the exercise period had shifted forward five hours."

"Don't be disingenuous with me, mister!" Jean warned with a mock scowl. "Or else that exercise period will be the only exercise you'll get for the rest of the week! I have research that needs to get done!"

"But your paper is all on studying social interactions between people living in space in relatively small populations for long periods of time." Ashino pointed out, unable to help himself. He just couldn't stand to let things be imprecise. Jean tolerated the tendency with varying degrees of patience.

"Yep, it is." Jean acknowledged, favoring him with an intent smile. "And can you think of anything more social than intimacy between a man and a woman? No, I didn't think so." Jean cut him off before he could reply. She stepped across the relatively small common room, which wouldn't have been out of place in a one bedroom apartment down on Earth, and sat down on her side of the dining table. "So what did the cafeteria screw up making today?"

"If you honestly don't like what the cafeteria makes, you're more than welcome to go assist in the kitchens yourself. The kitchen staff told me that themselves." Ashino replied, his medicine capsule now emptied. He pulled his coveralls back on, but didn't bother zipping them closed again. What was the point, if Jean was in such a mood that clothing was only going to be of use in making sure that food didn't get on them while they were eating. Ashino distributed the plates, one for Jean and two for him. His body burned nutrients and calories at a phenominally higher rate than most humans, even most Coordinators, even when at rest. He usually ate five or six times a day, what Jean would consider full meals but were just snacks for him, to help fuel his constant physical training. He was a soldier, staying in shape was a must, and besides, he rather liked being physically powerful and agile. "However, if you're just complaining to complain, they said you can go stick your complaining mouth on the bottom of a disposal chute and put it to better use."

"Oh wow... more rehydrated meat glop and too dry vegetable blocks. Haute Cuisine, as usual." Jean commented wryly, poking at the various comparments in the cafeteria tray experimentally with the included spork. "at least there isn't any "applesauce". Gag me with oily rags before feeding me any more of that gunk! Honestly, I'm going to have to re-write my section on the effects of preserved space meals on the human social psyche... this stuff is murder! It's the best diet I've ever been on... this stuff kills the appetite like a Gundam kills Mobile Suits!"

"Tastes fine to me." Ashino commented, spooning the stuff up without regard to what exactly he was eating in which order. It was a trifle bland, but he preferred bland food... the sensititvity of his taste buds ruined most heavily spiced or sauced foods for him, causing him to taste each individual flavor seperately, rather than as part of a medly. "It provides the required calorie intake and nutrional value to sustain an active adult human for one third of a day, just like breakfast and dinner. It even has dessert. Back when I worked for Blue Cosmos, this would have been a luxury."

"And I walked uphill both ways through ten feet of snow without a jacket to school every day when I was younger too, but that doesn't mean I like it when I get caught in a blizzard with a jacket on." Jean retorted with a narrow glare. "I've eaten emergency rations out of a five year old lifeboat box that tasted better than this crap. Honestly, I'm going to have to break out some more of the twinky store to get this taste... or rather, lack of one at all... out of my mouth! It's like they just boiled all the food together into slush and pour it out like oatmeal, then freeze dry it and reconstitute it later!"

"That's actually a somewhat accurate summation of the process but..." Ashino trailed off when he heard Jean's knuckles clench around her spork grip slightly. "I mean, yes, it is rather bland and slimy."

"You HAVE learned a few things over the years haven't you?" Jean noted, with a grin. "Used to be, you'd just blather on and on about minutae until I shut you up by force."

"I've had a good teacher." Ashino acknowledged with his own smile. "And much good reward based incentive to learn."

"Woah, down boy... food first, fun second." Jean spooned up more of her "meat", which could either have been pork or chicken, she declined to think too much about which, it being very hard to tell. "And don't scarf down your food like a little kid either, chew at least twenty times before swallowing. I expect to see clean plates also, or no dessert!"

"Chew?" Ashino prompted, eyeing the gelatin like vegetable block. "That might be a little beyond my capabilities."

"Was that a complaint? I think that was a complaint! Hah, success! Not so stoic now, are ya!?"

"Enough boredom will crack even the strongest shells, I guess." Ashino shrugged, sucking down the spoonful of boiled gelatin. Mmm, broccoli mash. This really was pretty good, despite what Jean thought. He could happily eat food like this for the rest of his life without trouble. He just hoped he wouldn't be eating it aboard this space station. "I feel like I'm just useless out here, you know? I mean, maybe I'm a little deranged or something, maybe its my residual conditioning, but I hate it out here, doing nothing all day long! I want to be where the action is... I want to be making a difference with my abilities! I feel like a steer put out to pasture."

"I feel like you're a steer too, but one that's been put in the pasture for reasons other than grazing." Jean's comment almost made him choke on his next spoonful, deliberately he was pretty sure. "I know what you mean though... I'm going a bit stir crazy myself, and I have a legitimate academic reason to torture myself like this! I have to be out here for the full six months to get credit for this degree, no choice about it! You... well, you have to be out here until the pirate problem is taken care of, but that could be years!"

"Pirate problem?" Ashino huffed, getting his breath back. "There's no pirate problem out here. Tiamat set up a base out here precisely because nobody would ever come near it, something like a rest or vacation posting, where they can train up in peace. Oh, they might harass some mining vessels or take a science team hostage now and again, but by and large they don't want to attract major attention, because they know the USN has more than enough resources to stamp them out like a spark on wet tinder if they feel the need. The USN could have more productively assigned this mission to a bunch of new recruits and a patrol ship, give them something to cut their teeth on. Sending me and the Independence... it's like sending an armored division to beat up a elementary school bully."

"Well, Mr. Durandel must think its the most effective strategy, or else why would he personally order you out here?" Jean replied with a shrug. "I admit, it seems kind of stupid to me, but I'm no politician."

"Neither am I, but I think that may be the problem... this might be a political maneuver on the part of the SecDef."

"How so? And why would he bother... you have no interest in being a politician."

"That's not really what I meant." Ashino took a sip of his fruit juice. "From what I understand, many of the SecDef's top advisors are, well, anti-Gundam would be a good way of putting it. They don't like concentrating power and resources into the hands of single individuals like that, despite how effective it has proven to be. I think I may have been sidelined as a political expediment... someone didn't want me around making a big impression on the fight against the Brotherhood. Especially now that there is the Solar Knight's unit that Eric was invited to be a part of, and plans for that Solar Protection Fleet. Someone is trying to tell the world that Gundams are no longer needed, by the simple method of letting the public forget the USN even has one."

"That's pretty cold, don't you think? I mean, you could have really made a difference in some of those terrorist incidents, like Galileo and LAS." Jean pointed out with a frown. "It seems uncharacteristic to me for any USN official to put making political points ahead of saving peoples lives. Sai never would have done something like that."

"Indeed he would not, but unfortunately..." Ashino trailed off, unwilling to let the depression of that thought be finished. "Well, Durandel is not Sai, and that's all there is to it. I do not like being a pawn in political games, when people are dying, but I have no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of the USN or the SecDef, just these feelings of discontent which may very well be unfounded." Ashino shrugged the subject away for the moment. "Have you heard any more from Eric? Wasn't his the unit that handled the Brotherhood attack at LAS?"

"Yeah. He hasn't called since the end of the fight, when he got in contact to let me know that it had indeed been his unit, and that he was fine. I think he's on liberty right now. There's talk of an award ceremony and everything... he sounded very excited. Eric seems to be having a lot of fun, though I'm still kind of upset that he still hasn't managed to find a girlfriend. He can't keep moping over Ella... its been five fucking years for christsakes! He needs to move on... its bad for the soul to dwell on what you can't have!"

"I agree totally. He never really had the chance to settle down before he joined the Solar Knights though, so maybe he'll have more luck finding female companionship now. Being a public celebrity certainly won't hurt matters." Ashino sighed heavily. "Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad for Eric, that his talents have been recognized by the upper chain of command but..."

"But you should have been a Solar Knight too, even if it meant giving up the Independence." Jean finished firmly. "That is the understatement of the year right there. Hell, Cyprus and the Hellhounds should have been recruited, and probably those Clyne Faction people too! What's the point of putting together an elite unit if you leave out all the top people available? It's like the SecDef doesn't trust you or those other people or something, which is just ludicrous... you're the most honest, guiless person I have ever met! You do what is right and lawful and that's the end of things! It seems to me like you're being picked on!"

"Or neglected, at the very least." Ashino agreed. "I've sent inquiries up the chain of command, but I haven't heard anything back yet. At this point in time, there isn't much I can do but grin and bear it... my service term ends in another two years, if the situation hasn't improved by then, I might have to make a try at civilian life. Or else go work with Cyprus and the others in Orb, as strange as that would feel. I don't know."

"Well, wherever you end up going, you can be sure of one thing at least." Jean set down her spork and pushed her mostly eaten tray of food away, her voice becoming quieter and more intent.

"Hmm?" Ashino asked, feigning confusion, though he made sure to start sliding his own empty platters away as well.

"I'll be there with you, always." Jean answered huskily, getting up and making her way over to his side of the table, leaving her station coveralls back in her chair.

"What more..." Ashino stood up to meet her with a tender smile on his face. "... could I ever ask for?"

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"Target facility will be within extreme range in t minus sixty and counting. Commence final readiness checks, prepare to begin passive comm jamming procedures. No sign of hostile or friendly presences within the operational area or the extended operational area. We are green for launching the purge." The mission commander reported over the shuttle comm system, as he stood up from his observation seat in the cockpit, stretching his legs after the multiple hour long flight. It wasn't the longest infiltration flight he'd ever been on... this mission was almost unique in that the only stealth required was a false cargo manifest and shuttle identification code, identifying them not as a military vessel but as an important courier shuttle, carrying VIP personages for a surprise inspection of the Asteroid Belt Exploratory Station. That would also serve to explain the presence of the four Champions flying close escort. The fact that they didn't need to be conventionally stealthy speeded their progress immensely... going sensor neutral and advancing using puffs of pressurized gasses would take days, which was the usual procedure for space based infiltration of hostile facilities.

The mission commander, a Captain in the USN special forces, privately wondered just what series of events had led to the USN's own Asteroid Belt Station being classified as a hostile facility requiring a full purge by his troops followed by the Champions blowing the station to tiny pieces, but he had his orders, and they were properly authorized and annotated, and that was that. He and his troops had a job to do, a dirty, ugly, thankless one, but that was the job they did for the USN, and the world was a better place because of it. He opened the eyes only envelope containing the mission particulars that he had been saving for this moment, though he and his troops had already memorized diagrams of the stations interior and planned their routes of entry and exit. Now was the time to learn why, and what sort of foes they could expect. The Captain's eyebrows rose quite a bit as he finished reading the document, but his hands were still steady and his voice calm when he accessed the shuttle PA system again.

"All right people, listen up! The mission is a go! We will purge the Exploratory Station of all human life and then we will blow the place into space dust! The reasoning behind this mission, which is classified Ultra Black, meaning that you can never talk about what has gone on here for the rest of your lives, for you scrubs that couldn't figure that out yourselves, is that the personnel of the station have been subverted by these pirates that have been causing them problems out here recently. They've been selling and giving the pirates USN supplies and sensitive information for a while now, but that's just icing on the cake. The reason we've been assigned to do this purge is that the USN Gundam Pilot, Markov Johanavich Ashino along with his Gundam, the Independence, also recently assigned to the station as an anti-piracy measure, is in fact planning on defecting from the USN, along with his Gundam, to join these blasted pirates, who have been discovered to actually be a splinter group of Tiamat!"

"Apparently Mr. Ashino used to work closely with Blue Cosmos, including the leaders of the Tiamat movements, and high command has long suspected his true loyalties to lie with them. Needless to say, now that they've finally discovered his true plans, they had to do something to stop him, before he could publicly disgrace the USN by selling his services to these Tiamat bastards, substantially increasing their own combat strength in the process, perhaps even to the point where they might step up their attacks to a point where the Asteroid Belt would become their own personal playground, especially given that the USN has its hands relatively full dealing with the Brotherhood right now! The USN cannot afford to look weak right now, and it is our job to ensure that Ashino never makes it to the pirates. Better to destroy him and his Gundam, as well as all his supporters on the station, rather than let them fall into enemy hands. Now that we have the Solar Knights, the SecDef no longer feels the need for a Gundam of any sort within our ranks. The disappearance will be blamed on the pirates, a neat wrap up if I've ever seen one. Questions?"

"Any chance of any of these Tiamat goons being on board the station?" One squad commander asked immediately. "The station personnel are one thing, but those Tiamat people know what they're doing, and they aren't afraid to take people with them when they go down either. I'd like to know if I'm going up against some suicidal loonies beforehand if possible."

"Unlikely but possible, Sergeant." The Captain replied. "The station personnel, according to our intelligence, are relying on maintaining their facade of loyalty to protect them from notice. They shouldn't have more than a few light rifles and pistols, and most of those should be secured in the station armory, which we will lock down ASAP. However, treat every room like it might contain well armed reaction forces, just to be safe. The Champions will set up an outer perimeter in order to make sure no one tries to escape via lifeboat, and to give warning and intercept if the pirates try to send aid, which is also unlikely. We will be striking shortly after lunchtime on the station, when the principle target and much of the crew should be on recreation time, either in quarters or in the station facilities. First Squad will go room to room in the residence section, operating in two man kill teams. Second Squad will secure the recreational and public living facilities. Third squad will secure the scientific section and the engineering section, while the Command Squad will hold the hangar and secure the armory and the control deck."

"What happens if the principle target is not in quarters or at recreation, and somehow manages to get to his Gundam in the hanger?" Another squad commander asked.

"Then it is likely that we will all die." The Captain replied seriously. "The Champions will do what they can, but this is a Gundam Pilot we're talking about, and the Independence Gundam. It is imperative that we prevent the Gundam Pilot from reaching his machine. Everything else is secondary to that, even disabling the outer skin defense emplacements or halting distress signals. Some sort of distress signal would be sent during a pirate attack anyway, and our passive comm jammers will cause enough garbling to any long range transmissions that they will be all but indecipherable. We're going to come out shooting and we won't stop until everyone is dead and accounted for. Any other questions?" Seeing as there were none, the Captain turned and went back to the shuttle bridge, to help facilitate the shuttle's docking. Behind him came the metallic clicks and clacks of firearms being loaded and the safeties being flicked off. The asteroid station loomed ahead, like a cancer hanging in space. Well, it wouldn't be there much longer...

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"Omigosh... omigosh... OMIGOSH... ASH... ASH... More... yes... oh God... yes..." Ashino let Jean's breathless exhortations drive him to new efforts, as he focused the entirety of his mind and soul on the seemingly simple yet infinitely complex task of intimate social interaction. He'd barely even broken a sweat, and was looking forward to filling up most of the rest of the afternoon, or at least as much as Jean could stand anyway, with providing her "research data". It wasn't like he had much else better to do, since the Independence didn't need any maintenance and nothing the recreation facilities had was even close to as good as spending time with Jean, even when they weren't having sex. A sudden faint stuttering sound tickled his ears, at odds with the usual background noise of the station's operation. Ashino paused, listening harder as the stuttering sound came again, slightly louder this time. It sounded familiar for some reason, but he was having trouble placing it, given where most of his attention was.

"Hey! You're in the middle of something rather important right now! Don't get distracted, ya bastard! Sheesh!" Jean prompted, throwing her arms around his neck and grabbing hold of his powerfully muscled back, wriggling her hips suggestively. "If you stop again I'm going to get really mad!"

"Right... sorry. Thought I heard something..." Ashino put his mind back to the process at hand. At least for a few seconds anyway, until he heard the sound a third time. There was no mistaking it this time, none at all. His entire body tensed up with an instinctive reaction that had nothing to do with what Jean seemed to think it was. Ashino sat back onto his knees, his ardour totally cooled, like a switch had been flipped inside him, which in some ways it had. Pleasure time was over, danger time was here.

"ASH!" Jean protested in severe irritation. "What the hell do you think you're doi..."

"Shh." Ashino clamped his hand over her mouth, his tone of voice startling her. "I hear gunfire, automatic weapons."

"But..." Jean complained, slowly dragging herself back to more rational thoughts as Ash took his hand away. Damn it, that had been some mind bendingly incredible... garh! Damn it! What the fuck was the problem this time!? Gunfire!? That was ludicrous... why would anyone be firing automatic weapons aboard a space station? It was probably just some air or water in some pipes somewhere. Honestly, Ash needed to learn when it was time to tune out distractions like that... he was still so much of a little kid sometimes, getting distracted by every new thing that tripped his overly keen senses up even a little! "You must be imagining things. There's no alarms going. It's just some sort of mechanical noise. I don't hear anything."

"It was gunfire. Some sort of assault weapon. Three round bursts, from multiple weapons." Ashino assured her in reply. He got off the bed and began looking for clothing. "Get dressed. We're in danger. It's been coming closer."

"Damn it, that doesn't make any sense though!" Jean sat up on the bed and hugged her knees to her chest as she watched Ashino pull on another pair of station coveralls. Well, there went her enjoyable afternoon. He wouldn't calm down until he figured out whatever the problem was, she knew him well enough to realize that. Honestly, he was so stubborn sometimes! Grr! "I'm well and truly pissed at you now, I'll have you know. I was THIS close to going over the edge, but no..."

"I'm sorry, but living takes precedence over giving you orgasms, however nice." Ashino's tone was businesslike. "It was good on my end too, I assure you. Move aside please." Ashino pulled aside the pillows at the head of the bed, discarding them onto the floor, before unlatching the semi-secret storage compartment built into the wall of the room that the bed butted up against. Most people stored extra blankets and pillows in the cubbyhole, Ashino though kept his knife and pistol and several other items of self protection there. It was a definite improvement, he felt, given that for the longest time he'd slept with a knife actually under his pillow. Storing the weapons in a cubbyhole was much more civilized and normal. Though Jean still tended to roll her eyes a bit.

"You're really serious aren't you..." Jean stood up as well, watching Ashino belt on the pistol holster and web belt with all the flash-bang grenades on it. She eyed the wickedly sharp edge of the long knife, more a machete or short sword, that Ashino carried strapped across his lower back as he drew it from its sheathe to ensure freedom of motion. This was very much not normal behavior for him, not these days anyway. He'd only be acting like this if he was absolutely, totally sure there was a direct and imminent threat to their safety. It didn't mean he couldn't be wrong... but then again, it was better to be safe than sorry. And Ash was very rarely wrong when he got this serious. Jean started getting dressed as well. "What can I do?"

"Stay close by, and pack up anything essential, but nothing larger than you can carry in one hand. We're going to go to the Independence. That's the safest place I can think of right now. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but if there is a problem, I'd prefer to face it from inside my Gundam, with you there, safe and by my side. If this is all something abnormal but non-dangerous, then we can always come back, and you'll have my deepest apologies. If not then..."

"We'll play it by ear from that point." Jean said, finishing pulling on her coveralls. She put a hand on his shoulder, struck, as she often was, by the slightly amusing disparity in their height. She wasn't a tall girl by any means, though she was taller now than she'd been when she first met Ash in Panama, while he hadn't grown even a quarter inch taller, though he was even more cut and muscled now then he was then. His head barely came up to her shoulders, but he still weighed more than twice as much as her. She kissed him gently on his forehead, inhaling the strong, comforting scent of his curly, cherry red hair. "As long as I'm with you, I'll be fine, right Ash?"

"There is no safer place." Ashino agreed, his green eyes meeting her hazel ones for a long moment, befor ehe forced himself to pull away. If he wasn't careful he could lose himself in Jean's face and eyes, and that would be bad for their current situation. There would be plenty of time to get lost in her later, once he'd assured their safety. "Are you finished getting ready?"

"The only vital thing I require comes in slightly too big of a package to be held in just one hand, despite how many times I've tried." Jean winked suggestively at him, though her ribald remark barely even drew the hint of a smile. "I'm ready when you are, Ash. I love you very much."

"I love you too, Jean, forever and ever." Ashino replied, allowing himself the luxury of a quick hug before turning and heading towards the hallway door, Jean right behind him. Ashino was just about to open the door when he paused, something tickling at one of his senses, one of the unnamable ones all good soldiers acquire after a few battles. Something was wrong. He stopped, his hand still several inches shy of the door control, listening intently. Ah. There it was! The sound of a boot sole scuffing on the floor of the passage outside, to either side of the door. Standard entry procedure wouldn't work, since the outer door was locked shut at the moment, a sensible privacy precaution given what he and Jean had been doing. Given that they were going to be staying here for several more months, Ashino had done a little covert work on his door lock program, upgrading its security protection to a degree that was frankly a bit too severe, but once he'd gotten started it had been hard to stop. He privately wished whoever was out there luck if they were trying to hack open the door. Cyprus might be able to do it, or some of the Clyne Faction members, but otherwise the door might as well be a wall.

Of course, being stymied in trying to open the door would then provoke those outside into trying other, more direct means. Ashino distinctly heard the sound of a rifle clip being detached and then another loaded into place, Swapping out anti-personnel rounds for armor piercing bullets most likely. He reacted with reflexes that had not been dulled in the slightest since the first day that he had stepped off the operating table from under the Doc's hands as a BCPU level Four. He dived backwards, slamming into Jean and propelling her back the way they'd come, shielding her with his body as much as possible. There was an enormous racket as steel jacketed rounds punched through the thin metal door in a hail of lead, throwing up sparks and digging divots into the floor, walls and ceiling as the rounds bounced around. Jean screamed in shock, and her scream changed its pitch as a ricocheting round tore along the top of Ashino's shoulder in a spray of crimson that splashed across her chest, though the bullet thankfully missed her.

Ashino clamped his hand over Jean's mouth to silence her as he rolled them both across the floor out of direct line of sight of the doorway. The door rocked and shivered, metal bending and tearing loudly as the assailents outside battered their way inside with rifle butts and kicking boots and slamming shoulders. Ashino paid the minor wound on his shoulder no mind, his enhanced blood clotting the cut almost as soon as it had occured. "Stay down, stay quiet and don't move until I tell you it's safe." Ashino directed Jean, rising into a crouch over her, pistol held in one hand, other hand unclipping a flash grenade. The enemy had heard a scream, now they would enter the room to confirm the kill. Standard tactics. It didn't tell him anything about them... any one of a dozen military organizations or terrorist groups would be capable of fielding troops with this knowledge. Though it was likely not the Brotherhood, given that these people were using regular firearms, and not the more advanced weapons the so called Harbringers seemed equipped with.

After several minutes of muffled cursing and battering of the door, the two assailents managed to get it open enough to squeeze inside Ashino's entranceway. They paused, not seeing any bodies to attribute to the scream they'd heard. Ashino flipped the flash grenade around the corner and squeezed his eyes shut to ride out the concussive blast and blinding light. The enemy likely had helmets capable of mitigating the effect of the flash grenade, but all he needed to do was stagger them for a second to gain the advantage he needed. Ashino spun around the corner, pistol barking in one hand, punching the left hand soldier backwards into the wall from the force of the heavy bullets, before a correction to Ashino's aim sent two rounds crashing through the not bullet-proof enough faceplate of the man's helmet. The second soldier reacted with admirable speed, bringing his rifle down towards Ashino, until Ashino arrested the motion with his free hand, jerking the taller man forward and slamming a head butt into his chest that cracked several ribs. A kick to the knee dropped the soldier to the ground, and Ashino finished him off by heel stamping the man's throat, crushing it easily.

"Holy shit, Ash!" Jean commented, peeking around the corner in awe.

"I told you not to move. There might be more." Ashino replied, his voice hard, holstering his pistol after reloading it. He took the rifle from the limp hands of the soldier who's neck he'd crushed, and then dropped down to a crouch to forage for more supplies of ammunition and anything else that might be useful. The light spilling in from the passageway revealed the emblems on the shoulders of the soldier's lightly armored space suits, and Ashino paused, uncomprehending. "That... can't be..."

"What?" Jean asked, having ducked back out of line of sight after his reprimand, despite her desire to peek out and see what was going on. Much as Ash went to her for help, and listened to her advice like they were commands with regards to social situations and interactions, she figured it was probably a good time for role reversal when it came to combat and staying alive when people were trying to kill them. Ash was the expert now.

"These are USN soldiers." Ashino answered blankly, struggling to figure out what the hell was going on. Why was the USN sending people after him? Were they even after him? But why else would they shoot through the door and come in armed and ready to shoot, unless they meant him and Jean harm? But he was on their side! Was this some kind of misunderstanding... he just couldn't figure it out!

"USN...? But that's OUR people!" Jean protested.

"I know! It doesn't make any sense to me either!" Ashino replied, taking off the helmet of the man who's throat he'd crushed. A few seconds fishing around rewarded him with the man's ID tags, smeared with blood where they'd been half embedded in the back of the man's throat by Ashino's stomp. There was no denying it now... these were USN ID tags. It wasn't someone dressed up as a USN soldier, this was a USN soldier! Ashino stood, pocketing several extra clips of ammo while hefting the rifle in one hand. There was nothing more to be gained from sitting here scratching his head and wondering what was going on. Their goal was unchanged. They would get to the Independence, and from within that fastness figure out what was going on to a satisfactory degree. "All right, it appears they were the only two in this particular area, though I don't doubt there are more elsewhere. We're going to move fast, and don't stop moving unless I tell you to! If shooting starts nearby, find the nearest piece of cover, whether it be a door, table, chair, whatever, and get as much of yourself behind it as possible. Let's go!"

They encountered several more open doors to various residence rooms on their way out of their wing of the residental section of the station, but most of the rooms were empty, though there were still bullet holes in some of the walls, and torn up beds or chairs and the like. One of the rooms wasn't empty though, although neither was it precisely occupied. The stench of blood and guts told Ashino what they would find in the room before they'd even looked around the doorway, but he checked anyway. The person might still be alive, though the odds were... grim. Too grim, as it turned out. The young couple, from the service department if he remembered their faces right, were lying on the bed, half clothed, likely having been in the middle of something very similar to what Ashino and Jean had been doing when the soldiers had burst in on them and explosively eviscerated them with automatic weapon fire. Ashino listened to Jean gagging and retching at the sight, and gently guided her away, there being nothing further to productively do. That could have been them, if Ashino hadn't heard the gunfire.

They were on the way out of the room when Ashino jerked to a halt and pushed Jean back into the common area, out of sight of the door to the hallway. He shot her a significant look and held up a hand, indicating that she wait and be quiet. She nodded at him, hands clamped over her mouth and nose, eyes tearing both from the smell and from panic. This had all become a lot more real now... this was life or death! Ashino padded silently over to the doorway, stopping just inside the threshold of the room. He didn't dare peek outside to investigate the movement sounds he'd heard... any movement at all was likely to draw fire from these soldiers. He forced himself not to think about them as USN soldiers. Right now, they were people who were after his life, and Jean's life. That made them enemies. It did not pay to be his enemy. Ashino listened to the footsteps, gauging their distance and location. He took a deep breath and then leapt out into the hall in a rolling dive.

He was alreading firing, a long, mostly unaimed burst on full automatic, filling the hall with bullets and the shattering sound of a gun firing. One of the soldiers twisted backwards with a cry, bloody craters opening on his left thigh, middle stomach and right shoulder as he fell backward in slow motion due to the low gravity. His partner tried to fire back, but Ashino was using his great strength, small size and the low gravity to his best advantage, leaping about, bouncing from wall to ceiling to wall to wall again like a demonically guided ball, and the well controlled bursts all bounced away down the hall ineffectually. Ashino slammed into the soldier like a cannonball, smashing her against the wall of the passage and using her to arrest his charging momentum, knocking the enemy's rifle away in the process. The soldier tried to go hand to hand with Ashino, only to discover that such a tactic was roughly equivalent to going hand to hand with a small gorilla, and a small gorilla that was an expert in killing people at hand to hand combat at that.

Ashino pinned the soldier against the wall with one hand, slammed his other fist into the soldier's head hard enough to crack the faceplate and bounced the helmet resoundingly off the wall and then snatched out his knife, stabbing it into the soldier's lower belly before ripping upwards and outwards, disemboweling the female soldier with a piercing scream. Ashino brought the knife back around and shoved it through her throat, cuttting off the scream and ending her agony. And they said BCPU's could feel no pity... well, they, whomever they were, happened to be wrong. He just didn't feel merciful, towards his enemies anyway. He could pity the poor stupid bastards just fine. "Come on, Jean. More will be coming, we need to go!" Ashino prompted urgently, sheathing the knife after wiping off the blade on the recently killed woman's shoulder, smearing gore all over the USN emblem there.

He reloaded his stolen rifle, which was also of standard USN manufacture, as they ran out of the residential section of the station, Ashino using the low gravity to bound along, easily keeping up with Jean's longer legged strides. He could hear rushing boots behind them, but the soldiers had discovered the bodies of their four friends, and were advancing more cautiously as a result. He snorted... someone had been taking him too lightly, apparently, and had sent troops in without being fully aware of just what a BCPU 4 was capable of. Ashino had been purposefully enhanced and designed to be able to defeat any Coordinator alive at any combat related task, and he'd gotten better with time and experience, plus extra training from people like Thomas Glory and Cyprus Finch! And he was protecting Jean, which lent him that awesome power of love he'd seen demonstrated so fruitfully by Athrun Zala in their unarmed combat outside of JIHAD all those years ago. He almost felt good enough for a re-match with Frost, assuming that was possible. Well, maybe not THAT good.

The next time they encountered the USN soldiers was when passing through the cafeteria, which was a bleak place. Usually the cafe was at least an enjoyable place to go for a conversation with someone else you might not normally talk to in the course of normal duties, sitting down at one of the communal tables to eat, but now the place was a charnal house. Ashino could see at least ten bodies slumped on or beneath the various tables, or on the floor by the food service stations, and there were tell-tale blood sprays and slicks on some of the visible kitchen machinery, adding a few more dead to the count. That was more than a fifth of the entire complement right there... whatever their reason, the USN seemed bound and determined to leave no survivors! Well, too bad for them that Ashino was declining to play along.

He almost bought the farm there, as the USN sprung their trap, four soldiers popping around the corners of the doorway he and Jean were heading towards, and two more appearing from behind in a flanking maneuver. Ashino shoved Jean hard to the side, sending her stumbling down to the ground underneath one of the tables. Ashino threw himself the other way, firing one handed with the rifle in order to establish himself as the primary threat, directing the soldiers attention towards him and away from Jean. He was grazed twice by incoming fire before he managed to find scant cover behind one of the automated drink dispensing machines, which rapidly started to come apart under the hail of burst fire. Additional bullet impacts from the flanking duo smacked into the floor around him, until he turned and caught one of them out, his own double three round burst blowing the luckless soldier's head and helmet apart into bloody mist.

Ashino snatched another of his flash grenades, leaving one still on the belt, and heaved it up in a high arc over the shot riddled drink machine, prompting shouts of warning from the soldiers by the door. He took his last grenade and then bowled it along the floor towards the same group. Caught with all four soldiers watching the grenade tumbling down from above, which hadn't even been armed, the soldiers were blinded and stunned by the grenade rolling along the floor to bump against their feet. He was up and out of cover in a moment, firing his rifle until it clicked back empty and then discarding it as he pushed himself to his absolute limit to cover the distance between the four... now three and a half, since his rifle fire had killed one and half torn the arm off another... soldiers by the door leading towards the hanger, while at the same time trying to move fast enough that the remaining flanking soldier could not get a good shot at his back. He whipped out his knife again and dived the last few feet to the grouped soldiers, feeling more bullets crease the skin on his shoulder and the side of his head from behind, before the flanker was forced to stop for fear of shooting his friends.

Now at close range, Ashino was in his favorable element in a battle where the enemy outnumbered him, where his strength, speed, ferocity and small size combined to make him an absolute bloody nightmare, especially with his long knife in hand. He hacked one soldier's gun arm in half at the elbow and drove his clawed hand into the gut of another, tearing away a fistful of flesh before slamming the resulting clenched fist into the neck of the wounded soldier, crushing his windpipe. Spinning the choking, disabled soldier behind him as a bullet sop in case the flanker tried anything, Ashino stabbed the soldier whos arm he'd cut off in the chest, twisted the blade sharply, and then yanked it out followed by a jet of scarlet. He kicked the remaining unwounded soldier's knees sideways and brought his knife across her throat, slicing it down to the backbone and half severing the spine in the process. Almost as an afterthought he jammed his elbow backwards into the lower back of the soldier he'd gutripped, shattering the lower spine cleanly, and then followed it up with a knife to the heart, sliding in between the ribs from the back. Another twist pulped the impaled muscle, and the soldier dropped, gore foaming from his lips inside his helmet.

Ashino turned, yanking out his pistol, wishing he'd practised more of those quick draw techniques that Cyprus had tried to teach him, now almost completely vulnerable to the flanker soldier. Ashino saw the man lining up his shot, and knew that he wouldn't be able to dodge it all. For a brief moment he wished he was a higher level BCPU... Cray or Amy or Frost wouldn't have even slight difficulties in this sort of situation. Though in retrospect, the balance of things up until now had worked out the better for him being a rational, emotion capable human being, so perhaps not. His life didn't quite flash before his eyes, but he was starting to think it might do so soon, when the man's aim was ruined by a flung array of silverware, courtesy of Jean. The knives and forks came nowhere particularly near the man, but the mere fact of their path towards his general direction and the winking metallic surfaces was enough to distract him with a flinch. Which was all Ashino needed to clear his pistol and pump half a clip into the man's upper torso and head, dropping him in place.

"I thought I told you to stay in cover." Ashino remarked, reloading his pistol with his last full clip, sheathing his knife and scavanging a new rifle, ignoring the thumping feet and thrashing limbs of the soldier with the crushed throat as he slowly strangled to death on the floor nearby. He also took the opportunity to pick up the grenade he'd thrown high as a distraction. The USN soldiers didn't seem to carry any grenades, which again said to him that someone hadn't prepared them very well for what they were facing. He, unlike most Gundam Pilots, was just as dangerous outside his Gundam as inside it, especially in a close quarters battlefield like the inside of the station.

"Well, I couldn't just let him shoot you!" Jean protested, somewhat wrong footed. She desperately tried not to look down at the floor where the slowly expiring soldier was gasping his last, or at the bloody ruin Ash had made of the other soldiers. He was terrifying, she realized. Not to her... never to her... but she couldn't imagine being someone that was his enemy! He was tearing through people like they were ragdolls! She felt like she'd run screaming from him if she didn't know him like she did. "They're after me too, you know, and if you go down then I'm not long for this world... if I need to risk my life in order to survive, then so be it!"

"But I don't know what I would do if you got even slightly hurt..." Ashino said quietly. He shook himself. This was not the time or place for this particular heart to heart talk. "Come on... the hanger isn't too much further, and now they're really going to be after us. We need to hurry, or else they'll surround us in a hallway and gun us down from long distance."

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"He's broken through the ambush at the cafeteria. No survivors." One of the squad commanders reported, his voice hoarse with sorrow and shock. "What the hell is this guy, sir? He's tearing our people to shreds with his bare hands, crushing bones, practically dodging bullets from what it sounds like! Even protecting an unarmed civilian, he's killed a quarter of our force with only slight injuries himself!"

"The mission report made no mention of abilities like this, sergeant!" The Captain replied, his voice hard and angry. He was going to have very strong words with high command when they got back... twelve deaths was simply unacceptable! One death was unacceptable! Twelve was obscene! How could one man kill twelve highly trained soldiers using only a couple of flash grenades, a pistol, a few rifle shots, a knife and his bare hands!? How the hell was he getting close enough to even USE a knife or bare hands!? "He's making a beeline for the hanger just as we expected he would. The others are almost done purging the remaining crew from their hiding places. The Command Squad will hold him at the hanger entrance, and the rest of you will sweep in from behind and take him out. Do not engage him unless you have a clear long distance shot at him... we can't keep letting him get close to us!"

"Yes, sir!" The Sergeant replied stiffly, though it was hard curtailing his anger, looking down at the stabbed and chopped up and broken bodies lying there on the cafe floor, one of which was still twitching feebly, his throat crushed, left to slowly strangle to death. It was barbaric! He was now looking forward to icing this bastard!

The Captain, for his part, did his best to snug into a more comfortable position by the doorway that led from the hanger bay to the rest of the station. Designed as a natural chokepoint, there was only one way in or out of the hanger, at least into the residential and living quarters part of the station. There were several large doors going off into storage and supply rooms, but none of those were connected to the rest of the station. If this Markov Ashino, and the civilian he was safeguarding, wanted to get into the hanger, they would have to go through these double doors. "Have you had any luck getting into that Gundam yet? If we can disable or destroy the controls, it won't matter if he reaches it."

"Sorry sir, but it's slow going. Whoever wrote this security program really knew what they were doing." The soldier he'd assigned to the task reported, his voice tinged with frustration. "This thing is harder to crack than a bank vault! We'd probably make better time with a cutting torch, to be honest, sir."

"That'd take hours." The Captain pointed out.

"Yes, sir."

"Damn. Do what you can." The Captain groused. He was about to check up on the progress of the other squads in fully accounting for all station personnel when a garbled burst of static came into his earpiece on the channel from the Champion squadron outside. "Say again, Mobile Forces! You came through garbled!" The Captain listened to a long burst of squealing static, gritting his teeth at the cacaphony. It sounded for all the world like intensive comm jamming, but that was impossible. They were the only military force for tens of millions of kilometers! They were almost a full day's maximum thrust journey from Earth orbit... it seemed incredible to think that anyone could have followed them out, especially because this was a top secret mission, the particulars of which were confined to the SecDef's office alone! "Mobile Forces, this is Mission Commander... say again last! What's going on out there!?"

"...isio... nder... r... k... Bro... umbered... ise... old... ch... er!"

"Damn it! What the hell is with this static! Mobile Forces, I can't understand a word you're saying! Send someone into the hanger to make a verbal report!" The Captain swore angrily... this kept getting better and better, didn't it! First, the primary target turns out to be some kind of super-soldier, with incredible physical capabilites beyond even those of most Coordinators, and now he was losing comms with his primary support forces. What the hell ELSE could go wrong? Was the goddamned Brotherhood of Man going to show up for tea and biscuits!?

"Target in sight, advancing slowly, using maximum cover. The civilian is with him. No shot at this point in time." One of the Command Squad soldiers stationed at the door reported, sighting along his rifle. "Little bugger moves FAST!"

"Keep it cool and steady there!" The Captain ordered. "Let him get to within optimum firing range. All we got to do is keep him busy and pinned down, the rest of the unit will take him in the back and turn him into confetti! Play it smart, and no one else has to become a casualty but them!" He switched channels once more. "All units, this is the Mission Commander. Principle target and single civilian approaching hanger doors, will commence holding action shortly. Finish up other priority tasking and congregate on hangar door area from all directions. Keep it together and be smart... the target is extremely dangerous, especially in close quarters." He switched back to the Champion's channel. "Mobile Forces, this is Mission Commander. Finishing up inside, prepare to begin bombardment destruction of station on my order." He got nothing but hissing static as a reply. "Fuck it all to hell!"

"Firing." One of the Command Squad warned, opening up with several controlled bursts of fire. "Damn... talk about reflexes. I don't even think I winged him. Primary target is working his way slowly towards us, using hallway supports as cover. No sign of civilian target yet." The soldiers by the door all crouched back deeper into cover as rifle rounds sparked and spattered around the edges of the doorway, though no one was struck. "He shoots pretty good too!"

"Let him shoot. He'll run out before we do. He's on a timer and he knows it... he's got to get through us before the rest show up and flank him." The Captain answered calmly. He stepped slightly back from the doorway so he could command more effectively, without having to worry about stray rounds or ricochets distracting him. He had five soldiers besides himself at the doorway, and another still working on cracking open the Gundam. There was no way in hell that the bastard would be able to force his way through six well entrenched soldiers by himself! Nobody was that good! No, now it was just a waiting game, and no matter how it turned out, his forces were going to be the winners!

---------------------------------------------

"Damn." Ashino muttered, ducking back behind the hallway stanchion to reload once more, down to his second to last scavanged clip. He just couldn't get any closer than this position, two stanchions down from the double doors leading into the hangers. Jean was crouched close behind him, pressed flat to the wall, hands clamped over her ears to protect them from the continuous sonic assault of close proximity weapons fire, having managed to run from hiding place to hiding place during those times his fire had pinned the soldiers behind the door. But now Ashino was starting to think he'd been forced into another trap, not that there had been much option. They were stuck in the hallway, with at least four or five soldiers guarding the doors they needed to pass through, and an unknown but undoubtedly large number coming in from the back any minute now. Bullets bounced and shattered against the steel structural stanchion as the soldiers poked their heads and weapons around the door to keep him ducked back in cover.

Ashino weighed the final remaining flash grenade in one hand before clipping it back to his web belt. He might be able to close the gap, if he was lucky, but there was no way that Jean would be able to follow him, and no way for him to be sure of being able to protect her or distract the soldiers in the doorway even if he did make it to them before they recovered enough to shoot him. This was not a good situation! There was only so much he could do by himself in this kind of scenario, and he'd already done most of it! If it was just himself, he'd chance it... but there was Jean to consider! He could give her the rifle and have her try to give him covering fire he supposed, but Jean knew nothing about combat with guns, and she was as likely to get shot trying to help as she was to do anything actually helpful. His mind came up with scenarios, analyzed them and discarded them in a constant flow. There just weren't any good options!

Ashino fingered the grenade once more. It was looking like he was going to have to chance it, despite the slim odds of success. He was pretty sure he could hear boots rushing towards them from not too far down the hallway they were in. It was now or never. He stood up, still in cover, drawing Jean up next to him. He looked at her, glanced at the grenade and then jerked his head at the doorway. She nodded, her eyes wide and trusting. She believed in him. Believed he was invincible. That he could save her no matter what, that he was the one actually in control of this situation. It both made him smile and hurt at the same time. He enjoyed her belief in him... but it was a false belief. The greater chance was that they were both about to die in the next few seconds. But at least they would be together, he supposed. He took the grenade in hand and prepared to throw it. And then staggered, almost falling. For a moment he thought he'd been shot from behind, that a bullet impact was tossing him forward, but then the entire station shivered and jerked again, harder, sending him stumbling back the other way, crashing into the wall.

"What is it!? What's happening!?" Jean cried out, swaying and staggering herself as the station rocked and the tremendous sound of distant explosions boomed along the hallways.

"The station is under attack from the outside." Ashino answered, calmly enough, gritting his teeth. This was an unexpected twist, but it did not bode particularly well. It didn't make much sense either... the enemy commander had to know he had Ashino and Jean basically in the bag. Why would he start destroying the station with his own people still inside? Simply put, he wouldn't. That meant there was now likely a third side to complicate matters. Tiamat maybe? It seemed incredibly stupid of them if it was... they could not know he was unable to reach his Gundam, and he'd almost massacred them in their first meeting. Attacking his home base with him around was the height of folly. But who else could it be? Ashino listened to several more explosions. "The station won't last long at this rate. Wait for the next big shake, and then we're moving."

"But what..." Jean was cut off by the sound of tearing metal and shattering rock, and then a titanic explosion as some of the bombardment fire struck not too far away, tearing through yards of rock to pierce into the actual station structure itself only a couple of levels away from them. The stations A-Grav clicked off suddenly and did not reappear. It was precisely the sort of momentary distraction Ashino was hoping for... most people would take a moment to regain their senses after a sudden switch to micro-gravity, even when coming from a relatively low gravity environment. Losing your sense of up and down was always a bit disconcerting. Well, not if you were a BCPU or some Coordinators of his acquaintance, but to most people. Ashino sidestepped around the stanchion and jumped forward, legs propelling him like a biological missile at the doorway, tugging Jean along by one wrist so she didn't get seperate. Ashino precceded himself with the thrown flash grenade, and then brought the rifle up in his free hand.

The air shock of the concussion wave was strong enough in close quarters to knock the soldiers back and up into the air on various trajectories when the grenade blew up in the middle of their defensive formation, flailing helplessly before catching hold of walls or other hold grips. Ashino had to give them credit... they weren't disoriented by the abrupt change in gravity nearly as much as he'd been hoping for. The flash grenade had knocked them apart and kept them stunned a moment or two longer, but he and Jean had barely cleared the doorway when they came under fire from multiple sources, bullets tracking into the steel wall and decking all around them as they hurtled along as fast as Ashino's legs could push them from place to place. After several seconds Ashino knew it was pointless to keep trying to dodge with Jean in tow... she just couldn't react fast enough, and she was slowing him down as well.

"Get to the Independence! Go!" Ashino ordered, pausing behind a support structure for a moment.

"But what are you..."

"Now!" Ashino half pushed and half hurled her towards his Gundam, and then darted back into plain view of the soldiers, who were regrouping around their shuttle, which was berthed between the Independence and the great steel doors that served as the hanger gates, keeping the atmosphere in and the vacuum out. The station wasn't big enough to have a proper space dock or harbor, always open to vacuum, like larger asteroid stations, like the old Artemis, or Jachin Due had sported. That currently worked in their advantage, because adding vacuum suits to the situation would not make things any easier, and could end up making even the slightest injury far more dangrous. They called it death pressure for a reason. Not that death was instantaneous, just likely if you spent more than a few unprotected seconds in it, especially if you tried to hold your breath.

Ashino split his fire between the six soldiers he could see, moving the rifle back and forth, firing single shots so quickly they probably thought he was firing on full automatic. This kept them pinned and scrambling for cover for a few seconds, unable to fire back, even as one lucky shot took one of them through the thigh, but it came to an end rather sharply, with the harsh "click-click" of a firing pin snapping down on an empty chamber. Ashino yanked out his last rifle clip and started swapping the clips out, but he knew that the second long procedure would be more than enough for the soldiers to regain their equilibrium.

"ASH!" Jean's panicked cry snapped his head and entire body around, regardless of the fact that turning his back on the soldiers was practically begging them to kill him. His heart plummeted down into his toes and his face became a mask of terror. There was another soldier up by the Independence's cockpit, apparently having been trying to hack the cockpit open! Now he was right in front of Jean, weapon already in hand, while she drifted through the air right towards him, completely helpless to do anything to change her trajectory, courtesy of Ashino's throw! His rifle was still unloaded, his pistol couldn't be drawn in time, he had nothing to throw... this was it. This was the end, he was tapped out! All he could do was stand and watch in horror, mouth opening on a denial, as the soldier took aim at Jean, while the other soldiers took aim at Ashino's unprotected back. So, this was how dying felt... he didn't like it one bit!

There was another tremendous explosion, sounding like the entire asteroid base was cracking in half, which actually wasn't too far off, and the entire hanger bay area shook, rattled and gyrated frantically, like a small box punted through the air by an over-eager football player. The sound of automatic weapons firing blended in to the medly of secondary explosions and detonations that came from exploding pieces of gear and other semi-volatile equipment stored around the hanger bay area. A massive crack appeared in the steel gates of the hanger, and a terrifying hissing sound soon grow to an all consuming wail that drowned out all other sound and noise as air started to leak out through the compromised gate into the infinite vacuum of space.

Ashino barely managed to keep his bearings, dropping his useless rifle and leaping through the rapidly thinning air of the hanger to snag a handhold on a wall nearby, to avoid getting sucked back towards the gate, like everything and everyone who wasn't secured down was. Blood misted the air and splatted against his straining face from the direction of the Independence. Much of it came from the explosively destroyed, headless and limbless body that belonged to the USN soldier who'd been trying to hack into the Independence and had been about to kill Jean, before exploding lights in the ceiling had slashed his body to ribbons, electrocuting him in the process, though he was already mostly dead by that point in time anyway. However, to Ashino's horror, some of the blood was coming from Jean, who was drifting limply through the air, being inexorably dragged back towards the gate as she was pulled away with the atmosphere. He couldn't see the extent of her injuries, but there was a lot of blood, and she wasn't moving.

"JEAN!" Ashino yelled, releasing his handhold to claw desperately along the deck, ripping his nails and bloodying his fingers constantly as he fought against the vacuum suction. He slid almost eight feet backwards before catching hold of the floor again when a rifle round from behind slammed into his back and burst out through the middle of his chest. He grunted in pain as the wound rapidly scabbed over. He didn't think anything really vital had been hit, his internal organ armor doing its job to keep his vitals mostly undamaged, but one could never tell with torso shots from high powered rifles. He had no time to be injured though... Jean needed him, badly! He pulled himself along the floor again, as Jean was dragged through the air towards him. Ashino felt his ears pop several times as the air pressure rapidly lowered, and he made sure to keep his mouth open, praying that Jean, if she was still conscious, would do the same. Try to hold your breath in a vacuum and your internal organs would pop from the difference in internal versus external pressures.

As things were he could feel the blood start to boil and bubble in his veins, products of the gases in the blood starting to evaporate, but even a regular human could survive that kind of torment, commonly known as the Bends, experienced by deep sea divers on occasion when they returned from the depths of the sea to the surface too quickly, without stopping to equalize their internal and external pressures. Ashino was pretty sure he could stay concious and active unprotected in a vacuum for at least five minutes with varying degrees of discomfort, and survive at least ten before death claimed him. Jean's numbers were likely to be significantly less, especially given she was already wounded to an unknown but frightfully bad looking extent. Still, he didn't need much time... just a little! He grunted again, barely able to hear himself in the almost nonexistant atmosphere, as another rifle round slammed into his upper shoulder area, the round flattening against his reinforced bone after digging out a bloody crater. That too scabbed over, and the arm still worked reasonably fine. It didn't matter what they did to him... they would not stop him from saving Jean!

As the last of the atmosphere evacuated the hanger bay, Ashino leapt off the floor and snagged ahold of Jean, where her foot had gotten caught in a loop of wiring that had fallen in a tangle from the ceiling, halting her progress towards the doors. He glanced behind him and saw the soldiers swimming their way through the air towards him, not bothered at all by the atmosphere loss since they were already wearing armored EVA suits. New explosions and other damage to the station was felt only as vibrations, now that there was no air to transmit sound waves. Ashino did not pause to consider Jean's wounds now, since they were still in life threatenig danger. Something looked wrong about her hands though, and there was a lot of blood on the back of her head. Tears formed in his eyes, and they had nothing to do with the vacuum or the pain of his own wounds. She looked so delicate, so fragile, so hurt... how could anyone do this to her! Ashino knew that the red he was seeing was from burst blood vessels in his eyes, but that didn't mean he wasn't also enraged to a near berserk level!

Gathering her up in his arms, Ashino pushed off from the ceiling and darted over to the Independence, cushioning their landing with his wounded arm, which twinged sharply. But that was all. Just a twinge. His rage was blocking out everything else. Jean was hurt. He hadn't been able to save Jean. The USN had come to kill them. The USN had hurt Jean. The USN was his enemy! Durandel was his enemy! Durandel had betrayed him, had sent him out to this abysmal station to rot and then sent men to kill him and the love and soul of his life! Ashino input the password and opened the cockpit hatch, pushing inside and sealing it shut after him as impotent rifle rounds spanged and spalled all around the cockpit, last desperate shots from doomed souls trying to avoid their fate! Ashino locked the hatch from the inside and listened gratefully to the hiss of air as the Independence's internal life support systems came online at the press of a button. All sounds were distorted by the fact that his eardrums had burst in the vacuum, but he'd been expecting that, and he knew how to compensate, especially in his current emotional state.

"Oh, Jean..." Ashino tore off the sleeves of his coverall and used them as makeshift bandages around the mangled ruins of where Jean's beautiful, delicate hands had used to be, before the close range burst of automatic rifle fire had torn them to shreds, practically ripping them apart down to the wrist. Ashino knew just by looking that there was no way the hands could be saved, even if most of the pieces hadn't likely been sucked out into deep space along with the atmosphere. The damage was just terrible, even to his eyes! Especially to his eyes... this was JEAN! He desperately tore off the legs of his coveralls as well and tied them tightly around her wrists as tourniquets. He couldn't save her hands, but he could save her life! He wouldn't let her bleed out! He listened frantically for breathing and felt for a pulse. She had both... not strong ones, but she had them! There were no other bullet wounds... the soldier had been killed by the flying glass shrapnel before being able to finishing aiming and unloading his clip.

However, the worst wound was the one on the back of her head. Ashino couldn't get a very good look at it with her hair all matted and crusty with gore, but it looked like she'd taken some metal shrapnel of some sort to the back of the skull, and worse still, it appeared to still be stuck in there. He didn't dare touch it... bad as it was, if he tried to pull it out or even slightly jostled it, he might sever a major blood vessel in her brain, killing her in seconds. "Jean..." Ashino whispered mournfully. "Its not FAIR! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME! YOU TRUSTED ME TO PROTECT YOU AND I FAILED! JEAN! **JEAN!**" Ashino sobbed, hugging her to him. She continued to breathe, her heart continued to beat, her body continued to live, but she gave no signs of waking up or even responding to him. Faint tremors shook the Independence as more of the station broke apart in fire and destruction. The remaining USN soldiers were boarding their shuttle and beginning pre launch procedures. Ashino paid them no mind for the moment, too lost in his own grief and rage to care about the outside world.

After a minute or so of gently rocking back and forth and sobbing, holding her tightly to him, still unmindful of his own wounds, Ashino gently pushed Jean to the back of the cockpit area. The Independence was roomier inside than most Mobile Suits, if not quite to the tandem cockpit level enjoyed by Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haw in the Grand Buster or more recently, the Warmaster. He used some extra tie down straps used for securing loose gear to hold her in place behind the cockpit command chair, where she wouldn't fly around during any necessary manuevers. He took his flight helmet from its cubby on top of the main screen and expanded the variable fit to the largest setting before gently easing it onto her head. It would have to do as skull protection until he could get her to a proper medical facility, though he had no idea where he was going to find one of those nearby. They were a long way from anywhere at the moment.

Ashino sat down in the command chair and buckled himself in, his hands trembling in a fashion he could not control, and had never experienced before. His hands had always been steady, even when confronting Frost or other extremely tense situations. Of course, this time was different. This time it wasn't just him! This time he was most definitely not fighting for just him! He activated the Independence's main power and started brining the OS online. He kept his Gundam in a constant ready to deploy state out of habit... a BCPU and his machine had to be one being to be effective, and in its way, he had as much love for the Independence as he did for Jean. He felt his lips twisting into a snarl, and he wondered, briefly, if this was how Frost used to feel going into combat. This all consuming emotional deluge that blocked out anything but his own pain, and the need to expunge it, however slightly, but eradicating everything hostile in his path! "It should have been me." He muttered, raising the twined 120mm gatling cannons the Independence carried on its right arm and hand. "Now it'll be YOU!" He aimed at the shuttle full of soldiers and hit the trigger.

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The four Zealots and two Martyrs sent by Noah as "clean up" forces for Durandel hadn't had much trouble so far. Taking out the Champions had been briefly exciting, but the USN pilots had been caught totally off guard by the sudden appearance of a superior numbered Brotherhood force, and most of their weapons had been chosen for base bombardment roles, not Mobile Suit dueling. The result being that the four Champions were wiped out in a matter of minutes, unable to even communicate with the forces inside the station due to the Brotherhood's comm jamming. After that point it was simply a matter of blasting away at the station with their weapons, slowly chipping away its hard rocky outer shell to get at the softer interior parts, much like breaking open a crab or lobster to get the meat out. They were almost done now... flames and secondary explosions were starting to break the station apart into large pieces, and from there it was all downhill. Not exactly the most glorious of missions... but as the Prophet willed, right?

Much as the Champions had been completely unprepared for the appearance of the Brotherhood forces, so too were the Brotherhood forces completely unprepared for the sudden appearance of the Independence, as the hanger bay gate was suddenly blasted into smithereens from the inside, chewed to bits by the storm of 120mm explosive shells that had also devoured the USN shuttle, annihilating every last remaining soldier in flame and fury. Larger and heavier than even the Martyrs, the Independence stepped forth from the slowly disintegrating hanger and immediately oriented on the Brotherhood machines. Whether or not the pilot was surprised to see them, the Brotherhood pilots never figured out for sure. He sure didn't act very surprised... quite the opposite really. The massive Gundam practically pounced at them like a lion jumping after mice.

The twinned heavy gatling cannons held in the right fist tracked across the Brotherhood formation, which had grouped up in order to focus their bombardment fire more effectively, spewing high velocity explosive death at maximum rpms. The shells couldn't penetrate the Phase Shift of the Zealots, and being unmanned they were less affected by the knockback than they otherwise might have been, but it was still enough to unbalance them, coupled with their surprise. The Martyrs fared rather less well under the barrage, since they only had normal armor, and all it took was a single hit to a volatile battery or ammunition bay to... and then it happened, one of the Martyrs going off like a small nuclear bomb, the explosion shockwave sending his allies tumbling in all directions like a handful of golf balls swatted by a tennis racket. Reacting as quickly as they could, the Zealots and remaining Martyr switched their fire to the Gundam, but it weathered their beam blasts on its Citadel Shield, and seemed to take even less notice of the impact of missiles, railguns and cannons than they themselves did.

The shoulder mounted 200mm beam cannons of the Independence flashed, skewering a Zealot who wasn't countermaneuvering nearly as well as he'd thought he was, shearing off the limbs and caving in the torso region in an implosion of sparks and smoke that rapidly turned into a hurtling ball of metal debris headed off for the depths of space. The chest mounted 580mm hyper-impulse cannon took out the second Martyr cleanly through the center of the chest, almost cutting the machine in half, boring a five meter wide glowing hole through the torso before the machine shattered itself in a flurry of secondary detonations. Stunned and frightened by the power of the rampaging Gundam, suddenly finding their forces reduced by half, with all heavy support gone, the remaining three Zealots hesistated for a moment, wondering what they should do. Their mission orders had told them to destroy the station and the USN Champions and any USN shuttles they came across... it had made no mention of this Gundam!

Their hesistation cost them, as the Independence focused fire from its twin 120mm gatling cannons, the two 100mm shield mounted railguns and the twin 30 tubed missile launchers on its back, all on the furthest away Zealot. None of the shots could penetrate the Phase Shift of course, but that wasn't what Ashino was trying to do. He was just seperating them, driving that one back like a man hit by a fire hose spray. He turned his shoulder beam cannons and chest hyper impulse cannon on the middle distanced Zealot, catching it with a instinctive accuracy that would have impressed even he himself were he currently in the sort of condition where he could appreciate such things. As things were, it was just one less enemy to have to worry about, one more step on the path to saving Jean, somehow! Ashino holstered the twin 120mm gatling cannons across his back for the moment, seeing that they would no longer be needed to finish this off. He clenched the Independence's right hand, blue white arcs of electricty crawling around the fingers from out of the palm.

Ashino sideslipped the desperation fire from the closest Zealot and jetted in close, just outside of melee range. The Zealot responded by dropping its rifle, whipping out a beam sword and taking cover behind its shield, obviously intending to weather out his attacks and then counter, if it was able. Ashino's snarl grew wider in pleasure for a moment, as he pointed the Independence's right fist at the center of the shield and opened the palm, triggering the Mjolnir Charged Penetrating Particle Cannon. An extremely dangerous and volatile weapon, though of proportionately high power, the Mjolnir in each of the Independence's palms were upgraded versions of the same ones the Bane had once used, with the difference being he could charge them without having to leech power from other machines, and they were more powerful. The weapon discharge was basically a bolt of lightning, which had short range, barely a hundred and fifty meters max, but it had almost the same penetrating power as a FRALA beam, and much more explosive power. The downside to the weapon was its extreme volatility... if a fully charged Mjolnir were to be damaged, it could be catastrophic for the Gundam and its pilot, not to mention everything else nearby.

None of this really mattered to the Zealot pilot, who never did figure out what hit his machine through his shield, he was just glad he was far away when it happened. The Mjolnir bolt struck the Zealot's shield and passed through it like it was made of sand, leaving a glowing melted hole in the middle of the armored slab. The bolt traveled up the Zealots arm and into its body, shredding everything it touched, melting metal into vapor, basically disintegrating the Zealot by pure energy overload, before the explosive shockwave of the energy release caught up to itself, and ripped the Zealot into white hot pieces no bigger than the palm of a human hand, even the shield. In space there was no collateral effect from the explosion, though it did look rather neat, like a festival firework going off, shortly after a lightning flash filled the sky. Turning his attention to the last Zealot, which was just now recovering from the battering his munitions had given it, Ashino snatched out his beam glaive, a weapon that was halfway between a sword and a spear, with a longish haft and a widish beam blade.

The Zealot tried to run, but the Independence was nuclear powered as well, and had more powerful thrusters. Perhaps in atmosphere, where air resistance and weight might have played a role, the Zealot could have made it. But in space, all that mattered when the difference in mass was still so compartively slight was the amount of acceleration, and the Independence had the edge there. At the last moment the Zealot tried to turn and defend itself, making play with its beam sword, but the effort was too little, too late. The Zealot blocked the first strike, only to eat a shield slam from the edge of Ashino's shield, then take a pair of railgun blasts to the face. Reeling from that, the Zealot lost it's sword to a sweeping kick from the Independence, and then lost its shield arm to the flashing blade of the glaive. The Zealot tried to make a snap shot with its own shoulder beam cannons, but the Independence's shield rose up and blocked both shots easily. The shield rose up further, and the Zealot jerked, impaled through the chest by the stabbing glaive. It hung there for a moment, thrusters flickering with the last spasms of life, before internal explosions tore it to pieces as well.

Ashino clenched his hands tightly on the controls. Was it over!? It was too soon! He hadn't even released a fraction of the rage he was feeling! He still had so much emotion pent up inside, he needed something else to destroy, something else to rend apart! As quickly as he thought that though, the fit ebbed a little and he sat back in his chair, groaning, both because he could now no longer ignore the pain of his own wounds, but also because now he was lost again. He didn't know where to go next... Jean was in critical condition, and though she yet lived, she needed serious medical help if she was going to survive long. For that matter, he could stand some time in the hospital himself... that mid torso shot had gone all the way through him, and that was troubling. There was no telling what pieces of his insides had gone out with the bullet. Still, the priority was Jean... he'd survived worse than this before. She was just a regular human being, both fragile enough to die easily and resilient enough to sustain horrific injuries first.

"Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!" Ashino swore, grinding his palms into his face. He didn't know what to do! The station was tearing itself to pieces behind him, or else he'd go there. He had no food or most importantly no water. He had no medical supplies other than the emergency survival kit, and that wasn't rated to deal with the kind of trauma he and Jean had suffered. He'd use it as best he could of course, but it was just a stopgap. The Independence would take days to fly back to Earth orbit, and Jean didn't have days! Ashino himself might not have days, depending on what his internals looked like! He didn't know where any other member-state or USN asteroid bases were... they weren't exactly common, and those he had a hazy idea about were almost as far away as Earth. The Mars research station didn't have docking facilities for a Mobile Suit, and Jean would not survive more exposure to vacuum in her current state, and he had no space suit to give her.

The only viable answer was both iffy and distasteful, but what other choice was there? It looked like it was time to call on old allegiances, and find common cause with people he personally despised, people who had been in league with those who had stolen him from his family as a child and made him into... into... what he was. People who had treated him like a THING and not a person, and conditioned him to expect that sort of treatment, even accept it! Could he really go crawling back to Blue Cosmos, or Tiamat now, and throw himself on their mercy? As a BCPU he knew they'd probably be glad to have him, especially with a Gundam in tow. But they would never accept him as a person... he would be gear to them, a living breathing computer system once more. It would be a regression of almost six years of progress, to slip back into those habits. Could he even do it? For Jean's sake, it was his only choice!

There was one thing for certain though, Ashino thought has he looked at the bloodstains growing across the sleeves and trousers he had made into bandages on Jean's mutilated hands, turning the light blue fabric dark purple-red and covering the USN emblems in crimson gore, and that was that this betrayal, this attack upon him and Jean by the USN at Durandel's behest... it could be no other... THIS ATROCITY WOULD NOT GO UNPUNISHED! "You, Mr. Durandel, have no idea what you just started..." Ashino promised darkly, before turning the Independence towards the Asteroid Belt and heading off in search of the Tiamat base, broadcasting international rescue and distress signals. He had no other choice...

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Author Note 2: Whew. Well, I know that probably wasn't what all you Ashino/Jean fans were expecting. More sadness, more tragedy, you must all be getting kind of inured to it by now. Well, rejoice... I'm done with tragedy for the time being! Now its all happy stuff. Or happier stuff. Or stuff thats not tragedy. At least not to people that don't have it coming to them. Now we start on the various processes of healing that all this damage needs. Though it does suck to be Durandel. Noah's after him. The good guys will eventually be after him. Ashino's got his name at the top of his death list. Yeah, this is some bad shit that went down. I'm sorry it had to happen to Jean. Really, if I could have pulled it off so that Ashino ended up getting trashed, I would have, just for a change of pace. But having Jean Kellson scream and rant and promise eternal revenge just isn't as scary as the same thing from Ashino. Plus it would be really hard for him to pilot a Gundam with no hands, at least unless it was NIC capable. You have to believe me though, this is more necessary stuff... Ashino's climb from bad guy to good guy, the fall from good guy to bad guy, and where he goes on from there... its good stuff. Especially when other characters start falling from grace a bit too. People have suggested Dark Kira. Or Dark Lacus. What about a Dark freaking Clyne Faction (or at least a "we want Durandel dead" club). Oh, not all of em of course, and I'm still finessing the idea some... but it could be interesting (though not for ED, this plot is 90 percent set!).

Its not so much that the main characters are "disabled" as one reviewer put it, as they are just damaged. Well, maybe disabled is a good term too, but don't take disabled to mean incapable of action, too wrapped up in their problems to contribute to the real driving events of the story. I looked at the Sahaku family thing, but I probably won't end up using them. For one thing, despite the back history, there was still no actual description of them, besides that they "look nearly identical". I have a hard time getting my head around that if I don't know what they look like in the first place, and I'm reluctant to make up descriptions for them, since some people might actually care that they're different than the Astray manga. Dunno, still deciding on that score.

15 trillion is a lot of money. It's about what the United State's current deficit is. And yes, BoranderCorp does violate many anti-trust laws, owning as it does many subsidaries in different markets, probably far more than is legal, nearly to monopoly levels in some cases, which it does through the Brotherhood and other nefarious means. Which is going to have an impact if/when certain facts about BoranderCorp and the ruling family get revealed to the public. Stock market crash anyone? I wonder how much that fifteen trillion is going to be worth if it takes a million dollars to buy a loaf of bread...

Kira's seed hasn't regressed, he just can't activate it in "tree" form without Lacus's help. Yet. The Solar Knights lost one pilot, one sometimes pilot/senior officer (the Knight-Lieutenant) and the others were all support staff. Now, as for Newtypes and fixing Cagalli's problem. Yes. Yes that would definitely work. And that's all I can safely say.


	30. Snakes in the Grass part 8

Noah peeled the protective eye patch off his face, wincing slightly as the sticky backing pulled at his skin slightly, but the minor discomfort quickly disappeared. He inspected himself in the shuttle's bathroom mirror critically, looking for any outward signs of the beating Ysak Joule had dealt to him that morning. There was nothing, not even a slight discoloration around his eye. He grunted with satisfaction, pleased that the Curaga treatment had proven effective, especially coupled with his own genetically enhanced recuperation system. There was a slight mark on his temple where Ysak's fist had cut his scalp, but it was barely visible, more just a light spot on his already fair complexioned skin, and it was almost entirely hidden by his hair. Noah knew it was there and he could barely see it, so there was almost no chance of it being visible to anyone else. A chime sounded from the air, and he glanced to the side of the mirror, flicking a hand through the air to call up a control screen on the wall.

His shuttle was only a few minutes out from the Solar Knight's base, and he'd been picked up on their radar. He transmitted his ID codes, a different set than the ones he'd used on his first visit, just to be sure. The outer paint scheme of his shuttle was also different, being dark green and black, ensuring that there would be no connection between him and the man who was undoubtedly less than popular amongst the greater majority of the base personnel, after his apparent kidnapping of Meyrin and the manhandling of that ground crewman by Phlegethion. Fortunately no one had been seriously hurt, but Noah was all too aware of the power of bruised egos, and the likely desire for revenge that man and his comrades might harbor. And since he was going in with his Newtype senses shut down, he would be vulnerable. He would have to take care with having Phlegethion and Aether around as well... out in the savanna, their ability to remain unseen could be explained away somewhat, but in the middle of a base, if they appeared from thin air, that might lead to awkward questions.

Noah ran a hand down his clothes and used his other to pat his hair down, even though it was perfectly styled already. Dratted nervousness... he could talk eye to eye with a nastily tempered Durandel without a flicker of it, but just the mere thought of seeing Meyrin practically had him shaking and sweating. And their relationship was still mostly in his mind... how was he going to be if she proved receptive to his attentions? This was more than mildly concerning... his plans were approaching a very critical point soon, a distraction at the wrong moment could be very costly! Still, he could not force himself to consider any other option but trying his best to make as much time for Meyrin as was possible. He'd never really felt this way about someone before, especially not a girl! Even his admiration for Lacus Clyne hadn't touched on this level of concern... he'd certainly never felt nervous about the idea of what Lacus would say when she saw him! It was both distressing and very pleasant all the same.

The autopilot carried on with the tasks of guiding the shuttle down for a landing at the executive VIP landing berth, and noah left the bathroom, forcing himself not to preen any further. He was perfect already, any further messing about would only detract from what he'd already achieved. His clothing shimmered, turning dark green and black to match the coloration of the shuttle. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, and let the sigh out slowly as he folded his mind back in on itself, wrapping himself in layer upon layer of mental armor, like wrapping his skull in yards and yards of heavy cotton padding, making everything dimmer and quieter and less vibrant. But at least it kept the voices out, and kept him from leaking in to others. It was an annoyance, but a worthwhile one. The last thing he needed was another worshipper or lackey... he wanted at least one person to love him for who he was, not because he intentionally or unintentionally forced them to! Noah snapped his fingers lightly, drawing the attention of Phlegethion and Aether, who materialized nearby, disengaging their mirage colloid systems in response to the cue. With his mind dampened, he could not keep track of them without being able to see them, just like everyone else. Another annoyance.

In response to a further gesture, the two dragons started wriggling into the pack-panniers into which he'd sorted the various packages and other items he was bringing with him, both as gifts for Meyrin and for his own personal use. He was planning on staying for a few days, both to see as much of Meyrin as possible, and also because he wanted to check up on Rey personally. The experiment he was conducting with Rey should be in its final stage s by now, and Noah wanted to be on hand when the problem was finally proven to be cured, as all his data suggested would happen. Once he'd achieved that benchmark, had proven to himself that Green EDEN really could change the genetics of a living being in post-embryonic stages, then he could finally feel completely confident about going forward with his real plan, and stop messing about with Durandel and the USN! It made for a sometimes entertaining distraction, but playtime couldn't last forever... he had a new world to create, and a new race to beget, and a humanity to save from itself! Phlegethion and Aether gave him slightly irritated glances at being reduced to pack mules, forced to almost waddle with their wings bound, but he knew they would soon forget the insult to their pride, since their short term memory only lasted for a few hours at a time. They were forever creatures experiencing a new day, living in the moment.

The shuttle shuddered as it made contact with the ground, VTOL engines winding down with a faint whine that quickly died away as the shuttle entered its self service routines. The external sensors detected a groundcrew approaching, moving quickly and efficiently even though they were obviously surprised at the shuttle's appearance, but the identiy recognition software did not pick up any matches... it was a different crew from the one whom had come into contact with him before. Reassured that there was no likely physical threat to his person, Noah lowered the boarding stairs and then gathered up the items he was carrying himself, which included a large covered travel kennel, in which Achilles resided, dozing after being put to sleep by a caress of Noah's mind earlier... Achilles didn't like space travel or weightlessness very much, and so Noah had spared him that discomfort. Merlin floated into view from the cargo section of the shuttle, taking up his customary position at head height behind Noah's left shoulder, within easy touching distance should he be needed to act as a projection device or needed to be asked for data or facts, while also enveloping Noah in the anti-eavesdropping and sensor field that Merlin continually projected.

He was leaving Melanie behind, deactivated for the moment. She had been quite unhinged by her experiences as a Haro, unfortunately. He supposed problems were to be expected, given that she was a prototype model of BIIC... he'd left her too much personality, and she had started getting on his nerves with her constant fawning attention after only an hour or two. She was also troublingly strong willed, and often needed two or three strongly worded reprimands before she would leave off her annoying behavior, and even then only for a little while. He'd been seriously contemplating throwing her out the airlock just prior to atmospheric entry, but had restrained himself at the last moment. She was a pain in the ass, but she'd done her job well, and he couldn't bring himself to hate her for her quirks, which were his fault to begin with. With some modifications and a little work, she should do just fine as a motivating intelligence for the Zam Clan as a replacement for dear lost Sally, curse Ysak and Katie for their unforgivable interruption!

It was odd though, that now that his anger had cooled off, he looked back at his actions and felt ashamed, even though they were both flawed and ugly, almost abomindable really... a Natural Newtype and a Newtype Coordinator with an infertile Seed... he shivered with disgust at the thought of living such an incomplete, bastardized existence! Still, it wasn't their fault they were born freaks, he supposed. He'd probably over-reacted, to be honest... he'd been upset that they interrupted his record setting pace with Sally, and he hadn't known then that Melanie was just going to hop basically right into his lap not two hours later as an easy replacement. Knocking Katie out had been a fine test of his Newtype vs Newtype theories, and a great vindication of his own strength, but he'd been entirely petty to take advantage of her unconscious state for his own angry revenge, and letting the Harbringers molest her without a word of protest was plain barbaric... he resolved to have the men liquidated immediately upon his return for their brutish behavior, entirely unbefitting the servants of an Angel! Killing Ysak had been an interesting test as well, but had also been an over-reaction, brought on by actually taking physical harm at his hands. There was no telling the sort of research opportunities he'd wasted killing such a close failure of Angelhood out of hand. Truly, regrettable. He would have to be much more disciplined in the future! And he made a note to send flowers for Ysak's funeral. It was the least he could do.

Guilty feelings conquered for the moment, Noah stepped out into the late afternoon-early evening warmth and humidity of sub-equatorial Africa, refreshed as always by the sublime scent of nature blooming in even a fraction of its glory! The hot, artificial smells of the military base were a harsh stench overlapping the cleaner, more primal scent of the environment, but it wasn't something that the artifice of man could ever block out entirely, not if you were as attuned to life as Noah felt he was. He stood at the top of the boarding stairs and stared out at the mostly empty savanna dreamily for a moment, imagining the day not too long from now when it would once again teem with plant and animal life of dozens of varieties, the likes of which not even his own mind could predict! Already animals were being shipped from the various storage Arks in the PLANTS and the Oceania Union and other BoranderCorp holdings spread across Earth and Near Space to various secret and not so secret distribution centers across the wilder spaces of Earth. The populations were of course small, but by his projections they should be large enough to ensure at least a few mating pairs managed to survive the Green EDEN, and that was all that was needed to ensure the survival of the species, well, assuming other species didn't kill them off, but it was not his place to interfere with that aspect of natural selection.

The base was quieter than he'd been expecting, maybe because at least a third of the unit was still in Orb, cleaning up after the terrorist attack. Noah was consistently puzzled by the idosyncrasies of the military, he wasn't going to call anying odd, because he found EVERYTHING they did to be odd. The ground crew flinched when they say Phlegethion and Aether, but after seeing the two dragons so loaded down with packages that their bodies were barely visible, not to mention their meek and servile postures, the men and women relaxed somewhat, though they turned not particularly friendly looks upon Noah in turn. He sighed... as expected, he was not exactly well thought of. He'd have to see what he could do to change that opinion... it wouldn't do in the slightest for Meyrin to suffer negative attention because of him! Rey was gone, still in Orb, which left Noah floundering for a moment, considering the hostile attitude of the ground crew. He really should have thought this through a little more... with no Rey around to smooth things over, he was going to have to make his own way around the base. At least he was familiar with the layout.

He took a few moments to orient himself, aided by a holographic display from Merlin, a procedure that stopped the ground crew in their tracks, clearly not having seen a free floating holographic projection system before, especially not one that could talk, in a crochety old man voice based loosely off Noah's own. It amused him to listen to himself as he might sound in old age, a couple centuries down the line, though he probably would figure out some way to ensure he didn't sound so raspy... it sounded mildly painful. Having fixed Meyrin's likely location, Noah gave the onlooking ground crew a slight nod of acknowledgement and headed off, the dragons in tow like some kind of ancient caravan redone in ultramodern style, tails whipping back and forth in subdued agitation, heads ducked low to the ground as if trying to hide from the view of anyone who might be witness to their humiliation. Noah switched Achilles's kennel from hand to hand every few hundred steps as he walked, keeping a slow and steady pace... it would not do to arrive all hot and sweaty, no, most definitely not!

------------------------------------------

Meyrin rubbed at her scalp with the towel taken from the bathroom, even though she'd already pulled on a big, loose shirt and lounging sweatpants. Hair, especially longish hair like hers, took forever to dry in the humid air unless you really worked at it, and if she just let it air dry she'd end up with a bunch of stringy hairs, which would take hours to fix properly. Honestly, tending to hair in a terrestrial environment was such a pain... up in the PLANTS she didn't have to do a quarter of this crap! She was even contemplating changing her hairstyle to something a little more tomboyish, like Luna. Well, maybe not like Luna... few girls could pull off her sister's look without seeming... silly, was the best way of saying it. But two ponytails was getting annoying... maybe a braid? She'd have to look into it. For the moment though she kept it in the style she'd had for the last few years now, with a pony tail on either side of her head, though the one's she'd just put in were sloppy temporary jobs. She wasn't planning on going out tonight, even though she knew that Luna and Shinn and lots of other members of Second Platoon were having a big celebration get together at the base park. Normally that would be exactly the sort of thing she was all over, but recently... well...

Meyrin shook her head in exasperation. She didn't know what was wrong with her recently really, to be honest. Ever since that weekend a few weeks ago, when Noah had shown up out of the blue and given her one of the worst... well, certainly the weirdest... weekends of her life, she had yet to regain her equilibrium. The box with the CEO charge card in it was still sitting there on her desk, right next to her computer, since she still wasn't sure what she was going to do with it. She snorted, amused with herself for a moment. All that time spent daydreaming about what she would buy if she had enough money to buy whatever she wanted, and now that she had it, she couldn't force herself to buy anything! Ironic, to say the least. She'd wanted to try and send it back to Noah, explaining that she'd only been joking, and that she had no idea what to do with an unlimited balance charge card, but he hadn't left her any contact address or information, which was tacky of him. Not even a cellphone number or email address. It must have slipped his mind, along with all the other aspects of politeness he seemed to never have learned.

Well, that was unfair of her to say... he was trying, she definitely had seen that. It wasn't fair for her to expect him to be a perfect guy right away, since he was totally new to this dating thing, and male-female interactions in general, or so it seemed. It was strange, considering his looks, one would think girls would have been hanging all over him, but then again, maybe that had been the case, and so he hadn't figured out how to be anything less than a self centered dick around women? Some girls liked that sort of thing, and Meyrin had to admit she was sometimes enamoured of a guy who put his own needs first, but she liked the sensitive, caring sort who would dote on her also. Picky, picky. She frowned at the wall... all of her free time thoughts these days seemed to revolve around Noah, and what he'd said or done, or what she wished he'd said or done. For a guy she still barely knew, and who hadn't called or texted or otherwise attempted to get into contact with her despite his expressed interest, she was having an awful hard time forgetting about him. It was more than just his beyond movie star good looks too... there were plenty of smoking hot men on the base, if she was looking for eye candy. Noah had just been... different. Interesting. Intriguing even, in a unique way.

Meyrin shrugged. Fawning over a weekend memory was unlike her. Maybe she just needed to admit to herself that she had a crush on the bastard. It seemed silly, given the bare minimum time they'd spent together, and the rather unfortunate events of that time, but she had to admit, every weekend since had been kind of... dull, in comparison. Talk about aiming out of her league though, like the Knight-Commander had said, Noah Borander was one of the richest and most powerful men in the world! There was almost nothing on him on the networks, not even pictures. Well, not on the public networks anyway. Like all good CIC operators, at least in her opinion, Meyrin was also an accomplished data hacker, adept at ferreting out every last scrap of information possible, even if some of it was strictly legal for her to know. You never knew when a tiny scrap of knowledge might prove vital. And besides, with her clearance, there really wasn't much she wasn't allowed to know, it was all a matter of asking the right questions and not setting off alarms. There wasn't much more in the USN or FNE or ALU security networks about Noah either, just that if anything, Rey had been understating his wealth and importance.

Maybe that was why he hadn't called her... he'd just moved on, to bigger and better things. Given the world he lived in, that would be an entirely reasonable thing for him to do... Meyrin's life and concerns were miniscule in comparison to the problems he must deal with on a daily basis, and to think that he should take time out of that for what for him must have just been a passing whim, despite what he said, that was just stupid for her to expect. Still, it was a dick move to not have at least called her once, surely he could have found a few minutes to do that and let her off the hook! She might be saving herself for a guy that was never ever going to show up again, and that was pathetic! She'd ransacked the ZAFT networks as best she was able, but couldn't get any personal data on him either, though she was pretty sure there was some in there. It might just be dummy info though... if there was any one thing she'd discovered about him, it was that he valued his privacy to an extraordinary amount! It almost made a girl wonder what he had to hide to so badly. That cure thing he'd been babbling about? It seemed deeper than that though...

She sat down in her chair and powered on her computer, an expensive and powerful desktop version, unlike the more portable laptops most people had these days. So maybe she was a geek at heart, in secret, when nobody but Luna could see her, but she had a soft spot for powerful electronic gear that went entirely beyond the professional concern for good gear that came with her CIC job. Whether it was a high powered, graphically intense game or the nigh instantaneous net access and data sifting/hacking programs she used to surf all the various layers of the networks on her free time, Meyrin had to admit that she loved her computer and the places it let her go. So what if playing outside was more social... she had fun how she had fun, and that was enough! And it wasn't like she was some pimply slob, forty pounds overweight and relying on photo-shopping software to make guys think she was hot... she did plenty of physical activities on the side. She wasn't an uber-geek, she was just a regular geek. Meyrin crouched in her chair and brought up the last thing she'd been working on, before they'd gone to LAS.

She didn't have much hope of finding much out about Noah from the Orb Security networks, but she wanted to get a peek inside them all the same. If for no other reason than because they were locked down tighter than her sister's mental chastity belt. People with security THAT tight had to have something juicy inside they were protecting. This was something of a pet project of her's she'd been working at off and on for some years now. She kept hitting a wall though, after defeating a few layers of security, but always getting detected doing it. That was okay... there was no way they could trace her, with her precautions, but every time they caught her, they called in the big guns, and whoever that security programmer was, Meyrin really wanted him to fall off a cliff and die sometime, because he was seriously getting on her nerves! His security programs were just awesome, she had to admit... NOTHING she did could even scratch them, and he almost HAD traced her a few times, and not even during an active counterhack! She shivered even now... she'd only gotten away one time by frying her system, which had been a bitch to explain to her mom and Luna. From the little shop she'd talked with other fairly serious amateur hackers, and a few pros at ZAFT intelligence, everyone had had run ins with this guy, and nobody could touch him.

Which meant that if she could beat him, she'd have the ultimate bragging rights on the shady networks, at least until someone bigger and badder came along. It was the way of things. No one ever won for long... the security guys would come up with something that looked and felt impenetrable, eventually someone would crack it, and then the security guys would come up with something else, so forth and so on. Constant one upmanship. It was actually very engaging, and it helped her greatly with her job, that competitive spirit of one upmanship. But though no victory was permanent, this Orb guy had been at the top of the dogpile for way too long now, and it was high time someone proved to him that he wasn't the biggest dog in the yard anymore! She stared at her screen for several minutes, planning her assault, trying to think of some new tactic or combination of tactics she hadn't used yet, or heard of being used. She was hoping the extra bandwidth and speed of access she had from being down on Earth, and not connected wirelessly from up in the PLANTS, might lend her the advantage she needed to not only get ahead of his programs, but stay ahead long enough to get a data swipe through. Nothing more than a few dozen megabytes, but that would be enough for the bragging rights, and so little Orb wouldn't hopefully feel the need to come after her, guns blazing.

She was so focused on her tactical planning that she didn't even hear the outer door to the suite of rooms she'd formerly shared with Luna, and was now empty except for her, at least until a new roomate could be assigned, open and shut. She didn't hear the person walk across the slightly unkempt common room either. She was just settling her hands on the keyboard to start her initial data run when the knock came on the inner door leading to her bedroom/bathroom space. She was embarassed to admit it, but she definitely squeaked in alarm and overbalanced in her chair, crouched as she was, rather than sitting properly like Luna always exhorted her to do, falling backwards and to the side in a very undignified manner that would have had an outside observer clueless to the fact that she was a Coordinator. Who the hell could that be? Luna had moved in with Shinn per the Knight-Commander's order, and all her stuff was gone already, and nobody else had a key to the outer door, well except for the barracks officers and various other important people, none of whom would be good to have in her room! Meyrin collected herself from the floor, brushing herself off and eyeing the dimness of her room, which was far from spotless. Bad time for a snap inspection, goddamn it but she was on liberty, couldn't she catch a break!? Marginally satisified with her appearance and wanting to get the ordeal over with, Meyrin opened the door, a challenging look on her face.

"What is it? I'm on liberty after a stressful mission and..." Meyrin trailed off, blinking in disbelieveing surprise. Noah was standing there. Right there. Like, just outside her door there. Where Noah should not have been able to be. Since he hadn't called to let her know he was coming. Or called the Knight-Commander, who was away on a mission. Or called anyone at all in the chain of command, apparently, since there was no escort waiting with him. Well, besides the two dragons, which were divesting themselves of heavy packs with undisguised relish that was frankly astonishing to see in mechanical beings. What the hell kind of programming was IN those things anyway... so lifelike! Meyrin shook herself and did her best to ignore the dragons, which was even harder than it sounded. Noah was still standing there, just looking at her, and he had a very disconcerting expression on his face. A sort of intent smile that gave her an odd flutter inside for a moment when she met his gaze.

"Hello." Noah said, keeping the smile on his face even though he was currently tongue tied, and hating it. He'd had so much he was planning to say, an entire day's conversation all planned out and now it was just... gone. Damn it but this was annoying!

"Um, hi." Meyrin was likewise strapped for intelligent conversation, still dealing with the shock of him just being there, right there, out of the blue. "How'd you get in here?"

"Through the door." Noah winced at how inane that sounded. Of course through the door! No, he flew in through the window... damn it!

Meyrin snorted and let that pass, perhaps sensing his instant discomfiture. "This is a female only barracks. How'd you even get in the building?"

"Merlin is passably good at circumventing basic security systems." Noah waved at the vaguely ball shaped blue and silver softball sized orb hanging in midair behind his left shoulder. A tiny row of LED lights twinkled for a moment along one of the bottom edges, in a pattern too fast for her to follow.

"The codes for this building and those rooms was stored in my database on the day of..." Merlin intoned knowledgably, his voice raspy and self congratulating. Noah clenched his hand briefly, and Merlin shut up instantly. He was only an pseudo-AI program, not a BIIC, and so he didn't really have a personality. It had its ups and downs.

Meyrin shook her head slowly in more than mild wonder. Would he never cease to amaze with his toys? Guardian dragons, and now a talking, floating softball that could hack security systems. It was just weird enough to definitely make sense for Noah. "Did anyone see you enter?"

"I didn't really check, but I'd imagine so." Noah replied with a shrug. He watched her groan slightly, and felt a twinge of concern. "Is that a problem?"

"Well, no, not really... since you just walked in people are probably going to assume you have permission to be here, or that someone invited you in. It would be far from the first time that had happened, even though we've only been here a few weeks." Meyrin sighed. Was this how Luna felt when everyone was assuming that she and Shinn were fuck-buddies? She suddenly found herself having a little more sympathy for her older sister, wonder of wonders. Given how she knew females in general to be, she was sure it was going to be all over the base shortly enough that Meyrin Hawke had a very odd visitor indeed, and she was entertaining him in the privacy of her room. She just prayed that Luna didn't completely freak out. Well, that was probably a vain hope, considering how much Luna was overzealous about protecting Meyrin after the first time Noah had come by. "My sister is going to pop a vein when she hears about this though."

"She's still sore about that initial date experiment?" Noah asked, desperate to make small talk of some sort. "I can change the lock if you want to keep her out."

"That would probably be a very bad idea. Because if she can't get in, she'll assume you're doing something nefarious, and she'll probably come back with Shinn and Lain. Or an Archon. And she won't be gentle about it." Meyrin hastened to point out.

"But maybe I am planning something nefarious?" Noah smiled, hoping against hope she wouldn't think he was serious. Thankfully she smiled back, a little.

"Wasn't it you who said that while you definitely had the power to coerce me, that doing so would utterly ruin everything you were trying to accomplish? I don't see that attitude changing. Besides, while you ARE weird, you aren't malicious. Just inexperienced and girl-stupid." Meyrin shrugged and hugged herself, suddenly feeling very underdressed in just her loose T shirt and sweats... she hadn't even put a bra on! And Noah WAS staring at her... but he was staring at all of her, which was a nice change of pace from a guy. "I suppose a better question might be WHY are you here?"

"To see you. I had a few free days, I figured I might try and continue my... our... experiment, assuming you were amendable? I heard you were on leave after your magnificent efforts at LAS, so I thought you might have some free time and... well..." Noah seemed positively bashful to her eyes. God, but it was kinda cute. Here he was, one of the richest and most powerful people alive, and he was stammering and blushing just to tell her that he'd been thinking about her too and wanted to spend some time with her now that he had a free moment or so. Of course he COULD have called first, but again, maybe that just hadn't occured to him, strange as that sounded in modern society.

"Little thing called a cellphone might have helped you confirm the plan with me first." Meyrin pointed out. "I know you have one."

"And I even have your number somewhere." Noah mumbled, not wanting to let it slip that he had all of her personal information... he hadn't been able to help himself! "I just... I couldn't work up the nerve to call. I was... afraid, I guess. That you would say no."

"You would call the SecDef out of the blue to make a random stranger escort you around, but you're afraid to call me to try and set up a date, is this what I'm hearing?" Meyrin deadpanned, stunned by the incongruity of it. She shook her head and sighed again. "You take the cake, ya know that?" Still, it was a sweet sentiment, and finding out that he'd been really nervous, even more nervous than she was, was strangely a confidence booster to her right now. Maybe their worlds weren't so different after all. She craned herself up onto her tiptoes to look over him past his shoulders. "So whats with all the packages and bags? I would think you'd want to drop those off at wherever it is you're staying, so you aren't lugging it all around with you when you..." Meyrin looked at him steadily as she trailed off. "You don't have a place to stay, do you? You didn't call ANYONE at all, did you? Who knows you're here?"

"Durandel does, by implication." Noah felt his skin heating under her incredulous gaze. God damn it but he felt like he was trapped in place, barely able to think, much less move and talk! But stranger still, he was kind of enjoying it. At least he was talking with her, right? At least he was here, and she was here, and she hadn't told him to get out or slammed the door in his face, right? This had to be progress, right? And she looked very... interesting in that T shirt and sweats. Very relaxed. Very... he wasn't sure of the right term... something like vulnerable but without the negative connotations. Open perhaps. Like she had no barriers up between the real her and the world at large... very much the opposite of him really. He wanted very badly to reach out and touch her, just on the hand on or on the arm, to revel in the feel of skin to skin contact without the deluge of thoughts pouring into his mind, but he did not dare. Not after the lessons he'd learned from last time. He could not be the one to initiate contact, he was pretty sure. Not the first time anyway.

"What about your parents?" Meyrin asked, frowning slightly. "Or family or whatever... I remember what you said about the artificial womb thing, sorta."

"They would be blooming twice a year in a garden somewhere." Noah replied nonchalantly, finding he couldn't even remember which garden they were fertilizing in his current state of mind.

"Oh, I'm sorry... I didn't realize that... you were all alone." Meyrin felt terrible, reminding him of such a thing! It had to be terribly hard on him, with his life pressure, not having anyone to open up to, no one to say that things were okay, and to appreciate him for who he was! She couldn't imagine living without a family!

"I am not alone." Noah said firmly. He gestured at Merlin, Phlegethion and Aether. "I am the furthest thing from alone, believe me. It's been some time since I had biological family, but I am far from lonely." Noah considered for a few moments before continuing, in a much less confident tone. "Well, that's what I thought anyway... not so sure anymore."

"Aww... I just wanna hold you and comfort you." Meyrin muttered lightly.

"Really?"

"Don't get any ideas, mister. You're pulling on my heartstrings something fierce, but how do I know this isn't another one of your experimental games!?" Meyrin said directly, keeping a stern face up for several seconds, seeing his face fall. "Hey, I'm just messing with you, okay? Don't take it so hard. I'm a sucker for a sob story is all, I don't deal with personal tragedy well, I was just trying to make light of it." Meyrin laid a hand on his shoulder, which made him jerk like he'd been shocked. She almost yanked her hand away, until his own blurred up and clasped her hand tightly, holding it on his shoulder, though he did make sure not to squeeze too tightly.

"Thank you for your concern." Noah looked her in the eyes and licked his lips slightly. "But it was years ago, and it wasn't nearly the tragedy most people assume it was."

"But they were your family and..." Meyrin protested, until Noah shook his head vehemently.

"It's tough to explain. I'm not even sure if I should, just yet. Just believe me... I was not overly saddened by their passing, and that in itself is not a tragedy either, like most people seem to think. None of us were ever... close enough for bonds to form, let me put it that way. Do you understand?" Noah asked.

"Not even slightly." Meyrin admitted freely. "But I can understand that you don't want to talk about it with someone you still barely even know, so let's talk about something else, eh? Well, I guess if the SecDef knows you're here, it shouldn't cause too many problems. You do seem to have some serious clout, so I don't think anyone is going to mess with you. Just try not to have the dragons half maul anyone, okay? That didn't go over so well."

"Judging by the unfriendly looks I got from the ground crew upon disembarking, I don't doubt that assessment." Noah agreed. "I can stay in the shuttle if need be, or I'm sure Rey can find me accommodations when he returns. Besides, not all this luggage is mine. Almost everything Aether brought is for you actually."

"Showering me with gifts now is it? I warn you, I don't bribe easy!" Meyrin smiled to let him know she was joking, something which he seemed to have real difficulty in telling sometimes. Again, it was like he was looking for a cue in her that was normally plainly obvious and yet he just couldn't seem to find with her around. Girl-stupid, definitely.

"Why should I need to bribe you? I already gave you an unlimited credit card. Speaking of that, why haven't you used it?" Noah wondered.

"Um, yeah... about that. I was totally joking about the few million dollars thing. I mean, yeah, money is cool, and lots of money is very cool, but I have no idea what I'd spend that money on, really. I'd just get a bunch of stuff I don't need. I mean, maybe I could donate to charity or something, but really, I don't need money right now." Meyrin said, somewhat awkwardly, hoping he wouldn't take it the wrong way. He seemed to understand though, smiling and nodding in time with her words.

"Our attitude towards money is very similar, Meyrin." He said her name in a rush, like he was afraid he would choke on it. "Being rich is well and good, I suppose, but really, I would only waste the money I make, especially now. Fortunately I have many causes to which I can donate money. Such as the USN, more specifically the Solar Protection Fleet and the Solar Knights."

"Haven't you already like paid for our uniforms and food and Mobile Suits and a bunch of other stuff though?" Meyrin pointed out.

"Indeed. BoranderCorp subsidaries do indeed produce almost everything the Solar Knights use on a day to day basis, but those are all products the USN pays me for. I felt it was only proper that I pay them back for the protection they give me, and by extension, everyone else."

"Oh. Cool. How much did you donate?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Noah said seriously.

"Oh, come on, try me! How can you be so sure?" Meyrin wheedled.

"Because Durandel didn't believe me when I told him, and he somewhat knows how much money I make." Noah answered bluntly. "He even got angry because he thought I was making a joke. He told me that even I didn't have that much money. Well, he's wrong. I do have that much money. And more. Lot's more. More than anyone can imagine."

"You can't even give me a rough figure? I mean, I'm getting the feeling its a LOT, but come on?"

"Ever wonder how much Africa would cost?" Noah smirked, and left it at that. Africa five times over actually, but that would be really stretching her ability to believe him. And it wasn't like it was a lump sum, like he'd said. It was just such a regrettable thing it was all going to be worthless, especially once people realized that he'd been controlling the banks for more than half a decade now, making himself high interest loans of sums that were frankly staggering, without paying the interest back, much less the loans themselves. He would not be lying if he said that he had unlimited money... with the national treasuries of the FNE, ALU, ZAFT and the operating budget of the USN to borrow and lend against, not to mention BornaderCorp's own assets, both legal and otherwise, he could make money appear or disappear pretty much as he wanted. People really should know better than to keep so much money in an electronic format, where anyone with enough skill could take it and copy it as much as he wanted. As long as he didn't dump too much into the economy at once, it would be difficult for people to notice him, because he spread it around so much. The debts he was racking up were... unfortunate. But money was going to be devalued anyway... the impact should be managable.

"Oh come on... be serio... fuck, you are serious aren't you?" Meyrin stood there and looked at him for a few moments. "Okay, forget I asked that. I don't want to know anymore. I might not be able to sleep at night. Africa... fuck..." Meyrin shook her head and looked at the indicated packages next to the white armored and amber eyed dragon. "All right, so what DID you bring me? Not that I was expecting you to bring me stuff, mind, but if you've gone and brought it, it wouldn't be nice of me to not even look at it. Though really, if this is a bribe, thats not cool. I'm not that sort of girl."

"I wouldn't want you to be. Making things for you gives me a happiness I had not experienced before, is all. Before we get to the clothes though, I should probably show you the primary gift. He's been a very good friend of mine for a while, I'm hoping he's as good to you. And really, I think he'll be much happier down here on Earth, where there's more room to play. Regrettably I won't have nearly enough time to care for him and play with him shortly. If you find its too much work taking care of him, give him to Rey. They know each other." Noah knelt down by the covered kennel. Meyrin watch him specutively.

"Okay... what is "he" then?" She asked tenatively.

"Meyrin, meet Achilles." Noah removed the covering drape with a flourish, opening the kennel door with his other hand in the same motion. Restless and playful after his enforced nap, Achilles pounced out of the kennel and gave his version of the terrifying T-Rex roar-scream that would panic prey animals into fleeing and exposing the backs of their necks for a fatal bite. Achille's roar-scream was something less than bone-chilling, but he had a good set of lungs and managed to get plenty of volume.

"YAAAH!" Meyrin yelled in surprise and not a little shock, flinching and stumbling away from the two foot tall dinosaur with the mouth full of knife-like meat rending teeth that was advancing on her in a very threatening manner. Of course, her sudden retreat prompted Achilles's play reflexes and he darted after her, leaping up into her arms as he'd done countless times before with Rey or Noah. Meyrin proved less able to handle his ninety pound leaping mass though, much like Miriallia earlier in the day, and she overbalanced, once more ending up on her back on the floor of her room, though this time there was a T-Rex standing on her stomach, tail sweeping back and forth to maintain his balance, gnashing his ripping fangs in her face and growling ferociously.

"Oh, he likes you a lot. It took Rey more than a week to get him to jump like that." Noah commented with a paternal smile, glad to see them both off to a good start with each other.

"Help me!?" Meyrin gasped, too petrified to move or take her eyes off Achilles's jaws. "He's gonna eat my face!"

"Nonsense. He couldn't hurt a mouse unless he swallowed it whole, much less injure a human, other than by knocking one down by accident. He's just a big love bunny, that's all. He wants to be friends." Noah assured her.

"Couldn't he show that in a less threatening manner!?" Meyrin complained, still keeping stock still. Noah was being altogether too calm about this! She was almost to the wetting her pants stage! Oh, if Luna walked in right now then there would be an absolutely volcanic eruption... and Meyrin wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't be glad, because Achilles was scaring the crap out of her, playful or not! Noah seemed to pick up on this at last, and he whistled sharply, clapping his hands at the same time. Achilles knew that signal well, and he abandoned his perch on Meyrin so fast she barely even saw him turn.

"A little peckish, are you boy? Here... have a meat cube." Noah unwrapped one of the foil wrapped cubes and put it in the palm of his hand. He bent over and held out the hand, with a wink at Meyrin as Achilles closed his jaws eagerly on the cube, hand and all. Noah held up his undamaged hand for her careful inspection. "His jaw muscles have been genetically modified so that he can't close his jaws with enough force to cause pain to a human or most other types of animals, and his teeth are just for show... you could find spoons sharper than them, the same for his "claws"." Noah explained. "It would hardly do for my line of exotic Mini-pets to be dangerous to their owners now would it? They're designed to be the perfect family pets after all."

"You really, really oughta warn a girl before you go pulling a stunt like that!" Meyrin admonished, sitting up cautiously, though Achilles was now prowling around Noah, nudging his leg every so often, hungry for another treat. "I almost had a heart attack when he just leaped out and screamed in my face!" She studied Achilles appraisingly. "That's really a T-Rex, isn't it? How did you...?"

"One hundred percent genetic match, as far as we can tell, yes. Though obviously he's a little shorter." Noah smiled broadly. "He's a sterile clone, but he is definitely a T-Rex." Noah shrugged and smiled wider. "As for the how's... well, it wasn't cheap or easy. But I'm still selling them, so give me a little time before I go letting you in on the secret of how to make your own, okay?" Achilles nuzzled his leg insistently. Noah took out another foil wrapped cube of compressed cloned meat. "Here. You feed him this one." He tossed the cube to Meyrin, who caught it after a short bobble. Achilles eyed the path of the tossed treat and slowly began edging towards Meyrin.

"I can't believe I'm about to..." Meyrin slowly unwrapped the cube and put it in the palm of her hand. She held out her hand and squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to watch Achilles bite down on her hand. Perhaps sensing her trepidation, Achilles moved very slowly and cautiously, and was much more gentle about taking the treat, barely opening his jaws at all to pluck the treat from her trembling palm, tongue rasping lightly along her fingers. Meyrin winced when his teeth touched her skin, but then she blinked her eyes open. The pressure really was very light, and the teeth were even less pointed than a felt tip pen. Achilles tossed back his head and swallowed the cube whole, very much like a pelican swallowing a fish. Well, birds were supposed to be descendants of dinosaurs after all... Meyrin slowly moved her hand up and placed it on the top of his head. Achilles leaned into her hand and gurgled with enjoyment. "This is just weird..." She commented, lightly scratching at his warm, dry leathery skin.

"He doesn't generate much waste, and he's completely house trained. All he needs is water and wet dog or cat food and he's happy, plus the odd meat cube treat. He likes going on walks too, and cuddling, as you can see. Really, he's the most personable of the entire first production line, which is why I took him for myself." Noah added, as Achilles continued to press for the head scratch he enjoyed so much, since he had a lot of trouble reaching that spot on his body himself. "But I just can't spare the time for him much anymore, so I want him to have a good home."

"But you barely know me..." Meyrin protested.

"Achilles likes you. I tend to trust his judgement in matters like this." Noah countered, a disarming arguement if she'd ever heard one. He looked into her room past where she was sitting, Achilles edging ever closer to her lap, almost purring with enjoyment now. "Interesting computer set up. You don't often see a full sized desktop in this day and age."

"I'm old fashioned." Meyrin replied, half defensively, slowly getting to her feet, much to Achilles's disappointment. Still, he'd gotted two treats out of them, plus a very nice head scratch. He felt satisifed that they'd paid enough tribute to him, their master, for the moment. It was time to survey the rest of this new hunting range for potential threats to his sovereignity, or anything tasty. Sometimes the two were the same thing. "Besides, its got a lot more power than a portable model."

"I wasn't criticizing. I do much of my own work on desktop models, though I do have a laptop as well." Noah gestured vaguely at the pile of bags Phlegethion had carried in. For their part, Phlegethion and Aether were hunched over by the door, shooting envious glares at Meyrin every now and again, but able to do anything but wait in standby mode until they got direct orders from Noah, which were not to be forthcoming. He looked closer at her screen. "Doing some looking at the Orb Security Database are you?"

"It's not illegal. Much." Meyrin sat down in her chair hurriedly, once again drawing up both legs to her chest, resting her feet on the chair cushion as well. She thought better like this, it was just too bad she couldn't sit like this at her CIC panel. "I'm not trying to corrupt their system or anything. I just want to beat their security to show that its not all powerful, which is the general consensus at the moment. Besides, its worth a lot of bragging rights in the intel circles I sometimes blog with."

"May I come in?" Noah asked, still hovering at the threshold of the common room. Meyrin started, realizing he was still standing there waiting politely. He was learning fast indeed. "Perhaps I can take a look at it too, if that's all right? I've some small skill with computers."

"See, now that wasn't nearly as overbearing and arrogant as last time." Meyrin acknowledged. "Though it still kind of gets your point across. Sure, come on in. I don't think I left out anything embarassing. I could frankly use a new perspective... I've been stymied by this guy for years now. So has everyone else, but it bugs me that he's stopped ME!"

"Let me see what you're looking at." Noah asked, standing behind her, leaning his hands on the back of her chair. She barely noticed, hands flying across her keyboard, calling up the simple, basic hacks that got her through the surface layers of security. These were well trod pathways for her, and though a few things had been changed around, she corrected for them pretty much as soon as she saw them. She knew she was setting off alarms over there, but it couldn't be helped, and besides, she was moving faster than those simple programs could keep track of at the moment. That is, until she came to the aforementioned impenetrable wall. She sighed in frustration, her efforts breaking against it like water against a cliffside. Maybe the water would eventually win out, but she didn't have that many years to wait!

"See what I mean? This program is just insane! Nothing gets in!" Meyrin complained.

"Well for one thing, that's actually five different programs, not just one, which is part of the your problem." Noah explained, after several seconds thought. The security program was similar to some of the ones he made for the Brotherhood computers, leaving him little doubt as to who the programmer was. He smiled... this would be another good test. Ultimate Coordinator versus Ultimate Coordinator, on a purely logical plane.

"FIVE!? But I only..." Meyrin protested, staring at he screen, trying to see what Noah was seeing.

"Mind if I give it a try?" Noah asked, feeling that showing would be the best explanation.

"Knock yourself out, I guess, but wouldn't you want your own set up? I mean, my programs are set up with my personal style preferences and... eek!" Meyrin squawked as Noah put his arms to either side of her, crouching down against the back of her chair and leaning slightly past her, almost hugging her as he accessed her keyboard and mouse from behind her. She thought about telling him to back off, but he seemed much more concentrated on the computer than he was on the fact that he was distractingly close to her, close enough she could feel his breathing even. She decided to hold off for the moment. She had such a good view right now after all. Of the computer screen, of course. Not that she was at all checking out his uber-hotness out of the corners of her eyes. Never.

"Changing that won't take but a moment, though I'll keep your settings too of course." Noah said, his left hand flying across the keyboard as fast by itself as her two hands had worked together. The sound of clattering keys was like machinegun fire. "There. Now, observe..." Noah opened the hack program five consecutive times and tabbed through each one at the rate of one per second, typing in a different set of instructions and program code into each one as he cycled through. He could do it faster and more efficiently on his own computer of course, with its dual capacity keyboard and voice command system, but his laptop used the same quantum comm channels as the Brotherhood, and Meyrin would be sure to pick up on that rapidly, so he would need to avoid using it around her as much as possible until he disguised that. Besides, doing this in a less efficient manner added to the challenge, made it all more fun. "See... there's a program that blocks attacks from outside, one that scans internal attempts at hacking, which can be inferred from this block of code here, a monitoring program that checks every three seconds to make sure the first two aren't corrupted... thats here, a monitoring program for the monitoring program there, and finally a sleeper program."

"I kinda see the first two. And having a monitor and a backup monitor makes sense." Meyrin allowed, staring at the data on the screen, still trying to figure out how the hell he'd done five hacks at once... what kind of mind did he have that could switch code tactics at the rate of one per second, keeping five different attacks going at the same time!? And her program wasn't all that advanced... it was a tried and true program of course, but there was a lot more advanced stuff that the real intelligence agencies used... what could Noah do with THAT kind of system at his disposal!? "But I don't see this sleeper program. Where is it? What does it do?"

"Its the lynchpin that makes the system so hard to break into." Noah told her. "It's all but invisible. It takes a random sample from all four other programs at a random time and compares it to four stored sets of known good data of those four programs. If it finds any data in any sample that is out of a certain deviance percentile, it completely locks down the system from all outside or inside access until the program is cleared out by the system admin. Most people won't look for a random sample at random times from four different programs, that's what makes it so sneaky, and such a truly masterful code."

"How CAN you look for that, if it's really random?" Meyrin complained bitterly. Her amateur hacking pride was feeling pretty battered right now, though she had to admit she was learning a few things. "You could look for hours and not see the right bits of data movement."

"I'll admit, I cheated a little bit there. This security program is similar in design to some of the programs I wrote for some BoranderCorp assets." Noah admitted. "Though I usually put between eight and ten layers, but I'm paranoid."

"Yeah, just a little! Jeez, what are you trying to hide... secretly making Gundams for the Brotherhood or something?" Meyrin joked. Noah gave her a weak smile, and she realized that probably wasn't a very funny joke for someone who worked closely with the SecDef and had basically funded the Solar Knights out of pocket. "Nevermind, that was a bad joke."

"As for how someone else would figure out the sleeper program, well, its really only something they would figure out after much frustrating trial and error after getting in through the other four systems and getting inexplicably locked out at random times." Noah shrugged. "However, the sleeper program is also the greatest weakness of the system as well."

"Well yeah, if you could hack that, everything else would at least be possible... but how would you get to the sleeper program first..." Meyrin frowned with thought for a few seconds before it hit on her. "He's got to have some way of running a system test, or changing the parameters of what the sleeper considers a good program model! Of course he'd do that from inside their firewall but assuming you could get past the... no, if you compromise the outside blocker you'll get shut down! Damn it! How the..." She looked at Noah, who was eyeing her steadily. "You know how to do it, don't you?" She accused. "You've already beaten a system like this before, haven't you?"

"Well, you did say that bragging was distasteful." Noah pointed out. "Besides, you were on the right path. I'm sure you'd get to it eventually, though, and don't take this the wrong way, I'm not sure you have the skills, at the moment, to do what would be needed to get in."

"Hey, I know I'm just a talented amateur, I've never pretended anything else. I thought I had a chance if it was just a big fucking wall, but this five program layer shit... that's above my weight class. But just having figured out his system pattern, I can pass that along to other, more serious folk, and they can get started on beating it, and I can get credit for providing the support, which is about as much as I could hope for really." Meyrin answered with a shrug, acutely aware of how close his face was to hers. "Just between you and me and these four walls though..."

"You have to get four semi-autonomous codes in through the outer blocker in fragments, using a very high speed, wide bandwith assault, about a kilobyte at a time, maybe ten kilobytes if you're lucky and want to be risky. It requires a deep familiarity with the structure of the outer blocker, so that you can change it to allow your codes in, and then change it back to its pristine state after you've dropped your fragments in, before the random sweep or regular timed monitor sweep. It takes some trial and error, lots of skill and a goodly bit of time, at least the first few times. I found it helpful to write a predicition program that would warn me when the likelihood of a random sweep was high or low. Of course not always accurate, hence random, but probability mathmatics still apply. Once you've got your worms in place, they do the same thing through the internal filter and the two monitor programs, bringing the fourth worm into the sleeper program parameter control code." Noah told her, enjoying the way she was listening avidly, plainly captivated by his explanation, and just because it was a topic she enjoyed and could understand, not because of anything else.

"Now is where it gets tricky. Though you programmed the fourth worm, so you know what you need to change the four other programs to be so that the wormed sleeper reads them as good, its a matter of very delicate timing and superlative speed to change them all at the same time, in the window of time when none of them are being randomly sampled. Remember, you just changed what the sleeper considers good... if it randomly sweeps a unhacked program and compares it to the hacked version your worm uploaded into its database, you still get locked out and its starting all over again with a new configuration, and the possibility of being discovered. You only get one try at making it right. Of course once you do, you're in, and then its just a matter of reversing all those steps on your way out, again with perfect timing, so that when they do the next system test against the master copies on disk, the system checks out as unbroken." Noah smiled, relishing the memory of the first time he successfully hacked a five layer system like this.

"I really wish I could watch someone do that... it would be so pretty..." Meyrin commented dreamily. A sudden thought occured to her. "What if there's six layers though, or more, that we haven't seen yet?"

"Usually any more than five layers, the extra layers are extra sleepers, adding more random inspection times, narrowing the windows you have for getting fragments through. In the end it just adds time to the process, and makes it that much more likely the defender programs will get lucky, or the attacker unlucky and have a random sweep go through while the program is hacked. No system is invlunerable, its always just a matter of time." Noah replied. "My ten layer version would take about a month to get through using up most of ZAFT's entire electronic intelligence department, using that procedure I just described, assuming the attacker never caught a bad sweep timer, which has about a ninety eight percent chances of occuring. And that's all without mixing in the possibility of active counterhacks on my part."

"Couldn't someone just steal the random number algorithm you used and use that to help increase the chances of knowing when to push worm fragments through?" Meyrin wondered.

"Well, they could try, but it's not stored in any electronic format other than the sleeper programs. The key's in my head, literally."

"People can be made to talk." Meyrin didn't mean for it to sound ominous, but she belatedly realized that it sounded almost threatening. Noah just smirked and shook his head though.

"The people who tried to force it out of me would have themselves a very unpleasant surprise." Noah said confidently. "As for other methods... well, I might be inclined to just open the program code to the right person, assuming I got to know them well enough, and felt I could trust them."

"There ya go, bribing me again." Meyrin jokingly accused, putting one of her hands on his upper arm. She watched him expectantly as his face started to tilt towards hers. Apparently she didn't need to hit him in the face with a book to get this signal across. So maybe she was a geek for getting all impressed and turned on by his greater geek skills, but damn it, was that such a bad thing? She hadn't had a boyfriend in months, and certainly none near as... unique... as Noah. It was plain to her that there was strong feeling on his part as well... she didn't see many downsides to seeing where the path was heading, at least, right? I mean, she could always dump him later if he started getting too rushed or controlling... it wouldn't be the first time she'd bailed out of a troubled seeming relationship. But she didn't get that kind of feeling from him anyway. He seemed to be going out of his way to NOT be controlling in the slightest.

Their lips were scant centimeters apart, Noah's hands starting to settle around her in a real hug, when someone very unhappy stormed into the common room, slamming the outer door open hard enough to make it shiver and shake, sending Phlegethion and Aether scrambling awkwardly backward, still on enforced standby mode. "MEYRIN! YOU!" Lunamaria yelled, taking in the situation at a glance and inferring all the wrong things.

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Lunamaria hadn't been having a bad day, up until the point she'd overheard the latest bit of juicy gossip floating around the Solar Knights semi-official Second Platoon celebratory get together, being held at the base sports complex and park facilities in order to commemorate a highly successful first mission with no in-unit friendly casualties. Reports were still being waited upon for news of First Platoon's first deployment, but given the size of the Brotherhood forces involved in the incident, no one expected the Solar Knights to be seriously challenged. The Orb citizens amongst the partygoers had somewhat mixed feelings on the deployment of a Solar Knight's unit without Orb's consent, but they could not deny that after many hours of standoff, something needed to get done to break the stalemate and drive the terrorists out, and if Orb wouldn't, or couldn't do that, then it was time for someone else to step in.

The reason the party was semi-official was that there was alcohol being served, which was not allowed at a command run party, but all the same, almost the entire chain of command was there, and Luna was pretty sure no one had paid for the booze and food privately. It was going to be one of those things that probably wouldn't happen again for legal reasons, but which everyone felt justified for a first mission, especially a very successful one. She was enjoying being on the fringe of the party, observing the differences between a celebratory bash on Earth and the few she'd been to on the PLANTS. Well, one thing she'd certainly never seen on the PLANTS was the massive bonfire in the middle of the park, shooting flames almost thirty feet in the air and providing all the warmth and light anyone would ever need, though there were addtional light poles set up as well to further banish the early evening darkness. If someone lit a fire that big in the PLANTS, regardless of reason, they'd be thrown in jail for air pollution and safety concerns!

She sipped every now and again from the cup of "fruit punch" that she'd snagged from one of several trestle tables along the outer edges of the wide open grassy area that was hosting most of the party. She'd been legal to drink in the PLANTS for two years now, since she was twenty, but it wasn't something she did very often all the same. It wasn't that she didn't like it, or couldn't hold liquor, it was just that she felt getting that kind of relaxed was something she should save for only the most special of occasions, when it would be churlish not to enjoy herself to the maximum without worrying about anyone else. Anyone else named Meyrin for instance, who was altogether more inclined towards wild parties, and drinking to excess and other annoyances that usually consumed Luna's time guarding her against whenever they were together in public. Honestl, if Luna hadn't been there a few times, Meyrin probably would have ended up kidnapped by drug runners or something else horrible... she just had no sense of self restraint when it came to having fun!

Well... maybe that wasn't all true... Meyrin did have long periods of times where she was a virtual shut in, especially when she was still getting used to a new location or living arrangement, and at those times Luna could hardly believe the layabout, play on her computer all day long girl was the same person as the wild and raucous, lets get drunk and have fun party girl she was the rest of the time! For that matter, where did the calm, serious and very professional CIC operator go when she went off duty? It was like she had three different personalities living in her head! Luna didn't think she herself acted like that... no one had ever accused her of being bipolar or schizophrenic, certainly, both of which had been directed at Meyrin in the past by various friends and acquaintances. Though, really, very few people tended to accuse Luna of anything... she took exception to being labeled or talked about behind her back, which was why the whole situation with Shinn and what had... and more especially, HADN'T happened was such a big deal to her.

Speaking of Shinn, she hadn't seen him for a while, though she knew he was around. He was practically the hero of the battle after all, having defied direct orders in a near suicidally brave yet undeniably effective powered dive tactic in order to get to the battle zone in time to save the Warmaster Gundam from certain destruction at the hands of the Vengeance. Not only that, but he'd disabled one of the Vengeance's primary weapons in the process, that nasty GENESIS laser like weapon it had used to annihilate the orb Dawndrakes, which it might have used to similar serious effect upon the Solar Knights if it had been given the chance. He'd dueled inconclusively with the Vengeance, and defeated handily several Zealots and Martyrs along the way, comprehensively giving the early momentum of the fight to the Solar Knights, keeping the enemy forces distracted long enough for the rest of Second Platoon to land safely. The only mar on the entire battle had been the escape of the Vengeance Gundam itself.

After the fight, the first chance she'd gotten Shinn mostly alone, except for Lain and Eric anyway, as they were waiting for the flight that would take them back to Africa, while their Archons were being loaded into Mobile Suit carriers for the same trip, Luna had smiled and shaken his hand heartily, patting him on the back and giving a quick hug that had left her with mixed feelings and him with a shocked but definitely pleased expression on his face. That expression had faded when she'd taken a careful step back and then knocked him flat on his shocked, wide eyed ass with a strong right jab to the lips, bloodying his mouth good. "That's for being such a dumbass who thinks he's got something to prove! You pulled it off this time, but what about next time, huh!? Is this what we can expect from you in every battle... you forging ahead on your own, doing whatever the hell you want or think is best!? You could have DIED Shinn, really easy, if the Brotherhood had seen you coming. If you EVER worry me by doing something STUPID and UNNESSECARY like that again, I'll take you off flight status myself, for a good LONG while, understand!? And that goes for you two as well!" She'd ranted, pointing imperiously first at Shinn and then at Lain and Eric, who'd been watching with dumbfounded expressions, waiting to congratulate Shinn themselves.

Luna hadn't waited for a reply from Shinn, who was just sitting there on the deck, wiping the back of his hand across his jaw, staring at her with those wide red eyes of his as if the world had been suddenly turned upside down on him. She had gone off to be by herself, sitting as far away from the other three as she could in the passenger compartment, and waiting until they were all disembarked before leaving herself. It was partly to keep up the punishment on Shinn... he'd better have learned his lesson now! But it was also to keep them from seeing her own stress and worry tears come out. Sometimes she had post-battle episodes like this, especially after stressful battles. It wasn't always from stress... sometimes she cried because she was just so happy or pleased with herself, but in any case, tears were a common occurence for her, if one she tried to keep under wraps as much as possible. But not in this case, though her own achievements in the battle had been nothing to sneeze at either, since she'd been the one to put the Vengeance to flight in the end. No, this time she was somewhat upset to find that her tears and feelings were all because of a certain black haired, red eyed IDIOT who felt he was semi-divine, or else had such a ego problem that he needed to commit near suicidal acts of bravery to compensate, she wasn't sure which!

She'd never had such a strong reaction to the actions of another person before, and she couldn't figure out if it was just because of the whole Solar Knights new unit thing, or if it was because her worry for Shinn might be a little deeper than just professional? She didn't FEEL like she was in love with him... she was really pissed at him to be honest, even if she had to shake her head in admiration at his combat talents and other skills. And he did annoy her far less than most other males. And she did enjoy being in his company, now that she thought about it. Or at least was happier than she might have otherwise been had he not been around. Emotions like this really weren't her strong suit. She'd told him she wasn't interested in a relationship with anyone right now, and he'd agreed to that and had been very respectful of her boundaries, even more so now that they were being forced to share a suite of rooms by Knight-Commander ze Burrel's irritatingly accommodating order. But she couldn't forget that he had added on to his agreement that he WOULD BE looking for a relationship, with her since there would be no point in commenting about it to her otherwise, at some future point in time.

Luna chewed on her lip some and took another sip of the fruity drink, which was laced with enough basically tasteless but still potent alcohol to overwhelm even the finely tuned metabolisms of Coordinator soldiers in relatively few cups. This was still her first, but most everyone else hadn't been nearly so reserved, and she could already tell people were feeling the effects. she found herself almost hoping she would chance to bump into Shinn, so she could at least explain why she'd hit him, and maybe apologize a little, even though that would also make her seem indecisive. Damn it, but there was no good option! She felt bad for hitting him now, but she couldn't just take it back without making it feel like she was betraying her own worries! But all the same, something like that had to be addressed sometime, or else it would invariably be there between them when next they got to work, and left undiscussed it could really fester into something unpleasant!

It was while considering this and other deep thoughts, and in a not altogether pleasant mood because of it, that Luna chanced to overhear something spoken by a group of female support staff standing nearby. Of course the Mobile Suit pilots were the toast of the party, but for every one of the pilots in Second Platoon there were almost ten support service members, mechanics, sensor operators, engineers, non-Mobile Suit pilots and operation crew, various technicians, etc, perople who did pretty much any job that had to do with transporting, maintaining and supplying the sixteen Archons of the Platoon. Meyrin was actually conspiciuous in her absence, since she was one of the senior members of the support crew in her job as primary CIC controller, but she was still in shut in mode for some reason, and had been ever since that rich bastard had tried to kidnap her a couple weeks ago! Luna was STILL hot and bothered about that!

"Wait a minute!" Luna interrupted them before they could go on. "WHAT did you just say about my sister!?"

"Uhh... nothing..." One of the young women replied nervously, eyeing Lunamaria, sizing up the potential for angry sister threats.

"Don't give me that! I clearly heard you mention something about Meyrin!" Luna forced herself to appear calmer and more in control, though to be entirely honest she really did NOT need some bullshit with Meyrin further complicating things right now!

"Okay, look, it was just something we heard from one of our friends in Third." One of the other girls spoke up defensively. "She called not so long ago and said that this really strange visitor, a guy, had come into the female barracks, walking in like he owned the place practically, and then gone right up to Meyrin's room without even asking for directions!"

"Yeah! And not only that, but this guy was HOT! Like, the most beautiful person she'd said she'd ever had the luck to see! She couldn't even come up with a good description... just pure LOVE at first sight!" Another girl sighed in mild frustration. "Like that does any of the rest of us any good."

"I'd heard a few of the guys were hoping to ask Meyrin out sometime soon, but she kept giving them a cold shoulder and no one could figure out why. She didn't seem like the sort who would entice men only to shut em down only a few days later, especially with nothing happening between them. But it all makes sense now... she already had a boyfriend in the wings. Funny though, I would have thought we'd have noticed someone that good looking hanging around. I wonder who he is. Though on second thought it is kinda skanky of her to flirt with other guys when she's plainly got such a uber-hunk of a boyfriend already."

"I wanna know what she was talking about when she mentioned those dragon things carrying all that luggage. What the hell is that about!? Dragons? Luggage? Maybe she's been sniffing some glue or paint fumes or something... I wouldn't put anything past an aviation mechanic."

"Hey, YOU'RE an aviation mechanic too ya know!"

"Yep, takes one to know one. Hey! Hey, where you going!? The party's still got a few hours left! You dropped your drink!" The girl called after Lunamaria, who had headed off for the female barracks at a determined brisk walk that shortly changed into a sprint when she got clear of the party area. "Honestly, I just don't understand those pilots. So high strung and weird. Must have something to do with walking around in a sixty foot war machine all the time."

"Uh oh... maybe its one of those things where the guy is actually HER boyfriend, and he's now seeing Meyrin on the side? I mean, she is much cuter than Lunamaria, everyone knows that. I couldn't blame a guy for cheating on a tomboy for a real girl, given the chance. Especially cause I'm not a tomboy!"

"Nah, don't be silly... everyone knows Lunamaria and Shinn are a couple. And while Shinn is really fucking hot, she would have just said Shinn's visiting Meyrin's room, not concoct some weird story about a dreamy guy with dragons. Though you do make a valid point. Speaking of her and Shinn though, they seem to be avoiding each other, and I heard that Shinn had a fat lip, which he didn't suffer during the mission! I wonder if they had a fight? It would be just like Lunamaria to punch someone like that! Hoenstly, she's really scary!"

"There was no fight." Shinn interrupted, having approached them unseen in his quest to find Luna. He couldn't see her anywhere at the party, and he'd been looking pretty hard too. He'd thought about enlisting Eric and Lain's help, but after seeing the two of them stumbling about near the bonfire, sloshing their drinks as they alternately chugged and half cavorted with the sort of glee only truly wasted people can muster, he'd decided against it. No help was better than drunk help. "I was clumsy getting out of my Archon is all. Happens to all of us sooner or later."

"That sounds like a cover up to me!" One of the girls giggled. "Don't worry about it, Shinn... we're not going to tell her you came to us for a little comfort. We'd be glad to make it all better for you!"

"Yeah! We're all ears, don't worry. Unless you need other body parts that is."

"Uh, thanks, but no thanks." Shinn flushed. It was just the alcohol. Yeah. Sure. Being hit on by several eligible and pretty cute girls all at the same time had nothing to do with it. Damn it, he didn't even have a collar on this shirt and his collar felt too tight! "Have you seen Luna?"

"Oh, you just missed her. She headed off pretty fast though... I think she might be going to go see Meyrin in her old room. Meyrin's boyfriend dropped by for a surprise visit, or something. We're still trying to figure it out ourselves." The girls shrugged, more or less in unison. "Really though, Shinn, not that its any of our business, but maybe you should think about, umm... broadening your horizens... a little. It gets kinda cold and lonely in those suites all by yourself, if you know what I mean." One of them hinted broadly with a wink.

Shinn was desperately trying not to. What a time for an eager pick up line! This had to be something to do with the alcohol... he couldn't imagine being basically propositioned like that at any other time. He didn't think he was THAT popular... the opposite even! This felt like something that should be happening to Lain or Eric. Not that he wasn't immensely complimented or anything... his male ego was currently standing on the castle ramparts blowing the war horn, to be sure... but he had much more important things on his mind right now than scoring a warm and full bed, no matter how easy it might be or interesting the idea might be at another time! It wasn't like he and Luna were really a couple or anything after all... it shouldn't matter in the slightest if he had a few "encounters" on the side, especially since there was nothing besides physical attraction in them. Still, he felt more than a little uncomfortable, even more so than his natural shyness around girls could account for. He was interested... but he was more interested in Luna and whatever she was doing. He was going to kick himself in the balls later, he was pretty sure, but he turned away without another word and headed after Luna.

"Daammmn... she's got her claws in him DEEP!" The girl who'd not so subtly chatted Shinn up commented with a hint of sourness as Shinn also hurried away. "I wish I had a super-cute and manly hero on a string like Lunamaria does! Honestly, how is this fair? How did a shy-ass, tomboy, plain as day, introvert like her score Shinn Asuka, of all guys!? Kind of a waste! I mean, he's got the balls to tell a Knight-Lieutenant to basically shove his orders up his own ass, and the skills to get away with it! He's gotta be an absolute FIREBALL in bed! I certainly wouldn't mind it if he power dived down on me, with or without orders to the contrary!"

"Oh, like you even have a chance... he was totally eyeing me the entire time!"

"Get real... it was ME that he was undressing in his head! I've got natural assets!"

"But you're a Coordinator..."

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Luna regarded the man who was molesting Meyrin, or about to be anyway, hunched over behind her like that, entrapping her with his arms and stealing a kiss from her by force! Quite how Meyrin had let herself get cornered in her computer chair, Luna could not readily think of... basic self defense would have her in a corner against a wall, kicking and screaming and shouting for help. She was doing none of that, just staring at Luna with a shocked and appalled expression on her face, like she was both surprised to see Luna and not altogether happy to see her either. Well, obviously she was surprised, given that Luna had run almost all the way here when the party wasn't due to be over for several more hours yet, and she didn't even live here anymore, but the second part set Luna aback for a moment. Why would Meyrin not be happy to be rescued from this lewd bastard who'd broken into her room and assaulted her for the second time in a month!? Luna didn't recognize him, but the mention of Dragons had totally set off her memory, since everyone remembered what had happened to the aviation mechanic who'd tried to save Meyrin the first time, only to be half mauled by a black robotic Dragon, barely escaping with his life!

"Get away from her! You...!" Words failed Luna, as she struggled to think of something suitably vile to describe this predator menacing her precious little sister! "How dare you show your face around here again!? Well this time you can't run away from me, and the Knight-Commander isn't here to save your ass! Just don't do anything funny, and I'll be sure to knock you out before I break all your fingers and toes!"

"This would be the sister you tried to warn me about last time, right?" The young man, barely out of his middle teens by the look of him, asked Meyrin with an insultingly large degree of calm. Meyrin just nodded, still too stunned and appalled by Lunamaria's sudden storming of her room to muster a coherent reply. "I see what you meant. She's very formidably direct."

"You have NO idea..." Luna promised darkly. "... How DIRECT I can be! In your case, it's going to be DIRECT to the HOSPITAL! Now come over here, and take your beating like you at least pretend you're a man!"

"I'm actually very happy where I am, thank you though." The young man returned politely, settling his arms around Meyrin from both sides, slowly rotating her chair around so he could face Luna directly, with Meyrin between them, imprisoned in his grip. For a prisoner though, Meyrin still seemed disturbingly relaxed. She even had one hand casually holding the young man by the upper arm, and not in a struggling pose either! The young man looked past Luna and gave a very slight shake of his head.

"Who the HELL are you looking at?" Luna demanded, taking a step forward, one hand already bunched into a fist, the other half open, ready to grab and hold.

"Uh... Luna... you should really look behind you." Meyrin found her voice at last, and it was very shaky indeed as she stared, not at Luna, but behind her as well, at Phlegethion and Aether, who had scrambled out of the path of the jarred open door and were now blocking Luna's exit, heads low to the ground and wings spread in identical threat postures, growling silently, flexing their claws eagerly. Meyrin could still easily remember the warthog incident, and more pertinently in this case, the way that Phlegethion and Aether had stopped the three quarter ton animal cold and killed it in less than three seconds. And now that same kind of destructive capability was aimed at Luna's back from about four feet away, and was getting more riled up the closer and angrier Luna got.

"Leave her be. Stand-down still enforced." Noah added, seeing that Phlegethion and Aether were not dropping their threat postures in response to his nonverbal cue. They were already displeased about him paying attention to Meyrin, damn them for their feminine jealousy, and having Lunamaria barge in and act hostile had almost given them something to vent their frustrations on. Noah reflected that letting the Dragons tear Meyrin's older sister to ragged bloody chunks would have as close to a one hundred percent likelihood as was mathmatically possible of permanently damaging or destroying his blossoming relationship with Meyrin, so obviously he had to prevent that from happening. Sulking mightily, but unable to fight against the unequivocal voice commands, Phlegethion and Aether folded their wings and raised their heads, teeth and claws folding back into their sheathes and slots.

They were still two very imposing and impressive sights to see, as Lunamaria evidenced by glancing behind her and then stumbling away, slamming her shoulders into the wall with a startled cry that did not quite die on her lips. Luna shivered and fought to keep her calm... how the HELL she hadn't noticed those when she was entering the room she didn't know... she had seen motion out of the corner of her eyes but hadn't paid it any mind, the sight of that bastard groping at her sister having driven all other thoughts and memories form her head. In retrospect, she should have known better, it was the mention of the dragons that had clued her in to who it might be that was visiting Meyrin in the first place! Of course the bastard would still have them around! God damn, but they were a lot scarier than she'd thought they would be... she'd had this mental image of some kind of clunky, boxy robot with vague wings and ornamental paint or something... not... well... DRAGONS! Voice controlled ones at that! With such intent eyes too. Luna shivered... she just had the feeling that the Dragons did not mean her good, despite the fact that they were just machines with no emotions or willpower at all.

"Thanks." Meyrin said quietly.

"She is your sister. Letting her come to harm, especially over a misunderstanding, would make you very sad and angry, and that would make me very sad and angry too." Noah replied gently. "The very last thing I want to do is hurt you in any way. I'd prefer not to scare you either, but I'm not altogether good at that, as Achilles demonstrated."

"Achilles? Who the hell is Achill..." Luna was feeling more and more lost as time went on. Meyrin seemed to be unnatural calm, and she had yet to even speak to her directly! She would talk to the man holding her captive, but not her own sister!? Something was seriously wrong! What had that bastard done to her precious sister to make her so... so... accepting of this horror!?

"RRWWAAWR!" Achilles announced, lowering his head and bellowing as loud as he could in a warning challenge, after pouncing over the common room couch, which he'd been investigating the smell of a few dropped pieces of beef jerky when Lunamaria had come storming in. He disliked loud noises and sudden commotions, especially while he was still exploring his new territory, but it had taken him some time to fully extricate himself from the couch cushions, and thus his delay in confronting the large, noisy intruder. Achilles landed with a slight skid on the carpeted floor, blunted talons digging in vain for purchase, turning his leap into a sort of ungainly slide that left a raw patch on his pride, if not his tough skin. Smarting from the loss of dignity, Achilles swarmed back to his feet and opened his mouth to roar again, to ensure that no one could think the tumble had been anything but intentional. Before he could give voice though, Luna had stepped off the wall and kicked out in an instinctive reaction to being confronted with an apparently dangerous attack animal. Achilles whined with pain as her kick caught him on the side and bowled him over, out of breath.

Luna was still recovering her balance, and her wits too, from being suddenly attacked by something that looked one whole hell of a lot like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, just the size of a medium-small dog, if not the mass, which had been enough to bruise her shin. She could have killed an attack dog with that kick, crushing its ribs, but the two footed lizard... she refused to consider it a T-Rex until she had no other choice, and a lot of time to study it more closely... was just winded. Indeed, it was already struggling to get back up, kicking wickedly taloned feet wildly and gnashing its incredibly vicious looking jaws, which were foaming with anger. she couldn't let it recover fully, since just looking at it she could tell that it was definitely not something she wanted to let get close to her! It would tear her apart! She was just drawing back her foot to kick again, this time aiming for the neck and base of the skull when an arm encircled her around the waist from the side and she was lifted up and hurled against the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the drywall, leaving her stunned and blinking spots and stars out of her eyes.

Luna shook her head to clear her eyes, wincing at the pain on the back of her head and along her back, when her head was slammed back into the wall painfully again, drawing more swimming vision as a strong male hand gripped her tightly around the neck and pressed her into the wall fiercely. She blearily realized that it was the young man who'd been keeping Meyrin hostage... he was a lot stronger than he looked. Obviously, Luna was no heavyweight, but to just be picked up with one arm and slammed around like that... that was some pretty serious power! Her head was ringing, and her back was going to be one big bruise in a few hours! Her neck too... she could hardly breathe, his gripping hand was so tight, though strangely he did not follow up his attack now that she was vulnerable. Indeed, though he was right up on her, and an enraged light glinted in his frightening violet with gold sparkled eyes, he seemed content to just hold her against the wall for the moment as he fought some sort of internal struggle.

"Hey! Noah!" Meyrin protested the manhandling of her sister, getting up from the chair, still wide eyed from how fast Noah had moved. One moment he'd been holding her protectively, close enough to kiss should she turn her head, and the next he was out of her room entirely, throwing Luna into the wall and pinning her there with just one hand before she even saw him coming! She hadn't seen Luna get manhandled like that since basic training, and even then it was a lot gentler than this! "What the hell do you think you're doing!?"

"Is Achilles all right?" Noah gritted out, still fighting with himself to keep his shields raised, despite how badly he wanted to drop them and burn this intolerable, evil, magenta haired girl's brain out through her eye sockets! How could she do something so inhumane and cruel as to kick... KICK... Achilles like that!? She could have broken ribs! Even burst organs! Achilles was tough, but he was still just a two foot, ninety pound housepet! You wouldn't kick a dog like that, why would you kick Achilles!? He was just reacting like his instincts demanded he should! She was the intruder, she was the one being noisy and violent, little wonder he'd felt the need to protect his doman by challenging her! And it wasn't like he could actually hurt a human! He was totally at her mercy, and she'd just KICKED him! And she'd been about to stamp on his head and neck! His hand tightened yet further, drawing a half strangled gasp from Luna. Oh, if only she knew... he wanted to reach into her chest and tear her heart out millimeter by millimeter! He could not abide cruelty to animals, especially one as gentle and loving as Achilles!

"NOAH! You're hurting her! STOP IT!" Meyrin demanded, her voice rising into a half yell, mixing panic and even a little anger herself. Noah felt that strong emotion wash over him, even through his shields, and he used it as a guide to focus his thoughts. Discipline. Focus. He'd sworn to himself not a few hours prior that he wasn't going to just lash out like this anymore! Was his own will so weak? He felt ashamed again. He'd almost just dropped everything and torn Lunamaria apart with his mind, in a manner so comprehensive that what he'd done to Ysak and Katie would have seemed a mere warmup exercise! Of course, as a side effect of such an attack, Meyrin would have suffered almost as much, as would have several other people within a hundred feet or so. He'd been about to harm Meyrin! Noah used that startling thought to fully banish his anger, though it did not disappear, merely allowed itself to be locked away for a later time. He would NOT soon forget the way Achilles had whined in pain as Luna kicked him! He slowly unclenched his gripping hand and backed away.

Lunamaria moved faster than he was expecting, especially as he was distracted by Meyrin's distress, and Achilles still panting for a full breath. It didn't help that he could not access her subconscious or conscious thoughts, and thus he had no advance or nigh-advance warning of her intentions or actions. For all his strength and speed, he was still just relying on instinct, making things up as he went, rather than any actual combat schooling. He had better things to do than learn how to brawl like a thug. Though as Lunamaria grabbed his arm before it could drop to his side and twisted it viciously up and around, spinning him around awkwardly, off balance, before a sweep of her leg dropped him flat on the ground with her kneeling on top of him, pinning him almost completely, he reflected that maybe learning a little self defense might not be a bad thing. He tried to use his superior strength to throw her off. Not happening, with the hold she had him in. She had all the leverage... he might as well be lying still, even if he were five times as strong as he was! And he didn't know how to wiggle free!

"Hey!" Meyrin protested the reversal of the situation as well, though she wasn't yelling anymore. "Luna, don't do that. Don't hurt him!"

"This creep has it coming!" Luna retortedly, somewhat hoarsely, still taking deep breaths to clear her head. "First he sic's his attack... lizard... on me, and then he throws me into a wall and half chokes me to death!? And that's after he's kidnapped you and then tried to come back and do it again!? I should dislocate his arm right now, and then move on to the rest of his major joints, just for starters!"

"That would not be a very good idea." Noah advised, somewhat muffled by having his face pressed into the floor. "Cause me enough duress and Phlegethion and Aether will be able to overcome the stand-down enforcement as an emergency measure. Nothing I could say or do would be enough to save you then. And I am not here to kidnap Meyrin. Nor have I ever kidnapped Meyrin. It was just a misunderstan... agh!" Noah cut off as Luna twisted his lower arm sharply. For their part, Phlegethion and Aether hissed like tea-kettles, fangs and claws once more clicking out to combat readiness, though they maintained their distance. If anything, the looks they were giving him were half smug, "I told you so" expressions. He'd forced them to be idle and now he was about to get his arm dislocated or broken. They were still human enough to feel vindicated, though that wouldn't stop them from killing Luna in a heartbeat either, and maybe Meyrin too if they could figure out how to get them both with one shot.

"Seriously, Luna, don't do it!" Meyrin urged, eyeing the dragons very nervously, the image of the warthog very clear in her mind. "He's right, this is just a misunderstanding! He didn't kidnap me back then, and he's not here to kidnap me now! Really! I'm actually kind of glad he's here. He's... kinda... sorta... my boyfriend."

"WHAT!?" Luna's head snapped around, and she goggled at her sister. "Since when do you have a boyfriend, much less..."

"Since about ten seconds before you barged in and ruined our first kiss, thank you!" Meyrin retorted, her face heating furiously. She couldn't see Noah's expression, but that was okay... she was embarassed enough as it was. Just declaring him her boyfriend was a little sudden... but really, was it? She'd spent two whole days in his company, gotten clothes made for her by him, had him save her life, had learned all sorts of new stuff about hacking, and had managed to get him to largely clean up his arrogant act! It might not be much time, but boy had it ever been quality time... just went to show it wasn't always the length of time that mattered, but what you did in the time you had! She'd certainly started dating guys before on a lot less than what she'd been through with Noah. And they'd had a nice thing going there, until Luna stepped in. "That's okay with you, right, Noah?"

"Supremely." He replied, face still pressed to the ground, though he found he was smiling broadly, despite the pain in his arm and side. "Can I be released now? Achilles might be hurt."

"Uh, no. I don't buy it. Sorry. No." Luna answered flatly. "You're coercing her somehow, you bastard! There is no way that..." Luna cut off when Meyrin put a hand on her shoulder and slapped her across the cheek, none too lightly.

"Earth to Luna, that's my boyfriend you're kneeling on. Get off, please. If there's to be any kneeling on his spine to be done, I'll do it!" Meyrin said firmly, pushing Luna aside and off Noah before putting her hands on his shoulders to help him up. "Believe me, if Noah wanted to coerce me, he could. He really could. I'm not sure how, but I believe him when he tells me that. But he doesn't want to coerce me, Luna. Really. Truly. I get the feeling he gets a lot of people who coerce themselves to be his friends just 'cause he's rich and powerful. He just wants a real friend, right? Someone to love, since he's all alone, isn't that right?"

"More or less. But you make me sound so... pitiful." Noah observed, getting to his feet, brushing his hair out of his eyes and rolling his formerly trapped arm in its socket to appease the soreness. He put his other arm, very tenatively, around Meyrin's waist, but she didn't pull away. He watched Achilles clamber back to his feet, a little jerkily, but there didn't seem to be any major damage suffered. Still, achilles gave Lunmaria a very wide berth, and slunk away to sit on the other side of the couch from the three humans, pride thoroughly crushed and his side quite tender. Noah felt the anger surge inside him again, but he didn't let even a flicker of it show on the surface. Focus. Discipline. Throwing tantrums was easy if you were an Active, but that sort of thing was hardly the sort of way for an Ultimate Coordinator to act, now was it? He might yet be a babe in diapers, at least as far as Ultimate Coordinators went, but that didn't mean he could just act like a little kid. It was his duty to set the example for all other Ultimate Coordinators in the future, and if he could not even master himself, how could he provide anything but a bad example?

"Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. You're a lot of things, but pitiful isn't one of them." Meyrin assured him. She turned to look at Luna, who had one hand pressed to the palm print on her cheek, staring at the two of them incredulously from across the room. "Sorry about slapping you like that, Luna, but I needed to do something to snap you out of it before you did something really stupid and got yourself killed or hurt. Those dragons are not a joke... I already told you before what they did to that warthog!"

"Yeah, yeah... but what about the lizard? Achilles or whatever its name is? The thing tried to eat me alive!" Luna protested, still shocked at Meyrin, her own sister, taking a side against her!

"Achilles was just playing. He surprised me too, when I first saw him. He looks really scary, but he's even less dangerous than a housecat." Meyrin answered. "Yep, just a big, scaly housecat. And yes, he is a T-Rex. Noah made him."

"Well, to be accurate I designed the basic principles of the process that allows the production of Mini-Pets like Achilles, not necessarily all dinosaurs, but yes." Noah explained. "I can't take very good care of him anymore because of some personal time issues coming up, so I brought him with me. If Meyrin didn't want him, I was going to give him to Rey, but he seems to have become attached to her. Love at first sight."

"But he came after me with..." Luna saw the way Meyrin was looking at her and she gave up. Her sister was plainly convinced that this Noah guy really was her boyfriend, and it was equally obvious that she was going to take his side in things, especially at the moment. Hopefully she'd be able to catch her alone later and they could have a real heart to heart talk, at which time Meyrin could explain everything to Luna's satisfaction, but now obviously wasn't that time. "Nevermind. I can see the situation is more complex than I thought. Great. Just what I needed. Another complex situation."

"Have a fight with Shinn?" Meyrin asked. "You only just moved in with him though... what, do they need to get you guys a bigger bed too?"

"Meyrin, I am not in the mood for that bullshit right now!"

"I could buy her a bigger bed. A whole house even." Noah offered helpfully.

"Stay out of this! Don't you talk to me! Don't you act friendly to me either! I'm on to you, mister! I've got you under a fucking microscope, do you hear me!? One wrong move... one hint of a wrong move... and I'll rip you to shreds, do you understand me?"

"Could you define "wrong move" a little more? I get the feeling our definition of what is wrong might be different." Noah returned politely. Best to treat her like Gil treated him. Warily, and without rising to her words as much as possible, save for the occasional outburst when she did something outrageous. There would come a time when he would make restitution with her for what she'd done to Achilles, but he would save that for the appropriate time."

"Well, let me show you at least one right move, just to make it totally clear." Meyrin leaned into his shoulder and tilted her face up to meet his. It wasn't a long kiss, but it was definitely a kiss. Noah blinked at her in amazement, wordless again. "Did you get that in your microscope view, Luna? Or do I need to do it in slow motion?"

Luna shook her head in exasperation, before forcing herself to walk away. It was feeling like a good night to get drunk, for once. She felt like Shinn must have, right after she'd punched him... the world was all turned upside down!

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Author Note: All right! Snakes in the Grass is finally over! And its not a tragedy! Rejoice. I meant that gender question more towards my newer reviewers, rather than you folks who have been with me since the near beginning of Chaotic Cosmos. As for what will happen with Jean and Ashino... its still in flux. As usual, Rihaku, you always make me think and wish I could retroactively write a chapter after reading your review of it. Though the reason Ashino did not go to Orb is for one, he's in a panic. For two, other than Lacus, he really doesn't like most of the Clyne Faction. He had to have Eric save Kira outside Orb in the Isolation, for fear of trying to kill him himself, whether or not it was a good idea for him to do so. They wouldn't be his first choice for a haven, for himself anyway, even with Cyprus and the others working for them. As for the space colony... well, expense for one. For another, they are concentrating resources into the undersea cities, like Mare Town Depths, exploring that not so far away frontier first. And maybe because space stations... well, I can't say much more for plot reasons.

You people are entirely right about the Dark Clyne Faction. Forget I said that. It would never work, for your reasons and others. Well, the next mini-arc, Pulling Weeds will see some more minor characters introduced, some villians people have been demanding will finally take the stage, and there's going to be one of those surprise twists that really won't surprise too many people once they've read the initial set up. Kind of like seeing Neo Roanoke in GSD... you just knew he was Mu all along. Until then, enjoy.


	31. Pulling Weeds part 1

Author Note: Archangel2385, thanks so much for your reviews, they really spark my writers blood to full flames. The rest of you kick ass as well, of course, but he just gave me like 4 in a row, so... well, yeah. Coolness. You are very right... exploring "fates worse than death" is very much a part of ED. The reason? Death is final, in almost all cases (Frost being an exception by popular demand, but bringing people back from the dead too often ruins the whole idea of death). If a character dies, thats it, you can only reference them in a past tense. Yes, it can be a life or plot or story changing occurance... but its a one shot thing. One shot of pain, one shot of anger, one shot of despair or hatred or whatever. Yes, it can define a character for a long time, but humans are magnificent in their ability to move past single shot tragedies. Doing these terrible things to my dear protagonists sets up a multitude of future opportunities for conflicts and problems and resolutions and so on to explore, which I prefer to just killing people off outright. Of course sometimes death is necessary, and will happen unexpectedly to keep people worried about the fate of characters, but by and large, I prefer to keep major characters around and damaged, rather than whole but dead.

Now, as for Newtypes. I'm still about three mini-arcs from my big "throw back the curtains" revelation chapter, where Noah at least will reveal what he knows about Newtypes. I want to save as much for that point in time as possible, even though even that is still only a fraction of the full explanation, much of which will be entwined in the plot for Reclaimation War. I can say this though. Latents and Actives are fundamentally different, and there is no way, nor reason, for there to be an evolution/de-evolution from one type to the other. Actives can do some very impressive things, but I have not even scratched the surface of what Latents can do. Actives are not a superior form of Latents, the opposite if anything, despite what many people, both reviewers and characters, believe. The terms "Actives" and "Latents" themselves are misleading, concocted by Stumps studying the Newtype phenomenon from the outside, and thus sort of grandfathered in as the standard terms used by people like Noah or Katie. But just because they are the standard terms does not mean they are accurate ones. But I'll go into that later, in the Garden of Eden Creation Kit mini-arc, and in Reclaimation War.

Good point about Sai. There will be some stuff concerning him. And I both can and can not grant your wish, at the same time. And Rey... well, my Rey has been suffering under Noah's onus for quite some time, and as a result he's different from the "real" Rey seen in GSD. He'll be starting to be more like himself here soon, and not be such a wuss. Though I must beg your forgiveness, since Jean/Mary's escape was for plot reasons... they have a more important fate down the line. Making them a couple... well, there's more ways to do that than just having them be lovey dovey. Birds in the same cage and all that. In any case, on with the story.

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There were faces in his dreams. More and more of them of late. All of people who felt familiar, but whom he could neither name nor fully recognize. A brown haired kid. A purple haired kid. A brown haired girl. A blonde haired girl. Even a pink haired girl. Though all of them were a little too young for him to be having dreams about, even ones that weren't very pleasant. He'd never been attracted to the idea of cradle robbing before, and from the look of them, they all had to be at least ten years younger than him, if not more. Which was in some ways too bad, because they were some real lookers! Other faces would push to the fore, whenever he grew too frustrated looking at the young people. It was like there was someone sitting on the other side of an invisible chain link fence, trying to push through ideas and concepts to the rest of him, but having trouble finding the right size hole for the right idea, and as a result he was only getting glimpses of things or partial amounts of something that was fundamentally large. A grizzled but pleasant man a little older than him, with a strong five o'clock shadow and black hair. A woman more his age category with straight black hair and severe features. A man with only one eye and one arm, but jovial all the same. And central to them all, a woman in her prime, with leonine amber eyes and luxurious brown hair.

It was this last woman that made his heart ache, and he wasn't sure why. She wasn't classically beautiful, not like some of the younger girls. But he still could not help but stare at her for what felt like hours at a time, even though he could not find the words or memories to recognize her. He didn't even feel much frustration in not being able to recognize her... he felt he knew who she was, and that she also knew who he was. Names and identities were unimportant to that dual knowledge. This was someone very important to him, and who likewise thought he was very important to her. If only he could figure out why though! She wasn't any of a number of past lovers he'd had, nor any of the people he knew at work, or in his job as part of the Brotherhood. He'd seen a face somewhat like her on the news before, but never managed to catch a name, and he was always too busy or preoccupied at those times to remember to look her up later. He only remembered the desire to do that in his dreams, and the desire would fade quickly upon waking. He'd just dismiss it as a dream, and move on with his life.

A part of him grew angry at this attitude on his part. This was important information it was trying to impart, and he just didn't care! Or maybe just couldn't care... whenever he tried the faces would start to slip away and dissolve, as if being hidden behind a thick curtain. It was only when he was at his most distracted and relaxed, whenever his thoughts weren't focused on anything that they came through to the point where he could at least hope to try and recognize them. Of course, whenever he got close the faces would recede again, and he'd lose it. It was very frustrating. Almost to the point of making the dream a nightmare, about an endless threat trying to be communicated to him by his subconscious, but having no chance of solving the puzzle or decrypting the message in time to save himself from whatever was threatening him. It was like there was some sort of outside agency keeping him seperated from his subconscious. Though he did have to admit he'd been having the dreams a lot more often of late, and more vividly each time. Maybe it was because he was at loose ends, with Noah down on Earth for the past few days, and not planning on coming back for several more? An idle mind walks in dark places and that sort of thing.

He felt himself start to wake up, a slowly rising, repeating noise dragging him away from the comforts and frustrations of sleep. He wanted to stay, to spend more time deciphering these faces, and why they kept showing up in his mind. Sometimes he would even get a flash of the important woman's face when fully awake. He knew that once he woke up he'd dismiss this as just another weird dream, drink his cup of water, and go on to get breakfast. His lips formed a word as his straining mind dug in for a last ditch effort. "M..." His eyes opened, leaving just that single syllable uttered. "Damn dreams." Michael Genesis muttered, clasping a hand to his scarred face, the cool skin helping alleviate the mild headache he was waking up with more and more often these days. "Can't leave a man in peace." He added, reaching out to still his alarm. Six thirty already? Damn, time flew.

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"In a press release sent out early this morning by the Orb Government, the Orb National Parliament, in an emergency session, voted to bypass her Majesty, Chief Representative Cagalli Zala-Attha's dissenting stance on the USN's World Security Projects bill, at last throwing Orb's full support in with the rest of the member-states. This long awaited and eagerly anticipated reversal of stance comes shortly after a devastating Brotherhood terrorist attack upon the Orb Government District in Nara-Attha City, which resulted in very high loss of life and property damage, especially to the members of Orb's legislature, of which almost eighty were killed at one point or another during the course of the attack, which Orb's own forces were unable to resolve. The emergency crisis deployment of the Solar Knight's First Platoon brought a swift end to the confrontation, though not without casualties suffered by the Solar Knights." Rey listened to the news report, which had turned on automatically just after his alarm had gone off to remind him to get out of bed. Not that it was hardly ever needed, since he usually rose more than an hour earlier than his alarm was set for, but of late he'd been having sleep difficulties, excaberated by disturbing dreams he could never remember upon waking.

"Chief Representative Zala-Attha resigned her post in protest of the bypass by the Orb Parliament, amid a storm of rumors concerning her health and welfare after being a hostage of the Brotherhood for some hours during the conference. Head of Royal Security Colonel Ledonir Kisaka had no comment for the press on the state of her Majesty's current health, and the Orb National Hospital was likewise unable to comment officially or otherwise on the status of Orb's young Queen, other than the fact that she will remain in the role of Queen. With the Seiran and Sahaku familes suffering serious casualties during the terrorist incident, including the loss of both families heads and senior advisors, it has fallen to the Kurenai family to step up as leadership of Orb during this time of tragedy. Jiro Lago Kurenai, eldest son of Hamachi Yagu Kurenai, will be ordained as the new Chief Representative of Orb in a ceremony later this afternoon. Traditionally the Kurenai family has been most concerned with Orb's economic health and prosperity, and has supported more fully integrating with other nations and international organizations, though we will have to wait until after the ordainment to learn Chief Representative Kurenai's true agenda and propsective policies. This has been a special report from the Orb News Network." The news continued, as Rey got up and slowly got dressed.

With the Orb close up finished, a new reporter came into view. "Orb is in a state of mourning as the families and friends of the hundred plus people who died in the Brotherhood attack, including many of the most senior and long standing members of Orb's Parliament, are laid to rest at the Memorial Cemetary today and for the rest of the week. A seperate ceremony of thanks is being held to honor the twenty four Solar Knights that lost their lives in defense of Orb's sovereignity, including the entire crew of the CIC Mothership Buckingham and one member of the Bors Archon Squadron. Solar Knights Commanding Officer, Knight-Commander Rey ze Burrel, was unable to be reached for comment, though an unofficial source inside the Solar Knights has indicated that morale is still high and the Solar Knights are, quote "ready and willing to serve and protect the citizens of the USN and all member-states to the fullest measure" end-quote, a sentiment which I'm sure heartens us all."

Rey grunted, seeing Gil's steady hands at work. To be entirely honest he'd definitely not been in much of a mood for talking with the press after the loss of the Buckingham, especially coupled with the death of the Bors Squadron pilot, who'd succumbed to heat stroke, almost broiled alive in his cockpit. Not only that, but true to his prediction, the Traitor and the Tormented had managed to disappear into the ocean before Orb could properly mobilize its forces to pursue them. Part of that was his own fault... he'd been so concerned with sticking to the plan, and relying on his advance knowledge of how the Brotherhood machines fought that he'd been almost entirely paralyzed when the situation became more fluid! He cursed himself mightily... such things were the mistakes of a rookie commander! It was a total embarassment for him, despite what Gil said. He would have to do much, much better in the future, and he would henceforth rely on his own skills, not his secret knowledge, to win any future conflicts, no matter how easy the secret knowledge might otherwise make things!

Rey looked at the last hypodermic syringe of dark green medicine fluid laid out on his desk. If Noah could be trusted, an interesting conundrum of a thought if there ever was one, then after taking this last shot, Rey's medical problems should disappear, for good! And by extent, so should Noah's, once he was sure the cure was workable. Rey didn't overly mind being used as a test subject... he wasn't the one making the cure after all, so if it went wrong, better that he went down rather than Noah, thus screwing them both. He turned his attention back to the news, since he'd promised Noah that he wouldn't take the last dose until he was around to observe the results.

"... in other news, impressed by the success of the Solar Knights, the FNE, ALU, and PLANTS are each sending a delegation of their newest production Mobile Suits and the elite pilots who control them to the central African base that the Solar Knights operate out of in order to provide opportunities for mutual cross-training and cooperative tactic development for the future. Orb may send some of its own new M-7 Dawndrakes to the international event as well, to better its own results against potential Brotherhood attacks down the line, given its history of failure against them until now." Rey winced at that barbed remark, sure to raise a hellish scream from within the Royal Residence of Orb. He understood that pressing the point home to Orb that they too had to rely on the USN for protection was important, but it was a very good thing Cagalli Zala-Attha was no longer head of government in anything but a ceremonial role, because otherwise that one dig would have caused plenty of political fighting. True, Orb had suffered serious casualties in various conflicts against the brotherhood, but the only reason the Solar Knights had not been similarly trashed was because the Brotherhood was working to help Durandel from behind the scenes! Although the Vengeance had been tested by Shinn and the others from Second Platoon, that could not be denied...

"The world is still reacting to the surprise announcement by USN Secretary of Defense Gilbert Durandel of a private donation amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade from the reclusive scion of the PLANTS biggest mega-corporation, the biomedical sciences giant BoranderCorp, Noah Borander. The sole remaining member of the formerly wide reaching Borander Dynasty, after the rest of the family succumbed to unfortunate heart conditions, a genetic flaw that had been unknown in their family tree until recently, the young Noah Borander is the majority owner of BoranderCorp and several other major economic concerns. A long time provider of various medical services and technologies, including the near miraculous bacterial medical treatment known as Curaga, and various other viral and bacterial products for use in medical and industrial situations, recently BoranderCorp has also branched out into the food production and domestic pets markets, using cloning technology to mass produce meat at high rates, greatly reducing the PLANTS reliance on outside terrestrial farms for sustenance. The new line of ultra-chic Mini-Pets have also proven explosively popular in the PLANTS, and markets elsewhere are eagerly anticipating their soon to come sale."

"The contribution by Noah Borander represents a significant amount of his personal fortune, with an estimated value of close to a trillion dollars, as well as a commitment from BoranderCorp's own profits. This unprecedented act represents the largest donation of funds to a governmental project by a private citizen in history, an action that will save taxpayers around the world an estimated thirty to forty thousand dollars in costs per person over the next decade and a half. I think that definitely deserves a hearty "thank you" from us all to Mr. Borander. Perhaps his generousity will prompt other significantly wealthy citizens to likewise contribute to the betterment of security for everyone, only time will tell. Mr. Borander is currently unavailable for comment, though unofficial sources indicate he may be present at the international training event being held at the Solar Knights base, lending his goodwill as best he can."

"Praise is also being heaped upon the USN Secretary of Defence, Gilbert Durandel, for his foresight and dedication to maintaining peace and saftey for everyone, striking major blows against the Brotherhood and any other anarchist terrorist threats that may face civilized society through the establishment of the Solar Knights and the creation of the Solar Protection Fleet project under Fleet Admiral David Icarus's guidance in the near future. We will probably never know just how many countless hundreds or thousands of innocent people owe their lives to the decisive and effective actions taken by Mr. Durandel and his staff, but we should be thankful all the same we have such capable guardian angels protecting us in these times of crisis. Mr. Durandel refuses to be drawn on the subject of whether he plans to run for the position of Secretary-General of the USN once his term as Secretary of Defense is over, but in the opinion of this humble reporter, he should be a shoo in for the job! The world can only be a better place with Gilbert Durandel in charge, protecting us all with his wisdom and experience. More on other exciting news stories after these words from our sponsors..." Rey turned the news off, as he finished getting dressed, except for the uniform jacket and sash.

Rey made a note to take some time to congratulate Gil privately when he next had the chance. They had become victorious, achieving exactly the goals they had set out after, oh so many years ago! Gil was all but confirmed as the next USN Secretary-General, and his long term policies as Secretary of Defense would further cement his position for the future. From there they could move to the more radical but entirely necessary changes that would re-order human society into a more perfect, less wasteful form, where genetic aptitude was the final determining factor in a person's life and fate, not the ephermal wishes of family, friends or other life circumstances! Those with the genes to be soldiers, like Rey, would be soldiers, and those with the genes to be leaders, like Gil, would be leaders! It was such a simple system, Rey could only shake his head in wonder that it hadn't been instituted before now. It shouldn't have required a visionary like Gil to bring it about, but whatever. Better late than never, right? And Rey was a small, if integral part of this great endeavor... he couldn't be prouder, to be honest! He truly was fortunate, that Gil was part of his life.

There wouldn't be much time for personal celebrations for a little while though, even though Gil was of course going to be around for a while when the political delegations from the various member states came to observe the cross-training going on between their various military units and the Solar Knights. And calling him right now was no good either, since he was currently off doing more political things with Fleet Admiral Icarus, observing the initial keel layings of the Incarnate and Myrmidon class vessels, the foundations of the Solar Protection Fleet. Just because they were victorious didn't mean they could stop working, indeed the easy part was now behind them, and they were going to be a lot busier in the future! Rey checked his time, and found he still had about fifteen minutes to eat breakfast before he really had to get moving. The ALU military delegation was already here, since they were in ALU territory, but they were saving the official welcoming ceremony and grand tour of the base, not to mention to reciprocal tours of the various new Mobile Suits being fielded by the other member-states, for when ZAFT and the FNE showed up in forty minutes or so.

As he heated up the frozen egg and sausage biscuit breakfast he'd taken from the neatly arranged rows of them in his freezer, Rey thought about his other problems. Shinn and Luna seemed to be in the midst of some kind of spat, where they ostensibly looked for each other, yet never managed to meet up. Getting the full story hadn't been easy, but at length he'd managed to set Eric Kellson and Lain Debora up on their military honor, after promising no punishments would be delivered upon anyone, and found out that Luna had punched Shinn out pretty good on the way back from LAS. Rey just didn't understand girls at all... he'd thought she and Shinn were fast friends and lovers... why would she assault him, and threaten to assault Eric and Lain? Well, maybe it was because of Shinn's reckless but undoubtedly effective actions... girls could be weird about their men risking their lives in apparently unnessecary manners. Perhaps that was it... she was just bad at expressing her feelings. He'd talked with Shinn about it, finding his friend to be very evasive, but the gist of what he'd gotten was that Shinn didn't hold a grudge for Luna's attack, he merely wanted to talk to her about how he was sorry for causing her duress. He would have to find Lunamaria sometime today and get her side of things as well... he couldn't have two of his top Squadron commanders at each others throats, or even appearing to be, especially with all the new arrivals from the member states!

On top of that was the situation rapidly growing out of control with regards to Meyrin Hawke and Noah. He'd thought Noah's interest in her was just some passing phase, a whim, like many that Noah went through every couple of days or so, some nugget of interest holding his great mind captive before he discarded it in favor of the next new thing. Unfortunately that didn't appear to be the case at all... Noah seemed to be completely infatuated with Meyrin, and Meyrin didn't seem to be trying to keep Noah at arms length either. It had yet to have a major impact on the Second Platoon or the Solar Knights as a whole, but it was only a matter of time before Noah's disdain for military regulations caused a problem, like him trying to see and be around Meyrin during duty hours or something, or even just the fact that Meyrin was dating a publicly famous philanthropist, who was practically funding the Solar Knights out of his own pocket, would garner some attention of both good and bad sorts! It was bad enough when Noah only stopped by for short visits, but now he was really throwing everything into disorder with this multi-day stay, like a new planet disrupting the grativic balance of a solar system! Everything was changing slightly to accomodate his presence, whether it meant to or not... that's just how Noah was.

Rey was seriously considering giving Meyrin a special leave of absence from duty for as long as Noah was around, but that would prove difficult in its own way, since Meyrin was now the seniormost and most experienced CIC operator in the Solar Knights, since First Platoon's CIC operator had been lost along with the rest of the Buckingham's crew, and the CIC operator for Third Platoon had yet to see battle outside of a simulator. If he didn't put Meyrin in on some of the cross-training maneuvers, it would make a political scene amongst the member-state units, who would be able to rightly accuse him of not treating them respectfully or seriously by only letting them operate with people who'd not had any experience against the Brotherhood. No, like it or not, but Meyrin was a very important person in the Solar Knights now, and her presence would be required much of the time, especially during any training scenarios that were being filmed by news organizations for showing to the public. He'd have to figure out some way of accomodating Noah as well... maybe make him an honorary Solar Knight? He might be able to convince him to play along with that. Especially if he was assigned under or alongside Meyrin... Rey had no doubt that with Noah's talents, he could accomplish things as a CIC or EWS operator that would floor even the most experienced of operators, especially if he was showing off for Meyrin.

Rey snorted, taking bites from his egg and sausage biscuit sandwich. Maybe he should put Noah in charge of the computer simulated opposing forces sometime. It would only be fitting, though of course no one would realize that. Probably the next best training experience around, other than actual combat against the Brotherhood! Well, on second thought some people might become suspicious about Noah's aptitude with NIC controlled Gundams and Mobile Suits. Having Noah devise strategies to defeat the Brotherhood, or coordinating actions against simulated Brotherhood forces was also an ironic proposition, though a much safer one in the long run. Gil wasn't going to be pleased with Noah around, that was for sure, but there wasn't much either he or Rey could do about it, at least at this juncture. Rey put down the biscuit, his stomach suddenly roiling, at the thought that it was soon to be a time when Gil would decide that Noah was no longer an asset, but an impedance to be rid of. And Rey wasn't sure which side he was really on. Gil was his foster father and his guiding light... but Noah had probably cured his genetic disease and saved his life, and was his best friend! How did one choose sides in such a confrontation? He had great cause to be allied with both of them, and if he wasn't careful he was going to get crushed between them when they clashed!

Rey checked his time again, and looked at the half eaten breakfast sandwich. His stomach roiled again. It looked like he was going to be showing up at the landing field a little earlier than planned. Oh well. Maybe he'd find Luna there before the greeting formation, and he could at least get ONE problem sorted out before a whole new mess of them got dropped in his lap! The member-state military units were going to be staying for a while, and as commander of the Solar Knights, Rey was going to be ultimately responsible for all of them, after working things out with the actual unit commanders! He would be lucky if there were only minor incidents, but he was frankly expecting at least one major crisis of some sort, especially between the FNE unit and the ZAFT unit, coming as they did from formerly opposing sides, one almost fully Natural, the other almost fully Coordinator, with entirely different rules on many aspects of military life. No... victory was definitely starting to look a lot less fun than defeat, right now!

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"Luna..." Lunamaria turned her head, her pulse speeding up and an uncomfortable cramping sensation suddenly manifesting in her stomach as she heard Shinn's voice. She told herself that such a reaction was silly, that she'd been trying pretty hard to get ahold of Shinn for several days now, so that they could talk about the LAS incident and clear the air between them. He hadn't been coming back to their suite of rooms, so that easy option had been denied to her. Why the sudden nervousness? Why the sudden urge to bolt and run, despite how undignified that would be, not to mention the message it would send to Shinn. Gaining a slightly better hold on herself, Luna raised her chin and resolved to face this situation head on, despite how she felt. Only through confronting problems could they be solved... running away didn't help anything! She turned around from her position at the front of Gawain Squadron's place on the parade ground, which was still largely empty because the formal formation of welcoming was still more than twenty minutes away, and found herself face to face with Shinn, about arms length away. Just outside of punching range actually, she discerned with a spike of guilt.

"Shinn..." She found herself, despite her carefully prepared and thought out message of apology, completely mind blank. Damn it, why did this always happen with Shinn? She'd been ready for this, up until she actually looked him in the eyes, and now she could barely even think straight! "About what happened... I..."

"Don't worry about it, Luna. I'm sorry I worried you. I didn't mean to, really." Shinn answered with a shrug and a slight smile. "To be honest, you probably did the right thing... I was way out of line with what I did, and I very easily COULD have died because of it. I just... well, I just have a lot of confidence in myself, and sometimes I act without thinking."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't mean I should have just hit you like that. I'm really sorry." Luna bowed her head slightly in additional apology. "It may have been reckless, but it was also effective, and propbably ending up saving a number of lives, even my own."

"No, I was wrong to do it, and you were right to address that with me. Trust me, its not a mistake I'm ever going to make again... if only I could be so fortunate as to have all my errors explained to me so well." Shinn smiled wider, if a tad ruefully. He held out his hand. "No hard feelings, either way?"

"No hard feelings." Luna agreed, gladly taking his hand. She didn't even protest when he squeezed her hand for a little longer than a mere apologetic handshake could strictly allow for, and she even squeezed his hand back a little. Hard feelings weren't the problem at all... it was all the soft ones causing her difficulties! She took her hand back almost reluctantly, and Shinn moved up to stand next to her. "So what do you think about all these new arrivals we're going to have?" Luna asked, glad to have the air cleared and something else to talk about. There, that hadn't been so hard was it? Why had she had so many butterflies in her stomach over it? Maybe it was the situation with Meyrin and that... that slimy bastard Noah, leaking over. It was definitely stressing her out something fierce!

"So what do you think of these member-state units showing up soon?" Shinn asked, staring off into the distance, though the incoming transports were still well beyond the range of any unassisted vision. "I mean, they're supposed to be showing up with the brightest and best each member-state has to offer, not to mention the best technology, but really, look at what happened to Orb's Dawndrakes... they were wiped out at LAS and then just sat around looking scary but doing nothing impressive more recently at Nara-Attha City. I may not like Orb, but I do have to admit their military technology is impressive... if Orb is so stymied, what chance does the FNE or ALU have of learning anything useful? Even ZAFT is a bit of a tossup."

"Well, that's why they're coming to us now, so they can learn the strategies we use to be so effective." Luna replied consideringly. "Though since one of those strategies is basically "let Shinn Asuka do what he wants", it might be kind of hard to teach others."

"What about "Lunamaria Hawke steals a Gundam's arm and uses the attached weapon to scare away the Vengeance Gundam"?" Shinn retorted in good humor. "That's not going to be easy to teach either."

"Did I really scare him away though? It seemed to me that he just got bored and left." Luna said quietly. The commonly accepted story was that the Solar Knights had indeed forced the Vengeance to flee, but given her recollection of things, that just wasn't the case! He left because he wanted to, not because they forced him to! She kept quiet about it though, for reasons of morale, though Shinn was a safe person to talk to about it, she was pretty sure.

"Regardless, he ended up leaving, right? I mean, who can say how these religious loonies, especially the so called Apostles, really think?" Shinn shrugged again, plainly not too concerned with the whys of the situation. "We'd have gotten him eventually if he kept hanging around, and he had to know it. You probably startled him some, and got him to move up his timetable. You probably saved a good few lives yourself there. Maybe even mine." Shinn put his hand on her shoulder tenatively. She didn't pull away or make a protest. "Can I... ask you something, Luna?"

"Well... yeah, sure. I mean, as long as its not out on a date or something... I'm still not..." Luna fumbled with her words again.

"No, its not out on a date." Shinn answered, a somewhat sad tinge in his voice for a moment. "Though don't think I'm giving up on that score, when you are ready. I just want you to, well, watch out for me, okay? If I ever start to do something stupid and reckless again, I want you to stop me, as best you can. I fight best when I'm really hot and angry about something, but that doesn't mean I always make the best tactical or strategic decisions. I need someone with a calmer, cooler head backing me up and making sure I don't go overboard, and frankly, I'm a lot more likely to listen to you than I am to the Knight-Lieutenant or Eric. I won't even mention Lain."

"Well, isn't that what people in the same unit do for each other anyway?" Luna asked. She looked at Shinn's imploring eyes and face, and her resistances melted completely. "Of course, I'll do whatever I can, Shinn. Just don't be surprised if you end up with a few fat lips or black eyes. I'm not the best with words, but fists... I understand those well."

"And how." Shinn agreed. "Not since the last time I earnestly sparred with Rey have I gotten taken out so good."

"You're making me blush." Luna accused, her cheeks heating. "Just don't go spreading around talk about what a brawler I am... its hard enough getting some people to think of me as a girl as it is."

"Believe me, Luna... I could never mistake you for anything but a girl, even if we didn't share the same suite of rooms." Shinn promised, causing her cheeks to flush even more.

"Yeah... you can come back to your room, you know. I'm not going to corner you against the wall and beat the crap out of you or anything like that. I stopped beating up boys for lunch money when I turned seven." Luna said. "Not that I haven't enjoyed a bit of privacy, but if you stay away for too long, its only going to spawn more rumors, and neither of us wants that."

"Okay. Eric was getting fed up with me crashing on his couch, and Lain was a lot more than that." Shinn sighed in relief. "I just wanted to be sure I wasn't crowding you when you didn't want to be crowded."

"Nah, I'm fine. If anything, I could really use someone to talk to. Meyrin is... well... her situation is causing me a lot of..." Luna trailed off, as Meyrin walked into view from around the corner of one of the buildings, hands adjusting something with one of her ponytails. She was immacuately dressed in her Solar Knights uniform, and was actually early for a formation muster, for perhaps the first time in her military career! However, it was the person walking alongside Meyrin that drew most of her attention, as well as the attentions of pretty much everyone else around with eyes to see with. She hadn't really noticed before, when she'd had her confrontation with Meyrin and Noah in Meyrin's room, but DAMN, Noah was sure striking! Beyond striking, he was drop dead gorgeous! A little on the slim side, but not so much as to detract from his appearance or appeal, with perfectly proportioned physical attributes and facial features, not to mention that brilliant downy white-gold hair that fell to his shoulders and the twinkling amethyst eyes that were visible from a score of paces away! He was yummy enough to eat with a spoon, and she HATED him!

Noah was dressed in a tunic and trouser type ensemble that, at the moment anyway, looked very much like a Solar Knight uniform, though without a name tag or any other decoration or rank insignia. He also lacked a beret, and any USN insignia, but other than that every detail was perfect. A roughly sphereical ball, about the size of a softball, floated at head height between and just behind him and Meyrin, while the amber eyed, white armored dragon flanked the two of them to the left and the red eyed, black armored dragon to the right. Luna didn't see Achilles the T-rex anywhere, but then again a formal formation was hardly the place for a pet, especially such an exotic and unique one. Luna met Noah's gaze for a moment, and she swallowed hard... she'd rarely seen such a steely mask of dislike. Between blinks of the eye though, that mask was gone, replaced by his usual smiling, full of enjoyment features as he continued to slowly walk with Meyrin, heedless of the gazes and pointing fingers from the Solar Knights. Luna wasn't even sure she hadn't imagined the cold look. She shivered... it was no longer apparent to her who had whom under a microscope.

She very badly wanted to go over there and pull Meyrin away from him, and shelter her from the intensely frightening young man walking at her side, but after the events in Meyrin's room, she dared not. If Meyrin turned on her again, this time in a public place, not only would her humiliation be absolute, but it would also be public that Lunamaria Hawke was trying to steal or drive away her own sister's boyfriend, even though they were obviously happy together. Nobody liked a hard boiled bitch, and that was what she'd be labeled as. People would think that she was jealous of Meyrin, or that she was just trying to sleep her way to importance, having selected Shinn for his knowledge and abilities, and then trying to move on to Noah for his wealth and power. No, she would just have to grit her teeth and bear up under the pressure of being the only one who knew that there was something very wrong about Noah Borander, and that despite how he looked, he was a really great threat to Meyrin!

"Well, I'd heard a few rumors, but they hardly do the man justice. Hard to believe he's still so young too." Shinn commented thoughtfully. "Though I dislike his attitude... what's with dressing up like a Solar Knight? So what, he's rich and powerful, but he hasn't DONE anything to be like that... he was born into that family, is all! This uniform MEANS something, and he's just strutting around like its just another change of clothes. Its disrespectful. And what's with that look he gave you? I don't trust people that can change their faces so quickly."

Luna could have happily hugged and kissed Shinn right then and there, but she managed to restrain herself, largely out of fear for where that would lead her, and also because if she started acting like that in public, she was sure Meyrin would also take it as her cue to do pretty much whatever she wanted as well. Meyrin had never been a major adherent of military decorum, and Noah was extremely unlikely to be a good influence to her in that regard. Being so wealthy and powerful, he could do pretty much whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and he suffered no ill consequences for it. It wasn't a palatable truth, but really, in this imperfect world they lived in, if you had enough money and the will to spend it as need be, you could get away with pretty much anything, save capital crimes, and probably even those as long as they never became public! Luna was just hoping that attitude wouldn't rub off on Meyrin, who was still pretty impressionable. "Yeah, you've pretty much hit on my own reservations about him. He looks great, but his personality... I'm not so sure."

"What's with those dragons anyway?" Shinn asked, staring at the constructs, which were regarding the crowd of Solar Knights with imperious and threatening stares. "I've never seen robots with such grace and... and lifelike behavior, I guess."

"Bodyguards, I'm pretty sure." Luna shivered again, thinking on what Meyrin had told her about what they'd done to a rampaging warthog, and what little she'd seen them do in Meyrin's room. "They're kinda like him... they look amazing, and are really exotic... but they're very dangerous under the surface, and they can change their faces very quickly indeed. I don't know how he made them... I didn't even think robotics technology was that advanced yet! Meyrin says they can even fly, and breath fire! I've seen them respond to both verbal and non-verbal cues from Noah, and from what he said they can even override those orders in certain emergency situations. He strikes me as a lot of things, few of them good, but he doesn't seem like the sort of person that needs to bluff often."

They watched Meyrin throw her arms around Noah in a brief hug, which he returned, before she seperated and went to her position just behind the Knight-Lieutenant's spot at the front of the Second Platoon's formation. For his part, Noah stood off to the side, his dragons prowling around him closely, snapping and snarling at passerby who happened to get too close, while he consulted a holographic projection produced by the hovering ball. His clothing shimmered and changed into a fascimile of a civilian business suit, the flowing colors and patterns drawing yet more stares and whispers from the Solar Knights. He paid them absolutely no mind whatsoever, though he did sneak glances over at Meyrin every so often, which she returned by looking over her shoulder every minute or so. Noah met gazes with Luna and Shinn, and gave them both a perfunctory nod, perfectly neutral in tone. The two dragons also peered at them closely, and snarled some more, but made no overtly threatening movements.

More and more people started arriving as the incoming transports drew ever closer, until almost the full unit was assembled, except for those people doing necessary jobs and thus were excused from the formation. Rey appeared several minutes after Noah and Meyrin had, saw Luna and Shinn talking companionably, and sighed in relief. His intervention was not required after all, thank God. He caught Noah's eye, and patted his breast pocket casually, where the last vial of medicine resided. Noah nodded in reply and shrugged at the gathering... plainly they could do nothing about it until they could get some privacy. There came a shout from someone with keen eyes, and some moments later everyone could see the incoming transports, from the Northwest for the FNE and the Southeast, descending from on high, for ZAFT. Meanwhile the ALU contingent marched out of their side of the joint base and started taking up their positions. It was shaping up to be another hot, sunny day... and a busy one at that.

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"Daammmn... that is one BIG ASS Mobile Suit." Lain commented with a whistle, standing next to Eric, looking up at one of the FNE's new Panzerwulf mass production mobile suits. Each of the visiting member-states had set out one or two, or in ZAFT's case, five, of their new Mobile Suits in order to show them off to the USN and each other. The Solar Knights had produced a pair of Archons, and now that the formal greeting ceremonies were at last over, everyone was mingling and wandering around, getting a good look at those parts of each other's Mobile Suits that weren't completely top secret. Most of the cockpits were of course closed and off limits, but you could tell a lot about a Mobile Suit just from looking at its external appearance. The feeling Lain had when looking up at the Panzerwulf was... big and mean and not too fast, which was a pretty accurate summation of what it was designed to be.

"Its really not that much taller than an Archon... its just all the extra armor and other systems that make it look so bulky and heavy. Well, it is bulky and heavy, but it looks even bulkier and heavier than it is." Eric answered, impressed himself by the sheer size and mass of the blue and white and grey machines. This was the first time he'd seen one in real life, though he'd gone over the blueprints and concept drawings many times. "I really wish I could have piloted one. Just once."

"What, they didn't let you? Aren't you like one of the FNE's big aces? Aren't you supposed to be the next Hawk of Endymion or whatever?" Lain queried. "I would have thought they'd be begging you to test drive one. That's the way Orb was with the Dawndrakes and me."

"I'm not sure I'm ready to be included in the same breath with the likes of Mu la Flaga, but yeah, I am. But apparently they got some real special pilots for these bad boys. Some sort of ultra-super top secret training program, run by the same guys who made the Panzerwulf. Fenris Enhanced Armaments Researchers, I think is the name of the industrial group. Always thought it was a spooky name... an arms company called "F.E.A.R." is a little disturbing. Though from what I understand, they have almost no connection to Blue Cosmos."

"Almost none?" Lain prompted with a raised eyebrow.

"Believe me, given how rampant Blue Cosmos was, almost none is as good as it gets." Eric answered sourly.

"I see." Lain said, in a tone that said he really didn't. "So why don't you give me the rundown already? I assume they're good for more than just blocking out the sun?"

"Twenty three meters tall, over one hundred and thirty tons, making them the largest mass production humanoid Mobile Suits around, though some of those Primal's look close." Eric started reeling off facts as they came to mind. "They have Transphase Shift armor, just like the Archons, and a lot of extra armor plating all over that's designed to be more effective at absorbing beam based attack than Phase Shift or normal armor types are. I don't think its anything to compare to that armor those Dawndrakes of yours have, but its not bad. The basic FNE Mobile Suit design, with the simplified Gundam type head and eyes. They have limited transformational ability, as the heavy gauge tank treads on the outsides of the arms and legs would indicate, though from what I understand they aren't exactly BuCues when on treads, more like bulldozers. Their Citadel shields are more powerful than ours by a significant degree, it should be interesting to see how they match up to the accelerated-impulse cannons. And those big shield like structures on the upper arms are armature mounted Geischmedig-Panzer magnetic beam deflection systems, in addition to being normal Transphase Shifted armor, a system borrowed from the Forbidden Gundam."

"Sounds pretty solid defensively. Standard FNE philosophy. All that weight and armor has to make them kind of... how do I put this... retardedly slow?" Lain commented, looking up into the yellow camera lens eyes speculatively.

"One would think that. One would also get his face shot off when he got bum rushed by these monsters. They can't fly, but boy, can they jump and they aren't no slouch when it comes to hustling on the ground either, and believe me, you cannot go head to head with one and expect to not get flattened as it runs you the fuck over. They're slower than us on Hoverthrusters, but faster than us on pure leg power." Eric warned. "The secret behind that kind of unexpected performance is called the IMR reactor. Stands for Ignited Metallic Rod. I don't know the specifics on the construction, but think of it kind of like a nuclear reactor, except it relies on heat produced by a burning metallic rod to produce steam to power the turbine generator. Most flammable metals burn hotter than the inside of a nuclear reactor anyway, and they provide their own oxygen, so they burn just fine underwater. The upside is it provides a HELL of a lot of power, and it'll provide forty hours of it continuously. The downside is after that point, the reactor has to be repaired, which takes ten to twelve hours, and they don't exactly turn off. Oh yeah, and if they get breached... thats a very bad thing."

"Sounds like a death trap." Lain was appalled. "Who would someone sit on something that volatile?"

"Hence the extra armor, and no doubt the special training program for the pilots. Do remember though, that these things pump out about one hundred and twenty megawatts of power for forty hours straight. That's a lot of power, and the Panzerwulf needs almost all of it." Eric pointed out. "The primary weapon system is called the Cerberus, and its held in the right hand. Those two barrels on top, side by side, are twin 350mm hyper-impulse cannons. The barrel beneath them belongs to a Mjolnir 3P Cannon, which stands for Penetrating Particle Projector Cannon. They were first introduced on the Bane, and later again on the Independence. They shoot... well... bolts of lightning. Very high powered lightning. Shoots through a Citadel Shield powerful lightning. Kills four Mobile Suits lined up in a row and the sand dune behind them powerful. Its got short range, but DAMN do they hurt. They almost penetrated one of those red shields the Pulsar and Vengeance got. Oh yeah, they're also kind of... delicate. And explosive."

"Should we be standing this close by?" Lain asked, somewhat tenatively.

"Not THAT delicate. But you can expect some serious pyrotechnics should someone shoot the Cerberus. They also got twelve meter anti-ship beam/physical swords for melee combat, and a quad of 20mm CIWS guns in the head. Those big boxy things on either shoulder are 50 tube launchers for 90mm unguided rockets, which fire high explosive and fragmentation warheaded rockets about a kilometer. They are unguided, but when you can throw out one hundred at a time, you have less need to aim. Not really a threat to anyone with serious armor, but they're pure hell on anything smaller than a Mobile Suit, or without PS armor, and if you're unlucky enough to be caught in a barrage from multiple Panzerwulf's at once... stand by to feel like a pebble in a maracca."

"Whats all that stuff on the back? Looks a whole hell of a lot like a..."

"I'm getting to that, thanks. That stuff on the back can only be used when the Panzerwulf is down on hands and knees for balance, using the treads for movement and stability. Its needs that, because that thing on the back is a dual barreled, 110cm Gotffried class high energy beam cannon turret. Yeah, you heard right. 110cm beam cannons. Capital warship class weapons, about half the size of the ones the Archangel carries, and the same caliber as the ones used by the Agammenon class space carriers as main guns. Needless to say, you do NOT want to get hit by those. Panzerwulf's are Mobile Suits... and they are also mobile anti-ship and anti-base turrets, and they can operate the Gottfrieds continuously for the full forty hours of IMR operation. They're designed to take ground in Mobile Suit form, and then hold it while waiting for reinforcements by dropping to tank form. And from what I hear, the pilots are all pretty crack shots. Scary, eh?"

"A little..." Lain replied distractedly, his attention much more concentrated on someone walking towards them from the series of transport trucks with "F.E.A.R." painted on the sides, superimposed over the image of a black wolf head with yellow eyes and bullets for fangs. Specifically someone young, female and very cute. Dressed in a pink and black version of the FNE's usual Mobile Suit piloting suit, though with no helmet in sight. Someone with wonderfully blonde hair and rosy eyes, and soft looking pale skin that would probably prove very susceptible to the African sunlight in a short amount of time.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?" Eric accused, following the direction of Lain's gaze. "You make an excellent point though." Eric admitted, staring himself.

"Dude, I saw her first."

"Thats what you said about Lunamaria too, and look how THAT's turned out. Maybe you should, uh, play this one close to the vest, at least at first. If I crash and burn, you'll at least know what NOT to do."

"You can try and be logical about this, but it still amounts to YOU stealing a very cute girl from ME!"

"Shh." Eric cautioned, as the female approached them and eyed them with mild curiosity. "Hello. I'm Eric Kellson, this is Lain Debora. We're from the Second Platoon. We came over here to admire the Panzerwulfs. Are you by chance one of the pilots? I've heard a lot about the special training program, but I've never actually met a graduate of the program."

"Yes, I am the pilot of this Panzerwulf." The young woman replied, her voice very melodic. Eric and Lain shared a hungry look... that was a hell of a nice voice, and a hell of a good looking girl.

"Could I beg you to tell us your name?" Lain implored, giving her puppy dog eyes. She didn't seem to have recognized their names, and she hadn't even reacted to the revelation that they were from Second Platoon, the most famous in the Solar Knights currently. She had a cool head, this one. Very sexy. She filled out that flight suit very well also. Yes, this was someone worth his time to pursue.

"Stella! I thought we told you not to wander around alone!?" A cantankerous older man strode into view from the same direction Stella had come from. He was mostly balding, with only a few wisps of white hair remaining, and a harsh, unforgivingly planed face with deep set green eyes. He was wearing a pristine white labcoat over his business suit, and he had a computerized clipboard clutched in one hand, and a variety of styluses in his coat pockets. "You are needed in the preparation truck immediately! We will discuss your willful disobedience at a later time!"

Eric and Lain watched Stella's face crumple as she immediately turned away from them and trudged back towards the F.E.A.R. trucks, and other lab coated individuals. They both eyed Mr. Labcoat with unfriendly eyes. Who the hell did he think he was, talking to her like that? Even though she'd just taken it with no protest, that was some pretty harsh language, especially from a civilian! "Who the hell are you?" Lain asked coldly, watching Stella walk away, without looking back once. "We were just talking to her about the Panzerwulf."

"I am Doctor Roanoke, the senior researcher in charge of the Panzerwulf program. Who the hell are you?" The scientist retorted, his tone equally cold. Eric and Lain introduced themselves, giving their full ranks this time, and the old man mellowed somewhat. "I see. Pardon me for my abruptness... this communal gathering is not to my liking. I went to a lot of trouble to design these Panzerwulfs, and just letting other people, even ZAFT, walk around and gawk at them rubs me the wrong way! I am sorry to be so harsh with Stella, but this isn't the first time she's willfully disobeyed strict orders."

"Is there really so much harm to letting her wander around? We can escort her if you're worried about her." Eric offered politely.

"That won't be necessary. Auel and Sting will provide any needed escort. I hate to be unfriendly, gentlemen, but to be honest, I would rather you not have any further contact with Stella or any other Panzerwulf pilot, outside of the bare minimum these exercises require. This is a matter of top national security for the FNE, I'm sure you understand. Loose lips, sink ships." Dr. Roanoke studied Eric for a few moments. "If I may be so bold, young man, where is Markov Ashino? I would have expected to find him here. There are certain matters I wish to... discuss... with him."

"He's not here. He's not part of the Solar Knights." Eric rebuffed coolly. "I don't really know where he is right now. Its a matter of top national security for the USN, I'm sure you understand."

Dr. Roanoke glared daggers at the impudent young man, but he didn't have the time to properly address the situation now. "Very well then. Good day, gentlemen. I shall hope to see you again in an official capacity, if not otherwise." He turned his back and stalked off towards the trucks without a further word or waiting for a reply.

"What the FUCK crawled up his ass?" Lain commented, once Dr. Roanoke was not quite out of earshot. The scientist didn't turn around or otherwise react. "Well, that tears it... I'm going to make a point of socializing with Stella every chance I get!"

"Me too." Eric replied. "Just to piss that dude off, if for no other reason. He rubbed me entirely the wrong way. What a JACKASS! And I really don't like the way he was asking about Ashino... that guys a real cold fish of a scientist... if he was asking after me, it'd probably be because he wanted to carve me up like frankenstein! If I had to guess, I'd say he was former Blue Cosmos, from that ZAFT comment."

"You sure its former? Dude, that guy is BAD news. Seems exactly like the sort of man who would work for a place called F.E.A.R. There is something seriously shady going on here, no offense."

"Man, I agree totally. It's our duty, I should think, to get to the bottom of this!"

"And if we happen to save a damsel in distress or two along the way, so much the better, right?"

"Man, Roanoke is never gonna know what hit him..."

--------------------------------------------------

"The Garou, she is fast and agile. She would run circles around those towering brutes over there on the FNE's side of the tarmac." The ALU pilot nodded disdainfully at the two FNE Panzerwulfs. "It would be an interesting chase, methinks, between her and your Archons, since they are of equal size and mass. Obviously, the Garou loses out in terms of atmospheric flight capability... those HiMat wings are very good, yes? On the ground though... ah, no one outruns a Garou on the ground! Ah, the charge with the afterburners lit... it is something to behold! I have reached ground speeds of close to three hundred kilometers per hour. She closes the distance well, the Garou does. And hunts in packs... truly, there is no wolf as capable!"

"Aren't they kind of delicate though? Your Phase Shift only lasts ten hits." Shinn pointed out, somewhat dubiously.

"Ah, indeed, but first you must hit the Garou, and she is elusive in that regard!" The pilot, an arabian immigrant of northen Africa replied quickly, not losing control of his nattering speech. "She can dance, the Garou can. Dance and twist and sway, just like a beautiful woman."

"Kind of lightly armed though, aren't they?" Luna observed. "I mean, I don't see any weapon system I would designate as "primary" on it."

"Dear lady, not everything comes down to "primary" or "secondary". A true Garou is as adaptable as the wind! When the Garou is in your face, her beam claws are primary, yes? When she is just past arms reach, the 80mm beam cannons in her palms, those are primary! When she is closing at the sprint, it is the 120mm gatling cannon on the right shoulder and four arm mounted 55mm machine guns that cause you duress! And when she stalks you at long range, it is the ten rack of heat seeking missiles on the left shoulder that wound and chip away at your resolve! All weapons she carries are primary... it is only a matter of finding the situation to match the weapon, not the weapon to match the situation!"

"Yeah... sure." Shinn was still skeptical. He was pretty confident he could take out a full pack of five or six of these Garou's by himself, if the need arose. The armaments were okay, but the defenses were sub par, and the speed and maneuverability limited by the generally inexperienced and not exceptionally capable pilots of the ALU military. Maybe if Kira Yamato was in one, it might be concerning, but otherwise... well, they were the best the ALU had to offer, and it was apparent why the ALU always asked the USN for protection. "Well, I'm glad you like it. Someone has to."

"I do not like your tone of voice, sir! You are disrespecting my Garou! Apologize this instant!" The ALU pilot demanded, cheeks puffing out and his mustachio's bristling.

"Or what?" Luna prompted, fighting an attack of the giggles. This guy was just too over the top. "Our Archons are going to eat your Garou alive and uncooked, and you know it. I don't mean any offense, sir, but..."

"But she makes a good point. The Garou is an incredible Mobile Suit... if it were five years ago." Shinn finished mercilessly. The Garou pilot started sputtering and turning very red, almost to the point of tearing at his hair in rage. "Come on, Luna... show me the Primals."

"I am not done with you, sir! Come back here! My Garou's pride is ruffled! You shall apologize!" The Garou pilot exhorted, though he did not pursue them as they walked off, shaking their heads and chuckling. "There, there, my beauty... pay no attention to ruffians like them, with no appreciation for true grace!" He said softly, patting his Garou's leg affectionately, before launching into his proud speech again for the next group of passerby, his choler forgotten for the moment.

"Well, like the Elementals you and I are both familiar with, the Primals have a basic model, termed "Void" and four different aspect packs that can be attached and detached by bases or carrier ships in about fifteen minutes or so to drastically change their combat capabilities and roles, allowing a smaller number of Mobile Suits to fill a large number of military roles." Luna said, as they headed towards the five ZAFT machines, one of each of the aspect types and a basic model, which she directed them towards first. "Elementals came in Earth, which was ground mobility and support, Fire, which was melee assault combat, Air, which was flight/space combat and Water, which was for naval combat, and Space, which was the base model. Primal aspect packs are termed Void, which corresponds to Space as the base model; Shockwave, which is ground support like Earth; Vortex, which is naval combat like Water; Storm, which is air/space combat like Air; and Inferno, which is melee assault combat like Fire. Thus when referring to them, you would call the base model a Primal Void, a melee model a Primal Inferno, an air support model a Primal Storm, so forth and so on."

"They're all different colors." Shinn noted as they approached. The base model, the Primal Void, was a dark grey color with black accents, which would likely blend in very well with space environments. They were tall machines, twenty one meters from head to foot, and ranging from ninety to one hundred ten tons depending on the aspect pack equipped, making them slightly larger, overall, than the Archon he was now used to piloting. The Primal Void, and all the other versions, had the single eyed head common to ZAFT machines, and two large shield like armor projections mounted to the upper arms on what looked like reasonably flexible armatures. He could see that the Primal Void held what looked like a Citadel Shield in its left hand, something that was unique to it. There was a large weapon projector mount on the front, just above the cockpit hatch, which was also common to all five Primals.

"Yes they are. They all have Phase Shift armor, and the color changes depending on the aspect pack equipped, since its the aspect pack battery that powers the armor and most of the weapons. The Primals themselves are powered by hydrogen fuel cells that can be rapidly swapped in a hanger or at a base for a full combat recharge in about ten minutes, with proper facilities. They last for longer than a battery does too, and provide comparable power, with the slight downside that they are somewhat unstable, especially when damaged, but there's lots of safety systems designed for jettisoning damaged cells as need be." Luna explained. "Each Primal also has a special secondary battery that is charged by blocking heat or energy based attacks with those arm shields, which are covered in a mesh that bleeds power from such attacks and uses it as an emergency reserve for the Primal's systems, while also minimizing damage. I mean, they can't totally block a direct hit from a hyper-impulse cannon, but they can mitigate it so even a direct hit won't be fatal, and they're real good against regular beam rifles."

"Now, for the Void." Luna smiled, seeing Shinn's eager expression. "The head has two 15mm beam CIWS, just like most Gundams, and thats actually standard on all Primals. That projector on the chest is a 325mm hyper-impulse cannon, which remains in use throughout all models. It also carries twin 55mm machine guns under the left hand shield, and a ten meter anti-ship beam/physical sword, as you can see. The primary weapon, which we DO have, unlike some, is carried in the right hand there, with the longish barrel. It is a 125mm Supercharged Beam Cannon. Its got the same range as a regular beam cannon, but it does about triple the damage. The beams themselves are dark red in color, and they "explode", kind of like a hollow point bullet, when they hit a target, causing even more damage. The beam supercharging technology has been applied to all beam based systems, including melee weapons, in all Primals, except for the CIWS. Supercharged beams can't be rapid fired, yet, unfortunately. Extra power packs for the rifle are external, and stored on the undersides of the arm Blast Shields. Oh yeah, and the Primal Void is unique in that it can take arm or hand wielded weapons from the other aspect packs and use them as its primary weapon system instead, if the pilot so desires, making it popular for people who like to tweak themselves a little."

"I think I like this one." Shinn expressed, thinking of the Space Elemental that he'd had for so long at the end of the Second Valentine War.

"Well, let me show you the others first, and remember you have an Archon." Luna reminded him. "I kinda like that ability to customize myself though. I wonder if I can do something like that with the Archon eventually." She grinned at the thought. "All right, next one is the Primal Vortex, the mainstay of our future naval forces." Luna indicated the light blue Primal with dark blue accents. "This is probably one of the few times you'll ever see one on land. Not that they aren't passably effective on land, but really, they're much better in semi-submarine form. All those fins they have on the torso and back and limbs, those act kinda like a HiMat system, just underwater, with a similar increase in mobility. They have a reinforced structure that can withstand depths of up to fifteen hundred meters, and a scale system for regular movement underwater. They also have powerful Hydrothrusters in the legs and back, based off the Hoverthruster system, that act like underwater afterburners, propelling them at over two hundred kph even at maximum depth!"

"As for weapons, each forearm has three 110mm linear cannons, which can fire under or above water, plus a 120mm Phonon Maser in each palm, for strictly underwater use. Each hand has a large pair of vibrational claws for tearing at ship and submersible hulls, or crushing Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors. Those large pods on the back are a pair of 750mm multiple torpedo launchers, which are the primary weapon. Finally, in the shoulder area there are a pair of unfolding 20 meter lances with Phase Shifted tips for enhanced ramming attacks, they lie flat on the back when not in use. I'm not much of one for underwater combat, but the Primal Vortex is going to be the terror of the sea, should the need arise."

"Next down the line is the Primal Storm, distinctive in the white armor with dark purple accents." Luna felt like a tour guide in a museum. Well, in a way that was accurate. "The large jet wings are also something of a giveaway. Primal Storms have afterburners in their legs allowing them to reach straight line speeds of over Mach 1.5, and also have VTOL thrusters allowing them to hover in midair, even thousands of feet off the ground. They carry chaff and flare launchers in the legs as an additional defense against low range attacks, and their own sensor system is upgraded and tuned for long range combat of multiple targets, allowing "over the horizon" attacks against up to eight foes at a time. It won't make you Kira Yamato or Athrun Zala, but it gets you feeling what it might be like. Most of the Primal Storm's firepower is in its missile attacks, but it also carries the 125mm supercharged beam rifle and a 120mm sniper varient railgun, plus a pair of regular dual 20mm CIWS turrets on its back for additional anti-missile and anti-munition support fire, and a physical/beam sword identical to the Primal Void's."

"Getting to the missile attacks themselves, the primary armament is eight quadruple tubed LAS-AMS launchers, almost identical to the ones carried by USN Champions. There's one launcher on each hip and shoulder, and two per wing, for a total of thirty two long range missiles, each armored against interdiction fire and capable of destroying a Champion in a single shot, assuming it got through the Phase Shift somehow. The other main weapon system are those four really big missiles carried on the wings. They're called SGTCM's, for Self Guided Tactical Cruise Missiles. They've got a range of over two hundred kilometers, travel at aprroximately Mach 15 and are armored with Phase Shift to boot. They can and WILL penetrate Phase Shift armor because of that, and their warhead is enough to take out a Nazca class with one hit, or a good sized chunk of a base, or multiple Mobile Suits within the detonation radius. Its probably one of the most powerful non WMD weapons you'll ever see in use. You can try and shoot one down, but its hard. You can try and dodge, but its harder than trying to shoot it down. Your best defense is to just not fight them at all."

"These things are amazing! I almost wish I was back in ZAFT." Shinn gushed, rubbing his hands together in barely contained glee. He could not WAIT to start training against machines with these kinds of capabilities! "I take it the light and dark brown one with the blocky base where legs should be is the Earth varient?" Shinn asked, indicating the next Primal.

"Yep. That's the Primal Shockwave. It actually does have legs, they're just contained within the armored skirt of the Hoverthruster base you see now." Luna replied, smiling at his enthusiasm. "It carries a lot of extra ammunition and power packs on the back part of the Hover base as well, which is good, because they absolutely eat through power and ammo. This things are a long way from a ZaOot, thats for sure. They still aren't well suited for direct confrontation, but they are far from helpless or slow. Each hand has a twin barreled varient of the 125mm Supercharged beam cannon, and those big, long barrels on the shoulders are 255mm howitzers, two per shoulder, with thirty kilometer effective ranges for support fire, and the ability to fire at targets at point blank range too, if need be. That turret like thing on the front of the Hover base is a dual 400mm beam cannon turret for additional direct firepower. Finally, on the back are four special weapons, called Seismic missiles. They aren't much good against Mobile Suits or ships or anything mobile and not built on the ground, but against buildings and purely ground based forces, they are devastating, burrowing deep underground before exploding, causing minor localized Earthquakes strong enough to collapse unhardened structures and seriously damage anything not designed to resist a Richter scale 9.0 or higher Earthquake."

"And the final type..." A new voice said, coming at them from between the legs of the last Primal varient, which was dark red with bright orange highlights. "... is called the Primal Inferno. If you would allow me to explain?" The man, not much older than Shinn or Luna, wearing the Redcoat uniform, said cheerily, stepping forward from his resting place to greet them. He had bright orange hair and vivid green eyes, and a very friendly demeanor. They also could not miss the white and gold FAITH pin on his uniform collar. "Heine Westenfluss, I'm in charge of this Primal Squadron. Pleased to meet you both. You'd be Shinn Asuka, Lancelot lead and Lunamaria Hawke, Gawain lead, correct?" Heine asked, waving away their salutes. "Come now, none of that... at the very worst, we are equal in rank. This pin just means I impressed a few people a while back, and they want me to impress them again sometime in the future."

"You've done your homework. You got us both right." Luna admitted.

"Well, I thought it was a good idea to research somewhat the people I might be fighting against, even in the name of good training. Besides, you were both test canidates for Project Primal, at one point in time, before you got stolen by the Solar Knights." Heine smiled to take any possible sting out of his words. "Besides, you are both somewhat famous for your recent actions at LAS. I was very impressed... I have a very small degree of familiarity with that Pulsar class Gundam you fought off. That could not have been easy."

"He was good, but he wasn't anything like the pilot of the Pulsar." Shinn replied with a shrug. "I am still not particularly impressed with the quality of the Brotherhood pilots."

"And yet they still manage to get such abhorrently impressive results, do they not? Obviously they are doing something right, regardless of their piloting skills or lack thereof." Heine countered, shrugging back. "Well, in any case, let me show you my Primal Inferno, which is optimized for close assault combat. It carries extra armor in its assault shroud, which is the same sort of heat absorbing type that the Blast Shields are composed of. It has a small set of HiMat wings for enhanced aerial maneuverability, and a new type of stealth system that renders it almost invisible to any sensors that do not rely upon direct line of sight emanations, such as cameras or laser targeting systems. Radar is useless against a Primal Inferno, as are most longe range thermal or other types on indirect sensors. That helps with allowing you to get in close, right where the enemy doesn't want you to be. I, on the other hand, along with most Inferno pilots, positively thrive within arms reach."

"Now, as you can see, the Inferno carries a 125mm supercharged beam cannon, the same as the Void. The weapon in the other hand is a 300mm anti-vehicle shotcannon, with short range but a wide spread of destructive capability. Each shoulder mounts a six tubed 225mm unguided rocket launcher. They have short range and are tough to aim well... a good point blank weapon, especially because they contain napalm incendiary warheads, exploding in cones of liquid fire shortly after leaving the launcher. While incapable of harming a Mobile Suit or vehicle directly, with enough napalm on the outside, internal temperatures can rise to incapacitiating levels, or even cause ammunition or batteries to detonate. Plus it is a potent psychological weapon. Humans fear fire, its a fact. The launchers will fire three times and then detach to free up yet more maneuverability. Each palm, much like the Efreet, conceals a heavy flamethrower, but unlike the Efreet, these ones use more napalm, rather than plasma flames. Napalm doesn't get as hot, but it sticks and stays around longer, which is yet more psychological weaponry that can cumulate into a kill faster than one might expect. The primary weapons are forearm mounted twinned beam blades, supercharged of course, much like the ones the old Aegis Gundam had, but two per arm. Finally, there are an even dozen Mobile Suit class grenades mounted around the waist, for throwing or dropping or clamping purposes."

"And how agile are they? The Fire Elemental was pretty good as I recall, but still nothing compared to a Gundam." Shinn asked.

"Well, I have not fought against the Vorpal or Phoenix King or Serpah yet, but I can not see the Inferno losing out to them by much of a margin. They lack the Hoverthrusters of your Archon, which somewhat limits their near ground maneuverability, but they are steadier. It would probably come down to piloting skill. It should be interesting though, bracing up against those FNE monsters crowding out the sky over there."

"What about the Garou's of the ALU?" Luna asked, with a shake of her head.

"What about them?" Heine grinned. "I suppose they can carry my coat while I'm off trouncing the Panzerwulfs. Honestly, it's like the Brotherhood has the technology the ALU should be sporting, and the ALU has the pilots the Brotherhood should be sporting! They have plenty of heart, but not the strength for it to matter, while the Brotherhood has plenty of strength, but no heart to put it to use!"

"You're definitely right about that." Another new voice spoke up. The three of them turned, surprised since none of them had heard the newcomer arrive. It was Noah, without Meyrin along, though his two dragons were in close attendance.

"Ah. You would be the elusive Mr. Borander who the SecDef was praising not so long ago for your generous nature, correct?" Heine asked politely, bowing slightly in respect. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I am Heine Westenfluss."

"Yes you are." Noah answered with a slight smile. "Like you, I tend to do my research on people of note that I might encounter. You have a reputation for gallantry and chivalry, Mr. Westenfluss."

"I merely act as the dictates of my conscience direct." Heine said humbly. "Some people consider that wisdom or gallantry, I would not describe it so generously myself."

"So you're Meyrin's boyfriend huh? You don't look like much." Shinn said challengingly.

"Mr. Asuka, I don't need to." Noah replied disdainfully. "When you can donate several hundred billion dollars of your own money to the USN, please come back and judge me. Until then, you'd be better off disguising your loutish ignorance."

"What was that?" Shinn stepped forward. Both dragons's wings went up and their heads down, letting out identical warning hisses. Shinn got the point, and stopped. He might be bull headed, but he wasn't stupid. Those dragons were unknowns, and therefore extremely dangerous. "You talk pretty tough for a guy who hides behind mechanical guardians."

"I see no reason to indulge your desire for a physical confrontation. We are not competing for the same space or the same woman. You can stay out of my way, and I can stay out of yours, surely this is preferrable to being at odds?" Noah asked.

"He has a point." Heine acknowledged, unsure as to what the animosity was between Noah and Shinn.

"I don't like or trust you. Something about you is all messed up. I'm not sure what, yet... but first impressions mean a lot to me, and you didn't make a good one." Shinn retorted to Noah.

"I see how it is. Meyrin said this might be the case." Noah looked expressively from Luna to Shinn and back. "If you wish to be at odds with me, so be it. Just do not complain to me when I crush you up and spit you out like peanut shells!"

"We were talking about the Brotherhood and its skills, or lack thereof..." Heine prompted, trying to steer the confrontation back into calmer waters.

"This isn't the time or place." Luna added, for Shinn's benefit. Looks like she had to start watching out for him sooner than she'd thought. "I'm still watching you very closely, Noah. Don't forget that."

"Ms. Hawke... I don't believe I will. I won't forget many things with regard to you." Noah turned away from them, looking up at the Primal. "An interesting collection of technology I've seen here today. Do you all really think its going to matter when the Brotherhood gets serious? If they get serious I should say."

"So far the score is Brotherhood zero, Solar Knights two!" Shinn pointed out. "I hope they DO get serious... that way we can take them out in one fell swoop!"

"You may just get that wish, if what my informants tell me is true." Noah smirked at them. Yes... he wanted to see the Brotherhood get serious, did he? It was high time he showed them all just what serious was! "I hear that another Brotherhood attack is in the works... the largest yet. And it's likely aimed right at the USN, given your recent victories."

"How do you know this?" Luna asked slowly, suspiciously.

"You think all I do with my money is give it away to the USN? You think I know Gilbert Durandel as a friendly acquiantance? There is far more to me than you will ever know..." Noah turned away from them all. "Maybe Meyrin will tell you, eventually. I doubt it though... she's rather tired of your constant hypocritical disapproval."

"Don't you talk about Meyrin to me, like you know her better than I do!" This time it was Luna who stepped forward, only to stop short as the dragons turned towards her. Heine was looking around, deeply uncomfortable, plainly wishing he'd never stepped out to talk to them at all.

"Maybe not yet I don't, you're right. In the end though, I think its going to be me saying that to you, Lunamaria. Now if you will excuse me, I have much more important things to be filling my time with. Good day to you all." Noah walked away, unhurriedly, Phlegethion and Aether falling into formation behind him with equal disdain.

"That guy really gets to me." Shinn growled, watching Noah walk away. "Someone needs to adjust his attitude for him!"

"A complaint that might easily be directed at you." Heine pointed out as gently as he could manage. "He who lives in glass houses should not throw stones first! He was abrasive, but so were you."

"Sorry to drag you into that." Luna apologized to him. "He just started dating my sister, and he's a real jerk to everyone else. I just don't trust him... like he said, there's a lot more to him than we'll ever know. I just can't force myself to believe he really has her best interests at heart."

"Time will tell. Several siblings have accused me of being a jerk to their sisters as well, because of how they saw some of my actions." Heine said lightly. "Now, I've shown you my Inferno... could I beg a tour of your Archons in reply? I am especially interested in those sword-cannons you have..."

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	32. Pulling Weeds part 2

"You sure this is going to work? I don't feel much different." Rey asked, looking away and clenching his fist around a hard rubber ball as Noah finished withdrawing the blood and tissue samples from his arm and leg. They were back in Rey's quarters, now that he had a few free hours before the commander's dinner, to be held that evening for all the officers of Squadron Commander rank and above. He was missing out on his chance to really look at all the Mobile Suits on display, but he'd have other chances to familiarize himself with them over the course of the training programs. And this was inarguably more important, given that it would affect the rest of his life, and how long that would be! At the moment, Rey was approaching middle age, even late middle age. With his tainted cells being that of a sixty something year old man from the moment of birth, he was shortly due for kidney failure and other ailments as his body started to become unable to properly renew its makeup. He wouldn't live to see thirty.

Well, unless Noah's medication, the last dose of which he'd taken about an hour ago, did what Noah was promising it would do. In which case he would live as long and full and pain free a life as any Coordinator, well on past one hundred years as long as accident or war didn't do him in! Tripling or quadrupling his lifespan was worth almost any amount of pain or sacrifice required during the process, in Rey's opinion. Which was good, because this process had been far from painless. And if it didn't work, he was in for a rough time, because it would take a while to manufacture more, and in that time he would start suffering the effects he'd had when he almost missed a dose last time Noah had come to Earth, but even worse! This was the source of his nervousness at the moment. Noah wasn't helping matters much, staying mostly silent and being very withdrawn, even more so than usual. Rey had been expecting him to be chatting and babbling about Meyrin, or the Brotherhood or something, but there was none of that. Just this heavy, expectant silence.

"That's good. If you felt much different from how you normally did, that would be a cause of great concern." Noah explained, as he finished up the samples, and loaded them into his portable test kit, which was hooked up to his laptop. "Because you would probably soon die if that were the case, your genetic cellular structure destablized and unable to regenerate. It would be both painful and messy and likely untreatable."

"You failed to mention such a possibility when I first started taking this medication." Rey noted with a sour face.

"You'd still take it even if it made you bleed internally, turned your eyes blind and made all your hair fall out, just like I would if there was no other choice." Noah retorted mildly. "Since that's still better than dying of old age at age thirty, in pain and bedridden, lying in puddles of your own waste."

"That's a unnessecary image." Rey flinched as Noah wrapped his arm and leg in Curaga laced bandages, covering the relatively large open wounds from which he'd extracted the samples. There was a lot of blood, but that was what the towels and plastic sheets were meant to contain. "Thank you. I know those must be costly."

"For you, Rey, its but a trifle." Noah shrugged. He tapped langorously at his keypad, as his automated tests ran themselves and compared data back and forth. "Think of it... if this is as successful as I'm expecting it to be, not only will it mean a future for the two of us, it will directly change the fate of all humanity!"

"Oh, how's that?" Rey enquired, curious. Noah had never confided this part of things to him before.

"The same way it changed yours." Noah said with a smile. "Don't worry so much about the hows and whys, Rey. Just know that a new world, brighter than anything you can dream about, is just around the corner. A world where war and hatred won't exist, and we can all live peacefully in harmony with nature!"

"What about Gil's new world?" Rey asked.

"Eh. Gil's new world is superseded by mine. If he wants to judge everything based on genetics, like you say, well then... maybe I should send him a sample from myself, and see what he thinks I'm good for? That could be VERY entertaining. And shortly, there will be millions of people like me, Rey. No, Gil's world is already obsolete."

"He's not going to like hearing that. He's worked all his life towards that dream." Rey replied in a sad tone.

"You can tell I'm devastated by that thought." Noah retorted sarcastically. "Where Gil will end up after the great leveling of the board, even I can't say. If he makes it through, I guess I'll be glad to welcome him as a colleague. If not... well, I'll send flowers and a card, but don't expect me to cry for him. And the flowers will probably eat his corpse in less than an hour."

"Would you be so calm if this was Meyrin we were talking about?" Rey challenged. "Where does she fit into the scheme, eh? What if natural selection doesn't select her? That would be your fault then, right? I could send you flowers and a card then, if you like?"

"Do not concern yourself with Meyrin, she is my problem." Noah warned icily. "If need be, I will conduct the process slowly with her, like I did for you, though I will never understand why you wanted me to not give you the full treatment. You could be so much more than you are, Rey!"

"I'm happy as I am. You'll find many people that are. Maybe Meyrin is happy as she is too. Did you think about that?" Rey said, keeping the pressure up.

"It tears at me constantly." Noah replied softly. "But regardless, she cannot be left behind. No one can. Once the leveling happens, you will either move forward with the rest of us... or die. Its the only safe way. The only way to prevent inequality and hatred from making the transition with us! She will come to understand and accept what needs to happen. I know she will."

"Its your perogative to believe that, I guess." Rey shrugged. "So, am I cured?"

"Look for yourself." Noah spun the laptop so it was facing Rey. "The left hand side is before the treatments. Notice the dilapidated appearance of the cell structure, and the incomplete nature of the larger scale tissue structure. As for the right hand side... well... its rather better. Perfect even. Normal for a twenty one year old male. The other results are all similar. As far as my instruments can detect, you no longer suffer from Short Telemeres. Congratulations."

"Shouldn't I say that to you?" Rey sagged in his chair in huge relief. "Since you did all the work?"

"Nonsense. Without you as a willing test subject, it would have taken me five times as long to get this far, and I might have killed myself in the process. I'm more thankful to you than I can say. Which is why I brought you this." Noah reached into a green bag he'd brought with him and removed a data chip. "You've been bugging me about the new Gundam I've been building. This is a compilation of the early design sketches and pictures of the exterior and interior. Its not complete... this data does not include any statistics on the weapon systems or other special equipment, but it should still be enough to hold your interest for a while."

"What's in the red bag?" Rey asked, taking the data chip reverently, nodding at the other bag Noah had brought with him.

"A fast acting, painless poison tablet, to ease your passing should the treatments have been nonfunctional or even counterproductive." Noah said calmly. "It would be painful for me to leave you hopeless or in agony. I do love you like a cousin, Rey. Never doubt that." Noah stood up and began cleaning up his instruments and gear. "Be so good as to tell Gil for me, that the next attack will feature a new Gundam and a substantial amount of Brotherhood forces attacking Galileo LFB within the next week or so. It would be nice if he would situate himself there as our target, though of course he will never be in any danger. It should be an excellent opportunity to showcase the full power of the Solar Knights."

"I'm sure he'll leap at the chance." Rey smiled eagerly. "Who are you sending?"

"That would be telling. After what happened last time, I think I'm going to play this one a little closer to the vest, all right? Just make sure you guys come in with sufficient forces... it would be oh so embarassing to have the Solar Knights win twice and then get annihilated before getting their hat trick." Noah smirked. Durandel would just love to take this opportunity to do what he'd failed to last time... namely, get rid of some of Noah's forces, especially a Gundam, once and for all. He'd probably send the whole Solar Knights unit, and have Galileo beefed up defensively to boot. Which was perfectly all right. Cray was hounding him for some fun after all, and the other Apostles could use some morale building as well. Wiping out a major USN base, the SecDef and the Solar Knights in one go should do plenty to revive their spirits. And make things that much easier for him in the long run. Yes, Galileo LFB was soon to be a name that would live on in infamy, at least until all of past history became basically null and void...

-------------------------------------------

"I still don't think this is necessary." Cagalli complained, leaning back in her chair as the wide screen telecomm fritzed and warbled, sending encryption and decryption codes back and forth as it ensured the comm line was secure and untraceable. This was definitely not a conversation the public needed to hear about. "I acknowledge that I've been hurt, but I don't think group therapy is going to help me much."

"It can't hurt to try." Lacus insisted from the nearby armchair. "The three of us have recently been through some very traumatic experiences, though you and Katie have suffered far more than I. Keeping things like this inside us helps nobody... the first step to fixing a problem you can't handle by yourself is talking about it to others who care."

"But I CAN handle it by myself! Or with Athrun's help at any rate. I feel... awkward, bringing you and Katie into it." Cagalli protested.

"Katie and I have talked some already, and we think there might be something we can definitely do to help you, but I'll let her explain it, since she's more expert than I am, and she thought of it in the first place." Lacus replied neutrally. "And Athrun asked me for help, so don't you think you should respect his wishes?"

"Phrased like that, I don't see that I have much choice." Cagalli sulked. She could feel it, plucking at her mind. The urge to give in to a deep despair, to just sit in her chair and cry at the pointlessness of all life, but she refused to let herself get dragged down! She blinked a few tears out of her eyes, hoping that Lacus wouldn't have noticed the minor lapse. Yeah, fat chance of that. She met Lacus's concerned gaze challengingly. "I can handle this." Cagalli insisted. She just wished she could completely convince herself. It was insidious, she had to admit. Sometimes she didn't even realize something was wrong, until people looked at her funny and she realized she was just staring at the floor, crying like a baby. It was intensely embarassing, and that only made her want to cry more, and curl up into a little ball and wither away and... she realized it was happening again, and forced herself to look around, keeping her mind on positive things, and her eyes dry. She was stronger than this drug. She was!

"Believe me, I want to believe you when you say that, Cagalli. But there are some things pure willpower alone can't beat, sometimes." Lacus said sadly. "Maybe I'm just weaker than you, but what happened to Kira still haunts me, and I find myself succumbing to rage driven fantasies of revenge or periods of uncontrollable fear and anxiety, when I have to have him within sight or touching range or else I start panicking, more often these days, even though its been a while since he was returned to me, well treated and about as fine as he could be, given the circumstances. If I had been Katie, and been put to sleep and then raped, and Kira almost killed... or you, being forcibly addicted to a vile drug that affected my ability to feel good pleasure... I would not be all right by myself. That's why I'm concerned about you two."

"Well, thanks for your concern, but maybe it just seems worse than it is." Cagalli muttered. "Okay, fine, scratch that... this is every bit as bad as you fear, and probably worse. But I'm just not good about asking people for help, Lacus. I have to struggle pretty hard to even ask Athrun for help sometimes! Abandoning all my responsibilities hasn't helped at all... I feel worse now than I did when I was still Chief Representative! I hate this! I really hate it! Even if I don't want to give something up, people are insisting I have to, for my own good! I know what's damned well good for me, thank you! Sitting around all day with nothing to do and a bunch of people watching my every move for fear I'm going to hang myself or slit my wrists is NOT good for me! If all I could do was sit around and do nothing, I'd probably end up slashing my throat even without the drug!"

"That's an interesting sentence to come into a conversation on." Katie commented dryly, as the videocomm screen at last resolved into a clear picture. "Yo, hows it hanging? No pun intended."

"I've been better." Lacus freely admitted. "How about you? You look much recovered from when I saw you last."

"Well, yeah. Several days of clean living, and several nights of dirty sex, will do a lot to help a girl recover." Katie smiled lopsidedly. "Thank you so much, by the way... if it hadn't been for you and Ysak, I'd probably still be out. That sleep mojo he hit me with was totally off the scale, in terms of pure brutal power. Not the lightest mental touch, or the most dextrous, but he can slap the power on with both hands holding shovels, that's for damn sure! Only person I've ever felt that was stronger than him is you, Lacus, and only then in short doses. Just walking around, with you not pissed off, he's probably as strong as both of us put together, if not more so! We have some serious working out to do before we should dare think about confronting him again."

"That bad, huh?" Cagalli shivered. "Not only does he have a legion of goons, technology that makes Dr. Simmons cry with envy and apparently endless resources, but he's also got mental powers enough to scare the both of you put together. This just gets better and better."

"That and he's morally ambiguous." Katie added cheerfully. "I mean, not only did he knock me out, he also groped me, and then let his men rape me. That's not exactly fluffy bunny happiness."

"You seem remarkably nonchalant about talking about that horror." Lacus noted. "Even for you."

"Did you miss the part where I said "he knocked me out"?" Katie replied with a shrug. "Tell me, Lacus, have you ever had a dream you couldn't remember when you woke up?"

"Yes, many times. More than I can remember, obviously." Lacus answered.

"Yah, well, thats how this experience was for me. I was practically brain dead at the time when he had his hands on me, and the goons were getting it on. Don't get me wrong... I'm pissed as hell that ANYONE touched me like that, except for Ysak, who has permission... but the head creep is out of reach, and my dad killed the three goons, so what the hell can I do about it? I don't even remember it happening... by the time I woke up, you guys had already saved my limp ass and given me all the medical treatment I needed. I am so buying Miriallia a new camera, by the way. I could have had all sorts of nasty, icky complications if it hadn't been for her. Whoever pays her, doesn't pay her enough! But if you're expecting me to burst into tears and lament how helpless I was, and how horrible it was to be raped... well... I sometimes wish I could, but really, since I haven't been a virgin for a long time, I couldn't even tell that I HAD been raped, until Ysak told me. So I'm not exactly struck down by the horror of it all... it really feels like it happened to someone else entirely."

"You mean to say it didn't even hurt, when you woke up? That wasn't a clue that something was wrong?" Cagalli was flabbergasted.

Katie gave them both a smile that was a mixture of shy and sultry. "Obviously you guys know NOTHING about how Ysak and I make love. A little soreness a half day later is absolutely nothing strange, let me assure you."

"Ahem. Getting back on track." Lacus coughed, blushing furiously. "You seem to be handling the issue much better than I was expecting. Much better than I would."

"Well, I'm not trying to have a baby, just yet. Maybe next year, when things are hopefully calmer." Katie yawned and shrugged. "If I was trying to get pregnant and this happened, hoo-boy, I'd be tearing down the walls."

"This is the sort of person I'm supposed to go to when I need help?" Cagalli whispered to Lacus, incredulously. "Why don't I just go break a mirror now and let it end less painfully?"

"Remember, cut up the length of the arm towards the elbow, not across the wrists. The first way will kill you. The second just leaves nasty scars that tell everyone you tried and failed to kill yourself." Katie advised.

"KATIE!" Lacus admonished, in a horrifed tone.

"What? If she's gonna kill herself, she might as well do it right. Whether or not Cagalli chooses suicide as the proper way out isn't a decision you or I are going to be able to make for her, ya know. She'll either get through it or she won't, its that simple. I for one think she's gonna make it, but I'm an optimist, as you might be able to tell. I've been through some pretty nasty stuff in my life, and I made it through all right, and I've always thought of Cagalli as way tougher than me." Katie retorted.

"Well, thanks for your faith in me, Katie. At least one person understands how I feel. And its not the person I was expecting, to be honest." Cagalli replied with a sigh. "I really wish I had been brain dead at the time, like you were, but I was wide awake. Both when they were torturing all those helpless men and women to death, skinning them alive and worse, things I thought only Frost would do, or even worse when they made Athrun watch them inject me with the Spiffy. It gives me nightmares, little surprise. And the worst thing of all is, even though he's trying, Athrun has his own nightmares and problems, and he can't always be there for me. Sometimes I have to be there for him, and I can't be, or not very well. That really burns me up inside."

"I get that. That's kinda like what Ysak and I are going through. Regardless of what happened to me while I was out, the bare facts are I did something stupid and got in over my head. Ysak risked his life to save me, and found out HE was in over his head too. What happened to me was bad. Ysak DIED. He really DIED, for a few minutes anyway! He was watching me get molested and he was helpless to stop it... he was too busy expiring from lack of heart or lung function! I am REALLY glad I was comatose for that... if I had to feel Ysak die, even temporarily... I'd..." Katie trailed off, looking physically ill. "I'd lose my mind. And probably not find it again." She gathered herself. "But yeah, we're both having a lot of problems dealing with how things went down, and we can't comfort each other nearly as well anymore. I guess we've just lost that sense of invincibility we used to have. Bad shit happens to good people... and now it happened to us. Even when Chanel died, that didn't hit us both in the same way that this did. We couldn't do anything to save her... this time, we were in control of our own destinies, and we still got out asses handed to us. It hurts."

"Yeah! Thats it... losing a sense of invulnerability!" Cagalli pounced on the idea. "That's exactly how Athrun and I feel. You too, Lacus?"

"And Kira, though he won't admit it out loud." Lacus agreed. "We walked into a situation when we were in control, or felt we were, and then everything just... went wrong, and there was nothing we could do to stop it, no matter how much we tried! We got beaten, plain and simple. We got beaten and we couldn't even surrender, like to the Isolation. We were beaten and mauled mercilessly, and we had no choice but to wait for the enemy to get tired of it before we were LET GO, because it wasn't worth his effort to make sure we were dead! We had these horrible things happen to us... and to our enemy, they were inconsequential! He wasn't even going after us... what happened to us was accidents, or part of a larger plan! We are just insignificant accidents of circumstance to our enemy! And that hurts pretty bad."

"Ya know, I wasn't thinking about it like that, but you're entirely right." Katie said somberly. "Now I'm REALLY pissed off! I refuse to be treated like I don't matter, like what happened to me and Ysak was just an accident of circumstance! I'm going to make that Noah guy regret ever treating me as anything but the most deadly of enemies! Next time, Ysak and I are gonna get him together, and THEN we'll see who's the scary Newtype!"

"Speaking of Newtypes, what about that solution you and I discussed earlier? For Cagalli." Lacus prompted.

"Oh yeah! Okay, get this, Cagalli... I'm pretty sure Lacus and I can cure your addicition problem. Just like that!" Katie snapped her fingers for emphasis.

"Just like that?" Cagalli questioned doubtfully. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that we can do a little mental surgery and make you forget you were ever injected with Spiffy in the first place! Not only that, but we can kinda, well "scab over" is the best term I can think of, those parts of your mind that were adversely affected by the drug, allowing your brain to heal them much more rapidly! You could be back to the way you were in less than a week!" Katie assured her.

"Mental surgery?" Cagalli asked, frowning.

"Yes. Its not dangerous. I've blocked some of my own unpleasant memories before, at least when they were bothering me too much. Working together, maybe with Kira or Ysak to boost us, there's no reason Katie and I shouldn't be able to do the same for you!" Lacus said, with unfeigned excitement. At last, a good, ethical use for her powers!

"You want to reach into my head with your powers and mess about with my unpleasant memories and the way my mind works, in order to help me battle this problem and recover faster?" Cagalli put it all together, seeing them both nod in reply. "Well thanks. But no thanks."

"... What...?" Katie asked after several seconds, a stunned expression on her face.

"I mean no, I don't want you to do it." Cagalli clarified, a steely look set on her face.

"But..." Lacus protested. "But we're trying to help..."

"No means no. My mind is my own territory, and nobody, no matter who they are, messes with it. Not if they're my friends in the slightest." Cagalli said firmly. "I said before that I'd get through this, and that I could handle myself. I wasn't saying that just to say it. I mean it. I WILL beat this. And its going to be ME that does it. I appreciate the thought, but how is letting you two work your magic tricks and fix me "just like that" going to help me in the long run? Do I come running to you to fix every unpleasant thing that happens to me? Pretty soon, I could see myself relying on you two and your "fixes" just like a drug! No, I'd really rather not walk down that path. Points for creativity, but experiment on someone else, Dr's. Frankensteina."

"There's no need to be unpleasant about it." Lacus replied coolly. "We're just trying to help, as concerned friends."

"No, you're trying to meddle, because you think I'm incapable of getting through this by myself. You have good intentions, I know, but that doesn't mean I'm going to just let you waltz in and rearrange my mind, the most private parts of me, no matter WHAT the reason is. You may do it to yourself, thats none of my business. But you can't do it to me. And that's final. I'd really prefer to just shelve the whole Newtype thing as much as possible. It makes me deeply uncomfortable. You guys want to talk about our problems, I'll do that. If we're going to bring in the mental powers and all that esoteric crap, I'm outta here. I don't want any part of it. I know you can't help but be that way, but I'm NOT that way, and it creeps me out, okay? It creeps Athrun out too, but he's too polite to say anything."

"Oh, so now you're anti-Newtype?" Katie asked bluntly.

"Not like that." Cagalli sighed. "Look, it's like religion. I don't care what you believe in, and I'm not going to stop you from worshipping as you see fit. But if you try and convert me when I don't want you to, and you keep being pushy about it, no matter how much of a part of your life it is... that's a problem to me. So just don't, okay? Don't mess with my head. Don't look into my head. Don't talk into my head. Don't try to fix me, no matter how safe and easy it might be. I'm more than willing to accept help from you guys... but not THAT kind of help, okay? Be there for me as friends, and I'll be there for you... but don't take this to the level where you're both deciding what's best for me, or else we're REALLY going to have issues. Am I making sense here?"

"Debatable." Lacus said stiffly.

"Wow, I think I actually offended Lacus." Cagalli had to make that comment out loud.

"You did not offend me. Well, not any more so than anyone would if they slapped my hand when I extended it to help them when they asked for help." Lacus sniffed. "Regardless of how you say it, it still sounds to me like you're... afraid of me and Katie, because of what we can do with our minds."

"I AM!" Cagalli half yelled. "I'm VERY scared by what you and Katie can do with your minds! I've seen what you can do! I've felt it! If people AREN'T afraid of you, then they're pretty damned stupid! I can't understand how you can do what you do, but I have no choice but to accept that you can! I hate to say it like this, but I kinda get how those extremist anti-Coordinator people feel now... you two, and to a lesser extent, Kira and Ysak, are just BEYOND my ability to fully understand... and that scares me! It makes me... not always want to be around you. But you're my friends. Its not your fault you're like this... I could no more discriminate against you for this than I could because you're prettier than I am! But that doesn't mean I like it! Its just one of those things friends do for each other!"

"Thats the way we feel too... I mean, I can't even tell you how many times I wish you guys weren't all Stumps! That you could feel things, see things, experience things the way Ysak and I do, or that Kira and Lacus can. But you can't. You just can't. Its a gulf we can't cross with regards to each other." Katie replied. "My dad feels the same way, though he makes jokes about it. I'm sure Raine is the same way too. And I know Dearka and Miriallia feel like that too. We're just too different. Almost like two seperate races of humanity, really."

"Noah said something like that too. That he and I were the forerunners of a new race of humanity." Lacus mused quietly. "He's an Newtype, and he claims to be an Ultimate Coordinator, like Kira. If by new race he means Newtypes... well, I guess I kinda have to agree with him. I don't like thinking this way, but you don't give me much choice, Cagalli. I am different. I can do things other people can't. Does that make me more or less than human? I don't think so. But some people might."

"I didn't say you were less than, or more than human, Lacus. You're Lacus Clyne. You're a Coordinator, but you're still a regular person, just like me and Katie and everyone else." Cagalli sighed. "Look, I'm sorry if I insulted or offended you. I didn't mean to. I just didn't want to stay silent and have a real bad misunderstanding take place sometime in the future."

"It's probably for the best." Lacus agreed stoically, though she was far from calm on the inside. This was something she really needed to talk over with Kira. Cagalli was his sister after all... this kind of rift was not something that could be unaddressed! "I think I may need to go talk to Kira though. If you'll excuse me." Lacus rose from her chair, nodded to them both and then hurried from the room. Katie and Cagalli looked after her and then shared glances.

"It must be a family trait. Making Lacus cry, that is." Katie opined.

"I did NOT make Lacus cry." Cagalli said flatly.

"Hey, I'm the one with mental powers that can't be discussed, remember. I could FEEL how she felt. She was crying, if not on the outside." Katie retorted.

"I feel terrible." Cagalli said miserably.

"Good. You should. You should go kill yourself now." Katie egged her on.

"That's really not funny."

---------------------------------------

"Heya Conrad, hows your ugly mug feeling today?" Ramierez asked in a chipper voice, pushing open the door to the guest bedroom in the Orb National Palace where Sergeant Matthew Kurtz was resting up from his near fatal injury at the hands of the Brotherhood. He probably could have done that at his apartment, but he refused to be sent away on medical leave, no matter what the Lieutenant threatened. A real hard case, was Conrad. A real Stormhound. He couldn't drive, not with only one eye, so he elected to stay near the action, so that he couldn't get stranded away from the center of things at an inopportune time. Balls of pure steel, Ramierez had to admit. Conrad wasn't lying on the bed, or sitting in the chair, or on the couch. The TV was off, so was the radio. He couldn't see any real sign that the room was occupied, save for a few articles of civilian clothing inside one half open drawer. "Conrad? Conrad? Where are you, Conrad? Hide and seek is my game, don't go getting cute now!" Ramierez called, stepping into the room and prowling around.

The bathroom door was locked, from the inside. Ramierez jiggled the knob some. "Conrad? Kurtz? You in there? Everything okay?"

"Depends." Kurtz's somewhat weary voice came back to him quietly. "Is the Chief Representative gone?"

"Cagalli's off with Lacus somewhere, nowhere nearby." Ramierez replied with a frown.

"Not the Queen, the Chief Representative! Jiro Kurenai! Is he gone?" Kurtz growled.

"Kurenai was here? Really?" Ramierez looked around. "Yeah, he's pretty gone. Just me here now."

"That's a relief." Kurtz opened the door from the other side and peered out, checking the situation himself, just to be sure. Yep, a real Stormhound, was Kurtz. He had on his eyepatch, a simple black affair, though the scar running down his face was still livid and raw. Kurtz had elected to keep it for the moment, as a reminder to "duck faster next time" as he put it. Ramierez shrugged... some men were weird about their scars. Ramierez didn't like them, especially not big ones across his face, which did more to scare girls away than impress them, but it was Kurtz's call. Losing the eye certainly hadn't helped matters any. He supposed he could see the scar, kind of as a nonverbal explanation for the fact of the missing eye. Kurtz's face was a little drawn and pale, but he was still moving around just fine on his own, and even working out some. He'd be good as new in a few weeks.

"Really? A relief?" Ramierez prompted, stepping aside so Kurtz could get out of the doorway.

"Yeah. He stopped by to pay me a visit, something about spending quality time with a injured hero or some drivel. I'd just taken one of my pain pills, I was kinda mellow, so I went with it." Kurtz shivered. "At the time I did not realize he was gay, of course, and that his instincts to comfort me came from an entirely more than fraternal concern."

"He's gay!?" Ramierez was surprised... the bastard had kept that under pretty tight wraps, if Ramierez hadn't know about it! Not that they ever really spent much time on the Kurenai's, since they were a comparatively minor family in the scale of things. Looks like there was going to be some remedial briefing going on! "How'd you figure that out?"

"Believe me, there is a perceptible difference when a man touches your face out of concern for your health, and when he touches your face for other reasons." Kurtz snarled. "He was polite enough about it when I told him I didn't swing that way, but he wouldn't leave me the hell alone either! Nothing I could really complain about, since he is the Chief Representative and can take up my time as he sees fit, as long as he doesn't come on to me again, but I eventually had to take an extended bathroom break in order to get rid of him! He's just a little bit too friendly, you know? He likes to talk more than he likes to do!"

"Just too bad it wasn't Cagalli. She can touch my face whenever she wants, for whatever reason she likes!" Ramierez chuckled.

"One of these days Athrun is going to hear you say something like that for real, and we're going to find you crucified butt naked to a surface to orbit cargo pod being launched on the mass driver." Kurtz commented.

"Maybe so, but a guy can dream, right?" Ramierez sighed. "So what did Jiro Kurenai want to talk about?"

"Lots of stuff. Talky bastard wouldn't shut the fuck up! All sorts of topics... sub-surface colonies, building new space colonies, trying to get work for the SPF subcontracted to Morganroete, what my opinion on the Brotherhood was, what I thought of the USN, what I thought of Cagalli and Athrun, where I think Orb should go from here, what my thoughts on the economy were, etc. He seems very concerned with money and wealth. Not necessarily his own, but that of Orb as a whole. He really seems eager to forge a bunch of new trading relationships with other member-states, and he's all over the idea of Orb being the people who actually build the majority of the SPF, gushing about what a huge economic influx that would be. He was sending me mixed signals at one point, and not THAT kind of signal, you sick bastard! On one hand he really loves the USN and Durandel... on the other, he's all about Orb standing as an independent, influential nation, and he doesn't seem to want to reverse any of Cagalli's policies, even the military ones!" Kurtz shrugged. "That and he really seems to want to bone Athrun hardcore."

"Well, he's got to get in line... there's several million nigh supermodel quality women who are desperately clawing for that privilege too." Ramierez smirked. "Though someone should probably warn the horny bastard that Athrun's REALLY not in the mood for fun and games right now."

"Gee, and I was hoping Athrun would pull the squirrley bastard's cock out through his throat by hand too." Kurtz smiled as well, at that image if nothing else. "Don't get me wrong, as far as politicians go, he's not bad. He probably won't make a disaster area of the place. He's just in way over his head, and doesn't realize it. A couple good advisors will keep him on the straight and narrow. And if he does get to sleep with Athrun Zala sometime, we can probably safely kill him, because he'll think he's died and gone to heaven anyway. He's not even bad looking, for a guy. And you know we're trained to notice things like that, you went through the same classes I did!"

"Sure. Whatever, Conrad. I better not catch you selling him your underwear or something else perverted like that. Not unless you're getting millions of dollars or something, in which case I want a piece of the action."

"You'd sleep with a man just for enough money?" Kurtz asked incredulously.

"Conrad, I hate to break it to you, but depending on what the Lt decides is necessary, you may end up sleeping with a man, or even men, for FREE, if a mission requires it. Hell, there might be some really BAD women you have to get it on with too, as the situation demands. Of course I'd do it for enough money! And let's not even TOUCH what the Lt's done for money, or for free, as a mission required, okay? Neither of us have a strong enough stomach for that sort of shit."

"Maybe I should have gone out on medical disability after all." Kurtz noted mournfully.

"Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Even with only one eye."

-----------------------------------------

Ashino watched the Tiamat soldiers wheel the plexiglass enclosed gurney into the transport shuttle. The gurney had a bed on it, and on the bed was Jean, hooked up to a variety of IV's and strapped down securely for transport. Not that it was really necessary, since she had still not regained conciousness, but at least the straps would keep her from bouncing around inside the sealed medical gurney in case of any unexpected turbulence or maneuvers the shuttle encountered on the way to Earth. To Orb, more specifically, and to Cyprus and the other Hellhounds most specifically of all, along with an attached data chip that explained what had happened and what Ashino was planning on doing about it. A large part of what Ashino was asking for, besides that Cyprus care for Jean to the best of his ability, was that he otherwise stay out of Ashino's way. He was not in a state of mind conducive to playing well with others right now, no matter their intentions or pasts together. Besides, he knew Cyprus had his own overriding duty concerns, to the Clyne Faction of all people.

Maybe Ashino would go there one day... if Cyprus found something to admire about them, there must be something there. Cyprus did not give his loyalty lightly after all. But that was in the future, and Ashino did not know if he would ever even make it that far. For the moment, his concerns revolved around just one thing. Killing Gilbert Durandel. He knew he would probably end up killing a multitude of other people, who were being duped by Durandel to protect him, but he was able to resign himself to that necessary task. Crimes like Durandel's could not go unpunished, and in this case the criminal justice system was completely inadequate to the task. Vigilante justice was the only chance he had of avenging what had happened to Jean! He wouldn't have minded so much if they were just there to kill him... he was a soldier, people trying to kill him was a part of that life. But killing everyone else on the station, and maiming Jean... that COULD NOT go unaddressed!

"She really is special to you, isn't she?" A voice asked from nearby. Ashino looked away from Jean and met eyes with the Tiamat leader, a black haired woman in her late twenties with pale green eyes and a gymnastic figure, who was standing about six feet away, one hand on her hip holster, the other toying with her free floating hair in a nervous habit.

"You sound surprised, Ms. Logan." Ashino observed, turning to face her fully. Every other Tiamat soldier in the hanger bay area tensed up, all eyes turning to Ashino, though no one made a move towards any weapon. They'd learned that lesson VERY well, VERY quickly. Given that fourth fifths of their comrades were now space dust, it had been an expensive lesson nonetheless, but who said fanatics couldn't learn? Well, the Tiamat soldiers at Far Station, as this place was rather dully named, were not exactly the cream of the crop, ideologically speaking, at least in the eyes of the hardliners in charge of the group. When he'd at last located their base, well, when they'd at last let him locate it and tried to lure him into an ambush, he'd gone rather hard on them, and hadn't even listened to their first two surrender requests, something which he was ashamed about now. He'd been acting more like Amy or Cray or even Frost... and that made him feel sick at heart. Jean would not want him to become a monster, not even for her sake!

"I am surprised. From what little I've been told about people like you, I didn't think it was within your emotional capability to love or treasure someone." Tamara Logan, the now ranking officer of the Tiamat cell, since all the other officers were messily dead, replied with a shrug. She patted her holstered pistol to reassure herself, but it was scant help. A few soldiers had tried to sneak attack this Markov Ashino guy under the flag of truce they'd called, once he was out of his Gundam. She'd never seen anyone get their arms ripped out of their sockets before then. Even with a gaping chest wound all the way through him, which was healing remarkably fast she had to admit, Ashino had devastated the ambushing soldiers and then several foolhardy comrades that had tried to intervene. Now everyone was keeping their distance, afraid to provoke him but hating him all the same, treating him like a rapid tiger prowling through their midst.

"I'm something of a defective product." Ashino's lips briefly twitched in a sardonic smile. "It is my opinion though that the capability to love is almost impossible to erase fully. Cray loved the Doc. Amy loved Frost. Frost is the only one I know of who might have fully lost the capability to love, and even then it wasn't like I talked it over with him. Getting him to be serious about such things was no easy task... at least not without getting killed in the process. Jean... Jean is my life, my savior. She is the reason I am at all a worthwhile person today. She means everything to me."

"And you're trusting her to us?" Tamara raised an eyebrow. "Many of us would like to hurt you in any way we can for what you did to our comrades."

Ashino shook his head. "I am trusting her to you, Ms. Logan. Because I have no choice. And because you have at least a spark of humanity and reason still left within you. I am not the best judge of human character, but you strike me as a woman who keeps her word. You could have ordered the rest of your soldiers to attempt to kill me after the first few had broken the truce, but instead you commanded them to cease fire and stand down."

"That was simple self preservation. I had not realized how weakened you were at the time. I thought you were fully capable of coming over here, guns or no guns, and killing us all." Tamara frowned. "You had me running scared."

"I apologize. I was not in my right mind at the time. But regardless, once you discovered I was almost on my last legs, you still did not turn on me or Jean. Yes, I would have killed you had you tried anything, but that sort of thing has never stopped a Tiamat soldier before. Believe me, I knew Asmodeus during that period and previous ones, and he was not the sort to recruit soldiers who were altogether concerned for their lives, under the right circumstances."

"I was recruited several years after his death, so that might be why I am somewhat less than ideologically pure, at least according to Central Command." Tamara played with her hair some more. "Its why I was assigned out here in the first place, despite my tactical and infiltration talents. Just because I only want certain Coordinators to die, not all of them... ah, they almost burned me at the stake."

"I've had similar experiences with Blue Cosmos." Ashino nodded.

"Indeed. You and your kind are legendary. You fought for the cause in a time of giants, with Cervantes Zunnichi and Asmodeus Sark being only the foremost among them. Central Command would have a stroke if they learned a BCPU came into my possesion, and I let him go."

"Thank you." Ashino said.

"For what?" Tamara asked, caught off guard by the comment.

"For referring to me as a person, rather than an object." Ashino met her gaze firmly. "It's not a distinction many who know what a BCPU is care to make."

"Well, maybe if there was no Jean, I might have fallen into that habit, but also remember I am a spring daisy compared to you, in terms of length of service. You are the first BCPU I have ever met, and you already seem more human than some humans I know! From what I understand, you are also the last BCPU I will ever meet, and perhaps I should be thankful for that?"

"Yes. The others aren't cute, cuddly and friendly like I am. Thankfully, they're also all dead." Ashino looked at the floor. "I agree with your ideological stance. Coordinators are just people, many of them with no choice but to be as they are. They are not deserving of our hatred just for the fact of their genetics. It is their arrogant actions that prove them worthy of our hatred. Not all Coordinators are hateful... but those who are, are hateful indeed!"

"Do you really think you'll be able to kill Gilbert Durandel? He's the Secretary of Defense! He is totally untouchable... we couldn't even get within ten tiers below him, in terms of ranked individuals!"

"Just from this attempt on my life, I already know that Durandel has absolutely no idea of what a BCPU is or what we are truly capable of. He thinks I'm just a Natural modified to be like a Coordinator. He doesn't realize that I was carefully selected and enhanced for the sole purposes of not just being LIKE a Coordinator, but being far superior to them, and capable of killing them in almost any situation I should encounter them in! I have since learned that my abilities are still not quite up to the task of defeating certain Coordinators... Kira Yamato, Athrun Zala and a few others for example... but Gilbert Durandel is a civilian. I will pop him like a blister."

"And his guards?"

"The Independence will get me within arms reach of him, even if he were to put the Solar Knights themselves in my path. I have reviewed their victories, and frankly, they are laughable. I'm embarassed for them, that they think they've actually accomplished anything. Its like every time the Solar Knights showed up, the Brotherhood just lost all creativity and the will to fight entirely. They are going to fall victim to a bait and switch ploy here soon... they will show up to a battle, expecting to walk all over the Brotherhood, and will find themselves facing not a bunch of fleeing cowards, but an overwhelming force of well coordinated and fanatical soldiers, armed with technology that matches or exceeds that of the Solar Knights. The Knights have a few pilots skilled enough to adapt to a sudden reversal of fortune like that, but by and large, they will crumple like a wet paper bag. The same exact thing happened to Orb. Was no one paying attention?"

"I had noticed a few things like that myself, but I thought I was seeing things. At times it almost seemed like the outcome of some of the Brotherhood incidents was pre-arranged, in the USN's favor, especially once the Solar Knights were established." Tamara mused. "Impossible to prove of course."

"The Brotherhood was present at the attack that was intended to claim my life. Whether or not they were there on their own, the timing of a Brotherhood attack right after a covert assassination assault by USN special forces leaves me suspicious. It was almost like the Brotherhood forces were there to clean up loose ends. They certainly weren't prepared to encounter a Gundam, so why else would they be out there?" Ashino shrugged and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. "I do not have the current perspective to go much further with this. Something is wrong, that is all I can say. To be honest, I much prefer it when my foes are direct in their opposition, like you Tiamat soldiers are. Kill me, or ambush me, or take me hostage or whatever it is you need to do in order to accomplish your goals... but don't pretend to be my friend and stab me in the back! Treachery I cannot forgive! Especially when innocents are caught in the crossfire! Cyprus once warned me this might happen... but I thought it could never happen to me, that I was too lucky! Even BCPU's aren't immune to self deception... indeed, we are likely among the most susceptible of all!"

"So when are you going to go after him?"

"I see no reason to delay. I will escort the shuttle to near Earth's orbital path, and then I will head to the Moon. The Solar Protection Fleet is in the first phases of construction there, Durandel will need to be nearby for political reasons, ship christening, that sort of thing. My opportunity will come to me... he thinks I am dead, after all, and the Independence is still the registered Gundam of the USN. Few will question its arrival at a USN base, and fewer still would think to immediately report it to Durandel. By the time he recieves such a report, I will already be on top of him, and people will be too slow to react in order to save him."

"You'll be killed afterwards of course. Even if you surrender immediately, they'll execute you after a short trial. He's the most popular man in the USN right now, the guardian angel of the Solar System. If you murder him, you'll be the worst criminal since... since Cervantes Zunnichi or Patrick Zala!"

"You speak the truth. It does not please me, but I see no other way. I cannot let him just go free, not with Jean's blood on his hands." Ashino clenched his fists, the mere thought of Jean's injuries filling him with boiling rage. Tamara edged slightly away from him, he noticed out of the corner of his eyes, and he forced himself to let the anger flow through him in a more productive, less visible fashion. Her hands were gone. Prosthetics could of course be found, but they would never be as good as her original hands. And her memory had likely been damaged... the Tiamat station had lacked the staff and resources to do more than stabilize her condition and removed the remnants of her hands, and take a few tests. The shrapnel was still in her skull and brain, in the parts usually associated with memories and sometimes motor skills. With a good doctor and a successful procedure, she should recover... but how much she would recover was unknowable. She might not be able to walk on her own. She might not remember her name. She might not remember him! She might not remember anything at all!

"Well then, I suppose I should wish you good luck. Though we are not allies, you are still striking a great blow for our cause, Mr. Ashino. For the Preservation of Our Blue and Pure World?"

"For Jean. The world can go fuck itself." Ashino turned away and headed towards the Independence.

"Why are we letting him go, Ma'am? We could take her hostage and use her as a shield against him!" One of Tamara's subordinate officers exhorted, once Ashino was out of earshot.

"Don't be a fool." She looked at him dismissively. "We aren't letting him go at all. He's letting US go... or don't you remember what he did a few days ago? This is a man that is prepared to go up against the entire USN by himself, on a journey to assassinate the most beloved man currently alive. And you want to put yourself in his path? Spending your life for the cause as a martyr is admirable... spending it in vain, blocking the path of someone truly holy would not only be a waste, but a sin, in my eyes! We have stood in the path of a tornado once before... tempting fate twice would be stupid." Tamara looked into the distance. "That man you want to provoke is the most dangerous sort of man alive. A terrorist motivated not by hate, but by love of something precious to him, and a desire to protect it against all dangers. It is truly a sad thing that we shall never see him again in all likelihood... we could all stand to learn a lot from someone like that!"

"You really are a radical, Ma'am."

"You could at least say it in a complimentary fashion, considering it was this Radical who saved all our lives..."

---------------------------------------------------------

"Ms. Clyne! Ms. Clyne, wait! If I could have but a moment of your time!?" A unfamiliar voice called out to Lacus as she hurried through the National Palace at a brisk walk, homing steadily in on the guiding beacon that was Kira's thoughts. He was currently engaged in a tactical simulation along with Dearka, Miriallia and Athrun, all of whom needed something to distract them from the travails of recent days. besides, working on fighting tactics against the Brotherhood was a worthwhile expenditure of time, even if it did give her qualms, as it always would, to see Kira practicing the art of war. He was really throwing himself into it at the moment, his rage over what had been done to Cagalli fueling him like a nuclear reactor did a Gundam. He was currently engaged in a close quarters duel with Athrun, simulated of course, the Phoenix King against the Seraph, as they both struggled to fully familiarize themselves with all the capabilities of their new Gundams. At the same time the Warmaster was trying to kill both of them, while they could not retaliate, merely having to adapt to dodge its incoming fire patterns.

Lacus really didn't like the idea of Kira and Athrun fighting each other, something they hadn't done since pre-Clyne Faction days, and even more so in their current states of mind, which were stained with anger and guilt in equal measures. But there wasn't much she could do about it at this stage, besides console them to be careful. She was gradually learning when it was time for her to step out of their way, that no matter how abhorrent she found the idea of them preparing for war, that if she tried to stand in their path, she would be the one who lost in the end. She was hardly the pure flower she'd used to be during the First Valentine War either... not after Cervantes and Asmodeus and Frost, and now the Brotherhood. She had some blood on her hands too, and she'd been the one to put it there. She even had her own preparations to make now, as Katie had pointed out. If she just let sleeping dogs lie, the next time they encountered Noah who knew what sort of tragedy he would create with his superior mental powers?

Well, it wasn't that his powers were necessarily superior, just more practiced. Newtype powers were very much like Coordinator abilities. Just because you had a lot of potential, if you didn't constantly work at it, it didn't matter how much potential power you had, because you'd never be able to use it! It wasn't fun admitting it, but the way she restricted herself so tightly with her moral code and ethical concerns was seriously hampering her development of her powers. It was no fun situation... should she relax her personal standards in order to become stronger? If she did, that could adversely affect many people around her. If she didn't, they might be adversely affected anyway, when she was unable to protect them against Noah should the situation arise! There was no easy answer! She would have to ask Kira... for all his claims to the contrary, he still was the best person she'd ever met for showing her the right way to go. Maybe it was time for Lacus Clyne to stop being the Pink Princess of Peace, and take on a more... directly involved role in protecting the world from those who would do it harm?

She forced such thoughts to the back of her mind as she turned to face the man who was calling her name. She didn't initially recognize him. Average height, average weight, with longish black hair, at least for a man and soft, almost effeminate features. He had liquid dark grey eyes that seemed permanently half shut, lending him a sleepy, relaxed air. He was dressed in the uniform of a senior Orb Government official, the purple trousers, off cream shirt and purple jacket. After a few seconds of looking at him questioningly as he caught up with her, she finally placed him. "Mr. Chief Representative, hello. What can I do for you?" Lacus asked, curtseying slightly to the new head of Orb's government. He was still a young man, not too many years older than she or Cagalli was, but he seemed a lot younger to her... maybe she was being jaded by all her experience? She hoped not.

"I just happened to see you passing by on my way to another Armed Forces meeting. You looked somewhat distraught, I thought I would see if there was something I could do for you?" Jiro Kurenai said with a smile. He extended his hand and perfunctorily shook her hand. He could not deny that she was beautiful... but, she was a girl! He had real trouble warming to girls, even truly famous and beautiful ones. Still, Lacus Clyne wasn't someone he could afford to just brush off. Her opinion of him could directly affect world opinion of him, so he needed to make a good impression!

"Its a private matter, I'm afraid, but thank you for asking, Mr. Chief Representative." Lacus answered, somewhat surprised by the quick handshake. Usually men had to be reminded to let go of her hand, with varying degrees of rudeness, depending on how nearby Kira was and how over-protective he was feeling. It was almost a novelty to be treated like her hand was red hot.

"Please, call me Jiro. Being called Mister all the time makes me feel like I'm real old." Jiro shrugged, suddenly finding himself relatively strapped for conversational ideas. Lacus seemed definitely pre-occupied by this personal matter, and not at all inclined to light chatting. Why was he always catching people at bad times? The same thing had happened with that cute injured Stormhound earlier! At least he'd been able to talk to him for a while, get some feeling how the people on the street... or relatively close to the street... were feeling. Jiro realized that except for the historical things, he really knew almost nothing about Lacus Clyne, other than she was good friends with the Queen, and that her lover was possibly related to the Queen, which was an unconfirmed rumor. "You seem to be in a hurry right now, so I guess I'll let you go, but please, feel free to come to me any time you need help, okay? I can't hope to have the kind of rapport with you the Queen does, but I really want to keep things friendly and relaxed between as if at all possible. You're an exceptional woman, and I might need to ask you for advice relatively often."

"I am at your service should you ever need someone to talk to, Jiro." Lacus smiled and bowed, pleased by his politeness. She was somewhat doubtful of the true nature of her rapport with Cagalli at the moment, but that wasn't something she needed to inflict on Jiro. "But I really need to go talk with Kira about something important, so if you'll excuse me?"

"Of course. Good luck, Ms. Lacus." Jiro stood aside to let her pass. He watched her go, without looking back. Well, that wasn't quite the explosive success he'd been hoping for, but at least it wasn't a total failure. Following in Cagalli Zala-Attha's footsteps was not going to be easy, but as long as he tried to emulate her good ideas, such as forging strong bonds with Lacus Clyne and the other members of the Clyne Faction, he should be well on the way to setting himself up for success. It was just like in big business... surround yourself with enough truly exceptional talent and you'd hit the top sooner or later, as long as you didn't piss them off and let them do what they needed to do. He didn't particularly want to be in charge of Orb, but he wasn't going to shy away from the job now that it was dumped in his lap! Orb had a reputation to maintain, and he would do that at the very least! And if he could swell the national coffers in the bargain... so much the better, right?

The thought of one particular Clyne Faction member put a spring in Jiro's stride, as he headed for the Future Naval Projects Funding Briefing, due to be held in the next few minutes. He never thought he'd be so lucky as to be in a position to be around Athrun Zala... ATHRUN ZALA... for much of the time! Truly, was there a more perfectly made man? Jiro didn't think so. He sighed, daydreaming about being able to comfort Athrun in his time of need, now that the Queen was struggling with her own problems from the Brotherhood attack. Of course it would be reprehensible to steal the Queen's consort in her time of duress... but if he made himself available and Athrun came to him, well, no one could blame him for that, could they? That lovely purple hair... those luminous green eyes... that ripe, muscled body... it gave Jiro shivers even in the afternoon sunlight! He was a lucky man, to have been alive at the same time as Athrun!

Jiro arrived early to the briefing, which was one of many being held for him to bring him up to speed on the various projects and policies Orb was currently operating with. Going from living a life of luxury and leisure to being head of one of the four member-states of the USN was not an easy process, but if his country needed him, then it was his duty to respond with his best effort! And maybe he would impress Athrun! That happy thought, and the chain of imaginary consequences that led from it kept him amused until the briefers arrived, in the persons of Captain Murrue Ramius and Commander Andrew Waltfeld. Jiro wrinkled his nose slightly... scars weren't attractive, and Waltfeld's were especially brutal, marring one entire half of his face, including over the missing eye socket. Honestly, Jiro didn't see what was so cool about showing off how tough you were with dead skin tissue. Couldn't he just have them erased?

With no eye candy to stare at, Jiro threw himself fully into the briefing, which was an update on Orb's new naval forces, most currently under construction at various Morganroete facilities. One detail immediately caught his attention. "Two more Archangel class ships? We still have the original Archangel, do we really need more?"

"They're the new flagship class vessels." Waltfeld explained. "Orb will never have a huge fleet, just because we're a small island. Cagalli thought it would be better to create a smaller number of ships that could handle dual duty as surface warfare and space warfare assets. Once we have more ships constructed, the original Archangel will become the flagship of the First Fleet, responsible for Homeland defence and terrestrial missions. Several Izumi class Mobile Suit carriers, several new Defender class Heavy Destroyers and the rest of Orb's current sea borne naval forces will make up that Fleet. The Gabriel, the third ship in the Archangel class, will be the flagship of the Second Fleet, responsible for defence of Orb's future space assets, along with several more Izumi's and the majority of the Defender class Heavy Destroyers. Finally, the fourth Archangel class, the Raphael will form the core of the reserve Third Fleet, which will provide reinforcements to the other two fleets as need be."

"Well if Cagalli thought it best, I suppose it would behoove me to sign off on it as well. I despair to think of how we're going to pay for all this, but I'm sure we'll find a way." Jiro sighed. "When will the ships be ready?"

"Not for several more years." Murrue answered. "The same for the Dawnblade class Battlecruiser and the Special Operations Fast Frigate Endymion, which is designed to eventually replace the Archangel as the primary carrier platform for our Gundam forces."

"That's a lot of ships." Jiro noted.

"About thirty all told, sir. By way of comparison, the ALU has over one hundred ships in their surface navy, and about as many again in space. The FNE has thousands. And even the PLANTS have several hundred vessels, mostly concentrated in space. We still don't have many details as to the eventual size of the USN's Solar Protection Fleet, but their current fleet strength is almost the size of the FNE's, even if much of it is in storage or mothball condition. From what little I know of Fleet Admiral Icarus, an old Alliance Space Forces hardliner if there ever was one, the SPF is going to be truly massive. The Incarnate class vessels are each three times the size of the Archangel, and the Myrmidon class Heavy Cruisers are also bigger by about thirty percent than the Archangel class." Waltfeld said.

"I see. I am going to push to have as much of the construction work on the SPF as possible be subcontracted to Morganroete. Nobody builds ships better than Orb, the Archangel is our proof. Is this feasible with our current facilities, or will more need to be constructed?" Jiro asked.

"Definitely more. We're running slightly over capacity just building our own ships." Murrue told him. "Even adding a construction line for regular FNE or USN ships, much less the new classes, would significantly detract from our ability to complete our own fleet, unless we expanded our facilities considerably. Given the size of the Incarnate class, terrestrial construction is impossible, but Orb still lacks a resource satellite in space."

"Something I aim to correct as quickly as possible, while also expanding the undersea colonization efforts." Jiro promised. "I doubt I'll ever be as effective a ruler as Cagalli Zala-Attha was, but I can assure you of this... I will not leave Orb weaker than it was when I took office! My every effort will be focused towards expanding Orb's economic and industrial capacity... I rather like the image of the rest of the world being shown up by a tiny volcanic island. Its not the size of your territory, or the number of people in your population, but the quality of those people, and their degree of heart and pride that make a nation great! And by that standard, Orb is the greatest of all nations! And I aim to keep it that way!" Jiro continued excitedly. He sat back in his chair, somewhat out of breath. "I'll keep in close contact with you both... these construction projects are the key to a great deal of wealth and prosperity for Orb as a whole in the future. They are vital to our continued well being. Thank you for your time."

"Thank you, sir." Waltfeld and Murrue both saluted. They waited for Jiro to leave before turning to look at each other. "Well, he doesn't seem so bad." Waltfeld commented. "A little wet behind the ears, a little bit of a dreamer, but as far as third string hitters go, he's not bad."

"Yeah. He should do just fine as long as things stay peaceful and everything goes according to plan." Murrue acknowledged. "If things go to shit though... I am worried. He talks a good game, but when the enemy Gundams are rampaging through the streets of Nara-Attha City, will he have the balls to make the right call, or will he fold?"

"Well, it's not like Cagalli just went away, you know. She'll step in and stop him before he does anything too stupid. Maybe she can't rule directly anymore, but I'd just like to see him TRY and face off against her politically. He's got a good strategy though... keep his head down, make friends with the people Cagalli made friends with, and let the really talented people run the show under his "oversight". Compared to someone like the Seiran's, he's almost heaven sent." Waltfeld picked up the briefing documents. "From the looks of things, I'll have my own Archangel to drive around here soon. I wonder if they'll let me change the color... tiger stripes would be cool."

"And you called Jiro Kurenai a dreamer..."

--------------------------------

Author Note: Well, people sure seem to enjoy the new mass production Mobile Suits. Got some that like the Garou, some that like the Panzerwulf, and others that like the Primal, and many that like the Dawndrake, seems about evenly divided so far, at least until more reviews are posted. Good. Glad everyone has their favorites. Bunch of new ships coming out eventually too, as this chapter showcases, though you'll have to wait a while for technical details. Ships take a lot of time to build after all. Should be interesting to see people's reactions to Jiro Kurenai. He's hard to write... feels weird referring to guys as "cute", but hey, it should make for some good entertainment later. Also can't wait to hear what people think of the scene between Cagalli, Katie and Lacus. I bet that didn't go as many of you expected.

Oh yeah... this mini-arc is going to have some CRAZY battles in it! I got the Solar Knights, the Brotherhood (including a new Gundam, and it ain't the Brotherhood, let me put it that way), the various other member-states new models, the Clyne Faction machines AND Ashino, all heading to more or less the same place. Much surprises in store. I'll do less tantalizing and more writing, see you soon.


	33. Pulling Weeds part 3

"And what do YOU want now?" Cray's scratchy, static filled voice asked petulantly, as Noah stood there and looked up, and up and up some more to finally gaze the Revenant in the face, meeting the crystalline yellow eyes with his own gold pupiled purple ones. Getting into a staring contest with a machine was of course a losing proposition, but given what he was about to ask of Cray, paying him a few small courtesies was the least Noah could do. Small courtesies like speaking politely, and looking him in the "face", or at least the primary sensor cluster. "You completed that research project I gave you yet? Where's your homework papers? Or at least a dead body, depending on what sort of homework you indulged in..."

"You were right about me, Cray." Noah admitted freely, refusing to allow himself to rise to any bait. In truth he was almost giddy, still lost in the recollections of Meyrin's goodbye kiss. "I am not a sociopath."

"Fuck! I was hoping you were. We're a dying breed." Cray sighed. "So I suppose that means I won't be treated to any more public self executions and maimings?"

"If they become necessary. Just because I care about human life doesn't mean I can't still kill people as need be to accomplish my goals. Some life is a lot more important to me than others." Noah answered with a smile.

"Ah. So you have accepted the fact that you ARE evil. Good. I'm glad. Evil is a lot more fun than most people think."

"I am not evil." Noah retorted, his good mood somewhat evaporating. "I am misunderstood."

"Maybe we haven't made as much progress as I thought. If you were an incurable sociopath, then you'd be misunderstood. Sociopaths aren't evil... they're sick. They need "help", or at least mainstream society thinks they do. Of course they can become evil, if they consciously put themselves into situations where their sociopathic tendencies come to the fore... that would be people like me, of course. But if you CAN care about human life, but choose not to for personal goals... that's about as good a definition of evil as I can muster! You evil mad genius bastard you! Evil! Evil! Eeeviiill!"

"I am NOT doing this for personal reasons!" Noah gritted out, wondering why he never seemed to have the conversation he thought he was with Cray. "If I were to indulge my personal desires, YOU would be dead right now! These things that I am doing, my plan... this is not for personal gain! This is to improve the world for everyone! I am not making myself powerful... I am making everyone else as powerful as me!"

"Against their will." Cray pointed out. "I know, I know... they're a bunch of stupid bastards who are probably better off with you making decisions like this for them. I agree with you there. But I'm evil, after all. Regardless of your end goals, your methods are evil. Sadly, that makes you evil. I know, its not fair. I got hit by the same honeypot trap. I thought I was making the world a better place by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people who'd really, in the greater scheme of things, never done me any harm. They were just in my way. Like ants crossing a road. I ran over them without even considering that they might not like it very much. And now I find myself evil. And liking it, of course. I've seen what those so called "good" people put themselves through. No thank you! I mean... asking for a girl's permission before you have sex? What sort of bullshit is that? And not killing someone when you have the chance to... thats just insane! These people have no idea how to properly live their lives... if I was in charge, they'd all live in special camps! Death camps, of course."

"I suppose its a good thing you're not in charge then." Noah sniffed. "Disregarding all physical factors, one of the major differences between you and me is that you are motivated by hate and I am motivated by love."

"I totally agree. And that means I'm strong, and you're weak."

"Last time I checked, you'd gotten your ASS KICKED by weak people like that." Noah pointed out, baring his teeth in a grin.

"Water runs uphill sometimes too... doesn't mean its the natural order of things." Cray sulked.

"I agree with you there." Noah warmed to his subject, his reason for being here at all. "Which is why I'm going to give you your chance to restore the natural order of things."

"I'm tired of your bullshit. You just made me the most heavily armed statue in the Solar System because you know it bugs me. That's evil on a scale even Frost might have trouble touching."

"This is not a joke. I have a special task that needs your help to accomplish. Plainly put none of the other Apostles have your, well, unique qualifications, for this mission."

"None of them are evil, check. I'm listening."

"How would you feel about killing Gilbert Durandel for me?"

"I ain't got no beef with him. Wouldn't know him from a hole in the ground."

"He's a Coordinator. Currently the most popular Coordinator alive."

"Well then he's a dead man. Shoulda just mentioned that first. It is my purpose, to kill Coordinators, regardless of their popularity. Why do you need me to kill just one guy? I ain't exactly outfitted for surgical strikes, you should know."

"He's currently in the middle of the largest USN base on the Moon, surrounded by hundreds of Mobile Suits and warships and miles of base defenses. He's guarded by thousands of troops and will probably take refuge in the most hardened bunker he can find once he realizes that you are there to kill him."

"Now you're talking about something interesting. I haven't wiped out a major military installation since that one attack on Carpentaria! What's the catch?"

"There is no catch. I want you to go to Galileo LFB and completely obliterate it, and kill everyone there, if you want. Well, if you must have a catch... do it slowly. I want Durandel to commit as much of his forces to stopping you as he can."

"So I'm just a distraction?" Cray asked petulantly.

"No. You are the anvil." Noah smirked. He waved his hand at the other maintenance bays spaced around the interior of the Great Endeavor's hanger. "They are the hammer."

"All of em?" Cray sounded eager.

"The greater majority. And every Apostle Gundam. They will have their own individual mission orders of course, but the overarching goal of this attack is the slaying of Secretary of Defense Durandel, the utter crushing of the Solar Knights and any other armed forces confronting you, and the annihilation of Galileo LFB. Leave not one stone standing atop another, and if you feel the need to salt the earth after you pass, well, I won't argue." Noah let his smile grow, already envisioning the dumbfounded expression on Gil's face... shortly before he turned to ash in the wind.

"I love you, Doc." Cray commented. "Wait... oops. Sorry. Flashback..." His speakers fritzed and fluttered for several seconds, until Noah eventually realized Cray was attempting to laugh. It was disturbing. "So how long do I have to wait before I kick this off?"

"Why wait?" Noah returned. Cray was very silent for several seconds.

"You mean...?" Cray started to ask. Noah cut him off by inputting a data command into his wrist computer. A huge sheet of exo-glass slammed down from the ceiling of the Revenant's maintenance bay, causing the floor to jump a little under Noah's feet as it sealed off the bay, not six inches in front of him. His hair settled after being whipped around by the displaced air, and he walked over to the wall speaker, which cray was still attached to, even as various other umbilicals and power cords and diagnostic cables were falling away inside the Revenant's bay, detaching from its gargantuan form. "This must be my birthday..." Cray breathed, barely audible.

"If that is how you wish to think of it, then yes, yes it is." Noah replied. A heavy, semi-metallic shroud draped itself around the Revenant, covering the war machine from head to foot. Lacking any sort of stealth systems itself, the metallic shroud would allow a temporary Mirage Colloid effect to cover the Revenant, while powerful linear catapult systems would impart upon it the trajectory and speed that would get it headed towards the general part of the Moon where Galileo was. Noah wasn't stupid after all... giving Cray full control over the Revenants system, even over just maneuvering capability, when he was still within the PLANTS, was asking for a disaster. Even without activated weapons, the Revenant was still a one hundred meter tall, six thousand ton Gundam. That was a lot of mass, and Cray could deal plenty of damage with just physical attacks! Noah activated a countdown signal that would fully activate the Revenant once it was near its destination... best not to tempt fate otherwise.

The floor dropped open under the Revenant at the same time as the A-grav in the hanger bay cut off. A holoprojector field on the outside surface of the Great Endeavor, which was still currently part of the E-PLANT Millenium One, would disguise the opening launch port from any casual observers. "I shall expect you back after this mission is complete, Cray. Do remember that I can shut down any or all of your systems as I see fit, whenever I feel the need to. You cannot run or hide from me. Do as I say and you shall be rewarded."

"Fail and I shall be punished? You are SO evil. And not even creative evil!"

"Fail and I will do nothing to you. No reward, no punishment. I'll just forget you exist entirely. You can live in that glass tank for the rest of eternity, or however long it takes for your body to fully decay, trapped blind, deaf and dumb inside the most heavily armed statue in the universe."

"Not quite Asmodeus promising to turn my limbs into candlesticks, but... not bad." Cray admitted after some consideration. "It's not like I have anywhere more interesting to be. Say hello to Frost for me, okay? Tell him I'm expecting a birthday gift for once."

"Frost is..." Noah sighed. It was useless trying to explain the reality of the situation to Cray. "I'll pass it along, but I wouldn't hope for much if I were you." He hit the control that would launch the Revenant.

"You might be surprised..." Cray's reply was cut off when the Revenant was hurled out of the Great Endeavor by the magnetic accelerators, onto a crash course for the Moon.

"No. There will be no such surprises. Not from Frost. Never again." Noah replied, staring at the empty maintenance bay for several seconds before shaking himself. He had a lot more setup to accomplish, and not much time to do it in. Not just with this attack, which was still just a stepping stone to his larger goal. Ark movements were in full flow. The Great Endeavor's systems were almost one hundred percent online. The Brotherhood Gundam would be complete in a few more days. The distribution of perfected strain Green EDEN canisters to the atmospheric renewal systems of all PLANTS and as many space stations and facilities as the Brotherhood could covertly access was beginning. He was cured of his Short Telemeres. Everything was coming together at last, gaining momentum, preparing to hurl Humanity forward into an endless golden age! And Meyrin had given him a french kiss goodbye! The world could not be better!

--------------------------------------------

"Okay. I am officially putting Dr. Roanoke up for the "biggest jackass of all time" position." Eric said with weary dislike. "I wouldn't be at all surprised if he drank vinegar each morning, JUST to get him in the right mood to piss everyone else off!"

"I know! I haven't been able to even get within spitting distance of Stella! It's like she's his daughter or something!" Lain commiserated, looking wistfully off at the hangar that had been allocated for the FNE's machines during their stay at the Solar Knight's base. F.E.A.R. trucks clustered around the outside of the building like a caravan of wagons pulled up in a defensive circle against marauding natives. There was no way to get into the hangar area without passing through several circles of hard eyed and well armed FNE soldiers, and the same thing for going out! Not even the Knight-Commander could get in there without getting permission from Roanoke!

"People like him don't have children. They reproduce by budding, if at all." Eric replied with a disgusted expression. "That or they spontaneously evolve from cesspools. And they delight in spreading their shit all over everyone else."

"Would it kill him to let us just TALK to her? I mean, I could care less about the big secrets she knows or whatever... I just want to get to know her better. Preferrably a lot better. To the stage where I can discover just what sort of pitches she can hit with that incredible voice of hers!" Lain sighed dreamily. "Did you see what the three of them did to Shinn and Lunamaria's squadrons in that last simulator battle?"

"You mean before Shinn WTFpwned everyone? Yeah, that was some pretty brutal close quarters combat. She seems like such a nice girl too. Never would have figured her for the bloodthirsty berserker type."

"It's always the quiet ones. They should just have never ganged up on Luna like that. As they quickly learned, Shinn doesn't see that as funny." Lain shook his head in mild wonder.

"I thought she was about to clean his clock there regardless, until he just went absolutely bananas. The simulater could barely keep up with him. How the hell does he do that? I mean, he's pretty damn good all the time... but FUCK... when he goes off the deep end, it's like he becomes an avatar of the gods of war and destruction!" Eric shivered. "They say she passed out in terror before he was done beating her ass into the ground... and that was a SIMULATION battle! Man, the only upside to the whole deal was seeing how LIVID Roanoke was. He thought he had the whole deal in the bag."

"Yeah. I thought he was about to have a stroke or something. We aren't so lucky though." Lain leaned back against the wall of the admin building they were hanging out behind, peeking out every now and again hoping to get a glimpse of Stella. "Do you think he's going to hold a grudge over that victory dance we performed?"

"Oh, I hope so. The moment he starts something with us, half the fucking Unit is going to jump down his throat with both feet forward! He hasn't been making himself a lot of friends here. Not like that Heine guy. Or Al'Jib." Eric referenced the lead pilot of the ALU delegation, an ethusiastic arab immigrant with way too much energy and bristling mustachios. Still, he wasn't a bad sort. Very competitive, but in a friendly way.

"Haman is a pretty bad ass dude." Lain admitted. "I thought those Garou's were a joke. Did you see what they did to Ector Squadron of Third Platoon? Man, it was like a feeding frenzy of pirhanas! They ain't much in the air, like Al'jib says, but dude, if you let em get close to you on the ground, you're in for a world of hurt! They were all over em, like ugly on Roanoke!"

"Yeah. They still lost in the end, once the rest of Ector Squadron took to the skies, but Haman Al'Jib is definitely not the lightweight I thought he was. I still think he's doomed if he thinks he's gonna pull some big coup off against Shinn, but apparently its some matter of honor to him." Eric considered. "What the hell are we going to do against Heine later today though? It's you and me versus those damn Primals, and he's a fucking FAITH member. That's no joke, despite how much he makes light of it. He's got to be seriously badass."

"Worse yet, we got Meyrin for our CIC operator. And she's being a right bitch lately, ever since her oh so perfect lover boy went off on some sort of business trip. Honestly dude, what is it about girls that makes them so bipolar? Whenever he's around she's focused and intelligent and even downright impressive... like that EWS codework she did, just on a whim, that completely fucked over Luna's squadron that one time... but her sugar daddy steps away for a little while and you can't even get the time of day off her! All she does is sit in her room on her computer and teach that T-Rex to do tricks for pieces of beef jerky!"

"Well, its only been a half day, I don't think that's too long to mope." Eric cautioned. "I understand where you're coming from though... she was never like this before Noah came around. From what Luna says, this is about par for the course though... apparently Meyrin is always brattier when she's got a squeeze."

"Probably doesn't help that her boyfriend is one of the richest and most powerful Coordinators alive, right? I mean, sheesh, he owns fucking BoranderCorp! Talk about the right womb at the right time!" Lain said enviously. "He gives me the creeps though, I have to say. Its not just his looks, which are disconcerting to say the least. Or the dragons. Or the T-Rex even, though Achilles is a damned cute bugger, I must admit. But there's just something not right about Noah. Like he's kinda out of phase with the rest of reality around him."

"You think so too?" Eric asked. "I don't hate his guts like Shinn and Luna seem to, but you're right. There's just something... off... about him. I get the feeling he's... well... holding something back from everyone. Something big. Fuck me as to what though."

"Man, I'm almost thinking about it... I NEED some tail! Badly! My palms are starting to hurt! If I don't get laid soon I'm going to start climbing the walls! Literally!" Lain complained. "I mean, what the fuck? I'm a squadron leader in the Second Platoon of the fucking Solar Knights! Girls should be throwing themselves at me!"

"I hear some of the support staff girls tried to get Shinn to do a threesome or foursome on the night of the celebration party."

"FUCK! Don't tell me shit like that! All I hear about is Shinn, Shinn, Shinn! What does he got that I don't?"

"Turbocharged combat skills?"

"Besides that! He's a gawky SoB... he can't even get into Luna's pants, and they LIVE TOGETHER! He's NOT cuter than me."

"Maybe its cause he doesn't hit on people constantly."

"Neither do you, and look where you are! Yeah, thats right... here, with me, single." Lain suddenly stood up straighter. "Uh oh. Here comes trouble."

"What do you mean... oh shit." Eric likewise stood up straighter and looked where Lain was. Coming towards them from across the tarmac, from the direction of the FNE hangar, were two young men, dressed in FNE uniforms without any name tags or rank insignias on them. The taller one had light green hair, the shorter light blue. Which was really strange, since neither of them was a Coordinator, and Dr. Roanoke was not the sort of man who'd let his prized pilots use Touch Ups, or anything else fun. Just another one of those irritating mysteries that really wouldn't have taken Roanoke long to explain, surely, but he seemed to derive perverse pleasure in keeping secret anyway. The tall one with light green hair was called Sting, and the shorter one with the light blue hair was Auel. They were both Panzerwulf pilots, and they were Stella's peers and squad mates. They were also nasty pieces of work, Auel especially. He was the one that had been picking on Luna first, taking extra time to single her out specifically and slowly destroying her machine piece by piece, seemingly for no other good reason than to embarass and enrage her.

"Greetings, gentlemen." Lain called in a friendly manner. "I don't suppose your fair haired female companion is also going to grace us with her presence? I mean, you guys are cool, but Stella... ah Stella."

"Stella won't be coming outside." Auel replied with a nasty smirk. "She's got... remedial training to do, after that embarassment she put Dr. Roanoke through in that simulation."

"Well then why are you guys out here then? Last time I checked, you two both got butt-raped LONG before Stella got taken out." Eric pointed out. "At least she caused some damage... you two both folded like wet rags."

"He caught us off guard, thats all." Sting shrugged it aside. "We're not over here cause we want to be, ya know. We're here to deliver a message. Stop trying to see Stella. That's the message."

"Oh. Well I got a message for you to snail mail back." Lain stepped up. "Fuck... You..." He smiled. "There. You think I need to edit it, or is it brief enough?"

"It's about two words too long." Auel replied, getting up in Lain's face, even though he was about three inches shorter than him. "Sting didn't give ya the full message ya see. Stop trying to see Stella... or else."

Eric snorted with amusement. Plainly Auel though he was hot shit. Eric had been around some seriously badass people in his time. Markov Ashino. Cyprus Finch. Thomas Glory. Auel didn't even come CLOSE to making their grade. He was just some punk kid. "Something funny?" Auel challenged. Sting put a hand on his shoulder, but Auel shook it off with a growl. "I was talking to you, ya pansy!"

"You. You're funny." Eric shook his head, still chuckling. "You think you're all that. It's sad. I've met hamsters scarier than you." Eric looked up, in time to catch Auel's fist across his cheeks, the solid, surprisingly strong impact knocking Eric backwards flat on his ass, blood dripping from his cut lips.

"Ever had a hamster knock ya onto yer ass like that!?" Auel smirked triumphantly.

"Oh no, you didn't!" Lain jammed his knee into Auel's side, doubling the shorter youth over, though not nearly as much as he'd been expecting. Lain followed the knee to the midriff up with a right uppercut that drew blood, both from Auel's nose and lips, and Lain's knuckles. Damn, but the kid had a face like a bag full of steel ball bearings! He didn't look like much more than a hundred and fifty pounds, but it was like slugging a light-heavyweight boxer! "Fold, ya bastard! Fold like you did when Shinn raped your ass! Or else I'll make you WISH you had!"

"You can't MAKE me do anything." Auel spat, recovering his balance and launching himself at Lain, driving him back into the concrete wall of the admin building. Eric scrambled to his feet, wiping blood off his chin with one hand, before throwing himself onto Auel's back and putting him in a headlock, dragging him kicking and squirming off Lain, whom he'd been pinning against the wall with a series of quick but apparently powerful jabs. Lain didn't let his breathlessness or the pain in his ribs stop him from landing a full frontal kick to Auel's lower abdomen, striking him hard enough to make even Eric grunt with discomfort. The breath wooshed out of Auel, and his eyes went very wide indeed. Lain was drawing back his foot for another attack when Eric got chokeholded from behind by Sting, forcing him to release Auel. Auel dived back onto Lain and bore him to the ground, fighting with a maniacal intensity that seemed to let him disregard all manner of blows.

"You brought this on yourselves." Sting hissed in Eric's ear as he started cutting off his air and blood flow to his brain, despite the frantic elbows that Eric was throwing into his ribs and stomach. "You're just a couple of Naturals... you don't stand a chance against a pair of IBWS Extendeds. I didn't want to do it Auel's way, but it looks like we're going to have to make an example of you two." Sting leaned backwards with a snarl as Eric left off his ineffective elbowing and began clawing at Sting's face and eyes with his fingertips. "Go... quietly! I don't need to hurt you any more than you... make me!"

"Hang on, Eric! Be there in a moment!" Lain shouted, somewhat mushily, spitting blood and even a tooth fragment as he wrestled with Auel on the ground, slamming each other into the tarmac and nearby building wall as they battled to stay on top long enough to pin the other guy. Lain was definitely starting to get the feeling that he might have bitten off more than he could chew with Auel. The bastard didn't look like much, but he just didn't seem to get tired, and his reflexes were top fucking notch! And no matter how much Lain slammed him around and punched and kicked him, he just didn't seem to feel much pain either! His counterblows struck like small hammers too. Yeah... something was up here. Even Shinn felt pain, in those few times they'd sparred around a little more than was technically allowed.

"You ain't going nowhere!" Auel rolled on top once more and slammed Lain downwards, one hand around his neck pinning him down, while Lain thundered blows from either hand into Auel's sides, though he might as well have been hitting a sand bag for all the effect it showed. Auel's other hand dived into his mostly unbuttoned uniform jacket and came back out holding a switchblade knife, which he flipped open expertly. "Now just hold still, or this'll hurt a lot more!"

"That's a personal foul! Bringing a knife to a fucking fist fight!" Lain growled. "You wanna play games like that? Fine!" Lain stopped punching and snatched out his pistol from its holster. Auel was just bringing his knife down towards Lain's face when the pistol muzzle bumped up against his breastbone. "Go ahead, motherfucker. Make my day." Lain challenged. He was starting to think he'd actually have to shoot the creep, because Auel wasn't stopping, at least until a totally unexpected sound caused them all to freeze. It was the base air raid sirens. All of them. The steady rising and falling wails could be heard for miles in every direction. "What the hell?"

"Are we under attack?" Sting asked, dropping Eric, who collapsed to his hands and knees, gasping heavily for air, his face slowly un-turning purple and red.

"Thats the... scramble... alert..." Eric replied after a few seconds, his voice hoarse. Goddamn but Sting was a strong motherfucker! Didn't look it, but he might as well have been trying to break loose from a python! Eric didn't know what an IBWS was, or an Extended, but given the nature of Roanoke's question about Ashino, Eric was starting to get the feeling the "special pilot training program" for the Panzerwulf's was a great deal more special than anyone outside of F.E.A.R. suspected. Oh, these guys weren't BCPU's, that was for sure... if this guy was like Ashino, Eric would be lying on the ground with his neck broken, and Auel definitely would not have needed a knife to peel Lain's face off... but they were more than just regular humans too! Looks like this might be that residual Blue Cosmos connection. And if Auel and Sting were like this... then even bets were that... "Stella... Stella is like you two?" Eric asked.

"What do you think?" Auel snarled contemptuously, flicking his knife closed and stepping away from Lain. "She'd have torn the both of you to shreds already. We're nice compared to Stella."

"Auel, that's enough. We don't talk about ourselves. That's the first rule." Sting reprimanded sharply. "You two got lucky. You won't be next time. Stay away from Stella. Stay away from all of us. If we see you hanging around here again, not even your guns will keep you out of the hospital. Come on, Auel... we need to go muster with Dr. Roanoke."

"I hope you do come back! I was looking forward into carving my name into your face!" Auel spat, hurrying after Sting, who was moving away at a brisk walk. "And give up on Stella! She's me and Sting's plaything, not yours!"

"God... damn..." Lain commented after about a half minute or so. "You okay?"

"I'll get better." Eric replied wearily. "We've got to get going too. Can you stand?"

"The day I can't is the day they put me in a body bag." Lain used the wall to help himself claw his way to his feet. "This is SO not over!"

"It hasn't even begun yet." Eric agreed vehemently. "Next time its gonna be THEM, not us, that won't get so lucky..."

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"What the hell IS that!?" The on watch long range sensor operator for Galileo central CIC command asked the air. "It's tremendous! It just came out of nowhere!"

"What is it? Show me." The duty officer directed, leaning forward in his chair. He looked at the data flow from the sensor tech's console and frowned. "Are you sure this isn't some kind of bug? I'm reading something the size of an escort class warship, but close to three times the mass. And its on the ground! Is it some kind of wreckage?"

"It's MOVING! Plotting vector... it's headed for our outer perimeter!" The sensor tech called back. "Matching sensor profiles... no matches yet! Object is still out of visual range due to the topography in that area, but it is definitely closing on our perimeter. Its not responding to automated hails."

"Damn! Bring up the alert level, and detail a squadron of Champions to investigate! The Brotherhood would be fools to attack Galileo now, but who can say what those crazy bastards are thinking! Get me Central Command! If this is a Brotherhood attack in the making, we're going to need the Solar Knights!" The duty officer pounded his hand in frustration on his chair's arm. Why now? What were they thinking? Galileo was the best defended base in the entire USN right now, since the inital keel laying for the SPF was taking place there. Security was even beefed up from that because the SecDef and several other major officials were touring the shipyards! Well, if the Brotherhood wanted to commit suicide, he'd help oblige them! "Keep an eye out for any infiltrating forces, and check every IFF code twice! We aren't going to fall for that Traitor Gundam's tricks again! God damn, someone give me some info on that monstrosity!"

"Champion Squadron one fourteen approaching target. In camera view in fifteen seconds. Linked and waiting. Ten seconds..."

-------------------------------------------------------

The timer projected into Cray's mind counted down to zero, and then a message blinked across his internal vision. "System safeties disengaged. Full power available. Weapons unlocked. All systems green. Revenant operational."

"About damn time! I've been mouldering in my grave for far too long!" Cray exhulted, feeling power, feeling life return to him for the first time since Purgatory Day! "Hello cruel world... did ya miss me!?" Cray halted his plodding strides, the best he'd been able to manage under minimal power, and took a moment to stretch his entire hundred meter body out, getting out the kinks and stiffness as his internal systems synched and spooled up, the FPR that provided motivational and base weapon power pounding like a gigantic flaming heart in his center, the twin extra nuclear reactors that provided discretional power to other weapon systems and the defensive systems warming his shoulders and armpits. Weapons loaded themselves, beam batteries connected to firing chambers, and the internal factory lines that produced extra munitions and specialty defense mechanisms for the Revenant began chattering away, drawing in raw material from the moonscape beneath his feet, passing it through Red EDEN vats in his legs and torso and turning it into useful materials.

"Weapons check." Cray ordered, loving the extra long list that always popped up when he said those magic words. He passed through the list carefully, savoring every individual weapon system, though the entire process still only took a few blinks of time, considering it was all projected into his mind by the NIC system integrated into his life support. "Oh yeah... come to daddy." Cray groaned, in near orgasm.

The weapon's list started at the feet of the Revenant, each of which had a dual 80cm artillery cannon mount on the top part of the foot, which could cant upwards for long range fire, or slew down for more direct, close range attacks. Next came the defensive weapons, which consisted of sixteen 57mm gatling beam cannons mounted on free wheeling automated turrets all over the body, back and limbs of the Revenant, for anti-missle and munition and light anti-Mobile Suit purposes. Sixteen quadruple 120mm gatling cannon mounts, all automated under normal conditions, provided protection against any Mobile Suits that tried to get too close, were likewise spaced around the limbs and body of the Revenant, providing multiple overlapping fields of fire in all directions. Just those weapons by themselves made the Revenant outgun several squadrons of regular Mobile Suits, and they were only for close range self defense, and tertiary offence!

Secondary offensive weapons included four triple barreled 175cm linear cannon turrets, one per upper arm and one per hip, all of which could be independently targeted or focus fired as the need arose. Each shoulder carried a twelve tubed anti-ship missile system, firing self guided, tactical cruise missile sized munitions equipped with multiple high explosive shaped warheads optimized for destroying heavy warships and hardened base structures, or else causing wide area devastation approaching the level of a small nuclear weapon. Once a missile had been fired, the Revenant could construct new ones in its internal manufactories, though the process took several hours per missile. Additional secondary weapons included the melee weapons, a pair of thirty meter long physical axe blades on the left arm, one on top, the other on the bottom of the arm, as well as an eighty meter long anti-ship chain, complete with hundreds of beam blade emitters worked into its links to make it a SPIKED chain, on the right arm, though it was currently coiled around the lower arm, keeping it out of the way of the primary weapon system mounted in that arm.

Coming to the primaries, which were both mounted in the arms, their barrels replaced the Revenant's hands, which really wasn't much of a handicap in Cray's opinion. What did he need hands for anyway? Yes, it would cut down on the number of peopleballs he could throw, but he wouldn't give away his primary weapons no matter HOW fun compressing screaming knots of civilians into gory balls of flesh and bone was! The primary weapon in the left arm, situated between the two great axe blades, was a tri barreled 220cm Gottfried class gatling beam cannon, capable of firing three capital warship category blasts of plasma energy per second at long range, continuously! That one arm had as much firepower potential as the Archangel, counting the upper arm linear cannon turret and the defensive weapon emplacements! The primary weapon taking up the right arm was a 550cm Radiation Cannon, a much, much larger and more powerful version of the hand held weapon the Vengeance had used at LAS, rated at about 25 percent of the original GENESIS space laser's output! It could fire a lot more often than the GENESIS too, as it didn't need to change out focusing mirrors, only needing to cool for about a minute between shots!

As for defenses, well, the Revenant did not mount Phase Shift armor of any sort. Instead, it's armor consisted of eight seperate layers of extremely high density, heat resistant plating, laid cross grain and with various cooling and cushioning systems sandwiched between the layers. Even a capital warship's main guns wouldn't penetrate all eight layers in a single shot, and the armor was equally effective against beams and regular munitions. However, that was actually secondary protection... the primary protection was a series of hollow, hexagonal, meter diameter "scales" that covered over 95 percent of the Revenant's surface armor. At a thought, they shimmered and flickered to life, each "scale" projecting its own Citadel Shield barrier across its interior, and overlapping the edges a bit as well. It didn't provide complete cover against surgical precision attacks, but against regular spray and pray fire, or almost all long range systems, it was almost gauranteed that shots would strike the Citadel Shield scales, having to penetrate those before they could even hit the regular armor! Finally, beneath the final layer of armor was another Citadel Shield array protecting the major, vital internal structures, while a Red EDEN sheathe actively worked to repair any damage suffered. Like it's namesake, the Revenant would NOT go down easy.

A more proactive defense were the computer controlled "Rigor Mortis" pods that the internal factories produced constantly. With a limited battery system, they spent much of their time attached to various nooks and crannies on the Revenant's limbs and back, but if enemy vehicles or Mobile Suits approached to close range, within fifty meters, they would detach and jet outward, attempting to use magnetic clamps to lock themselves down to the enemy's outer surfaces, where they would then expend their remaining power emitting electric shocks and computer viruses designed to lock down and immobilize the propulsion and movement controlling systems of whatever they attached to. Unable to move or maneuver, the stiffness of death would shortly preempt real death, as Cray could annihilate them pretty much at his leisure. Of course, it took multiple pods to affect even a single Mobile Armor fully, but with a capacity to make over twelve hundred of them... Cray figured he'd run out of enemies well before running out of pods.

Of course, perhaps the greatest weapon the Revenant had was Cray himself, and the NIC-II control system he was hooked up to. A BCPU level 5, he had reflexes that were simply superhuman, and though the Revenant was not even close to as maneuverable as the Vengeance, it was far from the lumbering monstrosity it otherwise appeared to be, especially in the Moon's light gravity. Like a spider that some people had said he used to resemble, Cray and the Revenant lulled people with their sluggish appearance, only to move with lightning speed once prey had closed to the point of no return. Or he could just blow people to pieces from long range. It was just in how he felt at the time. When the flight of four Champions appeared over a small rise in the Moonscape that blocked his line of sight to the majority of Galileo LFB, Cray opted for the latter option. He smiled, or he would have anyway, as the ordered flight faltered and broke up as they came into view of the Revenant, standing there like a god of war.

"And I thought I was Godzilla with the Merciless? I didn't know what I was talking about." Cray mused, idly pointing his left arm at the bugs, activating the gatling Gottfried and sweeping the arc of fire across them, blasting apart their paltry Citadel Shields and melting them away like moths in a flamethrower wash, the explosions they made barely visible as the river of plasma energy spat out by the cycling Gottfrieds streaked onward, vaporizing the top quarter of the Moonhill. "Stupid hill... MOVE!" Cray demanded, pointing his right arm at the offending terrain feature. He felt a trigger finger he hadn't had for years jerk tightly, and the nuclear cartrtidge fired, resulting in a massive, hundred meter wide column of red-blue-yellow-green sparks and irradiated particles rushing towards the hill, carving through it like a blowtorch through butter, the hill's outline wavering and then just vanishing like a mirage, leaving nothing but a white hot, glowing crater-trench extending for almost a kilometer in front of the Revenant. "Much better. I can see now."

Cray could only imagine the terror the bugs in the big base-hive up ahead were feeling. They didn't know the half of it! He jumped forward about fifty meters, feet digging deep footprints in the solid rock as he landed, material scoops and suction drills snapping out of the soles of his feet to gnaw hungrily at the moonrock, vacuuming up metric tons of raw material to be converted into spare parts, replacement armor or whatever else the internal systems of the Revenant decided it needed. As he lifted his feet to stalk forward at an amble, the resource excavation instruments would recede into their storage locations every time the foot lifted clear, only to snap out of their sockets again whenever they detected rock underneath. He made sure to pace himself, despite how much he wanted to charge ahead at a lope, horrifying them with his grace and agility, even if he was five times the height and dozens of times the mass of a normal Mobile Suit. He hadn't gotten the signal from the rest of the Brotherhood forces saying they were ready yet, and there was no sign of these Solar Knight bastards yet either.

Not that Cray really gave a fuck either way about actually following Noah's plan. He was here to destroy... who got destroyed, in the end, did not matter to him. If the Brotherhood forces got in his way, too bad for them. And he was going to make a point of putting them in his way. Friendly fire was such a terribly sad thing. For those fired upon anyway. He was just hoping that Ysak Joule and Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww would show up before he got done here. He had some seriously unfinished business with them! And this time he was going to do it right! There would be no city for them to hide behind now! They could not run from him this time! And with the Revenant's resource gathering systems, he was unlikely to run out of ammo either! He'd corrected all of his weaknesses... there would be a reckoning! He could not die again before he'd gotten his revenge upon the people who'd killed him in the first place! That was what Revenants did!

"Einy... meeny... miney... moe..." Cray intoned. "Catch... a... tiger... by... his... toe..." He brought up both arms, oriented the upper arm and hip turrets, and keyed his shoulder mounted missile launchers to active targeting. "My... father... told... me..." He paused, and the Revenant's yellow eyes flashed bright gold. "To KILL EVERYONE!" Cray announced gleefully, as the Radiation Cannon finished its minute long cooldown period. He triggered every primary and secondary weapon he had. He wasn't really aiming at anything... he was just giving them a taste of what awaited them! "Fear me! Maim! Kill! Burn! Oh, it feels so good to be ALIVE! AHAHHAHA!"

--------------------------------------------------------

"What the hell IS that thing!?" Durandel demanded, staring aghast at the image on the wall screen being fed to him from Galileo's CIC Command. He looked at the scale bar on the bottom of the screen and blanched again. It was HUGE! Over five times the size of an Archon, and almost sixty times the mass! That one machine represented more military material than the entire Solar Knights unit! Where the HELL had Noah been keeping this thing? It had wiped out four Champions in less than five seconds, with just one attack, and then leveled an entire hill, apparently just for fun! It's second barrage hadn't hit anything, but had lit up the sky over the majority of the base, shocking everyone to a halt for an appalled second before they resumed their scrambling, twice as fast as before! He'd ordered Galileo LFB's defenses expanded and reinforced to a degree that they were five times as strong as they'd been before the Traitor's assault... and now he was feeling like he might have been too lax!

"It's the Revenant." Rey replied, on a smaller screen set into Durandel's desk. Currently Durandel was alone in his office, though he knew that situation could not last. He needed to go to the situation room here shortly, even though he could not directly affect the outcome of the defensive battle soon to start. It was the safest place on the base currently, though given the power of the Revenant's weapons, that was a very relative term. "I'm surprised Noah deployed it... the pilot is far from stable."

"What are its weak points?" Durandel asked, hoping for some good news.

"It's pilot is far from stable." Rey repeated.

"And?" Durandel prompted.

"And not much else. Noah didn't forget much when he built this one." Rey was currently in flight to the Habilis Mass Driver at Lake Victoria, along with the entire Solar Knights unit. The various member-state units were also mobilizing, but they had to wait for launch clearance until after the Solar Knights launched. "This isn't going to be like the other times, Gil. The Revenant is seriously powerful. The Vengeance is more advanced, but the Revenant... well, you saw what it did."

"What about that new one he gave you pictures of? Have you managed to figure anything out about it yet?" Durandel was scrambling for something to buoy his spirits. "What's your ETA?"

"We'll be there in a little over two hours. Don't worry, Gil, you won't be in any danger." Rey said confidently. "As for the Brotherhood Gundam... precious little. I think Noah is trying to tell me he doesn't trust me anymore, after Orb's Parliament. The pictures he gave me are pretty poor quality. It looks kinda like the Vengeance, but bigger, with more wings and more external mounts for weapons. Its arms do something weird too... it looks like there's two seperate hands on each wrist. I'm sorry, thats all I have so far. I can't exactly have my data analysis techs go over them for me."

"Well, keep at it. Anything we can figure out about it beforehand would be helpful. On a casual estimate, how dangerous would you say the Brotherhood Gundam is?"

"It would depend what kind of weapon systems he equips it with." Rey shrugged. "I hate to be pessimistic, but I get the feeling the Revenant isn't the most destructive weapon he has."

"It has a small GENESIS laser in its right arm though." Durandel protested.

"I know. My opinion still stands. Noah would never give his real good stuff to someone like Craydon Thresher. The Revenant is probably a good three or four years out of date. The Vengeance is probably a year out of date. The Brotherhood is up to the minute, bleeding edge tech."

"You aren't doing a lot to bolster my confidence, Rey." Durandel calmed his shaking hands by taking a sip of tea. "If we destroy the Revenant, how major of a loss would that be for Noah?"

"It's not a question of IF, Gil, but WHEN." Rey promised. "It's not going to be easy, and I know it looks invincible, but with all forty eight Solar Knights plus the member-state units supporting us, the Revenant will go back to its grave shortly after we arrive. And since it's arguably his second most powerful Gundam, depending on the situation, I would say a very major loss indeed. He would lose his ability to fight large scale battles, especially because he has no..." Rey trailed off, with a funny look on his face.

"Has no what, Rey?" Durandel prompted after a few seconds.

"I'm... not sure. I lost my train of thought there for a moment, I'm sorry. Have we had any luck figuring out what he's really up to yet, or where they're based out of?"

"No and no, I'm afraid. He remains, frustratingly, a blank slate, and we still haven't really narrowed down a location for their main base. Still, there can't be too many locations that could have supplied, built and stored this monstrous Revenant. He may well have tipped his hand too soon by deploying it." Durandel smiled, getting some confidence back. The Revenant's sudden appearance had shaken him, but it was, in the end, just one Gundam, and he had a major percentage of the USN's military might to throw at it, plus the member-state militaries. No one machine could stand against those kind of odds, not for long!

"What's the status of Orb?" Rey asked. "Are they sending aid as well?"

"They have indicated a willingness too, yes. Should I let them?" Durandel asked in return.

"It couldn't hurt. Make no mistake, this is going to be a brutal fight, Gil... having a few Gundams on our side could save hundreds of lives, and I think we can afford to share the glory a little now, can't we? Especially if they take the brunt of the damage for us." Rey advised.

"Soundly appreciated. I shall contact them soon then, and humbly ask for their aid, especially that of their Gundam pilots, most of who are probably quite eager to get to grips with the Brotherhood, I would imagine, after recent events." Durandel smiled, though it thinned shortly afterwards. "I must say, Cagalli is holding up better than I was led to believe she would."

"Regardless of her flaws, she is a very strong person." Rey noted. "Noah likely underestimated her... he has that tendency, when it comes to Naturals. Counting her out would be foolish. The drug will weaken her, but it will take something worse to shatter her completely."

"Worse like what?"

"One of two deaths, or even both. Athrun Zala or Kira Yamato." Rey replied instantly.

"Not exactly easy deaths to arrange." Durandel pursed his lips. "Unlike Markov Ashino, they are far from helpless or isolated. Maybe the Revenant will prove up to the task?"

"Doubtful. Accidents do happen on the battlefield though."

"Do you have someone you can trust to have such an accident though? It can't be you... you're too directly connected to me."

"No... I wish I could say I did, but the Solar Knights aren't yet ready for those kinds of orders, sorry, Gil."

"It's all right. Rome wasn't built in a day. We'll shelve this train of thought for the moment... other opportunities may well present themselves."

"Oh, what did you think of that gene sample I sent you?" Rey wondered, selfishly striving for every extra moment of Gil time he could finagle. "Where did it fit in under the Destiny Plan?"

"A creative joke. Obviously impossible, of course. If I had to choose a category, according to the strictures of the Destiny Plan so far, it would probably be something like "Supreme Leader" or "Figure of Reverence". How did you make it?" Durandel grinned, shaking his head in amusement. That amusement died away when he saw the stricken expression on Rey's face. "What?"

"I didn't make it." Rey muttered.

"Oh come now, Rey, there's such a thing as taking a joke too far. Nobody can have genes like this... its not naturally possible! The only thing I've ever seen that was even close to this was a maverick science project that failed before you were even born."

"I took that sample from Noah's arm." Rey said quietly. "A week ago."

"Rey, that is really not funny."

"I know. I'm not joking, Gil. Really. Those are Noah's genes. I think I might be beginning to see what he's up to..." Rey trailed off, his face becoming even more stricken. He put a hand to his forehead and massaged back and forth.

"Are you all right, Rey? You look ill. Have you taken your medication?" Gil asked, worriedly.

"Ahh... I lost my train of thought again." Rey sighed unhappily, taking his hand away from his brow. "I'm fine, Gil. Really. Better than fine even... Noah fixed me so I don't have to take medication anymore!"

"How!?" Durandel demanded intently. He was a top level genetic researcher himself, and he could not figure out any earthly way to fix a genetic condition after the embryonic stage! If he could do that, ICD would no longer be a problem, much less something esoteric like Short Telemeres! "How is that possible!?"

"I don't know. It was this green medicine. He wouldn't tell me what was in it. Or maybe he did... I can't remember for some reason."

"Viral? Bacterial? Artificial?" Durandel asked, hoping to jog Rey's normally faultless memory.

"A-artificial, I think. It had some pretty nasty side effects... very highly experimental... he said it could have destablized my entire genetic structure, after I took the last dose."

"Why the hell didn't you tell me he was making you take special medicine!? He could have been poisoning you! That might have been a cure for ICD!" Durandel snapped, running his hands through his hair in agitation.

"I... I'm sorry, Gil..." Rey looked ashamed. "I... I just didn't think it was important enough to mention, until recently."

Durandel looked at his foster son intently. Something was wrong with Rey. He told Durandel everything that went on in his life, as a matter of course. The mere idea of something not being important enough to mention was silly... Rey told him what he ate for breakfast in the morning, and would go into great detail about trivial matters like what the differences were between mornings on Earth and in the PLANTS. Something as life altering as special medicine that cured him of his degenerative condition permanently should have been a major topic of daily discussion for weeks now! That Rey hadn't been talking about it was concerning. Was he keeping secrets now? It seemed absurd... no one was closer to him than Rey! Rey knew everything, and was a total supporter of everything Durandel was planning on doing. He was his foster son, for crying out loud! What had Noah done to him? Drugs? Hypnotism? Something. "Are you sure you're feeling all right, Rey? Is there anything else you can think of, anything at all, that didn't seem important until recently?"

"Umm... ye... no... ummm." Rey looked conflicted, and sick to his stomach again. "I don't know?"

"Don't stress yourself out about it." Durandel cautioned. "You can't afford distractions before a battle." He resolved to have a very long talk with Rey as soon as the battle was over though, in a hospital, hooked up to a brainwave and heartrate monitor system. Something was wrong with Rey. Noah had done something to influence his mind, somehow without leaving any marks or other tell tale traces. Durandel wondered what had changed that was allowing this conditioning to fray enough for Rey to start fighting it, as this sudden admittance of taking special medicine had to be. Rey knew that such a sudden admission would spark confusion and cautious inquisition from Gil. Truly, Rey was a trooper! He didn't even know what was wrong with himself, or even that something was, and he was still doing his all to remain loyal to Durandel! He felt a strong surge of affection for his foster son. His son. Foster was no longer really an appropriate term. "I should really be going. Good luck, Rey. I'm looking forward to seeing you in person."

"Me too. Hang on Gil. The cavalry is coming." Rey promised.

------------------------------------

"You are NOT going!" Kira's voice, raised into an emphatic shout, momentarily brought all eyes in the hanger mandible of the Archangel towards his location. Before everyone not immediately involved in the conversation , or an otherwise vital task, got the hell out of dodge, not wanting to be around for the confrontation they all saw brewing. "It is far too soon! You should be resting and recuperating!"

"You CAN'T tell me what I will or will not do! Fuck resting, fuck recuperating... THIS is the cathartic release that I need!" Cagalli retorted hotly, her voice equally loud, tapping her hand firmly on the Dawn Goddess's armored leg. "I'm not a little girl or a helpless child! I can handle myself just fine! I'm feeling great, really. Or I was until you started being a jackass!"

"You should be in bed! You were assaulted by enemy soldiers and tortured! That's not something people just shrug off! Not you! Not Athrun! Not even me!" Kira snapped back. "I admit, I probably should still be resting too, but plain facts are, I heal faster than you, and I didn't get injected with a concentrated dose of one of the most addictive drugs around! What if you suffer a depression attack in battle? You could die!"

"I could die whether or not I was in a Gundam, if I really do have one of these "depression attacks" people keep on assuming I will have! Which is far from certain... no one knows for sure how this drug will affect me. Yes, it makes me cry a lot! Yes, I sometimes just want to curl up in a ball and lie there for the rest of eternity! But I know that's NOT me! I don't let those impulses control me! Frankly, I have more problems with depression because of what you people do "in order to protect me" than I would if you just left me the hell alone! Where the hell do you get off telling me what's a good idea and what isn't anyway, Mr. I'm gonna take the Pulsar despite what Lacus says!?"

"I made a mistake! So are you!" Kira answered firmly. "You're not just putting your own life in danger, you're risking the rest of us as well! If you have a problem, we're going to have to save you!"

"Oh, so I'm a BURDEN now, is it!? I see! Well thank you for THAT opinion, jerkoff! I'm sometimes pretty sure YOU'RE a burden too, but at least I don't act self-righteous about it! I... CAN... HANDLE... MYSELF! WHY CAN'T YOU GET THAT!?" Cagalli snarled, her nose mere inches from his.

"Because you're my sister and the only blood family I have! I'm worried about you! Is that so hard to believe!?" Kira yelled back. He forced himself to keep his hands at his sides, fists clenched, no matter how badly he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake some sense into her. God, but she was so pig-headed!

"Your worry is STIFLING me! You're my only sibling too, ya know... I'm just as worried about you, if not more so because YOU take risks I NEVER would try! I am GOING with you, and I AM launching into battle. That is FINAL! There is nothing you can say to me that will change my mind about that! If you can't stand that idea so much, you're welcome to stay behind, but the Archangel flies under MY discretion, not yours! Make up your mind quickly though, because we need to leave soon!" Cagalli's hands were likewise clenched into fists, and it was a real struggle for her to not reach out and slap some sense into him!

"Athrun, please help me talk some sense into her!" Kira pleaded, turning to look beseechingly at his friend.

"Athrun, you know how I feel... tell Kira he's being stupid about this!" Cagalli exhorted, at almost the same time.

"I... am not taking sides in this matter." Athrun replied calmly, staring off at a point above both their heads. "This is something you need to work out as brother and sister."

"How can you be so calm? Aren't you worried about what might happen to her?" Kira protested. Athrun shot him a level look.

"THAT is a stupid question Kira, so I'll forget you asked it."

"I'm not asking you not to worry! Just don't try and run my life for me! I'll ask you for help when I need it... but forcing your help on me when I don't ask for it... you might as well be Gilbert Durandel!" Cagalli said harshly.

"I'm not trying to run your life for you!" Kira gritted out. "I'm just trying to keep you from hurting yourself any worse than you already are! Speaking of help though, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM!? Lacus and Katie went way over the bounds of selflessness to offer you their solution to this problem, and you just spat in their faces! How could you do something like that? They're your friends! They love you like a sister! Is trusting them so hard?"

"Trusting them is NOT the problem! Of course I trust them, with my life, with my future, with your life and your future, even with Orb's future! But their solution is UNACCEPTABLE to me!"

"WHY!? It would be so easy!"

"EXACTLY!"

"Then why are you against it!? Why do things the hard way!? It's not like you CHOSE to take this drug! If it was by your free will, then yes, you can solve it however the fuck you want... but this was a torture inflicted upon you! Why would not pursue every available means of curing yourself as quickly as possible!? People are counting on you, Cagalli! Orb needs you! It is insanely selfish of you to place your own pride in being able to defeat this drug alone ahead of the needs of the people who love you and the people of your nation!" Kira was practically crying from frustration. He just couldn't understand! Was it the drug making her so willfully stupid?

"Why should I force myself to take one drug to alleviate the effects of another? How is that any sort of solution? It's easy! It'll probably work... but how the hell will it serve me, or you, or Orb, later on down the line?" Cagalli retorted. "This has NOTHING to do with my pride! I have precious little pride left, and less every day you people who profess to love and worry about me so much take away my freedoms and my ability to act as I deem necessary! You think I'm doing this solo because I think its the best way for me!? I would LEAP at the chance to magic away this problem, no matter how distasteful I personally find it! But for Orb's sake, I can't let myself do that!. If it was just me, and I never wanted to go back to being a political leader, I'd accept their proposal. But if I ever want to be Chief Representative again, I just can't."

"What do you mean?" Kira asked, dumbfounded.

"I mean that if I let Katie and Lacus work their mind tricks on me, I'm sure they could cure me of my addiction problem. Make me forget I ever had one! But running and turning my face away from unpleasant things is NOT what Orb needs in a national leader! It would compromise me in the minds of the people, and in the minds of the world! World wide, most politicians hate me for my ideals and my policies! But they respect me for my strength of will and character! If I take the easy way out, and let Lacus and Katie cure me, if I take even a fractional bit of help from sources the rest of the world cannot understand, then their respect of me will turn into suspicion and more hatred! Not only that, but it will be directed towards Lacus and Katie as well! Every unpopular action I take will spring from them, manipulating my mind, or at least that's how people will see it! I will have lost all autonomy in their eyes, even though that is the farthest thing from the truth! This is a test, and it has multiple right answers... but if I don't choose the one thats the rightest, I still fail in the long run! And the rightest action in this case is for me to go it alone, conquer this myself and throw it in everyone's faces! Cheating on tests does not help you in the end, and that's what Lacus and Katie are... a cheat!"

"Well, we don't have to make it a public spectacle!" Kira protested. "How would they even know?"

"They wouldn't! I would! You want me to decieve my own people!? You want me to lie to them? You think nobody is going to think it's strange that I recovered from a Spiffy addiction in a week? The drug's not even out of my system yet, how could I be recovered? Remember what happened last time I kept something from my people? The world fought a major war! Even if it never gets discovered throughout my entire life, eventually, someone is going to figure it out! And then every action I have taken from the point I let Lacus and Katie influence my mind will be instantly suspect in the eyes of the world! Everything I will have accomplished, everything Orb will have gained under my reign, will be irrecoverably tarnished! Is that what you want? Is that what Orb wants? I thought Orb didn't take the easy route, because they knew the hard route was better for us in the end! The easy route would have been surrendering to the EA! Or the Isolation! Or ignoring our entreaties on Purgatory Day! That would have been easy! But it would also have been wrong!"

"You can't know that it will happen like that! We can explain what we're doing. It's about time the world confronted the reality of Newtypes!" Kira answered quietly.

"Do you want to start another war, Kira? You're going to tell people Lacus Clyne has psychic powers that allow her to influence other people's actions, even control their bodies, make them like her, whatever... and you expect that NOT to cause a problem? She's the greatest peacemaker of modern times... but if people think that's because she FORCED them into peace with her mind, even though we know its not the truth... EVERYTHING will go to pieces! Lacus is the ONE person we can NEVER let admit she's a Newtype! And that's not even going into the witch hunt that Newtypes would suffer under... what happened to Coordinators will seem like a peaceful protest! Backlash against people with the ability to violate the most private parts of a person's mind and soul? They'll burn you at the stake! Even you and Ysak, even though you don't have any ability to use powers by yourself! You're still "psychic"! You're still different! You're still weird!"

"I'm still me. Being a Newtype is part of who I am. Should I be forced to hide that from the world just to save their feelings? Should Lacus?" Kira retorted coldly. "I'm sorry you think I'm weird, but GET OVER IT ALREADY!"

"I'M TRYING!" Cagalli insisted. "And if even I, your own twin sister, am still having trouble crossing the gap that you being a Newtype forces between us... how is the rest of the world going to handle it? At best they'll do to you what they did to Katie and her sister, and lock you up like a lab animal for the rest of your life, and Lacus too! And Katie, and Ysak and who knows how many other peaceful, happy people out there, some of whom might not even know that they're Newtypes! At worst, it'll be stakes and torches, the Spanish Inquisition all over again, and who knows how many thousands of innocent people who are just slightly "different" will get killed because people are afraid they're psychics!?"

"What do you think, Athrun?" Kira asked, turning away from her slightly. "Do I scare you because I have pyschic potential? Does Lacus? Do you like me less nowadays, when you know that I'm a Latent Newtype, versus those times when you did not?"

"That's not a very fair question." Athrun said slowly. "To me or to Cagalli. We don't care for you any less than we ever have, Kira. But I can't deny that this Newtype thing... it's like a line on the ground, and I can't cross it, no matter how much I want to. It's not a line you put there of your own will, but its still there. Does that bother me? Yes, a little. I'm afraid FOR you, not of you. It seems like such a burden, I wish I could help, like I do for Cagalli. But I can't. I don't have the ability. This Newtype thing, if nothing else, is something I will never fully understand about you, and given that it's a fundamental part of your life... is it wrong for me to be concerned? If it is, then, yes, I am wrong, and I will STAY wrong."

"It's like he said... its a fundamental part of your life now, Kira. But its not part of ours in the slightest." Cagalli looked at him, eyes pleading for him to understand. "It makes me sad to say it this way, but its like Naturals and Coordinators. You are right, people are not defined by abilities alone. But to deny that there is a palapable difference between Newtypes and non-Newtpes, or Naturals and Coordinators, at least on a general level... that's not right. There IS a difference! Some people are going to hate that difference. Some people it won't matter so much to. To others, like me anyway, it'll make them uncomfortable. I don't know why it gives me the chills... why does Athrun fear rodents? Its completely illogical! But he can't help it, and no matter how tight a lid he keeps on it, the sight of a rodent still bugs him! Even Zim! I guess I'm just psychic-phobic, and being around them, even you and Lacus, still bugs me on some level! And I don't think I'm anywhere close to alone in this fear!"

"What are we supposed to do about it then?" Kira said miserably, his face turning in on itself. "I can't help but be pyschic. You can't help but be psychic-phobic. Do we just... let it sit like this? With you being uncomfortable around me and Lacus, for the rest of our lives? Do I just have to live with there always being some slight reservation between us?"

"Don't put words in my mouth! I'm not saying we should just give up. I'm going to be trying my damndest to get over this flaw in me! You're my brother, my only brother, and I love you as much as I love life itself, Kira! Lacus may as well be my sister! I will do whatever I can to bend over backwards to accomodate you both, its the very least I can do! But you were asking me why I didn't accept help, and I'm trying to show you... because unlike you and Lacus, I can't just show you my mind, nor would I want to! To be entirely honest, the sharing of private thoughts and memories between two or more people, no matter how intimate... I think that's wrong and scary and obscene, though I hate to use such a strong word. I would not want to share some memories with Athrun, and he, I'm sure, has some he would not want me knowing about, and that's all right. Knowing his mind absolutely would be... frightening. Some truths aren't meant for anyone but yourself."

"Its not like that..." Kira sighed in exasperation.

"So you say, but to us, that's how it appears, Kira! And we can't learn any better, other than to take your word for it, which we do. But... aggrh... look... I really didn't want to say this, its one of those things I personally think is better off left completely unsaid, but you're not giving me much choice! I just can't fully believe you about the depth of your connection to Lacus, and what it really is, or is not like! I want to believe that its like you say, and there are parts of your mind she can't go, and parts of hers likewise forbidden to you. But deep down inside, I just don't think thats really the truth, whether or not you want it to be, I'm sorry. Because I don't have a connection like that! A blind person has to accept it when someone tells them an object is a certain color, but there's always that nagging doubt that maybe they're playing a trick on you... or maybe they're wrong, or maybe they're not being truthful, for a variety of reasons... including because they care about you and want to spare you duress, which is RIGHT up your alley, Kira!"

"So what I am I supposed to do?" Kira demanded. "What are Lacus and I supposed to do?"

"I DON'T KNOW! I don't have any answers Kira! Not to this! I can't tell you what to do, nor do I want to! Just don't tell ME what to do, okay? Don't act like you know what is best for me, please! I am begging you... please... trust me, or at least trust me enough, whatever your private doubts about my ability to handle myself are!"

"But if I trust you and you die, what I am I supposed to do then?"

"Deal with it! Live on! Remember me fondly and with pride! The same as I would do for you, after losing half my heart! The hardest battle is to keep on living, Kira, despite tragedies life throws in your way. I don't want to die. I don't want you to die. But it does end up happening sooner or later... neither of us should do ourselves or the rest of the world the disservice of just giving in to despair and fatalism, or even worse in some ways, over-protectiveness! Death is a part of life! Trying to deny its existence is futile and stupid, and so is blaming it on yourself! If I die, it will be because my choices in life led me to that point, and while I may have regrets, it would still be, at the end, my responsibility for living the life I did until that point! Do NOT try and take that responsibility away from me! That would be evil! And you are the furthest thing from evil!" Cagalli threw her arms around Kira and hugged him tight, tears flowing unashamedly from her eyes. "Goddamn, I hate you and love you so much at the same time, little brother! You're so aggravating, but life wouldn't be the same without you like this!"

Kira hugged her back, feeling his own eyes get somewhat moist. "I'm sorry... I didn't realize... no... there's no need to apologize, is there? Neither of us has done anything wrong. I love you too, little sister. Forever and ever, no matter where we end up..."

"Amen to that." Athrun whispered, fighting back his own case of less than dry eyes, as the Archangel started to life off, headed for space and the confrontations ahead.

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Author Note: Definitely some good reactions to Cagalli's decision, which is also addressed above. Maybe now her decision will make more sense. Or maybe not. Everyone has their own opinion, after all, and I'd be delighted to hear them. Do bear in mind though, that regardless of how her decisions play into Durandel's or Noah's hands, Cagalli can't know that. She's acting as she thinks best, with the information she has. Who can say, besides me, since I'm the author, what she would do if she knew what Noah and Durandel were up to, but I decline to, because there's no reason for her to know yet, or even, fully, ever. Also glad to see people like Jiro. I've had enough bad replacement political people in my stories, and throughout GS and GSD, so I thought putting in someone who's actually not such a bad guy, if quirky, might be very interesting. Cagalli's a great ruler, but that doesn't mean she's necessarily the ONLY person who's good for Orb. Lacus could never do it, since she's not part of the Royal familes, though she'd be good otherwise. Kira has none of the skills needed, though he could learn them, but it just doesn't fit his character well. Athrun's also an outsider, even if he is Royal Consort.

What will Meyrin think of Noah's great plan? Well that is a very good question, that the story will eventually answer.


	34. Pulling Weeds part 4

Author Note: Well, I'm glad to see so many differing opinions on Cagalli's condition, and her handling of it. Exciting that kind of thought is truly what I strive for when I create situations like that. As to whether or not she's handling it right, or being stupid? Well, sometimes even the best of people are stupid, though in their mind its the only proper way to do things. Best thing about people... we're all different, and we can all get to similar places through wildly different paths. Its not that she doesn't want help... she just doesn't want NEWTYPE help. I'm also glad to see many differences of opinion on whether or not Newtypes would be faced with prejudice should they become public knowledge. I am personally of the opinion they would be, but maybe I have less faith in humanity than some (and more faith in thousands of years of religious/ethnic intolerance and war).

You do have some point, Rihaku, about that death camps thing. I was thinking more along the lines of Gitmo though... you're totally right about laziness, but that laziness would also stop people from protesting too much if other governments did declare Newtypes non gratis and treated them like lab animals. People would protest, but nothing, by and large, would come of it besides news stories now and again. I suppose all the comments about how people weren't expecting Noah and Gil to go head to head so soon, or this early on, is another form of tribute I should thank you all for very much. Is it really early on, almost five hundred thousand words into the story, or all you all just that drawn in that it seems that way? We're just about at the right point to really start shaking things up, in my opinion.

Peopleballs always was a Cray thing, something he did to piss off Kira and ZAFT during that Battle of Carpentaria called "The Australian Maneuver". Well, not just to piss them off, but he certainly achieved that side effect. I'm not sure birthdays was an intentional theme, just that the BCPU's don't really have such knowledge of themselves, and so they tend to think of any sort of special treat or privilege as a birthday like occasion. I swear, you guys are going to make me the most OC rich writer around, falling in mild love with every new throwaway character I happen to create. Haman Al'Jib of the ALU. What the heck next is it going to be? Though as an interesting side note, Zacharis Frost started the exact same way, as a throwaway villian, and look where HE ended up. Increased spatial awareness... not really an Active trait, and I've mostly been focused on Actives so far. Thanks for reminding me though. There is almost no such thing as overkill when it comes to Cray and Gundams. That's his purpose, overkill, the sheer insanity of one person being in control of that much firepower. He's everything Durandel hates about Gundams.

Noah likes animals because, even in quantity, their thoughts are "simple" or "quiet", without all the subtle shadings of emotion and complexities of thoughts that human minds contain. Its the processing power that is the problem... the higher the processing power, the more its like a revving chainsaw in the back of his mind. He would probably hate being around truly smart and mentally agitated people, or schemers like Durandel, more than he would a more honest, "simple" person like Dearka or especially Kira, even if he wasn't a Newtype. Damn, you're right about Harbinger and Harbringer. Thats my mistake, not Noah's. The Archangel is seven years old. For a Naval ship, that's still brand new, let me assure you. Most of the ships in the US Navy, the most advanced in the world, are 15-20 years old, by frame of reference. The technology rate in the Cosmic Era is a bit faster than in real life of course, but even so, the Archangel was ahead of its time when produced, and is still far from dated. Citadel Shields are something like the ones from Star Wars and such, and they've already been put into projector emitters on the Gundams, so I wouldn't say seeing such defensive technology on Warships is too far off.

---------------------------------

"Holy... God..." Eric commented, staring at the tactical display map for the Galileo LFB area. They were still too far away from the area to see more than occasional light flashes from powerful explosions or weapons fire, but that in itself was saying something about the sort of battle taking place! "Twenty percent losses all around, already!? It's only been a few hours!"

"We've been getting off lightly." Knight-Commander ze Burrel cut in over the all hands channel, having been tuned into Second Platoon's platoon wide channel. "The enemy has not been pressing us very hard, thats why our losses have been so minimal. The downside is, we have not yet managed to inflict any substantial damage of note on him either."

"Twenty percent all around losses is MINIMAL!?" Lain protested. "That's catastrophic losses! There's just one of him!"

"There only needs to be one." Rey replied coolly. "You've reviewed the sensor scans we were transmitted of its armaments? I stand by the statement that twenty percent casualties is minor... we're probably going to be closer to forty percent before this is over."

"Where the hell was the Brotherhood hiding this thing? Why the hell were they hiding this thing? If you have a Gundam this powerful, why save it?" Luna questioned, looking over the projected technical specs again, with awe and envy. "I thought they were all about ending the world... why not just deploy everything they have behind this monster, and march around destroying things until they either do what they hope to do or we stop them?"

"Their aim is to re-create, not destroy, the world." Rey answered. "To us the difference is slight, but to them it is apparently big enough that they would act irrationally, like you pointed out, Knight-Ensign."

"I must be blind, but I don't see what that thing is designed to re-create, other than holocausts and genocide!" Shinn snarled fiercely. He could not wait to get to grips with this new enemy! "So what's the plan of attack? Surround and envelope? Target the weapons as weak points?"

"You're getting a bit ahead of yourself, Knight-Ensign Asuka." The Second Platoon's Knight-Lieutenant reprimanded sharply, stressing the rank, already rubbing the bridge of his nose to alleviate an oncoming headache, anticipating the clash of wills between him and Shinn. "We are still deciding on a workable strategy. It's not just us out here at Galileo, remember. The ALU, FNE, ZAFT and even Orb all have forces in the area we have to take into account and coordinate with."

"Their target is likely to be the shipyards and the command bunkers, where the SecDef is sheltering along with most of the USN high command." Rey said. "We will deploy Second Platoon directly between the enemy Gundam and the command bunker, while First and Third Platoons will pincer in from the flanks and catch it in a three way crossfire."

"Sir, we shouldn't be discussing battle strategy on an all hands channel." Second Platoon's Knight-Lieutenant said to Rey, on a private channel. "It's not good for..."

"It's perfectly fine for morale. Our options are limited, and I will not hide that from a single person." Rey replied on the same private channel. "We know his goals, and we know what we have to do to stop him. Really, what tricky maneuver would you recommend we employ against something with that level of direct firepower? He outranges us and far outpowers us, yet we still have no choice but to engage him head on and hope for the best, because otherwise we will lose the shipyards and the high command."

Rey switched back to the all hands channel. "Second Platoon will be responsible for ensuring the safety of the SecDef and other top commanders, while First and Third Platoons concentrate on engaging and slowing or stopping the enemy. If we can pin him down and keep him where we want him, we can focus fire with our allies and take him down in relatively short order. If we cannot keep him contained, he will slaughter mercilessly until there is no one left to oppose him."

"How the hell do we "pin down" something that outweighs our entire unit, and outguns it too!?" Eric muttered, forgetting they were on an open comm.

"That's why we're Solar Knights. You didn't honestly think this unit was just a way to get famous, now did you?" Rey admonished. "I'm not saying its going to be easy. It won't be. Some of us may lose our lives in the process. But its our duty to protect people, and that currently means stopping him!"

"Yes, sir!" Eric replied fervently. He looked behind them, where the CIC and EWS ships were holding station at extreme range, and beyond them, to where the first ships from the ALU and FNE were headed in after them, bearing Haman Al'Jib and Stella, plus her unpleasant friends Sting and Auel. He'd thought the Panzerwulf's were over the top in terms of size and firepower... they were still nothing but big kids compared to this Brotherhood Gundam! He really wished Ashino and the Independence were here, though even then that wouldn't be more than a morale boost, in terms of comparative firepower!

"Any word on action from Orb?" Lain asked eagerly.

Rey took a few moments to consider before replying. Well, it wasn't something that they would be able to keep secret for long anyway. "Yes. Orb is sending the Archangel, and all five of its Gundams. They will be here in about an hour." He listened to the sighs and exclaimations of relief, and frowned.

"All right! We only have to hold out for an hour!" One voice cried, as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Then we'll be on easy street!"

"Forget that kind of thinking!" Rey snapped angrily. "Their aid is appreciated, there is no doubt of that. But it is OUR responsibility to defeat this threat, and they are working FOR us, as subordinates in this battle! If all goes according to plan, and we all give our best efforts, they can show up just in time to buy you all drinks! Relying on Orb's Gundams to do the brunt of our work is counter to everything the Solar Knights were established to do! I will not allow us to consider them our saviors. The Solar Knights ARE the saviors of the USN. YOU are the saviors of the USN! If they want to help out, we won't turn them down, but this is OUR show, and we are the stars! They are just supporting characters!"

"I think it would be a great honor to fight on the same side of the battlefield as Athrun Zala and Kira Yamato and Ysak Joule and Dearka Elsman and the other members of the Clyne Faction..." Shinn said, grinning wolfishly. "... but if we defeat this Brotherhood titan first, its going to be THEM wishing they could be on the same battlefield as us! How many people want to be able to have Athrun Zala come up to you and ask you how you helped defeat this monster, shaking his head in admiration? That's gonna be ME!"

"Hell, just getting Kira Yamato to shake my hand and tell me I've done good is enough for me, but if he wants a few pointers along the way... I won't turn him down!" Lain chuckled wildly.

"They're just people, like us." Luna added confidently. "We saved the Warmaster at LAS, don't forget. The Clyne Faction is filled with incredible people... but so is the Solar Knights! Its US that the Brotherhood runs in fear from! We've hurt them worse than anyone else! Once we take down this big bastard, they'll probably never dare to show us their faces again! They can't possibly have anything tougher than this thing! This is their big bad boss, and we're going to make him our bitch!"

Rey was glad of the rousing support, which was getting the Solar Knights back on track for what Gil needed them to be... but he hated having to keep quiet, knowing as he did that for all its power, the Revenant was still just second string in the Brotherhood's Gundam heirarchy. For that matter there was still the Great Endeavor itself to consider. Noah's own ark. Even if they took out the Revenant... and Rey definitely intended to do just that... the Brotherhood still had at least two more aces in the hole. He just wished he could have told Gil, but every time he tried, he would lose track of his thoughts and forget what he was trying to say! It was intensely frustrating, and it frequently made him sick to his stomach. There were things about Noah's plans that Rey knew, and knew that Gil would love to know about, even needed to know about, but he just couldn't betray Noah's trust! It wouldn't be... something. He was just so confused! Noah was his friend, but Gil was his father! Why couldn't he tell him what he needed to know!?

"I will be attached to Second Platoon." Rey decided, placing himself as a matter of course directly between Gil and Cray. This was just supposed to be a showcase attack, but one could never tell with the deranged BCPU what exactly he would do, especially when he realized the Solar Knights were playing for keeps. "The FNE and ALU will come in from the left flank behind First Platoon. Orb and ZAFT will reinforce Third Platoon from the right flank. All available extra USN forces will back up Second Platoon from the front!" Rey directed, making sure to back up his most inexperienced troops with the Orb Gundams and ZAFT Primals, which would help greatly alleviate the strain on the still green troops, and hopefully keep casualties to a bare minimum as well. Giving new troops a punishing defeat for their first major combat was a sure recipe for morale problems later, regardless of the overall tone of the recent speeches! Now hopefully Noah hadn't added any new surprises to the Revenant...

-----------------------------------------

"God, I feel like such a fruit..." Cray complained, loafing the Revenant along at barely a fifth its maximum ground speed. "Why don't I just put on a fucking Barney suit and hug them all to death!? It'd be faster, at this rate! I thought these Solar Knights were supposed to be a reaction force... why the fuck haven't they reacted yet!? I don't know how much more of this little-league shit I can stomach!" Cray continued to grouse, whipping his left arm around and snapping off a quick barrage of Gottfried blasts that immolated several 250 meter Nelson class warships trying to launch from underground silo's about a half kilometer away, blasting them to flaming wreckage and blocking off those harbor exits with the remains. "Sooo fragile! I could kiss some of these bastards to death!"

Beam and hyper-impulse blasts splashed against his lower right side and right forearm, and an idle flick of Cray's mind oriented the two triple 175cm Linear Cannon turrets on that arm and hip on the sources of the attacks and fired a pair of volleys each, sending moonrock and metal flying in tiny pieces in every direction like slow motion fireworks on a colossal scale. Those were about six Champions that wouldn't be bothering him again... even with Phase Shift armor, the Linear Cannon rounds were so huge they ripped limbs apart just from kinetic impact, and scattered the pieces when the shells exploded. To his right flank, dozens of underequipped ALU Mobile Suits were in full retreat, popping ill aimed covering fire over their shoulders or else scrambled in full reverse motion, the old, purchased and neutered ZAFT machines unable to even begin to harm the Revenant from range, and unable to survive the close range weapon barrage long enough to do any damage there either.

To his left flank, Orb M-4's formed a stanchion of overlapping Citadel Shield effects as they sniped at him using a few fellows in tank mode to bring out their most powerful weapons, inching forward after him to keep him in range, never breaking ranks or formation long enough for his occasional burst of Gottfried blasts to overwhelm an individual shield or do more than force them all to cower and reel before regaining their composure and pressing on. Sometime soon he was going to give them a taste of his number one arm, and even their Citadel Shields wouldn't matter a snowflakes chance in hell against the Radiation Cannon, but for the moment he was content to let them think they were accomplishing something. They had burn scarred his head somewhat, and the backside of his skin was missing a blown out Citadel Scale here and there, self repair systems working stoically to repair what minor damage had rendered them inoperable. Less than gnat bites, in the big picture.

Of somewhat more concern was the FNE off to his left front, who had managed to muster a pair of Archmage mobile support bases and attendant Cataphract artillery support Mobile Suits, plus a plentiful corps of Cavaliers, who were raining hyper-impulse blasts, artillery shells and dense high energy beam bolts at him in an admirable destructive frenzy that pulped and shattered the ground around him to dust and rubble, though the Revenant shrugged off even the most direct of hits like they were spitwads fired at an armored knight. He was keeping an eye on the Archmages in particular, since each had a 150cm Positron cannon on its central turret, and those were probably the only weapons currently on the battlefield that had any chance of actually inflicting damage upon him. No doubt the FNE and maybe the USN were also trying to set up some FRALA teams as well, but so far he'd seen none of them in line of sight just yet, obviously worried that they would be summarily destroyed as soon as they tried to line up a shot, which was true. He wasn't stupid... he knew what could hurt him, and he wasn't about to let them!

ZAFT Elementals circled to his right front, trying to take out or distract his right arm, along with some desultory USN Champions, and a few Grendels gambooled back and forth awkwardly to the direct front, giant mechanical gorilla's in space, firing their own heavy artillery hyper-impulse cannons with abandon and accuracy, but his front half was almost impenetrable to lesser weapons such as normal Mobile Suits carried. So far Cray had been content to confine himself to a few uncharacteristically rapid response actions, maintaining the impression that the Revenant was little more than a stiff legged juggernaut with supreme firepower and defenses, but no maneuverability or speed to speak of. Let them think they could surround and duck and dodge around him... he had a very fun surprise planned just as soon as... THERE! FUCKING FINALLY! Forty eight new icons, IFF tagged as the fucking Solar Knights, coming in at maximum burn, eager to save the day and drink champagne afterwards, coming right at him like they were totally hot shit or something, almost like they expected him to step aside, drop to his knees or just turn tail and run!

Cray tuned his comm to broadcast to all commonly used channels of his foes and laughed, long and hard, the Revenant putting its arms at its sides and arching its back as he threw back his head and howled his amusement into the depths of space. He just wished he could see their faces... oh well, his imagination could provide a few pictures. "Can you all appreciate how LONG I've waited for this!? Can you!? I think you can't! Not yet! Not just yet! Come, Knights... come and try to slay this dragon, this hellish Revenant from beyond the grave! Come to me so I can crack open your shells and feast on the terror and pain I release from inside you! Bring me back to life with your deaths! Remind me what it's like to LIVE by DYING horribly at my hands!" Cray challenged lovingly, spreading his arms and beckoning them all closer gleefully. "And you, Mr. Durandel, whomever you are, wherever you are... once I show these ants the true meaning of destruction, I'll come and introduce it to you as well! Hide! Run! Cower in terror! It's all the same to me..."

One of the Archmages thought to use his apparent grandstanding as an opportunity to waste him with its 150cm positron cannon, not realizing that despite his tomfoolery, Cray was still perfectly in control of the Revenant and fully aware of his surroundings. The incandescant stream of anti-particles speared for the Revenant's chest, and Cray pirouretted to the side, spinning the Revenant lightly around on just one leg, kicking out in a flawless side kick that hit nothing but surely gave everyone who could see it pause, witnessing the gargantuan Revenant practically dancing like a martial arts exhibitionist. The anti-particle beam flared off into the nothingness of space and Cray brought his kicking leg down in a stomp that shook the lunarscape for two hundred meters in all directions around him, cracking the rock and making the rubble jolt upwards in a slow motion shockwave. He then threw himself through the void in a mighty forward leap, right towards the FNE formations, anti-ship chain uncurling from around his right arm, hundreds of bright yellow beam blades flaring into existence along the eighty meter length of armored links, poking up at all angles to gird the chain in a skin of plasmatic thorns.

Cray whirled the chain around his head twice like a flail in midair to build momentum, keeping his right arm cocked back and circling to keep the chain whirling as he started to descend towards the scattering FNE units, most not even pausing to fire as they struggled to get out from under the insanely agile monster falling down upon them. Cray swept his left arm around, fat green beams hammering in a constant stream from the gatling Gottfried to disintegrate limbs and whole torsos of Cavaliers in the back rows of the formation, before the thirty meter long axe blades crunched through eight Cavalier's in line abreast in the front rank, the force of impact tearing their Citadel Shields from their hands and cleaving through their bodies with barely a reduction in momentum. Using the swing of his left arm to bring the right arm around even harder, Cray adjusted his bearing slightly to let the second Archmage's positron blast pass harmlessly under his left armpit, sparks cascading pyrotechnically from the near miss against his Citadel Scales, giving him a ticklish sensation along his phantom limb.

Cray's toes touched down and the right arm whipped towards and past one of the Archmages, followed with a slight lag by the beam spiked chain, which massed upwards of three hundred tons by itself, with almost six thousand tons more of spinning mass behind it, and the momentum from the spin and whirling. The chain swept aside two Cataphracts like they were game balls, hurling the wreckage of the centuaroid Mobile Suits for three kilometers in the light gravity, before the chain struck the side of the Archmage and caved it inwards, before the thirty meter square, twenty five meter tall boxy mobile base flipped up on one side, both treads leaving the ground as it too was sent flying, though only a few dozen meters, landing on its opposite side before overbalancing and crumpling down on its top, treads grinding uselessly at the void, before internal detonations ripped it and the surrounding twenty meters of moonscape into dust, further disrupting the FNE formations. The second Archmage, seeing the incredible fate of its brother, reversed course and started to roll backwards towards its hanger bay, unmanned by the Revenant's brute power and grace.

Cray bounced once, twice and then kicked off in another jump, maintaining his forward momentum and even adding to it with judicious bursts from his thrusters, keeping the left arm slicing around, axe blades annihilating anything that got within reach, and Gottfried blasts ravaging anything who was unlucky enough to be in their line of fire. A flick of his right arm disengaged the beam spikes and re-wrapped the chain dextrously around his arm, once more freeing the Radiation Cannon for unrestricted use. His close range gatling beam and shell cannons went to work on the disarrayed Cataphracts, jostling them and knocking them around before collapsing, filled with gently steaming holes like maggot infested bread fresh from the oven. He came down with both feet on top of the second Archmage, crushing it like a balsa wood box beneath his mass, fire and debris pluming around him, licking harmlessly at his legs. Casually, Cray pointed his right arm back the way he'd come and fired the 550cm Radiation Cannon.

Furiously trying to backpedal out of the way of the disconcertingly rapid motion, the ZAFT Elementals, USN Champions and Orb M-4's that had been hotly racing to take advantage of his turned back entered frantic evasive maneuvers, so frantic in fact that several Mobile Suits from various factions actually collided with friends and allies in their panic. Many, especially those not pressed in on all sides by allied formations, managed to escape the close range snap shot. Many more, the greater part, likely more than sixty percent of the forces in question, were less fortunate, and simply could not get out of the sweeping barrage of hard radiation fast enough. Some pilots just burst like gory bags of meat put into a microwave for too long. Others had their machines melt around them as their own bodies charred from the inside out. Others still just saw a blinding flash of light and then nothing, dying before they even realized they were dead. Elementals, Champions and M-4's rained from the skies, whole and in pieces, charred, melted and twisted by the infernal heat of the Radiation blast. A huge gap had been ripped through the middle of the battlefield, and everyone seemed to pause to gasp in stunned horror at the magnitude of the carnage.

Everyone but Cray of course, who turned around, grinding the ruins of the Archmage further into the rock beneath him and oriented on the still fleeing ALU forces, who had stopped to witness the evisceration of their allied forces, thinking themselves safer at comparatively long range. Four large missiles from each of Cray's shoulder missile launchers, plus overlapping volleys from the four triple 175cm Linear Cannon turrets showed them the folly of THAT thought quickly enough! Flames mushroomed towards the infinite starry sky and dust clouds rose in a huge plume as the Linear Cannon shells struck, and then the missiles reached their target locations and burst open, showering the already blast cratered ground with hundreds of submunitions the size of human heads. The ground in a three hundred meter square patch of lunarscape vanished under a carpet of flame and ruin, as the cluster submunitions reduced everything within their area of effect to ash and scorched splinters of metal and plastic. Atmosphere vented in icy or fiery streamers from underground structures ruptured by the bombardment, and several buildings on the periphery of the devastation collapsed, their interior supports not being able to cope with that much vibration in the bedrock.

Spurred on by the tide of destruction suddenly being unleashed, the icons representing the Solar Knights closed past extreme long range and began to split up into three distinct formations of sixteen Mobile Suits each. One such formation moved between him and the shipyard part of the base, while the other two maneuvered around to his flanks, moving with exaggerated caution now that they'd seen the speed and unexpected agility of the Revenant. Well, Cray had news for them... they still hadn't seen nothing yet! He was barely even getting warmed up! He wasn't even MAD yet! He spread his arms in challenge again and stomped towards the shipyards and control bunkers of the base, knowing it would force the Solar Knights, and the other remaining forces, to take action against him, unless they were willing to let the infantile Solar Protection Fleet, and most of their senior officers, be wiped out without a fight. Well, Cray supposed stranger things had happened... but they usually tended to be stranger in ways that were not advantagous to him. "What!? Did I piss you off!? Ya gonna do something about it!? Come on, ya pussies. Let's see what ya got! Stop me! Come on, fucking stop me! I dare you!"

They sniped at him from long range, doing their best to stay out of the firing arcs of his left and right arms as much as possible. Cray knew that his right arm would need to cool for at least another forty seconds before it was ready to fire again, but THEY didn't know that, now did they? He pointed the arm in question directly at the platoon between him and the shipyard and continued to walk forward, slowing to a more unhurried pace. He smiled, because they didn't even flinch, though they did cover behind their shields, little good though that would have done them! So they had some balls after all, did they? "BANG! You're dead!" Cray announced, mimicking a shooting motion with the right arm, before lowering it again. He chuckled uncontrollably, amused beyond measure by the whole situation. Once more, people thought HE was insane... and yet they were just standing there in his path as he rampaged towards them? How was THAT not insane? "Aww... ya didn't fall down. If you're not gonna play the game by the rules... I'm gonna have to punish you!" Cray announced gleefully, locking the right arm and hip Linear cannon turrets onto their stoic position.

The other two Solar Knight formations darted towards his flanks, and Cray flipped the turrets around, as well as the left side counterparts. Firing without really aiming meant he missed them, but boy, they sure backed off FAST, almost tripping over themselves in their haste to get out of the path once the turrets had started swiveling around. Probably a good few soiled flight suits in that lot! Cray considered sending the signal to activate the rest of the Brotherhood forces, now that he was getting ready signals from most of them, but why ruin his fun? He was having a blast! He was aware that the scattered USN, FNE, ALU, ZAFT and Orb forces were regrouping while he was focusing on the Solar Knights, but so what? He was glad they were saving him the trouble of hunting them down in small packs! He got so hard when he saw a huge group of them go "boom" with one cataclysmic shot, like he'd done before. Well, he would have if he had a boner anymore... he missed that more than just about anything! And Noah had been... reluctant... to make one for the Revenant, for some reason.

The Solar Knights to his front volley fired at him, advancing forward in a kind of lockstep, though they were all hovering using their special leg thrusters. The purple-blue energy beams bored into his outer skin, even penetrating Citadel Scales in places, with a sensation like being poked with thumbtacks at the impact points, just barely not hard enough to break the skin. "Hey... stop that! That feels weird. Don't touch me there! Daddy! These strange people are touching me when I don't want them to... what should I do?" Cray mock whined. "Ask them to stop, son." Cray deepend his voice to reply. "I did, they keep doing it. More and more of them!" He added in his whiny voice, as the other Solar Knight platoons added their weight of fire. "Run away then. Find an adult." Cray advised in the daddy voice. "I can't! They're all around me! It kinda tickles and sorta hurts... and kinda feels good too. Its really strange! I want them to stop!" Cray complained, barely able to keep his monologue going through his teary eyed smile. Well, the mental equivalent of one, since he didn't have much of a face anymore...

"Well son, if you've asked them to stop, and they won't, and you've tried to run, and you can't... that only leaves one choice." Cray's daddy voice grew cold. "What's that, daddy?" Cray's smile grew. "Tearing them all limb from limb and sucking the bloody marrow from their disorderd bones, son!" Cray's voice rumbled into a near shout, before he dropped it to a whisper, or close to. "Oh, wow, daddy... I never would have thought to do that. Yeah, that should do the trick real nice! Ah... oo... eie... I WARNED YOU TO STOP TOUCHING ME!" Cray bellowed, the Revenant's eyes flashing like dying suns. "Now it's MY turn to touch YOU! Just hold still and you'll feel really, really nice... trust me... I want to be your "special friend"!" Cray shook his head in mirth, the Revenant mimicking the motion exactly. "Ah, I crack myself up." Having said that, he whirled, anti-ship chain looping out to whiplash at a pair of hapless pilots in Third Platoon, slow to dodge, unable to believe such a massive machine could move so fast. Cray didn't even activate the beam spikes... the sheer mass of the chain tore the Archon's torsos from their legs and killed the pilots inside the cockpits by throwing them so hard against their restraints that they snapped, allowing the pilots to bounce around the interior of the cockpits like overripe fruit, with messy results.

"There... you must feel great, in heaven now, right?" Cray pointed out, turning his attention to First Platoon, which had tried to edge in closer while he was attacking Third. "Who wants to be touched next? I got candy..."

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"Have we finished our initial analysis of the enemy Gundam?" Dr. Roanoke asked imperiously, his eyes unblinking as he stared at the long range display screen, which showed both a real time image of the Gundam playing cat and mouse with the Solar Knights... more like tiger and mouse really... and plentiful playback images of the recent combat the giant Gundam had been involved in, such as the GENESIS blast and the obliteration of most of the FNE forces, including both Archmages. He was filled with a mixture of hatred and envy... such power, such grace, such strength, it was awesome, enough to even make him feel weak in the knees with a mixture of fear and admiration. But it was also a tool of the enemy, and if his suspicions were right it was...

"Analysis confirmed, Doctor. You were right. It is based off the Judgement, even incorporating some of the original structure." One of the other F.E.A.R. researchers reported with a frown. "Though the degree of upgrading is simply phenomenal. How did you know?"

"Call it a hunch, Giresse, but there aren't likely to be too many hundred meter tall death machines walking around." Roanoke replied, in a rare moment of near humor. "Even if it wasn't a salvaged Judgement, its maker obviously got the idea from it. How perverse, that a Coordinator terror group would take the image of the holy destroyer meant to lead the grand crusade to destroy their kind forever, and warp it into a similar tool for their own ends. It's almost enough to make me cry and laugh at the same time." Roanoke did neither of course... it was just a figure of speech. Laughter and tears and the emotions behind them were both distant memories to him now, sacrifices eagerly made along the path to his current status. Objectivity was all. Tranquility was a must. That was why he was so irritated by those two Solar Knights, constantly thwarting his explicit instructions out of pure mulish hormone driven stupidity! They threatened his projects, his researches, with contamination by emotions that would disrupt the tranquility of the subjects, rendering all his hard work completely useless! Only by keeping them in the tranquil state could they be effective against the enemies of the future!

Tranquil was something of a misnomer of course, since they felt many emotions very strongly. But they were carefully selected and conditioned emotions, almost entirely artificial, though the subjects did not realize it, nor did they realize their emotional state could be changed with a simple programmed code word, turning anger to calm, sadness to happiness, willfullness to acceptance and myriad other useful reversals and modifications. Keeping track of all the code words was something of a hassle, especially given the current demand to mass produce the special pilots, but he was sure he would eventually find a way to accomplish it. That was his talent... he always found a way, eventually, though his methods... well, they were effective. Very effective. Much more effective than those of many competitors who lacked his... moral conviction. Honestly, since Franklin's death, he'd despaired of finding a truly kindred soul.

Franklin's death was a great tragedy, even if it was obviously inevitable, for reasons of purity, if nothing else. Truly, the world had lost one of its greatest scientific minds when he passed from it. It was all his own fault of course... if Franklin had ever had one flaw for sure, it was his recklessness. Oh, he was brilliant in his ability to mould and shape the human psyche and body... but he always, always pushed just a little bit too far, trying to get that last iota of progress, when really, he'd already accomplished his goals some time ago. Of course some of that could be attributed to pressure from above, damn those beauracrats for not understanding the basics of what they were asking for, but much more of it was Franklin's arrogance. He simply did not believe himself capable of suffering backlash from his incessantly risky drive for forward progress. Ambition was wonderful, but pursuing it at the cost of safety measures and control precautions was simply insane. And Franklin had likely realized that, if belatedly, destroyed at the hands of his own masterpiece creation, quite literally, or so Roanoke heard. He'd gone too far, too fast, and he'd lost control. Roanoke did not intend to make the same mistake.

He could not deny that the later generation Biological Computer Processing Units, the Level Four mod two, Level Fives and ultimately the Level Six, were individually much more powerful than the Independent Biological Weapon Systems or Extended, that were the result of his own work. The IBWS lacked much of the internal augmentations and drug assisted chemical enhancements of their elder BCPU brethren, getting by with a bare minimum of adrenaline glanding improvements and slightly reinforced internal structures, accomplished through special diets and painstaking microsurgery, rather than the cruder, large scale hands on surgery Franklin perferred. Almost all of the IBWS improvements were psychological in nature, reducing their ability to feel pain, fear, regret, guilt and other self limiting emotions. Reducing was the key word... Franklin had gone so far as to eliminate entirely such emotions, and it had backfired on him when he could no longer use them to keep his creations leashed. The end result? An IBWS, even Stella, could not tear a man limb from limb in hand to hand combat, unlike Zacharis Frost, nor could she claim to be such a terror in a Mobile Suit... but neither would she rampage out of control and go off to become an blood mad apocalyptic madman trying to destroy the world. It was all in the balance of things, and the IBWS were still far better than regular Naturals, and even many Coordinators, especially in direct confrontation.

They also had a very unqiue special ability, but it did not come into play just yet. The true enemy that Roanoke had designed them from step one to fruitfully combat had yet to really manifest itself, though Roanoke was well aware that the incidences of birthrates of potential carriers were on the rise, and would only continue to ramp up over time. The human race had to be ready for them, those monsters with abilities even he could not comprehend! Already he suspected they were learning how to be more effective in combat. Unless he was much mistaken, the Vorpal might be the prototype for a whole new series of war machines designed specifically for them! It was far sooner than he'd been expecting. To think that the twins would have survived so long in the real world! It was just too bad one of them had gone to waste at JIHAD, though of course Franklin could have had no idea what gems had fallen into his lap. He'd never been involved with the F.E.A.R. project, though he was definitely smart enough to have picked up plenty on his own. Just not enough to get the full, threatening picture Roanoke had, about the impending catastrophe, some unknowable time in the not so distant future!

"What about the voice analysis? What have we gotten from his ravings?" Roanoke asked, snapping back to the here and now.

"We have a fifty four percent match, but it's impossible sir! It's from a known KIA!" One of the sensor operators replied, frustration evident in her voice.

"What's the match?"

"Corresponds to a Craydon Louis Thresher, designation, Biological Computer Processing Unit, level Five, pilot of the Merciless GAT-Super series Gundam. He was killed when the Merciless was destroyed by the Duelist and the Grand Buster on Purgatory Day." The sensor tech answered. "It's got to be a mistake!"

"Don't compound your display of ignorance by presuming to judge what is and is not possible from one of Franklin's successes! The man was insane, but he was an unsurpassed genius nonetheless!" Roanoke reprimanded sternly. "I admit I share your concern for the accuracy of the match, but given what I know of the BCPU project, post-Azrael, it is NOT out of the realm of possibility that the BCPU Five managed to survive the destruction of his Gundam, long enough to be picked up and rescued by Brotherhood agents, who we of course did not know to look for at the time." Roanoke considered things. "If it IS the BCPU Five in there, the situation may be even more grim than it otherwise appears. The Judgement was brought down before reaching its true potential because the nature of its pilot compromised its natural assets, despite his superior skills. However, the nature of THIS BCPU is fully in line with that of the Judgement, or this new incarnation of it. We may very well be witness to an unleashing of a cataclysm the likes of which have not been seen throughout human history to date!"

"Should we prepare the pilots for launch, Doctor? We are getting requests for aid from the local FNE forces, and orders from the Solar Knights."

"Play along, but don't get too close. We only have the three at the moment... we can't afford to lose any! Support them from a safe distance, and don't take any risks. I won't be crying any tears if our vaunted Solar Knights happen to get a little dinged up." Roanoke shrugged. Especially two of them, he added girmly, in his mind, praying for a swift end to the annoyances named Eric Kellson and Lain Debora. "Keep an eye out for the Orb Gundams... I want to be notified the moment they enter the battle!"

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"How the hell did you survive?" Ashino asked the empty air of the cockpit, staring at the giant Brotherhood Gundam from extreme range, all the way on the other side of Galileo LFB. "Well, I guess I shouldn't be that surprised, now should I? If we BCPU's are good at anything, it's surviving when we really should not, isn't that right, Cray?" Ashino shook his head, still stunned. Of course he'd almost instantly recognized the maddened voice playing over the airwaves, but he hadn't believed it. Not until he actually caught sight of the Gundam, and watched it fight for a little while. That had trampled his doubts into the dust. No matter how impossible it seemed, given what Ashino had heard had happened to him on Purgatory Day, Cray was alive! Maybe not necessarily well... he seemed even more unhinged than usual, though that was definitely a relative thing... but certainly alive. And now working for the Brotherhood? How did THAT happen? Didn't Cray realize he was working for COORDINATORS!? It should be almost impossible for him to even think of doing somethign so fundamentally counter to the basic purpose of a BCPU. Ashino had been able to turn his conditioned hatred and loathing of them into mere strong dislike, and he considered that a MAJOR success... and Cray had always hated them far more than he had!

Well, in any case, it did not substantially affect Ashino's own goals, at the moment. Normally he would love to throw himself into the fray against Cray, as an act of atonement for their shared past if nothing else, but right now he could spare no time nor effort for even such a noble goal. If anything, Cray's presence, especially in such a Gundam, made Ashino's mission that much easier! Everyone's attention would be focused upon that titantic juggernaut, and even his surprise arrival from an unexpected would go largely unremarked. People would think he was here to help. They were right. He was here to help them by removing a cancer from the body of the USN before it could grow any more malignant than it already was! He took stock, and once more reminded himself that calmness and the appearance of normalancy were his greatest weapons at the moment, despite how much he wanted to just charge to Durandel directly and tear out his heart bare handed.

He was somewhat short on ammo for the twinned 120mm Gatling cannons the Independence held in its right hand, having used many against the Brotherhood and then the remnants of Tiamat out in the Asteroid Belt, and he'd been unable to replenish his stock because the Tiamat base had no weapons that used that caliber of ammunition. Fortunately, the rest of his weapon systems were either beam based or more easily re-armed by standard munitions, so he was full up on CIWS shells, Railgun rounds and missiles, and of course the shoulder beam cannons, chest mounted hyper-impulse cannon and Mjolnir projectors would work as long as he had power from the reactor, the same for the beam glaive. Well, hopefully he wouldn't need to get into any protracted firefights on his way to the command bunker locations. Again his stealth, or the fact that the Independence technically belonged here anyway, would help ensure he was not bothered or detained. He just had to get close to Durandel before Durandel became aware of him, or else he was sure the vile man would concoct some excuse to turn the USN and allied forces on Ashino.

He kept the Independence low and close to the ground as he made his way through the perimeter of the base, his comm screen lighting up as his computers replied to the automated sensor sweeps of the perimeter defenses, which let him be. Sooner or later he would run into a human operator, but most of them were probably focused around Cray at the moment. That was good... Ashino knew he was poor at lying, and tactiturn silence would only get him so far. He had no orders, no command codes, nothing but his reputation and his Gundam and the will to use the chaos to his advantage. He saw that the Solar Knights were engaged with the titan, and he spent a brief moment wishing Eric well, and safety. The Kellson family should not have to deal with damage to both children in such a short time! The Independence jetted onwards, inexorably making its way towards the heart of the base.

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"Honestly, can't we get someone at least marginally sane, for once!?" Lunamaria complained, her nerves grating at being forced to listen to the enemy Gundam pilot's endless, pointless ramblings, jokes, taunts and insults. They were on every damned channel! It was driving her batty, and pissing her off something fierce! "Can't we shut this bastard up, Meyrin?"

"I'm trying! His comm system is more powerful than ours, and more advanced too! I'm doing what I can to filter him out." Meyrin shot back, fingers typing furiously, along with several operators, as they attempted to hack the enemy's comm system, to little real avail. The codework was just NUTS! She'd never seen the like! It reminded her of the Orb Secured Network... the sudden thought galvanized her to look at the code from another angle, and she blanched. It WAS like the code Noah had showed her, at least five layers, probably more than that given the frequency they were all getting locked out! They lacked the technical expertise and equipment to get through this sort of shit! "Damn it!" Meyrin swore. "It's no good! This is beyond the scope of what we can do here!" She put her findings up on a common screen, drawing gasps from the other operators as they realized the extent of the monster they were trying to beat, with the equivalent of plastic dinnerware.

"Nicely spotted, Knight." The First Platoon's Knight-Lieutenant complimented. "We could have been wasting our efforts against that for quite some time. I'll send that to Central command, maybe they can put something with more processing power on it. I want to hear that loon shut the hell up as much as anyone else!"

"Thank you, sir." Meyrin acknowledged, though she was chewing her lip in agitation. The codework was JUST like what Noah had described for his own systems. Just like! A coincidence? Or was there something... no, she shook her head. This wasn't the time or the place for thoughts like that. She would ask him later, and get him to look her in the eyes when he answered. Maybe not a failsafe truthteller in some minds, but it worked for her. For all she knew, codework like this was common amongst the higher tiers of information warfare. "You want him to shut up, you'll have to shut him up by force. We can't do any more on this end, he's basically invulnerable to hacking from us." Meyrin informed the Solar Knights Platoons.

"Funny. I was just going to say that too." Lain quipped sourly, watching sparks fly as his accelerated-impulse blast piercing a blue-green Citadel Scale and bit into the armor underneath, to depressingly little reaction. Like as in, no reaction... he might as well not have fired, especially because the Citadel Scale reformed its shield after the penetrating blast faded. "Christ almighty, CAN this guy be hurt!?"

"He's not invincible. We are damaging him. This will take a lot of time and perserverance on our parts." Rey cut in. "His will be the death of a thousand paper cuts."

"Oh. Good. How many direct hits equals one paper cut, so I can get a rough estimate of progress?" Eric commented nastily, on a private line just to Lain. "Somehow I get the feeling its a rather large number per paper cut."

"We have to get in closer." Shinn exhorted. "Blasting away like this is going to take forever, and he's going to pick us apart one or two at a time!" Already seven Solar Knights were down, victims of whip and Gottfried blasts, ore an overwhelming salvo of Linear Cannon rounds in one case. "Damn it!" Shinn swore, dodging his Archon to the side just in time to evade a downward slam of the chain, which bit deeply into the moonrock, leaving a half melted trench in the ground before the enemy Gundam yanked it up and away, flicking it around expertly, like a trained rodeo clown with a bullwhip. "How can something so big be so fast!?"

"If we try to get in closer we're going to get eaten alive by his gatling cannon and beam turrets!" Jarvis, Shinn's former roommate, retorted in exasperation. This was NOT his sort of battle. Well, it was a hit and run, but there was no elegance to it, just a brutal, desperate brawl of jackals against an elephant. "Aren't those FNE bastards set up yet!? What's taking them so long to deploy!? For that matter, where are our own heavy support units? A couple of heavy FRALA platforms will cut the bastard down to size easily enough!"

"Whenever they try to deploy, he atomizes them. He may be crazy, but he's not stupid." Luna answered, passing the wreckage of one such platform. "I think they've stopped deploying until we can wear him down or distract him more, we're just throwing them away at this point in time!" She weathered a stray Gottfried blast on her shield, wincing as she heard metal strain and pop, even through the Citadel Shield effect. "I'm wondering about the FNE myself though... we're getting hammered out here... how long does it take to re-organize!? At this rate, we're going to run out power soon! My Citadel Shield is just soaking it up keeping me alive!" Luna complained, a sobering problem that was becoming common throughout the Solar Knights as the battle wore on. It hadn't been long... fifteen, twenty minutes, maybe thirty... she didn't stop to check, afraid of the answer, but they were BURNING through power faster than she'd ever seen before!

"The FNE, they be slow, like the turtle. We on the other hand... we lope like the wolf in the hunt." A new voice joined the tactical conference. "This is one fine stag you have run to ground, oh esteemed Knights! May I have your permission to bloody it for you?"

"Colonel Al'Jib, thank you for your commitment, but I really think that..." Rey started to say.

"Thank you for your understanding, Knight-Commander." Al'Jib smiled, cutting Rey off. "Covering fire would be welcomed. The stag, his horns are sharp, sharp, yes? His hooves do flash, his eyes do roll and flare with rage... but the wolfpack, they are not intimidated by his terrible majesty! He is swift and agile, they are shadows in the storm! Come, bear witness to how the Garou do battle!" With those words, three "packs" of six Garou apiece, from Al'Jib's elite detachment and remnants from the ALU garrison forces of Galileo, charged directly for the enemy Gundam, dodging and weaving fluidly through the chaotic and treacherous battlefield, shoulder gatling cannons blitzing, missiles spiralling from their tubes, and green plasma blasts and orange machinegun tracers spitting from their arms.

"Crazy son of a bitch." Lain said admiringly, taking flight and likewise heading towards the giant Gundam.

"Perenor Lead, what do you think you are..." Second Platoon's Knight-Lieutenant began to snap angrily.

"Providing covering fire. We'll go high and keep him distracted!" Shinn answered, following Lain closely.

"Shinn!" Luna protested. "That's crazy! Get back here!"

"I can't let Lain go alone." Shinn replied firmly, not turning back.

"Damn it, Shinn, you said you would listen to me!"

"I said I would more likely listen to you than others." Shinn corrected. "This is the right thing to do, Luna. Once we get to extreme close range then the advantages will all be ours!"

"Knight-Ensigns!" The Knight-Lieutenant sounded like he was tearing his hair out in wrath. "If you don't..."

"Go ahead and do what you can to help them. They may be crazy bastards, but it might just work." Rey overrode everyone on the channel. He'd never tried a frontal charge before, that was true... for obvious reasons, such that it WAS suicidal. But who knew? If anyone could pull it off, it would be Shinn. Lain was less of a certainty, but he did have a habit of taking out large things with impulsive strategies that really shouldn't have worked, such as his infamous "jet-tank" tactic with the M-4, which he'd used to sink several Nazca class vessels above Carpentaria during the Second Valentine War. "Individual initiative authorized... break into Squadrons and assault him as you see fit. Succor each other and keep using teamwork, its our best chance, but if you see a sudden opportunity, take it, and leave the explaining for until after he's dead!"

"I'll hold him down while you give him raccoon eyes, but only if you do the same for me with Lain, afterwards." Eric commed Luna. "Galahad Squadron, do what you can to keep Perenor Lead alive... he'll owe us all drinks for a week once we get him through that crossfire!"

"Gawain's, if Lancelot goes down..." Luna didn't even have to finish that statement. "We have to save him from his own reckless bravery once more! We can FIX him later!"

Shinn and Lain were too busy evading the storm of fat orange-red shell tracers and the bright green bolts of beam blasts, each speweing so thickly from the Gundam's defensive turrets that they could sometimes hardly see a clear way forward, to pay any attention to the plots behind their backs to chastise them for their heroics. To be honest, even if they had known, neither would have turned back... this sort of thing was what combat was all about to them! Other Archons, alone, in pairs or trios or even full Squadrons, also started forward as the more melee comfortable pilots attempted braving the Revenant's defensive batteries in order to close to their comfortable range. Two were blasted apart right away by scissoring streams of energy bolts from a pair of gatling beam turrets, and a third was pummeled backwards by so many 120mm gatling cannon shell impacts that the pilot lost consciousness and started drifting off into space, before the Revenant's chain licked up on a backswing and smashed the pilot and her machine to scraps, by accident actually.

"God damn! This thing's defensive net is tighter than a virgi..." Lain never got to finish his somewhat lewd observation before a trio of 120mm shells struck him on the center torso, the impact shaking him in his cockpit so hard he bit his tongue and cheek deeply. "FUCKING OWW!" He yelled, twisting his shield into place to deflect a barrage of beam bolts, and then he was through the storm! He was within thirty meters of the Revenant! The defensive batteries were all focused outwards, ignoring him for the moment, giving him a precious unobstructed second to look around the calm spot. He had no doubt the defensive weapons could still target him, but every one that did was one less to fire at more distant targets, allowing other people an easier time getting closer, in an every compounding effect that would eventually allow almost anyone to approach to within melee range, especially once they started taking out the defensive emplacements!

Lain darted forward, sword raised to plow a deep slash through a darkened area on the Revenant's skin, where Citadel Scales had been blasted away by ranged fire from earlier. It was time to make the bastard bleed! Lain's Archon jolted heavily, and for a moment he thought a defense turret had already targeted him, but there was no follow thru barrage of beams or shells. He pressed on, recieving several more heavy jolts as the Archon struck floating debris in proximity to the Revenant, but they barely even slowed him as he jammed his sword in to the vulnerable section of armor, the blade searing through layer after layer of armor with a protesting vibration that suddenly jarred the blade to a half with two thirds of its length in the Revenant's flesh! And he was still just hitting armor! And what the hell had stopped the blade? He applied thruster power to push harder, before he would drag the blade out and cut a huge hunk of flesh from this monster! The thrusters though, didn't respond! His cockpit lighting started dimming and brightening as his system began experiencing powerful electric shocks, and his thrusters spluttered as their program was filled with corrosive coding! He was hanging there helpless to move... what the HELL was this!?

"Lain! There's another defensive system! These pod things coming off its surface!" Shinn commed, slashing at them with his sword, sweeping them away in torrents of flame and smashed metal in twos and threes, but they just kept coming, threatening to swarm him!

"Yeah! They latch onto you and fuck with your control systems! I'm fucking stuck! Can't move an inch!" Lain replied, pissed at himself for being in such a pitiful situation. "Al'Jib, don't get close to it! It's got another defensive system!"

"So I have noticed, to my fury and regret. My beauty's lust for blood must be sated another way." Al'Jib answered sorrowfully, dodging back out the way he had come in, afterburners thrusting his Garou along at almost six hundred kilometers per hour in the Moon's low gravity. Half of the Garous would not be following him back out, lost to either the defensive batteries or the wicked black pods! Truly, this stag was full of nasty surprises! "Pray tell, did your stab make it quail?"

"I got nothing but armor, and there's something deeper still that stopped me cold." Lain admitted furiously. "If I could just... bah... I can't move! Ya know, I really wish I was a Coordinator right now... I might be able to counter hack this bullshit!"

"Hold still." Shinn directed, sheathing his sword and grabbing Lain's Archon by the upper arm, the space around them momentarily free of black pods, though more were coming, seemingly crawling out from the Revenant's very skin! "I need a corridor open, or we'll never make it back through!"

"Working on it!" Luna gritted back. "He's not easy to distract when he just thinks our best shots are ticklish!" She was about to say more when a series of eight truly massive explosions lit up space off to the back flank of the Revenant. "What the...?"

"Damn, that defensive fire really is something else!" Heine commented dryly, his tone still jovial, but definitely more serious for being in combat. "We still have four SGTCM's left, but I think we should save them until we can garuantee a clean flight path through that flak! We might be able to crack his shell... or at least get him to sit up and take notice!"

"When'd you get here? Not that I'm complaining." Eric asked, as Heine's orange and red Primal Inferno dropped out of the starry night to stand nearby, dual dark red beam blades ignited on either forearm, supercharged beam rifle and 300mm shotgun stowed for the moment. "Though I would have thought bringing in a bigger nutcracker might have helped."

"In retrospect, I agree. However, I did not realize we faced such a monstrosity." Heine replied with a shrug. "We will find a way, if I have to burrow my way into him like a tick!" Heine stepped behind Eric as Eric shielded him from a Gottfried blast, one among a dozen others like it that scoured smoking holes into the ground all around them. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." Eric answered, eyeing his power levels with real misgiving. "Anyone figure out a way for us to recharge? My armor is about to go kaput, and my shield too. Thats not happy making."

"Charging stations are being set up by the command bunkers. If you are in the red, disengage now and let the rest of us hold his attention until you can recharge!" Rey directed, falling back even though he was still in the yellow. He needed to confer with Gil. Something was wrong here... they were taking way too many casualties! This was just supposed to be a shock and awe attack... the Revenant should be retreating by now, or at least backing off a little! Was this just Cray being disobedient or was there something else in the works here? Was their betrayal scenario actually a double-cross? He needed to talk to Gil! Gil would know what to do, and then Rey could make it happen for him. That was how things worked! Rey saw the Revenant point its right arm, its chain coilling back around the forearm. "INCOMING RADIATION BLAST! MAXIMUM EVASIVE MANUEVERS!"

Rey's shouted warning came too late for three Archons of First Platoon, as well as two Garou's of Galileo garrison and two Primal Storm's of Heine's command, the ones who had exhausted their SGTCM's and were approaching to bring other weapons to bear, though compared to some of the other times the Revenant had fired its primary weapon, they had gotten off very lightly. Still, any losses were bad, and now it seemed like it was THEM that was facing the death of a thousand papercuts as Cray picked them off in small groups! Rey watched several dark patches of the Revenant's hide flicker and turn blue-green once more as the self repair systems brought the Citadel Scales back online. Damn it, they just weren't hurting him fast enough!

Shinn used the swathe of free space created by the Radiation Cannon beam to pull Lain out of proximity to the Revenant, and then headed around towards the charging and rearming stations Rey had ordered set up, his mood foul. His charge had done nothing. He'd been so convinced it would be the right thing to do, but he hadn't even scratched the things armor before turning back, and even Lain, who had hit it, had only scarred armor! Was there no way to hurt this thing? That couldn't be right! Where the hell was the FNE!? They were the big guns in this situation! They NEEDED big guns!

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"Warning... reactor start imminent! Warning... reactor start imminent! All nonessential maintenance crew, report to damage control stations and prepare for possible class D (flammable metal) firefighting duties. Loading fuel rod into Panzerwulf Eins. Loading fuel rod into Panzerwulf Zwei. Loading fuel rod into Panzerwulf Trei. Stand clear of all Panzerwulf's for fuel rod loading!" The automated announcement played several times, as warning lights flashed brilliant gold and red, strobing and filling the launch bay with the color of fire, hopefully preventing the real thing from showing up. Activating the reactors was always dangerous... if the fuel rods weren't loaded and sealed into place properly, when they were ignited, almost instantly reaching operational temperature of five thousand three hundred and eighteen degrees fahrenheit, the resulting explosion of steam pressure could eject them from the reactor, leaving a huge burning metal rod flying around like a bullet, igniting everything it touched. Or a leak could fill the bay with superheated steam, broiling dozens alive before they could run. Both types of accident had occured before, during prototype phases... power came at a price. Always. Heavy duty cranes gently eased the heavy rods into the sockets on the back of each Panzerwulf, and teams of engineers inspected the seals and then closed armored panels over the loading hatches and sealed those closed too, before backing away hurriedly.

"Starting Panzerwulf Eins. Starting Panzerwulf Zwei. Starting Panzerwulf Trei. All personnel, be prepared for emergency firefighting and damage control scenarios. Three... two... one... REACTOR START!" Three keys were turned in a control panel by three scientists... trusting the delicate procedure to the pilots was folly, of course. No immediate disasters occured. "All reactors confirmed start, power flow normal, reactors running nominally. Reactor power timer started, thirty nine hours, fifty nine minutes, fifty eight seconds and counting until Reactor power down. Insert IBWS system components now." As a rule, the pilots weren't even allowed to board until after successful startup, to avoid trapping precious assets in the middle of a potential budding inferno. Again, a hard lesson learned by experience. Sting boarded Eins, Stella Zwei and Auel Trei, though they were of course interchangable between the machines, as all good parts were.

Several minutes passed while the pilots were buckled in and the Panzerwulf systems were brought online, and then the weapons were distributed, the Cerberus combi-weapons stored seperately because of their additional volatility. So far they had not overloaded or set one off in launching stages, yet, but the possibility was too dire to even want to consider... if one of those guns went up, so would the reactor, and if one Panzerwulf went off, so would the other two, in these close quarters. And simply put, if all three Panzerwulfs blew up in the launch bay, there would be no ship left. Not even a hint of one. Needless to say, this was a situation experience could not teach you to avoid. "Panzerwulf's all report ready status on all systems. Cerberus weapon linkage confirmed. Pre-deployment checks complete. Stand by for deployment."

"Doctor, we're really being hassled by the locals for support." One of the researchers reported, his voice somewhat uncertain. "They are suffering moderate to severe casualties out there."

"Oh very well. I suppose since we went to all the trouble of starting them, we might as well use them." Roanoke snorted, though he had little sympathy for their so called allies outside battling the Judgement clone. "As usual, it, in the end, falls to the oldest and most pwoerful of any particular group to truly take down a significant threat. The upstarts have had their chance, now it is time to show them why we would have all been better off without all this USN nonsense! Teach them the meaning of F.E.A.R. my children!" Roanoke ordered the three Extended.

"Yes, Doctor." They chorused, well rehearsed in their manner of speaking to him. None of that informality Franklin had encouraged with his creations... it only corrupted them and made them more likely to rebel! The Panzerwulfs dropped out of the launch bay on brilliant streams of white blue fire, Cerberus guns coming up to the ready in identical motions of readiness as they exited the bay and went weapons free. They headed for the battle with no further delay, led, as usual, by Stella.

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"I swear, I shoulda brought some popcorn." Dylan commented wryly, leaning the Traitor back in a supremely relaxed pose, only leg crossed over the other, hands behind his head, as he lay on a hillside within relatively easy viewing distance of Galileo, watching Cray re-enact a godzilla movie, and not one of the monster vs monster ones where the humans actually have a chance either. He was Mirage Colloided of course, and beyond the range of most sensors to boot, but there was no sense in being rash, now was there? It wouldn't do at all to spring the surprise early. "I'm not sure he even NEEDS help, and I know he doesn't want it."

"Regardless of his needs or his wants, we can't just sit around here waiting for much longer!" Randolf groused, the Haunted pacing back and forth on the other side of the hill, chameleonic Phase Shift shifting shades to match the rock around him, or else the starry depths of space, depending on which angle you looked at him from. "I do not easily suffer from boredom, but there are better things I could be doing!" _Such as avenging myself upon our damned Boss, somehow!_

"We should wait. Noah said wait for the signal." Mary's text message appeared in their minds. The Tormented was pacing in anxious circles too, jabbing at the ground with its trident in a nervous tic. "He'll be unhappy if we mess up the plan, this time for sure!"

"Unhappy would be putting it mildly, I think." Dylan shuddered, thinking about fingers and knives. Sharp knives. Or less than sharp ones, depending on how pissed the Boss was. "Livid might touch the truth on the shoulder, but I like incandescent fury better."

"All the same, if we just sit out here with our thumbs up our rectums, until Cray oversteps himself, as he WILL do, eventually, the Boss will be equally upset." Randolf argued. "He will understand the necessity of not waiting for the signal. If we sweep in now, we could crush them in a matter of minutes!"

"What do you think, Michael?" Mary asked, turning to face the Vengeance, which was standing before a more or less uniform formation of Zealots and Martyrs, twenty of the former and ten of the latter, like a general reviewing his troops, which was somewhat accurate, though none of the control signals for the mass production models had yet been activated.

"The Clyne Faction isn't here yet, but they should be close. Once they get into range, we will wait for them to deploy and then go on to join Cray, if he doesn't send the signal before then anyway." Michael answered slowly, his mind really on other matters. He had a lot of extra tasking this time around, and accomplishing everything was going to be very hard. He was supposed to reign Cray in, somehow. He was supposed to make sure Durandel died. He was also supposed to make sure Meyrin Hawke, aboard the Solar Knights command ship, did NOT die. The goals seemed somehow mutually exclusive. If he reigned Cray in, Meyrin might be killed by someone else, and Durandel might not die. If he focused on killing Durandel, Cray would rampage on pretty much forever, and Meyrin might die. If he concentrated on protecting Meyrin, Cray would rampage as before, and Durandel might not die, or might escape. He couldn't exactly delegate either, as Noah had indicated a rising degree of distrust in his other Apostles, especially with mission critical objectives. And then who knew what the rank and file were going to do once they got into that chaos Cray was causing!

"That's more than fifteen more minutes!" Randolf complained.

"For a dude that's almost seventy, and will probably live to one hundred thirty, you sure do seem impatient." Dylan pointed out. "Got a hot date or something?"

"I have pressing matters to take care of, yes! Maybe you do as well! Assuming you aren't just satisfied with all your dirty money and the cheap pleasures it buys you! Don't you care at all about the bigger picture? He STILL hasn't told us what we're doing all this for!" Randolf retorted bitterly. "We have been kept in the dark too long! Does he not trust us, his own "Apostles"?"

"Well, given that you seem to be rabble rousing against him, can you blame him?" Dylan countered. "And yeah, I kinda am happy with the status quo, thanks. The only bigger picture on my mind is my TV set, which needs to be upsized."

"I am merely dissatisfied with the conditions of my contract with him! He has not been very faithful to us! He asks for much, and gives little in return." Randolf insisted.

"He is our savior." Mary said simply. "We should be thankful to him, and trust in his guidance. It has not failed us yet."

"Give it a rest, girl! Don't you even know about his trips to Earth to see his girlfriend!?" Randolf spat, his eyes narrowing in bitter fury. "You moon after a man who doesn't even see you as a woman!"

"I believe in him." Mary replied firmly, underlining the words several times. "Say what you like, but you owe him your life several times over. Noah's love for me is too pure for a bitter old man like you to understand. Nothing can come between us, not even some tight bodied Coordinator hussy! She is just a phase... he will pass beyond her soon enough."

"I got to be a "bitter old man" precisely because of simpleminded faith like yours!" Randolf retorted. "He will betray you, because you mean nothing to him! You are just a tool, an object, a part! His "pure love" is a farce, a fiction of your damaged mind! You disgust me!"

"Yo, man, lay off the hate a bit, eh?" Dylan spoke up. "I tried to talk her out of it too, but she's dead set on that version of reality. Far be it from me to ruin someone elses dream. Well, unless someone else pays me a shit ton of money first."

"Are you defending her now!? What, are you two a couple or something!? Is that what that idiocy in Orb recently was!? I never would have expected such a thing from you, Jean Dylan! I didn't think you had a soul worth showing to anyone else!" Randolf snorted in disdain. "How does Dylan fit into your "pure love", Mary? Or is that just a "phase" too?"

"Dylan saved my life, it is true, but we are not lovers or a couple. A single good act, even one such as that, does not make up for a life full of sin and selfishness." Mary answered, serenely enough, though it was hard to tell in text. The way the Tormented's fingers flexed around its trident, and the way the claws on the other hand slide in and out rapidly betrayed a slightly higher degree of agitation though.

"I saved her cause we're all birds stuck in the same shitty cage. Me, I'm a fucking crow, a carrion eater that nobody likes, and likes nobody, but thats just how it is. Randolf there is a buzzard, likes to stay aloof and pretend he's cool but he's a carrion eater too, in private, got plenty of dirty little secrets I'll wager. Michael's the fucking hawk, a real soldier who doesn't need to pretend to be a badass, or have angst problems because he's going through his second or third midlife crisis despite being a Coordinator, unlike some people. And Mary's the goddamn canary, a mute one maybe, but at least she's a spot of bright color, eh? Makes things a little bit better just by being around, and all that. So yeah, I saved her... life would suck just a bit too much without the canary." Dylan explained, in a burst of uncharacteristic fellowship. He subsided immediately afterward, embarassed by his own verbosity.

"Oh, how poetic an image. I never would have guessed you were so sentimental, Dylan. Care to write me a song about your lost love next?" Randolf observed venomously.

"Ah, go fuck yourself, buzzard."

"Where does Cray fit in?" Mary wondered.

"He don't, thank God. He's the mutated, rabid eagle kept in the cage next door because he eats his own babies and shit." Dylan shrugged. "Its not a perfect metaphor, what can I say? Poetic images don't come to me naturally. Not even for money."

"Hawk... why does that seem familiar? Hawk of... Endymion?" Michael muttered, shaking his head.

"What was that?" Randolf asked.

"Nothing. Just a daydream." Michael tapped the Vengeance on the side of the head, as if trying to shake loose some cobwebs, and shrugged. "Try to keep from cutting each other's throats until after we get back to the Great Endeavor, if possible. We don't need to make this any harder on ourselves, with the Clyne Faction inbound."

"Uh... what the hell is that?" Dylan sat up, shading his eyes as he peered into the distance.

"What is what?" Randolf sighed. "Did you see another birdie fly by or something?"

"Yeah, it's called the "shut the fuck up" bird. Nasty, mean spirited avians, let me assure you. You'd probably get along great." Jean snapped back. "No, it looks like a fight."

"Oh no. Not a fight. I'd hate to imagine one of those in progress, with the Revenant around." Randolf rolled his eyes.

"You are seriously getting on my nerves, buzzard."

"A thought that leaves me shivering with dread, let me assure you."

"Its over by the command bunkers. Nobody over there but the USN. Wonder what the hell's going on? Isn't that where Durandel's supposed to be?" Dylan elaborated.

"Show me." Michael ordered, turning the Vengeance's LCR armor as translucent as possible before stepping up over the hill. He looked in the direction Dylan's uncloaked, disembodied arm was pointing, before it faded back into invisibility. "They appear to be fighting each other. How unexpected. I can't really make it out very well from here." Michael considered for a while, and checked his timer, wrinkling his nose in distaste. Finally he made up his mind. "I'm going to investigate. Mary, you're in charge until I get back. If you guys end up fighting each other, I'll kill you myself, understand, and save Noah the trouble. Wait for the signal, or for the deployment of the Clyne Faction, and for god's sake don't fuck around with them... just distract them and let Cray take em out. He's in their weight class, you guys aren't."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence..." Randolf muttered.

"Fine. Take em all on. Let's see what happens between you and the Phoneix King when you don't have your mist set up?" Michael replied dryly. "You might want to set up a stop motion camera first though, cause its going to be short."

"Bastard. You're all bastards. Stupid, blind bastards." Randolf said darkly, as the Vengeance jogged away, keeping its power low for stealth purposes.

"Love ya too, buzzard."

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	35. Pulling Weeds part 5

Author Note: Well well, I know last Chapter wasn't particularly earthshattering (despite Cray's efforts), but don't worry, the fight is still heating up. As Archangel2385 noted, the Solar Knights really aren't all that effective against the Revenant, and the same for the other member-state militaries. To speak in their defense, the Revenant is pretty damn overwhelming. Not only is it titanic in size and firepower, plus seemingly impossible to hurt, it's NOT a lumbering juggernaut. It's not as fast as the Vengeance of course, but it's still faster and more fluid of movement than a regular Mobile Suit, even an Archon, especially with Cray at the helm. He's hardly a stationary target, just soaking up fire. Of course he does take a lot of hits because the Revenant is a hard target to miss, but hitting a specific place, such as part thats already been weakened or a specific weapon, at least in a place vital to that weapon, is far from easy. You might as well imagine them as people with handguns, trying to shoot at Cray with a minigun on one hand and a bazooka in the other, dancing and capering around, in the middle of an EARTHQUAKE and a THUNDERSTORM. Yes, he's a big target, but putting a bullet down the bazooka barrel isn't exactly easy. Especially because he's trying to kill you at the same time.

That said, let me move on. Turayza asked where I got Newtypes from. To be honest, the term "Newtype" itself is only vaguely familiar to me. I think it's something from the original Gundam series, describing a type of person rather like a Coordinator in GS, with special skills far beyond those of most people, but I'm not one hundred percent on that. They might also have had psychic type powers, telepathy, that sort of thing, I don't recall. Never watched original Gundam, and only read one of the books, long ago. Where Newtypes came from for me is watching GS and seeing how Rau le Creuset and Mu always seemed to know when the other guy was around, and sometimes even what they were thinking or about to do, and also a little bit with Kira and Rau later on in the series. It wasn't really a big thing in the series, more a side detail, perhaps explaining their super-normal spatial perceptions (which allowed them to use the Moebius Zero pods and DRAGOON systems), but I picked it up and ran with it, and turned it into my own thing, with Katie and Chanel first, and then Lacus and Kira, and Ysak (who is a very special case since he wasn't born one, unlike everyone else so far), and Noah and who knows how many else (well, I know, but...). If by actual theories you mean IRL, I haven't a clue, but there will always be people who claim to be psychic. Maybe some are.

Now, as for the 660mm and 550cm Radiation Cannons fielded by the Vengeance and the Revenant, plus other variations/refinements of the technology you may or may not see later, this is how they work. Well, basically. If I knew how they really worked, there'd be a bunch of RL terrorists that would be in dire straights right now. But anyway. First a nuclear bomb is detonated, though the detonation is different from that of an actual bomb. It's slower, taking place over about a second, versus the microsecond of a real bomb blast (though how they channel it into a beam still escapes me). The thing about nuclear explosions is that they are purely radiation based... yes, there's heat and fire, but that is a product of the effect of the radiation on the environment. The various radioactive particles are released from the critical mass of plutonium, and they expand outwards very rapidly, striking the atoms and molecules of surrounding matter (air, earth, Mobile Suits, people, etc) and excite them, or impart energy to them. This energy manifests as heat. Much like you feel hot and sweaty after jumping up and down excitedly for fifteen minutes straight, but trillions of times more intense, and on a molecular level. Imparting this energy to other matter slows down the radiation particles some, but they are so small, and moving so fast in many cases, that it takes a LOT of matter collisions to slow the radiation particles down to the point that they actually embed themselves into matter without continuing on (which makes that material radioactive, but...).

In story terms you could think of the Radiation Cannon as a huge microwave beam... the radiation particles it emits excite the matter inside the beam, bombarding the molecules and atoms within it with such energy that air burns, earth melts, steel ignites, the water inside people vaporizes, causing them to explode or pop, etc. Now, a Mobile Suit, even a person, may seem pretty solid. But on the level the radiation works at, they're all sorts of full of holes, so much of the radiation actually passes through each thing in the beam, only glancingly affecting it, which accounts for the range of the beam and its penetrating power (especially in space, with no air to get in the way). The Earth or Moon in this case, is also pretty porous to some of this radiation, but there's a LOT of it! Miles and miles and miles of it. Could the beam go all the way through the Moon? Yes. Yes it does. But the amount of Radiation that makes it through is so incredibly tiny (the odds of a particle not hitting ANYTHING enough to slow down enough to stop are pretty slim by that point in time) that it probably can't even be detected by most instruments.

When dealing with radiation, and its spread, there are these things called tenth thicknesses. A tenth thickness is an thickness of a given material that is required to reduce a certain amount of radiation to one tenth its power after the radiation goes through it. The tenth thickness of bare moonrock against this 550cm cannon might be something like five hundred feet. Still, that means five hundred feet down into the rock, assuming the beam hit nothing else, it is only one tenth as powerful as it was when first fired. One thousand feet down it is one one hundredth the power. Fifteen hundred feet down, one one thousandth the power, so forth and so on. Even something as powerful as the Radiation Cannon peters out pretty fast, as you can see. It might blast an awesomely big hole in the process, or blow up a hillside, or dig a trench a mile long, especially because solid rock is not always perfectly solid, but shoot through the entire Moon, as in a hole all the way through? Not very much. Little consolation that is to the decidedly less dense than solid rock Mobile Suits and people that get hit by the beam.

Frost was always a devil. He just started out more like a thug, a beast with no refinement or real character beyond bloodymindedness. I should more accurately say when I first made Frost, I did not expect him to evolve into what he did. I'm very glad he did, but I wasn't planning or expecting it (Indeed, I find I have little choice but to bring him back, though now I am one hundred ten percent behind that idea anyway). I did not base my Panzerwulfs off Gundam 00. I haven't seen it yet, since it hasn't come out on DVD in America yet (I have no TV, and I'm not very good at watching things on the Internet), but I am eagerly anticipating it. Eins, Zwei and Trei are simply German for one, two and three. I hope I spelled them correctly... I am not multilingual, and I only had a Rammstein song to reference even that many numbers from. All right, enough explainations. More story meat.

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"Rey, good to see you unharmed!" Durandel acknowledged, pulling a privacy screen around the cubicle he'd appropriated for himself in one corner of the main situation room, in the Galileo Central Command Bunker. Though he was the man in charge of the USN military, he was a political person, not a military strategist or tactician. He organized and directed wars, he didn't fight or plan them. He left that to the generals and admirals and other career soldiers, or on a smaller scale, to people like Rey. There was nothing else for him to do during this current part of the crisis other than stand around and look important and worried, bolstering the morale and confidence of the senior officers. And they needed a lot of confidence boosting, more than he could really give to be honest. Things were falling to pieces out there, and they were only looking worse by the moment. The sudden arrival of the Solar Knights and elite member-state units had been a temporary shot in the arm for the morale and fighting capability of the base defenders, but as time had worn on and the new arrivals, even the Solar Knights, proved only marginally more effective against the giant Gundam, that boost had ebbed, and now things were even worse than before!

"You too, Gil. Is this a secure line?" Rey answered, mopping at his sweat sheened brow with one hand and taking a big swallow of tepid cockpit water to at least somewhat help cool him down and get the dryness out of his throat. Dehydration during battle wasn't usually a problem for him, but then again, most battles weren't even slightly this intense!

"Secure enough." Durandel replied, checking the privacy screen just to be sure. It was locked shut, artfully muting sound from within the cubicle, while still allowing outside sound in, and also letting him look out, but keeping people from looking in. "What the hell is happening out there? The Solar Knights are getting picked apart! What's wrong?"

"I don't know." Rey admitted. "I knew there would be casualties as soon as I saw that it was the Revenant, but he seems to be playing the part of the vicious, unstoppable terrorist a little TOO well! He should have backed off, or at least pretended to, some time ago, but he keeps pressing his advantage against us, even if he isn't particularly trying to get to the Shipyard or Command Bunkers. He seems content to slowly whittle us away, as we try and kill him, so far with damned little success! I don't understand what is going on... he's not fighting as hard as he could, but neither is he following the plan!"

"Just shoot the weapons! Once we take off those arms of his, we'll be able to take him down at out leisure!" Durandel exhorted, surprised Rey had not seen such a basic tactic.

Rey frowned before replying, in about as frustrated a tone as he'd ever taken with Gil. "We're TRYING to do that, Gil, but it's not like shooting a target on a range! He's a massive target, but most of his mass is armor and other nonvital systems, even on the weapon arms! We're hitting them, but we just don't have the power to take down a weapon arm in just one or two shots! We'll get them eventually, but its going to take a lot of time! And it's not like he's just standing there like a tree for us to cut down... he's jumping around and flailing his arms and kicking his legs and acting like a regular drunken madman at a party hall! AND he's shooting back at us constantly, so if people take too long to set up a shot, they'll probably get taken out themselves first! We tried to get close, but he's got additional defensive systems that are making it very difficult to get close enough to be accurate as WELL as fast enough to target his weaknesses without getting blow up first! He's not making it easy on us."

"But we will get him eventually, right?" Durandel asked, somewhat taken aback to see Rey so stressed. Things were worse than he'd figured, he thought grimly. "He's no less doomed than he was before."

"That is true. We will get him eventually. But it's going to be costly. Hugely costly. Over fifty percent, maybe closer to eighty percent casualties on the Solar Knights, and similar numbers against the member-states. Galileo will be a shell. We might have to sacrifice the Shipyards as well." Rey answered.

"That amounts to a victory for the Brotherhood, no matter how we slice or spin it!" Durandel protested. "If the USN allows just one Mobile Suit, even this monster, to destroy the SPF and most of Galileo, there will be a mass panic, and all of the progress we've made might be lost! We've captured the hearts and minds of the people with the previous operations, but they aren't behind us body and soul yet... a sudden, sour defeat could ruin the entire point of having the Solar Knights! And any battle, victorious or not, with an eighty percent... even fifty percent... casualty rate is a sour defeat! It is simply not an option, Rey!"

"I'm not sure Noah has given us any options this time, Gil." Rey looked pained. "You might want to put some thoughts into your personal safety as well. So far Cray has shown little interest in attacking the Command Bunkers, but that could change at any time, and with my forces having to rotate through charging and re-arming stations in order to maintain readiness, I can't currently field a force capable of constraining him should he choose to head after you! Basic strategy is to kill senior officers if you can, when Cray remembers that, he might end up blasting you as well by accident. Or even not by accident!"

"Surely not." Durandel fought away the icy shiver inside his heart at the idea. "If Noah has me killed now, there will be the same thing as making me a martyr. The entire world would unite behind my successor, and there would be no amount of secrecy or data hacking skills that could save him from the furious mobs. The world is already mine, it is just a matter of easing people into that realization. He's not so foolish as to go against that kind of power."

"Gil..." Rey trailed off, swallowing his thoughts, before forcing himself to continue. "I... I don't think Noah cares. About the world you and I are creating. I don't think he cares about your popularity, or a possibility of backlash. From... from some of what he's said to me in passing, it... it... it seems to me that he's expecting the world to change, very soon, to something only he can see!" Rey felt sweat beading anew on his forehead, and his stomach roiled and burned ferociously. He started panting for breath, wrestling with the rest of what he wanted to say. "I... I think Noah is... is... Noah is..." Rey couldn't continue, the words wouldn't form! The world started to blur and swim, and he felt both cold and faint...

"REY!" Gil's concerned exclaimation brought him back to full consciousness. "Stay with me, Rey! Don't talk about it! He's done something to you, some sort of conditioning! Don't fight it now! You need to be on top of yourself right now! We can figure it out later!"

"Y-yeah..." Rey managed a weak smile, before puking all down the front of his flight suit. Flushing with embarassment, he wiped at the corner of his mouth with one hand, while vacuuming the floating mess up with a tool specifically for that purpose built into the side of his command chair. "S-sorry..."

"Don't worry about it, son." Durandel's voice was quiet and supportive, with strong undercurrents of anger, directed at Noah. "It's not your fault. I'll get you help, get rid of whatever he did to you! The important thing is, you're fighting it! With both of us fighting it, we'll beat it in no time! But don't worry about it now! There will be plenty of time for it later!"

"I'm... not sure... that's true." Rey muttered thinly, knowing they WERE running out of time, but he shook his head and wiped at his mouth again, already feeling better now that he was concentrating on the battle again. "I never expected Noah to actually use the Revenant like this. I mean, I knew he built it for major battles, but I never imagined Cray was so..."

"So powerful, yes." Durandel's voice was once more detached and reserved, though he watched Rey closely, cautious for any hint of recurring problems or pain. Oh, his poor son... what had that bastard done to him!? "I appear to have underestimated the extent of the abilities granted by this BCPU enhancement process. I expected him to be roughly the equivalent of a top level Redcoat, maybe something along the level of Rau, but... nothing like this! He's ab-human! What a freak of nature! It's a good thing that project was nipped in the bud before it could go any further down the trail it was on!" Durandel felt nauseated by the thought of someone with inferior genes, but high level abilities nonetheless! It was nothing less than an abomination before the Destiny Plan! He was about to say more to bolster Rey when a conversation from outside the cubicle caught his attention, just a fragment of a phrase. "Hold on a second, Rey."

Durandel dropped the privacy screen and strode over towards the CIC section of the Command room, which was only a few steps away. "What was that just now? Who were you talking to?"

"What? Oh! Mr. Secretary!" The operator blinked up at him, surprised to suddenly have the very Secretary of Defense standing at his shoulder. "The Independence has requested perimeter clearance. I was just granting it to him, and giving him directions to the mustering point. He said he was operating in a special status, under your orders, but whatever the reason, I'm just glad he's here! It's about time the USN's Gundam took a stand alongside the rest of us!"

"I see. Thank you, Petty Officer. Good work. Please, tell me of any further contact with the Independence, and patch me in if possible." Durandel directed, a fist of ice clutching his heart, and a feeling of his bowels becoming very loose indeed pervading his body. The Independence!? It couldn't be! The Independence was supposed to be space debris right now, out in the Asteroid Belt! A sudden thought occured to him, and he turned back to the operator. "Have you checked his IFF code thoroughly? I would hate to have..."

"Four times, sir. I thought the same thing, initially." The operator replied smartly. "Since the Independence just showed up unnanounced and all, but everything checks out one hundred percent. Even the voice ID on the pilot."

"I see. Well appreciated. Keep it up." Durandel turned away, that slim hope dashed, and walked back to the privacy cubicle, feeling like there was a targeting system oriented on him the whole way. Well, there probably was... it just wasn't close enough to fire yet. He sat down heavily in the chair and drew the curtain closed again, and stared at Rey. "We have a very big problem, Rey. Get to the Command bunker as quickly as you can, and bring help!"

Rey didn't question Gil's sudden orders, seeing the ashen look on his face. Something was indeed wrong, Gil was actually scared! He didn't ask for clarification, he just started unbuckling himself from his command chair. "I'll be there in five minutes with a couple Solar Knights. Hang in there, Gil."

"Bring your Archons. You'll need them." Durandel replied, swallowing hard, a sudden lump of dryness in his throat. "It's the Independence. It's here. And so is the pilot. I'll do what I can to delay him, but he's coming for me, I know it."

"On our way." Rey replied. "Just stay calm... he won't compromise the safety of the base by destroying the entire Command bunker!"

"Yes. Of course, you're right." Durandel answered with a thin smile, unconvinced of the truth of that statement. From what little he knew of Markov Ashino, he wasn't the sort of man who would take an assassination scheme lying down. God damn, but was a reinforced platoon of elite soldiers and a squadron of Champions, plus whatever Noah had sent not enough!? What the hell were these BCPU's!? Monsters! Both of them were monsters!

--------------------------------------------

"This is Markov Ashino, in the Independence, requesting clearance of interior gate Golf Six." Ashino commed, mentally crossing his fingers, an expression Jean had taught him about, saying that it was supposed to bring or perserve luck. He wasn't sure how the simple fact of crossing two fingers over each other could accomplish something so metaphysical, but at the moment he was willing to try almost anything to get just that little bit further in before this became very loud and violent indeed. Durandel HAD to be aware of him by now, but no punitive action had been taken, as far as Ashino could see. That meant Durandel was either running, or setting up an ambush. He hoped for the latter, else this would become very messy and drawn out.

"Uh, the mustering point is in the other direction, sir." The CIC operator replied, hesitation in his voice. "They could really use you more on the front lines, not in here..."

"I am aware of that. However, like I said before, I am operating in a special status, because of SecDef Durandal's personal orders. My presence is required here first." Ashino replied, tensing up some. This might be the make or break moment right here! If they challenged his story too much further, he was just going to have to start forcing his way forward! He'd gotten through six gates so far, with this last one between him and the innermost ring of the base, where the hardened Command bunkers were located. It was further than he'd been expecting to get undiscovered. For he was indeed operating in a special status... namely, ice cold rage driven revenge... and it was because of Durandel's personal orders!

"Wait one, sir. Conferring with the chain of command." The operator answered. Ashino forced himself to keep a calm center. Flipping out was not to his advantage. Going through the gate by force would take a lot of time and effort, and would make taking Durandel out far harder, because he would definitely start running then! He'd give them a minute or two. For all he knew the operator had to clear it with higher ranked officers before the gate could be opened, for anyone, given the state of emergency. So he kept his fingers off his triggers, and his mind focused on things other than his pain and anger. Soon enough...

---------------------------------------------------

"What the hell is the rush!?" Lain complained, as the five of them, him, Eric, Shinn, Luna and Knight-Commander ze Burrel, hotfooted it through the various outer rings of the Galileo base's sublunar structure. Their Archons made for a very intimidating sight, as traffic was cleared ahead of them, pounding footfalls echoing like thunderclaps as they raced along, leaving cracked roadways and staggering people in their wake. "We've got a major baddie outside, why the hell are we going inside? We're not at the last ditch stage yet, are we? The Clyne Faction hasn't even gotten here yet!" Privately though, Lain was just happy to be moving again, which had taken some superlative efforts on the part of a USN ground crew, which had taken the damned black pods off him and then basically re-downloaded his thruster control program, while he was recharging and re-arming. He was still tweaking his settings, in spare seconds as they tromped along at a quick march.

"There is an infiltrator heading for the Command bunker area, in order to assassinate the senior officers and the SecDef. We have to stop him before he gets through the final gate." Rey replied firmly, in the leading position.

"An infiltrator!? The Traitor?" Lunamaria asked in surprise. "I thought we updated our IFF codes so that couldn't happen anymore!?"

"We hardly need all five of us for the Traitor! I could take him by myself without too much trouble, and the same goes for everyone else!" Shinn pointed out. "Heck, the automated defense systems might be able to scare him off, once they get through his stealth!"

"It's not the Traitor." Rey answered, though he did not yet give out the true identity of the enemy. He didn't want the hassle of the argument. "It's someone much worse. Someone no one expected. Someone we all thought was a loyal adherent to the USN. A real traitor. Recent information has come into our hands linking him with the probable pilot of the enemy Gundam outside, the Revenant. This has probably been their plan from the beginning... use the Revenant to distract our forces, and then this operative would kill the SecDef and the other senior officers while our backs were turned."

"Distract!?" Eric commented in vague disbelief. "I'd call what it's doing a little more than "distracting"! It's decimating us! Why does it need backup at all!? I mean, it could probably walk over here if it really wanted to, and destroy Central Command itself, and at this point in time, there isn't much we could do to stop it!"

"Is it really going to take five of us to defeat this one infiltrator?" Shinn pressed. "I mean, surely two or three at most would be enough? We need every last person against the Revenant!"

"His capabilities are unknown, but quite considerable no matter how we slice it. Better to be overcautious rather than dead." Rey snapped in reply, his concern for Gil overriding his normal polite manner. "The SecDef's life is in our hands, and we will NOT take that responsibility lightly, do you understand me!?"

"Completely, sir, don't worry." Luna assured him, arching a brow privately at the raw worry in Rey's voice. Looks like what Shinn had told her once, a while back, that Rey and Durandel were closer than strictly professional, was indeed true. "We're just concerned that even if we take this new threat down, if the Revenant breaks through outside, we're still equally screwed."

"One thing at a time, Lunamaria. This is the more immediate threat. Unlike the pilot of the Revenant, this man does not indulge his appetite for wanton, purposeless destruction. He's going after his goal like a soldier would, and that makes him much more dangerous, in my opinion." Rey told them. They passed through gate Foxtrot Six, following in the Independence's footsteps. Gil was delaying him at Golf Six, just up ahead, though surely the Independence would not sit idle too much longer, knowing that Durandel would have countermeasures in play by now! Even as Rey thought that, light and flame bloomed over a series of buildings up ahead, and the stattaco report of multiple high powered cannon blasts in a row made the air shiver. "He's attacking the gate! We don't have any time to lose! Shinn, you and Lain come in from the sides, I'll hold his attention on the front. Luna, you and Eric hang back and try and get between him and the gate!"

Rey was silent for a moment, and then got back on the comm, even as they acknowledged his orders. "Be warned..." He began, as they rounded the last corner between them and the gate, coming into full view of the gate area, which was wreathed in some and flames that obscured their view for a moment, more pluming up as the unseen foe blasted again at the weakening gate. "We're up against something with ab-human abilities, that does not feel pity or remorse or guilt! Do not hold back, no matter how surprising his appearance might be, or else you could very easily die!" Rey punctuated the statement by raising his accelerated-impulse cannon and firing off a blast, more or less at where the Independence had to be. There was an explosion, but only a small one, probably from a miss. Rey slammed up his shield, calling for tthe others to do likewise, just instants before a hail of 120mm cannon shells and almost sixty missiles came streaming through the air towards them, the impacts and detonations making their Archon's shiver and tremble, while laying waste to the buildings on either side of them, fortunately evacuated of workers during the first part of the Revenant's assault.

The smoke billowed and gusted, as air leaked through cracks in gate Golf Six, equalizing the slightly different pressures between the sealed part of the base and the rest of it. The form of their foe became apparent as it charged out of the smoke at them, muzzles flashing and brass spitting from its twinned 120mm gatling cannons clenched in the right fist, shortly before the shoulder mounted 200mm beam cannons, all four of them, spat fat green energy blasts at them, which Rey, Shinn and Lain took on their Citadel Shields. Shinn and Lain split up to prevent a less bunched target to the foe, cursing and swearing in shocked surprise at seeing their assailant, while Rey countercharged, his sword to the fore, ready to impale or blast the Independence as the opportunity arose.

Luna was just about to start circling around when she realized Eric wasn't moving. "Eric, what's wrong?" She asked, as she struggled to accept the fact that they were under attack by the Independence, the USN's own Gundam! What the hell was going on here!? Why was the Independence trying to kill the SecDef? What was it even doing here at all... last she'd heard, it was up in the Asteroid Belt!

Eric stared at the Independence, unable to believe his eyes. This COULD NOT be happening! This was a dream, a nightmare! "Ashino...?" He muttered, before stabbing a hand out to activate his comm system. "Ashino!? Is that you!? What are you doing!?"

The Independence came to a halt, deflecting Rey's sword to the side with its own Citadel Shield. "Eric?" Ashino's reply came back, full of confusion and pain. "Thank god you're still alive!"

"Knight-Ensign, shoot him, don't talk to him! He's a traitor! He's trying to kill the SecDef!" Rey snarled, hacking at the Independence, only to be confounded by the shield again.

"I am no traitor!" Ashino refuted, stepping back a few paces, keeping a wary eye on the two Archon's trying to flank him, and the third trying to sneak around to put itself between him and the gate. "If anyone is a traitor, it is Durandel!"

"He's a madman! He's working with the Brotherhood!" Rey retorted. "You saw it the same as I, he attacked the gate! What other reason could there be? He's shooting at us!"

"You're shooting at me too!" Ashino answered, his voice cold and hard. "You're working with him, aren't you!? You knew! He called you in to take me down, like an attack dog, didn't he!?"

"Boss... Ashino... slow down... guys... hold on!" Eric pleaded. "Let's talk about this! Stop shooting at him! There is no WAY that Ashino is a traitor! He's the most loyal guy in the USN!" Eric stepped forward in his Archon and reached out a hand to restrain Rey's sword arm. "There's got to be an explanation for this!"

"Durandel sent men to kill me, and then tried to have the Brotherhood cover it up for him by killing the men he sent." Ashino said, his tone ugly with hatred, enough to make Eric swallow hard. He'd not heard Ashino this mad since... since the last time they'd fought Frost! "That is the explanation for this!"

"Insanity! You sold out to the enemy a long time ago!" Rey countered. "You've been working with them from the start! Don't bother denying it! I do know... I know that you're the same sort of thing as the animal controlling the Revenant outside! You're practically kin!"

"Cray and I are NOT kin." Ashino retorted, appalled at the very idea. "Our life circumstances are similar in some ways, but he has fully embraced what Doc made him, while I have instead turned to my humanity! Or I was trying to anyway, until Durandel decided I was a liability!"

"He's one of those things!? Like the guy outside!?" Luna regarded the Independence hesitantly. That was bad. The guy outside was fast like she could barely believe, and accurate, and just plain fucking nuts! If they were dealing with another person like that, maybe five of them wasn't enough...

"He's not a thing! He's a person! A wonderful, loyal, kind, gentle person!" Eric yelled at her. "He's a better man than I could hope to be, better than ninety percent of people I've ever met!" Eric tried to grab and pull Rey's Archon away from the Independence, but Mobile Suits weren't exactly designed for that sort of manuever, and all he got was a face full of thruster wash as Rey charged in again. Shinn and Lain were at least keeping their distance, so far, Eric was happy to see, though whether that as because they were doubtful of the situation or just looking for an opening, he couldn't tell.

"He's been decieving you, Knight-Ensign! I know it hurts, but he's the enemy now! He's trying to kill the SecDef!" Rey exhorted.

"Only because HE tried to kill ME!" Ashino spat back. "Did you think I was just going to stand back and let you try again!?"

"See! He admits it! Don't listen to his lies, he's just trying to confuse you! If he was really your friend, he'd surrender!"

"If I had the option, I would! If it was just me I was fighting for, I might! But that isn't the case!" Ashino answered, his voice almost bloody raw. "I am the Gundam pilot of the USN, I would sooner cut off my own hands than betray this wonderful organization that has done so much for me and for the world! But if I was this thing, this traitor, this vile demon you accuse me of being... I could see you coming after me, lawfully, with evidence and courts and laws and all that stuff that makes up organized civilization! Why assassins?"

"I don't know what you're talking about, you delusion bastard! The USN didn't come after you! You're here on orders from the Brotherhood!" Rey insisted.

"I am not! The Brotherhood is evil! They remind me of Blue Cosmos! I would NEVER work for them! They're Coordinators! If you knew the slightest thing about me, you'd know that I was designed and built to KILL and HATE Coordinators!" Ashino said. His voice broke as he continued on. "And even if all else could be excused, what about the other innocent people on the station!? Why did they have to die too!? They had nothing to do with me! Why silence witnesses if you have nothing to hide!? Why did you have to involve Jean!? What did she ever do to deserve... to deserve..." Ashino's voice broke down into a sob.

"Jean!? Ashino, what happened to Jean!? Is my sister okay!? Ashino!?" Eric demanded, his heart jumping up into his mouth in sudden terror.

"I sent her to Orb. I... couldn't protect her. I'm sorry, Eric. I'm so sorry... I couldn't..." Ashino broke down in sobs again.

"Don't try to blame your crimes on us! You massacred the people aboard the station with your own hands! That was what helped tip us off to your Brotherhood affiliations! You're a monster! A bloodthirsty monster, just like the one outside!" Rey cut in vehemently. "Their blood is on your hands, and no one elses!"

"You are saying it is my fault that Jean is... is..." Ashino's voice was incredulous. "That it is MY fault that those people were gunned down in their beds and at their meals by those soldiers!?" His volume rose from quiet disbelief to true anger. "It is now MY FAULT that my life has been destroyed, the person I love most crippled and maimed, and I find myself walking this abhorrent path!? That is ME!? MY fault!?" Ashino roared the last bit, before dropping to a near whisper. "I suppose you are right. If I hadn't been me, none of this would have happened to any of them, would it!?" Ashino chuckled morosely. "It's at times like this than I think I might actually understand why Frost hates humanity so much. All of this... my fault?" Ashino trailed off again and looked directly at Rey's Archon. "You accuse me of causing Jean to suffer her injuries... that it is because of me that she is in such a critical condition? You imply that I would HURT Jean, in any way!?"

"Rabid dogs bite that hands that feed them. It is their nature." Rey retorted icily.

"How true. This dog wishes you wouldn't have injected him with rabies first though!" Ashino replied wearily. "Are you a Coordinator by any chance?"

"Yes. But what does that have to do with anything..."

"Good. That makes this easier then." Ashino let himself give in to his conditioning, something he'd fought for almost six years now, constantly urging him to unleash his most violent urges against Coordinators whenever he met them. "Stand out of my way, Eric and anyone else that wants to live."

"Don't do it! Ashino! Don't do it! We can... we can talk this out!" Eric insisted frantically. "Guys, trust me on this... we don't have to fight him! We shouldn't fight him! He's on our side! Really!"

"I will not talk with someone who accuses me of hurting Jean, knowing full well what really happened! There is no insult more dire to me!" Ashino said, his voice dead.

"He is a direct threat to the SecDef's life, he has admitted as much himself. I am ORDERING you to stop him, Knight-Ensign Kellson." Rey said firmly.

"I can't do that! He's my friend! He's my sister's boyfriend... more than that even! I know him! He wouldn't be doing this if he didn't have a reason!" Eric replied, shaking his head back and forth in denial of the sheer insanity of the situation. "This just can't be happening! Lain, Shinn, Luna... please... trust me... Ashino isn't the sort to do this!"

"Stand down, Knight-Ensign!" Rey half turned his Archon to regard Eric, keeping his shield facing towards Ashino. "You are endangering the life of the SecDef with your entirely baseless entreaties! This man is the enemy! If you won't stop him, then I will have no choice but to court martial you, pending investigation of your own possible contributions to his actions!"

"Sir!" Lain protested, shocked at where this was going. "Couldn't we at least try what Eric's suggesting!? The last thing we need is another fight right now!"

"He did say he was trying to kill the SecDef..." Shinn pointed out. "If he disarms completely and exits his Mobile Suit, then we can talk. But if he won't do that, then he IS the enemy!"

"And put myself at Durandel's mercy again!? I think not... I have learned THAT lesson very well indeed!" Ashino answered.

"The SecDef is an upstanding, gentle and kind person. He's not the sort who would order someone assassinated, even if he had reason to!" Lunamaria said. "I understand he's your friend, Eric, but his story just doesn't add up! Maybe he's been brainwashed or something..." She broke off when Ashino started chuckling mirthlessly upon hearing that. "What's so damned funny, you psycho!?"

"NOTHING'S FUNNY!" Ashino screamed, pushed beyond the remit by the casual comment about brainwashing. He'd spent his entire life overcoming brainwashing of one sort or another, and now they wanted to tell him he was being brainwashed just because they had no idea what kind of snake they really worked for!? "I'm just not the brainwashed one here! I would know... I was stolen from my parents and brainwashed and memory wiped several times between the ages of four and ten... I know the signs of brainwashing or memory modification VERY well, thank you very much. But then again, you people don't believe me, do you?"

"Indeed we don't." Rey started advancing on him again.

"Disarm or die. Your choice." Shinn warned, moving in from the side.

"It is our duty to protect the SecDef, and the USN. Right now, you're the threat we have to face." Luna said in a steely voice.

"I can't do this! I won't do this! This is insanity!" Eric protested in a panic.

"I... I'm with Eric. Something is fucked up about this situation. No way the USN Gundam Pilot just flips around and suddenly tries to kill the SecDef. If he wanted to do that, he coulda done it earlier. Let's all just step back and go over things again, nice and slow." Lain urged, backing away from his flanking position.

"Knight-Ensign Debora, you are putting yourself in danger of a Court-Martial as well!" Rey informed him. "This is mutiny in the face of the enemy! You could face a firing squad for this!"

"And my conscience would kill me too, if I allowed myself to be pressured into killing an innocent man, who very well may have been wronged. His approach to the solution is wrong, but one I can understand, if assassins had been sent after me and my loved ones!" Lain replied steadily. "You can do what you want to me after this is done, but I won't help you take him down, not without a chance to explain himself in front of a judge and jury of his peers! I'm going to go back to the real fight, and help take out that monster Revenant. You got my back, Eric?"

"I..."

"Go. I'll be fine. Thank you Eric." Ashino said. "Your trust means more to me than you can ever know. I sent Jean to Cyprus. Hopefully she'll be safe there."

"Be careful, sir. The same to you guys." Eric included everyone, as he turned to follow Lain's Archon. "Try not to get dead... I think the USN needs us ALL!"

Rey fumed as the two Archons flew away, but there was little enough he could do about it right now. He and Gil would deal with them to the full extent of the law later, for their cowardly and mutinous acts, but at the moment, Kellson did have something of a point. With the straits it was in, the USN needed every spare soldier at the moment. Perhaps Cray and the Revenant would put an end to them and save him and Gil the trouble and embarassment of court-martialling two respected Solar Knights! That would be the best solution! "Luna, fill in Debora's spot. We'll just have to rely on the three of us to keep him contained."

"Disarm now, and I'll be glad to give you the chance Eric and Lain want to give you." Shinn pressed, edging closer. "You can't beat all three of us!"

"You don't have any idea who you're talking to, do you?" Ashino answered, keeping himself pointed at Rey as the third Archon moved to take his other flank. "So far your opponents have been weak and cowardly, with willpower that would shame a drug addict! They have cut and run the moment the engagement became even slightly sour, or even before! Indeed, a suspicious man might even wonder at the incredible ease of your victories to date, given the incredible struggle you are currently having. Did someone turn off the cheat codes and easy mode without telling you? You should not take me so lightly, especially without Gundams of your own!"

"Taking people too lightly is something you do as well!" Shinn retorted, his patience exhausted, charging in from the side, shoulder beam cannons flashing, swinging towards the Independence's back with his sword. At the same time, Rey engaged from the front, striving to push Ashino back onto Shinn's blade, while Luna hung back and looked for a shot with her accelerated-impulse cannon. Ashino blocked Rey's attacks with his shield and then darted in closer, going shield to shield with him and using the Independence's greater size and mass to push the Archon back, off balance, before spinning around, pointing the twinned 120mm gatling cannons in Shinn's face and opening fire, angling his shield to deflect Luna's predictable blast up into the ceiling and kicking out in a back thrust kick with his right leg to knock Rey's Archon even further off balance.

Shinn rocked backwards from the impact of the point blank barrage of 120mm explosive shells, his momentum deflected, shaken around in his chair by the force of the hits. Since he was moving in on his Hoverthrusters for speed and maneuverability, he was pushed back much further than he would have otherwise been. He fired with his missiles and shoulder beam cannons, but the Independence interposed its shield and blocked them, firing back with the twin 100mm railguns mounted in the shield to ping off Shinn's own shield. Luna sniped with her impulse cannon again, missing wide as the Independence dodged and jetted around and over behind her, putting some distance between the three of them and it, tracking a dual line of 1200mm shells across her Archon as he did so until the barrels stopped spitting shells, likewise jittering and rocking her so that it was hard for her to target accurately.

Ashino gauged his strategy as he landed, discarding the empty twin gatling cannons and drawing out his beam glaive instead. One of them liked to stay at range, the other liked close range and the third, the one he really hated, was like him, favoring medium range. A tricky situation, forcing him to stay thinking on multiple levels at a time. Good thing he'd been designed exactly for such types of combat! He felt the adrenaline start pumping through his veins, filling him with crystal clarity and pounding excitement. It had been so long since he'd fought a real battle in the Independence... it felt good, he was not altogether too surprised to learn. A BCPU and his machine had a bond, after all. Melee fighter was the biggest threat, followed by the hated one, and finally the sniper. However, the sniper, if eliminated, would make the battle much easier. He fired his missiles at Rey, directed his shoulder beam cannons at Shinn, and blasted at Luna with the chest mounted 580mm hyper-impulse cannon, hoping to take her out with one shot right off the bat.

No such luck, as her shield took the blast and negated it in a bloom of red and purple and white sparks and arcs, though her Archon was visibly rocked by the energy of the blast. Still, she recovered quickly and efficiently, and Ashino notched her up a point on his threat scale. These were not ordinary Coordinators he was facing, probably Redcoats, or former Redcoats anyway, now that they were with the Solar Knights. Ashino ducked under a barrage of beam blasts from Shinn's shoulder mounted cannons, and ate a bunch of missiles in the process, but even the armor piercing warheads of the pilum missiles couldn't penetrate the Phase Shift of the Independence, and the low powered explosions barely even made the Gundam shiver. Shinn tried to use the distraction of the ranged attacks to get in close for a sword swing, but Ashino just jetted backwards, keeping away, putting a corner of a building between them, gathering a few extra seconds of reaction time. Ashino scowled as the Independence's arms and shield caved in the side of the buildings to either side of the road he was on, sending rubble crashing down onto him and the street below. It was too cramped in here for his style, too easy to get backed into a corner.

A pair of powerful explosions rocked the Independence from behind and Ashino checked his flanks, but the street was clear! It wasn't until he saw a stubby, keg shaped object drop from over the roofline of the buildings next to him, exploding with a thudnerous shockwave that battared at the Independence, did he realize what was happening. They were throwing grenades over the rooflines at him, using the building as a visual blind so he would not know where to direct his fire in return. Interesting... a very canny move. No doubt were he to fly up over the building, or step around the corner, they would be ready and waiting to blast him, and from what he'd heard from Eric before about their weapons, the cannons in the tips of their swords were more than capable of piercing his Citadel Shield, especially at close range, unless he took care to glance or deflect the shot. Another grenade sailed over the roofline and detoanted just over his head, causing his cameras to fill with static for a moment. The grenades were powerful, and a direct hit might be enough to cause real damage, from the concussion shock if nothing else. Time to think fast, and act on instinct!

So instead of flying over, or stepping around the building, he simply bulled right through it it, leading with his shield angled to deflect blasts upwards, which it did, sending two of the purple-blue beams sizzling upward into the roof before the third caught it at a better angle and chewed right through, destroying both railguns mounted on the underside of the shield and chopping the armored slab in half. Ashino hurled the remaining part of the shield like a discus, knocking the sword-cannon from the hands of one of them, the one he thought was the girl, the sniper, Luna. Ashino took his beam glaive in both hands and parryed a swing from the melee fight, Shinn, using the Independence's momentum, as well as superior size and mass, to push the Archon back in a clinch, before breaking away and blasting the third one, the hated one, Rey, away with a volley from his shoulder beam cannons. Shinn re-engaged in a moment, binding with his sword and slamming with his shield, and Ashino gritted his teeth as he took the slam to the chest and rode it out.

Shinn pushed harder, clearing his shield and stabbing with his sword, only to meet a withering hail of fire from the six 20mm CIWS guns in the Indepedence's head, which chewed at the armored, but not Transphase armored, material of the sword, chipping and eating away at it before finally a shell struck something vital and the sword shorted out in a mass of crackling blue and pink electric arcs, until it stuck the Independence on the side and snapped like a rotten twig, its structure holed like swiss cheese. Ashino pressed forward in return, body slamming the Archon and hooking his leg behind its legs while Shinn staggered, then body slamming it again, knocking it down onto its back. Ashino sliced down with his beam glaive but was forced to abort the strike before he could finish by a impulse blast from the Archon he'd disarmed, who had retrieved her sword, and Rey charging forward to try and stab him in the back. Ashino's strike cleaved deeply into Shinn's right shoudler, destroying the beam cannons mounted there, but that was the extent of the damage, as he dodged by gunning his thrusters and flying straight up.

Ashino pointed himself at the ceiling and prayed that his body slams hadn't damaged the hyper-impulse projector on his chest, before hitting his triggers, sending blast after blast from his four shoulder mounted 200mm beam cannons and, thankfully, several red-blue 580mm hyper-impulse beams streaking into the thick, hardened and reinforced moonrock that served to cap the inner part of Galileo LFB from the surface of the moon. The rock was almost forty meters thick right here, with armor plates and shock absorbing systems running through it to cushion against outside assault by even the heaviest of normal weapons, but against a purely beam based attack from the more vulnerable inside, there was at least a chance of getting through. Not all at once, but he'd made a good start, before turning once more to face renewed engagement from his foes. He sideslipped a brace of accelerated-impulse shots from Luna, letting them bore into the crater he'd blasted in the ceiling, furthering his own efforts, and swatted Rey's sword swing to the side and locked their weapons together, both of them pushing and pulling at each other, maneuvering for that little bit of leverage that would allow them to slip past the other's guard and score a telling blow!

Ashino jerked and slammed around in his cockpit as Shinn, disregarding his injured shoulder and lack of a melee weapon, shield charged the Independence from the side, hitting hard and driving on with his thrusters at maximum to crush the Independence against the ceiling like a fly swatter landing on a large bug, mangling the missile launchers on the back of the Gundam. Shinn smirked, glad for the little bit of payback after the humilating loss of his sword, and the near death experience. He didn't have much left that could really hurt the Gundam through it's Phase Shift armor, but he'd teach the bastard to never count Shinn Asuka out of the fight nonetheless! Shinn weathered a mighty blow from the beam glaive across his shield, allowing himself to be driven back as Rey renewed his own assault, covering behind his shield while blasting with his shoulder beam cannons, trying to keep the big Gundam pinned so that Luna could line up a shot from below.

Luna saw her chance and took her shot, but it had been a ruse, and Ashino pulled a seemingly impossible twist that moved him just feet out of the path of the purple-blue energy, before he counterattacked, hurling his beam glaive like a spear at Rey, who blocked it and knocked it away with his shield, but was that action kept him stationary for a moment longer than he could easily afford, and Ashino punished him for it, bringing his doubled fists down on the center of Rey's shield, sending ripples of golden sparks flying across the Citadel Shield effect and punching the Archon downwards in a half spin. Shinn moved to re-engage to give Rey time to recover, but went flying back himself, his shield groaning under the impact of all four beam cannon blasts, plus a hyper-impulse shot. Warning sirens blared in Shinn's cockpit, telling him the Citadel Shield was close to collapse, but there wans't much he could do besides hope that it didn't, as he more or less voluntarily rode the impact down to the ground, wanting some time to recover himself. Damn, but this guy was good!

Ashino retrieved his beam glaive before it could hit the ground, exchanging beam fire with Luna, still on the ground, as he headed back to his ceiling crater and worked to enlarge it, dodging her fire as best he could. It was hard... she was a VERY good shot, and had a knack for anticipating his movements. The Independence was sporting glowing trenches in its shoulder, leg and side armor by the time the other two Archons had recovered their equilibrium and returned to engage him, coming in at the same time, on converging paths, both leading with their shields and gunning their thrusters for all they were worth. Ashino smiled ferally, and accepted their challenge! He stowed the beam glaive for the moment and countercharged, reaching out a hand towards each of them. The sound of their collision was like that of a hundred tons of scrap metal falling off a skyscraper onto a junkyard full of rusted cars. All three of them underwent sudden deccelerations from the impact that threw them so hard against their restraints that they left raw marks on their skin, even through the thick, padded flight suits. In the end though, it was Ashino's reinforced and enhanced physiology that recovered the quickest from the brutal shock, and he tightened his hold on both Rey and Shinn's Citadel Shields before ripping them away and tossing them to the sides while they were still semi-stunned.

Luna intervened, jetting up from below to slice and dice at him with her sword, forcing him back as Shinn and Rey once more dropped towards the streets below, struggling to clear ringing heads and spitting blood from bitten lips and cheeks. Ashino snatched out his beam glaive again and briefly fought with Luna, blades crackling and shimmering as the conflicting plasma energies conflicted and gnawed at each other, unable to win through their counterpart. She wasn't the best fencer, but neither was Ashino, and she had a shield as well. Well, at least she did before Ashino took one hand off his glaive to forearm block her sword to the side, grimacing as the beam edge bit deeply into the upper arm armor, and then brought his glaive down inside her guard and took her left arm off at the shoulder, the wound edges glowing orange hot, spitting white-blue sparks from severed power conduits. Ashino pulled his damaged arm sharply away before she could return the favor, and kicked her away in a uncontrollable dive with a solid blow from his foot. He flexed the injured arm, distressed to find it slow and unwieldy. It had been a risky move, and he'd paid the price. He turned his attention back to his crater/tunnel to the surface. He needed to get some flying around room, if he kept fighting with his back to the wall and trading injuries, he'd lose! They had more space to be injured than him!

Progress was just too slow with his shoulder and chest mounted weapons though! Green plasma bolts and red-blue arcs of ravening energy chewed away meters of the rock at a time, but he still had more than half the sheet of moonrock and metal to get through! Ashino snarled, detesting the necessity, but he had no choice! He stowed his glaive once more, and pointed both palms at the center of the crater, extremely glad the damage to his arm was on the upper part, not down near the palm or wrist, where the capacitance system for the Mjolnir's were! If one of those was damaged and went off, losing the arm would be the least of his worries! He remembered what had happened to the Bane with a slight feeling of nausea, that might have been worry in someone else, but at the moment he had no place for worries! Purple-white lightning crawled up and down his forearms and gathered in his palms, before streaking outward in twin, eye searingly bright lances of power that struck the rock and shattered it and melted it at the same time, such was the energy released! Cracks spread through the ceiling for thirty meters in every direction, magma drooling down like blood from a wound.

For a second or two, that was the extent of the result, before with a bone chilling rumble, followed by a wailing like those from lost souls, the ceiling collapsed, epicentered on the crater Ashino had created, as a sixty meter diamater hole was sucked outward into the vacuum of space, the weakened structure of the armor cap no longer able to restrain the air pressure inside from rushing out into the nil pressure outside. A hurricane gale sprang up as emergency gates slammed shut all throughout the base compartment, limiting the decompression to just the area between gates Foxtrot and Golf, but that was still several square kilometers of territory. Ashino let the gale suck him and the Independence out into space, as the Mjolnirs began their laborious and energy intensive recharge cycle. It was like falling upward into hell... during the time they'd been fighting, the Revenant had moved much closer to the Shipyards and Command Bunkers, apparently bored with the level of resistance he'd been met with so far. It stood, still for a moment in the near distance, haloed by shell detonations and beam blasts, before leaping forward, massive chain whirling over its head, rivers of green energy pouring from its left arm in a wide arc as Cray pounced at some tempting target of opportunity. Slightly less than half of the Revenant's skin was dark or damaged, but it seemed none the worse for the wear despite that!

Ashino ached to direct his firepower at Cray, who was definitely a zombie that should have stayed in his damned grave, but he didn't dare direct his attention away while the three Solar Knights were still around. One of them was still in almost full operating order, and the other two were still dangerous, despite their damage. They were worthy opponents... Ashino just wished he could have met them as friends rather than enemies! Even comrades... he would have gladly become a Solar Knight, even if it would have meant being seperated from his Independence! But that was all dust in the wind now, with Durandel's actions! He was turning back to watch the snowy air of the base rush out into the depths of space, keeping an eye out for the arrival of his pursuers, when blooms of familiar purple-white light came from the direction of the Revenant. Ashino turned back... that had looked just like Mjolnir blasts...

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"What the hell!? OWW!" Cray complained, looking down at the smoulding ruins of his left foot and ankle, victims of withering whiplashing bolts of purple-white lightning, spat from the barrels of the guns of three burly Mobile Suits plodding towards him through his hail of automated interdiction fire, walking through it without seeming concern, like people walking through heavy wind driven rain. Cray didn't actually feel pain, since the NIC system didn't transmit sensations like that, not that he even had a foot to feel pain in, but the damage was definitely noticable, and the weapons on the foot were mangled and useless. He took affront to that! He'd been using those! Well, only a little, but still! "Well, I can't be having that now! You keep that up, you might actually do something problematic!" Cray scolded, turning his attention to the three of them. Not that losing the foot would really slow him down in the light gravity of the moon, but it was the principle of the thing.

He walked the Gottfried fire across them, but they were massive enough, and their Citadel Shields strong enough, that they were barely even checked. He was still less than impressed though... after all, even if they each stood on the shoulders of the others, all three on top of each other, they still only came up to his mid chest, and wouldn't weigh too much more than his chain! He had single weapons bigger and more massive than the three of them! Yeah, not exactly scary. He was starting to get bored with this... it had been fun, initially, stomping around like a man kicking down an anthill, but it was getting old now. He wanted to really have to at least try for a little while! Was it so wrong to want a challenge, after so much inactive time! He couldn't feel like he'd really woken up if he didn't even get mad! Yeah, his humor was definitely fading. Perhaps it was time to call in the cleanup crew, and move on to bigger and better things. Such as blowing up that creep Noah, and then all of the PLANTS, and then maybe the world, depending on how tired he was. A nap might be needed between the PLANTS and the world. Just a little pick me up rest.

The glow of hyper-impulse beams boring into his upper legs drew his attention downwards to the three new Mobile suits, wearing the livery of the FNE, once more. Persistent little buggers. Something else distracted him fro wiping them out once more though, a giant spout of ice crystals jetting out of the ground like a frozen geyser, about a kilometer and a half or so off to the side, in the direction he'd been heading before deigning to grind this pocket of resistance back into the dirt they'd crawled from. Someone had put a pretty impressive hole in the ground. Or actually, from the looks of things, a pretty impressive hole in the ceiling, since all that air had to be coming from somewhere, and HE certainly hadn't shot anything over there. He was much too careful with his shots to do that... he preferred to get his loads in or on people, not on the environment, though since they did tend to move and scream a lot, sometimes it was unavoidable. Cray pointed one of his hip Linear Cannon turrets at the advancing FNE Mobile Suits and blasted away, but even THAT didn't halt them for more than a few moments, the massive shells striking their shields and detonating hard enough to crack the ground beneath their feet, but for all that the Citadel Shield's barely even wavered. That was some pretty beefy resilience! Cray respected resilience... it made it that much more fun to take people apart when they didn't just fall to pieces like glass statues.

A veritable storm of rockets erupted from the shoulder mounted launchers on the three Mobile Suits, arrowing in towards him. Much of the volley was blasted from space by his beam and cannon CIWS systems, and what did get through was barely enough to do more than sprinkle across his chest like a fireworks show, more impressive visually than in any real damage caused. Seeming to take heart fro the arrival of these FNE machines, the other Mobile Suits that had been scurrying around like mice with one leg bitten off were now forming up again and attacking him from other quarters, nibbling away at his skin with their dogged persistence. Yeah, he was definitely getting bored with this... they just didn't know when they were beaten already! They could not kill him, but they could definitely make him waste his time! Didn't they know he had better things to be doing!? How rude could people get, seriously!? What was wrong with young people these days... they just weren't being raised right! A repeated bathing of Gottfried fire did nothing to change the situation, as the beams either curved wide around the shoulder-shield thingies the Mobile Suits had, or dead ended in their tough Citadel Shields.

"I've had just about enough of you!" Cray commented, leaning down towards them and launching a missile from both of his shoulder launchers, another pair of cluster warheads, which were the majority of the munitions he'd loaded for this little coming out party. It was all he'd thought he'd need, for a wide spread ass stomping. He hadn't expected to encounter any real hard targets! The three of them bunched up, perhaps realizing that there was no way they could hope to dodge, but Cray's smile vanished into a frown of disgruntlment as they teamed up to scour the missiles from space before they were even halfway to their detonation point, red-blue hyper impulse blasts disintegrating the armored missiles like they were made of wax! "Daddy, they ain't playin nice..." Cray complained in his whiny tone.

"Toughen up, son. If they aren't going to play by the rules, its up to you to stand up to them and punish them for it!" Cray advised in his more manly voice, sniggering at his own humor. He never got tired of his own jokes. "CURVE THIS!" Cray announced gleefully, pointing his right arm right at them. They moved as a unit, charging forward, aiming their weapons right at the muzzle of the Radiation Cannon. "Oh come on, I'm not THAT stupid." Cray admonished, jerking the arm up and away, blasting the shot out up into the depths of space, a flare of energy that was visible from the other side of the moon if someone had been looking, taking their hyper impulse blasts in the meat of his arm instead. "I know very well that you guys would just LOVE to sacrifice yourself heroicly by shooting my arm before it fires, thus giving me a BIG boo-boo, but I really AIN'T playing that game with you! You want my arm, you're gonna have to take it from me, kicking and screaming the entire time! There will be no freebies here!"

Seeing as they were now getting close enough, Cray jumped at them, crossing a hundred meters in a single leap, landing on his half ruined foot, further buckling and damaging the remains, but he didn't let that stop him from kicking out with his other, intact foot, digging out a huge divot of rock and rubble, leaving a trench and a crater behind that was almost eight meters deep as they frantically dived out of the way. riding the momentum of the kick down into as much of a splits as the Revenant could handle, Cray lashed out at the two that had dived left with the axe blades on his left arm. Their Citadel Shields were up to the challenge, even if the sheer kinetic impact was enough to hurl them even further to the side in disarray, no doubt feeling like they'd just been bitch slapped by a giant. Purple-white lightning arced again, from the one who'd gone right, spearing up into his right side, blowing away several gatling cannon and beam turrets, as well as huge chunks of armor, almost down to the inner Citadel Shield! That lightning stuff really packed a punch! Cray instinctively tucked the right arm in closer to the wound in his side, like he would had it been gouged in his skin, but upon realizing what he was doing he scowled and shoved the arm away. He did not bleed, did not feel pain... he was a Revenant, come back from the dead!

Much to his surprise, rather than flee or wiat for its companions to regain themselves, the Mobile Suit that had wounded him instead just charged right at him, spraying fire from its hyper impulse guns and missiles from its shoulder tube, even tiny spitter-spatters of tracer rounds from its head mounted CIWS. Cray turned the entire Revenant to face the insane charge, smirking at sheer bravado displayed. "Think yer hot shit don't you? Ballsy, just coming at me like that! I like it! David and Goliath, and all that shit, right? Well I got news for ya, ya stupid bastard! This Goliath is wearing a fucking helmet! You want me! Here I am! Gimme yer best shot!" Cray challenged, throwing his arms wide and shutting down all his defensive weapons, presenting a completely open target. "Just be warned, yer only gonna get the one shot..."

If his assailant appreciated what he was doing for them, they didn't show it much, since they didn't alter their pattern of attack at all, just keeping on with the berserk charge, probably screaming at the top of their lungs. Cray pouted... that was HIS schtick! he was the one who was supposed to be raging and screaming and carrying on in a frenzy, charging into certain death with a smile on his lips! That was the job of the protagonist, wasn't it? And what else could he be, besides the star of the show, the center of attention? The purple-white lighting built up around the lower barrel of the weapon the Mobile Suit had in its right hand, and then spat out in an eye searing streak that was too bright even for his electronic eyes to look at directly, stabbing into the direct center of the Revenant, digging in deep through the outer Citadel Scales and layers of armor to splash against the inner Citadel Shield, testing their integrity. Cray watched the power levels spike, and made a mental note not to take one of those shots straight to the inner shield, as it had almost been pierced, AFTER the shot had gone through all the outer armor! Wouldn't that be a drag, actually getting hurt in a minor little fracas like this!

"Oh, you have pierced mine heart! I am wounded unto death!" Cray mock sobbed, staggering the Revenant back as if mortally wounded. It gave him just about the perfect amount of room for another axe swing, which slammed the Mobile Suit to the side like a croquet ball struck by a fifty pound sledgehammer, into a storage building about a hundred meters distant, which then collapsed on top of the Mobile Suit, partially brying it and trapping its shield and arm deflectors underneath the pile of girders and rubble. "Too bad I was dead to begin with!" Cray added, slashing the left arm in a flourish before pointing it at the hapless Mobile Suit as it struggled to pull free of what was about to become its tomb. "Bet you were wishing the same thing, about now..." Cray smiled as he oped fire, dousing the the building with dozens of bolts from the gatling Gottfried. He frowned though, seeing a lot more splash and deflect than should have, for a single downed foe! The attack should have burned a glassy lake into the ground where the building had been, but none of the blasts seemed to be reaching... oh... there... a couple of those Solar Knights were in the way. Durh. Wonder where they came from? Oh well, they wouldn't be sticking around long enough for it to matter! Cray targeted them with the left side Linear Cannon turrets and prepared kiss their asses goodbye...

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"Stella! Get up Stella!" Lain exhorted, fighting to keep his feet as alarms wailed and lights flashed, telling him what he already knew. The Archon's Citadel Shield wasn't designed to stop this kind of firepower, not in such rapid succession anyway! It was only a matter of time... a short time at that... before his battery got drained again, and then the tide of capital warship class energy bolts was going to turn him into charred ash! And Eric too, since he was standing right next to him, also acting as a shield for Stella. They'd both been trying to work in closer while the Panzerwulf's distracted the Revenant, only to find he wasn't nearly as distracted or disoriented by their attacks as they'd thought, as the Revenant scattered the Panzerwulfs with almost as much ease as it had pretty much everything else so far. Stella seemed to have become lost in that berserker frenzy they'd witnessed her suffering in the simulations, and she'd charged in against the Revenant basically alone. She'd gotten off two pretty damned good shots, even made the Revenant stagger for a moment, but then it had swiped her like a game ball, and that was where Lain and Eric had come into the story again.

"Target lock! He's pointing those big cannons at us!" Eric warned, watching the heavy triple barreled turrets turn towards them with slow finality. "There's no way we can take those too... we're barely holding out as it is!"

"Hello, obvious!? Got any bright ideas over there?" Lain prodded.

"I stopped thinking with my head and started thinking with my dick the moment I jumped between the Revenant and Stella, I was hoping you were the rational one." Eric shot back. "Stella, please! Get out of there, or else this is going to be a real stupid thing we've done!"

"She's stuck." Lain observed, watching the Panzerwulf flail wildly and helplessly, shifting a few girders around, but not doing very much to alter her situation, unable to get the proper leverage to shift the greater mass of debris off her upper torso. Canted up into the air, her legs kicked uselessly, looking for ground that was not to be reached. Her thrusters must have been damaged as well, because she wasn't using them. "Well, I always wanted to tell you this..."

"If you say "I love you, man" or any varient on that theme, I'm going to let him kill us!" Eric warned. "Because I don't swing that way, and me jumping in front of what amounts to a capital warship on steroids to save a girl who probably doesn't even know my name should prove that to you!"

"I was going to say, I took your porno mags that one time, like you thought, but I wouldn't admit to, but hey, if you want to hit a cliche, I guess I can't stop you..."

Eric could not help but laugh at the inanity of it all, though he wanted to cry as well. How could his life end on such a banal tone? He was still considering that when salvation arrived, well, sort of, in the form of four thick green energy bolts striking the left hip turret of the Revenant and piercing through its thick top armor, chewing deep into the hip itself before petering out. There was a brief moment when there were four, red-orange rimmed holes in the turret, and them it blew itself to tiny pieces, gouging a massive wound in the side of the Revenant, even enough to send it staggering to the side, tripping and falling over in a slow motion tumble that nonetheless shook the ground for a half kilometer in every direction when it landed heavily on its right shoulder and back. "Er... what...?"

"Hot damn, I could kiss those guys, even though they'd probably rip my face off anyway!" Lain cheered, indicating the other two Panzerwulfs, which had assumed their tank-turret form, bringing their back mounted dual 110cm beam cannons into play just in time, concentrating their fire to take out the Linear Cannon turret and knock the Revenant over. They didn't let up the pressure either, throwing blast after powerful blast into the torso and sides of the Revenant as it scrambled to its feet, scouring away large sections of skin armor, leaving huge, parallel molten tracks in the Revenant's hide with each shot. It sure as hell LOOKED impressive and painful, though judging from the way the Revenant moved, it didn't really seem to be amounting to much more than previous efforts.

Eric was already moving, reaching out with his Archon's hands to rip away girders and toss aside rubble to help free Stella's Panzerwulf, joined in the next moment by Lain. In seconds' they'd managed to clear off enough for the FNE machine to bull its way out, shrugging off multiton steel girders like they were wooden dowels. Stella collected her heavy combination rifle without a word and charged back into the fight, not even looking at the two Mobile Suits that had dug her out. She was still in anger mode, though she definitely had noticed their rescue of her. She wasn't an automaton, she just had trouble controlling her emotions, especially during combat! There was no time for talking, Sting and Auel needed her! The Archons fell in behind her, and the three of them charged at the Revenant as it oriented on Auel and Sting, who were reversing for all they were worth, still throwing out heavy beam blasts as rapidly as their weapons would cycle. "Change out!" Stella managed to fight through her rage enough to cry at Sting and Auel. "Don't..."

She was still finishing the second part of her advice when it became too late, as the Revenant dropped down into a crouch, ducking under shots form both of them, before dodging to the side, avoiding their corrections and then burst into a loping sprint towards them, covering forty meters at a stride, weaving and writhing through their fire like a man dodging water from a pair of hoses. He was good at it too, avoiding more than three quarters of the shots they fired at him, and glancing away most of the rest! The Revenant was moving with much more agility and speed than it had yet displayed, the pilot inside perhaps finally getting truly serious, and Stella found herself... worried. Fear was a constant in her life, it was the fear of dying that drove her into her berserk frenzies in the first place, once she was in one of them she usually didn't have much of an eye for how the situation was going, but the situation was degenerating very rapidly and that was definitely worrisome, even to her rage soaked mind! Stella fired impotently at the Revenant's back, unable to match its speed with her thrusters damaged, and unable to hurt it enough at this range to deflect its course!

Stella cried out in distress as the Revenant fully closed the distance between his starting position and Auel and Sting. Sting managed to shift back into Mobile Suit form quickly enough and dodged to the side, but Aul was still in mid transformation when the Revenant's chain, sans beam spikes, came crashing down on top of his Panzerwulf, crushing it into the ground and breaking its back, shattering the limbs and even cracking the reactor vessel. Superheated steam vented out into space, turning instantly to ice, marking the part of the low trench of cracked rock that the chain had left where the Panzerwulf was at, though it was almost three quarters buried in the ground from the force of the blow. Auel let out a blood curdling series of shrieks as more steam vented into the cockpit region, scalding the skin from his arms and back even through his flight suit, though since most of the steam went the other way, out into space, he was spared the gruesome fate of being boiled alive, though the pain overload was enough to send him into a sort of meditative catonia they were all taught early on for dealing with severe trauma.

"Wow." Cray's voice came to them over all comm channels once more. "It got all... squishy. I'm impressed. It should have broken into a thousand pieces! Welp, if at first you don't succeed..." Cray draw back his right arm once more and took aim at Auel's crushed Panzerwulf, even as he chased Sting away into cover with barrages from his gatling Gottfried. He was just about to slam his chain down, this time with beam spikes activated for good measure, when a moving light behind him, in the "corner" of his three hundred sixty degree vision, caught his attention. "Oh... hell... YES!" Cray crowed, spinning to face the new arrivals joyfully. "At long last, we are re-united! I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for this moment! My beautiful enemies! Yoo-hoo... down here! Come to Cray!" Cray waved his arms back and forth over his head, hopping from foot to foot in ecstacy, causing a localized moonquake in his vicinity, ignoring everyone else around him as he capered in excitement, as the Archangel bore down on them from on high, linear catapults already beginning to extend for launch.

-------------------------------------------

Ashino flicked the sweat off his brow with a twist of his head and kept his concentration on the Solar Knights as much as possible. That he was sweating at all was a testement to their skill and teamwork, truly the three of them were everything the Solar Knights should have been, despite his earlier scornful remarks. Their victories may have been pathetically easy, but these three were no armchair warriors, that was for sure! Shinn had managed to re-acquire a sword, from a nearby re-armament mustering point, an unintended side effect of bringing the fight to the more open Lunar surface, but so far Ashino had managed to keep him at greater than arm's length, so it hadn't yet mattered. It was a ranged duel at the moment, their three accelerated-impulse cannons versus his beam cannons and hyper-impulse projector, with no shields on either side, the only defense being their own maneuverability and creative use of terrain.

Backdropping everything was the ongoing struggle against the Revevant, slowly working its way closer and closer as they battled, though they were all barely aware of it, as taking away even a fraction of their attention from the foe at hand could prove deadly! The three Knights constantly strove to encircle Ashino, and for his part, Ashino struggled to isolate one of them from the other two long enough for his individually superior abilities and experience to make the difference long enough to wipe that one out. One on one, he was better than any of them, but together, it was he who was fighting hardest, barely able to keep ahead of them. Ashino dodged, barely, another pair of blasts from Luna and Shinn. Luna followed up her first shot with a rapidfire correction blast that struck his already damaged arm at the elbow and sheared it off cleanly, sending the lower forearm and gauntlet spinning off into the distance, trailing sticky threads of half molten metal.

Or it would have sailed off into the distance anyway, if something, actually someone, hadn't flipped down out of the sky and snagged it, like an acrobat performing a circus trick. The Vengeance turned one final somersault before touching down off to the side of their fracas, holding the severed limb in one hand as if weighing it. All four of them paused to stare at the Vengeance, which was almost completely translucent, though it returned to its usual crystalline purple shade as they looked on, color bleeding onto its form like ink dropped into a glass of water. It made no threatening move, just stood there and looked at them impassively, holding the severed gauntlet like a discarded glove. As if sensing their wary gazes, the Vengeance gave them a little bow and gestured for them to continue. Arrogant bastard... Ashino thought, ducking away as Rey tried to put a hole through his chest with his accelerated-impulse cannon... he's just going to stand there and watch, and take out whomever wins!

Shinn and Luna were less able to just ignore the sudden appearance of the Brotherhood Gundam they'd fought at LAS, and they were both still turned warily towards it, expecting it to attack them from behind, since wasn't Ashino a Brotherhood agent as well, according to Rey? However, it was just standing there idly, watching them like a spectator at a boxing ring, sword and long rifle sheathed on its back, wings folded up and tucked away nicely, hands toying with the severed wrist and gauntlet from the Independence. A dismayed shout from Rey dragged their attention back to their fight, in time to see Rey stagger backwards, his Archon missing it's sword arm from the elbow down, shortly before a follow up sweep of the Independence's glaive cut off the Archon's legs just below the hips. Shinn charged to Rey's rescue, cursing himself for letting the Vengeance distract him, while Luna sent covering fire over his shoulders and past his sides, trying to force the Independence away from Rey's trash Archon.

Ashino was glad to step back, happy, in a way, that he hadn't had to kill the pilot of the Archon, who was merely misguided and decieved, not truly evil. The fewer people other than Durandel that he had to kill, even people who were Durandel cronies, the better. Their punishment could come in the wake of their master's death, at the moment he was only concerned with cutting the head off the snake! The greater majority of the people who were now his enemies were innocent of any crime other than that of being decieved by their superiors, and Ashino had commited that particular crime often enough in his past to not hold them any ill will for it. They were doing what they thought to be right, no matter how wrong it actually was, and killing them for it would be nothing less than a tragedy, especially skilled pilots like these, would could do so much to protect the USN at other times!

Shinn thrust his blade at the Independence, who stepped back again, swaying its torso aside to let the blade slide harmlessly past, before forcing Shinn to scramble backward hastily to avoid being impaled by the huge blast from the chest mounted hyper-impulse cannon. He had to keep scrambling backward, chased by volleys from the shoulder mounted beam cannons, until Luna stepped up with another of her uncannily accurate shots and blew the cannons right off the Independence's right shoulder, knocking the Gundam staggering. Shinn made himself a mental note to kiss Luna as soon as he could, for the beauty of her accuracy if for no other reason! It was while he was thinking this that he realized he'd let himself get too seperated from Luna, and Rey was no longer around to fill in the gap! Recovering in an instant from its exaggerated stumble, the Independence pounced towards Luna, throwing its beam glaive like a spear, which she had to awkwardly deflect with her sword, denying her the chance to shoot him away from her.

The Independence shoulder charged Luna's Archon, leading with its injured side, knocking her away and down onto her back, stunned by the crash impact. Purple-white lightning gathered along the Independence's right forarm, gathering in the palm as it prepared to level her with its most powerful short ranged weapon, which would turn the Archon, and the ground in a ten meter radius around it, into so much molten glass! Shinn watched the blazing red SEED drop through the vastness of his mind, before detonating with a feeling like his heart bursting from his chest as he dived towards the Independence as fast as he could. He could already tell he was never going to make it in time, not like this, and even now he didn't trust his aim enough to score a garuanteed kill shot... so instead, he threw his sword end over end, with an accuracy he never could have imagined at another time, the blade pinwheeling through space to slice through the Independence's remaining wrist just before the moment of firing. White light and purple lightning bloomed in all directions as the Mjolnir capacitors overloaded and released their pent up energy in an unfocused blast of primal fury that Shinn's inertia threw him right into the middle of.

He threw up his arms as white light began filtering through the armor of his cockpit hatch as the energy scoured away the metal like sandpaper abrading a suger cube, his Archon wavering in the nimbus of light like it was passing through a portal into some infinite realm beyond, and Shinn snatched for the emergency eject button as heat and pain started to assault him. There was an immense vibration that gripped his body all over like a vice, and then a crashing, deadening blackness that smothered everything, and he knew no more.

For her part, Luna saw Shinn's Archon dive into the detonating Mjolnir capacitors and screamed a wordless denial as it came apart in a series of rapidfire explosions, throwing up her own arms to blokc out the eye searing glare as moonrock bubbled and glazed over all around her, her Archon's outer skin charring black and shiny before her camera's gave out altogther, burned away by the careless energy discharge. "SHINN!" Luna worked at her cockpit hatch controls, but it was melted closed, the glazed crust of the otuer armor having flowed around the cracks that would normally allow the cockpit door to swing open. "SHINN! No, SHINN!" Luna pounded helplessly on the open button, and then on the interior of the metal walls themselves, to no avail. She was well and truly stuck, trapped and blind until someone could cut her out, with the Independence still out there, and the Vengeance to boot, not to mention the Revenant! A stray shot, or not so stray shot, could be headed her way this very moment, and she'd never know until it hit her! She shivered, but the majority of her concern was for... "Shinn... no... not Shinn... not like... no..." Luna sobbed, replaying the image she'd seen frantically, trying to find some sign of Shinn ejecting beforehand. There was nothing. "SHINN!"

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	36. Pulling Weeds part 6

"Well, this certainly brings back some not altogether pleasant memories." Waltfeld commented, staring at the battle zone they were approaching, with the towering figure of the enemy Gundam rising up out of the destruction like some primeval demon. "Though I can only hope this one goes down as easily as the Judgement did. That was barely a fight at all. I've had coffee grinders put up stiffer fights than it did!" Waltfeld directed his attention to the gunnery control officers, seated off to his right and left in the CIC dugout on the Archangel's bridge. "Give me a lock on solution with the Gottfrieds, Valiants and all Anti-Ship missile tubes, loading with Sledgehammers. Prep the anti beam depth charges and countermeasures launchers for automatic dispersal deployment. Helldart launchers and 57mm Valkyros beam CIWS guns set to semi-automatic interdiction mode. ECM to maximum, entering battle stations level one, prepare for imminent anti... giant... thing... combat."

"Battle stations level one, aye Commander. Preparing for unilateral combat operations." The officer on the right replied with a smile.

"Lohengrin banks charging. Twenty five seconds to full charge." His counterpart on the left added.

"Hold off on the Lohengrin for now, Andrew, if we fire from this angle and miss, we'll only be doing his job for him by destroying part of the base." Murrue advised, as she settled more firmly into her Captain's chair, ensuring the seat restraints were tight and secure, if not necessarily comfortable. "All hands, this your Captain speaking. We are about to enter to combat zone. All hands, to level one battle stations, repeat, level one battle stations." Murrue took her hand off the 1MC transmit button, finishing her shipwide broadcast for the moment. "CIC, what is the status on our pilots?"

"Completing final readiness and pre-launch checks now, Ma'am. Pilots are beginning boarding their machines." The CIC officer, another young but definitely skilled Orb officer reported smartly. This was the first time for many of the Archangel's crew going into real combat, and she was definitely nervous, despite being alongside such legendary old hands as Commander Andrew Waltfeld, Captain Murrue Ramius and the other senior members of the bridge crew, for whom this sort of thing had to be almost droll and dull! They certainly didn't act nervous, or all that impressed with the terrifying engine of death they were bearing down on! Commander Waltfeld was even cracking jokes! "Seraph and Phoenix King are slated for first launch, followed by Dawn Goddess and Vorpal, and then the Warmaster and Colonel Kisaka's Dawndrake."

"Boy, that sorry bastard is never going to know what hit him." Waltfeld shook his head in mock pity. "I haven't seen Kira and the others this eager to take the field since the last time against Frost. The Brotherhood really kicked itself in the balls with their attack on the Orb Parliament building!"

"Eager isn't a term I would use for Kira, but he does seem less reluctant than usual." Murrue allowed. "He seems to be taking what happened to Cagalli rather personally, little wonder."

"Yeah, he even went so far as to swap out his auotcannons for dual 57 beam rifles from the Phoenix King's spares, and two beam sabers to replace those electric swords Dr. Simmons made. If I didn't know him better, I'd say the kid was in a killing mood." Waltfeld shrugged, not being able to blame Kira for those feelings, not at all. "As things are, it's definitely not going to be a gentle takedown, if it ever was going to be." He paused and considered things for a moment, before continuing in a quieter tone, for Murrue's ears only. "Should we really be letting her launch? She claims she's all right, but we all know that isn't the case..."

"She will launch, with our permission or without it. Better that she goes under our blessings and onus, so that we can do what we can to support her, rather than her going it alone. Cagalli just isn't the sort to sit back and nurse her wounds, not when she can be doing something for others in need. Its one of her most admirable qualities. I just hope it doesn't end up being her bane." Murrue replied, equally quietly. "Fortunately, the combat capabilities of the Dawn Goddess are more focused around staying at range, in a support role, so at least she should be spared the worst of the chaos and stress of trying to close with that monster."

"You're right. She only has to deal with the stress of that gigantic GENESIS laser wannabe the thing's got in its right arm. That's much easier." Waltfeld snorted and rolled his eye. "Speaking of, what exactly are we going to do about that?"

"We'll trust to our pilots capabilities, and fly around like an epileptic bat trying to escape hell." Murrue answered, matter of factly. "At the moment we are probably the most tempting target on the battlefield. I really need to remember to ask Erica to figure out some way of adding visual camouflage to the Archangel... this white and red color scheme practically screams "shoot me!"." She shook her head and smiled.

"Tiger stripes, like I said." Waltfeld told her seriously. "Nothing says "don't mess with me" like a series of good tiger stripes. Well, other than the Seraph. That is one machine even tiger stripes couldn't improve upon."

"Well, though we lack the psychological shielding properties of tiger stripes, we do have some new advantages to fall back on, courtesy of Morganroete's modernization programs." Murrue spoke slightly louder, to include all the crew, especially the younger, newer, more inexperienced ones. It never hurt to remind them how capable their own ship was, especially in a tense situation like this one. The replacement of the 75mm Iegelstellung CIWS turrets with the newer, 57mm Valkyros beam CIWS turrets was one of the more noticable improvements, but far from the only one. A large nuclear reactor had been added, in addition to the old ships battery and solar charging systems, providing not only effectively unlimited operating range and power, but vastly increased amounts of it, allowing for quicker and more powerful weapon attacks, and much improved degrees of manevering ability and speed. The Archangel didn't even need the assistance of extra boosters to reach escape velocity any more, though it still used the positronic interference tunnel of semi-vacuum created by firing the Lohengrin ahead of their path of ascent to lower air resistance, allowing faster acceleration.

In addition, Citadel Shield projectors, scaled up versions of the ones many of the new generation Gundams had in their forearms, were mounted over various vital locations on the ship, ready to be activated in the event of sudden enemy attacks against the bridge, engines, major weapon components or launch bays. Fully enveloping the ship in protective energy shields was a dream for the future still, as they worked out problems like the way full shields would limit the ship's thrust, like a jet inside a steel ball, especially in atmosphere, not to mention the trouble of firing or talking out through the shields, so for the moment they settled with only having shields over vital components. No longer would they have to worry, as much anyway, if an enemy machine or shot slipped past the defensive firepower to try and take out the bridge, as had almost happened on several past occasions. The ECM systems had also been upgraded, as well as the targeting systems and pretty much every piece of equipment that was run, fully or partially, by computers had some sort of software update making it better and more efficient than it had formerly been.

"Do we have any contact with the officers in charge down on the ground?" Murrue asked her communications officer, another young woman. For whatever reason, women seemed better suited for the tasks of CIC and Combat Communications Operator than men. Maybe it was just because women were, on a general level, better at multitasking than most men. She shrugged away the exterraneous thought.

"Nothing new from the Solar Knights yet, Ma'am. We are in contact with the Camelot, their CIC mothership, but it is far removed from the battle zone, and I have not yet managed to get in contact with Knight-Commander ze Burrel or anyone of higher rank than the commander of the Camelot. Ground reports are confusing, and it is not apparent if there is a central authority directing the battle at this point in time."

"Understood, Comms, thank you. Keep trying to raise someone in charge, go all the way up to the Secretary of Defense if you need to!" Murrue ordered, turning the situation over in her mind. "We'll go in as we discussed on the way here. The Archangel will place itself between the enemy Gundam and the Shipyard and Command districts, while the Phoenix King, Vorpal and Serpah engage at closer range. Meanwhile the Warmaster, Dawn Goddess and the Dawndrake will provide support fire from the opposite side. Hopefully we can keep him turning around and too distracted to orient his entire firepower on one or the other of us, or the rest of the base. Keep on your toes, everyone! This will not be a quick battle, judging from the capabilities of the enemy as we have seen so far. We're going to have to wear him down piece by piece, faster than he can wear us down the same way!"

"What the hell does he think he's doing, anyway?" One of the gunnery officers muttered, staring at the dancing, cavorting figure of the Revenant on his target screens. "How can something so big move like that!?"

"As soon as we figure that out, I'm sure Dr. Simmons will buy us all a small castle in thanks." Waltfeld smiled grimly. "He won't be dancing for too much longer, not after we blow a hole through his chest big enough to park a semi-trailer in. Just don't let him get to you... he's just trying to unsettle us."

"Incoming comms, blanketing all channels. Trying to filter it out, but its a powerful signal. Origin is the enemy Gundam..." The Comm officer reported. Even as she did so, the scratchy, buzzing voice of the enemy Gundam pilot blasted out over the bridge speakers.

"About fucking time you showed up! What took you!? Don't you know how long I've been waiting for this!? Get over here so I can break that pretty ship of yours into a hundred flaming pieces! Hurry! Hurry up! HURRY!" The image of the Revenant on their screens went into convulsions, or near enough as it pranced around like a toddler throwing a tantrum, reaching imploringly towards them with both arms, though he did not direct even a single iota of firepower at them. "AHAHAHA! YES! YES! Closer! Come closer... and BURN! Come closer, little Archangel, so that I may pluck off your wings and watch you wriggle in the dust before I stamp my heel down upon your neck and crush the life from your limp body! YAHAHAHAHA!"

"I am officially declaring myself unsettled." The CIC officer volunteered in a shaky voice, swallowing hard as she fought to keep her hands steady on her console controls. "Who talks like that!? What sort of...?"

"It sounds familiar for some reason. I know I've been threatened like this before..." Waltfeld mused, as he fought down his own case of the willies. Such maniacal hatred, such disgusting joy... it was a loathsome voice, definitely! And damnably familiar! "But surely not... everyone who spoke like this is dead and gone!"

"He does seem to know us, though I would think I would remember a pilot with a Gundam like this one." Murrue acknowledged. "The last time we encountered anything like this, it was the Judgement, and it was piloted by that Zacharis Frost individual, but he is dead. We all saw him die. Nothing could have lived through being at the heart of a thermonuclear detonation!"

_It's NOT Frost._ The thought appeared in all of their minds simultaneously, as loud as a voice speaking in their ears. Everyone on the bridge froze, since the person the voice belonged to was nowhere near the bridge. All eyes went to the Comms officer, who shook her head slowly from side to side, her eyes wide and her mouth dry, indicating that it most definitely wasn't an internal comm.

"Katie... is that...?" Murrue managed to gasp out, her voice tight, her eyes as wide as anyone else's on the bridge. "How are you...?"

_Yeah, it's me. Hello! And Ysak is helping me of course._ Everyone on the bridge got the impression of a cheery smile, coupled with a flash of intense affection. Murrue looked around, seeing that many of the younger officers were looking a bit faint, staring around themselves wildly, looking for the source of the voice, even though they all knew it was not a voice at all. Andrew was massaging his temple with his flesh hand, while his mechanical one clenched tightly enough around the bridge railing to make the metal rail creak and groan. _Just wanted to tell you all not to worry too much. It's not Frost come back from the dead, thank god. Whelp, we gotta go board the Vorpal now, according to Ysak. See ya all in a bit! Cheers!_ The voice in their mind's ear went away, like a door closing behind someone you'd not even known was in the room with you at all.

"Did... did that really... just happen...?" Andrew asked, his voice more shaken than it had been in a long time.

"Someone is going to have to talk to that girl about pulling inappropriate stunts like this!" Murrue said, her own voice somewhat hoarse, as her hands clenched into fists on the arms of her chair. She knew Katie wasn't being malicious, but really, couldn't a simple comm have sufficed!? Was there really a need to deeply unsettle the entire bridge crew by contacting their minds, something most of them probably hadn't even realized was possible, judging from their stunned and fearful looks!? Katie was going to find herself given a VERY wide berth indeed when she got back, and Ysak too likely! Newtypes may not be something the world could ignore forever, but having Katie rub it in your face wasn't exactly conducive to a positive relationship with that fact! Honestly, it was like she didn't care or even realize that her actions were bothersome to other people, especially non-Newtypes! "Keep sharp everyone... we have a battle to fight!" Murrue called, attempting to refocus everyone on the situation at hand. She just wished it would work as well for herself...

-----------------------------------

"We could have just used a comm system. I think they might have preferred that." Ysak noted, somewhat reluctantly stepping away from Katie, whom he'd been holding with her back pressed to his bare chest, shrugging into the top half of his flight suit and zipping it up to complete his pre flight preparations.

"And appear on the comm screen like this? What do you think I am, some kind of exhibitionist?" Katie retorted impishly, spinning around in the low gravity and throwing her arms wide, proud of the way Ysak's eyes caught on her figure, unburdened as it was by a single scrap of clothing. "Don't answer that, by the way. Exibitionism has its time and place, and even I can agree that they aren't this time or this place. It was simply the most expedient method of communication. Just a tool, like a gun or a pencil."

"I get you." Ysak replied, forcibly turning his eyes away to look past her, trying to ignore the hormonal urge to step forward and gather her up in a tight embrace once more. There was simply no time for such antics! "I should stress the "I" part of that though. They're Stumps... they DON'T get you."

"Well, they need to try." Katie retorted, somewhat petulantly. "Better they get used to something as benign as a cheerful conversation now, before they have to deal with something hostile, trying to take over their willpower or shut down their bodily system control. It's for their own good."

"All the same, you should definitely apologize to Ramius and the others when we get back. Using a comm system if you must, but face to face, verbally would probably be best. I know your intentions are good, but most of them probably won't see it that way. They might even see it as an attack on their privacy."

"But I'm NOT reading their minds! Not like that! I don't care about their private thoughts! The minds of most other people don't interest me, and those that do I respect far too highly to ever just dig around inside without asking permission first! I do AGREE with Lacus, that using Newtype powers for personal or material gain by compromising the privacy or free will of others is wrong in most situations, but I DON'T agree with her decision to just try and pretend like her powers don't exist most of the time to avoid unsettling other people! I might as well deny that I have breasts, just because other people find them distracting!" Katie complained.

"There's some difference between your mental abilities and your physical assets, don't you think?" Ysak asked, collecting his helmet.

_No, I see no difference in them at all, actually._ Katie's voice echoed around the inside of his skull with vehement force.

_Don't yell at me, I'm on your side._ Ysak replied, his own tones much quieter, turning to take her firmly by the hand. _You need to walk around in their shoes a little, look at this from their perspective._

_Its THEM that needs to do that for me!_ Katie retorted, entangling her fingers in his and squeezing his hand tightly. _They might as well be telling me I need to cut off my breasts and mutilate my privates, just because I can use them to unsettle and distract people! My Newtype abilities are a fundamental part of my genetics, just like my physical looks! I find it offensive when people expect me to conform to their comfort zones, when it means pretending that I don't have something which is an integral part of my life! You don't see me telling Cagalli and Miriallia how they should dress, or talk, or otherwise express themselves, even if I find it uncomfortable... why is it okay for them to tell me when I should and should not use my Newtype abilities!?_

_Since when has anything Cagalli or Miriallia said made you uncomfortable? I know for a fact that they're both prudes compared to..._

_That isn't the point! Whether or not they have made me uncomfortable, the point is that they are trying to tell me how I should live my life, and that is an invasion of my privacy every bit as dire as the imaginary one they see in my use of my abilities around them! Plainly put, it's discrimination! I offered Cagalli my help with her problem, the best help she could ever get for what happened to her, and she flat out refused, just because it was a Newtype solution! Wouldn't even consider it! Pretty much told me to fuck off and keep my mind to my own damn self, though in nicer terms! I just wanted to help!_

_She wants to solve the problem her own way. I can respect that, even if I do agree its pretty stupid of her._ Ysak shrugged sympathetically. _It was her choice and hers alone to accept or deny your help, and while she definitely could have been more polite about it, something I will discuss very firmly with Athrun when we have the time, she made her choice and its up to us as friends to live with it._

_Yeah, I know. I just... I just can't help but think that if it was a medical solution I'd offered her, instead of a mental one, that she'd have leapt at the chance._ Katie sighed, and leaned her head against Ysak's shoulder. This far from the Moon's surface, gravity was practically nonexistant, so she just floated there for a moment or two. _It hurts a little to get turned down because someone you care about is afraid of you. Cagalli didn't turn me down because I was an outsider, trying to help correct a personal problem. She turned me down because I was a Newtype, plain and simple. And Cagalli is... afraid... of Newtypes. So is Miriallia. So is Dearka. So is Athrun, probably. So are most of the people on this ship, and pretty much everywhere we go, Ysak. Everyone is afraid of me, and you to a lesser extent, and we haven't done anything but be who we are! Lacus feels the same way, though she hides it from herself. She was hurt by Cagalli's decision even more than I was._ Katie felt Ysak envelope her comfortingly in his arms, staring over his shoulder at the infinite distance. _I'm afraid that there might come a time in the future when being a Newtype might force us away from our friends, and I simply don't see a way to stop it from happening. I'm not even sure if I should try, because I refuse to believe that I should need to cave in to their fear just because of who I am!_

_This is hardly the time for this conversation. When we get back, we need to have a serious heart to heart talk with them. All of them. We need to get this out into the open between us all, because you are right, this isn't something we should be forced to pretend never happened! We are who we are, and as much as it is our duty to accept their choices and actions and natures, so to is it their responsibility to reciprocate, and that means dealing with the fact that we are Newtypes!_ Ysak slowly released her from the embrace, but kept her hand in his, pulling her along after him as he headed towards the hanger and the Vorpal. _Let's go show them the difference between what Newtypes do to their friends, and what they do to their enemies, shall we? Maybe that will put things in a better perspective for them..._

------------------------------------------

"Though I hate the necessity of this, I'm glad we're going to be going in together." Kira clapped Athrun on the shoulder in a friendly manner, drawing him away from the last set of pre-flight diagnostics he was running. "As far as reprehensible tasks go, these no better company to do them in."

"Well, if it really bothers you that much, you could always just sit it out." Athrun replied, with a slight smile. "I'll take the Seraph, Ysak will grab the Phoenix King and we'll find someone to take over the Vorpal, assuming we can find anyone willing to deal with Katie."

"That's not nearly as funny a joke as it might have been sometime in the past." Kira sighed regretfully. "Not after what happened between Lacus, Katie and Cagalli."

"You should really pick a better time to bring up things no one wants to talk about." Athrun noted irritably. "Whether or not Cagalli's choice was the right one in my eyes or yours, or anyone elses, it was the choice she felt was right, and its our obligation to support her in that, as her family and friends!" He turned away from Kira and finished up the diagnostic, and then snagged his helmet and made as if to jump up towards the Phoenix King's cockpit. Kira's hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Are you afraid of Lacus and me because we're Newtypes?" Kira asked quietly but earnestly. Athrun paused for a long moment, and didn't look over at him.

"Are you afraid of the concept of Death, Kira?" Athrun replied at last.

"Concept of Death?"

"Yeah. The knowledge that, at some point in your life, you are going to die, because that is what humans do. Its inevitable, no matter how virtuous a person is, or how undeserving of dying. People die. Its a constant, and the only thing we can even somewhat control is the time and manner of it, and even then it isn't really up to us alone. Does that scare you?" Athrun clarified.

"Well, yeah, of course it does, but its not like it's something I dwell on all the time." Kira responded with a frown.

"Newtypes, whether they be you and Lacus, or Ysak and Katie, or who knows who else in the world... scare me like that." Athrun continued. "Its a part of life I can't control, don't want to control even. It's a constant, and there is nothing that can be done about it, not by you, not by me, not by anyone. I do my best not to dwell on it, but out of mind doesn't mean gone for good. I don't like contemplating it, I hate talking about it, and it bothers me when other people constantly try to bring it up as a topic of conversation, even my best friends. You are who you are, Kira, as is Lacus, as am I, as is Cagalli, and everyone else. I'm not afraid of you, Kira, nor of Lacus or any of my other friends. You are good people, the best I've ever met. But that does not mean I can fully accept everything about you, and I would not expect you to accept everything about me. Look, what I'm trying to say is... no, I'm not afraid... but, yes, I am bothered by it, and, if Cagalli's situation had happened to me... I don't know if I would have chosen a different solution than hers, okay? Now really, this isn't the time for this!" Athrun shrugged off Kira's hand again.

"Its not going to go away, no matter how much it bothers you." Kira called after him. Athrun didn't reply, obviously pretending he hadn't heard. "Damn it, I just don't want this wall to form between us!" Kira muttered fiercely. "But I can't tear it down if no one is willing to talk about it!" _Lacus..._ Kira directed his thoughts out into the void, feeling the brush of her mind against his, a comforting touch like an invisible kiss trailing down his cheek. Lacus, after much deliberation, had elected to remain on Earth, in Orb, in case any major political emergencies cropped up as fallout from this latest Brotherhood attack. Jiro Kurenai had a good heart, but he was woefully inexperienced in international politics, and Orb needed a steady hand in the shadows, ready to take the wheel if something unexpected happened, and with Cagalli up in space, that left Lacus to step up. Not satisfied with the result of his conversation, but unable to progress any further if Athrun wasn't willing to talk with him, Kira headed back to the other hanger mandible and boarded the Seraph.

He'd had the flight crews swap out the twin 80mm autocannons for a pair of dual barreled 57mm beam rifles, and turned in his electrified physical swords for a pair of beam sabers, much like he'd used on the Freedom and Liberty. The reasons for this were both because the majority of the Brotherhood machines were unpiloted, and thus he didn't need to worry about destroying them, and also because, frankly, he was just about at the end of his rope when it came to the Brotherhood and their brutal tactics. The innocent civilians who'd been beheaded or left to die of exposure in Switzerland. The pilot canidates the Traitor had gunned down and gassed in their beds here at Galileo. The Orb civilians who were crushed and pulped by the Tormented's sonic attack. The people of LAS who had suffered from that Brotherhood incursion. The members of Orb Parliament who had been tortured and skinned alive, for no reason at all other than cruel amusement! The injecting of Cagalli, his own sister, with a baleful drug that may have permanently damaged her brain and personality! Not to mention the beating he'd suffered from Randolf, and what had happened to Ysak and Katie! No, Kira was definitely not feeling anywhere close to his most merciful with regards to the Brotherhood, not at all. They'd get their lumps, and like them, and be grateful he was proud of the fact that he was a much better person than they could even pretend to be!

--------------------------------------------------

"So we're going to be working together this time." Cagalli not quite asked, leaning against the cold metal wall, switching her raised glance between the Dawn Goddess and the Warmaster every few seconds. Dearka and Miriallia stood nearby, as the flight crew worked in the background, loading the Earthshaker Magnus, preparing extra clips of shells should they need to return for more of the massive ammunition, and running final checks on the still experimental Spear of Ares system. Kisaka lurked on the far side of the hanger, watching carefully but silently, keeping a wary distance from his beloved Queen, not trusting her volatile mood. Triggering a scene, even in the semi-private of the hanger bay, would not be good. So far they'd managed to keep the number of people who knew of Cagalli's... injury... to immediate family and friends, plus a few people with definite need to knows, like Cyprus and the senior Stormhounds. If she suffered a breakdown in the hanger, he could at least swear the crew to silence, but he'd definitely prefer not to have to do that. His best bet was just to not provoke her with his protective instincts, and trust to her own strength of will and character to keep her safe, though that chafed at his instincts something fierce!

"Uh, yeah." Dearka replied, somewhat awkwardly, not quite looking at Cagalli. To say he was damned uncomfortable with the situation was one hell of an understatement, but what the hell choice did they have? Tell the others that no, they didn't want the responsibility of watching out for Cagalli should she have a problem? Well, that was the truth, but tactically speaking, they were the best equipped for the job, since the combat roles of the Warmaster and Dawn Goddess were similar. He just didn't have a foot to stand on, so to speak.

"Don't treat me with kid gloves. I'm not made of porcelain." Cagalli warned, narrowing her eyes. "As I've been stressing for some time now, I can handle myself!"

"No one is questioning that, Cagalli." Miriallia assured her, though she was far from pleased with the babysitting side job they seemed to have been saddled with by default herself. "All the same though, don't feel like you have something to prove, to anyone. No one is going to judge you, no matter what happens."

"From that tone of voice, I get the feeling you're all expecting something bad TO happen, whether you want to say it out loud or not." Cagalli replied, hugging herself and turning partly away. "Look, I don't blame you for feeling like that. I'd feel the same way if I was in your shoes. But I'm going to be fine, really. I need to do this, for my own sanity's sake."

"Well, if you want us to speak plainly..." Dearka folded his own arms across his chest and adopted an icier demeanor, like he'd used to have around Nichole and Athrun when he was angry with them, back during the le Creuset Team days. "Simply put, I don't want to have to cover for you if you do have a problem, because this is a seriously big battle we're going into. I'll do whatever I can to help you anyway of course, but don't get the idea that Mir and I are babysitting you because we have any choice in the matter. No matter what you say, the rest of us feel you need extra looking out for right now, and Mir and I are the best people for the job, but we don't like it any more than you do, okay? So don't get snippy with us, your Highness. You could have taken an easy road out, but you didn't and so now we're all stuck in this disagreeable situation."

"That was no choice at all." Cagalli said, somewhat sadly. "Allow them to tinker around in my head, modify my memories!? How could I let anyone do that, no matter how pure their motivations? Maybe it's just because I'm not a nearly perfect person like some others I could name, but I've got some thoughts in my head that aren't exactly totally charitable all the time, and I would be mortally embarassed if other people stumbled across them! There is such a thing as TOO HONEST an opinion, and I have more than a few of them sometimes!" She looked at Dearka and Miriallia imploringly, much more vulnerable than was usual for her around anyone but Athrun, or maybe Kira. "Lacus and Katie are offended, Kira and Ysak are pissed off because of that, and Athrun won't tell me how he really feels, other than that he'll support me no matter what, which is less comfort than it sounds! Isn't there anyone that understands why I made the choice I did? Was it really so wrong of me to turn them down?"

"I can't say what choice I would have made." Miriallia replied slowly. "I hope I never have to. But I do agree with you... my mind and my memories are very precious to me, both the good ones and the bad ones, no matter how much I sometimes wish they would go away! They serve to remind me of who I am, what I've faced, where I want to go, what I want to do, or not do... I wouldn't want anyone to change them, not even my best friends. I too sometimes have less than charitable thoughts about my friends, which I never want anyone but me to know about... it would be just too awkward if other people heard those kinds of things! Its a human thing... being entirely honest with people sounds so good... but if people ever try it out, they find themselves consumed by petty hatreds! There's just some things other people aren't meant to fully know about you!"

"I wasn't there for the conversation, thank god, so I'd hesitate to make a statement based on second or third hand stories, but hypothetically speaking, I also agree with your thoughts on memories and opinions." Dearka admitted. "This Newtype-psychic things just creeps me out, that's all there is to it. They can't help but be the way that they are, well neither can I! I can try not to be bothered by it, but it just feels WRONG to me! I mean, I trust Lacus and Katie implicitly, but what about others? There's bound to be more, like the guy that mauled Ysak and Katie! The thought that someone could just rip my thoughts and memories right out of my head, sort through them, copy down what they want and then put it all back, all without me even knowing about it... it would keep me up at night, if I let it! And though I know Katie and Lacus would never do that except in emergencies... what if their definition of emergency is different from mine? No, scratch that... their definition of emergency IS different from mine! And when it comes down to it, its them that have the powers, and me that doesn't, so there's not a whole hell of a lot I can do besides hope they don't see an emergency! That really BOTHERS me!"

"Launching in sixty!" One of the mechanics called, from where they were finishing up the Warmaster's preparations. "All weapon systems primed and ready to go! We installed some new updates for the Spear of Ares, it should be able to target much faster now, if you decide to use it."

"Try not to use it." Cagalli directed, recalling her initial misgivings apout the weapon system. "The last thing we need to do is start up another WMD arms race."

"Here's an idea." Dearka retorted thinly. "You don't tell us how to fight with the Warmaster... and we won't tell you that you should be in bed, in a hospital, like all the other recovering potential drug addicts?"

"Dearka!" Miriallia reprimanded, digging her elbow sharpely into his side. "She has a legitimate point."

"So do I. If we decide we need to use the Spear of Ares to stop this monster, then we're going to use it, and I don't want anyone second guessing us or pushing recriminations down on us afterwards. Either its part of our aresnal or its not, not something in between."

"Fair enough." Cagalli said after chewing her lip for a few seconds. "I hope you don't have to use it, but if you think you need to do it, then I won't stop you, and I'll stand behind you one hundred percent later. How can I ask other people to trust me if I won't trust them, right?" She held out her hand and shook theirs, in turn. "Thanks for being honest. Its not always fun, but at the moment, I prefer brutal honesty to people trying to sequester me." She did not quite flick her gaze over towards Kisaka when she said that. She then headed for the Dawn Goddess without another word.

Dearka looked at his hand, and then at Cagalli, and then at Miriallia. "I hadn't realized trustworthiness was on the table." He muttered out of the side of his mouth.

"Remember what the doctor's said." Miriallia replied, equally quietly. "She's definitely going to feel like we don't trust her, no matter what we do. All we can do is hope she doesn't let it get to her too much. The way the conversation with Katie and Lacus backfired certainly didn't help matters. Honestly, what did they think was going to happen, proposing something like that?"

"Well, I'm sure it seemed perfectly reasonable to them. Just another miscommunication, like what sparks most interpersonal problems. Happens to you and me all the time." Dearka returned, with a shrug. "Problem is, both sides believe, rightly I think, that the problem is because the other person or persons doesn't understand their inherent, fundamental nature. And that's going to make reconciliation... messy. And not, "oh crap, we got condiments and chili dogs all over the couch" messy either."

"That WAS a memorable reconciliation, I will admit." Miriallia chuckled, shaking her head at the memory as they began boarding the Warmaster. "That poor couch was never the same."

"Yeah, we really wore out the cushions and springs that night, didn't we...? Oww!" Dearka rubbed at the back of his head, where Mirialla had slapped.

"I meant that the stains never washed out, perv! Honestly..."

---------------------------------------------------

Cray watched them launch with avidity shining in his eyes. In most cases that would merely be a descriptive term, but the Revenant's yellow eyes actually grew brighter and brighter as extra power flooded into them as Cray tuned up his cameras and other sensors, to not only take in the maximum amount of data, but also to permanently record these moments for posterity's sake! He wanted to be able to look back on this fight for the rest of his days, however long they might be. He ignored the pitiful remnants of the base defenders, and the slightly less pitiful yet still ultimately inadequate Solar Knights, as inconcsequential. They were bugs, and drones at that! Let the others take them... he wanted to sink his teeth into some real meat! Oh, but he was almost giddy with excitement as he watched them come on, like figures stepping forth from a grand painting! The entire scene was just perfect... him on the ground, devastation expanding out around him in rings of smoke, rubble and fire, them in the sky, charging down towards him on streams of brilliant blue thruster jets, more valiant heroes come to slay the dragon, or feed his hunger trying!

Leading the pack, armored wings spread wide, were the Phoenix King and Seraph, guns in either hand already spitting hyphenated dual bolts of green energy at the Revenant, the precise, chillingly well aimed shots boring into already darkened places on the Revenant's hide, eating into the armor beneath the disabled or deactived Citadel Scales, leaving glowing yellow and orange divots visible like distant stars against the blackness of the Revenant's form. Just behind those two, cloak flying out behind it, came one of the ones he was looking forward to the most, the Vorpal, piloted by good old Scarface, Ysak Joule, that bastard who'd come back from the grave Cray had personally buried him in, to bring Cray down in his moments of triumph. Well, now Cray was the one who'd come back from the grave, and he had every intention of repaying the disfavor Scarface had shown him, a hundred times over if possible! And then he'd go find Ysak's other girlfriend and blow her brains out too and lick the blood off his hands, just like he'd done to the first one back in JIHAD!

Hanging further back, as the Archangel turned and started maneuvering around behind the Revenant, positioning itself between him and the rest of the base, were the Dawn Goddess and then the Warmaster, plus a single worthless Dawndrake. Cray was looking forward to settling things with those in the misnamed Warmaster, that Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww, as well, though they were a lesser priority than Ysak, who'd been the one to kill him last time. Dearka and Miriallia had definitely helped set him up for failure, and he well remembered their artillery cannon and the havoc it had wrought on him several times, but the Revenant was a whole different animal from the Merciless, and their Warmaster failed to impress him. So what, their cannon could fire multiple times in a row... it was still nothing compared to the destructive forces he now wielded! Let them fire... let them carve out a fistful of his chest... it would just make his blood sing all the warmer! He wanted this to be a fight! Like the ones he used to have... something to make him feel alive! Something to make him forget what he was now...

He was still basking in the arm glow their appearance had suffused his half dead heart with when he saw the rest of the Brotherhood forces erupt from hiding a few kilometers away, from behind a low range of hills that had been shielding them from line of sight sensors and accidental firepower from either the defending forces or the Revenant. Twenty Zealots, ten Martyrs, the Haunted, the Tormented and the Traitor, which was still Mirage Colloided. A formidable force by any standard, and definitely enough to send new shafts of dismay and despair through the battered souls of the defenders. Even the Archangel veered wildly away from the Brotherhood reinforcements, like a great ungainly bird avoiding a suddenly erupting volcano. The Orb Gundam's strategy was visibly thrown into disarray, and they halted their relentless charge at the Revenant to take stock of this new development.

Cray frowned as he saw some of the Zealots and Martyrs begin firing upon the Archangel, Warmaster and Dawn Goddess. Not that any of them were particularly skilled shots or pilots, but even a bunch of drooling idiots could overwhelm a Gundam Pilot through enough numbers, if their Mobile Suits had a certain degree of base ability, and by the standards which Cray judged things, even before his unfair interrance in this mighty shell, neither the Warmaster nor the Dawn Goddess's pilots had ever been in the top ranks of the Gundam Pilots. Cray lifted his left arm and sent a ravaging barrage of Gottfried bolts across a long line between the Brotherhood forces and the Orb forces, blasting two Zealots and a Martyr to molten pieces and bringing the remainder of the ambush forces to a screaming halt. "Back off! Those ones are mine!" Cray directed furiously.

"Michael told us to wipe them out first, working together with you!" Dylan replied, his cowardly unsurety plain with every whiny word. An especial worm, even among humans, a race of worms if there ever was one, that was Dylan. "They're the most dangerous..."

"I'M THE MOST DANGEROUS!" Cray corrected thunderously. He pointed his right arm more or less in the direction of the Traitor and the bulk of the Brotherhood forces. "Next one to take a shot at them learns why!"

"You would destroy your own allies!?" Old man Randolf protested, his words harsh but his posture faltering as he stared Death in the arm. "You cannot prevail against them alone..."

"In the words of someone famous... I have not yet begun to fight!" Cray announced fiercely. "I was just larking around before. You guys can clean up my mess here, and be grateful I allow you to do that much! And you aren't my allies... at best I could call you lesser enemies, though meat slaves is probably closer to the truth. Once I get through with the rest of the people I need to kill around here, I'll do the bunch of you as well!"

"Foolish to admit your treachery so openly, construct!" Randolf spat back. "The Boss is listening..."

"You assume he did not know what sort of person he'd built this body for?" Cray snorted in contempt. "If I destroy the Clyne Faction for him, I don't think our dear Prophet will cry overly hard for you worthless fools. After all, I would have single handedly achieved something all three of you, plus your reinforcements, were unable to do! Why should he need deadweight like you when he has me?"

"He will return the loyalty we show to him, and reward treachery in kind. He is that sort of man." Mary answered resolutely. Cray twitched his radiation cannon over to place its crosshairs over the Tormented.

"I should blast you now and turn your body to bloody vapor... and save you the later pain of discovering what a total moron you are!" Cray snarled, both impressed and disgusted, as he'd started being more and more lately, at the self deceptive nature of humanity. They would believe anything if it made them happy, no matter how ludicrous. He lowered his arm after a moment. "On second thought, who am I to deny a girl her masochism? Believe what you want... I just hope I'm there to watch you cut your own throat when he decides he doesn't need you anymore! Watching the vapidity steal into your eyes while your hot blood pours out around you is all the vindication I could hope for." Cray was about to say more when a speeding dart like missile, trailing a huge streamer of white hot plasma energy, speared into the Revenant just over the groin region, the missile exploding and sending small shards of armor flying like chaff, before the plasma wavefront arrived and drilled into him, chewing a orange rimmed hole almost five meters across down to the inner Citadel Shield, impacting hard enough to give him a slight tremor! He was almost impressed, as he turned back to the Clyne Faction, who had been far from idle during Cray's conversation.

"Nice try... but you're about five years too late to castrate me, ya bastards!" Cray snapped, insulted by their choice of target location. Seriously, what sort of bastard deliberately targeted the family jewels? Well, besides him... but it was okay for the hero to use any tactic available against his dastardly foes. Or maybe he was getting that backward, as well as his role as a protagonist versus an antagonist? It was so hard to keep track of sometimes. He switched his left arm over towards where the Clyne Faction Gundams were all bunched up, the Phoenix King charging up another large ball of plasma for the Dawn Goddess to thread with her dart launcher, undeterred by the lack of real effect of the last shot. Artillery shells from the Warmaster's torso mounts kicked up plumes of moonrock around the Revenant's feet and legs, while missiles, barrages of beam bolts and hyper impulse beams lashed out at Cray like a sprinkler directed at a rhino. Cray's return volley of Gottfried fire hammered out at them, enough energy to scour the lot of them from existence with just the first few shots, not to mention the dozens behind those!

That is, if it ever reached them, which was not by any means an assured thing Cray discovered, as he watched his assault sizzle its way along the ground, each bolt carving out a glowing hole about two meters across in the ground, before his arm tracked up into and through the Clyne Faction position. The beams didn't follow that course though, instead they bent and twisted like snakes veering away from a sudden bright light, encountering the Fractal Wings of the Serpah in Geischmedig-Panzer mode, the reinforced defensive shielding being more than capable of handling even the repeated pounding from the Revenant. Kira even managed to catch a few blasts and sent them back in the Revenant's general direction, though his accuracy was down. Cray still flinched backwards slightly, his firepower sailing off into the void as his arm twitched. The Phoenix King and the Vorpal wasted no time in hurling themselves out from behind the Seraph and splitting up, moving in on the Revenant from either side, while another dart and plasma streamer rocketed at Cray from directly ahead, allowed to slip through a hole in the Seraph's defensive tapestry.

Cray's defensive weapons caught the missile this time, and blew it into space dust almost a hundred meters short of him, but there was no stopping the now uncontrolled plasma streamer, which expanded and widened its effect without the guiding magnetic fields of the missile to corral it. As a result it was more a wave of energy than a stream that hit him, chewing a layer or two deep into exposed armor across his chest, or else swirling harmlessly against operable Citadel Scales. One or two defensive turrets cooked off, overheated barrels melting in the onslaught, but it was nothing to cry about. Cray smiled, dropping the Revenant into an eager crouch as his enemies closed in on him from three directions... this was it! This was the kind of fight, the kind of feeling he was looking for! He felt a sudden odd welling up inside his head, like someone surfacing from a pool of sticky oil, but he paid it no real mind... there were more important things to worry about than his waking dreams! "Come to Cray, darling foes! Come to feed this dragon!"

-------------------------------------------------

_Give me something, Katie._ Ysak directed, advancing at the maximum pace he could muster, shield to the front blocking most of his body, Minion pods circling close by, ready to align into a large Citadel Shield should the monstrous Gundam look like it was orienting too much firepower in his direction. _Weaknesses, name of the pilot, name of the Gundam, what the hell he thinks he's doing... something, anything!_

_Hold on just a sec..._ Katie replied distractedly. _I'm almost... what the HELL!? AAAIIEEE!_

Ysak felt her flinch, and the psychic backwash of her surprise, disgust and fear was enough to almost make him lose control of the Vorpal for a moment, a stumble that might have been much more costly if the enemy hadn't been distracted by more punishing ranged fire from Kira, Cagalli and Dearka. _What!? What's wrong? Katie? Are you..._

_IT'S CRAY! I'D REMEMBER THAT TWISTED MIND OF HIS ANYWHERE, AFTER WHAT HE DID TO CHANEL! I JUST DIDN'T WANT TO BELIEVE IT! _Katie's reply made Ysak flinch again, given that it came at a volume that felt loud enough to shatter wood.

"What's wrong? Are you and Katie all right?" Kira commed, concern in his voice. "I felt something just now."

"Peachy." Ysak snarled, staring balefully at the monstrous enemy Gundam. Cray? Cray Thresher, that devilish BCPU that had manhandled him to that fateful encounter with Asmodeus in the bowels of JIHAD!? The one who had stood by, chuckling and dancing, as Ysak was forced to tear his own heart in half, and make a choice that had nearly broken his mind and soul permanently!? The despoiler of Carpentaria, the madman who'd perpetrated Purgatory Day, gleefully taking to the streets of Orb in the Merciless to slaughter the peaceful protesters in their tens of thousands!? The man... or thing... that had murdered Chanel right in front of his eyes and then made light of it to his face!? That Cray!?

_That Cray._ Katie confirmed, her own emotions boiling along with Ysak's as she relived many of the same memories, which had affected her just as deeply, if not more so, than Ysak himself! _The one you and Dearka killed to stop Purgatory Day. We never did find a body..._

_We turned the Merciless into a molten slag heap! Even if the initial takedown didn't kill him, the blast furnace we turned the cockpit into, plus the radiation, HAD to have killed him! Nothing could have survived that sort of treatment! That would have been enough to kill a healthy man in a full hazard suit! I shoved a pair of beam sabers right through his cockpit! He can't be alive!_ Ysak protested, shaking his head in denial, hot tears of frustration welling up in his eyes. _We sacrificed so much that day to take him down... how could he be alive!?_ Ysak's mind flip flashed through the horrid memories of Purgatory Day, some of which still haunted him to this day... the thrown cars, filled with people... the hospital going up in flames... the skyscrapers collapsing around him and burying him and the Duelist under tons of rubble... the blocks upon blocks of populated buildings that Cray had indiscriminately hosed his fire through trying to kill them... the buildings Ysak's own missed shots had taken out... and many more besides. _He can't be..._

_He is. We all saw what sort of shit Frost was capable of living through. We probably shouldn't be surprised that Cray has similar resilience._ Katie said, both soothing and stern. _It just means we're going to have to be extra sure this time!_ She steeled herself, gripping Ysak tight like a lifeline, and dipped her mind back into the mental cesspool that was Cray. Katie knew she was by no means an innocent or even particularly pure person. Somewhat the opposite sometimes... she was not afraid of violence or killing as a means of living, she saw little problem in using just about any means necessary to perserve peace, especially against people like the Brotherhood who refused to play by the rules themselves, and she definitely had to admit she had a dirty mind when it came to intimate habits. She liked a lot of things that would probably make her other female friends VERY uncomfortable... both emotionally and physically. But that didn't make her a bad person... just a person. Cray on the other hand... he WAS a bad person. Evil, that was simply the best way of putting it. He was having FUN slaughtering people! And the images she saw populating his subconscious, which was about as close to his conscious as she'd ever seen in a thinking being, were simply loathsome to behold! Physically sickening, a whirling parade of degeneracy that would have made a demon either salivitate or blush!

_It's called the Revenant._ Katie reported after several seconds of gingerly rooting around, afraid to delve too deeply lest she be swamped by the foul muck. She'd talked with Lacus about what it had been like inside Frosts's head during the final confrontation with him at the end of the Second Valentine War, and though Lacus's explanation had been exceedingly fragmentary at the time, Katie was suddenly starting to get a handle on why! Insane minds were never pleasant places to explore, and that was the benign ones! Someone like Cray, an unrepentent sociopath and maniac who enjoyed his excesses, even worshipped them, had a mind that hurt to look at even from a distance! Walking around inside it was like wading through a chest deep swamp of mixed blood, sulferic acid and intimate fluids! He was incredibly open to her intrusions, but the degenerative structure of his mind was as much a defence as any shield or trick she'd ever thought to deploy herself... simply put, no one sane would WANT to be in his mind, and indeed, staying too long could be detrimental to her own mental health! She didn't want to know what it would be like to get sucked into some of the dreams she steered past... the coma and rape she'd suffered at Noah's hands were a pleasant vacation to some of the stuff Cray dreamed about!

_Any weaknesses?_ Ysak asked gently. He couldn't get a full picture, but some of the horrors Katie was witnessing were bleeding back to him, vicariously through her reaction to them. _Be careful... its not worth you getting hurt to get extra information. Just his identity is more than enough!_

_I know..._ Katie's fingers tightened on Ysak's skin as she shuddered, passing a particularly vivid memory-dream... one that featured Ysak and herself and what Cray was hoping to do to them. _I won't stay much longer. But I haven't found much in the way of weaknesses... or if there are any, he doesn't know about them! The big Radiation Cannon on the right arm can only fire once per minute, and his "Rigor Mortis" defence pods only activate if people get within fifty meters, but I'm not sure if those are "weaknesses". Oh, and despite how he looks, nobody has really damaged him yet... he's got those outer Citadel Scales, then EIGHT layers of armor, and then ANOTHER Citadel Shield, far stronger than the outer one, before you get to anything vital inside him! He... he's GLAD to see us, Ysak. He's looking forward to paying us back for what you and Dearka and Miriallia did to him on Purgatory Day! He's... NAHHHG!_ Katie coughed and gagged as bile rose in her throat, as she confronted a memory of what Cray had done to Chanel at JIHAD... though from a perspective she never, EVER wanted to think about again!

_OUT! NOW!!_ Ysak ordered frantically, feeling Katie's arms and legs lock tightly around him, squeezing him almost painfully as she jerked away, both mentally and physically, from the terrible trauma of that memory. Ysak stopped the Vorpal, covering himself with his Photon Cloak, his Bulwark Shield and then the Minion Shield in a triple layer of protection for his stationary position. _Katie...?_

_P-present..._ Her voice came back to him weakly, as her limbs slowly let go of their death grip. _I really oughta learn to listen what you say a little bit sooner, Ysak-y... might save me a lot of pain down the line..._

_Are you okay?_ Ysak asked tenderly.

_I'll be better once we stick Siegfried through his leering face! _Katie came back with more strength, energized by his staunch support and love. She buried the side of her face against his back and hugged him firmly, though not like the death grip. _'Fraid you'd going to have to go this one without psychic warnings... I don't dare touch him again, or I might get dragged in! Just being nearby hurts. Not enough to run away though, in case you were considering it! You killed him once, we can definitely kill him together! And this time, don't stop stabbing until I tell you there's no mind left!_

_Deal. _Ysak promised with a wide smirk. _Let me break the harsh news. You rest. I bet he was expecting his identity to shock us... well it has, but it's not the kind of shock he's hoping for! Cray, you may have escaped our reckoning once, but you WON'T be so lucky twice!_

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"Cray..." Dearka swallowed heavily, assaulted by a host of unpleasant memories just from hearing the name. "How is that...? Could there be a mistake?"

"There is no mistake." Ysak replied, his tone banishing all doubt. "I thought he was dead too. We all did. But apparently we thought wrong. Because he is most definitely alive, and he's piloting that thing... that Revenant. An apt name, I do have to admit! But this is one Revenant that is going to go back to its grave without achieving its revenge!"

"Did she discover any weaknesses?" Kira asked, his tone introspective. All of them had had run ins with Cray in one form or another, and none of them were things they liked remembering. The memory of the crushed wads of innocent civilians being hurled like game balls at Carpentaria was enough to make Kira's hands clench tightly on the control yokes. Well, at least he didn't need to worry about holding back any when it came to the BCPU... he'd long ago talked things over with Lacus, and they'd both decided that people like Cray, unrepentant, mass destructive, genocidal maniacs, were best served by being put down like rabid dogs as quickly as possible. Getting them help would be preferrable, but to be plain, they were no longer something humans could really help, or relate to. They had had their humanity stripped from them by the Doc's experiments, and they weren't exactly looking to get it back!

"We haven't even hurt him yet. Not more than a bruise anyway." Ysak reported with frustration evident. "His main gun can't repeatedly fire, requiring about a minute to charge, and his last line of defence, a bunch of disabling pods, can only attack you if you get within about fifty meters of him."

"We'll do him like we did the Judgement. Soon as he lines up for a shot with that main gun..." Athrun began.

"It's not going to be that easy this time." Miriallia cut him off, one hand pressed to her chest to help still her hammering heart. Cray!? That monster!? He was alive... and he had it out for her and Dearka, almost as much as he had it out for Ysak! It was not a quieting realization. "Look at how he moves... he's got one of those special control systems. We can try and put a shot down his barrel, but I think that if it was that easy, someone would have done it before now. The Solar Knights if no one else... they have people with enough skill."

"Its the best strategy we have so far." Cagalli cut in. "Especially if regular attacks won't really work against him." She fired her Arbalest beam at him, watching it bore into the Revenant's right hip armor, leaving a glowing hole, but for all the overall good it did, she might as well not have fired! The retaliatory Linear Cannon volley struck Kira's protective Fractal Wing, tuned to Citadel Shield mode, which extended before her to catch the projectiles well short of the mark. Kira's other wing swept in front of the Warmaster, bouncing fat green plasma bolts up into the infinite sky, or else down into the ground, digging a molten trench in the ground. Redirecting the Gottfried blasts was hard, because they came so fast that if he started shifting his wings into a redirecting pattern, it would leave holes for the following shots to slip through. Bouncing even one took several feather pods at each point of impact, unlike when dealing with most regular Mobile Suit weaponry.

"He's not going to give us time to debate." Kira said tightly. "Its only a matter of time before he decides to use the main gun, and my Fractal Wings won't be able to defend against that... its every person for themselves if that occurs! And we can't ignore the rest of the Brotherhood reinforcements forever either... the garrison forces need time to recover before they can adequately combat the Brotherhood, especially with those three Gundams leading them!"

"Dearka, Miriallia, Katie and I will handle the Revenant, along with the Archangel." Ysak decided firmly. "The rest of you take out the other Brotherhood forces and then come back to help us."

"But Ysak...!" Athrun made as if to protest.

"He's right." Dearka interrupted in a cold voice. "The Phoenix King and the Seraph just don't have the kind of brute power to do anything productive against that monster, and the Dawn Goddess can only do enough when combined with the Phoenix King, which limits both of your mobility's, which is our only advantage against him, and likely to be a slim one! We'll be fine... take out the appetizers and we'll bring down the main course, just you watch!" Dearka jumped the Warmaster over to the side, avoiding a barrage of Linear Cannon shells, each almost the size of an Earthshaker round! He swept his left arm through the firing path between him and the Revenant, gatling beam cannons spraying green death into the void, intercepting the second volley well short of its target point. Well, they might be big, but they lacked the armor of the Earthshaker rounds, and that was definitely to his advantage!

The Phoenix King transformed to Mobile Armor form, and allowed the Dawn Goddess to board, before following in the wake of the Seraph as Kira led the way past Cray, his defensive wings deflecting and blocking a deluge of shell and beam attacks, cutting a swathe of clear space, even through the CIWS barrages, for Cagalli and Athrun, as well as Kisaka in his Dawndrake to follow. Cagalli blasted Cray several more times with her Arbalest and shoulder hyper-impulse cannons as she passed, but she might as well have been a fly biting a horse, because Cray didn't even bother to try and dodge her attacks, dismissing them as worthless. He half turned after them, but once he saw the two Gundams that chiefly concerned him had remained behind, he refocused on them. There was a brief lull as Cray stopped firing, stepping closer to regard them casually. "It's been a long time, you three..." Cray announced, over the public channels. "I hope you didn't think I'd gone away for good, did you? My name is..."

"Cray. Shut up." Ysak cut him off. "We didn't have time to listen to your babbeling before, and we sure don't now."

"You knew?" Cray sounded surprised. There was a brief pause, followed by a liquid chuckle. "Ah, I see. You have a mind-walker of your own. I remember, the Doc talked with her, right before you guys broke free. Yes, she was the one that got away, wasn't she? I'll be crushing her skull and smearing her blood into pretty pictures on my face as soon as I'm done with you maggots, mind tricks or not, just like I did to her sister!"

"That's in the past." Ysak's voice was filled with anger and sorrow all the same. "If all you have to hurt us with are old memories, you'll find that you came underequipped!" The Vorpal stowed its 120mm auto shotcannon and drew Siegfried, the bright blue field edges springing to brilliant life as the Vorpal settled its grip. Ysak pointed the tip of the sword at the Revenant, striking an arrogant pose he knew would grate at the egotistical and childish BCPU. "We hope you don't like living too much, because we're going to be killing you again shortly! That Revenant doesn't impress us much." Ysak taunted, watching the Archangel start to slip into place on the other side of Cray, Gottfried's swiveling in target lock, the bottom part of the hanger mandibles opening up to reveal the twin Lohengrin positron cannons. Ysak stepped closer and flourished his blade. "Oh, are you scared now? Good, you'd better be! You have a lot to be frightened of!" Ysak watched the Archangel reach its position, and an icon lit up on his tactical display. He ducked and covered behind his Bulwark shield and Minion Citadel Array, standing squarely between the Revenant and the Warmaster.

The Archangel opened fire on the Revenant's back with all available weapons, leading with the Gottfried's and Lohengrin, following with the Valiants and Sledgehammer missiles, and even getting the Helldart and Valkyros defensive guns into the action. Cray waited until the last possible moment, before the Revenant turned a literal hands free cartwheel, removing itself from the path of the bombardment, which sailed off towards the distant Earth on the horizon, petering out over the course of millions of kilometers. Cray landed with bent knees and spun, firing a pair of anti-ship missiles from his shoulder launchers and a volley of Linear Cannon shells at the Archangel as way of reply. The Archangel frantically turned and maneuvered, CIWS firing madly, but explosions still dotted its armored hull, sometimes blocked by the blue-green flare of Citadel Shields, sometimes not, causing the ship to reel and shudder heavily.

Ysak didn't wait for the Revenant to make a smart comeback, instead charging forward as fast as he could, his own shoulder mounted rapidfire 75mm Linear Cannons spitting yellow tracers in a stready stream, while the beam spike son the front face of his Bulwark shield activated, while the chainsaw edge on the side began spooling up to operational velocity. This was going to be a lot of bloody, close up fighting... just the sort of work he needed to indulge in to wash away bad memories! Beam, hyper-impulse, missile and artillery cannon shots whizzed by overhead, courtesy of Dearka and Miriallia, and Ysak observed a sudden drop in the accuracy of the Cray's automated defense turrets as the Warmaster engaged the Pandemonium ECM jammers. They couldn't be kept on for too long, or else they'd start interfering with the Vorpal's and Warmaster's systems, but when used with proper timing, the system might make all the difference when dealing with the Revenant's extensive defenses.

Dearka sighted and fired the Earthshaker Magnus with one motion, sending the massive shell hurtling downrange. He gritted his teeth in frustration as his shot went slightly wide, striking the Revenant on the left hip. The thunderous explosion still staggered the Gundam, and mangled the remaining hip mounted Linear Cannon turret, but since he'd been aiming for the lower abdominal hole Cagalli's first Arbalest and Vulcan's Forge combined shot had created, he couldn't feel too triumphant. Destroying the weapon was a good thing, but a good shot to the inner defensive layer might be enough to penetrate to the vital systems and cause some real damage, which would greatly enhance their chances! Dearka moved the Warmaster as soon as he'd fired his shot... trying to stand still and exchange volleys with the Revenant was a quick trip to the cemetary! Miriallia cried out in wordless warning as the Revenant's right arm came around suddenly and pointed at them, or rather at Ysak as the Vorpal charged in on a beeline. Dearka threw the Warmaster violently to the side, out of the line of effect of the shot, gritting his teeth as the Radiation Cannon fired, his cameras and sensors washing out for a moment because of the energy released.

The Revenant's shot gouged a ten meter deep, twenty meter wide trench in the moonrock that stretched almost a half kilometer into the distance, but the Warmaster had managed to get clear of the target zone, and the Vorpal had managed to eke out enough speed to get in underneath the firing angle, so that the scintillating radiation beam touched down several tens of meters behind him and expended its energy uselessly, if spectacularly into the ground. The Revenant stabbed its left arm at the Warmaster, forcing them to keep scrambling for cover or distance, making it hard for Dearka or Miriallia to line up any sort of good shot. Cray trusted to his cannon and beam CIWS to impede the Vorpal's maneuvers, even as he drew his right arm back, anti-ship chain disenganging from the upper arm and uncoiling into the ready to use position. He dipped and rocked the arm, imparting a rolling motion that soon had the chain spinning like a rotor blade, yellow beam spikes springing into existence all along its length.

The Revenant staggered, taken squarely in the small of the back by a pair of Valiant shots from the still maneuvering Archangel, which Cray had counted out a bit too soon. The Archangel was still retreating for the moment, but its Valiant's were pointed straight back. Snarling like a beast, Cray arched around and pointed his left arm at the red and white warship, but he only got off a few shots, which either splashed ineffectually against Citadel Shields placed over the aft quarter and engines, or were absorbed by the beam diffusing depth charges. The reason for his abridged volley was the Earthshaker round that came in high from the Warmaster and quite literally blew half the Revenan't skull away, almost bisecting the head and making Cray stagger in the opposite direction. Ysak saw his opportunity and leaped for the Revenant's lower torso, aiming his arm and Siegfried's point towards the hole in the frontal armor Cagalli's first shot had carved.

Katie's screamed warning came just milliseconds ahead of Dearka and Miriallia's cries, but it was her sudden emotional surge, not her voice, that caused Ysak to brace behind his shield and bring his Minion pod Shield up on the right hand side, as Cray, not nearly as off balance as he'd appeared, suddenly straightened and whipped his right arm around, bringing the anti-ship chain to bear in less than a second. The gargantuan, beam spiked mass slammed into the Minion Citadel Shield and shattered it in an explosion of golden sparks, sending the three pods spinning off into the distance, arcing light blue electricity and smoking from feedback. However, the Minion pods had done their job, and ebbed enough energy from the blow so that when it continued on to strike Ysak's Bulwark shield, with its combined layers of Geischmedig-Panzer, Citadel and Phase Shift effects, it did so with only a fraction of its original impetus. It was still enough to slap the Ysak from the sky like a small bird hit by a baseball bat, but he more or less retained control, and the Vorpal didn't just come apart from the force of impact, like what had happened to most other Mobile Suits struck by the chain, regardless of what kind of armor they had.

The Vorpal touched down, bent its knees, flared its thrusters to help absorb the inertia imparted by the blow and then sprang back, resuming its original course towards the Revenant. Dearka and Miriallia walked their fire up and down the length of the Revenant's torso, blowing out geysers of molten armor and opening up yet more deep reaching holes in its skin, wrecking more point defense turrets, but that one, vital blow continued to elude them. The Revenant started to bring its right arm back across in a backhanded blow towards Ysak's unshielded side, but this time he'd seen the blow coming from some time out, and needed no warning nor hasty defensive measure. He'd already observed that the Revenant's chain, while grossly powerful, and capable of being swung much more rapidly than should really be possible for something so large, had one characteristic he could use to his advantage. Namely, it didn't change course well, since it was a chain, not a solid object like a sword or axe. Even if the Revenant redirected its arm, the chain would continue on along the initial path, at least for a little while. And a little while was all the time Ysak had ever needed.

A vibrant blue Seed dropped through the vastness of Ysak's mind, to bounce and explode with a briliant light that illuminated the universe in a manner that made everything seem slower and more understandable. Katie felt the surge like a tide of lightning coursing through Ysak's body and into hers, a backwash effect that left her tingling and gasping from several involuntary reactions, some of which had no place happening on a battlefield! She watched, through Ysak's perceptions, as the chain seemed to creep closer, moving in slow motion. Everything was moving in slow motion... she could almost swear she could see individual cannon shells and beam bolts hanging in space, crawling towards them as if boring their way through thick glass. Just before the chain got within arm's reach, Ysak half spun the Vorpal and dropped down about five meters of altitude, bringing his shield up over his head, heald at a glancing angle, as Siegfried's impossibly keen magnetic field edge bit effortlessly through the beam spikes festooning Cray's chain, cutting through the material of the chain itself with equal ease, and passing out the other side completely undamaged. The chain barely touched Ysak's shield, unable to correct down that quickly, though the impact still spun the Vorpal like a top, but the damage was done!

When the chain reached the end of its path and Cray started bringing it around to finally bludgeon the impudent Vorpal to death, the top two thirds of the chain just kept on moving in the direction they'd been going, severed neatly and flawlessly by Siegfried's opposed monopole edges. The bisected part of the chain spun end over end, beam spikes sputtering out as they lost their power source, disapearing from view as they headed away in a straight line, moving well past the Moon's escape velocity. Cray aborted his swing and glared furiously at his maimed hand. "Betcha think you're real cute now, don't ya!?" Cray challenged. He was about to say more when a actinic blue-white beam spat from the Vorpal's right shoulder, cutting down in a constant stream, slicing deeply into the Revenant's left shoulder, slicing apart the anti-ship missile launcher mounted there, before cutting into the Revenant's upper left torso like a blowtorch into soft metal. Unusually, for a FRALA attack, the beam didn't penetrate all the way through the target's mass, stopped this time by the inner Citadel Shield, though not without enough strain to make the Revenant shine like a star on thermal energy scans as extra power was drawn from the FPR reactor to the defensive systems.

"We're beginning to think we might be on to something, yes." Ysak and Katie replied together, speaking in near synchronity. Though to be honest, they'd been expecting a little more out of the FRALA beam, which was several times as powerful as the first units which had been deployed back during the last Lunar battle during the Isolation. That inner Citadel Shield was no joke, that was for sure! Of course, to Siegfried, it didn't matter how powerful the shield was... it just couldn't deal with the magnetic field edge! It was simply a matter of getting close enough to use it! "How does it feel to be on the verge of death, Cray?" They asked, identical smirks on their faces.

"No different than any other day!" Cray spat back, ignoring the Warmaster for a moment to fully orient his attention on these annoying motherfuckers! He snapped his left arm around in a slicing strike that the Vorpal dodged, deeply notching one axe blade in the process. "Damn it, hold still! You're really starting to bug me!"

"Aww, whatsamatter... not dealing with a bunch of newbies in wanna be Gundams anymore? Face it, Cray, even with that Revenant, you're still a relic, five years or more out of date! The world has moved on since you died... Katie and I have moved on, same for Dearka and Miriallia. You're just an empty ghost of the past, refusing to stay quiet in its tomb like a good corpse. You hold still... and I promise not to make this any more painful than you deserve!" Ysak retorted smugly.

_You're really pissing him off._ Katie noted, with a hint of trepidition. _I mean, I think its a major turn on when you're like this... but he's really, pretty much foaming at the mouth right now, and I get the feeling... uh oh..._

"THIS IS IT! THIS IS WHAT I WANTED! THIS ANGER! THIS HATRED! THIS LIFE! I'M ALIVE! I'M ALIVE AGAIN!" Cray roared, actually crying a single tear of mixed joy and outrage. "I'M ALIVEEE!" He whipped his left arm at the Vorpal in a Left-Right-Left combination attack that had Ysak flying backwards desperately, dodging frantically, afraid to take even one such blow directly, shield or no shield. He was paying so much attention to the left arm that when the right arm came around, with chain stowed, he made the mistake of dismissing it as a threat for a bare moment, before realizing that even without a chain, the arm was still a mass of armor weighing close to a thousand tons. By then though, no amount of Seed enhanced reflexes could get him fully out of the way, and his shield was of little use against such a massive object. The Vorpal flattened against the Revenant's right forearm like a bug under a person's palm, and spiralled down to the ground below, out of control, both Ysak and Katie greying out from the force of the blow. The Vorpal hit hard and gouged out a small crater with its back, sending cracks racing through the rock around it. Stunned, the Vorpal just lay there for a moment as Cray loomed overhead. "I'M ALIVE... AND YOU ARE DEAD!"

Cray didn't carry out his threat immediately though, as that would have done very little to expunge his hatred. He needed them to suffer first! To cry out in pain... in agony! To beg for mercy! That might be a start on salving his burning shame and anger! Might! Nothing less though! So instead of burning them to stray particles with his gatling Gottfried, or even blasting them apart with his beam point defense, he instead oritented all his remaining frontal quad 120mm gatling cannon point defense turrets on the fallen Vorpal and let fly, bathing the helpless Gundam under a torrent of hundreds of high caliber explosive shells per second. His aim was still off, because of that damn jamming system the Warmaster was using, but when that many shots were being fired, the diminishment was slight overall. The Vorpal vanished from easy view under a carpet of fire and explosions, the ground shaking for a score of meters in every direction around it as the Vorpal was steadily pounded into the ground by the continual impacts, which deepened and widened its crash crater until the Vorpal was half buried in smashed rubble, which continued to grow more and more dustlike as the onslaught continued.

Cray probably would have continued his barrage until the Vorpal or its contents had been shaken apart by the battering explosions, regardless of how long that took, if it weren't for the intervention of the Warmaster, which fired a brace of Earthshaker shells, one impacting on the Revenant's right upper torso, and the second nearby, on the right shoulder joint, blasting away the Linear Cannon turret there and almost dislocating the entire massive limb. Cray jerked and stepped backward, favoring the right side, which was starting to show a serious lack of armor, to the point where the Inner Shield was visible from outside along medium sized swatches on the upper torso. "Ysak! Katie! Are you all right!?" Miriallia demanded, heart in her mouth after seeing the punishing mauling the Vorpal had taken. Even with Phase Shift armor, just lying there while taking those kind of impacts would be like lying down while a herd of ponies trampled over you!

_Owww..._ Katie's reply was mental, but Miriallia was so relieved to hear anything at all she hardly noticed. _I think I bruised my... everything... sorry Ysak... I really gotta remember not to dig in my fingernails..._

"Take your time. We'll keep him busy." Dearak said confidently. He still had three shots for the Earthshaker Magnus left, and beyond even those he still had the Spear of Ares, which he'd been itching to use ever since he first had the system described to him! If this wasn't a situation that called for that level of force, he didn't know what would be! He stepped forward, a yellow Seed falling through the depths of his mind, exploding with a warm yellow glare that seemed to highlight the Revenant and every other potential target nearby, revealing the best palces to aim for maximum effect, while also slowing down their movements to a crawl. Dearka grinned and fired another two shots from the Magnus, wrecking the right shoulder missile launcher and left upper arm Linear Cannon turret on the Revenant, which was now starting to look rather less mighty than it initally had, with large plumes of smoke and fire trailing from many parts of its body, its armor sagging and running in steady molten drips from where secondary explosions chewed at its armor from the inside every few seconds.

"Busy!? More like passingly entertained!" Cray charged directly at the Warmaster, stepping right over the Vorpal in his haste to smack down the taunting Warmaster. They were probably nothing more than paste anyway, by now! He could peel them out of their shell later! He swung with the right arm first this time, which the Warmaster managed to backstep, only to catch a short downwards chop from the left arm axe. The Warmaster got it's shield in the way, but had its legs shudder and spark, driven almost two meters straight down into the solid rock from the force of the shortened blow. It was only the specially reinforced body, designed to handle the continuous recoil of multiple artillery weapon systems, that allowed the Gundam to bear up under the attack at all, and Dearka definitely made a note not to try and block a full on swing the same way. It was just too much mass, too much force, for anything, even a Gundam like the Warmaster, to take with strength versus strength. If he was lucky, he'd only lose his legs... if not... well... better not to let it happen at all!

Singe marks appeared like disease sores across the Warmaster's body as the Revenant deluged them with its beam point defense turrets, but the Warmaster's dual layered Phase Shift armor was better at handling energy attacks than regular Phase Shift, and it kept the damage to a bare minimum. Dearka ignored Miriallia's worried looks, keeping the Warmaster steady and stationary, after stepping out of the holes his legs had made, lining up his shot as precisely as possible. It was probably going to mean taking a hit but... Dearka watched the Revenant level its left arm at them and winced, bringing his own left arm, with shield, across the cockpit, the best defense he could currently muster. Dearka and Cray fired at roughly the same time, with their shots arriving closer together still, because beams moved faster than shells. The first three Gottfried blasts were absorbed by the Citadel Shield effect, before that overloaded and vanished in a series of shuddering golden arcs of protesting energy. The fourth blast superheated the four 375mm artillery cannon barrels on the Warmaster's chest, causing them to glow white hot and droop downward, bending into useless, sagging shapes. That same blast melted halfway through the armored portion of the Warmaster's shield before petering out at last.

At the same time though, Dearka's shot had struck home, right in the spot he'd aimed his first Magnus shot at, the deep crater Cagalli had created with her combined shot with Athrun at the beginning of their part of the battle. Without impacting the armor or Citadel Scales to either side, none of the force of the shell's explosion was wasted against anything but the Inner Citadel Shield, which rippled like a pond with a boulder tossed into it before briefly flickering and tearing apart. Fire gouted from the Revenant's lower torso, and the entire machine shook with convulsions as various internal mechanisms, including most of both hip and leg actuator movement systems, were boiled to metallic steam by the devouring blast wave. Thruster systems remained active, but in most meanings of the word, the Revenant had just been paralyzed from the waist down! Cray's aim faltered as he felt the damage done as a series of bright red warning lights and a throbbing alarm in his skull, but he quickly recorrected, vowing to make the Warmaster pay for the blow, now that it was all but helpless!

The Revenant slewed forward, as a Gottfried and Valiant shot from the Archangel's port broadside, slammed into its back flank again, followed shortly thereafter by six Sledgehammer anti-ship missiles in a row, slipping through the diminished point defense fire because Cray had directed most of it either at the Vorpal or Warmaster. Each Sledgehammer struck like a blow from its namesake, and after the fourth, the Revenant was tottering. The fifth and sixth completely ruined its balance, and Cray toppled forward, unable to move his legs to regain his balance. He caught himself by jamming his left arm into the ground, holding the Revenant at close to a forty five degree angle, like a man doing a one armed pushup. Spitting in wordless rage, Cray craned his halved head around and glared at the offending ship, before pointing his right arm back at them. Let them taste the fruits of disaster for interfering in his life! For the last time! "Daddy, they're being very mea..." Cray started to whine.

He was still completing that sentence when the Vorpal re-engaged, Ysak and Katie still shaking the pounding out of their heads, but in Seed mode he could deal with that kind of disorientation. Jetting up beneath the Revenant's armpit, keeping ahead of the frantically launching Rigor Mortis pods, which he sprayed with fire from the plasma flamethrowers attached to his shield, impaling or dicing the closer ones with the beam spikes or chainsaw edge on the same, Ysak stabbed the Siegfried in to the hilt into the Revenant's right shoulder joint, piercing the Inner Citadel Shield like a needle through a soap bubble. He dragged the blade upward, cleaving the Shield and the joint inside, until the weight of the arm, even in the Moon's reduced gravity, was too much for the damaged join to handle, and the right arm twisted and flopped awkwardly before ripping away from the Revenant's shoulder, falling to the ground below and raising a large cloud of dust. "AHHGGH! WHAT THE FUCK!?" Cray screamed in denial, even as a huge mass of Rigor Mortis pods finally managed to swarm the Vorpal, covering it from head to toe in glistening black pods, like a plague victim's buboes. Its body and limbs stiffened, and its thrusters conked out, carrying it helplessly up and away along its former course, a sitting target... but one he couldn't shoot at right now!

Now it was the Revenant's turn to lie there unable to defend itself effectively, as Dearka and Miriallia hosed him down with missiles, gatling beam fire and hyper-impulse blasts, aided by more missiles, Gottfried and Valiant shots from the Archangel, which was starting to turn to bring its Lohengrin to bear. Discarding the empty Earthshaker Magnus for the moment, Dearka drew the anti-ship axe the Warmaster was equipped with for melee combat. Clearing a path through the Rigor Mortis pods with their gatling beams and hyper impulse cannon under Miriallia's able control, Dearka stepped forward and began hacking at the Revenant's left arm, like a lumberjack heweing at a particularly doughty and annoying root. "Daddy... they're being very cruel to me! What should I do!? What should I do!?"

"Talk to your mother, or are you afraid she'll spank you?" Miriallia suggested wryly. "Maybe its YOU that's the problem, you disgusting freak!"

"You bitch!? YOU would mock me now!? YOU!?" Cray was shocked at her temerity. Surely they didn't think that they'd won already did they? They didn't think this was the endgame!? Surely not! He'd just come back to life, he wasn't ready to die again yet! He thrust backward with his left arm before they could completely undermine its ability to hold his weight, and activated his thrusters, slowly bringing the Revenant back up to a standing position. Even with one arm and most of his external weapons gone, as long as he had just the left arm, he could still destroy them all! And if they took that from him, he could fucking RAM them to death, or fall on them, whatever he needed to do! He was the Revenant! He could not be defeated! He turned his attention to the Archangel now, as the greater threat, since he could finished off the warmaster, now that it lacked its heavy weapons, at almost any time.

"Dearka!" Miriallia called, seeing Cray turn away from them.

"Already on it!" He called back, bringing down the secondary keyboards that controlled the Spear of Ares. The accelerator-drivers began deploying from the back mounted storage bins, the first one snagging one of the eighth of a pound munitions from a slot on the top of the bin, ensnaring it in powerful magnetic fields that were still but the merest precursor to the ones that would be sued to fire it. The Warmaster jumped backwards a long distance, before Dearka and Miriallia started inputting the commands that began aligning the thirty two accelerators they'd chosen to utilize... a "standard" shot, rather than the full out one hundred twenty eight the bins carried. They'd try a standard shot first, and if that wasn't enough, they'd know to use more later. Besides, setting up even thirty two took three point two kilometers of free space, and several minutes of time even with the new software update. Setting up all took almost fifteen kilometers of open space, and closer to twenty minutes of time! Now if only the Archangel could keep the Revenant occupied...

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	37. Pulling Weeds part 7

Author Note: Well, glad to see that I've been meeting people's expectations, with the last chapter or two. Interesting to see Cray's popularity on the rise. Wonder what it is about the cruel, maladjusted, clinicly insane and evil pilot type that seems to grab hold of people so well. Well, then again, given how many righteous and goody two shoes heroes, or conflicted angtsy villians there are out there sometimes, perhaps its refreshing to see someone who is happy being evil and wouldn't want to be anything else. Now, regarding the "rift" in the Clyne Faction, between those who are Newtypes and those who are not... yeah, its going to be a recurring theme. And this is just the beginning. Small scale. But its not necessarily something the villians will exploit, at least not Noah... he's very smart and informed, but hes not omniscient, and there's not any good reason for him to know about their problem, because he very rarely comes into direct contact with them in such a way that he could find out. Some problems don't need villians. Some villians, for that matter, don't necessarily have to cause problems for the protagonists either... thus the direction I'm moving Ashino in. Oh, and you can hold out hope for Cray and Frost to get together, but do bear in mind they were never friends, and they'd be just as likely to try and kill each other as work together (though now that I think about it, having them do a knock down-drag out fight would be pretty cool).

Mary's been mentally influenced just like most of the rest of the Brotherhood, bear in mind, and Noah DID save her life after Purgatory Day. People have declared undying loyalty for less than that before. And she really does love him, as much as her less than whole mind can anyway, and thus she does tend to see his every action in a rosy tinted light. But there will be a rude awakening... its simply too fun an idea to pass up. But when I will leave secret. The Spear of Ares takes a while to set up. Is that a weakness? I guess. Given how powerful it is though, NOT having a set up time, especially considering its construction, would make it TOO powerful, in my opinion. It is already quite simply the most powerful Mobile Suit carried weapon in the story currently, and it will continue to be upgraded over time, but its never going to be a weapon you can shoot from the hip with. For all you people eager to see Kira beat down Randolf... yeah, it will probably happen. But it's not going to be a grudge match. Kira knows Randolf is part of the Brotherhood, it was never outright said, but he's not stupid after all. However he does not know that Randolf is an Apostle, or which Apostle he would be. He has no way of knowing who is piloting the Haunted, and thus no reason to be especially vindictive, other than his current passionate dislike of the Brotherhood in general.

Well, what some people have said about the Newtype thing being kind of sudden is somewhat true, but bear in mind that five years HAVE passed since Chaotic Cosmos, and while not intricately detailed, given how the characters act now, you should probably assume they've been acting like that for a while, so Katie's Newtype rudeness is probably far from recent news. Things are just reaching a head now, with Cagalli's injury and Katie and Lacus's solution, and then Cagalli's rebuff. People have had time to think over and react to what happened in CC, have formed opinions and deep rooted feelings, and now its all coming out under stress. Its not always an issue of trust, though that is definitely a large part of it. Its a question of basic privacy and personal property. Do the Clyne Faction members trust Lacus, or even Katie, to act morally and with concern for them when it comes down to it? Of course they do. But just because you trust a neurosurgeon to excise a brain tumor if you have one, does that mean you want them poking around in your head every time you go see them, just because that's what they do and they're curious? And of course there is Noah, plus who knows how many other Newtypes, with abilities that may or may not be wildly different from the ones already exhibited, still out there.

Roanoke and F.E.A.R. (An acronym I did borrow from that paranormal thriller FPS game, just modified to meet my purposes) do seem to be an anti-Newtype measure, but they don't have any idea that Kira, Lacus, or Ysak are Newtypes, and would only know about Katie if he saw her, so I doubt they'll be coming after them just yet. Eventually, no doubt... but they can't act on what they don't know. About Kira and the Seraph. Simply put, I disagree about it needing a power boost. Kira as a person, in my opinion, would not be desirious of some badass offensive weaponry, like what the Vorpal or Warmaster have. He might like the BGCS from the Phoenix King, but more for its versatility rather than its offensive or destructive capabilities. At least he'd not feel that way in his current belief system. Maybe that will change at some point in time, but for the moment, he is still that idealistic pacifist at heart, who needs to be pushed VERY hard and given extra reasons to boot, to bring deadly force against even the Brotherhood, who are mostly remote controlled anyway! For the moment, being the ultimate in passive resistance fits very well for how Kira feels about combat in my mind, and though it takes some time, with Kira's creativity, Seed mode and experience, the range of possibilities for what he can do with his Fractal wings is almost unlimited in tactical scope. The Dawn Goddess and the Warmaster have better ranged and single target firepower. The Phoenix King and the Vorpal have better close in combat capability and special weapons. But the Seraph outdoes them all in sheer flexibility, and that has always been Kira's best ability... the ability to adapt to any combat situation and dominate regardless!

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Ashino frowned, pulling at his slack controls several times and finding no response whatsoever. No cameras, no sensors, no thrusters, hell, he couldn't even tell if the Independence was free floating or lying on the ground at the moment! He was pretty sure he wasn't upright, given that the Mjolnir capacitors had blown up in his face once more, almost certainly obliterating his remaining arm and doing who knew what sort of damage to the rest of the Independence! He was probably lucky to still be alive, and he felt a surge of deep affection for his Gundam, which had spared his life despite his mistreatment of it. He reflected with deep sorrow that it might be time for him and the faithful Independence to part ways, because if the Gundam was immobile and disabled, then staying with it would only lead to his imprisonment at best, or much more likely his death at the hands of the Solar Knights, who probably had orders to shoot to kill on sight regarding him. Ashino sighed regretfully, and began feeling around the interior of the darkened cockpit, removing what supplies and other things he felt might be useful to take with him, operating on memory alone, which illuminated the interior brighter than any light ever could.

As he gathered up his emergency gear, Ashino wondered just what was going on with the larger battle? Someone else was employing Mjolnir penetrating particle projector technology, probably among the FNE contingent, since neither the PLANTS or Orb would use something so unstable, and the ALU didn't have the tech capacity for it. He hoped whoever it was had found themselves on the right side of the risk versus utility equation... as he'd just rediscovered, having one blow up in your face was far from pleasant, no matter what sort of damage they did to the enemy. Even the Revenant's armor and defensive systems wouldn't last long against concentrated Mjolnir fire, unless it had Positron Reflectors like the Pulsar, it had yet to deploy, for some reason. Though one could never tell with Cray... sometimes he was a very stupid individual, who let himself be led around by the nose in a painfully obvious fashion, merely because he didn't want to be bothered with thinking about anything other than his own obsessions with explosions and death and females. Cray was a destructive hedonist, and that philosophy came first for him, before every other concern. It was only if he couldn't burn, explode, shoot or fuck something that he resorted to cognitive ability. Ashino was grateful for the tendency... it made Cray far less dangerous than he otherwise might be.

Ashino finished gathering up his meager cache of supplies and hit the cockpit open control. Nothing happened. It took him about a second to realize that the exploding Mjolnir capacitors had probably flash melted most of his frontal surface armor, which could sometimes have the unfotunate effect of sealing a cockpit shut by gumming up the cracks between the hatch and the rest of the Gundam, especially in space where the flash heated metal would rapidly cool and resolidify. He checked to see that the door opening mechanisms were still working, which they were, and then carefully set aside his supply package to free up room. Grabbing hold of a secure point on the cockpit overhead, Ashino took a few focusing breaths and then whiplashed his entire body forward, kicking the bottom of both feet into the top right corner of the hatch with all his strength. When nothing resulted, he hit it again, and again, and again, seven times in all before he felt the corner plate vibrate heavily under his eighth strike. Grunting and sweating slightly, he then turned his attention to the top left corner and repeated the procedure. Six hits later he felt the top left corner break loose as well, and then it was just one more full body swinging kick to the middle of the hatch plate and it slammed open, brittle shards of armor falling away from the edges on all sides.

Ashino cautiously stepped out onto the hatch, prepared to dive from his perch should he detect any incoming fire headed in his direction, since while the Independence was still partly operable, it was a sitting target and with the hatch open it was almost certain death to try and weather an attack while inside. Calmness, or the nearest equivalent of it given the circumstances, surrounded him. The Independence was lying on its back, its head and shoulders through the wall of a utility building that had been a few dozen meters behind him before his attempt to slay the sniper Knight. Both arms were missing, as was almost all his external weaponry, and what remained looked too damaged for him to want to risk firing it. Much as he'd expected, the entire front part of the Independence was charred into a blackened crust, and streaks of semi-molten cracks tapered off along its sides towards its back armor. Luck was indeed with him, if not quite as much luck as he was hoping for, since now there was no way he'd be able to kill Durandel now. At least at this moment, in this situation. He'd wasted his first and best chance, now things would have to be done in a more difficult manner, with a great deal more planning and preparation by him. It seemed he'd be speaking with Ms. Logan and the remnants of her Tiamat cell again before the afterlife after all.

A movement in the near distance caught his eye, and he stared with some surprise at the Brotherhood Gundam, the one known as the Vengeance, as it rose to a fully standing position from where it had been crouching by the side of a downed Solar Knight Archon, the one that the sniper Knight had been piloting, if Ashino's recollection of their relative positions was correct. The unimaginably sharp finger claws on the Vengeance's right hand slipped back into the finger sheathes, and the Gundam turned to look at Ashino, before dipping its head in a slight nod of respect, or at least that is what Ashino assumed it was. It was uncanny, watching a Gundam move with such humanlike movements that Ashino felt he could discern the pilot's emotion as if he'd been standing there looking at his face. Ashino stared back challengingly at the Vengeance, wondering what the Gundam would do next, as it definitely had the power of life and death over him at the moment. However, the Gundam made no move to slash at him with its claws or hand, or shoot at him with the long, slim rifle slung across its back. It just stepped away from the fallen Archon, looking over Ashino's head at the confrontation invloving the Revenant, seemingly dismissing the dismounted pilots as unimportant now that they'd taken each other out.

Ashino stared as the hatch on the Archon was pushed up and away in the weak Lunar gravity by the pilot inside, the neatly sliced square of metal falling away down the side of the Archon as the pilot poked her head out, staring up at the Vengeance's back with wary surprise. Had the Vengeance just cut her out of her flash melted closed cockpit? Why? It was a gesture of kindness that Ashino simply could not ascribe to the malevolent sort of people who made up the Brotherhood. The Vengeance had probably saved her life, because just sitting around blind and trapped in a Mobile Suit in these kind of conditions was a good way to get hit by random firepower, expended by or against the Revenant. But why would the Vengeance save a Solar Knight? Why would a Brotherhood machine not try to kill Ashino, the USN's Gundam pilot, even if he was currently rogue!? What the hell was the Vengeance thinking?

Well, he should probably not look a gift horse in the mouth, as one of Jean's confusing expressions went. What exactly a gift horse was, or why looking it in the mouth was bad were questions he'd posed that she had no answer for, merely stating that it was another way of stating not to question your own good luck. Motion caught his eye again, as another dismounted pilot in a flight suit belonging to the Solar Knights dashed towards the downed Archon from off to the side, jumping up onto its chest to help drag the female Solar Knight from her exposed position. Both Solar Knights turned and looked directly at Ashino from their perch, and both of them drew pistols holstered at their waists. Vacuum wasn't the best environment for a gun battle, but bullets would kill just as easily in an airless environment as in atmosphere. More so, even, given that an unsealable puncture in a flight suit could kill someone through depressurization or suffocation even if the wound inflicted was otherwise minor. Ashino ducked and jumped from his cockpit, heading off in a random direction, away from the Revenant and the more secure portions of the base. His quarrel wasn't with the Solar Knights, no matter if they were willing accomplices to Durandel or not. They weren't responsible for what had happened, and though they were Coordinators, their deaths would only weigh on his conscience in the long run.

As he ran, Ashino caught glimpses over his shoulder of the Clyne Faction's entrance to the battlefield, and their efforts against Cray. He wished them luck, and hoped that this time they would make completely sure of his death. Any world with Cray in it was more dangerous than it should be, and the Brotherhood would also be diminished greatly by the loss of their juggernaut. Two good things. He just wished he could have contributed to the fight. If only... a lot of things hadn't happened. Damn Durandel for upsetting the proper course of the world! What could his reasons be? Ashino vowed to find out before he killed the man... he had to know what could cause people to do such terrible and senseless things, so he could avoid ever letting it happen to himself! But for the moment he needed to concentrate on getting away, or else there would be no finding out, or future learning experiences of any kind!

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"Attention all Brotherhood units. This is Kira Yamato, in the Seraph. Halt all combat operations and stand down your machines at once, or face destruction. This is your final and only warning." Kira broadcast on all available channels, as he came up behind the fracas between the USN forces and the Brotherhood reinforcements. "Surrender at once and your lives will be spared, and you will be taken into custody and treated with the rights belonging to prisoners of war." Kira waited a few moments, but did not recieve any return communications, nor did any of the Brotherhood forces even begin to look like they were surrendering. He sighed wearily, and resigned himself to what needed to be done. He'd given them the option at least, and now his last moral concern for their well being had been evaporated in the heat of their disdain. He switched his comm channels to a narrower selection, belonging to the USN and allied forces alone.

"All USN and allied member-state forces, this is Kira Yamato, in the Serpah. I strongly advise you to back down now, and let us handle this. You are tired and damaged and reduced in number, while we are fresh and still whole. Please allow us to bear the brunt of the Brotherhood's attack." Kira said politely. He also didn't want to have to worry about any more friendly fire accidents than absolutely necessary... the more people he could get out of the immediate battlezone, the better. There was just too much random ordnance flying about right the moment for him to feel comfortable... he could focus all of his attention on the Brotherhood, and still be struck down from the side or back by a misaimed allied forces shot. He could keep track of a great many things, all at once, but why tempt fate if there was no good reason? Besides, with Cagalli flying around nearby as well, he definitely didn't need any more things to worry about than absolutely necessary.

"By what authority do you give us orders?" A tired and gruff voice demanded in reply. "This is Knight-Lieutenant Obadiah of the Solar Knights Third Platoon. We are tired and hurt, but we can still fight! It is our duty to protect the USN and its citizens to the last, to our dying breaths if need be, and we will not just sit back and let you steal all the glory and credit for defeating the Brotherhood!"

"Glory has nothing to do with it! We don't care who gets the credit for defeating them, we just want to defeat them!" Athrun cut in sharply. "I admire your pride and your dedication, but letting them control your decisions will only get more people killed or hurt when they might otherwise be saved, Knight-Lieutenant!"

"Who is this? Identify yourself!" Obadiah instructed.

"I'm Ambassador Athrun Zala, of Orb, in the Phoenix King. We don't have any authority over anyone but Orb here, which is why were are just advising you strongly, rather than ordering you." Athrun answered, as the Dawn Goddess disengaged from his back and he shifted back to Mobile Suit mode, alighting just behind the Seraph, with the Dawn Goddess to his right and Kisaka's Dawndrake to his left.

"This is Commander Heine Westenfluss, ZAFT Special Forces, Project Primal and member of FAITH. All ZAFT forces will fall back into support roles and let the Orb Gundams occupy the enemy while we regroup." Heine made sure to give the order over a public channel. "We'd be stupid not to take advantage of having Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala offering their help, which I am extremely grateful for."

"We of the ALU agree with that sentiment. This is Colonel Haman Al'Jib, of the ALU First Garou Lancers. All remaining ALU forces should fall back and regroup and wait for further recommendations from the Orb Gundams. It is an honor, sirs, to share this battleground with such esteemed young men as yourselves!" Al'Jib added a few seconds later, also on a public channel. There was no reply from the FNE forces, who seemed much more concerned with the retrieval of the mostly crushed Panzerwulf unit, though the two whole Panzerwulfs did not retreat from battle either. The Orb forces were marshalling under Kisaka's direction, so that really only left the USN forces, consisting of a few dozen Champions and the battered remainder of the Solar Knights actively engaged with the Brotherhood forces, who were tenative in their assault, most of their attention focused on the three Gundams standing near their flanks.

"Ms. Murrue, can you give me the Lohengrins please?" Kira requested in a tight beam channel to the Archangel.

"What the heck are you up to, Kid?" Waltfeld's voice came back to him. The Archangel had just gotten done pasting the Revenant but good, almost knocking it down on its face, now that its legs were inoperable, and Ysak had just saved their hides by slicing off the right arm, the one with the Radiation Cannon in it, before Cray could fire upon them. Things were definitely looking up, though Waltfeld was sure he was going to have to change his shirt after the battle, because it was soaked in sweat. He might be needing to change his pants too, after that close call with the Revenant just now. He hoped that wet feeling was sweat anyway... anything else might be a bit embarassing. He really ought to know better than to drink a lot of coffee before a major battle...

"There's a lot of them, but their morale is weak, especially given what you guys are doing to the Revenant. I think I can end this quickly if we overawe them from the beginning, but the Seraph doesn't have the kind of firepower to take out large groups of them, not without some buildup time anyway." Kira replied calmly. "Fire the Lohengrin just over the Seraph's head if you would."

"We can take the little guys, Kira." Cagalli jumped into the conversation. "You focus on the Gundams, Athrun and Kisaka and I can handle the small fry just fine!"

"Cagalli..."

"Kira, don't baby me! Or else it's gonna be YOU they find in a bathtub with his throat slashed, not me, got it!?"

"Understood." Kira said quietly, though he was smiling. Cagalli sure was strong... already back to threatening people to hide her concern for them. "Give me the Lohengrin anyway, please."

"Do as he asks." Murrue ordered. "What's the status on the Vorpal?"

"Still recovering Ma'am. Commander Joule estimates at least five to ten more minutes before he regains operational control." The CIC officer replied, blushing a little, because Ysak's reply had been rather more colorfully stated than what she'd passed on to the Captain.

"Missile tubes, Gottfrieds, Valiants and all CIWS weapons, stay on the Revenant. Turn bow ninety degrees to starboard and roll out the Lohengrin. Aim point ten meters above Seraph." Murrue called out firmly. "Helm, keep an eye on the monster, you have free reign to evasively maneuver as required to save all our lives. Don't let up, people, we haven't won yet!" Murrue directed her attention to her comms officer once more. "Anything from the USN chain of command yet?"

"No, Ma'am. There seems to have been some sort of incident inside Galileo itself, and they are in a complete lockdown until they have the situation under control."

"Very well. We will continue to act as we think best then. Keep trying, Comms." Murrue turned back to her command screens as the Archangel came about, orienting more or less at Kira and the Seraph, even as the turreted weapons continued to do their damndest to pin the Revenant down, or at least keep him more or less in the same place. The Lohengrin deployed, twin muzzles flaring with light and power before disgorging two brilliant beams of positron particles, so bright that even most shielded systems couldn't look at them directly. The Brotherhood forces, many of whom were somewhat in the path of the shot, entered wild evasive maneuvers, falling all over themselves, even the Martyrs, trying to get out of the path of the shot. The only one that didn't run was the Tormented, who raised her left arm and activated the Positron shield therein. She never got to see if her confidence in her shield was well placed or not though, as the Lohengrin beams bent sharply downward as they encountered Kira's fractal wings, bouncing from point to point to point, splittling and refracting until there was a raging storm of prismatic light contained within the constantly moving pods.

Caught in the middle of scattering away from the perceived main cnanon shot from the Archangel, the Brotherhood forces were too spread out to generate the sort of combined defensive shield that might have been able to save them from the flood of energy that Kira released from his wings, expanding outward in a nearly 180 degree arc to his front, ripping the ground and void apart in a shockwave of expanding destruction that enveloped almost a third of the Brotherhood forces and flat out vaporized them under the impact of multiple positron beams. Lacking shields entirely, the Martyrs among the Brotherhood forces fared the worst, with seven of them consigned to sudden oblivion, while five of the Zealots were also ripped asunder, and many of the remainder damaged in some way. The Tormented had weathered the storm easily enough behind its Positron Reflector Shield, the energy beams not being focused enough to punch through, and the Tormented had also shielded the Traitor from the attack at the same time. The Haunted had outranged the short ranged wide angled attack, though he'd been forced to dive for his life in a very ungainly manner to do it.

Cagalli and Athrun wasted no time on capatilizing on the Brotherhood's disarray, as Cagalli picked off a damaged Zealot by putting a meter wide molten hole in its chest with her Arbalest cannon, while Athrun charged up a massive ball of plasma energy with his Vulcan's Forge, cupping and moulding the energy like a baker shaping dough, until Cagalli fired an Arbalest missile right through the middle of the plasma ball, the fantailling magnetic fields dragging the accummulated energy behind the speeding dart like a tail of pure fire. The armor piercing dart struck one of the remaining Martyr's on the center chest and exploding, failing to penetrate the Phase Shift armor, though the force of the blast did rock the large Mobile Suit back on its heels, staggering it. When the plasma wave arrived a millisecond or so later, the Martyr, along with a section of Moonscape about ten meters in diameter, plainly ceased to exist in a roiling fireball that left a pool of molten sludge in the bottom of the crater as the only remains of the Mobile Suit.

Finally throwing off their shock and awe from the sudden, devastating arrival of the Clyne Faction Gundams, the Brotherhood forces attempted to rally behind an attack spearheaded by the Tormented, with the Haunted providing covering fire with its palm mounted sniper cannons. The Haunted also launched three of its back mounted heavy missiles, though two were blown out of the void by the Archangel's covering Valkyros Beam CIWS cannons before they even got halfway to their targets, which had been Cagalli and Athrun. The last missile homed in on Kisaka's Dawndrake like a shark headed for a scrap of chum, missing only by a few meters due to a somewhat frantic dodge on his part, even as he lifted his wings in order to block a pair of beam blasts directed at the Archangel's belly, the HAC armor easily absorbing the heat of the shots. Kisaka's return 150mm hyper-impulse cannon blast took the offending Zealot through the face, blasting the head apart and dropping the machine almost intact to the ground. The missile buried itself in the rock just past his leg and then... shattered... for lack of a better word, releasing a sparkling cloud of what looked like dust in a wide radius, sweeping over to cover the Dawndrake in a thick layer of glinting grime.

Kisaka ignored the near miss for several seconds, continuing on with providing defensive support to the Archangel, acting as a sort of living shield against the energy and heat based weapons that were more dangerous to the ship's armor than standard munitions or missiles, and of course utterly ineffective against his own armor. He wanted to be protecting Cagalli, but he knew she'd never let him hear the end of it, especially now, and she seemed to be doing well enough on her own for the moment. She was acting with a lot more caution than was her usual wont, staying back at the fringes of the battle and providing covering fire to Kira and Athrun as they pursued the enemy more directly, instead of rushing in on Athrun's flanks. Winking red alarm lights suddenly, and apparently without reason, sprang up across Kisaka's control boards, and his thrusters fluttered and died, followed shortly by his weapons and then his sensor systems. He flinched back from his screens as they arced and sparked, even as his Dawkdrake went dead around him, its internal electronics eaten away by the nanomachines released by the Haunted's missile. He fruitlessly tried his controls, then his comm system, and finally his eject, but it was no use... anything even partially controlled by electronics was now useless junk! He couldn't even see what was going on anymore!

Kira batted several beam tipped rounds from the Haunted aside with his forearm Citadel Shield Projectors almost absentmindedly, most of his attention on the intricate movements of his Fractal Wings as he swirled them in complex orbits around him and his friends, absorbing missile and munition strikes aimed at Athrun or Cagalli, and redirecting beam attacks coming at himself or the Archangel, either bouncing them harmlessly into the ground or away into the depths of space, or sending them right back at the attacker, or one of the other Brotherhood machines. Kira slipped between two Zealots and spun, a sword in either hand, bisecting both surprised machines at the waist, before moving on to blast a Martyr apart with all four of his chest mounted 400mm hyper-impulse cannons, a straight shot requiring no deflections or tricks on his part. A Dawndrake moved up to support him from the left flank, and Kira rounded on it, throwing one beam saber sidearm, so that the blade pierced through the Dawndrake's right hand, blowing it and the beam rifle it held into tiny shards. The Danwdrakes outline flickered and frizzled, the holographic interface disrupted by the battle damage, until the Traitor activated its Mirage Colloid and attempted to slip away.

Kira drew a dual 57mm beam rifle with his free hand and fired a brace of shots behind him as he moved to engage another cluster of Zealots, one shot sailing on into infinity, while the other dead ended in the middle of space, spraying out molten globs of armor and structural metal, and the lower leg of a Mobile Suit phased into view, detached from the rest of the Traitor at the knee by the pinpoint shot. It wasn't that Kira could see the Mirage Colloided Gundam, it was just that with his powers of spatial awareness, he could figure where the Gundam was likely to be, given the chaotic nature of the battlefield, and could aim accordingly. He could just... instinctively feel where things were likely to be, in relation to himself. He parried a beam saber stroke with his own saber and twisted the Seraph's wrist, disarming the foe before his riposte lopped its arm off at the elbow and he finished it off with a trio of point blank shots to the face and chest. Beam blasts streak at him from three sides, and he deftly interposed Fractal Wing feathers, radiating the energy straight up into forever, momentarily haloing the Seraph in green plasma energy.

Nearby, Athrun had one hand digging into the chest of a Zealot, which he was flambasting with all three plasma jets on that arm, turning its armor bright cherry red and orange as it began to melt and sag. He lifted the slack machine from the ground and interposed it into the path of a hyper-impulse cannon shot from a Martyr, which ripped straight through the heat weakened armor, destroying the Zealot and impacting on the Phoenix King, though to no discernable result because of the HAC armor. His other hand was wielding a large dual bladed beam saber type formation, parrying and blocking the attempts of a pair of Zealots to strike him with their own sabers. The Zealots suddenly back off as the Tormented charged in from above, spearing its trident down like a woman trying to stick a pin through a bug. Athrun sidestepped the quick, if clumsy charge and slashed at her with his twin bladed sword, whirling it to strike with both edges alternately. She blocked with her Positron Shield, but was wrongfooted and forced to duck awkwardly back when he fired a cone of plasma fire over the top edge of her shield with his free hand, scorching her ears and shoulders.

Immensely heartened by the beating being administered to the Brotherhood by the Clyne Faction, the tired and haggard remains of the other defensive forces pushed back into the battle as well, eager to lock the Brotherhood down completely. Colonel Haman Al'Jib impaled a Zealot from behind with both of his beam claws, closing almost a half kilometer of distance in less than a second using his afterburners, hitting the Brotherhood machine so hard he ran right through it, scattering pieces to the left and right as he surfed through the flames of its detonation. Heine came in from the right flank, using his shotcannon to knock one Zealot over onto its side with a point blank blast, while he put three holes though the leg and lower torso of a second with his 125mm supercharged beam cannon in his other hand, the dark red beam bolts impacting with wrenching force. Discarding his ranged weapons, Heine activated the supercharged beam blade on either forearm and went back to back with Al'Jib as they tore a hole in the left flank of the crumpling Brotherhood forces.

Things weren't going COMPLETELY against the Brotherhood, as the Haunted claimed almost half of the remaining Garou's with a pair of nano payload missiles, leaving them lying in inert piles, like discarded statues, which he then almost casually executed with beam tipped shell shots to the cockpits. The Traitor took out a pair of unwary Cavalier's with a point blank sneak attack with its shotcannon, but was then forced to flee when Sting turned his Panzerwulf towards Dylan and almost gutted him with a Mjolnir shot, which, though it missed by a meter, still dug a molten trench through the Traitor's abdominal armor. One of the last Martyr's hurled itself into a group of Solar Knights from Third Platoon, including Knight-Lieutenant Obadiah, bearing one of them to the ground before activating its self destruct mechanisms and blowing one and a half squadrons of Solar Knights into space debris in an explosion so powerful it knocked Mobile Suits to their knees almost a hundred meters away.

The Phoenix King continued to duel with the Tormented, the Seraph continued to wipe out any Brotherhood machine that strayed too close, and the Dawn Goddess closed the gap with the Haunted, going lance and shield against the Haunted's two handed axe, remembering Athrun's discussion of how the Brotherhood Gundam wasn't particularly adept at melee combat. Cagalli almost immediately regretted her somewhat rash action, remembering a bit too late that what was somewhat lame to Athrun, might not be quite the same thing to her, as she was quickly pushed back onto the defensive by the combination of the Haunted's Chameleonic Phase Shift Armor and Holoprojectors, having real difficulty seperating which Haunted was the real one, versus the three fakes. Cagalli flinched and screamed when she blocked an illusory attack, and the Haunted's axe came in under her forearm shields and slammed into her torso, a glancing blow that still possessed enough power to knock the Dawn Goddess onto its ass, losing her lance in the process. Jarred by the impact of the axe, and the secondary collision with the ground, Cagalli just sat there dazedly for a moment or two, overwhelmed by a sudden pang of hopelessness. She was outclassed. Beaten. Defeated. Hopeless. She was going to di... she shook her head and snarled, recognizing the symptoms of a drug based depression attack. She would NOT lose to this!

She blocked the predictable downward chop from the Haunted with both of her shields, and then used her torso 80mm Gatling Cannons to clear the Haunted away from her, for just a second or two as she clambered back to her feet. She called out again, even through her gritted teeth, as the Haunted's axe came in at her from all four directions at once, and she had no idea which one to block. As it turned out though, the situation was taken out of her hands, as blue-green light flared all around her as Kira cocooned the Dawn Goddess in a multilayered barrier of Citadel Shields, enveloping her within his right wing as the Seraph alighted next to her. The Haunted hacked desperately at the Seraph, hoping to catch Kira off guard, somehow, someway. It just wasn't going to happen in this universe. Kira glanced the axe blow to the side with one forearm shield and then sliced the axe head from its shaft with his beam saber, before kneecapping the Haunted with a blistering pair of shots from his beam rifle.

Kira was just raising his sword to decapitate and disable the Haunted when a sudden premonition, a sort of realization, an awareness of a presence... something... warned him of an impending attack and he turned his decapitation slice into a spinning parry, aligning both forearm shields as a secondary defense as he reversed his facing instinctively to deal with the perceived threat, even though he had no idea what it was. And a good thing he did too, because the Vengeance had charged in from behind, seeing an opportunity to take out the Seraph before it even knew the Brotherhood Gundam was around, a move that would have been sure to cause great dismay throughout the battlefield, at least for anyone not of the Brotherhood. The Vengeance's quantum crystal zweihander sliced cleanly through the Seraph's beam saber and upraised rifle before digging into the layered Citadel Shields ffrom the forearm projectors, golden sparks fluttering and showering as the unimaginably sharp blade tried to cut through solid energy. In the end though, the attack was stayed, and Kira retreated a few steps to gain some distance, drawing his left side rifle with his right hand to replace the ruined one, beam saber still glowing pink in the left hand. The Seraph and the Vengeance faced each other down, and the entire battle seemed to grind to a halt...

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The battle was lost, Michael knew this for a certainty. The Brotherhood forces had been mauled, almost annihilated, by the Clyne Faction, and now the other defensive forces were piling in and taking advantage of the Brotherhood's notoriously fragile morale, which was fraying and crumbling with increasing rapidity as each additional Zealot or Martyr was destroyed. The other three Gundams were racking up damage, and dealing out precious little in return. The Traitor was almost disabled, the Haunted was half broken, and the Tormented was the only one even slightly holding her own, though that largely consisted of fending off the Phoenix King while he slowly chipped away at her, rather than allowing him to end the duel in seconds. The Revenant was still active, as evidenced by huge green energy beams flying around in random patterns overhead, as Cray tried to claw the Archangel from the sky, so far with no success, or even getting close for that matter, as the agile and experienced warship maneuvered around and around, always in Cray's awkward spots, while pounding him in turn with the warship's own weapons so that Cray could never get properly stabilized.

Truly, the crew and commander of that warship were something special... Michael shook away his admiring thoughts, which clung like sticky mud to his mind, fouling him up and making it very hard to concentrate on the here and now. Which could be very detrimental to his health, because no matter the technology of his Gundam, he was now facing Kira Yamato, and anyone who did not take the most famous Gundam Pilot ever to live seriously was not long for this world. Although... Michael called to mind the Vengeance's scans of the Seraph's current weapon systems, and a faint smile crept onto his lips. Armed exclusively with energy based weapon systems, the Seraph actually lacked a good way of hurting the Vengeance, considering the near impenetrability of Liquid Crystal Regenerative armor versus energy weapons. On the other hand, the Seraph's pilot was considered the most skilled pilot alive, and the Seraph's defensive systems were second to none, outside of the Vengeance's itself. Could the ultimate sword beat the ultimate shield? It wasn't a contest Michael had much heart to try, to be honest.

Regardless of whether or not he could beat Kira Yamato and the Seraph, the larger battle had still been lost, and Michael knew Noah was going to be absolutely furious. They hadn't managed to kill Durandel. They hadn't destroyed the Solar Knights. They hadn't ruined the shipyards, or more than about twenty percent of Galileo LFB, which while still massive damage, was nothing of the scope they should have been able to achieve! Just about the only thing Michael could see that had gone right was that Meyrin Hawke had never once been in any danger of dying, and he hadn't even had to do anything to assure that! The Revenant was on its last legs, almost literally, and once the big Gundam went down for good, the rest of the Brotherhood would only be minutes away from sharing that fate, that was that! He'd thought he had a chance to take the Seraph out by surprise, but his opportunity had passed by now, and there was no longer any profit to staying.

The Seraph fired a triplet of dual beam blasts into his face and chest, but the energy bolts just fizzled and refracted into nothingness when they struck the LCR armor surface, and Michael paid them no heed. He swung his zweihander around in a wide horizontal sweep, clearing some more space between him and the Seraph as they both considered their options and strategies, Michael for his retreat and Kira for how he was going to take down something based off the Pulsar, without being able to damage it with any of his weapons! Of all the Orb Gundams, the Warmaster and the Vorpal were best suited, in terms of armaments, for fighting the Vengeance, but of course neither were available. Kira cursed himself for his shortsightedness in switching entirely to the more "deadly" beam based weapons, because he was now completely unable to harm the Vengeance, save for punches or kicks, and the enemy pilot was good enough that Kira would probably just lose a limb were he to try those attacks! He had the Directed Neutron Disablers in his gauntlets and palms, but those were designed to counter fission based weapons and power sources, the effect would be much less, if anything at all, on a fusion reactor!

Michael was just about to turn and run, trusting to the Vengeance's incredible agility and unearthly speed to get him safely away from the battleground, when a sudden text only comm came in from the Great Endeavor of all places, where Noah was no doubt impatiently watching his forces get their asses royally kicked., fuming and planning just how he would communicate to them all his displeasure at their failings. The brevity and grammer of the text told Michael all he needed to know... Noah was beyond livid, almost to the screaming tantrum stage, to the point where he couldn't even spell correctly, his figners were trembling with so much rage. "Jill th Acrhangle and withdarw." Michael read slowly. Kill the Archangel and withdraw, was it? It was a petulant order... the Clyne Faction had humbled the Revenant, and now Noah wanted to humble the Clyne Faction by destroying their mothership. For a long few moments, Michael teetered on the edge of indecision. Destroying the Archangel would do nothing in the short term, and precious little in the long term. It was just one ship after all.

All the same though, it would do quite a bit to bolster the flagging spirits of the Brotherhood pilots if they could take down such a famous warship, even if it was Michael, as usual, doing all the heavy lifting. Everyone liked it when the home team won big, and at the moment, the Vengeance basically WAS the home team, given how battered and overwhelmed the rest of the Brotherhood Gundams and regular forces were. Something else about the white and red ship seemed to be calling to him as well, and he found it difficult to look away from it once he set his gaze on it. He shook himself, even as the Traitor and Haunted lurched into full out retreats, hounded by mismatched groups of USN, FNE, ZAFT and ALU forces, though most of those broke off pursuit when the Haunted laid down a line of nano-warhead missiles along its backtrail, putting up a wall of nanomachines that wrecked anything electronic that flew through it, so that the Moonscape was soon littered with disabled Mobile Suits containing frustrated, surprised pilots, and the two Brotherhood machines were able to make a relatively clean getaway.

Mary refused to be pulled away from her clinch with the Phoenix King, despite the fact that she was outmatched, and both she and her opponent knew it. She just couldn't get off the defensive for more than a half second, and even when full on defending she was taking damage, a burn here, a scorch there, but it was starting to add up, and her frustration wasn't helping matters. In the depths of space, without air or any other medium for sound waves to travel through, her Banshee's Wail CUSA was entirely useless, stripping away her greatest short ranged weapon, and without that threat, there was nothing she could do to keep the Phoenix King at bay, so Athrun continually hounded her, staying right up on her shield, hacking away with dual bladed swords in either hand, or else trying to curve gouts of fire around the edges of her shield. Even as Michael watched, the Phoenix King spread its wings, which suddenly erupted in bright blue thruster wash as the individual feathers detached in a whirling storm of superheated metal shards, each following its own trajectory, swarming the Tormented from all sides, even from above and below, the sharp edged metal shrapnel ramming themselves with abandon into the Tormented's flesh and armor, perforating the arms and legs.

The Tormented staggered and reeled, until its limbs locked up totally, internal structures half molten and control circutry completely dead. The Tormented's thruster flickered and died as well, and then the entire Gundam toppled over, moving in slow motion in the Lunar gravity, to faceplant roughly onto the ground, well and truly disabled. The dark red edges of the cooling Phoenix Feathers protruded from all over the body and limbs of the Tormented, like the quills of a porcupine, and Michael could see at a glance that the Tormented's power plant was off line, as were all motivational systems and sensors. Mary was now trapped, as much as any of the hapless pilots Michael had freed from their Archons earlier had been, blind, deaf and dumb. Michael waited for the Tormented to go up in flames, courtesy of the hidden self destruct system all the Apostle Gundams were equipped with, that Noah could use to destroy them, should they appear to be in danger of capture, or if he just plain wanted to. He waited and watched, watched and waited, and after almost five seconds, nothing had happened. The self destruct must have been damaged or destroyed as well. That was the only explanation... though Mary would probably attribute it to Noah's love for her, knowing her.

Michael waited for his orders to change, to direct him to destroy the Tormented, but the order never came. The Archangel destruction orders continued to pulse bright red in the landscape of his mind, top priority urgency, and nothing else came in through the comm system. Whether Noah simply didn't care what happened to Mary and the Tormented, or whether he was too enraged to consider what was happening, Michael did not and could not know. He shrugged, and decided it really didn't matter either way, and it wasn't his concern either. He was going to destroy the Archangel, and then he was going to get the hell out of dodge, and that was that... he could sort things out with Noah later, hopefully before the kid ripped his head clean off his shoulders and pissed down his neck. Michael set a course for the Archangel and punched his thrusters for all they were worth, leaving the Dawn Goddess and Seraph staggering in his wake in a cloud of Moon dust, though the Seraph took off after him within a second, though there was no way the Orb Gundam could hope to match the Vengeance's FPR fuelled speed. Like a shimmering purple bullet, the Vengeance homed in on the Archangel from above and to the right front quarter, aiming directly for the bridge.

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"Enemy Gundam designated "Tormented" confirmed as disabled by the Phoenix King." The CIC officer reported, a tone of relief very plain in her voice. "Almost all Brotherhood forces have been destroyed or disabled at this time. Vorpal reports less than a minute to full operational status, and the Warmaster is almost ready with the Spear of Ares. Colonel Kisaka's Dawndrake has been recovered by Orb's Galileo contingent. Allied equipment casualities are heavy, but initial reports suggest that pilot casualties are less severe."

"Understood, thank you, CIC." Murrue replied quickly, adding the information to the part of her mind that was considering overall battlefield strategy. Learning to think on multiple levels of a battle at the same time was essential for warship commanders. "Andrew, how are we coming with the Revenant?"

"Well, if he were a bear, and us a hunter, I'd say we should still put about three more shots into his brain before we set up for a trophy shot, but really, other than flopping and twitching, I think we might have this one in the bag, Captain." Waltfeld replied with a cocky smile that conveyed more self assurance than he felt. Despite the damage it had taken, and was continuing to take, the Revenant could still very easily take out the Archangel if they got sloppy or slow. All it would take would be a few consecutive blasts from that Gatling Gottfried system and the Archangel would be in flames if they were lucky, or small pieces if they weren't. Still, there was no point in letting the crew know he was biting his nails, it wouldn't help matters. He was about to say more when a loud proximity alert siren began to wail, and he spun, almost tearing off a chunk of the bridge railing in his mechanical fist in the process. "What the..."

"Massive heat source inbound... FAST!" One of the sensor operators shouted. By the time he'd got the sentence halfway out of his mouth, the Vengeance was already upon them, arrowing down out of the starry night, leaving a bright blue thruster trail almost a kilometer long behind it as it dropped towards them. The automated targeting systems of the Valkyros beam CIWS guns reacted with mechanical effeciency, and oriented upon and fired at the intruder in milliseconds, though to desultory effect, as the beams glanced and rebounded from the LCR armor even when they hit, which was far from often. By the time the sensor operator had shouted "FAST!" the Vengeance had swiped the starboard Gottfried turret clean off its mount with a single shearing cut of its massive two handed sword, the QC edges cutting through the laminated ablative armor of the Archangel like it was made of pudding. The damage control officer was just opening his mouth to call out the extent of the damage when the Vengeance struck again, taking out both of the starboard dorsal Valkyros mounts with two more sword slashes, before skidding to a stop on top of the Archangel, standing right in front of the bridge.

Murrue, Waltfeld and the rest of the bridge crew stared in horror, as the spectre of death raised its skeletal claws and the Vengeance drew back its sword, preparing to thrust the blade like a lance right through the bridge, skewering them or else exposing them to the unforgiving vacuum of space, a terrible way to go no matter which it was! Shouts and screams rang out, spooling on into a infinite cacophony that overwhelmed Murrue's senses as she calmly sat in her chair and watched the reaper approach on the tip of a sword, as the Vengeance began its surgical striking thrust. She met the Vengeance's infernal pink gaze fearlessly, refusing to give in to the panic and chaos consuming her bridge around her, as the inexperienced crew faced up to the inevitable doom facing them in various insufficient ways. She didn't hold it against them... no one wanted to die, and this was just so sudden that the shock was literally overwhelming... one moment they'd been victorious, and now they were all going to die... it was completely unfair! She didn't want to die, but she wasn't going to shame herself avoiding it either! Not with examples like Mu's to follow!

Because she was the only person on the bridge with open eyes that were facing the Vengeance, Murrue was also the only one to witness the incredible, unfathomable event that happened next. The Vengeance stopped DEAD, frozen in midthrust, the tip of its blade just barely scratching the armored porthole glass, like a figure in a movie stopped short by the pause button. Murrue slowly let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, wondering what this miraculous occurence was about... it seemed impossible...

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Michael was lost, stumbling around in a storm with no rain or wind or clouds, but blinded, deafened and mightily confused all the same! Sweat stood out all over his body and face, despite the cooling touch of the GRS gel filling his flight suit, which was connected to various filtration and refrigeration units to provide a comfortable, breathable environment for him no matter how high he jacked the FPR power to, within reasonable limits anyway. Truth be told, he hadn't even really been paying attention to what he was doing, his mind already on other matters, like escape and the inevitable dressing down from Noah, and he'd been following through with his actions against the Archangel almost by rote, following his preplanned attack decisions. Swipe off turret... check. Take out CIWS... check. Destroy bridge... in progress. Not sure why though. He remembered stabbing with his sword, the armored glass of the bridge windows being absolutely no obstacle at all, but something had stymied his attack short of the goal.

His sword was trembling and shivering in his grip, as one side of him strove with all his might to drive home the blow and accomplish Noah's orders, while another side of him, a side he hadn't even realized was there, was striving just as hard to not only get him to pull the blow back, but to remember WHY he was pulling the blow in the first place! He tried to backtrack and figure out what might have caused him to suffer this... malady. he remembered sliding to a halt on top of the Archangel, where he was now. He remembered winding up for the thrust. He remembered looking through the armored glass window of the bridge that was his target. He remembered... remembered.... brown hair... amber eyes, like those of a hunting cat... brown hair... captain's chair... that steely calm expression of determination on the captain's face... her composed eyes, seeming to bore right into his skull and look into places he had forgotten even existed in the first place. Calling a name. A strange name, that was alien and yet completely familiar all the same. He could almost swear he heard her thought resonate in his mind for just a moment. A single syllable of a name, crisp and clear and crystal. "Mu..." He tasted the word tenatively, feeling an unaccountable excitement and tension build up inside him as he said it.

Sweat was no bursting out all over him, and his heart rate and breathing were cycling faster and faster, as tendrils of achy pain began winding their way both into and out of his head. Nausea roiled in his stomach and his vision started to blur with tears of pain, but for all that, he welcomed the sensations, because they seemed to herald a feeling of immense satisfaction and exultation that was building momentum inside him, slowly at first, like a yoked beast slowly snapping its restraints, but faster and faster and faster, and more powerful still, as every second went by and he continued to drink in the astoundingly familiar details of the Archangel's bridge, and most especially the woman sitting on the Captain's chair, an expression of puzzlement and shock and a little fear, tighlty controlled, on her face. Her posture was attentive, as she leaned forward, studying him, probing him with her attention, challenging him, DARING him even to remember WHY she looked so familiar, and why the sight of her made his heart and mind BURN with emotion! "My name... Mich... no... no... Mu... what...?" MIcahel staggered, withdrawing his sword from its frozen thrust and standing loose limbed on the Archangel's dorsal surface, shaking his head and trembling in the the grip of a fit that was growing more insistent and violent as the seconds ticked by!

"This... this is impossible!" Michael protested angrily, though he wasn't sure why he was angry. He felt like he was losing control of himself, like he was losing control of his thoughts and memories, like something out of a dream, where everything he was made of was consumed and subsumed by something else, something else that looked just like him, but had a totally different mind and personality, a wolf in his sheep's clothing! _Possible..._ "What's that!? Who IS that!? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!? This can't be happening... this is IMPOSSIBLE!" Michael swore, stepped back awakwardly, staring unseeing now, oblivious to everything except the struggle inside his own mind. _Possible..._ "Who's saying that! How are you in my mind!? Why do you sound like... like ME!?" Michael demanded. _Me... possible... make... possible... Mu..._ "My name is NOT... not... not..." Michael sank to his knees, the Vengeance following his posture with a clang that reverberated throughout the Archangel, as the entire bridge crew looked on with alarm and shock as the Brotherhood Gundam seemed to begin suffering from a nervous breakdown. Murrue thought instantly back to the smouldering, burned inside out remains of a pilot they'd retrieved from the Pulsar way back when, and wondered if this pilot was suffering from a similar grisly death, right in front of their eyes. It was no clean way to go, even for a terrorist.

"Get out of my head!" Michael yelled, raising one hand to grip his temple, with the Vengeance of course mimicking the action completely. _Out of my head..._ The voice that sounded just like him repeated, with just as much feeling as he'd had. "Who ARE you!?" _Who are you...?_ "I am Michael Genesis!" _Who are you...?_ "I told you! I am Michael La Fl... what!? What did I just... this can't be happening! This is impossible!"_ Possible..._ "Stop saying that! What do you want from me!? What are you doing!? How are you doing it!? Why now!?" _Murrue..._ "Who? Murrue? Who the hell..." _Murrue... Archangel... impossible... possible... your name is... _My name is Michael! Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael, MICHAEL!" Michael retorted savagely, though for some reason, the more he said his name, the less familiar it sounded, the less correct it seemed. "My name is Michael Genesis! Isn't it...?" _Father's name..._

"My father's name is Albert..." Michael trailed off, suddenly stuck and unable to remember his own father's surname. "Albert... umm... Al..."_ Albert... La Flaga...? _"Yes! No! What!? Wait! Why am I talking with myself! This is stupid! I have orders that need accomplishing, a job that needs doing, a person I need to serve and protect. I don't have time for this impossible bullshit!" _Possible... the impossible... possible..._ "I'm telling you to shut up with that! Shut up and leave me alone! You're just a figment of my imagination! I don't have to talk to you, acknowledge you, pay attention to you... you don't exist! You're just a bad dream!" _Motto...?_ "FINE! Fuck it... you wanna know my motto? I'll tell you my fucking motto! But you'd better shut up and leave me alone afterwards! I don't have time for this horseshit!" Michael spat vehemently, gathering himself into a semblance of control once more. "My motto is that I'm the man who can MAKE the impossible... possible..." Michael listened to the words, unconsciously spoken by long familiarity, slip off his tongue. It was the straw that broke the camel's back, stealing all his attention away, even as his proximity sensors warned of the Seraph's helter skelter approach from the side.

_Your name...?_ The voice... HIS voice... asked him, almost gently. "My n-name is... is..." _Possible... possible... possible... possible... possible!_ His internal voice had an echo effect that grew louder with each echo, instead of quieter, until the word "possible" was screaming in his ears over and over again, painfully loud, as an invisible, intangible and not nearly indestructible wall inside his mind first cracked, chipped and then shattered altogether, releasing a tidal wave of molten hot memories, an entire life he'd never realized he'd had resurfacing in a single moment, blasting apart everything he'd thought he'd know about himself. It was too much for him to take, and he felt himself being swept along by the tide into a swirling black hole of not entirely unwelcome unconsciousness, even as he felt his physical body shake and shudder violently, as the Seraph body checked the Vengeance off the top of the Archangel in a desperate bid to defend the warship against the Brotherhood Gundam. Before blackness claimed him utterly, he remembered doing two things. One of them was keying the emergency eject button. The other was... "My name is Mu La Flaga!"

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Shinn staggered along, moving from one stretch of cover to another to avoid as much stray fallout from the battle raging around him and above him as possible. Everything was eeriely silent because of the vacuum, despite the chaos and fury of the engagement, which lit up the sky and made the ground shake every few seconds as dozens of tons of metal and machinery were reduced to wreckage or mere debris or even less in between heartbeats, the dance of death that was Mobile Suit combat at its most intense. It was an entirely different perspective when you were on the ground, unarmored except for a ballistic flight suit and helmet, rather than sitting in the command chair of a Mobile suit. Shinn found he didn't like it, being on the ground, vulnerable and helpless to do anything but scurry around and hope nothing landed on or even nearby him. If a stray missile or munition were to strike within a dozen meters, the shrapnel alone would probably shred him, assuming he wasn't just blown apart by the explosion. Beam blasts or hyper impulse shots could reduce him to scorched meat or even just stray vapor molecules if they passed too close by, much less hit him directly. And even if he wasn't killed immediately by some chance of fate, all it would take to give him a slower, if no less sure death would be a hole or two in his already blackened and damaged flightsuit, and then he would have the pleasure of either suffocating or exploding in the death pressure and airless environment.

He didn't remember much of what had happened after he'd thrown his sword at the Independence. He didn't even know if his desperate gamble had even paid off. All he remembered was the searingly bright, hot white light, and reaching for his eject toggle and then... waking up on the Lunar surface, a goodly distance from anyplace that looked familiar, though given the extent of the damage the base had suffered, it was little wonder he couldn't locate a familiar landmark. Having half his helmet face shield scorched black and opaque wasn't helping matters, and the outer surface of most of his flight suit was a mass of dark brown and black burn and sear marks. The smell of smoke and burnt insulation padding cycled through his air supply constantly, telling him just how close he'd come to being cooked alive or even charred into an ashy cinder. As things were, he was pretty sure he'd suffered some second degree burns over his chest and arms and legs, with a bad case of sunburn pretty much everywhere else. Sweat was pouring off him, but his mouth was dry, and his suit's internal water supply was no longer functioning, which was a big problem. He was in real danger of passing out from dehydration or heat injury unless he found a way to cool down or get some fluids in him!

As pressing as that concern was though, he pushed it into the back of his mind and continued half leaping and half hobbling his way along, ignoring his own physical distress in favor of the mental distress that was consuming his every rational thought. He HAD to know if Luna was all right. She HAD to be okay! She just HAD to be... he wasn't sure what he would do if she was hurt, or worse, killed! If he'd failed to save her then... then... Shinn shook his head and refused to even consider the possibility. No, Luna was fine... she was JUST FINE, DAMN IT ALL! Damn that Ashino for his treachery... how DARE he try to hurt Luna!? How dare he try to hurt Rey!? Shinn fumed and wrestled with his rage as it threatened to overwhelm him and drive his vision into a red haze he knew would probably only lead to him passing out and perhaps even expiring, just one more cold form amongst hundreds, if not thousands already decorating the battlefield. He had to be calm and rational and self controlled, or else he was dead. Getting inside the pressurized parts of the base was his best bet... but first he HAD to know about Luna!

Shinn was thinking these and other thoughts, most concerning what he was going to say to Lain and especially Eric when he next had the opportunity, about what their "friend" had almost done to Luna, and what their insistence on not fighting had almost cost the Solar Knights, not to mention Shinn personally, when he darted around a corner to get some cover between him and a furball involving a Zealot and two Garou's, when he ran smack dab into a shorter, bulkier figure moving the opposite way around the ruined structure, trying to avoid a fracas involving a Primal and a Zealot. They slammed into each other full on, neither prepared for the impact, and Shinn went stumbling backwards for almost ten feet in the low gravity, stunned by the mass and solidity of the other man, who barely even came up to Shinn's shoulder! The other man, with a lower center of gravity, not to mention mass on his side, was barely rocked, though the impact was enough to shake loose the pistol he'd held in his hand, sending it sailing away in a long arc until it was lost from sight. Shinn rolled back to his feet, shaking his head and wincing as his burns complained about this recent mishandling, before cocking his head to regard the person he'd run into, who was watching Shinn with extreme wariness, almost suspicion, despite the fact that they were both wearing USN uniforms.

"Who are you? What unit?" Shinn demanded, suddenly finding his tongue. This was a stroke of good luck, for once! Hopefully this other guy knew where they were, and then Shinn could get his bearings properly, and from there backtrack to where he and Luna had been fighting the Independence. And maybe he could do something to help with Shinn's water problem as well. However, there was no reply forthcoming from the other man, even though Shinn knew his short ranged comm system was still working. "Hey... I'm talking to you, soldier! I'm Knight-Ensign Shinn Asuka, of the Solar Knights, and I need you to identify yourself, your unit and then tell me where the hell in Galileo we are! This is urgent!" Shinn took a step closer to the short man, wishing he could get a look at his face, just for the eye to eye contact that would assure the other man that everything was okay, but the man had his glare visor turned up to maximum, and Shinn might as well have been looking in a mirror. Shinn was in the process of stepping forward again, to put his hand on the other man's shoulder to shake him out of his daze or whatever it was that was keeping him silent, when he got his answer.

"My name is Commander Markov Ashino. Formerly of the Seventy Second Special Mobile Squadron, First USN Combined Arms Division, the Independence." Ashino watched the Solar Knight stiffen, and sighed. He'd debated lying, even though he was terrible at it, but truth be told he just didn't give a damn anymore. He was pretty sure he'd given the other two Solar Knights the slip a while back... at least he HOPED they weren't crazy or stupid enough to try following him on foot through the middle of an active Mobile Suit battle, which was as close to actively suicidal as he'd been in a LONG time, with random death looming constantly on all sides. He wished he still had his gun, but judging by the decrepit and damaged condition of this Solar Knight's flight suit, the pilot inside was probably pretty beat up too, and therefore probably not overly much of a threat regardless. "No." Ashino said pre-emptively, holding up a hand to forestall Shinn's next words.

"No what?" Shinn asked, somewhat wrongfooted by the weariness and... emptiness, for lack of a better word... in Ashino's tone. He sounded like a man who was tired to the point of collapse, but was forcing himself to push on regardless, even though he had nothing in particular to push towards, other than a stubborn obstinancy and refusal to give up once started down a path.

"No, I won't surrender myself. No, I don't want to fight you. No, I'm not a traitor to the USN, despite what your angry friend says. No, you don't have a chance of subduing or killing me yourself. Just plain no." Ashino retorted. "So don't even bother trying any of that, and save us both a headache, all right?"

"Regardless of your reasons, you are a terrorist." Shinn answered firmly. "You were attempting to assassinate the USN Secretary of Defense while serving under his command, which also makes you a traitor, and a deserter from your lawful post. You resisted arrest and damaged government property, endangering the lives of three soldiers directly and countless civilians indirectly. And now you are a fugitive, attempting to flee the scene of your crimes. As a soldier and a Solar Knight, not to mention an officer and just plain a citizen of the USN, I can't let you go free. Come quietly, or I will be forced to subdue you by force, and as I'm a trained Redcoat, that could prove very painful for you, depending on how much you struggle."

"I fought a trained Redcoat once." Ashino mused distractedly, mind momentarily in the past.

"And you lost." Shinn didn't ask it like a question. It was more of a constant assumption on his part. "You'll lose again today too, so just don't do anything sudden and put your hands on your head, all right? I don't know the full story about you, but you obviously have a serious grievance to lodge against the SecDef. Let's just do this nice and legal, okay... much better than random death on a battlefield!"

"I did lose, though it was a close fight nonetheless." Ashino admitted. His voice took on a harder aspect. "However, my heart wasn't fully in that fight, and I didn't have anything I believed in to fight for then, or anything I wanted to protect! I was just an empty, curious shell at that point in time, and I still nearly won! If it hadn't been for her presence there to inspire him, I would have walked all over him! And now... now I have someone to inspire ME, someone I have to survive for, to win against the odds in order to protect!" Ashino narrowed his gaze and stared Shinn down. "And if that means I have to walk out of here after trampling your charred body into the dust, then so be it! Let's see if you can top Athrun Zala, Knight-Ensign Shinn Asuka!" Ashino settled into a low fighting stance, ready to defend or attack as the situation demanded, taking advantage of his already small form.

"Athrun... Zala!?" Shinn asked, dumbfounded and taken aback! Athrun Zala was one of his heroes, though he'd never admit it openly! Aside from his questionable taste in women that is. If there was one good thing about Orb, it was Athrun Zala. As far as the epitome of Redcoatism was concerned, Athrun Zala was the pinnacle, matched only by Commander Ysak Joule, in Shinn's estimation. He was slowed by his reaction, and slightly hindered by his burns and general tiredness, and so barely managed to dodge Ashino's leaping charge. Ashino's fingertips just barely brushed Shinn's shoulder, and there was still enough force imparted to spin Shinn half around and make him stumble in the reduced gravity. Ashino landed in perfect balance and leaped again, maintaining the initiative, wanting to end the confrontation fast. He ignored Shinn's counter jab, which caught him in the sternum, hard, but not hard enough to do more than jolt him. Certainly, he'd suffered much worse blows in various training scenarios, or even games, while living at JIHAD, under the Doc's onus. Ashino replied with a powerful right punch to Shinn's gut, doubling him over with a wracking heave of displaced air.

Shinn goggled, even as he panted for breath and fought to recover enough to get into some kind of defensive rythym... Ashino hit like a goddamn wrecking ball! He felt like he'd just be kicked in the gut by a mule! His vision was already a bit hazy, and he could see where he'd spat bile and saliva on the inside of his helmet. He tried to put the other, shorter man into an arm lock, but Ashino just twisted free with brute strength alone, again shocking Shinn, and leaving him with a growing sense of concern. What the hell was this!? His first blow should have dropped a Natural or even most Coordinators to their knees, breathless and cradling their bruised ribs and heart! Ashino might as well have not even been touched by it, for all the reaction he'd given, and Shinn knew the punch hadn't been blocked or glanced... he'd hit solidly... VERY solidly, as his sore wrist and hand informed him belatedly. It had been like driving his hand into a heavy rubber bag filled with weights!

Shinn found himself fully on the defensive, barely able to get a short jab or kick off her and there as Ashino assaulted him with a brutal storm of body and limb blows, each one landing like a kick to the balls, hard enough to leave welts on flesh and bruise bones even through Shinn's ballistic flight suit. His body was so sore he couldn't even feel individual hurts anymore... he just felt like shit all over, and each additional blow magnified the effect, like a migraine that afflicted his entire body! Not only was Ashino strong as hell, and apparently tough as hell, he was also FAST as hell, and he didn't seem to get tired much, despite the strength and speed of his attacks and counters. Beyond all that, he knew EXACTLY what he was doing, and had obviously been trained to not only utilize his size and physical assets, but to capitalize on them to great advantage, even in a low gravity environment. Maybe if he was fully rested, uninjured and not incumbered by a flight suit, Shinn would have stood a more even chance... he felt he had Ashino in terms of reach, agility and pure speed, he just couldn't utilize it very well in current conditions. His biggest fear was getting drawn into a grapple, where Ashino would definitely be able to use his greater strength, endurance and technique to best advantage.

Ashino rocked Shinn back with a pair of bairly blocked punches aimed at his face shield, the one coming in from the blind side actually striking home, though with only a tiny fraction of its original force. It was still enough to unbalance the tall Coordinator, and Ashino only needed a moment to slip inside Shinn's guard and land first a spearing knee into Shinn's previously tender gut, and then followed it up with a full on half spin side kick that splattered pinkish bile all over the inside of Shinn's helmet and dropped him coughing and shaking to the ground, arms wrapped around his middle, out of breath and out of fight. Ashino raised one booted foot to slam down on the back of Shinn's neck, breaking the spine, or on the side of Shinn's helmet, shattering the face shield and exposing him to vacuum, but held himself back at the last moment. Shinn was a Solar Knight, and he was just doing his job, and what he felt to be personally right and lawful. All things considered, Shinn was the sort of person Ashino could have easily gotten to know as a friend and even comrade, in a more perfect world. Killing him here, like this, would be a waste and a crime, especially considering he was already disabled and no longer a threat. He set his foot back down on the ground and turned away.

"Where... d'ya... think you're going...?" Ashino stopped walking after a few steps when he heard Shinn's pained question, and looked back over his shoulder to see the Redcoat cum Solar Knight slowly pushing himself to his feet, lurching and swaying like a drunkard, but staying upright in the end. "Yer... under arrest... you're coming with me. I can't let you go.... you tried to kill Luna!" Shinn's voice grew stronger, and his posture straighter, at the mention of Luna's name. He felt the familiar rage return, as strong as ever, filling his weary body with new energy, making him feel light and quick once more. He watched the red seed fall through the vast gulf inside his mind, detonating like a fireball of epic proportions. He was the first to attack this time, landing a haymaker punch to the side of Ashino's head that snapped the Gundam Pilot's helmet sideways painfully. Shinn smiled, and drew back his fist to repeat the maneuver.

And then rapidly learned that Ashino was not new to fighting people with Seed Mode, nor unmanned by Shinn's sudden second wind. Ashino rabbit punched Shibb's throat, making him gag and choke, ruining his momentum again, and then followed up with a wind up straight jab to Shinn's sternum, an amped up version of the first attack Shinn had landed on Ashino earlier. Shinn struck back with a fist to either side of Ashino's helmet, ringing his head like a bell no doubt, before being catapulted backwards off his feet, his chest a mass of fiery pain from three seperate broken ribs and a cracked sternum. He gathered himself and turned a somersault, only to catch Ashino's flying kick right in the same place again, and this time the damage was a LOT worse! Bright blood spurted from Shinn's mouth and nostrils when one of the snapped ribs bent backwards and stabbed his left lung, half collapsing it and taking ALL the fight out of him, dropping him to his hands and knees, coughing and hacking up clots of bloody phlegm, gasping for air that was suddenly a LOT harder to get. The entire world went black and white and colorless for a few seconds as Ashino kicked him again, this time lower down, on the side of the belly, bruising his kidneys and lower intestines and sending him skidding and rolling for several meters across the moonscape.

Ashino had just bent down to pick up a chunk of rubble, to use as a tool to smash open Shinn's helmet, and prehaps the foolish head inside as well, when a shadow fell over him and he tensed up. He looked up, knowing what he was likely to see, and already reacting because of it. A Mobile Suit was falling towards them from on high, an uncontrolled crash landing by the look of it. It wasn't going to land ON them... but it was going to be near enough by that the shockwave would be... problematic... especially if one was near a building that might collapse, or wreckage that might shift or that one might be thrown into. He'd seen enough people impaled on girders and crushed under rubble while cleaning up Denver after Frost's attack, he knew just how dangerous building materials could be when combined with explosions or falls! Ashino sprinted for open ground, covering three meters at a stride, abandoning Shinn to the graces of Fate with nary a look back.

If the falling Mobile Suit, the Vengeance by the brief glimpse he'd gotten, didn't take out the fallen Solar Knight, then the internal injuries Ashino's attacks had caused would finish him up in a few hours, unless the battle ended before then and someone happened to come across him to give him medical care. He debated dropping a locator beacon to draw relief forces in, but decided he couldn't afford the risk as long as he was in the area. More USN troops would just make everything more complicated, and he might be forced to cause further casualties. Ashino jumped as he felt the ground vibrate under him, and let the shockwave of the Vengeance's impact shiver along underneath him, making the ground shake and tremble slightly, even as dust billowed and rock chips inscribed lazy arcs through the void, cloaking the crash sight from easy view. Now... how the hell was he going to get out of here...?


	38. Pulling Weeds part 8

"God DAMN, but this system is finicky! It's even picker about its arrangement than y..." Dearka trailed his comment off, as he figured that while some comments might go unnoticed in the heat of combat, if he made too many derogatory comparisons to Mir, regardless of his entirely reasonable frustration, she would definitely make him pay for it later.

"I am not picky about any arrangements I happen to be involved with." Miriallia replied, with a hint of frost in her tone that made him wince and berate himself for not managing his runaway mouth better. "I like things to be neat and organized, but that does not make me obsessively picky, fussy or badgering, despite your many muffled complaints you think I don't hear. I may not have the ears of a Coordinator Redcoat, but you don't have the voice of a ninja, ya know!" She frowned as she typed intently at her keyboard, working to adjust the alignment of the closer accelerator units, while Dearka worked on the admittedly trickier more distant units. Though Dearka's comment was rude, and entirely baseless, at least when it came to her, she DID have to admit the targeting and pre-firing set up for the Spear of Ares was... clunky... to be polite. In words Dearka might use, or even she herself were he not around to hear her and make her feel guilty, it was a goddamned fucking shitheap of a system! It was MORE than obvious that the system had never been test fired outside of a computer simulation, and the recent technical software update had done little to address some SERIOUS issues with the system. "I think I've just about got this bastard lined up on this end. You?"

"Well, we appear to be aiming somewhere lower than his navel, but if we try and readjust our aim, it will mean reworking ALL the placements of the accelerator units, or basically starting over from step one, so I vote we just take the shot we have and hope for the best. If the Spear does ANYTHING at all like what it's supposed to do, it shouldn't really matter where we hit him, after all..." Dearka shook his head and sighed with exasperation, leaving off with his fiddling, nascent perfectionist attempts to align the accelerator units to a full 100 percent ratio. He was at greater than 99 percent already, but he felt that when working with ANYTHING that dealt with materials moving at speeds of any significant fraction of lightspeed, there was no such thing as too much precision in your calibrations! A few tenths of a percent off wasn't much when dealing with something that fired at a couple thousand miles per hour, or at ranges of a few tens of miles, but this weapon, even at standard levels, was shooting at over thirty three MILLION miles per hour, and he wasn't sure there WAS a max range at all! Errors would be magnified quite a bit, to say the least. "How's the rest of the battle going?" He asked, now that they had a free moment, while the accelerators finished their pre-charging cycles and the computers double checked all their inputs for glaring errors.

"Well, the big, huge, scary guy is still right where he's supposed to be, which is some consolation." Miriallia reported, somewhat sourly. "Though he's a lot more active than he has any reasonable right to be... no surprise there. His right arm's off at the shoulder, and his armor is as much hole as metal, but he's nothing if not persistent. The Archangel seems to be doing okay staying ahead of him for the moment, and they've pasted him pretty well, but his defenses are just too good... even point blank Lohengrin shots probably wouldn't take him down for sure, and if Captain Ramius tried to line up a shot like that, he'd shoot them down well before they got their attack off. If the Brotherhood is the same people that produced the Pulsar, they've definitely improved on their self-repair systems... nothing short of blowing it apart entirely is going to put an end to that monster for sure! Hell, if we left it alone long enough, it'd probably start walking around again!"

"Well, hopefully a couple minutes isn't long enough for THAT to happen." Dearka said, with an attempt at lightness that fell flat, even to his ears. "What about the others?" He asked, with a cough to cover the awkward silence that had followed his last comment.

"Uhh... sucks to be the Brotherhood?" Miriallia summed up concisely, after a look at the larger picture through the Warmaster's sensor suite. "Kira, Athrun, Cagalli and Kisaka ganged up on them like mobsters terrorizing an elementary school class."

"There's always a bigger fish. Or meaner bully. Or fantastically skilled pilot in a scary new Gundam." Dearka said with a pitiless shrug. If all the Brotherhood forces were just plain wiped from existence, well, he would be far from crying, that was for sure! "So, once we take down the zombie over there, its a wrap?"

"Basica..." Miriallia was interrupted by a lightning quick series of events around the Archangel, where the starboard Gottfried turret just sort of... fell off the ship, and twin smaller explosions blossomed on its starboard dorsal surface, even as the sight of the Vengeance coming to a halt just before the bridge resolved on their cameras. Standing out on the battlefield like a pulsating star on their thermal sensors, the Vengeance paused, as if to regain its footing, and then, before anyone could cry out in shock, much less try and give a warning or take any preventative action, the Vengeance thrust it's sword at the Archangel's bridge. Even if they'd not been locked into position preparing the Spear of Ares for activation, there was nothing the Warmaster could have done... none of its weapons were pointed toward the Archangel, of course, and nothing they had that was capable of injuring the Vengeance would A, get there in time and B, also not do a pretty good job of destroying the Archangel's bridge even if it DID get there in time! Miriallia dimly remembered seeing the icon of the Seraph closing in on the Archangel's position on her sensor board, but Kira was moving with apparent glacial slowness.

Nothing could stop the Vengeance from decapitating the Archangel, and killing Murrue, Waltfeld and several hundred other Orb soldiers. Except something did. The Vengeance stopped DEAD in its tracks, its sword tip actually touching the Archangel, but not penetrating deeply enough to cause real damage. At first Miriallia couldn't figure it out... then something jogged her memory and she gasped in realization... she'd seen people freeze like this before actually! Back when Lacus had gotten completely off her rocker pissed off, when Sai and his men were threatening Kira when he was hurt and in a hospital bed! Except of course it wasn't Lacus this time but Katie, who'd always protested she didn't have that kind of power, but since she was power boosted by Ysak she must have... Miriallia's thoughts trailed away as she saw that the Vorpal was nowhere nearby, not even within a hundred kilometers of the Lunar surface, much less the Archangel. Her dead certainty faltered and crumpled away... but if this wasn't an example of a Newtype in action, WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!? She felt almost guilty for complaining, but she really didn't like it when things just went completely fucking random all of sudden, with no visible cause!

The Vengeance staggered backwards, as if cuffed across the face, more stratled than injured, its sword now dangling loosely in one hand. It continued to stare at the Archangel's bridge, like it was looking at the most fascinating... or horrifying... image imaginable. The Vengeance was so caught up in whatever had transfixed its attention it didn't even make an attempt to evade or strike out against the Seraph, as Kira powered in at maximum thrust, first putting a multilayered wall of shield energy between the Archangel's bridge and the Vengeance with his wings, and then bodily slamming into the Vengeance with the Seraph, like a football player going for a rough sack, catapulting the Vengeance off the Archangel in an uncontrolled arc, even as the Seraph also wobbled and assumed a mostly ballistic trajectory as Kira struggled to unscramble his own actions after the pulverizing collision. To Dearka and Miriallia's continued surprise, the Vengeance did not even attempt to recover, instead allowing gravity to take hold and pull it in a slow motion plummet to the Lunar surface, raising a small mushroom cloud of dust and debris when it struck. Dearka wasn't sure he saw it right, but he could have sword he discerned something small breaking away from the Vengeance's chest region shortly after the Seraph had body slammed it... he wondered what that was?

Both of their minds were comprehensively dragged back to the here and now by pulsating alarm sirens and lights, as the ECM and threat assesment boards of the Warmaster lit up like a Christmas tree festival. They both took in the situation at a glance, and shared a mutual blanch and grim look. With the Archangel embroiled in its own conflict once more, and sideslipping away from the Revenant in the process, Cray had somehow managed to get bored and had turned his attention to other matters. Though still locked into place, half fallen over, with his ruined right arm thrust into the ground and his legs immobile and useless, he was able to contort the Revenant's left arm and torso around a bit to hunt out another target he'd been meaning to take care of for some time, even though they'd been suspiciously quiet for the past little while. It didn't take him long to find them, surprisingly, since they weren't hiding or running, but standing in plain view, a relatively short distance away, only a few kilometers. He was both impressed and depressed... he'd been anticipating a long, drawn out affair, with them scurrying for cover like a mouse evading stomping boots, and him blasting them out again and again. On one hand, he could cut to the climax that much sooner... on the other, what the hell else was he going to do while his legs healed?

"We need to fire RIGHT now!" Dearka said, swallowing hard, as the Revenant's left arm swung around with wicked grace to point more or less directly at them. Their camera's zoomed in until he could swear he was looking down the barrels at the firing chambers, as the tripled muzzles began to spin up in lethargic preparation for firing. Whether Cray knew that they couldn't dodge or he was just taking his own sweet time to fire for reasons of his own, Dearka didn't know, but he was grateful for the few extra seconds. With every passing moment they came closer to the time when the Spear of Ares could be fired.

"We can't yet." Miriallia replied, her heart in her throat as she saw the same things as Dearka did. "Not for another forty seconds. If we shoot now, it'd be almost the same thing as not shooting at all. It wouldn't have enough power to hit any harder than an Earthshaker shell, and that's just not enough!"

"We probably don't even have ten seconds, much less forty!" Dearka protested lamely, though he knew she was right. Hell, the goddamn system wouldn't even LET you fire prematurely, he was pretty sure, to avoid wasting shots. Incidentally, while setting up to fire, the thrusters and other mobility systems were also extremely limited, to avoid accidental mispositioning of the first accelerator, aka the Warmaster. Something he'd have to edit out later, assuming somehow that they managed to get to a later... sometimes being able to shoot first mattered a lot more than being able to shoot hardest! "Mir... baby... I know I ain't always been the most perfect of guys to have a relationship with... but I just want you to know that..."

"Don't even BEGIN to say things like that! It's completely unnesessary and presumptive!" Miriallia cut him off, though she could do little to disguise the raw emotion in her voice, or the tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. "There's absolutely nothing to regret, Dearka..." She unbuckled her strabs and rose up onto her seat, turning around so that she could face him directly in his pilot's chair, turning her back on the Revenant and its menacing weapon. She wanted the last thing she'd ever get to see to be something worth seeing. And at the moment, there was nothing more worthwhile than Dearka. She reached out a hand, and he took hold of it, moisture beading out from his own eyes, as he pulled her lightly towards him, enveloping her in a warm embrace even as all their forward screens flared with violent green light, as the Revenant opened fire with its Gatling Gottfried, incandescent green flares of energy spearing towards the unable to dodge Warmaster. They both bent their heads together and waited for the brief flash of pain.

And waited. And waited. And waited a few seconds more, as alarms pinged and their screens continued to flare bright green. But there was no impact. No rush of heat followed by fading coldness. No sharp stab of pain followed by oblivion. It was like time had stopped. For a little while, Dearka wasn't sure it HADN'T stopped somehow, though he could feel both his and Mir's hearts pounding like out of control drums, and he didn't think hearts would beat if time was stopped. Wishing that the grim reaper would just get it the hell over with, if he was going to do it, since now definitely seemed to be the right time, given the circumstances, Dearka slowly lifted his head and squinted into the actinic green light radiating from his screens, wondering what the hell was going on? He stared, jaw open in amazement, because the reason for the lack of the death he'd been expecting was that the Revenant's firepower wasn't reaching the Warmaster. Wasn't even getting close, as a matter of fact. Hell, the shots were barely traveling a half kilometer from the barrels before being intercepted by a impermeable barrier. A Citadel Shield. Or to be completely honest... two of them.

"Who the hell...? Kira? Ysak? Athrun?" Dearka rapidly exhausted his roster of people he knew that would be stupidly brave enough to interpose themselves between weapons of that firepower and another target. But the Seraph was still over by the Archangel, and so was the Phoenix King. And the Vorpal had yet to fully recover from the pasting the Revenant's defense pods had done to its thruster systems, and was still nowhere nearby.

"YO! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE!?" An unknown voice cried out from their comm system. "You think this is easy or fun over here!? Kindly move your ass so we can do the same!"

"Who is this?" Miriallia asked, somewhat belatedly slipping back into her chair and rebuckling herself in, now that death was no longer heartbeats away. Well maybe it still was, but...

"The people SAVING YOUR ASS!" A different voice retorted, filled with strain and more than a little distemper. "Does it matter if we're fucking PIXIES or DRAGONS or just plain fucking SOLAR KNIGHTS or WHAT!? My name's Lain, Lain Debora, if you really gotta know who's saving you!"

"And I'm Knight-Ensign Eric Kellson." The first voice answered. "We saw you were in a bit of a pinch, and considering all the help the Clyne Faction has given to our friends, we figured it'd be churlish to not return the favor." Eric gritted his teeth as he fought to keep his Archon's shield steady and aligned with Lain's, deflecting the majority of the incoming energy, trading position for time, as they were both slowly forced backwards by the unending onslaught. "Whether or not I'm still a Knight-Ensign, or even a Solar Knight after this battle is something that remains to be seen." He commented in a private aside to Lain.

"What, just because we told a superior officer to go fuck himself you think they're going to punish us!?" Lain replied with a smirk. "Shinn did it, and he practically got a medal! I think that's a proper precedent, don't you?"

"I don't want Luna to hit me either."

"Picky, picky..." Lain returned his comm to the line they'd opened up with the Warmaster, which STILL hadn't moved. "ANY DAY NOW, YA KNOW! We don't do this living shield gig for fun!" He turned his comm back to Eric. "Speaking of... why do WE always get stuck with this living shield gig!? This is what, the second or third time in one battle!? What kinda lunatics are we?"

"The adorable, heroic ones that will hopefully get all sorts of thanks from the cute girl we saved type." Eric smiled widely. "And all sorts of props from the Gundam pilots we saved type. And maybe even the internationally recognized and lauded type."

"When I said I wanted to be famous, I didn't mean being famous for doing something incredibly stupid, like standing in front of what amounts to a space battleship while it fires its main guns at me repeatedly!"

"Picky, picky..." Eric's smile turned into a frown when he saw that the Warmaster still hadn't moved an inch. "Hey, if your movement systems are disabled, just eject and get well clear! Sucks about the Gundam, but its not worth your lives! We can't do this forever!"

"Can you do it for another twenty seconds?" Dearka asked cautiously, eying his targeting systems specuatively.

"Uh... maybe... if we had to... why...?"

"Imagine the biggest gun in the world." Dearka replied with a trace of his usual cocky smirk back on his face. "Imagine a barrel that is three point two kilometers long. Imagine what sort of munition a gun of THAT size would fire. Imagine that this gun can only work in space because it's bullet would tear itself to pieces with air friction if it was used in atmosphere, BEFORE it even left the barrel! Imagine that this gun takes almost twenty minutes to charge up and aim, its THAT powerful."

"Is this hypothetical weapon aimed at the Revenant?" Lain asked wolfishly.

"Imagine you can't move while aiming and charging this weapon, because it takes so much processing power to keep the barrel aligned properly, especially in gravity, even light gravity like the Moon has." Dearka added as way of reply.

"Just tell us when to get out of the way. You aren't going to have long before the beams reach you though." Eric warned.

"It'll be long enough." Miriallia assured them. She began counting down the seconds in her mind. Six... five... she watched Dearka curl his hands around the control yokes, even as her own finger hovered above the activation key for the Spear. Four... three... she put her hand over the comm switch, knowing there would be a slight delay in response time of the Solar Knights, from when she told them to move and when they actually did. However, the Spear would have no such delay. Two... "GET OUT OF THERE!" Mir yelled at the top of her lungs. One... the Solar Knights dropped away to either side of the path of fire, their shields half molten and their armor blackened from all the abuse it had taken. Zero... her finger stabbed down on the activation switch, firing the Spear of Ares and allowing power to return to the Warmaster's movement systems, thus letting Dearka throw the machine to the side in an ungainly dive for cover.

Initially, in the microseconds following the push of the activation key, there wasn't much to look at. The tiny, shiny ball of Ice-Gold was ejected from its holding position along the top of the Warmaster's head, drifting forward a mere foot before being scooped up by the sucking magnetic fields of the first accelerator, which grabbed hold of the ball and hurled it towards the next accelerator in line, discharging its pent up energy in a shockwave of brilliant red-gold light that trailed after the ball, forming a glowing line between the accelerators, like the shaft of a heavenly spear. The explosions of light as the ball passed into each successive accelerator maw and out the opposite side blossomed faster than a human eye could comprehend, faster even than most machines could quantify, much less observe. Suffice it to say that the Revenant's energy beams had reached three quarters of the way to the Warmaster's position by the time Miriallia had pressed the firing trigger. The beams still HADN'T passed the Warmaster's position when the Spear of Arms exited the final accelerator and then struck the Revenant, with a period of time between those two events so brief in scope there are no words fit to describe the difference. They may as well have happened at the exact same time.

Even space is not empty, and the space near a large gravitational object, such as a plenatrey body or planetoid, like a Moon, is even less empty than the deeper reaches of the void, so while there was no air or cohesive gas particles to provide friction for the ball to slow or melt itself against, there were still microscopic fragments of dust and scattered gas particles populating the space between the end of the spear shaft and the Revenant. Collisions between the searhead and these objects accounted for almost a quarter of its mass, shards spalling off in ejections of plasma, like the sparks from miniature suns, even as faint trails of red-gold energy bleedover from the accelerators continued to hound the spearhead, marking its trajectory for all to see. Still, when the tiny spearhead struck the Revenant low on its left side, the trauma of the impact could NOT be overstated. Even though the spearhead actually struck on a recently repaired Citadel Scale, one of the strongest portions of the Revenant's armored form, it hardly mattered. The spearhead instantly translated into pure kinetic energy, which innundated the Revenant, spreading outward in a rippling tide of destruction that happened in less time than it takes to think a single thought.

If anyone HAD been able to see the devastating effects of the shot, before the explosion of light and heat obliterated the area and confused the image beyond the ability of man or machine to completely recreate, they would have seen the Revenant completely seperated at the waist, with the middle quarter of its body just plain GONE, with nothing remaining at all between the middle thigh and upper belly of the monstrous machine. Cray never knew what hit him... one moment he was crowing victoriously, the next he was spinning violently as the limbs of the Revenant cracked, shattered and splintered away from the body, even as armor peeled away from him like sunburned skin, as the upper torso and head of the Revenant tumbled through space in a chaotic spin, throw up and entirely out of the Lunar gravity field by the force of the explosion. He managed a brief, incoherent squawk of surprise, before the crushing gravitic forces of the uncontrolled spin proved too much for even the strength of a BCPU to endure, especially with most of his compensation systems, not to mention systems in general, either disabled or just plain GONE.

Back on the Lunar surface, Dearka, Miriallia, Eric, Lain and just about everyone else within a hundred kilometers or so were blinking spots out of their eyes and looking with awe and even constrenation, at the wide and shallow blast crater that was all that was left of the Revenant. Hunks and pieces of the once mighty machine had been thrown into orbit, or even out of Lunar orbit, but by and large, there wasn't anything bigger than a tabletop toaster left over. There was one larger chunk, but it was moving at almost twenty thousand miles per hour in an uncontrolled spin, and bleeding fire and wreckage constantly to boot, as it headed towards the Earth's debris belt, unable to overcome the gravitic attraction of the larger planetary body. For the intents and purposes of most observers, they had just annihilated the Revenant in a single shot, and left a crater almost two kilometers across in the process, even if it was only a few meters deep. Rock dust from the explosion would be raining down across most of the Lunar surface for weeks, like ash from a volcanic eruption, which was one of the things News agencies would compare the utter devastation to in their description of the aftermath of the second battle of Galileo.

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Ashino had only gotten about an eighth of a kilometer when the Revenant just plain ceased to exist, between blinks of his eyes. Hell, he wasn't even sure he had blinked, events had just transpired too fast for a human... or close enough anyways... eye to comprehend. Unlike the impact of the Vengeance, he had no warning, no way to prepare or mitigate the secondary effects of the Revenant going up like a small atomic bomb, or even a not so small one! At first, even as he was flying through space, knocked off his feet by the ground shockwave and then hurled by the expanding "pressure" wave of dust and small debris, Ashino thought the USN had indeed, in fact nuked the Revenant. All the factors seemed to fit... sudden devastation, bright flash of light, the utter destruction of something that had thus far proved largely unbeatable to conventional weapons... it all pointed to a sudden, decisive use of a WMD. And as far as he knew anyway, the USN was the only military still allowed to keep nuclear weapons, if only a very small number of them. In some ways, he was surprised they'd waited as long as this to use one on the Revenant, considering the collateral damage Galileo base was sure to suffer, since the Revenant was inside the base perimeter, or had been anyway.

As he gathered himself, uncurling from the protective ball he wrapped himself into to minimize damage from striking objects while flying, finding himself lying face up on the ground, covered in grey dust and half buried in loose detrius and rubble, Ashino began noticing a few things that started to put the lie to the nuke theory. There was a mushroom cloud, but it was not as big as he'd been expecting, for a strategic level weapon anyway. He'd seen those go off before, during the Australian Maneuver, and this didn't look quite right. Also, there was too little wreckage left over... contrary to popular belief, nuclear blasts, while incredibly destructive, didn't atomize everything in their blast radius. Melt, burn, blast apart, rend into small pieces, sure... but completely obliterate... no. There was... too little left over, for lack of a better description. Even a direct hit with a nuclear weapon, warhead on armor, probably would have left more debris, especially from a large object like the Revenant. Heat based explosions, such as nuclear bombs, didn't propogate well in vacuum, since heat didn't travel well without air. It would take an absolutely massive bomb to completely vaporize the Revenant, and a bomb of that size would have left a crater MUCH bigger than the one he could somewhat see.

"Well, at least he's gone." Ashino chuckled grimly, standing up and brushing himself off slightly. If it hadn't been for his helmet, he'd have spat in the direction of the Revenant's crater. "Stay dead this time, if you would be so kind, Cray. The world is so much happier without you." Ashino implored his "brother". He put his hands on his hips and looked around some more, trying to decide his best way to get out of the immediate area, before search and rescue teams blanketed Galileo, not to mention news crews and plenty more military forces. His only option was to slip away in the confusion of the battle aftermath, but the trick was getting far enough away... traveling on foot would see him tracked down by the Solar Knights or another Mobile Suit unit within hours, and even stealing a shuttle or military transport would do him little good if he was tracked down later. He needed something to defend himself with... a Mobile Suit would be just great. Trick was... where was he going to get a servicable Mobile Suit in these conditions? Pilots didn't generally get out of their machines on a battlefield if they had the option, and any machine that HAD been abandoned was almost surely not working anymore.

Motion in his peripheral vision drew his attention and his gaze, though it took him a few moments to make out what he was seeing. And then, he spent a few moments staring, in mixed epiphany, admiration and disbelief. The Vengeance was lying in its shallow crash crater, about a hundred meters behind him, half concealed behind the crumpled ruins of several outbuildings that had not weathered so well the dual shocks of the Vengeance's landing, and the whatever it was that took out the Revenant, the buildings now little more than collections of torn metal and shattered plastics. To his great surprise, the cockpit appeared open, or else the torso region was so badly damaged that the cockpit was accessible, but the hole looked too regular, too intentional, to be the result of battle damage. Though why the pilot would choose to abandon what was certainly one of the most powerful Gundams ever built was something Ashino could not fathom, especially because he could make out very little battle damage, and even that was disappearing as he watched, healed over by the amazingly powerful self repair systems the Gundam seemed to be equipped with.

That accounted for his epiphany... almost as if ordained by Fate, here was a Mobile Suit, a Gundam even, ripe for the taking, practically tossed into his lap in time of need, as if God was apologizing for taking the Independence from him! His admiration and disbelief, equal parts of either, came from observing the attempts of the figure in the burn scarred flight suit to clamber into that selfsame cockpit, even though the efforts were obviously so painful as to be nearly crippling, judging from the individual's jerky, lethargic, constrained motions. Ashino could hardly credit his eyes... he knew damned well what sort of pain that fool had to be in, he'd inflicted it upon the bastard himself! That he was even standing upright was amazing, much less moving around and trying to climb up the side of a Gundam, no matter that it was lying on its back! He should be unconscious right now! Hell, he should be dead! Though Ashino was fairly sure broken ribs and a collapsed lung wouldn't stop he himself, he was a BCPU, and this Shinn Asuka was only a Coordinator! Truly, it was a terrible thing for him to be enemies with someone as admirable as this!

So engrossed in his painful work was Shinn... or so blinded by the agony of forcing his broken body to move... that either way, Shinn failed to notice Ashino's approach, even as he fell backwards once more, having gotten about halfway up the Vengeance's side, his fingers pushing into the slightly yielding surface of the Vengeance's shimmering armor, leaving shallow marks that swirled and faded, like the stuff was very hard cheese instead of a fully solid material. The stuff was slippery, and hard to grab hold of. Normally he'd just use his legs and take advantage of the light Lunar gravity to leap atop the downed Gundam, but right now he could barely STAND, much less think about JUMPING! Damn that Ashino and his incredible strength... every time he moved, Shinn could feel bones moving around inside his chest, and blood droplets trickled freely from his nostrils and corners of his mouth. He forced himself not to think about the damage he was causing himself. If he just sat back and waited for rescue, he would probably die. If he didn't actively seek out help, he was a goner. And the best way of seeking out help would be to capture this Gundam, and use it to take himself to a hospital, as soon as possible! He was reaching up to start his climb again when a strong hand fell firmly on his shoulder, halting him.

"Let me help." Ashino said, shaking his head at the irony. Here they were, two men that had just been trying to beat each other unconscious, or worse, not five minutes before, and now he was helping his opponent board a Gundam? He'd debated, for a few moments, just conking Shinn over the head, or perhaps more effectively, punching him in the chest again, to disable him while Ashino took the Gundam, but he hadn't been able to muster up the kind of hatred for Shinn that would let him do that, despite Shinn being a Coordinator, a Solar Knight and someone who had been trying to kill Ashino and defend Durandel. Shinn was being decieved, being misled by his superiors for their own goals. He was a victim of Durandel much like Ashino was, if to much lesser extent. Killing him, or leaving him to die, just didn't sit well with Ashino's conscience. Not when it wouldn't take much effort on his part to at least TRY and save him anyway. Ashino snorted as a thought occured to him... in a lot of ways, Shinn reminded him of himself, back when he'd first met Lacus Clyne at JIHAD. He'd been the decieved one then, and she the one to show him the light of truth... now perhaps he might be able to do the same thing for this Shinn Asuka? A worthwhile effort, he decided.

"You..." Shinn's sentence trailed away in a wet gargle, and his body shook and shivered as he coughed and choked violently for several seconds before recovering his breath slightly. "You..." Shinn said again, his voice growing weaker as he started to fade out from consciousness. "Why..."

"In the end, my job is the same as yours. Protecting the lives of citizens of the USN. From threats external... and internal." Ashino replied sardonically, though he was pretty sure Shinn couldn't hear him anymore. He cradled the tall Coordinator as gently in his arms as he could and flexed his leg muscles, hopping them both up to the Vengeance's chest with a minimum of fuss. The Vengeance's cockpit was indeed empty, though Ashino could hardly stomach calling the cavity in the Vengeance's chest a true cockpit... there was no chair, no screens, no instruments, not even any controls at all as far as he could see! It was just a hole, an empty space... how could anyone pilot a Gundam inside a place like that? Well, he considered that he wasn't going to find out by standing around on the outside, so he lowered Shinn into the hole and then hopped down into it himself. He was fortunate that he was smaller than average, because with Shinn already inside, space was VERY cramped.

He cast his gaze around, looking for some sort of button to push or control to activate or heck even figure out a good place to stand, but there was nothing. The interior walls were blank and featureless... he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to tell the floor from the ceiling if he didn't have the hatch open so he could see where the head was! How was this thing controlled... if Frost had been able to pilot a prototype of this unit, there was no reason Ashino shouldn't be able to handle the finished product! He was still looking around in frustrated puzzlement when the Vengeance's cockpit hatch suddenly closed and sealed itself shut, locking him and Shinn inside in pitch darkness. Ashino snatched for a illumination stick, but before he could complete the motion fully, his limbs felt like they were weighed down with three hundred pound blocks, and movement of any sort took all his concentration and effort, though he could neither feel, nor, once he got the stick working, see any form of bonds! It wasn't until he saw the stick, which he'd dropped to the ground, instead free floating in the air, despite the fact that they were still in a gravity well, that he began to understand.

The Vengeance, like the Pulsar, was capable of performing extremely high gravity maneuvers, to the point where it seemed almost inertialess in its movements. However, while machines could relatively easily be designed to bear up under stresses like that, the human body was less well equipped, and even modern restraint harnesses would only cut a human body up past a certain amount of acceleration or decceleration gravities, splattering the pilot across his cockpit in a gory mess. Obviously the Brotherhood had to have some better way of protecting their Gundam pilot, of keeping his or her body completely immobilized and cushioned from the high gravity stresses the Gundam itself was enduring. Whatever this field was that he was in... magnetic or who really knew what it was... it was functioning like a full body restraint, designed to keep whoever was in it totally immobile and probably insulated from any sort of vibration or kinetic shock as well. It also did a damned good job of functioning as bonds, to keep him from doing much more than twitch his fingers and roll his eyes, as the Vengeance slowly, and entirely on its own, or so it seemed, powered up and righted itself, with Shinn and Ashino trapped inside.

More irony abounded... they'd both been trying to capture the Gundam, each for their own purposes, but now it looked like the Gundam was the one who'd captured them! Ashino felt distressingly few inputs, given the immobilizing field slowly levitating him off the floor, he had no idea if the Gundam was moving or not, but he expected it was. however, with no access to screens or sensors or anything else, he had no idea where they were going. He had no clue of speed, or direction, or even if they were turning or just flying straight. It was very frustrating, for a person that almost never got lost or confused about where he was in a physical sense. There was no sound save his own breathing, the only light was from his illuminator stick, which was barely enough to illuminate his own face and chest, and the only temperature he could feel was the stuffiness of his flight suit. He sighed, and then resigned himself to the best recourse in situations like this, where a person was helpless to do anything to affect their fate, and they weren't in immediate danger. He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.

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"The Captain shouldn't be exposing themselves to possible danger like this." Waltfeld admonished, as he and Murrue headed towards the port mandible hanger, where the captured Brotherhood Gundam, the one known as the Tormented, had recently been deposited by the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess. A work crew was also out searching for the pilot of the Vengeance, who'd ejected from his machine for unknown reasons shortly before Kira and the Seraph had tackled the Vengeance off the top of the Archangel. It had been a while ago, but the pilot couldn't have gotten far in a simple unpowered flight suit, unable to do more than drift with whatever negligible momentum his ejection process had imparted. Of course, given the technology of the Brotherhood, perhaps he had full powered flight capabilities, even in just a basic environment suit, but if there was a possibility of capturing the pilot of that Gundam, Murrue and Waltfeld both agreed it was too good an opportunity to pass up! Especially because they'd missed on the chance to capture the Vengeance itself, as it had taken off shortly after falling to the ground, either following hardwired instructions or being remote controlled like the majority of the Brotherhood Mobile Suits. They'd tried to track it, but it quickly moved beyond their range, at such a speed that though they continued to try to hunt it down, nobody held any real hope of finding it.

"Neither should the XO." Murrue replied with a brief smile. "Who exactly did I leave in charge of the bridge again?"

"It must have been Lieutenant Neumann." Waltfeld flexed his artificial arm nervously, as the door to the hanger came into view. Truth be told, he wasn't going to miss out on the unmasking of a Brotherhood gundam pilot, not to mention mostly intact Brotherhood Gundam, for anything! Not to mention the mostly intact Zealot that Kisaka had disabled... combined they represented a treasure trove of information on the Brotherhood's technology, which might very well be able to answer many of their long standing questions about the Brotherhood's capabilities and even goals! The enemy Gundam pilot might be able to help along those lines as well... though Orb definitely didn't condone the use of... coercive practices... in its criminal justice system, where exactly international terrorists fit into the bargain was a grey area. Waltfeld was fairly sure a few "long talks" with Cyprus Finch, Thomas Glory and Richard Ramierez would have just about anyone, no matter how hardy, singing like a canary. And there probably wouldn't even be too many surface marks either.

"Yes, Lieutenant Neumann is a very capable officer, who follows orders from his captain well, unlike some." Murrue shook her head in mock despair.

"I follow plenty of orders." Waltfeld pointed out.

"Quantity of service does not beat out quality of service here, Andrew." She admonished, though she didn't carry it any further than that. She knew Andrew was concerned for her, which was touching, if somewhat misplaced given their current professional roles, but she could forgive him for it, and definitely understand the curiosity that also drove him to not want to wait a second longer than required to start furthering their understanding of the Brotherhood! They both stepped out together into the controlled chaos that was a hanger deck either pre or post battle. Indeed, it often seemed that the only times a hanger deck was truly calm was when there either had not been a battle for some time, or they were in the very midst of a battle and everything was secured and locked down. Colonel Kisaka's Dawndrake was in one corner of the hanger, being attended to by a team of disgusted looking technicians, who were shaking their heads in confounded anger as they tried to assess what exactly had happened to one of Orb's most advanced military machines, to render it so totally inoberable!

The Vorpal, newly restored to functionality by Ysak's determined efforts, as well as the Seraph, remained on patrol outside, in case of any last gasp efforts by the Brotherhood, suicidal or otherwise, while the Warmaster was in the other hanger, along with the disabled and mostly intact Zealot. The Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess standing together made this hanger mandible very crowded, and the limp and battle scarred form of the Tormented, now securely clamped to a wall with plenty of weapons trained up it, made the overcrowding even worse. They could barely walk a step without having to push or slide past a technician, mechanic or soldier of some variety. Most of the soldiers were of course clustered around the Tormented, which though restrained had yet to disgorge its pilot, despite repeated demands, and the otherwise totally nonfunctional state of the machine. Even it's holoshroud was offline, leaving behind a fairly standard looking Gundam, that wouldn't have looked too out of place alongside the original five Gundams, except for the spindly, clawed left arm.

Murrue stepped past the encircling cordon of nervous soldiers and faced the Tormented directly, Andrew slightly behind her, his arms seemingly folded casually across his chest in a position of confidence, but she knew he was coiled tighter than a spring, ready to pounce like his namesake, in order to sweep her out of the line of any attack, whether it be from the Tormented or response fire from the soldiers behind her. Murrue stared the Gundam in its still slightly pink glowing eyes and mustered her nerve. Let it not be said that Murrue Ramius was fearless... merely well able to control her fear. Besides, though she WAS staring down a Gundam, she was doing it inside her own ship, with plenty of soldiers and other Gundams of her own backing her up. "My name is Murrue Ramius, Captain of this vessel, the ONS (Orb National Ship) Archangel, speaking to the pilot of the Tormented Gundam. You have been captured and your machine disabled. Your allies have fled and left you behind. Now, it really doesn't matter to me if you want to stay in there until we cut you out, but it would save quite a bit of unpleasantness on both sides if you would act with a smidgeon of honor. I can promise you won't be mistreated while in our care."

There was a long, heavy silence. "Maybe the pilot can't hear..." Andrew started to say, even as the Tormented's chest suddenly levered open, revealing a small, darkened cavity that seemed to serve as the cockpit, despite the fact that it was about a third the size of a similar arrangement in any non-Brotherhood machine. It was barely big enough to stand upright in, as evidenced by the pilot straightening and stretching, unconsciously but definitely, as she stepped out of the cockpit onto the armor flange that served as a boarding ramp when the cockpit hatch was open. It was a definite female, which matched up with their previous intelligence on the pilot from her foray into Orb, though she was quite a bit younger than Murrue had been expecting... not many years older than Cagalli or Lacus, if she was any judge, with an unbowed posture that bespoke of strong personal willpower, even in the face of what many would consider crushing adversity. Her flight suit was a dark emerald green, the favored color of the Brotherhood, emblazoned with the golden winged eyes that were the Brotherhood's most well known symbol across her chest and on her shoulders.

A huge, tightly bound mass of silvery wires extended out of the back of the pilot's helmet, and presumably out the back of her skull as well, with the wire bundle snaking back into the cockpit out of sight. Murrue was familiar with the general look of those wires, having seen the interior of the Pulsar's cockpit on several occasions, both before and after use, though there was no sign of the pinkish oxygenated gel that had filled the Pulsar's cockpit, acting as a sort of fluid restraint harness that protected the pilot against acceleration forces, in a superior manner to any regular physical harness. The silver wires retracted from the pilot's helmet and reeled back into the cockpit, allowing her to step forward a little more, even as almost every weapon in the hanger pointed at her face. Still acting with remarkable calm, or was it perhaps fatalism, Murrue couldn't tell, the pilot slowly reached up and unclasped her helmet, and then lifted it off her head, before lowering her hands to her sides and looking down at them placidly. Definitely fatalism, Murrue decided... the red haired, blue eyed girl didn't look sad, or angry or scared or anything much... she just looked like she didn't care about ANYTHING. She didn't say anything either, even as Orb Marines floated up to her in the microgravity of the hanger and relieved her of ehr helmet before binding her hands together and escorting her out of the hanger.

Murrue and Waltfeld exchanged glances, even as the techs descended upon the now vacated Tormented in a mutual near orgasm of expectant delight, and immediately began pulling the machine apart at the nuts and bolts level, each eager to find some astounding tidbit of information to convey to Dr. Erica Simmons, who was waiting impatiently back in Orb, imperiously demanding that any and all Brotherhood technology be delievered to her for reverse engineering as soon as humanly possible, if not before! "I swear, the terrorists are getting younger all the time. Back in the desert, at least the Blue Cosmos guys were fully grown men!" Andrew groused. "I almost felt guilty for a few moments there, looking at her... she looks like a college girl that just happened to get in way over her head on a bad deal or something! Why can't we get another Frost or something... the bad guys should look and act BAD! Not... resigned!"

"I think I'll take resigned over apocalyptic madman bent on the extinction of all humanity." Murrue said with a slight smile. "Less stress involved. I shudder to think of what would have happened if Frost had somehow managed to get on board the Archangel, and I never even saw him in action personally!" She looked up at the Tormented for a few more seconds, and then turned away, shaking her head.

"What?" Andrew asked, coming up to stand by her side again, taking advantage of the hurrah and bustle of the hanger to slip his biological arm around her waist comfortingly.

"I don't know. I was expecting... something. From that thing." Murrue waved her hand over her shoulder at the Brotherhood Gundam. "I feel... let down, or disappointed. Maybe I was expecting someone like Frost after all, and the reality of the situation is just so banal that..." She trailed off and shrugged, blushing slightly. "I guess it just wasn't exciting enough for me, terrible as that sounds." She lent into his arm as they both headed back towards the Bridge, willing to allow a bit of professional decorum, never her strongest suit, slip now that they were out of life threatening danger, and had achieved a great, if costly victory over the Brotherhood. They'd destroyed what had to be their most devastating Gundam, captured another Gundam, heavily damaged two more, and wiped out what had to be the majority of the Brotherhood's Mobile Forces... things were definitely looking up. They might even have been able to capture two of the enemy pilots, assuming...

"Make way, prisoner coming through! Make a hole, make a hole, people!" A burly master at arms shouted, bulling his way through the center of the hallway leading into the interior of the ship from the other hanger mandible. He was clearing a path for a wheeled medical gurney, which was being escorted by a five more spacesuit clad soldiers, though they were carrying their weapons at port arms, not ready to use. Their prisoner was also clad in the dark green flight suit of the Brotherhood, with the golden winged eye emblazons, just like the other Gundam pilots, though this man's suit also had traceries of silver in the form of feathers on his helmet, an obviously personal affectation that bespoke to Murrue of either high rank or great autonomy, or even both. Given that this was likely the pilot of the Vengeance, the most advanced Brotherhood Gundam they'd seen yet, if not the most destructive, she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that its pilot was higher ranking than the Tormented's pilot. She couldn't get a good look at his face though, because his helmet was still on, and the faceplate was opaqued. He was strapped securely to the gurney, and looked either stunned or otherwise unconscious.

"Where are you taking him, Petty Officer?" Murrue called, as the master at arms passed by. Suddenly noticing the presence of the Captain and Executive Officer, he snapped a hasty salute, which Murrue returned with much less fervor, if no less feeling.

"To Medical, Ma'am, to get that helmet off and for a routine battery of tests. We found him floating unresponsively, and haven't been able to determine the extent of his injuries, if there are any. He seems to be breathing normally, but he hasn't regained consciousness. After we've ascertained his condition, we'll be taking him to the brig... as far away from the other prisoner as possible. Standard practice, Ma'am." The master at arms replied quickly, though he didn't stop walking or clearing people out of the way even so. Murrue exchanged a brief glance with Andrew, and they both fell in behind the gurney, following it to medical. One more diversion before they got back to the no doubt belabored Lieutenant Neumann, the Archangel's longtime helmsman. An exceptional pilot, and a good officer... but not the sort of person either of them wanted to dump an entire post battle recovery situation on without warning or assistance, especially with neither of them disabled or otherwise prevented from accomplishing their normal duties.

They encountered a few difficulties once they'd gotten to Medical, the most notable of which was that the pilot's helmet wouldn't unclasp, didn't even seem to HAVE clasps, though they knew they had to be there. Murrue and Andrew had seen the Tormented's pilot remove her helmet with ease, though neither of them could remember where exactly she'd pressed on the locking ring collar of her suit-helmet interface to accomplish the seperation. The flight suit proved extremely durable and resistant to cutting force of any kind, even blunting surgical scapels and powerful saws with hardly a ding or scratch. Finally, fed up with the delay, andrew stepped forward and carefully stripped off the prosthetic skin "sheathe" that covered his artificial limb and made it look and feel like a normal human arm most of the time, revealing the skeletal black steel limb in all its sinister glory. Capable of punching through cinderblock walls, crushing metal posts and wreaking fearful damage on pretty much anything Andrew chose to hit with it, it could also manipulate more finely and more gently than most normal biological hands. However, Andrew chose to resort to the brute strength side of things for this particular occasion, as the master at arms and two other sailors carefully braced the pilot's head and neck while Andrew dug his steel fingers into the collar assembly and began ripping material out in fistful lots.

It only took a few fistfuls before bright pink liquid began leaking and spurting out from the rents in the flight suit, and Andrew backed off, wiping the body warm sloppy stuff off his hand with a nearby sheet, unaccountably disgusted even though he knew it was just a liquidated oxygen formulae of some sort. It was making a shocking mess of the medical gurney, and the floor of the Medical bay itself, as the flight suit, which must have been filled to bursting with the gellish stuff, drained out. After the stuff stopped pulsing thickly out of the hole he'd opened, Andrew stepped forward once more, seeing that the flight suit was sagging and much limper in a lot of places now that all that fluid was out of there. It made getting handholds without fear of accidentally grabbing and ripping up flesh much easier, and in a matter of minutes he'd removed the majority of the pilot's flight suit, certainly not neatly but definitely effectively, revealing a boxer clad male body that was well built and quite heavily scarred, especially around the arms and upper torso. The head and face were still concealed by the helmet for the moment.

Andrew finally managed to hook his hand up under the lip of the helmet and yank out the remains of the locking mechanism that had been sealing the helmet to the pilot's neck. Without further ceremony, already well tired with his unexpectedly disgusting chore, Andrew snatched the helmet up and off the man's head and set it aside gingerly, as another rush of pink fluid poured out from inside, like blood warm ichor. It was revolting... he didn't see how people could just walk around in a suit filled with stuff like that, much less fight in a Gundam while breathing it! He was so focused on the yucky pink gel that he didn't get a good look at the pilot's face, just getting a suggestion of wet blond hair plastered to his skull and a fine featured, almost noble face marred by quite a bit of raised pink and brown scar tissue. Even when he first looked back, he didn't immediately notice anything strange, the scars broke up the outline of the face so completely that it took real concentration to figure out why something was naggingly familiar about the features he was looking at.

It wasn't until he looked up and saw Murrue, her face as white as a ghost, her eyes wide and staring, almost bulging out of her head, her hands and face trembling, that things really started to click for Andrew. He reached out a hand towards Murrue to steady her, wincing when he realized it was his mechanical one, still entirely fleshless and sticky with pink glop to boot. He couldn't spare too much attention from the man lying in the bed though, lying there peacefully, entirely unaware of the distress he was causing Murrue, and now Andrew as well, though to a much lesser degree. After all, he'd only been friendly with the man... Murrue had been a great deal more than just friendly! Or she'd been hoping to be before things were cut shockingly short... one of those painful things he'd finally gotten her to confide in him in the interest of putting the grief of the past behind her. She ignored his comforting hand and stepped forward as if in a trance, staring down in pained disbelief at the man lying on the gurney.

"Murrue..." Andrew said in a cautious tone, wondering himself just what he was going to say next. Was he going to caution her that maybe it was just a crazy likeness? That it couldn't very well be the man they BOTH were thinking it was, because that man was dead and gone, and had been for almost seven years now? "Maybe we should..."

"Mu?" The achingly pained tone of Murrue's voice, tenative and even a tad bit frightened, nothing like she usually sounded, made Andrew swallow like he'd just been punched in the gut. In some ways, he would have preferred a good gut punch... from a Gundam even... compared to how he was feeling now! He watched her reach out a hand and place it carefully on the man's brow, just above where most of the scars ended. It just didn't seem possible, that Commander la Flaga could have survived a direct hit with a Lohengrin blast, but then again, who was he, Andrew Waltfeld, to say what a man should and should not survive, given what had happened to him and Aisha in the desert!? What was perhaps a more pressing concern was... why hadn't Commander la Flaga, an honorable man among honorable men, tried to contact them, or anyone, to tell them he was alive and at least mostly whole? Why were they only finding him NOW, seven YEARS later, by great accidental chance? And WHY was he wearing the colors of the Brotherhood, an organization of religious, militant COORDINATORS bent on destroying the world? That Mu had formerly been the pilot of the Vengeance seemed an irrefutable fact... but why would the Brotherhood give a Natural war hero like Mu la Flaga, regardless of his skills, their most advanced Gundam!? Why would he use it to further their goals!? If there was a last man on Earth that Andrew would ever think would be a terrorist, Mu la Flaga would be about third or fourth in line for the honor, before even Andrew Waltfeld himself!

The man on the gurney groaned slightly after Murrue touched him, and coughed up a thick wad of pinkish gel. His eyes flickered open, revealing bright, cerulean blue eyes that blinked at the harsh radiance of the bright Medical bay lights, obviously taking some time to focus on his surroundings. For all that, the eyes were clear and focused and definitely alive, with that merry, irrepressable spark of life in them that had been as much a trademark of Mu la Flaga as his feather adorned helmet or his famous motto, "I can make the impossible, possible", which was actually etched above the entranceway to the Archangel's bridge! And it was definitely a motto the man seemed MORE than able to live up to, as the current situation showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Mu looked around and met gazes first with Andrew, and then looked past him, following the arm on his forehead up, up, into a face he'd never been able to forget, even when he couldn't realize it himself. He lacked the strength to say anything, as unconsciousness beckoned once more, but he did manage to smile in contentment. He was back... he'd made it back!

Andrew was still shaking from the recognition he'd seen in Mu's eyes... there was no doubt in his mind any longer... this man WAS Mu la Flaga! He turned to see how Murrue was taking it, and was barely in time to lurch forward to catch her as she fell limply, having fainted dead away shortly after meeting Mu's knowing gaze and seeing his selfsure smile, the same one that had brightened her dreams and haunted her nightmares for years now! "Murrue! Shit!" Andrew lowered her gently to the floor, even as the master at arms, standing in the back of the room the whole time, pounded his fist on the wall intercomm and began barking orders into it. Andrew looked over at the gurney, with Mu la Flaga, the very Hawk of Endymion himself, the Savoir of the Archangel, strapped to it, even as he fanned and pinched Murrue, trying to wake her from her faint, something he hadn't seen her do since the very early days after the first Valentine War, when the pain of Mu's apparent death was still a wrecking ball slamming into her over and over again every time she closed her eyes. For the second time that day, Andrew found himself wishing that they'd found another Frost type person instead... why couldn't the bad guys be BAD!? It would be so much easier for everyone!

-----------------------------------------------------------

"Whatcha looking at there, pardner?" Lain drawled, coming up behind Eric and staring down at the portable data screen his friend was studying in his lap. They were both inside the Galileo base proper, now several hours past the end of the battle, regrouping with the rest of the remaining Solar Knights... not that there were overly many of them left now! First Platoon was down to just five Archons, Third Platoon had lost two thirds of its sixteen Archons, and second Platoon was sporting sixty percent material damage, and thirty percent personnel casualities as well! The support and supply corps were still at close to one hundred percent, but then again they hadn't got anywhere near the battle, and for once, no frontline combat pilot was going to give them shit about it, either! Nobody in their right mind should have been near THAT battle! A good many frontline combat pilots were seriously considering joining support corps, no matter the lower pay and lack of glory... at least they got to live to enjoy it! "I don't see any pretty girls." Lain noted, pouting disappointedly.

"Man I am so tired... and so pent up... that I can barely even think about girls right now, pretty or otherwise." Eric replied absently. "I got about ten thousand different things warring inside my head right now. Libido is down near the bottom."

"And that is one difference between us. My libido is never near the bottom, and I fail to imagine a situation where I could not spend good time by thinking of girls." Lain answered with a smile. "So if its NOT girls, then what are you looking at?"

"The projected flight path of the Revenant's remains. It seems it's going to impact somewhere nearby the ruins of Junius Seven, in the debris belt." Eric replied matter of factly, tilting the screen so Lain could see it better.

"Bro..." Lain trailed off, causing Eric to look at him expectantly. Seeing he had his audience hanging, Lain paused a moment more and then smiled. And then shouted in Eric's ear. "WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE!? IT'S DEAD! GONE! KABLOOIE! The Warmaster hit it with the... the... the whatever it was that made it go BOOM! BOOM! You saw the BOOM, right!? Everyone on this side of fucking Moon saw THAT boom! That thing is HISTORY! You couldn't shingle a garden shack with the pieces left over! What's it matter where it goes, towards Junius Seven or not? Its WRECKAGE! Inert wreckage!"

"Why do I care? Why do I fucking care!?" Eric retorted, rocketing to his feet and getting in Lain's face unexpectedly. "I DON'T FUCKING CARE! NOT ABOUT THAT! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT! IT'S STUPID, POINTLESS TRIVIA! BUT IF I WORRY ABOUT THE STUFF I DO FUCKING CARE ABOUT, I'M GOING GO TO PIECES, DUDE! NO FUCKING JOKE!"

"Whoah, whoah!" Lain held up his hands placatingly. "Slow down, man, don't eat me alive! Just your friend here, thats all!"

"Yeah... yeah, I know." Eric said after a few moments, backing down from Lain's personal space. "Sorry about that. I just... got a lot on my mind, like I said."

"Dude, there's nothing to worry about. They ain't gonna courtmartial you, or me, or anything! At worst we're going to get a stern talking to from the Knight-Commander, now that he's calmed down some, since the SecDef isn't in danger anymore. It sounds cruel to say it like this, but given the mauling the Solar Knights have just taken, they CAN'T afford to lose either of us, since we're two of their most elite pilots! We could probably flip the Knight-Commander the bird in front of the entire unit and not lose rank! Though he would prolly break our fingers later." Lain assured him.

Eric snorted in dry amusement. "Man, I could give a SHIT about what happens with the Solar Knights right now. I've half a mind to just fucking resign right now! They tried to ORDER me to kill one of my best friends. One of my mentors! My little sister's fucking husband, for most intents and purposes! They impugned his name, questioned his loyalties and tried to get me to help execute him, just like that!"

"Compltely playing devil's advocate here, my friend, but he WAS in his Gundam, WASN'T at his assigned post, and WAS trying to break down that door to get at the SecDef. Purely from the outside looking in, he looks like a terrorist, or some kind of nutcase." Lain pointed out, as gently as he could.

"If it was Athrun Zala, and not Markov Ashino, how would you feel, no matter how it looked to someone who was uninformed?" Eric replied caustically. Lain held up his hands in apology again.

"I totally get you, dude. Just saying, is all."

"And that's not even the thing that's REALLY eating me up!" Eric continued to vent. "Jean, my little sister, Ashino's girlfriend, was WITH him at his last post, doing some college work, and just because she wants to be with him and she's old enough now that my parent's can't stop her! There is NO WAY, simply NO WAY Ashino would willingly seperate himself from Jean if he had any choice in the matter. She is EVERYTHING to him... literally everything! I can't even describe how much he cares about her... I've never loved anyone outside my family like that, I can tell you that much! But he said... he said he FAILED to protect her! It was eating him alive... and that... that's just tearing me apart inside too! If something happened to my little sister, that was enough to make Ashino want to kill the SecDef, and fight the entire USN along the way if need be... then... then I'm not sure I should be working for the USN anymore! Maybe I should be trying to kill the SecDef too!"

"DUDE! Not so loud!" Lain clamped his hand over Eric's mouth, darting his gaze around frantically. Luckily, no one seemed to be nearby, or listening closely. "Man I don't care what you say to me, and in a lot of cases, I'm with you one hundred percent, okay? But that doesn't mean I can just let you go mouthing off what amounts to premeditated high treason, ya dumbfuck! If someone else was to hear that, you'd be in a nice, dark, cold, secure cell REAL QUICK, and probably in front of an honest to god firing squad not too long after, ya know!? So SHOOSH, okay!? I understand that he's your friend, and practically your brother in law, and mentor and who knows what else. You trust him way more than you trust anyone else I've yet met. More than you trust me even, which is okay, since you've known him a lot longer! I understand you're worried about your sister... every sane person would be! I hate to say it, but it DID sound like, from what he said, that something not very good did happen to her. But she wasn't dead! I got that much! He said he sent her to Orb. I got friends in Orb... lots of friends. Tracking your sister down should be a cinch, okay!? Lets not fly off the handle before we got all the facts, okay?"

"Its hard..." Eric said, his tone strained but much quieter, once Lain took his muffling hand away. "It's all a little much, you know? This battle... all the friends we lost... Ashino... Jean... its all swirling around inside my head and I can't get my bearings! I feel like I'm going to explode unless I do something to distract myself!"

"Thus the pointless research into where all the various pieces and parts of the Revenant were being flung." Lain shrugged. "I understand totally. You need to keep busy, keep your mind occupied. You ain't the only one... just about everyone I know is looking for make work of some sort or another. Rey's off talking with the SecDef, he's prolly the only one doing real productive work at the moment. Meyrin's off in some sort of haze of her own, doing some heavy computer research shit of some sort, and she wouldn't even TALK to me, not even about her honey pie, and she hasn't shut up about him since they started seeing each other steady! Luna... well... Luna is... well..."

"Have they found Shinn yet?" Eric interrupted with forced casuality. He grimaced and held up a hand to stop Lain from replying. "Never mind... you wouldn't have been searching for terms if Shinn was back, for better or worse. Really, its the not knowing thats the worst of all... if we knew he was dead, we could all grieve and swear revenge, and move on a little. But just gone? MIA?" Eric shook his head in misery.

"I ain't giving up hope." Lain said resolutely. "Its only been a few hours, and thats a BIG battlezone out there. It's gonna be at least a week before things even BEGIN to get sorted out around here. And Shinn, for all his damned faults, is one motherfucking tough devil-bastard, that is for sure! Little thing like a hundred meter tall death machine Gundam tearing up and rearranging an entire space fleet base around him isn't going to slow him down, no siree! He'll prolly be strolling in her with fucking champagne and souvenirs any hour now, just you watch!"

"I can't wait to tell him how much his worst rival was missing him." Eric smirked. "You think he'll be touched? Or revolted?"

"I know how he'll ACT, anyway." Lain replied in a mock dangerous tone. "Though if he LEARNS that I was worried about him, even a little, I am so going to fill your flight suit with itching powder before the next endurance flight training, and the next four after that as well." The levity dropped from his voice. "All the same, lets not talk about him overmuch when Luna's around, okay? She's a very strong person... kinda like a diamond. Very hard, very beautiful... not very good with sudden, sharp impacts. I'd really feel terrible if we were the ones who put a crack in her with a careless comment, or worse broke her entirely. Silly girl didn't even realize how much she loves the bastard until he's missing, of course."

"Ain't it always the way." Eric commiserated with a smile. "Maybe we should go missing as well, see who gets a sudden pang of loss and throws themselves into our arms when we show up out of the sunset, dusty and weary, but definitely victorious?"

"That is... GENIUS!" Lain half shouted in way of reply. "No, really! That's like a "totally wasted out of my mind" good idea, but we aren't wasted! That makes it REALLY good! We could TOTALLY pull that off, and it wouldn't even take that much work!"

"I was kidding."

"Maybe so, but that doesn't mean you aren't right!" Lain was full on into scheming mode, coming up with wilder and wilder ideas, or variations on the same theme, as Eric tried to talk him down, before they both ended up locked into another hare brained scheme. It was a fun way to pass the time, and it definitely helped keep their minds off whatever other problems were looming in their minds. They both lost track of time, and even their surroundings, just enjoying the mutual company of two like minded people of similar age and background, not to mention profession and philosophy.

"Man, NO! I mean it, NO! This is even worse than the LIONS!" Eric protested, practically choking on his own laughter.

"Man, why do you always gotta bring up that damn lion's thing? How the FUCK was I supposed to know lions went extinct in the wild a hundred years ago? I live on an ISLAND, and there certainly weren't any lions there, outside of zoos! And zoos always have the exhibits talking about animals in their "natural habitats"!"

"The African ones must be Coordinator lions then, because they aren't IN the Natural habitat!"

"Dude, that is BAD. Shut up with that. I mean it. Ick."

"Don't be mad just cause you keep getting burned the same way."

"Um, excuse me... what lions are you talking about?" A new voice, entirely unexpected by both of them, caused them both to stand bolt upright and turn around, gawking like a pair of spell bound tourists at the person who'd walked up behind them, entirely without either of them noticing. And considering she was clad in a bright pink flight suit, that was actually somewhat embarassing. Stella looked at the both of them neutrally, unphased by their incredulous expressions, though she was far from as calm in reality as she appeared on the surface. She was violating direct orders from Roanoke, doing this... a thought that was almost enough to make her sick to her stomach by itself. But she couldn't forget what these two men, men she didn't even know, had risked to save her from... from... that thing she couldn't name. Not without causing herself to fly into a panic attack. She didn't know what it was about that word, that concept that disturbed her so, but she couldn't stand to hear it said, or any derivation of it either! Not when it referred to her or people she cared about! The fear would eventually turn into berserk hatred, and the hatred into crushing despair, and only Roanoke could lift her spirits from that state, at least as far as she could remember.

"Uhh..." Lain said, not at his most suave and intelligent. He looked around, but didn't see any sign of Sting or Auel, or of Dr. Roanoke, or even any FNE personnel at all, save Stella. He matched glances with Eric, who'd been likewise sweeping the area for threats, and also hadn't found any. "The lions... in Africa. Don't exist anymore, in the wild. Something I did not know, at one point in time, and only learned after I attempted to imitate some in order to, uh, get myself out of a bind."

"You ALMOST got us tear gassed by our own security forces!" Eric cut in, not willing to let Lain wriggle out from under the pin. "That guy totally thought we were up to something kinky in the woods! Do you SEE how he smirked at us as we walked away!?"

"Well, what would you think if you saw two disheveled guys with mussed hair and clothing come out of the brush together at that time of night, especially after making strange noises like those of cats in heat?" Lain said, reasonably enough. "Next time I'll be sure to imitate something a bit more manly though... like an elephant."

"There will BE no next time!" Eric said hotly, before being interrupted by a musical feminine giggle. He gave Lain a very hard glare indeed. "Great. Now she's laughing at us. Super." He commented quietly.

"Don't worry, I got this... the first step to charming a girl is to make her laugh, trust me." Lain replied confidently.

"Every time I hear those first five words, something bad happens to me..." Eric complained.

"You two are funny." Stella commented with a smile, getting her giggles under control with a supreme effort of will. She hadn't come her to laugh and enjoy herself, something she really knew she wasn't supposed to be doing without Dr. Roanoke's permission. She'd come here to thank them, not play with them. She couldn't account for her sudden shyness though... it had seemed a simple enough thing back when she'd been first thinking about it, shortly after she'd been allowed to leave her Panzerwulf a few hours ago. She steeled herself and stepped up to them, moving quickly before she could entirely chicken out. "Thank you for saving my life." She said seriously, before reaching up to the one on the left, the one with mismatched blue and green eyes she thought was called Lain, cupping his head with her hands before she leaned in and pressed her lips firmly to his. She held the kiss for a few seconds, her eyes closed, before she drew back and then took the one on the right, the blond hair with blue eyes named Eric, by the head and repeated the gesture. Then, thanks cnveyed, she turned around and walked away, knwoign she was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she got back, oblivious to the incredulous stares of the men behind her.

"She just made you eat those words, dude." Lain commented, at long last.

"The exception does not make the rule, man." Eric retorted, staring after Stella, even though she was long gone from view by now. "She kissed me longer."

"No fucking way. And even if she did, she kissed ME first!"

"Just cause you were closest!"

"Not even! She totally picked me out!"

"Dream on, dude... she totally likes me."

"I ain't backing off from this one, dude! Seriously, get your own girlfriend!"

"I just did! Her name is Stella!"

"Don't make me beat your ass...!"


	39. Grassfire part 1

"One MAN! I wanted you to kill just ONE MAN! That's all! All you had to do was ensure the death of a single UNARMED MAN... and you failed utterly! You didn't even get CLOSE to him! I gave you every possible advantage you could have ever needed... superior technology... superior information... superior preparedness... even superior firepower! I stacked the deck so heavily in your favor all you had to do was push buttons randomly and you STILL would have probably won!" Noah shouted at the top of his lungs, using his powers to make his voice seem even louder and more commanding, as he berated the dejected looking group of Brotherhood Harbingers, and the two Apostles who'd made it back to the Great Endeavor, tails tucked firmly between their legs, Gundams battered and beaten, having left all of their pride and hubris on the battleground, along with much of their armor and weapons! Not to mention at least one of their own comrades, if not two!

Noah still couldn't figure out why Michael had ejected from the Vengeance, especially in such a situation... he was aware of course that Michael's past was intermingled with those of the people on board the Archangel, but Michael was a goddamned LATENT, just like his father had been! Noah's control over him should have been near absolute! It must have been some sort of malfunction... but that was equally impossible! Because that would mean the fault would lie with NOAH, for making faulty gear! And that just was NOT possible! Not with the Vengeance, more so than almost anything else! It was his penultimate work! It was the only one of the lower tech Gundam models he even slightly cared about! It was the foundation, the giant's shoulders he had stepped upon in order to create his true masterpiece, and for that reason it had a special place in his heart! That was why he hadn't immediately activated its self destruct device, like he could have done, to blow the Seraph and the Archangel and much of the surrounding area into space ash... something so petty was beneath the Vengeance's worth to him! It just didn't make any sense...

Noah turned his reptilian gaze back to the thoroughly cowed Harbingers, and the less cowed but still subdued Apostles. His rage simmered close beneath the surface, practically making his eyes glow, their pure golden pupils shining in the gloom of this part of the Great Endeavor. The change was complete. The product was finished. The tests were complete and satisfactory! His numbered days had suddenly increased by several orders of magnitude! Now he was truly an Ultimate Coordinator, even more so than he had been before! No weaknesses, no faults, no flaws... just one hundred percent pure enlightened being! But just because he was enlightened did not mean he was beyond the reach of petty emotions, such as rage and a desire to take it out on someone, even if they didn't strictly deserve it. "On your knees before your Prophet!" Noah directed harshly. The Harbingers complied immediately, bowing in abject religious terror before the manifestation of the Angel's divine anger. As he'd hoped though, Randolf and Dylan, neither being particular strong adherents of the Brotherhood cult, were rather slower to follow such a humiliating directive.

"I said get on your KNEES!" Noah snarled, focusing his rage fueled power down on the two of them, stripping away their conscious control of their bodies and dropping them both to a kneeling position, arms held rigidly at their sides, eyes bugging out of their faces as they both struggled to not only break free of this sudden odd paralyzation, but even to draw breath. Awed murmurs spread throughout the ranks of the Harbingers as they watched the humbling of the two proud Apostles by the power of the divine. "Choke yourselves unconscious as penance, and be thankful for my mercy." Noah directed, keeping up the pressure even as he smiled maliciously at them, as they squirmed and wriggled, their minds like bugs beneath his mental heel, even as their hands lifted up and wrapped around their own throats, squeezing tighter and tighter. In truth, there was no need to verbalize his instructions, though it did make concentrating easier... all he had to do was will it to happen, and it would. No matter how much they fought him, it would happen eventually. They were the old kind, the obsolete, the cast off remains of a useless race that would soon phase into the depths of history to be forgotten by the chosen people! His people!

Noah turned his back on the assembled Brotherhood soldiers, confident that his utmost displeasure had been adequately displayed, and his absolute power reaffirmed once more. By turning his attention away from the task at hand, his mental compulsions would rapdily lose strength, but then again, he'd already proved his point, hadn't he? Dylan and Randolf were sure to be resentful for being used as examples like that, but so what? What could they do to him now? If they ran he would crush them like gnats. If they fought, he would do the same. No, they had choice now but to serve at his whim, even if they didn't realize it yet! Maybe if they served well enough, faint chance though that seemed to have of occuring, he'd make something useful of their remains, after a proper amount of Red EDEN processing... a bed, or a couch, or maybe a pet kennel. Yes, a kennel sounded good.

Truth be told, things hadn't actually gone entirely as bad as he'd made it sound. He'd suffered some personal setbacks, a few unpleasant surprises, and his anger had gotten the better of him, something he'd need to watch out for in the future. Yes, it was disappointing that even with the nearly full might of the Brotherhood, they had been unable to destroy Galileo or the Solar Knights, much less kill Gilbert, but in the greater scheme of things, it hardly mattered a bit. Perhaps he'd even had a valuable learning experience, now that he'd seen the Clyne Faction Gundams really cut loose with their biggest and best maneuvers. If they were holding back still, then they were not the people he'd researched! They'd put everything they had into destroying the Revenant, and it was good for them they had, because otherwise it would not have been enough! Hell, what THEY still didn't know was, it HADN'T been enough! Though the Revenant was almost seventy eight percent destroyed, the core power section along with the "cockpit" and main control unit had survived, more or less intact. The "wreckage" had become part of the debris belt, crash landing and burying itself in the ruins of Junius Seven, a very ironic location if Noah had ever seen one. The damage was grievous... but it was NOT beyond the capbility of the Revenant to recover from, eventually. It would take weeks, but with an abundance of raw materials from the colony ruins... the Revenant had not gone back to its grave just yet!

The loss of Mary and her Gundam was a little more definite, and was truly the second greatest loss the Brotherhood had suffered at Galileo, after the loss of Michael. He cursed whatever cosmic twist of fate had led to the Tormented's remote self destruct system being damaged at the same time as the machine was disabled, but there was nothing he could do about it now, was there? The thought of grimy, tech grubbing scientists from Orb or who knows where else pawing through his creation, tearing it apart, pilfering its secrets, copying his hard work, was enough to make his skin crawl and make bile boil in his throat, but he consoled himself with the fact that much of the truly important tech, such as the NIC-III system or the Positron Reflector, was no doubt decades ahead of any possible understanding by mere Naturals or Coordinators... even if they had his tech, they couldn't understand it or replicate it! And Mary, delightful Mary, couldn't tell them a thing, even if she wanted to! She had no better idea how her Gundam worked than a third grader might! And a Natural third grader at that! He wished her interrogator luck... making a mute person spill their guts was not going to be easy, especially considering the depths of her personal loyalty to him!

Of much greater concern was Michael of course. Noah could hope that his erstwhile bodyguard had been run over by a starship or hit by a stray munition, but he knew better than to assume such a thing. In all likelihood, Michael was now also a prisoner of the USN or Orb or someone. The difference between Mary and Michael was that Michael ACTUALLY knew things that could be... problematic... if they became public knowledge too soon. He knew about Green EDEN, for one, if not precisely what it did. He knew the location of the Great Endeavor. He knew about the relationship between Noah and Durandel. He was also quite sharp, for a Natural, and there was no telling what other tidbits of information he'd happened to pick up while hanging around. Perhaps worst of all, in Noah's estimation, he knew about MEYRIN! Bad enough that Durandel had to know, putting her under the eye of the Clyne Faction and who knew what other forces was enough to drive him to distraction! Because he knew that Michael would eventually spill his guts. It was a constant of interrogation... the person under questioning always talked. Especially in modern times, where hypnosis and drug treatments could negate even the strongest of wills. Michael would talk. It was only a matter of time. Not long either, given that he was likely to be quickly recognized as a senior Brotherhood member, given his piloting of the Vengeance. They would not waste time in questioning him.

That meant that certain things would have to be accelerated. Noah found himself comfortable with the idea. His plans were largely set in stone by now anyway, except for a few small details here and there. He was already upon the percipice, looking down the slope at the goal line. All it would take is a mere slight shove here or there and then he would be on his way and nothing, not man, not god, not machine, could stop him once he started! The orders would go out within the next few hours, though it would take a few days for anything to truly start occuring. Things had to start small after all, because the only vulnerability to his plans was that if they were stopped before they could get started, well, then they would amount to nothing! Once things had gathered sufficient inertia, like any massive object, he could just roll over any little bumps or obstructions, like the USN. But he had to get started first, and not be interrupted while doing it. The next few days were going to be busy ones, he was sure. Durandel was surely not going to take what he would definitely be smart enough to see as an assassination attempt by Noah lying down. Noah was not sure whether Gil's reaction was going to be political or military, or some combination of both, but he did know that Gil was certainly not going to pull any punches. It was just too bad that Gil was a highschool lightweight trying to punch in the world championship heavyweight league...

Rey had also cut off contact with him, following Galileo. He was not surprised, but he was saddened. He truly did like Rey, and not just because he was a Latent, the first Latent he'd ever encountered even. He was fun to be around, and Noah truly had no ill feelings for the man who had become his first friend, if not altogether voluntarily. The important thing was that the feeling HAD been there, somewhere. But now they were going to be enemies, and eventually Rey would probably be able to throw off Noah's loyalty enhancing mental manipulations and fine tunings, especially without Noah around to renew them with constant contact. Noah wasn't that worried about Rey spilling his share of Noah's secrets to Gil and the USN though. By the time Rey had mustered the nerve and the willpower to spill his guts to Gil, things would be well over with and past the point where it would matter. In short, though he had suffered a few losses, nothing truly had changed for the worst, and as a matter of fact he'd actually come out somewhat ahead of the game. He still remembered throwing a huge fit during the events of the battle itself, when the Tormented was captured and the Revenant blasted to pieces, but that was now just an embarassing memory. He had a responsibility to look forward to the future now.

Speaking of the future, perhaps it was time to look in on the windfalls the Vengeance had brought back with it. As per the programming, the Vengeance had activated its security systems the moment it had detected unauthorized entry after the emergency ejection of the designated pilot, locking out even the most basic of controls and activating the remote control system, while also utilizing the Gravitic Reduction System, mark II, which consisted of strong magnetic fields gripping the metallic salts inside a human body, immobilizing them inside a sheath of pure force, to subdue the intruders and keep them from attempting to damage the Vengeance's interior. The original GRS, which had been part of the Pulsar, had also used magnetic fields, but only to help stabilize the physical structure of the Gundam itself... the safety of the pilot had entirely been reliant on the aerated gel filling the cockpit region, which was less efficient than the current system, which only required a gel filled flight suit for cushioning. He was currently working on making a purely magnetic based system, where there would be no need of gel, aereated or otherwise, at all, but he was still on the theoretical parts of that. It was neither here nor there though.

He'd been surprised to see who had tried to board and capture the Vengeance. One of the two captured pilots was supposed to be dead and gone, or at least stranded out in the Asteroid Belt, while the other was someone he actually knew personally, amazing as the chances of that were! He directed his steps towards some of the lower storage levels of the Great Endeavor, where he was keeping the healthier captive. The Great Endeavor had never been designed with a prison in mind, and though there were many secure spaces, there were few secure spaces that also did not contain vital systems that it really wouldn't be wise to confine a potentially dangerous prisoner alongside with. Though the pilot didn't really look like much, indeed he reminded Noah of a particularly ugly monkey on first sight, all muscle and bulk compacted into a too short body, but Noah knew these particular appearances were quite deceptive. Indeed, Markov Ashino's brutish form concealed quite the intriguing combination of sharp observation skills and a cunning tactical mind, almost entirely untainted by the mental flaws that had plagued the BCPU project from day one.

Noah snorted with slight amusement, as he reflected upon the fact that this Markov Ashino was probably the first... and only... success of the BCPU program, as conceived by dear old Uncle Frank, that poor, stupid, misguided bastard Uncle of his! A Coordinator of his abilities, working for Blue Cosmos, of all people, AGAINST Coordinators!? Well, at least Noah didn't have to worry about being the skeleton in his family's closet... Uncle Frank had that title nailed down pretty good! He'd gotten everything he'd deserved when the Archangel had collapsed JIHAD down on top of him, if he hadn't died before then, as some intelligence had suggested. In any case, his death had been ignoble and base, and fitting for such a idealistic idiot like him. Though Noah did, somewhat, miss having someone to sparr with... because of his unique situation, seperated from the rest of the family by a great gulf of distance and ideology, Uncle Frank hadn't ever been around for Noah to get into his head, and had thus been one of the few people, before Meyrin and his time around her friends and family anyway, that Noah had ever had a real, uninfluenced conversation with.

Over the course of some of those conversations, Noah had learned quite a bit about Uncle Frank's hobby and self proclaimed "Idealized Coordinator Substitute", the BCPU Project. BCPU's... Biological Computer Processing Units... were, according to Uncle Frank anyway, what Humanity should have created to improve themselves, using after the fact biomedical and artificial implant technologies, not the pre-genital and embryonic genetic manipulations that led to Coordinators. Which just went to show, to Noah anyway, that Uncle Frank was totally nuts. Yes, BCPU's were "understandable" and "quantifiable" in ways that Coordinators were not, but that was only true of the successful, unflawed products... of which of course there was only ever the one, Ashino. All the others were, well, to put it mildly, even less quantifiable or understandable than aliens from Jupiter! Noah shuddered, thinking of what would have happened to Humanity if things had been done according to how Uncle Frank saw things, and the future of Humanity had been placed into the hands of people like Cray or worse, FROST!? It would have been Apocalypse. Plain and simple. The end of the world. Yeah... BCPU's were an okayish idea, especially in their capacity as war machine pilots... but really, Uncle Frank was just a nutcase. A conversationally involving nutcase though. One of the few to even somewhat understand what Noah was, and what he was going to be capable of, what he now WAS capable of!

The bulky, almost offensively stark outlines of two tripedal Automatic Sentry Units, which were crude robots he'd first built when he was just starting out on the path that would lead to the Brotherhood and his much greater, more refined creations like Phlegethion and Aether, loomed ahead of him, down the hallways a bit. Both of the ASU's, which were slightly shorter than a human, if looking not at all humanoid, being boxy and made of armored steel and plastics, with a pair of deadly Linear Rifles and a Personal Beam Cannon apiece in semi-turreted mounts on their sides and front, were facing a hazardous materials storage space that had had its contents shifted elsewhere, in order to make room for being used as a prison. Though the room itself, more a steel plated vault with a heavy, slide down door made of translucent exo-glass almost a half foot thick, was impossible to escape in Noah's estimation, given how his luck seemed to be going lately, he'd erred on the side of caution, and had deployed the ASU's to keep Ashino under constant survelliance and guard. Although, to be honest, unless Ashino managed to get out of the steel plated room or through the six inch thick exo-glass, there wasn't much the relatively light armaments of the ASU's could do to him, and if he was capable of escaping or getting through the glass, then Noah wouldn't think two clunky ASU's would be all that much more a hindrance to someone of those capabilities.

When he came into view of the storage room-prison, Ashino was at first sitting cross legged on the floor before the doorway, hands clasped in his lap, with his face relaxed and slack as he napped, or at least appeared to. As Noah got closer though, his eyes opened and he stood up, fully awake and alert in less than a second, if he ever had not been. Noah knew the storage room was sound tight, so Ashino must have felt the slight vibrations Noah made when walking through the passageway outside. An impressive feat in some ways, given the number of different vibrations that constantly pulsed through the structure of the Great Endeavor from various sources anyway. Yes, the capabilities of the BCPU, this BCPU in particular, were not to be underestimated, and his lack of glaring insanity made him far more dangerous than the other two, as far as Noah felt. Though to be entirely honest with himself, he wasn't sure he would have been able to come face to face with Frost, even through six inches of exo-glass, so maybe there was something to be said for a personality of pure, unadulterated chaos and mayhem.

Noah was used to dealing with Frost and Cray, both of whom had sodden, blood caked mires of minds, that were an absolute agony to tread within, or even near, for very long. He'd only attempted a deep contact with Frost the one time, and though he had succeeded in temporarily disabling the BCPU, preventing him from dealing gross damage to the PLANTS, the effort and backlash had almost been not worth the effect. He'd been in more regular contact with Cray, who was less abrasive, mentally speaking, than Frost... merely sickening, rather than actively painful or disorienting, the difference between tear gas and nerve gas. He'd never enjoyed it, and had often done almost everything he could think of to avoid having to do it, even though giving Cray "pleasant" dreams was his one surefire method of carrot and sticking the reticent BCPU into cooperation, at least without massive collateral damage. Upon realizing who Ashino was, Noah had cringed, expecting to be assaulted on his more sensitive perceptions by another inky, filth clotted blot of a mind. To his great surprise, and even intriguement, that had not been the case. The opposite, if anything. For not only was Ashino's mind not painful... it was, at least as far as Noah could feel... not there at all! Even insects and the most basic of small animals had more mental presence than Ashino, who might as well have been a machine, for all that Noah's Newtype senses could discern!

It was nearly as disconcerting as Cray or Frost's diseased minds... bad as they were, at least they were THERE! Being able to see Ashino, to look into his eyes and see thoughts being thought, even emotions being felt, and yet not being able to FEEL those same things, when ordinarily Noah was bombarded with everything other people nearby were thinking and feeling was... frightening. It was like he'd lost his ears, or his sense of touch across his entire body, and not voluntarily, like what happened when he shut himself down to be around Meyrin! Now, he was TRYING to listen, TRYING to influence... and as far as he could tell, he might as well shut himself down! He'd never had this happen before... never imagined it was even possible! No thinking creature should be invisible to his power! What sort of mind could be invisible like that!? He almost wanted to ask Ashino, but he knew the odds of Ashino actually knowing about his mental immunity were astronomically low, and the chances of him being able to explain it to Noah were even slimmer. Was this a different form of a manifestation of Newtype powers? Noah didn't think so... even a shielded mind was still THERE, just inaccessible. Besides, Uncle Frank had known a little bit about Newtypes... no way he would have had one under his nose for years and years and not figured it out!

Noah activated the intercomm beside the door, as he gathered his thoughts and met Ashino's gaze calmly, though his mind roiled with all sorts of thoughts, to the point where he had to actively concentrate to bring himself back to the here and now, and the reasons for Noah being here, rather than just having Ashino tossed into a Red EDEN vat and converted into a small amount of useful building materials. Noah was just about to introduce himself, when Ashino beat him to the punch... an annoying side effect of not being able to get a cue or prompt from listening to Ashino's mind was that he had no idea when or what Ashino was going to say, especially as he did not know the BCPU Four well at all and had no frame of reference to guide him. "You have the look of someone important." Ashino observed calmly. "Or at least someone who wants to look important... its a tad bit overdone, those robes are, in my opinion. Of course, according to sources I respect, I have no fashion sense at all, so maybe ritualistic robes are the new "in" thing. Somehow I doubt it though."

"It isn't my garment of choice either." Noah replied, counseling himself to be polite and agreeable. Ashino could be a tremendous boon to his cause, if wooed properly. It was about damn time he got some truly GOOD pilots of his own, so that his forces would stop getting their asses kicked up around their ears in every serious battle! "Rather, it's something I wear in order to satisfy a... ceremonial role, forced upon me by special circumstances beyond my full control." Noah shrugged. He'd never intended for the Brotherhood creed to become a full flung religion, with texts and mythology and whatnot, having come up with the whole thing as more of a moral ideology or rationality for what he was doing. Noah didn't believe in Gods or divine powers or anything he could not see, measure or create himself. Which was not to say though, that he could not see the use and utility of followers who believed him divine. As they said, anything sufficiently advanced would seem like magic to primitive peoples, and what was basic to an Ultimate Coordinator was patently magical to a regular Natural or Coordinator, even though it came about as a result of Natural and Coordinator science! And he was rather fond of the idea of him and his kind as "Angels"... a very poetic image.

"Oh, so you're only a religious nutjob because other people expect you to be. That must be rough." Ashino commented, with more than a hint of sarcasm. "My advice... grow a spine and stand on your own. Its harder, but you feel much better at the end of the day."

"A certain degree of irritation is to be expected from someone in your position, but take care with your words." Noah advised, through gritted teeth. He really, really hated being mocked, especially by inferior beings! "If I want to, I could have you rendered down into salt for my dinner table, and there's not a thing you could do to stop me!"

"If you believe that, come into the room with me and say it again." Ashino countered. "As your prisoner, I should advise you that I have no intention of being at all civil or cooperative with you, a terrorist, mass murderer and a Coordinator to boot! So, as another friend of mine would say... go fuck yourself, pretty boy. If you're going to kill me, then kill me. That you are instead threatening me in order to get me to behave suggests elsewise though, as denoted by several things. For one, you have an insecure ego... being mocked gets to you, even if its from someone who is completely within your power. In fact, me being helpless against your ability to kill me makes my mockery WORSE in your eyes, because you can't understand why I'm not afraid of you. For two, not only are you insecure, you are arrogant, and you have great trouble with the idea that other people might be just as observant or smart or perceptive as you are, if not more so in some ways. This feeds your insecurity when you come up against proof of your less than total domineering ability. For three, you want me for something. There is something I can do for you that you can not easily get elsewhere, which is why you are trying to get the upper hand in our brief relationship, so you can negotiate terms to your advantage. As this analysis perhaps shows you, that's NOT going to happen."

"I don't believe it." Noah muttered, half to himself. "I find myself wishing I was talking to Cray, of all people! At least he didn't presume to lecture me on anything but the intricasies of sociopathism and the various shadings of the word "evil"! Truly, Uncle Frank broke the molds when he made the three of you!"

Ashino didn't like to admit it, but the casual reference to the Doc, especially by first name, and with "Uncle" tacked onto the front, unsettled him more than just a little bit. He'd already known, of course, that Cray had been working with or for the Brotherhood, ever since seeing the Revenant at Galileo. But to hear that this person, very likely the leader of the Brotherhood, at least by the way he talked and acted, despite his boyish looks, not only knew of the Doc, and the BCPU project, but was even RELATED to the Doc! Ashino found a nearly forgotten phrase, spoken by the Doc shortly before his death, floating up through his memory. Something about a "regrettable nephew up in the PLANTS"! There was something else too... something that that had been said as a qualifying statement for. Doc had been comparing this supposed nephew to someone or something. Ashino shrugged, fractionally. It would come to him in time. His memory was not designed to forget things, unless his creators wanted him to. He saw that the "nephew" was watching him intently, and upped his estimation of the little bastard... he may be full of bluster and brag, but he had some substance to him as well. He was more dangerous than Ashino had initially given him credit for.

"Yes, I know the "Doc"." Noah smiled, having seen Ashino's slight facial tic at his casual reference to Uncle Frank. "I know him better than you do, I'm sure. After all, you're just one of his little golems, if the best of the bunch, and I... well, I was the thing he hated, feared and loved more than anything else."

"I believe you are mistaken. That thing he feared, hated and loved more than anything else was Zacharis Frost, who was, in HIS belief, the best of the bunch of us, his most favored "son". According to the Doc, I was one of his biggest disappointments and failures, because I questioned orders and did not act like a "golem" at all." Ashino replied with certainty. "You were someone he only ever mentioned in passing."

"I wouldn't expect Uncle Frank to talk about his family with his creations." Noah answered lightly. "Its something of a Borander tradition to not get too friendly with the hired... or self made... help. Only through maintaining proper distance and detachment can one keep the mind clear and focused to make entirely rational business decisions, as my father used to say."

"Sounds lonely. Not much time for a social life, I would imagine. Tends to warp people, when they think they have no peers. Even Frost wasn't so arrogant as to think himself peerless, merely unique." Ashino noted, wondering when the banal conversation would end and his captor would get to the point of his presence.

"I have two peers, at the moment." Noah replied, with a slight grin. "In a month or two, I'm going to have a LOT more." His grin widened quite a bit, and even more so at the brief expression of bafflement that crossed Ashino's face. "As for social life, well, yes, that is true. Fortunately for me, I don't follow my father's advice when its stupid. He was a very... limited man, for all his academic knowledge and business acumen. The family was everything to him, you see. For me, it was more the family resources that were important... the family itself was... well, I don't consider those people my family. They were nothing like me at all! They were as much my family as the Doc was your father!"

"I sense a deeper issue than you might want to see a professional counseler for help with..."

"Enough with this pointless maneuvering!" Noah shook his head and frowned, irritated with himself for being drawn into a game of verbal parry and thrust with a BCPU... given how such experiences had historically gone for him, you'd have thought he'd have learned better by now! "You're right, Markov, that I do want you for something, which is why you are still alive and not filling the cafeteria condiment shakers right now."

"Well, hurry up and make your offer then, so I can laugh in your face, deny you and send you away to your room so you can sniffle and cry about what a meanie I am." Ashino retorted, with a dark smirk.

Noah calmed himself down with a large effort of will. Like it or not, he was the one asking... ASKING... for Ashino's service at the moment, and Ashino, with his damnable mental invisibility, currently held the advantage! He would have to discover some chink... some weakness in Ashino's smug, mocking facade to use against the BCPU to make up for the loss of advantage. "Before I do that, perhaps we should discuss what sort of things I can do for you, in exchange for what I want to ask of you." Noah decided to take a different tack. He didn't think bribery would work on Ashino, given how the conversation had gone so far, but perhaps there was something Ashino wanted, something he valued, that Noah could acquire for him and use as payment, at least until he figured out a way to get around the mental invisibility, and could permanently ensnare the bastard!

"There is absolutely nothing you can do for me that I would consider fair exchange for even giving you my middle name." Ashino assured his captor. "You can have this middle finger for free though." He held up the digit in question, all alone.

"It's Johanovich. And you can be crude or mocking if you want, but it doesn't change the fact that you're lying. To me and yourself, if you really believe that." Noah spat back. "I am the Prophet of the Brotherhood of Man, the most far reaching, technologically advanced and powerful criminal organization in history! There is quite literally nothing I can not acquire or accomplish for you, should I want to. I could smother you in a bank vault filled with one thousand dollar bills if that's what you wanted, and then burn them all and not even feel the loss!"

"Money means nothing to me, though I understand its value to others." Ashino shook his head. "I can not be bribed, because I detest you on a personal level, and no amount of material recompense could possibly overcome that feeling."

"A man after my own heart. Money is a foolish concept, and soon enough... a worthless one too. But I digress. If material objects hold no value for you, perhaps I can offer something less material. My intelligence and sensor operations showed me your little confrontation with the Solar Knights. Odd to find the Gundam Pilot of the USN fighting against the USN's newest and greatest "protectors", don't you think?" Noah asked, with a confident smirk at Ashino's blank face. Noah had no intention of mentioning his involvment in Durnadel's plot on Ashino's life of course, but that didn't mean he didn't think that perhaps playing on that event might be the way to make this reticent little golem see the light of reason! "Indeed, if my intel is correct, you seemed to have been in the midst of perhaps making an attempt on the good SecDef's life, before being interrupted by the Solar Knights. I wonder what could have caused such a... rift between champion and championed?"

"Don't pretend like you don't know, it only fuels my hatred for you, and people like you." Ashino warned. "I very well remember the Brotherhood forces that attacked and destroyed the Asteroid Belt Exploratory station, after they annihilated the USN Mobile Forces sent as backup for the assassins sent to kill me. If you are the leader of the Brotherhood, there is no way you could be ignorant of why I would be trying to kill Gilbert Durandel. A suspicious person might even think you had something to do with the attack. And I am a very suspicious person."

"Nothing could be further from the truth." Noah dissembled with a smile. "My forces detected that USN task force and diverted to destroy them as part of my ongoing strategy of harassing the USN. It had nothing to do with you at all. You honestly think I would care about someone as comparatively minor as you enough to want to kill you, when I am matching wits against the entirety of the USN, and the leaderships of the other member-states? Don't flatter yourself. Before today, you meant nothing at all to me."

"Regrettably, there is sense in what you say." Ashino grudgingly admitted. "It is true that I have very personal reasons for wanting Gilbert Durandel dead. He has wronged me terribly, and there is simply no way, in the normal, legal course of things, that I could bring him to justice for his actions, because I lack the political power to even ruffle his hairstyle. I fail to see though, any way in which you, who sent Cray in that massive Judgement-esque super-Gundam to destroy Galileo and presumably Durandel as well, and failed despite that, could offer me anything to help with my vendetta. Both of us have tried to kill Durandel, and for all your technology and power, I still got far closer than you did, by myself."

"Through luck. He assumed you were dead, and you had all the proper codes for entry to the base, plus the cover of my attack. You think you'd have gotten nearly as close before he noticed, without the Revenant there tying up all their attention?" Noah countered. "You were also hampered by being forced to use a Gundam that, while impressive at its time of manufacture, was five years out of date at the time of its destruction, when you needed its power the most. Think of how much more you would have been able to do with a new Gundam, a cutting edge model made with technology unmatched by anything the USN or even Orb can muster? You BCPU's were made to be paired with a Gundam, being without one must make you feel somewhat lonely, I would imagine."

"You are offering to give me a new Gundam, with Brotherhood technology?" Ashino did not quite ask.

"Its the very least I could do. In fact I will do it in addition to anything else you want, with no extra expectations or strings attached. I can hardly expect a pilot to operate without a machine, after all." Noah smiled, wondering if the hook had been set. If so, it had definitely gone in easier than he'd been expecting from the earlier tone of the conversation.

"Well, the BCPU side of me definitely appreciates the thought, but the majority human side of me has to repeat my earlier suggestion... go fuck yourself, kid." Ashino replied firmly. "The loss of the Independence saddens me, but I, counter to the design principles of the BCPU, have found someone else to attract the majority of my affections, other than my Gundam. I can live without a Gundam. Easily, even."

"But not without this "someone else", I take it?" Noah prompted, only to jerk back when Ashino slammed into the exo-glass, moving with blurring speed even to Noah's enhanced senses, punching the unyielding exo-glass hard enough to make it shiver, an impressive feat for all the lack of real effect. Noah saw the snarl on Ashino's face and both exulted and sweated a bit. Well, he'd been looking for a chink in the BCPU's armor, and he seemed to have found one... but exploiting it was looking like it might be a delicate process.

"Do not even BEGIN to threaten her!" Ashino snapped, pushing himself slowly away from the impenetrable glass, maintaining fierce eye contact with the golden eyed freak on the other side. "She is innocent, and has nothing to do with me, besides our mutual feelings of love! She was caught between people after me and their target once before, and..." Ashino trailed off, not wanting to discuss Jean with this smug, pretty boy bastard! "Do not threaten her to try and get my cooperation. I will tear you limb from limb if you even breath in her direction."

"You wound me with your assumptions." Noah said mildly. "I was..."

"Not nearly enough I don't." Ashino grated out, fists still clenched into white knuckled fists. "Come in here and I'll show you how wounding my assumptions can really be!"

"As I was saying..." Noah said, after clearing his throat and seeing that Ashino was done for the moment. "I'm sorry if my words sounded threatening, because I really did not mean them like that. Obviously this person, this girl, is someone that is deeply important to you. Her name would be Jean Kellson, if memory serves, right?" Noah heard Ashino growl, like a mastiff just before it charged an intruder, and hurried on. "From the way you spoke when you mentioned how she'd been caught between you and your enemies before, I took it to mean she had suffered during that encounter, am I right?" Ashino did not reply, merely stared coldly back at him. "How badly is she hurt then?" Noah wondered. He smiled inwardly, seeing the BCPU begin to struggle with himself, as what Noah was hinting at began getting through. Given Ashino's rabid reaction, obviously something fairly serious had happened to this Jean Kellson as a result of Durandel's attack. It was a raw wound, and thus easy to pick at. However, it was also a wound that Noah could relatively easily heal, should he desire to and should Ashino give him a chance. "I promise you, swearing on all I hold holy, that I mean her no harm at all, the opposite even." Noah assured Ashino.

"The assurances of a terrorist... are worth less than the paper they're printed on." Ashino said, but he said it slowly, obviously thinking deeply. "I sent her to be with friends, who will get her the finest medical care available, and who will keep her safe from anyone who tries to do her harm in order to get to me... whether it be Durandel or you or anyone else!"

"Well, excuse me for saying this, but even if you sent her to Orb, and can get the full on royal treatement, that's still medical technology that's several years out of date, by the standards of the Brotherhood. I have a medical doctorate, amongst my other academic and scientific qualifications. I promise you, no matter what injury or affliction she has suffered, I can cure her, in a matter of days even!"

"You can't cure amputated limbs." Ashino said desolately.

Noah smirked and shook his head. "No. THEY can't cure amputated limbs, but me... its no problem at all to me, Markov. I can replace every major organ in her body, every blood vessel, every muscle, every bone, even her entire skin and hair if necessary, so that she's as good as new. I even have a special aptitude for dealing with brain injuries and other mental or emotional side effects of delerious injuries."

"I don't believe you. You would say anything and there is no way I could know if you were being truthful or not." Ashino retorted, though Noah was sure he heard a note of interested desperation in the BCPU's voice. So the girl's injuries were severe then... to the point where even the person who loved her most had given up hope of a complete recovery. And indeed, relying on "modern" medicine, amputations, especially ones that weren't seen to immediately, were beyond the scope of doctors to fix, beyond crude prosthetics that could give the appearance of normality, if not the function. And brain injuries were still hit or miss, since most doctors could not peer into the psyche of their patient to fully determine what was ailing them. However, Noah had long ago mastered cloning, even human cloning, and thus manufacturing a few surplus limbs and reattaching them would be easy, once he had a sample of her genecode. And with his Newtype abilities, he could soothe almost any sort of mental trauma she might have suffered... he was more than familiar with doing that for the girls at the Institute. He had the key... it was now a question of getting Markov to believe him!

"An understandable stance from someone in your position." Noah replied with an understanding smile. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm heading up to the medical section to speak to the other prisoner, who, you may or may not be interested to know, will be back on his feet by tomorrow, despite the damage his body suffered. After my visit there, I'll arrange to have you brought up so you can look for yourself at just what sort of medical resources I have at my command, and I'll even let you poke around a bit to make sure its not all just a farce, as long as you promise to not try and damage or destroy anything. I don't know the particulars of the situation that troubles you, Markov, but from the sound of things, I and the Brotherhood, might be the last good hope of your "someone else". Think about it for a while. Observe things around here some. And then give me your answer in a few days. I'm in no rush." Having said his piece and baited the hook, Noah turned to go, eager to get on with the myriad tasks he had still to do, not least his "interview" with Shinn Asuka, the other prisoner!

"One thing more." Ashino interrupted him. "You know my name, and more about me than I would have thought possible for a Coordinator. But if I am to entertain even slightly the thought of working with you in exchange for your help on certain matters, I would like to know your name first. Prophet doesn't work for me."

"Certainly. My name is Noah Borander. Please, call me Noah." Noah replied, as polite as he could manage. Seeing that Ashino had nothing else to say, Noah gave him a final nod and then walked away, leaving the BCPU alone with his thoughts and the two ASU's. Now for Shinn, who Noah was sure would be MUCH more tractable, given that he wasn't mentally invisible! Indeed, in his drugged and medicated state, Shinn would hardly ever be more vulnerable to Noah's abilities! He was almost skipping with excitement after a few steps... having Shinn Asuka just fall into his lap was almost enough to make him believe in divine providence after all! Not only had a top notch pilot fallen into his control, but he'd simultaneously found a way to strike back at Lunamaria in a way that would leave her crushed and broken without having to worry about getting Meyrin angry at him by damaging her physically, more than just repayment for her battering of Achilles! Not only that, but he had a new project to work his mind around, designing a Gundam for Ashino... regretably he probably wouldn't have time to make it fully the equal of the Vengeance, because of how long large QC structures took to build, but he could get close. Very close. He wondered what he would call it? The Retribution had a nice ring to it...

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Waltfeld looked up from where he was sitting, in one of the Archangel's scattered mess halls, one of the ones closest to the medical section, where the "special prisoner" was being held for the moment, while undergoing a thorough battery of tests, both to ensure his good health and to completely confirm his identity, past any possible shadow of a doubt. Not that there was much of one of those, not for him and especially not for Murrue, Waltfeld reflected, with a unfamiliar feeling of bitterness that had nothing to do with the taste of the black as pitch, overly strong coffee he'd brewed for himself. The reason he'd looked up from his introverted musings spotted him at once and made his way over to stand opposite the table from Waltfeld. Kira looked down at him expectantly, a pained and excited expression on his face, every inch the look Waltfeld had been dreading ever since he'd first met Mu's eyes and recognized the man as definitely being Mu la Flaga. Cagalli, with Athrun in tow, entered the room a few seconds behind Kira, who had probably been nearly sprinting from the hanger bay after he heard the rumor spreading like wildfire around the ship. Miriallia and Dearka lurked by the doorway, within earshot of the conversation if not actively part of it. Mu la Flaga coming back from the dead was big news by itself... for the Clyne Faction, it was the biggest news of the decade. Which was why this was going to be so hard...

"Is it...?" Kira started to ask.

Waltfeld sighed and took another sip of his coffee, cutting the kid off with an upraised hand. Draining the cup, even as the hot liquid seared down his throat and made him cough a little, wishing it was a different kind of fire, the alcoholic type, that would blur his thoughts and make the pounding headache go away, at least for a little while. Sadly, he just didn't have the time to get smashed out of his head, especially given the state Murrue was in... the Archangel needed a Captain, and right now Murrue could barely eat for herself, much less command the ship. Waltfeld slammed his cup down, a little harder than he'd intended, chipping the bottom of the thick ceramic mug on the table. "Yes. It's true. The captured Brotherhood pilot, the one we think was in the Vengeance. It's Mu la Flaga." Waltfeld said flatly and wearily. He listened to the chorus of gasps and felt like wincing. This was going to be an utter bloody mess.

"But how is that possible?" Cagalli asked, more demanded. "I didn't see him die with my own eyes, but I saw the sensor logs, just like everyone else! He took a Lohengrin blast full on! The Strike was turned to scrap! Captain Ramius has his HELMET in her room, with the face shield shattered out!"

"Well, why don't we start with the questions I can't possibly answer, before we move on to questions NO ONE can possibly answer!" Waltfeld retorted, a hair more forcefully than he'd intended, judging by the shocked look on her face. He sighed and combed his hair back with his biological hand, while his artificial arm, now resheathed in the flesh mimicking cover, rested on the tabletop. "Sorry, I'm a little on edge. But really, I have no idea. Perhaps the emergency failsafes in his helmet managed to deployed before it was ripped off his head, so he at least had the emergency bag between him and full vacuum. The damned helmet is trashed, theres no way to tell if the failsafe's deployed or were just destroyed. Given the scars on his face though, I'd say that even if the failsafe bag did deploy, it was less than fully airtight. He must've gotten picked up by someone from the PLANTS relatively quickly, or else maybe it was just something like those freak incidents, where a kid falls into a lake and still manages to come back to life like forty minutes later when they get dragged out, even though they should have been dead a half hour before. Except with vacuum. I haven't the slightest damn idea how he did it, but he did!"

"His miraculous survival aside, the bigger question is what the hell is he doing working for the Brotherhood of Man, a Coordinator Supremacist group? Even scarred, there's no way they didn't run a gene test on him sometime in the last seven years. They had to know who he was." Athrun mused, trying to connect the dots. Problem was, he had no idea how many dots there even were, and they seemed to have been arranged at random to boot, so that even connected they made no sense! "I didn't know him nearly as well as some, but he never struck me as the sort of person that would become a terrorist, ever. The exact opposite, if anything. He was the most famous Natural war hero... he has no reason I can think of to be part of the Brotherhood."

"Well, it helps a few things make a little more sense." Dearka spoke up from the doorway. He shrugged when everyone turned to look at him, including Miriallia. "Just saying, outside of LAS, the Vengeance had a couple good opportunities to dice the Warmaster pretty permanent like, and he instead chose to go for damage that was crippling and severe, but far from fatal. And during that Brotherhood attack, they went far out of their way to avoid damaging the city, even though ambushing inside the city limits would have been a better strategy, and more in line with their previous MO. Didn't make any sense at the time, but if Commander la Flaga was inside that Gundam, well, it seems like the sort of stuff he would do."

"How's Ms. Ramius handling it?" Kira asked, somewhat hesitantly.

"About as well as having both legs blasted off at the knee by a shotgun." Waltfeld replied, making Kira wince, but that was about as stupid a question as Kira had ever asked him, so he didn't feel too bad for rubbing his face in it. "Its not as bad as what happened right after he "died", but I'm in charge of the Archangel for the moment, let's leave it at that."

"So what are we going to do then?" Cagalli wanted to know. She didn't seem satisfied with Waltfeld's blank faced shrug. "Are we considering him a prisoner or an ally?" Cagalli pressed. Waltfeld thought for a moment, and then shrugged again. "We can't just leave this in limbo. Besides just the meaning to us, his friends and comrades, Mu la Flaga is a very well known person, one of the most famous soldiers of modern times. He's idolized by hundreds if not thousands of pilots, throughout all militaries! He's used as a role model, for god's sake! That's he's alive is huge news... but if he's working for the Brotherhood... if he's a terrorist now... that's going to be a kick in the gut to tens of thousands of people, most of them in the military! Not to mention what it'll do to his reputation... he'll go from being a hero to the worst sort of villian, in a matter of hours!"

"Well, what if he IS a villian now?" Ysak asked, having poked his head in a few seconds earlier. Everyone frowned at him, but he didn't let that bother him. "You guys are all talking like you're trying to figure out how you can spin things so he doesn't get in trouble, but face the facts... he's a member of the Brotherhood, and has been for some time. He's their senior pilot, by all appearances, as far as I've heard. He's certainly their best pilot, or at least tied with Cray, and he has the advantage of not being insane! Regardless of who he was, who he is right now is a terrorist, caught red handed and in uniform! I don't think there's any question of him being an ally right now! I understand he's a swell guy, but I would expect you guys to treat me like a criminal if I became a terrorist for some reason, and I don't see why he should get special treatment just because he used to be part of the Clyne Faction."

"If he was really a villian, he would have killed Dearka and Miriallia outside of LAS." Kira pointed out. "Or he would have destroyed the Archangel, instead of stopping short and ejecting. Its the ejecting that really makes me think that Mu was only a terrorist unwillingly, or even unknowingly."

"Unknowingly? How the hell can you be a terrorist without KNOWING that blowing up civilians is wrong?" Ysak countered flatly.

"Well, he could have been brainwashed." Katie spoke up, setting her chin on Ysak's shoulder as she stood on tiptoe to peer into the room. She smiled when she saw all the funny looks on everyone's faces. "Its not that strange a thing to consider, is it? I mean, I never knew the man personally, he was well before my time with the Clyne Faction, but I knew of him. Dad and Mom really respected him, and so did Uncle James and Uncle Victor and even Uncle Vlad had nothing bad to say about Mu la Flaga, the Hawk of Endymion. They aren't people that impress easily, as you all know. If you think about it, since his behavior has exhibited a near one hundred eighty degree moral turnabout, from heroic soldier to sorta nice terrorist... well, I just don't see a near death experience, especially one he put himself through by choice, as being the sort of catalyst for a change like that."

"That's true... but is recovering from that degree of brainwashing even possible? They'd have to have made him pretty much an entirely new personality, and if they went that far, how could he have reverted back? I mean, strong will takes you so far, but if they've had him for seven years, overcoming his programing in a matter of days or even weeks is... unlikely, to say the least." Athrun pointed out.

"Maybe he's been fighting it all this time, and only recently managed to succeed?" Kira said, somewhat defensively. This was Mu la Flaga they were talking about... he couldn't see how there was even a debate at all as to whether or not he was an ally! He was Mu la Flaga!

"Fighting it all this time and they didn't notice and put in some measures to control him?" Athrun replied, his voice full of doubt. "The Brotherhood is many things, careless or stupid is not among them. He was the pilot of the Vengeance, their most advanced Gundam... if he was brainwashed, they had to have had him under a microscope twenty four hours a day, seven days a week! Even the slightest change in behavior should have trigged a dozen different alarms, and they never would have let him sortie into a situation where he could attempt to break free."

"Using traditional brainwashing methods, such as what was used on the BCPU's at JIHAD, utilizing memory wipes and hypnotic conditioning and drugs and whatnot, I'd definitely agree with you, Athrun." Katie said. "That sort of thing is fightable, but not in such a sudden manner as a complete reversal back to "normal". From what I understand, it's taken Markov Ashino years and years to even distantly approach what he might have been were he not a BCPU, and even then, its all conjecture as to what he'd be like if he weren't a BCPU. That sort of brainwashing stays with you for life, its something you never fully get over. However, there is another type of brainwashing, one available to only a very tiny, select subset of humanity..."

"You're saying a Newtype brainwashed him?" Cagalli asked, somewhat sceptically. Katie nodded, ignoring her tone for the moment.

"We know that the Brotherhood has at least one extremely powerful Newtype, the one Ysak and I encountered named Noah, who we think is the leader of the entire organization. It is my "expert" opinion that Noah definitly has the kind of power to warp someone to his will, especially over the course of a long association, even if they are a Stump. Its not something every Newtype could do... I couldn't, and even Lacus might have trouble with it, though mostly from lack of practice... give her a few years of mind control workouts and she could probably make us all her slaves." Katie grinned at the sour expressions that briefly crossed her friend's faces. "You're just lucky Lacus is Lacus... I might actually be tempted, while she'd be horrified at the idea. But, as I was saying, if Noah used his abilities to restructure Mr. la Flaga's memories, and limit his emotions and even thought paths... I don't know the specifics, since I've never brainwashed anyone besides Ysak, and I didn't have to use Newtype powers for that... then we could very easily see the sort of actions we have with Mr. la Flaga, including the sudden turnaround.

"Brainwashed is too strong a term." Ysak mumbled.

"I was going to say housebroken, if you'd prefer?" Katie rejoined with a nasty smirk in reply to his scowl. "We could also see the sort of sudden reversal we have. Keeping someone, especially a Stump, but this also holds true for Latents I'd say, under a long term mental control like that would take either a low level amount of effort all the time or high levels of effort at periodic and not very distant intervals. In other words, you can't just mind zap someone and make them your slave for life and then send them off to do your bidding on the other side of the world, or even a few blocks away. As soon as they get out of your immediate presence, if you aren't focusing on keeping them limited, they're going to start picking at the ropes, so to speak, and eventually they WILL break free, how long just depends on the willpower of the individual. Of course, the controlling Newtype could and would just renew his binding every time he noticed it was starting to fray too much... but if they got distracted and forgot for a while... well, when the ropes snap, everything would come back all at once. It'd probably be pretty painful, and definitely disorienting. There'd prolly be a period of time where the person would be both their original self and the new person the Newtype made them be, before the old persona erased the fake one like a bad dream."

"This is fairly detailed, for sudden conjecture." Miriallia noted, with some misgiving.

"Did I say sudden conjecture? I don't remember saying that." Katie replied with a shrug. "I mean, there's no good way of saying that I've been wondering how I would mind control someone if I felt the need arose, and what the potential side effects would be, but that's about the best way to say it. Its one of a number of different uses for Newtype abilities I've been looking into. Purely for defensive reasons, of course."

"You haven't been practicing these things, have you?" Cagalli asked, her brows knitting into a deep frown.

"Not on any of you." Katie assured her. For some reason, that didn't seem to make Cagalli much happier. "You wouldn't have noticed anyway... on a Stump, the most I can do would be perhaps suggesting that they chose a new flavor of ice cream at the store, or something trivial like that, and even then I couldn't garuantee success. My abilities aren't strong in that area. I have to work really hard to even partially freeze Ysak, and he's my Latent. Communication... Communication I can spank the pants off anyone, even Lacus. But control? Not so much."

"Well, this is all well and good, if way beyond my ability to comprehend, but..." Waltfeld spoke up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, feeling his headache getting worse, not better. "It doesn't solve anything. If Mu was brainwashed, it absolves him of guilt, but still pretty much neuters him as a person, much less an ally. He's going to be considered mentally suspect or unsound for the rest of his life. No military is going to take him, not for anything important, not if he has the potential to become an enemy agent again. Who knows how many alternate persona's they might have buried in his head, or how deeply, or under what circumstances they might pop out? The scandal will still be big, no matter what happens. I'm sure he can deal with it, but the Mu la Flaga I know wouldn't be happy drifting away into obscurity as a failed hero. The guy doesn't know how to stay off center stage, its in his blood. And that's not even touching this Newtype thing... which, unless I'm very much mistaken, isn't something a non-Newtype is going to be able to detect, much less prove?"

"Yeah, you won't see much sign of it, especially once his old persona gets reacquainted with being in control." Katie confirmed. "I mean, the memories won't ever really go away... he was still "there" while they were happening, but the thought processes and emotions and a lot of other stuff... gone like they never were there at all. To most people he won't even appear like he'd been brainwashed at all."

She was about to say more when a medical orderly stepped into the room and saluted Waltfeld. "Sir, the... prisoner in question has woken up and is asking to speak to someone in charge. You said you wanted to be notified of any change in his condition."

"I did, thank you." Waltfeld dragged himself to his feet, as the orderly hurried away, a concerned expression on his face. This was definitely not going to be fun... the entire crew knew who was in the medical bay by now, and now this was going to be something that had to be discussed with the crew. An official explanation would have to be created and disseminated. And Murrue was not going to be much help, he had the feeling. He was going to need coffee. A LOT of coffee. "Well, I better go get this over with then." Waltfeld said, mostly to the empty air. He turned and saw the looks on Kira and the other's faces. "Not a chance in hell." He warned them, somewhat harshly. "The last thing we need to do is swarm the poor bastard. He ain't going anywhere, regardless of what we decide his condition is. You'll all get time to talk with him. But first I need to go over the situation with him, face to face, and I'd prefer to do that by myself. You can consider that an order, assuming you're willing to feel bound by it."

"I understand." Katie said, looking at him with uncomfortable intensity, her hand on Ysak's bare lower arm. Waltfeld took note of that, and reminded himself, perhaps a little more forcefully than necessarily need be, to have a long talk with Katie about her unrestrained use of her abilities, including but not limited to her little shocker announcement to the bridge crew. "I understand." She repeated, somewhat more subdued, taking her hand off of Ysak's arm. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath at the headache he was having, Waltfeld stepped out of the room, his body leaden, his gorge rising and his very soul itself quailing a bit at the conversation he was about to have with a man who'd once been a very good friend to him, and a lot more than that to someone whom Waltfeld now loved deeply.

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"And so, it is with a heavy heart and much personal shame that I come before you, the good citizens of the United Solar Nation, tonight to proclaim news that will shock and enrage us all." Durandel said, looking into the sea of TV camera's with his most serious, hangdog expression on his face. To his right side stood Rey, immaculate in his Solar Knights uniform, even though it was less than a half day since the end of the battle, looking out at the press ocean with a grim, focused facial mask that was the very picture of sorrow mixed with anger mixed with determination, exactly the sort of emotions Durandel wanted people to be feeling. The losses and damage suffered during the Brotherhood attack had been horrendous, if not nearly to the extent he was sure that fucking cocksucker, Noah, had been hoping, since Durandel himself was obviously not among the slain! He hadn't thought the little bastard would have had the balls to make a play to assassinate him so openly, so directly and definitely not so soon, but the evidence was impossible to ignore! Noah had fired the first shots in the engagement, but Durandel was damned if he wasn't going to hit back, and much, much harder! He'd show that cocky brat just what sort of power the Secretary of Defense of the USN had at his disposal, and by the time he was done, Noah would be wishing Durandel had only sent Gundams to grind him to paste!

"Today, this morning, a little more than eight hours ago, standard time, the terrorist organization known as the Brotherhood of Man launched an all out attack against the USN Space Fleet, headquartered at the Galileo International Lunar Fleet Base, on the dark side of Luna. Unlike previous actions by this terror group, the targets of this attack were purely military in nature, and included the construction yards where the first elements of the Solar Protection Fleet are under production, the facilities and personel of Galileo itself, including the USN and all member-state militaries, and the USN high command, including me, the Secretary of Defense. I regret to inform you that the terrorists were able to inflict heavy damage to Galileo base, and its defending forces, despite their valiant and heroic efforts. In the end, the combined efforts of the USN and the member-state military forces did see off the terrorists, nearly annihilating them in the process and destroying their most powerful weapons, but not before three thousand, four hundred and sixty nine soldiers lost their lives, with another forty five hundred wounded or injured, and the loss of almost one hundred billion dollars of infastructure and equipment." Durandel continued, reading the butcher's bill and not having to fake his shock and anger in the slightest.

"The Solar Knights fought bravely on the front lines, absorbing many of the inital casualties once they were deployed, suffering the highest attrition rates of any surviving units, at greater than sixty percent personnel losses, and closer to eighty percent equipment losses. However, their sacrifice was not without gain, and they were integral in defeating the most powerful of the Brotherhood's Gundams, known as the Revenant, by occupying its attention until support forces could set up a special weapon in order to take it out, a video of which we will be releasing at a later date. It is my strong recommendation that we should all keep their health and welfare upmost in our hearts and minds, as we pray for a swift recovery to them, and all other units which lost friends, family and loved ones to this horrible attack. As much as I wish I could tell you that there will be no more attacks, I am afraid that if we simply sit back and wait for the enemy to recover from the vicious defeat our forces made them suffer, they will not hesitate to attack us once more, and there is no telling to what new low they will stoop, now that they have been comprehensively shown that direct military action will not end favorably for them."

"Dire as the blow they struck at us was, I am sorry to admit that there is another recent discovery that will only cause more pain and shock to you, as it did to me when I learned of it. Recent intelligence operations have undeniably linked funding and other, willing material aid being supplied to the Brotherhood by none other than the philanthropist Noah Borander..." There was a low roar from the press as people reacted to that statement, but Durandel just raised his voice to speak over them, fighting hard to keep his serious mein and not smile in triumph. The little bastard probably thought Durandel was too scared to bring things into the open... well, he was dead fucking wrong! It was a risk, to be sure, but if he could convince the public that he was as much a victim as they were, which shouldn't be too hard, even if Noah tried to release evidence to the contrary, then he could at last sever all ties with his so called "ally" and put him in his place... hopefully in an unmarked grave somewhere on Pluto! "Our findings will also be made available to you at the conclusion of this briefing, because the last thing this administration needs now, especially in light of Mr. Borander's treachery, is to be hiding things from its supporters. I am sorry to say it, but we have been played, and played hard, by a devious and amoral monster, who, in a bid for personal power, sold out the good people of this world and turned his back on Humanity as a whole!"

"Arrest orders have already gone out for Mr. Borander and his chief officers, and I expect to have them in custody before the day is out." Durandel said confidently, even though Rey had doubted him in private. Durandel didn't see how it was possible for Noah to evade him for long, not with hundreds and even thousands of USN and ZAFT operatives combing the PLANTS from top to bottom for him, no matter how good the Brotherhood's secrecy was! "That is all for the moment, further information will be released, along with the identities of the injured and killed, as it becomes appropriate." Durandel stepped down from the podium and hurried off stage, ignoring the pleading chorus of "Mr. Secretary, I have a question!?" that always bombarded him, even when he specifically stated beforehand that there would be no questions. It was to his advantage to be less informative now, until they had actually gathered more information and he had a clearer view of the overall picture, so he could give a properly edited version to the media.

"Its not going to work." Rey said, as soon as they were out of public earshot. Durandel waited to reply until they were in his temporary office, with the door sealed and locked shut, and anti-eavesdropping devices activated. There wasn't even a computer in the room, that was how paranoid he was feeling at the moment. "He's not going to go down easily."

"I should hope he doesn't. It would be good, politically, if he were to go to trial and all that nonsense, but personally, I'd be just as happy if he resists arrest and gets splattered across a wall." Durandel replied with a shurg. He looked at Rey with a mixture of intensity and concern. "Have you had any luck with the... brainwashing?" He said the term as if it made his mouth hurt, which in some ways, it did. To think that Rey, his own Rey, had been brainwashed by that bastard Noah, and used to spy on him! How could he have done something like that to someone who trusted him like a kid brother!? What sort of foul being was Noah anyway... he'd always been a manipulative devil in Durandel's eyes, but even devil's respected friends and family, didn't they? Not Noah, apparently. No, he tested strange drugs on them or arranged for their deaths or brainwashed them into being spies!

"S-some." Rey replied, shakily, his brow furrowing in concentration, and his hands going to his stomach, as his body reacted to the conditioning Noah seemed to have put him through, which made him feel physically ill, to the point of debilitation, whenever he tried to talk about the things he knew of the Brotherhood. "I... I think... I..."

"Don't worry about it." Durandel put his hand on Rey's shoulder reassuringly. "We have plenty of time to work it out, while he's rotting behind bars! In about an hour, he's not going to have a foot to stand on anymore! Borandercorp and all of its subisdaries will become nationalized assets, jointly owned by the PLANTS and the USN, as is only fitting for property seized from a convicted terrorist! I'd like to see him run with all his accounts frozen, and his wanted poster on every TV set and street corner. He won't be able to take a shit without seeing his name and a huge reward posted for his capture, dead or alive! And if he tries to go down to Earth, well, the FNE and ALU will be more than happy to make him regret that even more than the USN and ZAFT will! Even nancy pants Orb isn't going to go lightly on him!" Durandel all but cackled with glee, before a sudden thought came to mind. "Speaking of Earth, in a way, what are you having done with this Meyrin Hawke girl, his paramour?"

"I'm having her seperated from the rest of the unit for "special duty". It's not a punishment, though in the wake of your announcement, I'm sure many people will see it that way. In some ways, it's for her own good... it won't be long before it gets out that Noah Borander, convicted terrorist and supporter of the Brotherhood, was dating Meyrin Hawke, a Solar Knight. She hasn't done anything wrong, besides be attracted to someone she really doesn't know very well, really, she's as much a victim as anyone else he decieved, probably more so. Still, many people, especially those who have lost family or friends to the Brotherhood attacks, might try to seek her out for purposes of revenge, and we can't have that."

"Yes, she's still a Solar Knight, and a star performer too, if I remember right. And far too useful a bargaining chip to just let mob violence take her away." Durandel mused. "Keep her under very close watch... what do you think the odds are he'll try to abduct her or meet her?"

"Used to be, I'd have said very little to none. But he seems genuinely attached to her, like I've never seen him be attached to anyone else before. It pains me to say it, but I'm fairly certain she would work well as bait, if we were to move her to the PLANTS and make her, say, the official Solar Knights representative in the investigation of his involvement in the Brotherhood. It'd be a distasteful tasking for her, I'm sure, but he could never ignore something so high profile, especially if we leaked that she was his girlfriend. Her investigation would be ruined, but if he cares about her at all, he won't just leave her out for the wolves to devour." Rey advised.

"Yes, yes... of course, he'd know we were dangling her out as bait for a trap, but he's exactly the sort to think himself so much better than us that he wouldn't care, trusting to his own abilities to ensure his and her safety regardless of our plans." Durandel agreed, nodding his head and smiling. The smile faded somewhat as he considered more. "Of course, the problem being that he DOES have capabilities like that, and circumventing them won't be easy, especially on short notice. Standard tricks like implanted tracking devices and the like won't work with him either, I'm almost positive."

"Numbers. Numbers are our only advantage over him, but its enough. Get him out in the open and mob him with agents, hem him in on all sides, and that will be that." Rey said, with a mixed look on his face. On one hand, it was Noah, his friend, he was plotting against. On the other, it was Noah, his friend, who'd just tried to kill the Solar Knights, Rey included, and Gil! "On the subject of Solar Knights, what are we going to do about Eric Kellson and Lain Debora? They mutinied and abandoned me when I ordered them to help protect you against Markov Ashino." Rey gritted his teeth at the very memory. "Unfortunately they were also vital to destroying the Revenant, and were very noticably heroic throughout the entire battle, and so many allied commanders, even that dried up old prune, Roanoke, are pressing for them to be publicly recognized and even awarded for valor! They are also two of the best pilots left in the Solar Knights, aside from myself and Lunamaria."

"The other Hawke sister? The one that hates Noah's guts?" Durandel chuckled, easily able to share the sentiment. "Maybe we can work out some way to have her present for his arrest. That might make things entertaining."

"She's... not in the best of shape right now, Gil. Not hurt, not badly anyway... but Shinn Asuka is still listed as MIA. He's pretty big news in the Solar Knights, and its got the whole remaining unit down in the dumps, but Luna is... nearly unapproachable."

"Romantic involvement?" Durandel raised his eyebrow questioningly.

"Undoubtedly. They were among the first in the unit to pair up." Rey nodded sagely. "It was a match made in heaven, at least for the Solar Knights... but that has the nasty side effect of the current problem if one of them were to fall in battle. Frankly, I never thought it would be Shinn. He's the best pilot I've ever worked with. Better than me even. He just had... something special. He could have stood with Zala and Yamato, eventually, I'm sure."

"Well, we'll keep him MIA then, though I'm sure you agree when I say KIA is much more likely. As for your mutinous heroes, there is not much we can afford to do to them at this point in time. A scandal in the Solar Knights would draw attention away from the situation with Noah, and we can't have that. If you have to punish them, keep it within the unit. Demote them or something, but keep it quiet. If need be, we can punish them and then reward them for their bravery by lifting the punishment, that sort of thing. And keep a close eye on them as well... they obviously have sympathies that are not fully in line with where the Solar Knights will be going, so they may need to be... downsized, at some future point. Its not a major concern at the moment though." Durandel decided. He checked his watch and turned for the door. "I'll be keeping in close touch, all right? We're begininng to move into the pre-end game here, Rey, and extra vigilence is going to be necessary, even after we resolve the situation with Noah. I have complete confidence in you, my boy, never forget that."

"Thank you, Gil." Rey watched his foster father leave, and waited for the door to shut behind him. "I love you too, dad..."

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Author Note: You guys are killing me. I brought Mu la Flaga back from the dead, for real, last chapter, and I've only gotten 3 reviews out of 170 hits? I know I let up for a month or so, but come now. I'd been hinting it was going to happen for a long time, maybe I gave it too much lead in, and it wasn't nearly the surprise I was hoping it would be. In any case, Grassfire should have a few surprises in it that should be more shocking, as it focuses a lot on the slugging match between Durandel and Noah, with some side stuff on Mu and the Clyne Faction, and some serious Noah-Meyrin angst/development. Also, I was hoping for a bit more comments on both Shinn AND Ashino being taken by the Vengeance, something that only occured to me to do very recently. I mean, half the people seemed to be convinced it was Ashino that was the Vengeance's destined pilot, the other half were sure it was Shinn. Finally, it hit me that there was absolutely no reason I couldn't have them both be pilots for the Brotherhood, if not both for the Vengeance obviously. So now Shinn gets the Vengeance, and Ashino will get the Retribution. Halleluyah, don't get in their damn way.

Addressing the review replies. Its not that Noah chose NOT to self destruct the Zealot and Tormented, it was that he couldn't, because they suffered battle damage to that part of their internals. Normally, a Zealot, once defeated, blows up automatically, but that didn't happen. The Tormented's signal needs to be sent by Noah, and he did send it, it just couldn't be recieved because the Tormented's receiver was broken. The Tormented is equipped with a nano-repair system though, if a slow one, so at some point in time it will repair itself, and the reciever will become active again, assuming that Dr. Simmons doesn't just take the entire machine apart into nuts and bolts first. Although, as you'll see with the Vengeance, Retribution and Brotherhood, yes, the tech level bar is about to be raised to the point where the Tormented really isn't so cool. Definitely looks like NIC systems and Positron Reflectors and other Brotherhood low level tech are on their way to the Clyne Faction though, don't it?

Looking forward to what you have to say next. And keep hanging on, because there's a lot more good stuff to come.


	40. Grassfire part 2

Author Note: Now that's more like it. 10+ review posts in the days after I put up chap 39. And GOOD reviews too, the long, in depth ones I like so much, that tell me what you liked, and why, and how, and what you hope to see later. If reviews could be rated, I'd put most of the ones I just got at A+, all the way. Maybe I should harshly cajole my readers more often, if these are the results I get. Now, replying to the things I find pertinent. I thought long and hard about who was going to get the Vengeance, and who the Retribution. I know a lot of people liked the idea of the Vengeance for Ashino, what with his vendetta against Durandel and all, and probably some of the pre-history, so to speak, where another BCPU in a very similar machine, wreaked utter havoc. However, the way the Vengeance operates, the theme it's weapons are designed around... its not Ashino's battle theme. He can fight in melee, but he really doesn't prefer it. He likes being at about "shotgun" range... not far away, but definitely out of arms reach, where it's hard to dodge his shots but at the same time he has a bit of breathing room too. The Vengeance, as is, only has one ranged weapon, the 300mm QC spear gun, and that's a single shot weapon with very long range, more a sniping weapon than anything else. Everything else, the Zweihander, the Claws, even the Heat Whips, are all about getting up close and personal, which is much more Shinn's aptitude. In Destiny, pretty much every major killing blow he struck was with a melee weapon. Bringing the Retribution in let me design a roughly Vengeance equivalent Brotherhood Gundam, centered around Ashino's fighting style, in essence custom built for him.

The Brotherhood of Man was inspired by many other similar groups from popular works of fiction, including games, books and comics. Brotherhood of Nod, from Command and Conquer, though I never really played C and C. Brotherhood of Steel, from the Fallout line of games. Hydra and Advanced Idea Mechanics, from Marvel comics. A slight bit of the Sith, from Star Wars. Cobra, from G.I. Joe. Even the Decepticons, from Transformers, plus many more I can't even remember right at the moment. Will Shinn fight against Kira? At this point in time I don't think there's any way of avoiding that particular cliched matchup. However, I see no reason to make them have the sort of "grude match" they indulged in during Destiny. Truth be told, I'd rather match Shinn against Athrun or Ysak, because to me, those people were his role models, and his fighting style is similar to both of theirs. Ashino will probably end up better matched against Cagalli, Dearka and Miriallia, though I'm sure he'll try his hand at Kira as well... he is a BCPU after all, the challenge of fighting the top Coordinator ace might be too tempting to pass up. However, remember that there IS a third Gundam, the Brotherhood itself, which will be controlled, more or less, by Noah. And while his pilot skills aren't a scratch on Kira's, there are a few things that will be... surprising... that will definitely keep Kira on his toes, besides the fact that Noah's reactions are almost equal to his own, just not his experience.

While we're talking about the Brotherhood Pilots, someone noted that all the best Brotherhood pilots... e.g. Cray, Mu, Ashino, Shinn... are all the rebellious sort. Definitely true, because of their greater skills and willpowers, for lack of better words, they are much more resistant to Noah's influence, and less likely to be loyal, or unloyal but helpless to do anything about it. Noah really only has two sorts of pilots at his disposal... totally loyal ones, who would gladly die for him, but SUCK, for one. And for two, more skilled sorts, ranging from Jean Dylan at the low end to Ashino and Cray and Shinn at the very highest end, who are much less loyal to Noah or the Brotherhood itself, but kick ass. His personal balancing act in keeping his better pilots in thrall while also not compromising their abilities by crushing their minds totally is a constant frustration to him, rest assured. Its one of the things thats always there to prick his pride at an inopportune moment... the Brotherhood might be kicking ass, but most of the people kicking ass for the Brotherhood are doing it for their OWN reasons, not for Noah. But in the end, his goals still get accomplished, which is also kinda cool.

Yes, Newtypes will have other "natural" enemies, other than other Newtypes. The IBWS Extended are some of them, and then others like Ashino or Cyprus as well. I got the idea for them from reading Warhammer 40k, where Newtypes would of course be psykers, and the Extended, and people like Ashino and Cyprus, would be the Pariah's or Blanks or whatever other term you want to use, the anti-psykers. Of course, I haven't made them "immune" so much as invisible and very hard to affect... do remember, Lacus had hold of Cyprus for a little while, until he used Seed mode to counter it. But I have no intention of rescinding their immunity or resistance. Its not something that is precisely learned, but neither is it something you have to be born with. Certain life experiences can bring it on, or maybe even take it away, perhaps leaving something else in its wake. Haven't decided yet, to be honest. They're kind of a fourth side in the "Stump" vs "Latent" vs "Active" love-hate triangle. Very good point about the so called "heroic party". You do see it a lot, and while I can't say I intentionally went out of my way to avoid it, now that you've pointed it out, rest assured I will, because you are totally right about its cliched nature. Its tempting, and easy, to lump your charcters into a good side and a bad side, but its not very realistic.

Quadrupletree... It's just me that writes this, despite some offers I've had. All chapters, one hundred percent Maderfole. Pardons to you all, but this is MY story, spawned by MY mind, and while I don't mind that you use various aspects and bits and pieces for your own stories, I would sooner farm my credit cards out to you than I would my story. Why, what makes you ask, about chapter 37 specifically? And now, on with the show!

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"I understand a need for a certain amount of security, but don't you think this is going a little overboard?" Was the first question Mu had for Waltfeld, once he'd stepped into the medical room they were currently holding Mu in, while they finished confirming his identity beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not that Andrew had any, he was fully sure of who it was that was lying there on the bed, hands tethered together at the wrist and attached to a nigh unbreakable two foot cord that leashed him to the bed, even if he could have sat up, which he couldn't because straps across his chest, legs, stomach and forehead held him all but immobile. He could twitch his toes, flex his fingers and roll his eyes, but that was about it. Andrew understood Mu was trying to be lighthearted, to ease the grim mood somewhat, but it really didn't help much. If anything, Mu trying to make a joke of his situation only made things harder. That was the thing about Mu la Flaga... he was an eminently likable guy. You could not help but feel at ease with the man if you spent any sort of time around him, and getting to respect and admire him didn't take too much longer... certainly not longer than the first battle you entered together.

None of that helped, because just slipping back into the old mode of comradely banter with Mu was far from the appropriate thing to do right now. "I apologize, but we figured it was better to err on the side of prudence, Mu. I'm sure you can agree, the situation is very... complex, and we can't just welcome you back like many of us would like to." Andrew said, trying to pick his words carefully. Not only did he have a duty to discharge regarding Mu as a member or former member of the Clyne Faction, but he had some personal things he really needed to get straight with the man as well, and he was dreading THAT conversation with all his heart and soul!

"At least you're calling me by name. That's better than the doctor would do." Mu shrugged slightly. "I'd imagine I've placed you in a very awkward situation, haven't I?"

Andrew smiled weakly. "That's putting it mildly. I hate to say it like this, but you're supposed to be dead. As of seven years and some change ago, we all assumed you WERE dead. Interposing yourself between a Lohengrin blast and the Archangel was one of the most amazingly heroic things I have ever heard of, but you died doing it. That was the long and short of things. A very noble sacrifice, that served as an example and inspiration to soldiers around the world."

"I didn't intend to die. I mean, I knew I was in trouble... but I really jumped in with both feet, and got in way over my head." Mu frowned ruefully. "Though, obviously, I couldn't just let the Dominion shoot them, could I?"

"You certainly could not." Andrew stressed the "you" part. He paused for a moment. "I have to ask though, do you remember anything about what happened to you after you took the shot?"

"Uhh... lots of light, lots of heat, lots of cold and one HELL of a lot of pain, but nothing clear. I think I was out of it for quite a while... by the time I woke up, my face and body were already pretty much healed up." Mu replied, after closing his eyes in concentration. "Sorry, I know its not very helpful."

"What about after waking up? I hate to press you so hard right off the bat, but I have to tell you... awkward or inconvenient doesn't quite cut it. When we found you, you were wearing a Brotherhood flight suit, and you'd just ejected from the most advanced Gundam the Brotherhood has ever fielded. I mean, from the looks of things, you were the Brotherhood's field commander, Mu. You pretty much singlehandedly wiped out an entire unit of Orb Special Forces outside of Los Angelos, and nearly killed Dearka and Miriallia as well. The people you were working with have butchered hundreds of innocent civilians, and thousands of soldiers, all the name of some hokey doomsday religion that preaches Coordinator Supremacy. By just about any logical conclusion, you're a terrorist, Mu. A highly dangerous man who has participated, even indirectly, in the slaughter of innocent men, women and children. Many people, once they find out about you... and they will, sooner rather than later, no matter what we do... are going to want to string you up or crucify you. And they won't really be wrong to feel that way." Andrew almost wished Mu was snarling or denying things... given him something to focus on, something negative he could use to get himself angry or righteous feeling. But he just laid there and took it quietly.

"Yeah, thats about what I was expecting, after I had some time to think about it." Mu said, shrugged again. "Uh, I don't suppose pleading a case of brainwashing would do much for me, would it?"

"Among the Clyne Faction, it practically makes you a helpless victim of circumstance, and people will be bending over backwards to help you." Andrew replied with a humorless grin. "To the world at large its going to be a crappy excuse thats only going to piss people off even more and make them think you're trying to shirk responsibility for your actions. Might as well just plead insanity, as brainwashed, not that either will do you much good."

"Well, I WAS brainwashed." Mu said, firmly. "I mean, I don't remember all of it... I think it would be stranger if I did, considering they were doing their best to suppress my memories and personality, but I definitely remember some of the process. I'll certainly never forget the name or the face of the bastard who did most of the work. A real nasty son of a bitch, definitely someone that the world would be better off with inside a padded cell. Never caught the full name, but his first name was Franklin. Doctor Franklin something or other. I just call him Doctor Frankenstein. Close enough."

"Brainwashed for what purpose though?" Andrew mused, not quite realizing he was speaking out loud. He started, when Mu looked at him questioningly. "I mean, they saved your life, brainwashed you, and then kept you around for seven years as a... what? What did you do? Do you remember? Anything at all would be helpful."

"Most of it's pretty hazy, at least right now. Feel like I just woke up from the worst bender of my life." Mu answered, though he furrowed his brow in concentration again. "Most of the time it was... I don't know... kind of like a dream, kind of like I was watching things happen to someone else. An out of body experience, where I couldn't tell time or location or anything. Sometimes were more lucid than others... I do remember the battle at Los Angelos Sprawl, though the details aren't really there. I know I was doing something that was really not something I wanted to do... I had a monstrous headache afterwards. Things get real hazy again after that though, until I woke up again, more or less, here at the Moon, and then really woke up when I..." Mu trailed off and winced. "Ah damn..." He whispered. "How badly is the Archangel damaged?"

"It's suffered worse. You took off the starboard Gottfried turret and the starboard dorsal Valkyros CIWS guns. Almost the bridge too. I just about turned my pants brown, let me assure you. Only person on the bridge who wasn't having their life flash before their eyes was Murrue, I'm pretty sure. That woman has nerves of pure steel, I swear."

"I totally agree." Mu smiled, somewhat lopsidedly, which made Andrew's gut roil uncomfortably. "How is she, by the way? I think I remember seeing her, but I wasn't really myself at the time, I don't think."

"That's another very spiky issue." Andrew acknowledged. He searched for a good way to say things, but there just wasn't one, besides blurting things out.

"Hey... you've got two arms again! How'd that happen? Shouldn't you have picked up a replacement eye as well?" Mu noted, before Andrew could continue.

"What? Oh, yes... the arm. I was... fortunate enough to recieve a donation, from an unlikely source." Andrew shrugged, uncomfortable with that topic too. Vladimir Valkavich, aka Andre Forkav, the most prolific and deadly Blue Cosmos terrorist to ever live, wasn't someone Andrew had ever thought to recieve charity from. In fact, he'd been someone Andrew had been pretty sure he was going to shoot on sight, if he got the chance. Of course, things hadn't worked out like that, and for the better, as it turned out... but it still wasn't something he liked remembering. "Its a prosthetic, with a flesh mimicking cover." He added, forstalling a question he saw brewing on Mu's lips.

"I was going to say, because otherwise the kid is going to be pretty pissed that his med tech isn't nearly as..." Mu trailed off, a strange look on his face. "What was I just talking about again?"

"That is something I was wondering too." Andrew leaned closer. "Something about a kid, and medical technology, in connection to my prosthetic arm. Ring any bells?"

"Hmm... no... wait... prosthetic?"

"Yes. It looks real, but its just a plastic simulation, over an articulated mechanical construct." Andrew replied, flexing the arm in question, bending the elbow backwards in a way that a regular human arm could never replicate without breaking.

"So, not cloned then?" Mu watched the arm bend and twist, before returning to normal orientation, none the worse for the wear. "Definitely not cloned." He confirmed. "Huh, hadn't thought prosthetics were that advanced yet."

"It's semi-unique, though from what I understand, that won't be true for much longer. Dr. Simmons has made a lot of progress in the last five years, working with the other one. But hold on a second... what the hell are you talking about, cloned?"

"Not... sure... actually. Just sort of slipped off my tongue." Mu returned, almost crossing his eyes in his efforts to recall his ebbing and flowing memories. "I think... this is just a guess, mind you... but I think the Brotherhood has mastered medical cloning."

"That's illegal... human cloning, medical or otherwise, has been banned since before the Torino Protocol." Andrew answered, stunned.

"As illegal as terrorism?" Mu retorted.

"Point." Andrew allowed. "Still hard to believe though."

"Not really. Rau le Creusete was a clone of my father. An entire body, an entire person, not just an arm. Questions of sanity aside, of course." Mu chuckled grimly, before the look froze on his face. "Rau is dead, right?"

"Pretty conclusively. Ate a point blank GENESIS shot, before the weapon platform self destructed. Though, considering the number of people that have been coming back from the dead recently, you included, my certainty on the matter is rather less certain all of a sudden." Andrew shook his head in mild despair. "But wait, WHAT about Rau being a clone of your father!?"

"Its a long story. I guess Murrue never told anyone else about it."

"Well, she never told me, thats for sure!" Andrew felt momentarily angry, but then consoled himself, since it was definitely a private matter of Mu's, and nothing he had really any business knowing. In fact, he almost wished Mu hadn't told him now... human cloning was just too weird a subject for him to want to worry about on top of everything else! Though it didn't look like they had much choice, if the Brotherhood really had mastered it, along with the legion of other highly advanced technologies they sported! What the hell ELSE was the Brotherhood going to pull out of its hat? Antimatter? Time travel? Faster than light space drives? It was just too much!

"You were about to say something about Murrue, before we got sidetracked." Mu spoke up suddenly, flicking his eyes to meet Waltfeld's single eye squarely. "You said it was a spiky issue? I'm kinda surprised she isn't here in person, asking these questions, you know?"

"You shouldn't be, if you've got even a gram of empathy for how Murrue feels about you." Andrew retorted with a frown. "I don't know any good way of saying this, Mu, so I guess I'll just get straight to the point. I know about what was between you and Murrue. When you died, she suffered greatly, and almost didn't make it through herself, at least on an emotional level, okay? You may not have been the first man she'd ever fallen in love with, but you were definitely the man she fell the MOST in love with, and definitely the one she relied on the most to balance out her emotions and needs. You touched her soul in a manner that no one else, before or since has yet managed. But, then you DIED! And we all thought you were dead, for SEVEN years! A person can only grieve so long for love lost, and though it took her longer than most, Murrue was finally able to put your death behind her, about four years ago! She hasn't ever forgotten you, she'd never be able to do that... but she was able to move past you! It wasn't an easy process, and it took a lot of work on the part of her friends, but she did it! She moved past you, and in the process, came to me! And we've been together happily, if not fully formally, ever since!"

"I... understand. I mean, its what anyone would do, in her and your situation..." Mu replied, though Andrew wasn't fooled for a bit. The words had hit Mu like another Lohengrin blast... after all, really, to him, not much time had seemed to pass at all. His feelings for Murrue had been so strong, they'd broken him out of whatever brainwashing he'd been suffering, like a bucket of ice water would wake up a deep sleeper. That wasn't the sort of thing a person just laid aside.

"Oh, shut up, would you? I don't expect you to be happy about it, I sure as hell wouldn't be, if I were you! I wouldn't expect you to be happy if you were me, either, because I'm pretty well pissed off, despite how hard you're making it to stay mad at you, just because of who you are! You're one of the most likeable, admriable, respectable people I've ever met, and being dead or brainwashed for seven years, hasn't changed that in the slightest about you! Murrue and I have something pretty special, but its nothing compared to what you and she had! All I've got on you is time, length of association! I find myself in the position of the post college fiancee, upon returning to his wife to be's home town to meet the family and such, only to have her major high school crush and flame show up out of the blue! Argueably, Murrue and I are closer than she ever was with you, cause I know you haven't slept with her, but still... the depth of feeling she had for you took THREE years to wear off to the point where she would even pretend to date another man, and she still... STILL... mutters your name in her sleep sometimes!"

"So what the hell do you want me to do about it then!?" Mu snapped back. "I can't just forget how I feel, Andrew! It may have been seven years to you, but to me it only feels like a few damned days!"

"I don't know, damn it!" Andrew slammed his artificial fist down on the table hard enough to deeply dent the relatively flimsy metallic surface. "Look, if I had a fucking perfect solution, I would have given it to you already! All I know is that Murrue has been totally knocked on her ass, emotionally speaking, because of you doing the damned impossible and coming back from the dead after seven years! Not only that, but, as far as we can determine, you're a TERRORIST now, willingly or not! You almost killed all of us, less than a day ago! Kira and most of the rest are willing to forgive and forget just about anything, but I just can't bring myself to sit in that camp, though I can't decide if its because of the possibility of losing Murrue to you or just because I still can't fully believe you can just switch back to being the Mu we know after seven fucking years as a terrorist!"

"Well, if I'm so damned inconvenient, why don't you do something about it!? From the looks of things, you could do some pretty nasty things with that arm of yours, if I was attempting to escape! After all, I'm a terrorist, right?" Mu said darkly.

"I'm tempted!" Andrew retorted, before crossing his arms across his chest. "Damn, but I'm tempted. But really, I couldn't. Because though I really hate the thought of losing Murrue to you, and will do everything, or pretty much anyway, in my power to prevent that from happening, I won't murder a helpless man. I won't compromise myself just to beat you for Murrue's attentions! That would be just as bad as losing, if not worse! If I can't win fairly, I don't want to win at all! Not to mention, but perhaps you missed it, but I still respect and admire and like you MYSELF! You're Mu FUCKING la Flaga! The Hawk of Endymion! Kira looks up to you like a surrogate father, or at least older brother, for crying out loud! You practically mentored the best Gundam pilot ever to live! You do a random sampling of the Clyne Faction, and you won't find ANYONE that has something bad to say about you!" Andrew took a long, deep breath, to calm himself. "Not to mention, Katie and Lacus would know in an INSTANT that I was lying about you reverting to terrorist mode and trying to escape. I don't think I could take the disappointment Lacus would have for me, much less what Murrue and everyone else would do! Burning alive would be preferrable to that hell of shame!"

"How would they know? I mean, the Pink Princess always struck me as one helluva good judge of character, but she can't read minds..."

"Funny you should say that." Andrew replied tiredly, all the anger rushing out of him at once, along with most of his energy. He leaned back against the table and massaged his temple with his biological hand. The headache was back, and doubled in intensity. He saw Mu's questioning look. "Let me find a couple of snickers bars, okay?"

"Uh... okay? Why?"

"Because neither of us is going anywhere for a while. I'm going to give you the condensed version of events since you died, but we're still going to be here by dinner time, I have the feeling. Try to keep an incredulous expression off your face, if possible, though I'm sure much of what I'm going to tell you will stretch credulity, at least until you get a chance to talk with :Lacus and Kira and Katie directly. And even then, its strange as fuck!" Waltfeld looked Mu in the eyes and steeled himself for a LOT of questions as he began the recap.

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Shinn ran, as hard as he could, his heart pounding in his chest, panting for breath, sweat and blood from the gash on his forehead dripping down into his eyes and making it hard to see where he was going. He felt dizzy and lightheated, with bile acidic in his throat and his legs feeling like they were made of hot lead, where each stride seemed to happen in slow motion no matter how hard he pushed himself, and the impact of each footfall made his entire body ache and twinge. His muscles were sore, his skin raw, his tongue swollen with thirst... he was in no fit condition for a stroll across the beach, much less an all out sprint for his life and freedom! But he didn't exactly have the luxury of choice, now did he? He'd managed to slip away in an unguarded moment, but the enemy would have noticed his absence by now, and would have sent forces after him, to track him down and kill him, like they'd done to so many other potential escapers.

As much as his body hurt, it was the pain of leaving the others behind that hurt the worst. A mixture of guilty relief, abject shame and boiling rage threatened to consume him and leave him a wailing, twitching wreck, tearing at himself and the environment in helpless reaction to the torments he'd been made to endure at the hands of the enemy. He forced himself to keep running, in a more or less straight line, faintly able to hear the sounds of foot pursuit behind him. He grinned ferally... let them try and catch up to him on the ground... he was a Coordinator, one of the elite, one of the chosen people! They had better chance of catching the wind than they did him, when he was giving it his all! His grin faded after a second or two though, because while the enemy was a great many things, they weren't stupid. They'd be sending vehicles after him soon, probably helicopters, or if he was very unlucky, Mobile Suits. He had to get further away! He had to make it to... to... the safe place. Where the others who had made the run would be. Where he could be among friends and allies, and plot his revenge against the enemy! Where he would have the resources to enact his vengeance!

He cast a glance over his shoulder, to gauge whether he needed to perhaps consider some evasive action, to prevent the foot pursuit from getting a clean line of sight to him... getting a pot shot in the back would be a ignomious way to end his race for freedom. No one was in sight, though he could definitely hear them trying to close the gap. He paid the price for his split attention in the next moment however, as his foot was caught up in an obstruction along the ground, and he went sprawling facefirst, landing painfully hard on his chest, feeling something break loose inside as he skidded and rolled down the face of a hill, tearing his already sensitive skin to a patchwork of ribbons on the brambles and brush as he careened out of control. It felt like he tumbled forever, but it was probably only a handful of seconds before he fetched up hard against something unyielding, either a large tree or an outcropping of rock or perhaps even something man made... wreckage from the battle that had seen the enemy take over his home, perhaps. He couldn't raise his head to look, couldn't even clear his face and nose from the dirt, as he lay there stunned, bleeding, hurt and weary beyond the remit of exhaustion.

He felt like crying, but couldn't even muster the energy for that. He was so close! So close to making it! All he had to do was run a little more, make it a little bit further, to that place! To the legendary place, where all the strongest survivors went, to gather their strength for the fight to come. The fight of liberation! Of freedom! Of venegance! He'd known that he was going to be one of those survivors, one of those Harbingers of a new age, from the very moment he'd first heard the stories around the refugee camp fires, back when Mom and Dad and Mayu were still with him! But when push had come to shove, he'd tripped and fallen short at the last, mere minutes away at most from joining the ranks of the saviors! Now he was nothing... just a broken doll, discarded like so many thousands of others, just another faceless figure ground up by the machinations of the enemy and spat out as unidentifiable waste! The pain in his chest was growing worse, and Shinn felt his consciousness start to fade, felt his will falter and his motivation recede. It would be so much easier just to lie here and expire, let the pain drain away with his life's blood, here in the dirt, just another nameless corpse, just another statistic in the "victims" tally.

His rage ignited, like a nuclear bomb going off in the dead of night, a fission blast of pain and feeling that infused every cell of his body with an uncontrollable energy that demanded to be used, less it blow him to smithereens! He would NOT go quietly! He would not BOW to them again! He would not become a vague shape in the dust, he would not prostrate himself in the mud, not for them! Not for anyone! Not again! Never again! He would stand on his own, united with other singular men and women, all with the same goal, the same burning desire to right the wrongs of the world and make it a better place for everyone, without hate, without suffering, without inequality! They would follow the leadership of the Prophet, the first among equals, the original rebel, the one who first stood against the enemy, the hateful United Solar Nation and its various lackeys, that conspired to doom the human race to an eternity of base servitude and dreary nonexistence! Though few in number, they were strong in faith and determination and ability, far beyond the faceless legions of the enemy, where each of them would be worth a thousand, no, ten thousand of the enemy soldiers, and they would win through regardless of the odds! He had to fight! He had to claim Vengeance! Not just for himself, but for all the others who would never be able to!

Shinn thought of his father, and felt an overwhelming sadness rise up inside him, like a damp blanket thrown onto the fires of his anger and resolve. His father had tried to rebel, to protect the rest of them, Shinn included. The shame was too much to bear... Shinn had done nothing but sit there and shiver and sob within his mother's arms as the laughing soldiers of the enemy had beaten his father, first to the ground and then more and more, until his body was left a twisted, unrecognizable mass of pulped flesh and shattered bone, lying in the middle of a muddy puddle of blood and gore. He'd been so frightened... so helpless... so pitiful! After that, he'd been the man of the family for several years, protecting his mother and little sister against the horrors of the refugee camp, alongside his friends. But his friends disappeared one by one... either seduced by the gnawing propoganda of the enemy, succumbing to horrors of squalid life in the camp, or, the cream of the crop, escaping, much like Shinn had eventually tried to do. Some had been brought back, mostly in pieces, but some were never seen again. Of course the enemy declared them dead, but everyone who knew of the resistance, of the Brotherhood, knew better. They were free... and they were building their strength with every new recruit!

The damp blanket dried out and began to smoulder, even as water rained down on it from some nameless height, seeking to quench his anger and drown him forever in hopelessness and despair, as he thought of his mother. His mother, who had been taken away by the most despicable of the despised, the personal guards of the very font of the enemy's power, the Solar Knights! More like the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, than Knights! They had taken his mother for their debased amusements, whole and sobbing, reaching out with malnourished arms to her two children as she was dragged away by the black, white and gold uniformed tormenters... only to be returned when they were done with her, nothing more than an exsanguinated torso, drained of all blood and vitality, missing everything from the waist down, her flesh mutilated and defiled and left to rot as a warning, or just for fun! Shinn hadn't been frightened then... he'd just been too weak, especially without his friends around, to do anything about it! He'd been outnumbered, and alone, and powerless despite his anger! From then on, it had just been him and Mayu, alone together against the horrors of the world they were forced to live in.

It was then that he'd first truly felt the unstoppable rage build within him. But he'd been smart about it, putting to use his superior intellect and planning ability, channeling his anger to best use, both daily in protecting his sister against those who would do her ill, and in the long term, planning his eventual revenge against the instruments of the enemy! Many could not control their anger, their hatred as well as he could, though he felt it no less than any other, and a great deal more than most. But just throwing himself, screaming, at well armed and armored soldiers, clawing with his bare hands, kicking and biting and thrashing around like a demon, was simply not effective. Not against guns and knives and clubs and tasers and tear gas and even Mobile Suits, when the riots grew too powerful for mere soldiers to handle! No, Shinn had bided his time, prepared his weapons, chosen his moment. He could still clearly remember and savor the feeling of the improvised club as it shattered the skulls of the two soldiers who'd tried to take Mayu from him. It was just too bad that they'd forced his hand a little too early, and that the two hadn't been nearly as isolated as he'd thought them to be.

He should have died then, should have been beaten until he was an unrecognizable lump, like his father, or just shot, like uncounted hundreds of other "dissdent criminals" were, sometimes as many as several dozen a day depending on how cruel the soldiers were feeling! His bad luck that he hadn't been that fortunate! Because he, through his planned and well executed act of defiance, had drawn the attention and ire of the self same solar Knights that had so brutalized his mother, several years before! They decided to make an example of him... not by tormenting him directly, as that was fast becoming cliche, something that the people they sought to oppress were becoming immune to the sight of. Everyone knew by now what was going to occur if you resisted and were discovered or caught. It was no longer frightening, what happened to captured dissidents... their suffering, visceral as it was, had faded to become part of the background. So, instead of punishing him, they took out their frustrations on someone entirely innocent... someone who's only crimes were being nearby, and related to him!

Shinn knew he would NEVER, EVER be able to get the memories of the Solar Knights slowly torturing Mayu, innocent little Mayu, to death by pulling her limbs off, one by one, before setting her afire and then crushing her under a tank while she was still flailing and screaming, out of his head! He never WANTED to get those memories out of his head, even if it meant waking with Mayu's wails and screams echoing through his sleep muddled mind every day! His rage, formerly a fire, became an incandescent furnace, exploding past its barriers in a tide of molten emotions and memories, as Mayu's death shrieks resounded in his ears anew, growing louder and louder and LOUDER and... Shinn jerked his face out of the dirt and howled with released agony, as the keening warble of Mobile Suit thrusters filled the sky from the near distance, making the air vibrate as if squirming in pain. They were coming... THEY WERE COMING FOR HIM! Snarling, gritting his teeth so hard blood dripped from his gums, Shinn forced himself to hands and knees, disregarding the soul killing stabs of excruitiation from his broken ribs and other internal injuries. He did not have time for the pain! He did not have time to falter, to feel self pity, to be weak... not anymore! He'd been weak all those other times, and now Mayu's tormented ghost was riding his shoulder and whipping him on, beyond the remit of what he'd previously considered sanity, unwilling to let her precious older brother falter at the last!

Unable to stand, despite all his efforts, Shinn instead crawled, growling and screaming through clenched jaws, his mind blank except for a constant repeat of the memories of the injustices done to him and his family by the oppresors, by the United Solar Nation! By the Solar Knights! By Orb! By ZAFT! By the Federated Nations of Earth! By the Afro-Lunic Union! By all and sundry that would oppose the great new destiny offered by the Prophet of the Brotherhood, by the wondrous and admirable Noah Borander, the savior of the human race, and his chosen Harbingers and Apostles! Of which Shinn would stand near the forefront, accorded a place of high honor and prestige due to him for his many great sacrifices in the name of the cause... but first... FIRST... he had to reach that place! He had to get there... he had to make it to that Great Endeavor! Nothing could stop him! Not soldiers... not Mobile Suits... not all the Demons of Hell! His injuries could slow him, but they could not stop him! Not even death itself, incarnate, could stop him NOW! Caked with mud and dirt, bleed from palms and knees and mouth, Shinn forced himself onward, towards the place... he could see it! It was right there!

He flopped down on his belly and reached out his arms desperately, clawing his way along the ground, tearing his fingers on the hard, rocky soil as he dragged himself the last few feet, even as the earth shook and trembled beneath and around him, as the pursuing Mobile Suits... Champions, Archons, Primals, Panzerwulfs, Garou, Dawndrakes and more besides... crowded around behind him, pointing rifles, igniting beam sabers and reaching out with bunched fists and raised feet to grind him into pulp and nothingness! Shinn could almost feel the cold, mechanical fingers plucking at his back, when he collapsed, utterly spent, drained entirely of energy... still just an arms length short of his goal. No matter how much he screamed and heaved at his body, he could NOT move another inch... not even to save his life! Not even to save Mayu! He wept bitter tears of shame and guilt, but still could not dredge up that last heroic effort... he was done! It was over... he'd failed... he'd lost... he'd... Shinn looked up, past the terminus line, into the cave that would lead him to the Brotherhood, and his tears dried up, shriveled to non-existance by the luminous radiance surrounding the figure standing just on the other side of the line. An Angel...?

Shinn couldn't make out the features of the figure, the halo of light was too strong. Behind the glorious figure loomed another, far more terrible of aspect, with glowing pink eyes like balefires in the night, towering so high its head brushed the roof of the cave, dominating the scene totally with its physical presence, even as Shinn felt his mind and emotions pulled inexorably towards the brightly glowing, human sized figure. He made one last, desperate bid for the freedom and vengeance he so desired, and stretched forth his hand towards the figures, begging for their aid, hoping against hope. Steel fingers brushed his ankle, and his face contorted in panic, even as the Angel and its towering counterpart reached out to him, one hand golden and soft, the other burning with crimson shadows and wickedly clawed, both figures managing to entangle their fingers with his own, jolting him with a rush of power so extreme the Mobile Suit, an Archon, pulling at his leg was blasted asunder by the merest fraction of the conducted force. "SHINN!" A feminine voice he almost but not quite recognized called out in despair, but he quickly forgot about that in the sublime rush of power channeled into him by the Angel, even as the counterpart, the Vengeance, cupped him protectively in its clawed hands and drew his body into its own, merging them in a soul deep communion of purpose!

"DYAAGHHH!" Shinn yelled, his eyes flying open for a moment, to stare wildly and unseeingly around the Medical lab aboard the Great Endeavor, drawing startled looks from several Harbingers attending to various minor injuries nearby. The Harbingers quickly averted their eyes from the panting, sobbing, bandage swathed figure lying restrained on the table, not wanting to draw the attention of the Great Prophet while he was at work bringing the light of truth to his newest Apostle. The Prophet sat by the head of the prisoner-Apostle, and was just taking his hands off of the prisoner-Apostle's temple and chest, having finished invigorating his newest convert for the moment. Many of the Harbingers nearby felt jealous, that the Prophet would lavish such attention on an apostate, especially a former enemy, spending multiple days now working on healing not only his body, but rectifying the ills of his mind that would ordinarily cause him to reject the holy teachings of the Angels! Shinn jerked and twitched several more times before his eyes fluttered closed once more, and he dropped back into an exhausted and deep slumber, almost comatose.

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Noah wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his robe and sat back. He took care to hide his slight smile of appreciation and victory in the depths of his hood. It wouldn't do for the rank and file to see how much of an effort this was, nor for them to see how giddy he was at his success! It was MUCH harder, working with a Stump, than it was to work on Michael or Rey, who were both Latents. But he'd proven more than up to the challenge, and Shinn was moving along nicely. Only a few more tweaks, perhaps one more run through the entire scenario, and Noah would feel satisfied in the reprogramming of his newest Apostle. As long as Noah maintained regular contact with his new lackey, he should be able to keep him leashed almost indefinitely. He would have to be careful about longer mission though... Shinn had a surprising amount of willpower, even for a Coordinator, and his rage burned hot and close to the surface. Sometimes that made him easy to manipulate, along with the memories of his family and the sense of injustice he already harbored towards Orb and the nations of the FNE for what happened to them. Long term though, it made him much harder to control for sure, and even a day or so without regular renewing of the mental bindings would cause them to fray dangerously. It was simply a matter of being careful... Noah had no intention of losing another Apostle before he decided it was time!

For the moment though, there wasn't much more he could do with Shinn. Though his body was well on the way to recovery, and his mind never really damaged, the mental contortions and traumas of Noah's admittedly heavy handed conversion "surgery" drained a lot of energy from the otherwise healthy Coordinator, and he would need several hours and quite a few intravenous nutrient bags, in order to recover sufficiently for another session. Pain medications and sedatives would ensure he remained placid and likely unconscious until Noah returned, ready to put the finishing touches in place. However, there would be no such rest for Noah... not now certainly, and not for a long while yet. Things were going to get a lot busier before they got calmer. It was just the way of things, especially with his heavily top down management style. It wasn't that he LIKED assigning alll major responsibilities to himself, far from it. It was just he couldn't bring himself to fully trust the capabilities of an inferior to accomplish things in the proper manner at the proper time. And for the moment, he was still precious short on peers, certainly on peers that would be at all helpful.

Leaving the Medical lab, Noah decided to check on the "Wells", autonomous Green EDEN manufacturing and dispersal units that would be deployed across much of Earth, much like the N-Jammer's had been during Operation Uroboros. Capable of being launched inside large missiles, specialty artillery munitions or hand carried by Mobile Suits, the Wells would burrow anywhere from a couple dozen to a few hundred meters into the ground before setting up shop and beginning to convert surrounding matter into Green EDEN. Once a certain amount had been generated, the Well would return to near the surface, where it would expel the generated nanoclusters like geyser spewing water, before returning to the depths to repeat the process, burrowing deeper and deeper as time went on, constantly renewing the amount of Green EDEN in the atmosphere. Modified Wells, with large stores of Green EDEN already generated, were being distributed to all of the PLANTS and most major space stations or colonies, where they would be introduced into the air filtration systems by trusted agents, allowing for rapid dispersal of Green EDEN into the controlled environments, and a constant stream of additional Green EDEN from converted filtered particles.

Noah made a note to check on the placement of the major Aprilius City Wells himself... he knew he couldn't afford the time to check all of the Wells placed throughout the PLANTS, but he could at least ensure that Aprilius went off perfectly! He would do that in his limited moments of free time over the next few days, while putting all the other elements of his plans into their final, pre-commencement positions. Durandel's attempts to hinder him by publicly annoucning his ties to the Brotherhood were annoying but ultimately laughable. The majority of BoranderCorp had of course been shut down and was under thorough investigation by many different Intelligence and Anti-Crime Agencies, from ZAFT and the USN both. However, what they did not know was that Noah's electronic survelliance networks had long compromised all of the major Agencies own such networks, and indeed he could manipulate data within their networks as easily as he could his own. It was a simple matter of aggressive programming to basically shut down their information gathering and recording systems for a few days, while they scrambled to fix their data nets. They would be spending far more time in the office, listening to tech support that was actually just recordings on HIS computers, than they would actually out and about trying to chase him down.

As he walked, an unexpected noise from the side and behind made him spin into a defensive crouch, hands retreating into the wide sleeves of his robes in search of one of several personal defense weapons he was forcing himself to wear much more regularly now, especially within the confines of the Great Endeavor, where Phlegethion and Aether's presence was not always garaunteed. They spent most of their time relaxing in the Atrium around his personal quarters, near the top of the Great Endeavor, along with some of his other creations, including the majority of the new Zam Clan, programmed using Melanie, at least whenever they weren't patrolling his private labs and the EDEN storage chambers. Useful as they were, having invisble dragons stalking the corridors was not conducive to good order, especially given their twitchy nature and sometimes overly generous threat assessment parameters. One or two haplessly mauled minions was one thing... having it become a regular daily occurence would prove to be an annoyance he could definitely do without. Of course, like now, sometimes he wished they were around anyway, because he REALLY hated being taken by surprise. It usually wasn't an issue, since his powers were unrestrained at the moment, but in one particular case, that hardly mattered.

"Did I startle you? I apologize." Ashino didn't sound very sorry to Noah's ears, but then again, he had trouble figuring out how the BCPU was ever feeling for real. Not only because he couldn't feel his mind, but just because he was a very close minded and guarded person anyways! Not to mention extremely stealthy... this was NOT the first time he'd nearly given Noah a heart attack by stepping out of the shadows unexpectedly! One of these days, he was going to blow a foot wide hole through the muscular little bastard's chest by accident, if he kept this up! Maybe it wouldn't even be an accident, he sometimes felt!

"Startle me? No. I just don't like it when people try to get behind me." Noah replied, forcing himself to be calm and collected, slowly withdrawing his hands from his sleeves.

"Well, you walked right by me without stopping, so I figured you knew I was there already." Ashino retorted, carefully keeping an eye on Noah's hands, even inside his sleeves, in case the Coordinator tried to pull a weapon out of his sleeve. In which case, he would rapidly learn that while his reflexes WERE rather good, they still didn't compare to an on edge BCPU who really didn't like him.

"So what is it this time? I'm very busy right now, with very important tasks." Noah sighed, and turned away, abandoning his thoughts of checking on the Wells, or anything else relating to the production, distribution or storage of Green or any other strain of EDEN, at least when Ashino was around. He wasn't quite sure how the BCPU would react to the idea of what EDEN was, and he didn't want to chance a negative reaction, undoing all his work in bringing the BCPU in as additional support, now that he'd lost both Mary and Michael for sure. He'd toyed with the idea of mounting a rescue/retrival mission for Mary, but she was being held by Orb, aboard the Archangel, which was returning to Earth in a matter of hours, and he didn't judge such an effort to be worth the resources required, especially while he was still down two Gundam pilots, since Shinn wasn't ready yet, and the Retribution not fully complete.

"You promised me you would heal Jean, in return for me piloting a Gundam for you..." Ashino began, before being cut off by another sigh and glare from Noah.

"I told you already, things like that take time! Especially because you sent her to Orb, which isn't exactly a Brotherhood stronghold! I have my best agents working around the clock as hard as they can to retrieve her, but operations of that sort can't be rushed with any chance of success, you must know that!" Noah said wearily. "As soon as they finish scouting out the location, they will retrieve her by the most expedient and safest means possible, and bring her straight here, where you can both be reunited while I treat her injuries. But I can't just snap my fingers and have her teleported here!"

"I don't like it when people give me excuses. In my experience, that usually starts to happen when they are trying to find some way of wriggling out of a deal with me." Ashino replied coldly. "I'll give your methods till the end of the week, but if you haven't gotten Jean by then, I will go and get her myself, regardless of your wishes that I stay here, out of sight. I am not your lackey, after all... partner, at the very worst."

"Of course, of course... not like I could forget, given how often you insist on reminding me." Noah grumbled. "The Retribution will be complete the day after the week ends... if the Harbingers haven't brought her back by then, you will have my full blessing and support in taking whatever resources, including the Retribution, you want in order to secure her safely and quickly. Does that sound agreeable, partner?"

"Its... good enough for the moment. I warn you though, I won't tolerate any double dealing or delaying tactics. You should know better than most what a BCPU is capable of doing, even to Coordinators." Ashino said in a steely tone. He switched tacks, now that his main concern had been addressed. "What have you been doing to Shinn, by the way? I can hear him shouting and yelling from two decks away sometimes."

"I said my healing methods were quick. I never said they were totally painless." Noah answered. He saw the suspicious look in Ashino's eye. "I can make them painless without detracting too much from the process, don't fear. Besides, I should think it wouldn't matter to you how long it takes, weeks versus days, when it comes to renewing the limbs and mind of your beloved?"

"You talk a lot, and make many assurances, but you don't show much for real. I don't like that." Ashino commented.

"Well, then leave... and consign Jean to a lifetime of disability and pain. I showed you what I found about her diagnosed condition, remember? Severe cognitive regression, coupled with major head trauma and multiple lower arm amputations. She has no HANDS, the back of her skull is held together with sutures, surgical glue and bandages, and the shrapnel stole most of her speech and motor skills, returning her to the pre-pubrescent level, at least as far as speaking and control of her body goes! Is THAT condition the one you want her to languish in, day in and day out, having to get your help to eat and go to the restroom and clean herself? Are you willing to make her suffer like that, when you have the option to put skills you were designed to excel at to use in return for her complete and total recovery, no holds barred? Don't you love her?" Noah said spitefully, shortly before he was seized by the collar and lifted off the ground, then slammed none too lightly against the passage bulkhead by Ashino.

"Don't you DARE speak to me about Jean!" Ashino rumbled angrily, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his hands around Noah's lapels. "I would do anything for her, and that's not just a saying! You want me as a Gundam pilot, and in return you'll heal Jean. That's the deal, and I will uphold it to the letter. You just make sure you deliver on your end, or else I'll be the one to make you regret it, and I PROMISE to leave you in worse shape than Jean if you try to play me false, do you understand me!?"

"I have never lacked for understanding." Noah spat back. "It is only you that seems to have issues with the terms of our deal, given how often you feel the need to re-iterate them, with or without the added threat of physical violence upon my person!" Truth be told, he was shaking in his boots, shocked by the brute physical strength and speed Ashino had displayed in grabbing him before he could even try to dodge. He resolved to spend more time in combative type exercises in the future... getting manhandled was growing old very rapidly, and it was beneath him as an Ultimate Coordinator anyway. Besides, he was going to need all the reflexes he could get when piloting the Brotherhood... Cousin Kira had many advantages in that area, chief among them being his long experience, but what one Ultimate Coordinator could do, so could another, if properly motivated, especially between him and Kira! "May I return to my own problems now? It would not behoove you to be seen threatening me so... bad enough that you refuse to wear the uniform provided for you, if a Harbinger were to see this now, they would likely shoot you without asking questions. That would be a real tragedy, for all concerned."

"I'm sure you would be broken up entirely." Ashino released Noah, sending him staggering for balance as he turned away.

"Believe it or not, I would regret losing a valuable partner like yourself..." Noah said quietly, massaging his neck and shoulders.

"That's not what I meant." Ashino glanced over his shoulder as he walked away. "If your man were to shoot me, I would ensure that I broke enough vital parts of your body that you would follow me swiftly into death before I let myself die. Good day."

"Yes, good day." Noah replied stiffly, as Ashino walked around the corner, as unruffled as if nothing had passed between them but a simple greeting. Damn BCPU's, in general and that one in particular! Ignoring his protesting neck and shoulder muscles, Noah squared his shoulders and straightened his robes, before heading for the hanger bay. Unable to keep track of Ashino, and never sure when the suspicious little bastard was following or spying upon him, Noah didn't feel like risking the security of any of the more vital parts of his operation by visiting them, so instead he chose to review the progress of the Retribution. If anything, he WANTED Ashino to look at his creation as much as possible... BCPU's were designed to be part of a larger machine, the driving force for great engines of destruction... and the more nostalgic for that feeling he could make his erstwhile "partner" the easier it would be to establish necessary superiority in their relationship, that he could eventully turn into making Ashino a minion, instead of a partner! Properly used and tamed, Ashino could be just the shot in the arm the Brotherhood needed to ensure victory... but if he was allowed to run loose and roughshod over Noah's plans, well, then he would have a very brief, if very bright, combat career, courtesy of another remote detonation device, with multiple backups this time!

It would be a shame to lose the Retribution, but given that it was an additional anyway, and not a core part of his plans, he supposed he could bear up under the sorrow. Noah stepped into the hanger, which was eeriely silent, since most of the Brotherhood's maintenance, repair and construction systems were fully automated, drastically cutting down on the number of human engineers and mechanics required, ensuring that the hanger was almost always quiet and spacious and tidy, even during the most hectic of times, when a full two of the five large scale FPR's were dedicated to powering the reconstruction of as many Zealots and Martyrs as the mass construction systems could handle, the Nano-constructor colonies working in overload mode to replace the losses suffered at Galileo. Other bays held the Traitor and Haunted, both covered from head to toe in partial sheens of reddish semi-liquid, hanging suspended in microgravity fields. The Red EDEN colonies would fill in the broken patches of armor and the other gross damage, while more specialized nano-machines worked on the interior electronics. Already equipped with a nano-repair system, not to mention quick replenishing LCR armor, the Vengeance stood proud and ready for combat in its own bay, sword at its side, rifle across its shoulders.

The Revenant's bay was of course empty, though remote sensors indicated the mighty super-Gundam was well on its way to a full recovery as well, aided by the thousands of tons of junk rock and metal that the ruins of Junius Seven provided, though Noah had made sure to have the automated systems keep Cray sedated and unconscious until such a time as Noah decided he was needed... having the Revenant go off on another rampage was not something he wanted to deal with, unless it was HIS rampage. Next to the Revenant's bay was the still sealed bay he kept the now complete Brotherhood in, just waiting to be unveiled at the proper time and place, to lead the combined forces of the Brotherhood against anyone that would seek to bar their path! A time that was soon to come, if he had any say in the matter! A matter of days if all went well. He turned away from the vague shape of the Brotherhood to behold his newest creation, being housed in the Tormented's old bay, though it was a bit of a tight fit.

Like the Vengeance, the Retribution was powered by a purpose built Fusion Pulse Reactor, capable of producing more than a hundred times as much power as a Nuclear Reactor of similar size and weight, at the cost of incredible heat output, mitigated by the large dorsal cooling fin-wing that ran down the center of the Retribution's spine. At the moment the Gundam was still only about two thirds built, with a full skeleton and much of the internal support systems in place, but without armor or weapons or other speciality systems. The cockpit had a NIC-III helmet only wire interface, just like all of the Gundams save the Brotherhood, which had the newer and better NIC-IV interface, which was wireless. Also included was a nanological self repair system similar to that of the Vengeance, and a Gravitic Reduction System, mark II, also identical to the Vengeance's, using an aereted gel filled flight suit coupled with powerful magnetic fields to hold the pilot's body steady and safe during even the most violent of maneuvers.

Taller than the Vengeance at twenty three meters, and heavier by almost fifty percent at one hundred and twenty tons, the Retribution gave away a little bit of maneuvering ability and speed to gain a balanced arsenal of ranged weapons selected by Noah as good matches for the fighting style of the BCPU 4, as he'd observed over the years. Unfortunately, the manufacture of Quantum Crystals and Liquid Crystal Regenerative armor colonies took a prolonged amount of time, months even, and he needed the Retribution by the end of the week, so he'd been forced to leave those particular enhancements out of the formula. Instead, the Retribution was equipped with layered Phase Shift armor, similar in construction if not scope, to that of the Revenant, with a surface layer of Citadel Scales that would cover the entire Gundam in shimmering green protective energy, making it all but immune to most forms of incidental damage, and even most direct strikes, up to a point. A large projector in the chest would feature an Obdurate Shield Emitter, which could cycle between large scale Citadel, Gesichmedig-Panzer and Positron Reflector type Shields, big enough to provide cover to multiple Mobile Suits in a group, and strong enough to hold out against even sustained fire from Capital warships. A trio of 15mm Beam CIWS in the head would round out the defensive armaments.

The Retribution would carry three paired interchangable sets of primary weapons, all stored on the back when not in active use, and deployed by special assisted armatures onto the forearms and hands when in use. The weapons of each pair were designed to be used together, but there was nothing preventing the pilot from mixing and matching his weapon selection to fit whatever the scenario happened to be. The first pair of weapons were two "Fragarach" 525mm gatling Hyper Impulse Cannons, which each pumped 6 beams per second from their tripled barrels at foes in the medium to long range bracket, the term "Fragarach" came from Irish mythology, it was a sword also called the "Answerer" or "Retaliator", that would unerringly strike anyone who struck at its wielder. The second pair of weapons were two 150mm "Gehenna" Rapidfire FRALA cannons, each capable of firing up to sixty times in a row before requiring a thirty minute cool down period, striking and piercing multiple targets at very long range, even through most forms of energy defenses. The final pair of primary armaments were two "Glaive Wurm" Edged Munition Catapults, large caliber, rapidfire physical cannons that fired monomolecular edged discs packed with high explosives in curving, hard to predict trajectories in short to medium range. Each disc was powerful enough to blow a limb off a Champion, and as each was fired it was "wrapped" in a temporary Mirage Colloid effect that cloaked the munition from sight while it was en route to the target, making them VERY difficult to dodge.

Secondary weapon systems included several thigh and shoulder mounted detachable missile launchers, containing a variety of specialty munitions, plus a triple set of heat claws, similar in design to the heat whips of the Vengeance, merely blades instead of whips, carried inside each forearm, and finally a two handed monomolecular halberd of beam resistant make, which could be stored on the back mounted cooling fin when not in active use. In the palm of each hand was a Directional Compounded UltraSonic Amplifier, very similar to that carried in the head of the Tormented, just focused into a cone effect instead of a sphere. Short ranged and useless in a vacuum unless the palm directly touched the object to be vibrated, but hideously powerful, able to basically disintegrate most forms of solid matter in seconds. Ashino had been throwing lightning bolts from his palms while in the Bane and Independence... in the Retribution, he would instead throw thunder shocks! Of course, it wasn't hardly a patch on the power of the Brotherhood itself, but where was the sense in giving your minions more poweful weapons than you gave yourself, right? That was just setting yourself up for problems, in Noah's estimation.

He was just about to review the Brotherhood itself, warmed as he always was when he considering his masterpiece, when a beeping from his watch reminded him of how time could fly when one was having fun. Sighing regretfully, casting a glance over his shoulder at the Brotherhood's shrouded stall, Noah forced himself to walk away, promising that he would make this required errand as short as possible, despite the temptations to grandstand it would allow. Gil was coming to the PLANTS, anticipating being able to gloat or something when Noah was "apprehended shortly" as he was promising the world. He was coming with an escort of Solar Knights, including Meyrin Hawke, who was going to be put in charge of the mission to capture Noah, something which made his teeth clench and his fists bunch with anger, at Gil so obviously trying to use Meyrin against him! Trying to interfere in their love! How dare he!? Meyrin understood him! Meyrin loved him! Just as much as he loved her! Nothing Gil could do would be enough to seperate them, no matter the lies Meyrin was sure to be bombarded with in the little remaining time before he came for her and brought her back to be with him for the rest of both of their very long lives! He would oversee her ascension personally!

He was determined to convey his utmost displeasure in Gil's recent actions to the man PERSONALLY! Sometimes if you wanted to get a point across, you just had to go and do it yourself, no matter how many underlings you had or how much time it took out of your day! If Gil wanted to involve innocent bystanders like Meyrin, then by God, Noah would play THAT game to the hilt! The very LAST place Gil would ever expect a confrontation to occur at would be his press conference, where he would be promising big and delivering little, but looking good nonetheless! Noah would be waiting, and he would NOT be silent long! It was time that Gilbert Durandel, and the rest of the world too, met the REAL Noah Borander, in all the glory a true Ultimate Coordinator could muster. He smiled broadly, an Angel preparing to descend upon the unrighteous bearing holy wrath and judgement for the impious, as well as salvation for the deserving! "Hang on just a little bit longer, Meyrin. I'm coming for you soon. Stay strong. Trust me. Trust your feelings. They are real." Noah exhorted the air. "They are real..."

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"I can't believe we're doing this." Alkire said mournfully, looking wistfully back at his car, parked in the driveway next to the plainer than dirt brown sedan that seemed to permanently grace the pavement in front of this particular beach side house. "Can we please, please go home? I promise to be good. Really."

"No. Shut up. They'll hear you." Raine replied shortly, looking pointedly around at the slightly wild, but not unkempt grounds. She couldn't see any of the surveillance devices, but she knew they were there. This house was wired better than just about any place other than the National Palace of Orb Military Defense Headquarters. It definitely took paranoia to a new level, but she supposed that was the price for the relative freedom of the occupants, versus that of living inside a bank vault, which would have the same security for much less cost, but without the freedom. "The lawn looks hand mowed. When the hell does he mow his lawn? What free time does he possess?"

"I keep telling you, he's a sorcerer. Or some other sort of unnatural being. Time moves differently for him... I think he lives each day twice. Its the only rational explanation I've yet been able to come up with." Alkire replied with an unhappy shrug. "Why are we here...?" He whined, the next moment. "I don't wanna..."

"If you don't shut up and act like a reasonable fraction of your age, I swear I'll give you something to whine about!" Raine said menacingly, hand dipping towards her purse, which Alkire knew contained concentrated pepper spray along with several other nasty surprises, none of which Raine would particularly hesitate to use on the object of her frustration, especially as most were non fatal. He didn't think the owners of the house would be overly perturbed by opening the door to find him wailing and screaming on the ground, clawing his face to hamburger because of the pain. It was just a hunch, but given that this was the Finch residence... he decided to put up the act for now. Safer all around. "I don't bitch and moan when you drag me out drinking with Ramierez, Kurtz, Glory and the others, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't make a scene when Wrenn invites us, as a couple, over for drinks and cocktail snacks, once in a blue moon, okay? I'm sure Cyprus isn't exactly leaping about with excitement either, but he puts up with it, and so will you!"

"I don't recall ever having to "drag" you out drinking... rather the opposite if I..." Alkire watched her hand dip into the purse. "Of course, my dear, I shall be on my best behavior, never you fear. After all, its just drinks and cocktail snacks, once in a blue moon. I can be just as little of a man about it as Cyprus, less so even. It is not unmanly to do things as a couple, with other couples. Just uncomfortable and unnerving."

"One of these days..." Raine trailed off as they reached the door, reaching up to ring the bell, only to have the door thrown open before her hand could touch the buzzer.

"H-H-Hi!" The young woman who opened the door greeted them energetically, if with a stutter that took her a moment to get the word fully out of her mouth. She was clad in comfortable housewear, lounging pants and a T shirt with socks but no shoes, as was custom in the Finch household for indoors. She had on glasses, slightly askew, not that she seemed to mind, and her straight borwn hair was cut short, recently by the look of it, probably to accomodate the rather large bandage still affixed to the back of her head by surgical tape. The other thing that caused them both to stare, if only for a moment, before politeness directed their gazes elsewhere, was that the young woman had no hands, from the wrist down on each arm was just a mass of bandages and healing scars. That didn't seem to slow her down much, if anything she barely seemed to notice her handicap. "H-H-Hi!" She said again, in the exact same tone of voice, having not moved from the doorway.

"Hello..." Raine and Alkire chorused, shooting each other questioning looks. The young woman looked to be in her early twenties, which made her far too old to be a child of Wrenn or Cyprus, not that either of them had ever given any hint of direct family, or indirect for that matter... certainly none that would just up and drop by for a visit, straight out of what had to be a hospital critical care ward! But who the hell else would be at Cyprus's own house!? It wasn't a place where people just wandered in... you couldn't step on the grass without a top level security clearance, or you'd take your life into your own hands! Cyprus did not dick around with Wrenn's safety. "How did you open the door?" Alkire asked, without thinking, shortly before Raine's elbow slammed into his side hard enough to jolt him a step to the side.

Before the young woman could answer... if she even could answer, something which the fogginess in her eyes and expression of deep concentration on her face called into question... Wrenn stepped around her from the house antechamber to greet them. "Jean, you should really wait for me to finish up in the kitchen before you go charging off to open the door for people. Cy would burst a vein if he saw you do that when we weren't expecting people."

"O-Okay..." The young woman addressed as Jean replied contritely. "S-Sorry, W-W-Wrenn."

"Its okay, dearie, you were just being friendly, like you always are. Why don't you go collect Cy from the studio, and then come sit with us in the dining room, where the train set is?" Wrenn suggested in a kindly tone, though definitely not one that someone of Jean's apparent age would have taken well normally. However, it was more than plain that the girl was definitely not in a normal condition, besides just her lack of hands. Jean padded off into the depths of the house, mumbling happily to herself, leaving Alkire and Raine feeling totally awkward at the door with Wrenn. "The door can be opened with a switch in the wall, in case you were wondering." Wrenn supplied after a moment or two.

"Yeah... could we just totally forget I was tasteless and rude like that, please?" Alkire pleaded. "My brain to mouth filter needs some work."

"I'll say!" Raine muttered darkly. She turned her eyes to Wrenn. "I don't mean to pry, but is she a relative or something? Is she okay?"

"Uh, lets come inside before we talk, eh? Information security, as Cy would admonish." Wrenn said, guiding them inside and directing them to discard their shoes in the entranceway. She closed the door, which seemed to lock itself automatically. Alkire casually glanced around, but couldn't see any tell tale signs of a switch or pressure plate for opening the door. Whoever had put the system in had been a pro, little surprise. Wrenn led them back into a well appointed dining room, with a dark wood table that already had four settings laid out, with glasses of water and empty glasses for more potent drinks, as well as an array of snack foods centered between them. A large section of the carpeted floor had been cleared of furniture, and an elaborate, working model train set had been set up, able to run under its own power or when pushed. A large assortment of toys and models, some of the latter being exceptionally detailed and intricate replications of various Mobile Suits and Gundams, were strewn about within the confines of the train tracks, discarded as if in the midst of play.

"Her name is Jean Kellson." Wrenn said, once she'd gotten them all seated at the table. "She was sent to us recently, in very rough shape, by a very good friend of Cy's. Perhaps you know him as well, his name is Markov Ashino? From what I understand, he is the Gundam pilot for the United Solar Nation. Or at least he was until recently."

"We know of him, never really met him in person." Alkire replied, taking a sip of water. "He was the Gundam pilot for the Isolation too. Not a bad sort from all accounts, certainly not compared to the other BCUO whatevers... Cray and Frost. Lacus vouches for him, which is a definite plus in my book, even if we were personally on opposite sides most of the time."

"Jean is Ashino's life partner." Wrenn explained. "She is perhaps the most responsible of anyone for Ashino being able to live a mostly normal human life, despite the tragedies and circumstances of his past as an experimental super soldier for Blue Cosmos. She's a very sweet girl, the kind everyone can get to like very easily, and the two of them were... very good for each other."

"However..." Cyprus added, from the doorway, as he stepped into the room, followed quickly by Jean, who practically pounced upon the train set and began pushing the models awkwardly around with her wrist stumps, totally engrossed by her play, and not seemingly too bothered by her handicap. Cyprus was clad in comfortable clothes that were stained with glue and paints in various colors, as well as several small model decals. Alkire filed that away, having not known Cyprus was a model builder in his spare time. Upon reflection, he seemed the type. Cyprus watched Jean for a moment or two, and his flinty grey eyes hardened slightly in a way that made Alkire want to swallow nervously. "They were both caught up in events beyond their control. Markov is many things, politically astute among them, but he was not prepared for the magnitude of the treachery he experienced. There was no way he could have been. I don't think I would have been prepared, if I were him."

"That bad?" Raine asked, shooting Jean a glance.

"It would be like Athrun and Cagalli suddenly sending assassins after us." Cyprus answered. "From what little I understand from the context of his message, he did good just to survive, and he was far from unscathed. In order to protect Jean, he fought on through injuries that would have been enough to incapacitate if not outright kill the three of us." Cyprus looked around at Alkire and Raine. "However, he could not be in every place at once, and Jean did not escape unscathed either. When she came to us, she had recieved some basic medical care, enough to stop her bleeding certainly, but not much else. Removing the shrapnel from her brain took several delicate surgeries, and as you can see, though she has regained consciousness, much of the young woman did not come back with her. We hold out hope for a more full recovery, but the chances are.. slim, with current medical technology."

"Wait, are you saying the USN tried to assassinate its own Gundam Pilot!?" Alkire asked, stunned at the implications. "WHY!?"

"I am saying, Robert, that Gilbert Durandel at the very least, attempted to assassinate not only Markov but every possible witness that could have seen the assassination attempt, including Jean and over fifty other civilians on the Asteroid Belt Exploratory Station. Pirates are being blamed for the destruction of the Station, but Markov points to a strike team from the USN, and a backup team from the Brotherhood." Cyprus returned, letting that sink in for a few moments. "Interesting to hear of the USN and the Brotherhood working together, only a few days after the good SecDef decided to point out his biggest financial contributer was also a member of the Brotherhood... indeed, likely the leader if my own information is correct."

"Interesting is putting it mildly." Raine said through gritted teeth. "That sly bastard is in it up to his eyeballs, isn't he!? Of course we still don't have any proof, but..." She shook her head and gathered herself with a deep breath. "Why would the USN, or Durandel anyway, want to kill his own Gundam Pilot?"

"That I cannot say for sure, other than many of Durandel's advisors are decidedly anti-Gundam, and with the success of the Solar Knights unit, up till recently, perhaps he thought it best to remove any potential contenders for the Solar Knight's limelight. Especially ones that might be politically suspect, because Markov's loyalties definitely lie with the USN, and not Gilbert Durandel. It seems an overly bold move to me, but we still don't know what it is that Durandel is really after, so perhaps this is something that has been building a while, and only seems sudden to us on the outside." Cypus took a sip of his own water and shrugged slightly. "I am more concerned about the potential Brotherhood collaboration than I am anything else. If Durandel has been working with the Brotherhood all this time then the entire world is in grave danger."

"From what it sounds like, given recent history, it seems to me that even if the Brotherhood and Durandel were working together before, they sure as hell aren't now, with what happened at Galileo, and then Durandel throwing this Noah Borander dude to the wolves over international TV." Alkire mused.

"This Noah Borander "dude" is very likely the same person who was responsible for what happened to Katie and Ysak up in the PLANTS, and whom we talked to through that hovering ball, who called himself the Prophet in the animal warehouse." Cyprus explained flatly. "From what I gather, he is also responsible for brainwashing even someone like Mu la Flaga into working for him for years on end, not to mention is the likely source of most of the Brotherhood's advanced technology. And we still don't know what his goal is."

"So the most powerful man in the USN military is now gunning for someone who can kick the entire Clyne Faction's ass, basically, and who made a decorated war hero his willing personal slave for seven years, not to mention has tech that should be in a science fiction novel!?" Alkire summed up, incredulously. "Uhh... where's the bomb shelter? I don't want to be around when those two start duking it out!"

"I think Durandel might have stepped in over his head." Cyprus said consideringly. "He has devoted a vast amount of Intelligence resources to the capture of Noah Borander, who we assume is somewhere up in the PLANTS. However, its been several days since the announcement, and not one lead has yet turned up. With thousands of agents working around the clock, and every citizen ready and willing to turn him in for a stupendous reward, no one can even PRETEND to have seen him! Either he's not in the PLANTS, and hasn't been for a long time... or his resources exceed those being used against him. I'm leaning towards the latter, because I hear that all of the investigating agencies are experiencing extreme technical difficulties all of a sudden. Complete network failures, across the board. Odd timing, especially for nearly fail proof technology. Its not something that will slow them down for more than a week or so... but if he tipped his hand by doing something so drastic now, a week is probably more than he needs."

"Well as interesting as all this political and military conjecture is, its NOT why we decided to get together tonight, now is it, Cy?" Wrenn prompted, sweetly but firmly. "You work too much as it is, you can spare a SINGLE night for some socializing, really, you can. I know it hurts, but you did promise."

"He's not the only one who made promises." Raine gave Alkire a steady glare. "I'm sure they'd love to hash and rehash politics and war games till the tick of doom, if we'd let them. They get off on their own paranoia, I swear."

"I can take a hint." Alkire switched modes at the drop of a hat. Or the drop of a meaningful glare, in this case. "Nice clothes, by the way, Cyprus. I never figured you for a modeller."

"If you'd like to mock me for it, do bear in mind I'm also a practicing metalworker, qualified in both ferrous and nonferrous metals, and a carpenter, and a plumber, and an electrician, and a roofer, and a gardener, and a mechanic, if only an apprentice one. Putting together models is something I do to relax... rather like watching TV, I guess."

"You have way too many hobbies. And they're the bad sort, that make you do work around the house." Alkire pointed out. "I have three hobbies. Guns. Cars. Women. Woman, excuse me. I get to play with all three in the line of work. Its one of the reasons I'm so happy all the time."

"Regardless of training or not, you still seem to do just fine as manual labor, as far as I've seen." Raine added. "You do good work as a gofer as well."

"That's not really a hobby though."

"Not for you. Some of us though, are very entertained by making you fetch like a dog."

"Heh, Cy doesn't fetch very well. Or, I should say, every time I ask him to fetch something, he just turns around and hands it to me, or points out that its sitting right next to me. Its vaguely creepy at times." Wrenn admitted. "Speaking of, Cy, could you grab the..." Wrenn took the passed plate of shrimp and cocktail sauce from her lover with an expressive look.

"Wow. That is creepy. You sure you aren't psychic?" Alkire commented.

"Very sure. The opposite if anything. I merely know Wrenn very well, and can anticipate her with a high degree of accuracy." Cyprus shrugged, taking a few shrimp for himself. He was just about to take a bite of one when the sounds of sniffling from over by the train set caused him to freeze. He put the shrimp back down, and set his plate to the side, before getting up and moving over to kneel by Jean's side. She was shaking with mostly silent sobs, quite overwhelmed by grief, her truncated arms wrapped around her legs. "What's wrong, Jean?" He asked, in a quiet, tender voice that Alkire would have NEVER in a thousand years, have expected to hear from the hardass super soldier, Cyprus Finch. His brain to mouth filter worked this time though, and he didn't say a DAMNED word. Because Raine would kill him for being a jerk. Because he might offend Cyprus, and being at odds with the man, even over something small, gave Alkire the shivering sweats.

"I-I b-b-broked i-it..." She replied mournfully, brushing her moist eyes against her knees, poking at a insanely detailed scale model of a Gundam with her left wrist. The Gundam was lying on its front, its left arm messily detached from the shoulder joint, shards of plastic scattered on the carpet nearby. "I-It's the s-s-special o-one... b-but I b-b-broked..."

"Don't worry about it. I can fix it, easily. Just try to remember that not all the models bend and twist." Cyprus gathered up the pieces of the scale model of the Independence, with the reverence someone would normally reserve for a holy artifact. Little wonder that it was Jean's favorite model, given it was one of the few she could still instantly recognize even in her current state. From all reports, the Independence had been destroyed at Galileo, but nothing had been said about its pilot, so Cyprus knew Markov was still out there, walking the red path of retribution for the wrong done to him and his loved ones. At times he wished he could help his young friend more, but Cyprus had his own responsibilities to cover, and Markov had requested that he walk this path alone for the time being. Taking care of Markov's precious heart was the best thing he could do for him now, and he did it gladly. He was just standing up, preparing to take his leave for a moment to go fix the model, when all hell broke loose.

A high pitched wailing alarm suddenly sounded throughout the house as the exterior sensors detected multiple unknown presences making rapid approaches from the back and front sides of the house, shortly before a truck screamed off the road and onto his lawn, tearing across it before ramming into the front porch and door, splintering both before the truck was halted by one of the reinforced steel I beams that formed the supports for the house, no doubt to the considerable surprise of the driver and front seat passenger, in the microseconds before the sudden deceleraration crushed them to pulp against the interior of the truck as it folded up around its engine block. An explosion of gunfire from the wooded hill behind the house chopped into the upper story of the house, bullets spranging and bouncing off the armored glass and reinforced plating beneath the wood exterior, before a booming detonation blasted a hole in the wall of the dining room, showering them with dust and plaster debris, as Cyprus threw his body over Jean, noting with approval and thanks that Alkire took time to guard Wrenn, while Raine took care of herself.

Well that they did clear the table, because a vaguely arrow shaped object screamed in through the hole blown in the wall and struck the middle of the table, imbedding itself and giving Cyprus a momentary glimpse of an all metal bolt of some sort, before it exploded with the force of a small grenade and ripped the table to pieces, scattering wood, glass shards and minced food in all directions. Figures clad in thick, mismatched clothing and wearing party masks to disguise their features stormed at the back door to the house, submachine guns and shotguns held in hand, while a figure holding a bulkier rifle hung back, blasting out panes of armor glass and knocking holes in the house facade with carefully aimed explosive bolts. Cyprus rolled to the side, ignoring the small cuts from splinters and shards of glass, and hammered his hand into a wall electrical socket, causing it to depress a full inch and activate the aggressive house and ground security systems. Three loud "CRACK-BOOM" sounds came from the back yard, where the directional mines accounted for most of the rushing goon squad in an apocalyptic moment of fire and red hot ball bearings.

"You have a minefield in your back yard!?" Alkire roared over the noise of the assault, shock plain in his voice.

"Why do you think I mow by hand!?" Cyprus retorted, pulling Jean out of the room, even as Alkire and Raine followed with Wrenn. Once they were out of immediate danger, even though Cyprus could hear movement from the front, where the survivors of the truck crash were gathering, and the back, where the man with the Linear Rifle and the survivors of the minefield were mustering, he turned to Wrenn and pushed the sobbing, scared out of her mind Jean at her firmly. "Into the shelter, now." He directed in a very cold voice.

"But what about you?" Wrenn protested.

"I have some business with the men outside." Cyprus replied, his tone actively baleful, enough to make both Raine and Alkire wince. "Don't worry about me. I will be fine as long as you are fine." He leant forward, features softening for a moment, and kissed her briefly. "Go." He insisted, and she went, disappearing down the basement stairs without a second look back, Jean in tow, pulled with surprising strength, at least to anyone that didn't know Wrenn.

"What do you want us to do?" Raine asked, having recovered her pistol from the underarm rig she always wore, on duty or off. Alkire was doing similarly beside her, a pained but determined expression on his face as he picked glass shards out of his upper arms.

"Handle the men in the rear. Try and take one or two alive if you can, but your survival is paramount." Cyprus ordered. "Don't go outside if you can help it, the exterior defenses do not discriminate."

"Pleasant. You sure you got the front all by yourself? Sounds like there's at least four or five of em." Alkire pointed out.

"I..." Cyprus said, stepping into the study area for a moment before returning, bright steel katana in hand, and a wicked combat knife with sheath now on his waist. "Will be fine." He finished, eyes on the scale model of the Independence, still lying in the dining room, crushed and scattered almost beyond recognition. He breathed out deeply, evenly, and watched the grey seed fall through the infinite vastness of his totally Focused mind, to detonate with a subdued roar that filled him with all the power of a raging flood. The Focus was probably not necessary. But there were times, like when a man's day off was interrupted, when his house was invaded by terrorists, when his love and his friends were threatened by random violence, when a young woman in his charge was crying in fear... those were times when the kid gloves HAD to come off, and let the blood fall where it may!

"I... believe you." Alkire said, swallowing to clear his suddenly dry throat, as he watched Cyprus's flint grey eyes fade out to a metallic silver-steel color. He'd thought about offering the former Hellhound his gun, but decided against it. Cyprus did not look like he needed a gun right at the moment. He exchanged grim nods with Raine, and then they both ducked back into the ravaged dining room, moving as a well honed unit, which they were. Cyprus took another two calming, centering breaths, and then moved at a walk towards the front entryway, balanced and totally in the moment, sword held horizontally, almost casually at his side.

Alkire almost immediately came under fire from goons as he entered the room, forcing him into a head long dive that left him covered in pokey pieces of glass and wood that he really didn't have time to feel, because he was too busy scrambling not to get shot, even as the walls, floor and debris around him flaked and fragmented under the hail of bullets. He was tensed up, expecting the too familiar searing pain of a bullet entry wound at any moment, when the rate of incoming fire suddenly slackened considerably, and he peered up to see three new corpses in view, all bleeding out from the head, no doubt from single taps right between the eyes, courtesy of his favorite sniper and gun ace of all time, his wife Raine! Even with a normal pistol, she was downright scary within fifty meters, and deadly out to twice that! Something she proved as the next goon stepped into view, shotgun in hand, only to have one of those hands blown off at the wrist, then the shotgun knocked from his hand by the next shot, before the last one took him in the kneecap and spilled him to the ground in a shrieking huddle, all in less than a second and a half. Alkire popped a few rounds of covering fire off himself, but it was more to just feel active than do anything productive.

Meanwhile, back in the house, Cyprus had come to the doorway between the hall he was in and the front entry hall, with the door shut. He breathed out again, took hold of the moment and then stabbed the sword forward at roughly head height, with all his body mass behind the blow. The razor keen sword crunched through the unreinforced interior door without hardly slowing, piercing the terrorist standing in front of the door, preparing to open it, right through the neck, cleanly severing the spine in a gout of blood. Cyprus ripped the sword back out of the door and then turned and let loose with a half spin side kick that blasted the door off its hinges and into the staggering and bleeding man he'd just half killed, knocking him off his feet and into the far wall of the hallway, which he slid down sloppily, leaving a huge red stain as the door settled on top of him. Cyprus stepped unhurriedly through the open doorway and let loose his keening, wailing war cry, the hunting call of the Hellhound, which could chill the blood of even the most hardened veteran, hitting as it did a note that instinctively sent fear through the nervous system of the human body. Somewhere between a baby crying in agony and a hunting cat pouncing, in any case it was completely unnerving to people who weren't expecting it, especially at close range and indoors.

Alkire and Raine both ducked and covered as the sniper with the Linear Rifle blasted another torso sized hole in the house, before sending another explosive bolt into the kitchen proper, scattering utensils, food and random bits of countertop and shelving. Raine stood tall and straight, her limbs loose, her posture unforced, and waited for a third shot, since the Linear Rifle had no muzzle flash to speak of, and she needed the brief streak of motion from the speeding bolt to zero in on the location of the sniper. Another part of the kitchen blew up, sending water gouting from burst pipes and sparks flying from wrecked electronic appliances, but she paid them no heed, even as Alkire cursed and shouted, popping off rounds with abandon as he tried to make the sniper duck and cower. As things were, he merely attracted the sniper's attention, but that was fine with Raine. She raised her gun hand, half breathed out and then feathered the trigger, sending a single round downrange. It was almost to the point where she didn't need her eyes open... she could feel the shot was good. There was a brief rustle from the bushes, and then the Linear Rifle rolled into view, followed shortly thereafter by a dark clad body, who lay there limply, the back of his skull missing from ear to ear.

Staggering back from the unexpectedly loud noise right in his face, the second terrorist lost both of his lower arms to a sweeping slice of the blade, shortly before a follow up thrust took him in the belly, the backwards ripping motion from the sword being pulled out tore him open from sternum to navel, spilling his guts in a steaming red and purple pile to the floor. He fell over backwards, propelled by another kick, dragging down the gun arm of his next closest friend, who was just bringing his gun back up when his head jumped off his shoulders in a fountain of red, giving him a good, if upside down view of the doorway behind him before the world went dark. Leaving the sword half embedded in the wall, Cyprus stepped past it, drawing his knife with his other hand as he did so, sliding by the decapitated body to confront the last terrorist, who, in his panic, fired several bursts into the floor before Cyprus's thrown knife took him in the upper shoulder, dropping him to the ground with a wail. Cyprus kicked the still smoking gun away even as he reached down and took the man by the neck, yanking the knife out and sticking it in the wall nearby before he slammed the groaning man face first into the wall, stunning him long enough for Cyprus to retrieve the sword and use it like a stake, impaling the man through the lower back, just above the kidneys, pinning him to the wall like a bug.

"Now you are going to tell my why you are here." Cyprus said in a level tone, brushing the back of his captive's neck with the serrated edge of his knife. "You will speak truthfully and quickly, or I will hurt you until you do."

"S-screw... you..." The man gasped. "My life for... the.... ARGGGHH!" His defiant speech ended in a bloodcurdling howl as Cyprus pinned his wrist to the wall with one hand before sawing down the middle of his hand with the knife, splitting his hand between the ring and middle fingers from web to wrist, the durable steel of the combat knife sawing through skin, muscle, tendon and bone with relative ease, though he made sure to jiggle the blade a bit to get his point across.

"There are over three hundred different nonvital locations on the human body that can be stabbed, cut, lacerated or split, without causing fatal injury, and that is just on the upper body. I will explore each and every one of them to the maximum extent possible if you prove difficult. Do yourself a favor and talk to me." Cyprus advised. He waited a few heartbeats and then shrugged, before sawing off his uninvited guest's left ear with a single stroke, and then sliced the scalp over the hole to further deepen the wound and ensure deafness. He let the man scream and flail, blood leaking thickly from the sword impaling his lower regions, though it was not yet to the point where he needed to do something about it. "I will maim you, cripple you and castrate you without hesistation, and even with a little enjoyment. If need be, I will rape you as well, and do whatever else I need to do in order to dehumanize you to the point where you will talk without even knowing that you are. I will gleefully drive you insane with agony in my pursuit of information. You can avoid this fate. Answer my questions now, quickly, and I will turn you over to the police, and they will get you to a hospital."

"We... came for a girl. Supposed to have no hands. Supposed to take her to a certain place. Leroy had all the details. I was just doing what I was told, Prophet damn you, unbeliever!" The terrorist half gritted, half sobbed.

"Which one is Leroy?"

"He had the weapon of the Prophet, he was coming in from the back. C-could... could you take the sword out!? I'm bleeding to death!"

"You won't bleed to death from this, not for several hours. It'll hurt a lot more before you bleed out, trust me."

"You said you were gonna take me to a hospital..."

"I said I would turn you over to the police. I don't hear any sirens, do you?" Cyprus replied, with a deep frown. "Here, let me take the pain away." He stepped back and measured the man's back with a glance, before driving the heel of his hand forward at a specific spot in the upper spine with all his strength. He felt bones shift and crumble under the force of the strike, and could almost hear the wet "snap" of tendons and nerves parting. "Feel better?"

"Much... thank you... I can't feel any pain now..." The terrorist replied dreamily. Cyprus didn't doubt him. The man would never feel anything below the neck ever again. Nor would he move anything below the neck either, though he would retain autonomic functions, like heartbeat and breathing. He would be a full body paralyzation victim, and Cyprus hoped he'd live a long time that way. Assuming the police arrived in time to pull him off the wall. Taking another deep, calming breath, he turned and headed back towards the rear of the house. Hopefully the Majors had collected another guest, maybe even this Leroy person. He would have his answers. He promised himself that. And after he had his answers, well, Markov Ashino wasn't the only person who knew the path of retribution!


	41. Grassfire part 3

Author Note: Already seeing positive reviews. Glad you liked it. Been meaning to get that chapter off my chest for a while. Almost as much as this next one, which will have a scene in it I've been thinking about since I first outlined the story, back in the middle of CC. Now, for the reviews. Yes, Noah's tinkering with Shinn's memories, and buried angst/anger over what happened to his family, was the best way I could think of to get him to convert, even for a while, to the Brotherhood. Yeah, Noah plays pretty dirty already, you are indeed right. Still, I think he has it in him to make you go "Oh shit, no he didn't" a few more times. Glad to see people like the Retribution. I thought it was pretty kickass myself. Is it stronger than the Vengeance? At range, certainly. In melee... probably not. And do remember that I have two more major Brotherhood machines to unveil, one of which will be this arc, and one the next, and they both, in their own ways, put the Vengeance and Retribution to shame. As for Cyprus and the katana... yes, yes I did enjoy that. Won't be the last time you see that either... just know, that when Cyprus goes for a sword, its about time for the shit to hit the fan, in a serious manner.

Glad to see at least one person got the Starcraft reference. Not sure what I can do to give Kira a Yamato cannon, since its basically the same thing as a GENESIS or Revenant-esque Radiation Cannon, but I'm sure something will occur to me. Does Noah know about the evolving Seed? I can't tell you that yet in detail, but go ahead and rate it as highly likely. There's some things Noah doesn't know, some pieces of the picture he is missing... what Latents can do alongside Actives is a big part of that, but there's more besides. But a lot of stuff he does know, and he knows far more than any of the current good characters do. But he's too young yet, and hasn't suffered a dramatic, near death type experience like Kira did, so his Seed is still in, well, seedling stage, and will be for probably five or ten more years at this rate. As for his pre-evolvement limits... well, read on, and you should get a fairly accurate summation sometime in this chapter. I suppose I could put it like this though. If Kira is Goku, Noah is definitely Brolly. One person said that with Noah's resources he could have just waited a year and built like 50 or 60 more cutting edge Gundams. Yes, I suppose he could have. But as the Zealots and Martyrs demonstrate, a cutting edge machine with a blunt edge pilot really isn't all that useful, and just putting regular Joes and Janes into the Vengeance or Retribution would greatly limit the power of the machines. Its the pilots that make the Gundam's effective, the Gundams themselves just enhance what already makes the pilot great. Or not so great.

It wasn't so much that someone said something to anger me, more to surprise me. I perhaps like to flatter myself, but I think my writing style is pretty distinctive, I was wondering how someone could think a chapter of ED could have been written by someone else (because if there's someone else as good as me, I may need to bump them off, heh heh. Or collaborate with them). Suggestions are, always have been and always will be more than welcome. As a side note, ED now has more reviews than CC, even though its only a little more than half as long, currently. Loving it. Doubling or tripling CC's review total would make me very happy. Hopefully I'll see more 12+ review chapters. All you regulars, pat yourselves on the back and know you have my deepest thanks. All you people who aren't as regular, or who have yet to leave a review, well, I appreciate you anyway. But I'd really be your friend if you reviewed. We can all use more friends.

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"I will now take a few questions." Durandel said with a confident, inspiring smile that fully concealed the inner boredom and anxiety he was feeling. Certainly it concealed it well enough that none of the press animals seemed to pick up on his concerns, and that was good enough for now. He'd just finished giving a largely meaningless speech on what was being done to not only apprehend Noah, but on other major anti-Brotherhood operations as well, taking place simultaneously. It all sounded very well and good, especially with the way his spin control people had manipulated terms and statistics and even a few definitions of the word "success", but he had to admit, despite his inside knowledge of the data massaging, when all spoken out loud, it did have the desired effect of reassuring the people that he was doing all he could, and reassuring the Secretary-General that he was at least doing the best he really could. Not that the timid political louse would dare contest with him at the moment, not if he wanted to keep even a fraction of his political capital, but apppearances had to be kept up, for at least a few more years, until Durandel could officially assume the post of Secretary-General.

"Mr. Secretary, you said you were appointing the Solar Knight named Meyrin Hawke to be the head of the Noah Borander investigation here in the PLANTS, correct? I've heard an unconfirmed rumor that she may have been romantically involved with him in the past. Would you care to comment?" One of the people in the second row called out.

"I'm glad someone asked that here and now, rather than trying to spring it in an expose later." Durandel said, with his confident smile still plastered on his face. Indeed, he'd even been hoping for a question like this, because the more he could do to place Meyrin Hawke in the negative public spotlight, the more onerous he could make her situation, the closer he would be to forcing Noah to do something about it, hopefully making a mistake that would allow Rey and the other Solar Knights to close in on him and capture him or kill him once and for all! "It is indeed true that Meyrin Hawke was, at one point, dating Noah Borander, with my full blessing, I might add. Of course, at the time, none of us had any idea as to his true motivations. I assure you all, Ms. Hawke was as shocked and enraged by the sudden revelation of his true agenda as anyone else, and I will personally vouche for her continued loyalty to the highest ideals of the USN. She is guilty of nothing other than being decieved by a conniving manipulater."

"Well and good on her, but does she have the gumption it's going to take to run to ground someone she was intimate with?" A different reporter persisted.

"Ms. Hawke is a Solar Knight, easily the best Combat Operations Operators in the entire unit. She knows how to keep her work seperate from her personal life, I assure you." Durandel answered. Truth be told, he didn't trust Meyrin farther than he could throw a Gundam, but keeping her under close surveillance was far from difficult. So far she had been hard to draw on any subject pertaining to Noah, and had become quite withdrawn as of late, untalkative even to her family, so getting information out of her about what exactly she had known about Noah was slow going. Mostly because he did not yet want to tar her with the same brush he'd used on Noah, to avoid any further scandel disrupting the Solar Knights in the delicate time right after their first major defeat, though of course it would never be labeled as such. Morale in the unit was dangerously thin, and indicting a prominent member as being a willing accomplice to terrorism could easily be the straw that broke the camel's back. Which was not to say he didn't have a warrent and press release already drawn up for her for a later time, when it would be better suited to purging undesirables from the Solar Knights, but that was in the future. For the moment, merely using her as bait was enough. "Next question?"

"Is it true that Captain Talia Gladys, of the ZAFT fourth fleet, has had her military career unjustly accelerated because of a romantic involvement with you yourself, Mr. Secretary?"

"That is the furthest thing from the truth, let me be frank. For one, not only am I a USN official, not a ZAFT official, and thus in no way a part of ZAFT officer promotion boards, but Talia has more than enough talent, in my personal opinion, to deserve any job ZAFT see's fit to assign her. She does not now, and has not ever, needed my help to succeed wildly in her chosen fields. I would appreciate it if we didn't try and dig up old, less than pertinent tabloid rumors... I've got more than enough problems dealing with real scandals to have a fake one tossed on the pile, thank you very much." Durandel sighed, his mind straying to Talia just by the mention of her name. They had so little time together these days... consequences of their mutual dedication to their respective career paths. As many times as he'd asked her to give up her military work and come live with him, she'd returned the offer but in reverse. Both of them were independently wealthy because of their jobs, and easily capable of supporting a nonworking spouse, but neither had any desire to be that nonworking spouse. Talia had her sights set on high command, and Durandel his sights set on the highest command.

"Is it true that the Agencies assigned to apprehending Noah Borander have made absolutely no progress towards that goal? A rumor has it that they have all suffered major "technical difficulties" recently, that may or may not have serious delerious effects on their ability to function as a cohesive unit?"

"All Agencies charged with apprehending any Brotherhood figures, confirmed or suspected, are working with all available resources and efficiency, I covered that in the brief, I was pretty sure. Spreading baseless rumors only helps the enemy, people, try and stick with confirmed facts please. A couple more, and then I'm going to have to cut this off. There's a terrorist that needs apprehending after all, and while it is soothing to my ego to stand here and talk about how doomed he is, I'd rather do that after he's safely in a prison cell." Durandel joked, eagerly looking forward to that time. Or else the time where Noah's patheticly dismembered and shot torn remains were scraped off a wall in some hidey hole somewhere.

"What about rumors stating that you have been working with Noah Borander and the Brotherhood, in full knowledge of what they were doing, all along, and indeed even using them to further your own political agenda?" A voice called out of the crowd, prompting a large number of whispers, as that was a rumor no one seemed to have heard yet, and none of them liked the idea of being scooped.

"I'm not even sure how to answer something so patently ridiculous." Durandel replied, a frigid note in his voice as he peered into the crowd, trying to work out just which fear mongering lout had spouted that particular disquietingly accurate question. "It pains me to admit to being played for a fool, but the simple facts are that I was as decieved by Noah Borander as was anyone else. He contributed time and money to my political campaigns, that I cannot deny, but that was all he contributed, which is no more than several dozen other major supporters, I should stress. As for an overarching political agenda, I have none, beside the safety and security of the people of the USN, against threats external and internal. I've been saying that from day one, hasn't it sunk in yet?"

"So the ease with which the Solar Knights defeated the first few Brotherhood attacks they were sent to deal with, and yet failed so miserably more recently when the Brotherhood apparently got serious is nothing more than a fluke? It seems strange to me that the Brotherhood would cut and run in several situations where it held a clear advantage, the very MOMENT the Solar Knights show up, suffering heavy casualties while retreating and not generally putting up any fight at all, despite having held out for hours, fighting to the death even, against forces from other military units. Also troubling, I should think, would be the timing of the Brotherhood assaults themselves, all of which, you may be interested to note, took place within a week of public addresses concerning the safety of USN citizens by none other than you, Mr. Secretary. Almost like they were underscoring your words."

"This is a gross misrepresentation of events, bordering on slander!" Durandel gritted, putting his hands on his podium out of sight to hide his white knuckled fists. "I can't claim to know why the Brotherhood has done what it has, when it has, or even where it has, but I can promise you that I have been an enemy of the Brotherhood from the very moment they made their presence known! The very idea that I would be working with people trying to tear down the USN in favor of some bogus doomsday cult religion is so insane I have to break a personal rule and say that you, sir, are an idiot. I would appreciate it if you left, because you will be hearing from my lawyers before the day is out otherwise."

"I am not afraid of your lawyers. All of whom are rather busy at the moment anyway. Or soon will be, I should say."

"Who is that? What is your name?" Durandel made a gesture out of view behind the podium, alerting his bodyguards to be on the lookout for the disruptive person, so that they could eject him more forcefully than any words from Gilbert could accomplish. It was sad to say, but this was something all successful politicians had to deal with eventually... someone trying to tear them down by any means necessary, right in public. At least it hadn't degenerated to the throwing of shoes or worse yet, assassination attempts. Though he would be interested, keenly interested, in learning where this tick had thought to ask such specific questions. It was possible the man was a Brotherhood plant, which could turn out to be quite the coupe if it were the case. Such public sabotage was clumsy, and would be easy to turn around on Noah, with the arguement that if Noah was trying to defame Durandel, then it must be because he truly was desperate.

"My name? My dear Gil, I'm surprised you even have to ask. Perhaps you aren't as cunning as you think you are." A middle aged, balding man in a plain brown suit stood up from the fourth row, and edged past a few people to stand in the center aisle of the auditorium. The nondescript man was a total stranger to Durandel. That must have shown on his face, because the stranger laughed outright and shook his head in mock despair. "You people really are so limited. All it takes is a simple illusion and you are rendered helpless and clueless. You might as well walk around wearing blindfolds all the time, compared to people like me! I swear, you lot don't know how lucky you are... I'm going to raise you from being sheep to being Angels, and I'm not even asking to be your leader, unlike that two timing bastard up there on the podium."

"Detain that man! He might be a Brotherhood accomplice. Be careful, he might be armed!" Durandel directed, causing his bodyguard team, seven strong, all USN military veterans clad in somber suits and armed with the latest in easily concealable offensive weaponry, to move into position, three of them standing up around him as a shield, while the other four headed directly for the man in question, hands slipping into the suit jackets to retrieve pistols and stun guns.

"I have no need of arms, not against people like you." The inflection of the man's voice changed, turning from amused to angry, from mocking to threatening. He held up his hands in a warding gesture. "That is FAR ENOUGH!"

"You have the right to remain silen... urghha!" One bodyguard began to say, before spasming and collapsing limply to the ground, victim of a surprise stun gun hit to the base of his skull, from a very surprised friend backing him up. The man in question stared at his arm in disbelief, even as it turned around and rammed the sparking prongs of the stun gun into his own eyes, drawing a hideous scream of agony that was cut short by sudden overload of his nervous system, causing almost instant cardiac arrest. His body tumbled to the floor, stun gun embedded almost an inch into his face. Even as reporters yelled and flinched away from the confrontation, the image of the balding, middle aged man in the brown suit flickered and shimmered, before disappearing like a morning mist, revealing an instantly recognizable world celebrity, famous AND infamous, standing right there in plain view. Noah peeled the electronic voice disguiser from his throat and cast it aside disdainfully, smirking at Gil, who looked like he was having a stroke up on stage.

"Don't MOVE! Put your hands on your head and get on the ground! Kneel on the ground and do not move! We will shoot if you give us cause!" One of the two remaining bodyguards nearby said urgently, his wide eyed gazed straying between Noah and the unconscious and dead bodies of his comrades, inexplicably struck down in a paroxysm of insanity. He kept his pistol muzzle centered on Noah's nose, from less than five feet away, just out of arms reach, but close enough that there was no way the terrorist leader could possibly hope to dodge. His partner circled around to the side, cufflink radio held up to his mouth, though the squeal of static in all their earbuds told them that they were being comprehensively jammed. Reinforcements would not be quickly forthcoming, in all likelihood. The bodyguard swallowed heavily as he met the inhuman, golden pupiled, purple with silver specked eyes of the most wanted man in PLANTS, hell in the entire USN. Who the HELL had eyes like that!? What the hell was he!?

"I am an Angel, one of the first of a new race of Humanity." Noah replied, smiling as the man jerked in shock, as Noah answered his unvoiced questions. "Point that gun somewhere more useful. You too." Noah directed the two bodyguards, even as he marshaled himself and turned his eyes back to the podium, with Gil and his three goons standing on it, bug eyed with amazement, as Noah stood there, calm and unmolested, while the two sweating, shivering bodyguards slowly turned their guns around and placed the muzzles inside their own mouths, even as they jerked fruitlessly at their gun arms with their free hands. He shrugged and smiled, and the two bodyguards blew their brains all over the sides of the room, causing reporters to scream and faint, men and women both, as they were drizzled in blood and bits of grey and pink brain matter.

"Oh Gil, what am I going to do with you!?" Noah shouted, raising one hand out in front of him even as he watched the pure, milk white Seed drop through the vastness of his expanded consciousness, before detonating in a flash of golden light as powerful as the creation of an entirely new universe! Untouched by human hands, the gun of the unconscious guard slipped out of his shirt and levitated up through the air to hover over the palm of Noah's outstretched hand, in plain view of dozens of reporters and camerapeople, and through them, across the entire USN, on live TV. Sweat beaded on Noah's forehead, as he not only manipulated the gun telekinetically, but also froze Durandel and his three remaining guards in place, locking out the use of their legs and arms, AND keeping the reporters almost riveted in their seats with an overwhelming sense of awe and curiousity. It wouldn't do to have them running around and perhaps knocking him over and ruining his concentration... at the moment, he was stretched about as thin as he could go, not that anyone would be able to tell.

"What are you doing!? How are you doing it!? What is this!? Why can't I... I can't move my arms or legs! What did you do, you little monster!?" Durandel demanded, his face pale and his heart thumping wildly in more than mild panic. What the hell was Noah doing? What was this!? It was like some outside force was acting on his mind and body, keeping him frozen in place despite his best efforts to the contrary! And the floating gun... how was that even possible? It had to be some sort of technological tri..."

"Its not a technological trick, Gil." Noah said, interrupting Durandel's chain of thought. Filtering the bombardment of panicked thoughts from the crowd of reporters, as well as Gil's and the bodyguards, while keeping track of the distraction going on outside was hard work, but he was willing to make the effort in order to make his point! "Well, not directly I should say. I myself am a technological trick, I suppose you could say, but that doesn't mean what I can do is mere smoke and mirrors. This gun is floating through the use of a mental ability you would probably want to call telekinesis. Its one of several abilities I possess, another of which is keeping you my captive audience for the moment. Why don't you raise your hand and pick your nose for me, Gil?"

"Do wha... hey... what... no... how!?" Durandel protested, as his right hand and armed moved under its own... or someone elses... volition, coming up to his face to dig painfully with one finger in his nostril. "How is this possible?" He complained nasally.

"If I wanted you to, I could have you insert that finger into your brain, Gil. Can you imagine how it would feel, to tear at your own brain with your fingers until you either went brain dead or died?" Noah replied with a nasty little smile. "How is it possible? I'll tell you. It's because I am a superior being, an Ultimate Coordinator, a Newtype! I am an Angel ascended, and I have powers beyond your current comprehension. However, like all good superior beings, I am compassionate towards those less advantaged than me, and I have been working ceaselessly throughout most of my life to make the world a better place for everyone. Shortly, I will be offering the chance to ascend to Angelhood to every man, woman and child in the PLANTS and the rest of the USN, free of charge. All you need to do is sit tight in your homes and places of business and wait. Stockpiling food and water and medical supplies might be to your advantage, depending upon your physical location, but rest assured, the process is short and is easily survivable by those who take the time and effort to prepare themselves. More instructions will be forthcoming in the near future."

"More of your doomsday prattle? You are deranged." Durandel snorted, which was a minor mistake, since his finger was still nosebleed deep in his nostril, and he winced in pain.

"Says the man with his finger shoved halfway up his sinuses towards his brain. I suppose you're just playing along to make me look good, right?" Noah retorted sarcastically. He brought his outstretched hand down, and the gun levitated down with it, though keeping it near his body was not particularly easier than keeping it far away, it helped to have the hand as a guide. The pistol's safety clicked off, the slide racked itself, and then Noah had it blow the unconscious guard's brain out through his face. The shot seemed deafeningly loud, even more so than usual, perhaps because at no point in time had a human hand touched the weapon. "That's an awful lot of pigs blood, don't you think?" Noah mocked, raising the gun back up to shoulder level, before firing several more times, wild shots that did nothing much besides shred wallpaper and fully illustrate the entirely hands free operation of the gun. "Wow, I really rigged this room good. The special effects are so real you can't tell the difference between it and reality, huh? Don't make me laugh."

"What do you want from us?" Durandel asked, as blood dripped down his finger and stained his suit, though he forced himself to ignore it. He had to concentrate on the here and now, and not let Noah's show of impossible, mind boggling tricks distract and disorient him, hard as that was.

"Us? Us is a general term. I don't want much of anything from Humanity as a whole, besides their patience. If by "us" you mean "me", then it would be even less than that. I don't want anything from you at all, Gil. I fully intend to walk out of here under my own power, and whether or not you can do the same is something I haven't decided yet. On one hand, it would be more fun to keep you around so I could watch you flail and scream as all your dreams come crashing down in flames around you. On the other, you've really been testing my patience lately, and I'm sick of your provocative bullshit. We need to set things straight between us, once and for all. To that end..." Noah made a gesture of will, and one of the guards closest to Durandel stepped forward haltingly, and offered his pistol to Gil, grip first. Gil's hand yanked itself out of his nostril, causing him to gasp in relief, even as blood gushed from that side of his nose, though his relief was fleeting, as his bloodstained hand curled around the grip of the proffered pistol.

"What are you making me do?" Durandel asked, dread in his voice despite his best efforts. The thought of what perhaps Noah had forced him to do in the past cropped up uncomfortably.

"Oh, so I'm making you now? Suddenly my tricks aren't so impossible, not with a gun in your hand, eh? Before today Gil, I haven't made you do anything. I haven't needed to... you've done everything I wanted you to do entirely on your own. How does it feel, knowing you set yourself up for failure, the very moment you and I first agreed to sit down and talk things over about your political career?" Noah smirked, tossing aside the pistol he'd been controlling, before flicking the safety and racking the slide on Gil's gun with a twist of his mind. Droplets of Gil's blood began drifting upwards through the air, gently, before applying themselves in a rough bullseye shape to the forehead of each of the three remaining guards. "For once, Gil, the blood of your mistakes is going to be on your own two hands. Maybe you'll learn something from this, though, knowing you, you'll do your best to forget it and try and pin the blame on someone better than you."

"You are reading my mind?" Durandel asked, swallowing heavily as he fought with all his might to control the hand holding the gun, to point it at Noah and pull the trigger, or at least up at the ceiling or down at the floor! His arm wouldn't budge in the slightest, now hanging loosely at his side as the first guard, Simmons, a man he'd known for years now, who's children he sent birthday cards to, who's wife he'd had over to his house for tea and biscuits one time, who's father he'd posed for pictures with, knelt at his side, a pleading, tearful expression of fear and denial on his face.

"From day one, Gil. You, and everyone else as well. It gets to be more a burden than a boon, I'll have you know. So many yammering, inconsequential voices in my head. Like a babbling brook of sewer waste, most of the time!" Noah turned around slowly, able to spare the effort now that he wasn't actively telekinetically controlling something, and made sure to eye the psychically cowed crowd of reporters balefully. "However, it isn't your fault you were born handicapped and unable to quiet your minds, so I try not to hold it against you too much."

"Don't make me do this. This man is innocent." Durandel pleaded, looking Simmons in the tearful eyes. "He has a family. Wife. Children. They need their father." Unbidden, his arm rose, and pressed the muzzle of the pistol to the middle of the bloody bullseye. "Please... don't do this."

"Crimes have punishments, Gil. Though perhaps if you beg a little louder, and apologize to me for all the trouble you've caused, I'll consider it. Perhaps if you come clean to the people of the world, and tell them the details of our time together, in full, totally honestly. That man's supposed innocence has absolutely nothing to do with the situation. He is the instrument of your punishment." Noah watched Gil for a few moments, but the man kept his silence. "Poor choice Gil. Poor choice."

"No... wait! I..." Durandel started to say, before the crack of the pistol sprayed his waist and stomach with misted blood from Simmons. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right, sir. We know the truth. He's a madman, and this only proves it." The next guard, Marlene, said as she dropped to her knees as well, and the pistol muzzle came up to her forehead. "Tell my husband that this wasn't your faul..." The gunshot ended her sentence for her.

"How touching a display. I couldn't have asked for more loyalty from any one of my Harbingers, and I usually get far less than that from my Apostles!" Noah commented ruefully. "You're a lucky man. And she was an unlucky woman."

"This is monstrous!" Durandel snapped.

"Hey, you're the one popping your own bodyguards in the head, not me. And you can try and plead psychic domination all you want, but in a day or two, not even YOU will believe that." Noah smiled and shrugged expressively. "Newtypes are just beyond the experience of the greater part of Humanity. We make you uncomfortable, and with good reason, because we are more than you are. Better, in a word. Its harsh, but the truth usually is. In the normal course of things, we would be subject to levels of prejudice beyond even what Coordinators have ever received... but in my world, the world that is coming, there will be no such prejudice, because there will be NO inequality!" Noah glanced over his shoulder, at the main doors to the auditorium. "Hmm, your men are more organized than I'd thought. We're going to have to speed things up a little, unless you'd rather I kill a lot more of your hapless little friends?"

"You won't get away with this, Noah. This is insanity! You cannot hope to..." Durandel cut off as he bit painfully down on his own tongue.

"You have no idea what my hopes are, and probably couldn't understand even if you did." Noah said softly, walking slowly down the aisle to the podium, upon which he climbed, to stand right next to Durandel, though out of blood spatter range. The third of three guards dropped to his knees, a wad of spittle trailing down his lips as he was prevented him from spitting it at Noah by a muscle spasm in his jaw. Within a few seconds, a third gunshot rang out and the defiant guard fell bonelessly to the floor to join the other two, his face still twisted in an expression of loathing. Noah paid the pitiful corpse no heed, though it did pain him that the man had to have died so uselessly. No one would believe it, of course, but he abhorred meaningless death above all others, and the man, in another situation, might have made a fine Brother. They could have all been fine Brothers and Sisters, if they'd only given him a chance! "You think I'm doing this because I want power, authority, wealth or fame? I thought you knew me better than that, Gil. None of those things matter in the slightest to me. I want to make a better world, and though it pains me, in order to do it I must make hard decisions and do things beyond the remit of my normal morals. I am sorry it came to this, if not for you in specific."

"Make your excuses, with this display of barbarity you have proved to the world what a rabid beast you really are!" Durandel had the gall to be smug. SMUG! "Even if you kill me, especially if you kill me, you will still be a hated terrorist, the most wanted man alive, always on the run, with the dogs constantly barking at your heels! You will have no peace! You will be the most hated man in history."

"If that is the price I must pay in order to achieve my better world, then so be it. I will gladly become the scapegoat of Humanity, though the thought does not make me happy. Like I said to you, crimes have punishments, and I do recognize that I have committed crimes." Noah replied sadly. "I hope that in retrospect, the new Humanity will look upon my actions kindly, as those of a desperate man hoping to make the world better for everyone, but if they decide to hate and revile me for what I have done, then I will accept that judgement as well."

"You're such a bleeding heart." Durandel mocked sarcastically.

"And you are such a bleeding leg!" Noah retorted, causing Durandel to trigger a round into his own kneecap, shredding the joint messily, though Noah locked him more or less in an upright position by transferring all his weight and balance to his still sound leg. He also locked Durandel's jaw shut, keeping his scream of agony to a dull whine. "If there is one person I will not regret the fate of, it is you, Gil. And maybe that damned Lacus Clyne impersonater you tried to foist onto me. That poor girl never knew what hit her. And its all your fault." Noah looked out at the slack jawed but definitely frightened crowd of reporters and sighed. "I know how this looks, and I'm sorry I had to do this in such a public manner, but trust me... he has had it coming. I'm sure no one will believe me, but Gilbert Durandel is not the hero you all think he is. He is just as stained with blood and dirty power as I am, if not more. Really, I'm about to do you a favor by blowing his..." Noah's gaze darted for the doors to the auditorium. "But not today, apparently." He hedged his sentence, before sprinting for the side door, where his car, along with Phlegethion and Aether, fresh from their diversion attempts outside, was waiting for him. Four or five people under total control at once was his limit right now, even in Seed mode, and there was a lot more than that coming through the doorway soon. Best get out while the getting out was good.

Behind him he left a pile of bodies, a wounded and extremely frightened man, and an auditorium full of witnesses to the most extraordinary five minutes of modern history to date. If for no other single thing, Noah Borander would never be forgotten as the first Newtype to ever make a public appearance with his powers, beyond the doubts of ANYONE who had seen what occured in person. Even the people who hadn't been there in person could muster precious few arguments to explain how Noah could have done what he did without psychic powers, not that they got to debate too long before it all became meaningless anyway.

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"So, what have you figured out?" Cagalli asked excitedly, not bothering to stand on formality at all, barely even remembering to salute in reply to the six heavily armed soldiers standing guard outside the vault like door that closed off this section of the Morganroete Armories Secure Testing Facility. Normally used for the stress testing of the most vital and top secret components of a Gundam under construction, the parts like the Siegfried, or BGCS or Mind's Eye System or even the Fractal Wings, to a limited extent, this extra-large sized hanger bay was the most secure location in the entire secure facility, which was buried under the still in testing More-Town Depths, Orb's first underwater colony. It was the most sensible place to take the two captured Brotherhood machines, both the mass production model, the Zealot, and the far more advanced Tormented Gundam, in order to have them disassembled and scrutinized piece by piece by the best military scientific minds Orb had to offer, in order to glean every possible scrap of information and technology from them.

"Hello, your Majesty, Mr. Zala..." Erica Simmons, head of Orb's Special Mobile Suit Development Project, and argueably the most brilliant Gundam designer of modern times, which was to say ALL time, replied absentmindedly. She barely even glanced away from the internal mechanisms of the Tormented's left arm, which had been seperated from the rest of the Gundam and laid out on several long support trestles, with armor plates and various maintenance access hatches pried or cut off so the engineers and scientists could examine the arm in full. The Tormented itself, sans left arm, stood against the wall nearby, held in place by several redundant series of locking bolts and levers, while scaffolding crowded closely around it, allowing multiple levels of technicians and mechanics to pull and pry and prod at the machine's exterior and interior parts. Large sections of hanger floor had been devoted to tarps, upon which each whole or mostly whole piece of technology or structure was placed and tagged for later deep study. Across at the other side of the bay, the headless Zealot was undergoing similar procedures, looking like a cadavar, post autopsy, just standing.

"How long have you been working, Erica?" Athrun asked, looking at her slightly askance. "I hate to be rude, but you don't look like you've slept, or showered, or even left this room since the Tormented was first brought in."

"Well, I'm glad I look like that, because its the truth. Well, I have used the restroom once or twice, I'm pretty sure... the coffee has to go somewhere, after all... but really, time flies when you're having fun. And I've been having a blast." Erica replied, though that was a bald faced lie. Maybe she could have pulled a few days straight back when she was in college, but she was a married woman now, and college was a good decade or more in the past. Ryuta was almost a teenager now, but that didn't mean he was any less unruly and easy for his father to handle alone. Sometimes mom had to come home and restore order with an iron, Phase Shift armored fist. But even when she wasn't at work, she had to admit she was consumed by thoughts about this treasure trove that had been dropped into her lap, and she probably wasn't taking as much care with her personal appearance because of it. Athrun's comment wasn't the first she'd recieved, but right now she was just too damned excited to care much! "Just the two of you, hmm? I was expecting an entire tour group."

"Dearka, Miriallia, Ysak and Katie are taking some time off to relax after the stress of the last battle. And Lacus and Kira are with Mu right now, ostensibly guarding him, since I can't just let him wander around alone, much as it pains me." Cagalli replied, somewhat impatiently. "I know I haven't given you much time but anything you can tell us would be..."

"Oh, I can tell you LOTS, don't worry. Some of this stuff IS pretty crazy, but most of it is just logical extensions of stuff Orb already has, or parallel technology, that does the same thing, at about the same efficiency, just in a different way. Some of it is even behind our current technology level... the power plant in the Tormented for instance, isn't as powerful as the ones inside my Gundams. Of course, from what I understand from the intelligence reports, the Tormented isn't exactly top tier Brotherhood technology, unfortunately. Perhaps if you could capture the Vengeance next time... THAT would be incredible."

"I'll... do what I can." Athrun said ruefully. "Though the Tormented wasn't exactly something I just walked out to the store and grabbed."

"Yeah, wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy... okay, I better give you something juicy before her Majesty demotes me to making toaster ovens or something." Erica said with a smile and a wink at Cagalli's eager expression. "Where to start though... oh, yes... the annoying thing. I remember you guys telling me about the Pulsar, back just before the Isolation of Orb. About how it was pretty much fixing itself, right in the hanger, without you doing anything about it or to it. Chief Murdoch was very displeased, I recall. Very grounded man, Murdoch, doesn't deal well with the more esoteric technologies. But I digress. The Tormented has something like that. As in, its fixing itself as time goes on. Which is a very handy feature, I have to admit. I'm pretty sure it can rebuild the entire left arm if we left it alone long enough, and kept the reactor running, of course. Unlike the Pulsar's, this system doesn't seem to run if the power isn't on. That makes me think it's probably less advanced, which makes sense I suppose... the builder of the Tormented obviously had access to much higher technology than he utilized in the Gundam. He wanted to give it some kick, but he didn't want to put major tech into something that was a throwaway machine."

"Throwaway machine? Like a Martyr?" Cagalli asked, surprise pervading her voice. "I would think a personalized Gundam is a bit expensive to just throw away."

"I agree. However, the Brotherhood Gundam designer has a different philosophy, apparently." Erica shrugged. She pointed more or less over her shoulder, at a series of human head sized spheres, loosely connected with wiring, lying in a heap on a nearby tarp. "See that? Remote self destruct device. Pretty sure its a nuclear bomb of some sort."

"A NUKE!?" Cagalli flinched away from the innocuous pile of spheres.

"Oh, I disarmed it, don't worry. Not that flinching would help much if I hadn't... that bomb looked powerful enough to do some serious damage to Mare-Town Depths... the Test Facility would be nothing but glass if those went off. However, when the Tormented got here, while the bombs were active, the transmitter and control circuit were not. They looked to have been mangled pretty good by a Phoenix Feather impact. Though the damage was getting less severe over time, at least until we turned the power off, so its probably a good thing I disarmed the bombs themselves. Otherwise it might have reactivated, which would have been inconvenient." Erica shrugged again, peering down the length of the dismembered arm's interior. "But in any case, you don't put remote controlled nuclear bombs into something you can't easily replace, which would also not be soemthing you'd want to lavish the best of your technology on, any more than I would waste billions of research dollars souping up an artillery shell or missile."

"How does the self repair system work, do you know? I don't see any little robots or anything else that would seem to be able to do repair work on a Gundam." Athrun asked.

"THAT is one of the things that is actually impressive. Unless I totally miss my guess, the self repair system utilizes nano-tech. As in molecule or multimolecule sized machines, chemical engineering at its most advanced, destabilizing, deconstructing and reconstructing matter on an atomic level, in a focused, central intelligence directed manner. The short version of it is, that it can turn dust and even the various gases in the atomsphere into replacement parts, one, or in this case, several thousand molecules at a time. All it takes is time and energy." Erica shook her head admiringly. "Our own experiments into nano-tech are just that... experiments. Years and years from the practical stage, much less something as complex as a self repair system for a Gundam. Once we reverse engineer that part, oh wow, a whole new frontier of technology opens up. But thats going to take months and months."

"Is there anything we might be able to use, say, in a few weeks or less?" Cagalli prompted hopefully. Her expression fell as Erica almost immediately began shaking her head doubtfully.

"The technology in this Gundam, and the quasi-Gundam over there..." She pointed at the Zealot. "... falls into two categories. Most of it is stuff, like I said, that's not really a big surprise or upgrade to what we already have, and while some of the minor upgrades we can have available in a few days, they aren't more than the most minor of tweaks, not even worth the maintenance downtime it would take to install them, in my opinion, because the overall performance of the Gundams would not be appreciably changed. The systems that fall into the other category... the quantum band remote piloting system from the Zealot, the self repair system, holoprojector system, sonic weapon, cockpit control system and defensive energy shield system from the Tormented... those are going to take months to disassemble and study until we understand the principles behind them, before we can even attempt to understand them, and then move on to replicating them. I hate to say it, but whoever designed the more advanced systems in these machines... they're smarter than I am. They might even be smarter than any small group of people I know. We can catch up, but the price is time."

"What if we focused on just one or two?" Athrun suggested. "The remote control system, holoprojector and sonic weapon are interesting curios, but its the cockpit control system that allows the Brotherhood pilots to control their machines like extensions of their own bodies that interests and concerns me the most, followed closely thereafter by those reddish defensive energy fields that seeme to be entirely proof against almost any weapon. Both are technologies we saw in the Pulsar as well, and they appear in the Vengeance also. To me, those two systems are fundamental to much of the Brotherhood's strengths in Mobile Suit technology, so if we can crack those, we can make much bigger steps in closing the technology gap, I should think."

"He has a good point. Let's do that." Cagalli didn't make in an order, but she didn't really have to. "I've always thought it was unfair, seeing those Gundams move like they do... I'd really like to put the shoe on THEIR foot for a change."

"Well, you only picked the two hardest systems, but we'll do what we can." Erica smiled. "Initial findings are still coming in on those systems, but what I've seen so far shows that the control circuits actually mesh with the human nervous system, suggesting a far more complete understanding of the human brain and nervous system than our current medical technology possesses. I never thought I'd be advancing Neuroscience while working on a Gundam, but that's how things are shaping up. And the reddish shields seem to work on somewhat the same principle as the Lohengrin Positron blasters, sort of mixed with the BGCS I put into the Phoenix King. Its an anti-matter field, I'm pretty sure. How they contain it when its NOT being deployed boggles my mind, but I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually. Though it does concern me to see the Brotherhood tinkering with anti-matter, even defensively. Maybe even especially defensively, in old tech, because they might have figured some way to use it offensively by now... which would be bad."

"How bad?" Athrun asked tenatively, not sure he wanted to know.

"Hmm. Let's put it this way. A nuclear, that is to say, fission, bomb the size of a human head could probably level a couple city blocks. A thermonuclear, that is to say, fusion, bomb of that same size, could level an entire city, assuming it was a small city. An antimatter bomb of that size would leave nothing but a crater of the entirety of Nara-Attha City, plus a mile or two in every direction. The blast wave damage would be significantly more extensive, and the radiation damage would also be extreme. Anti-matter converts normal matter to energy, on a pretty close to one to one ratio, and creates more of itself in the process most times, leading to a self sustaining reaction that can build for several seconds, unlike fission or fusion reactions, which are usually over in thousandths of a second. You don't mess around with pure anti-matter, and these reddish shields contain a very thin film of just that. Which is probably why nothing gets through them, except light. Oh yes, unless you use very strong shielding, anyone looking at an anti-matter explosion, assuming they aren't turned to stray particles, are probably going to be permanently blinded, just because of the amount of energy being put off."

"That's pretty bad." Cagalli said, aghast.

"Yes. Yes it is. Makes the Spear of Ares look like a roman candle. Let's hope they don't have anti-matter bombs, eh? Especially because anti-matter weaponry would be even MORE devastating in atmosphere, where there's more matter around to annihilate, whereas the Spear is restricted to vacuum operations."

"Speaking of the Spear of Ares, I'm going to need as complete a technical breakdown of the system as you can provide me, properly screened of any top secret information, so that I can explain it to the world press, once they get around to asking just how an Orb Gundam managed to blow apart something of the Revenant's size with a single shot. So far the USN is claiming credit for utilizing a special weapon, but it won't be long before some analyst puts that claim to the lie, and I want my story prepped and ready." Cagalli instructed, running a tired hand through her hair. "Thankfully, the collateral damage was minimal, but I still expect to get my ass roasted over the coals for having used a WMD, no matter the reason."

"Can't we just hand that off to Jiro Kurenai now that you aren't Chief Representative anymore?" Athrun pointed out quietly.

"We could. If I was a total bitch. Which I'm not, for the record. The Gundams and the Spear of Ares were built on my watch, under my orders, and that makes them my responsibility." Cagalli said firmly. "Besides, Jiro has enough problems just figuring out how to be Chief Representative of a nation that simultaneously has to make everyone happy while also being better than them in almost every way. Though, if you really want to keep him in the loop, you're more than welcome to brief him in on it, Athrun. For some reason he never seems to listen as well to me."

"That's... all right." Athrun replied, with a brief shiver. "Jiro is a nice young man, but last time I shook hands with him, he wouldn't let go for almost three minutes. Its like he can't see the ring on my finger or something. Every time we sit through a briefing with him he spends more time looking at me when he thinks I don't know about it than he does paying attention to whatever the meeting is about."

"Aww, does Athy-poo have a stalker? Thats cute." Cagalli said unsympathetically.

"We'll see what you say when you find him stealing the sheets off our bed."

"That's what guns and Stormhounds are for. I understand Kurtz wouldn't be overly opposed to a series of nonfatal accidents involving Jiro."

"Don't mean to be nosy, but didn't I hear something on the news recently about an incident at the house of one of the Stormhounds? That tall, lean, wolfish one with the grey hair and eyes that seem to look right through you? The one everyone always seems to tiptoe around, even Ledonir?" Erica asked, a frown of concentration on her face as she reached her own left arm into the Tormented's, feeling around for some of the internal wiring in a cramped section near the arm bone. She brushed some sort of connection, and the Tormented's left ring finger claw deployed with a loud mechanical "SNAP-CLICK", locking into place, before the finger slowly relaxed. "Hmm, that wasn't supposed to happen. Guess there must still be a few capacitors that haven't fully discharged yet."

"You mean to tell me that you, personally, disarmed a nuclear bomb while on Orb soil?" Cagalli asked with a sickly look on her face as her eyes darted back and forth between Erica's bemused frown and the twitching ring finger of the Tormented. She didn't wait for an answer. "I hereby forbid you from ever having ANYTHING to do with disarming bombs, or any other potentially large scale destructive devices, in the future!"

"You heard right. Apparently the local Brotherhood cell tried to drop in on Cyprus at his house, while Alkire and Raine were over for snacks and drinks. Cyprus reported that they were after a friend of his that was temporarily staying at his place, but he wouldn't go into detail, and the man is absolutely impossible to intimidate or even order into telling things when he doesn't want to. He has promised to handle the situation, which were his exact words. Somehow, they did not reassure me." Athrun sighed. "Though I suppose I can't argue too much with his numbers... the police counted a total of fourteen terrorists at the scene, though identifying seven of them took almost a half a day because they'd been blown to smithereens by a series of directional mines Cyprus had buried in his back lawn as a defense mechanism. Nobody in the house suffered more than minor cuts and scrapes, and twelve terrorists lost their lives, while another was found pinned to the wall with a katana through his lower torso and his neck broken, though still alive, and the last was missing his right hand, had one kneecap blown away, and all the skin and muscle from his left hand had been carved away by some sort of knife before the bones were charred by exposure to an oven's heating element. Needless to say, he was incoherent at the time of arrest, and has not regained much lucidity since."

"He did that by himself?" Erica asked, blinking in surprise.

"About half of it. Raine and Alkire, plus the house defenses accounted for the rest."

"Sounds like something out of one of those damned games Ryuta convinced his father to buy him for his tenth birthday, despite the clear 16 and up warning label on the package. Gory trash. Not even good graphics either." Erica muttered. "Do remind me to shake Cyprus's hand sometime though... sometimes the best way of getting your point across to someone is to take things down to their level. Within limits, of course."

"He has his uses, I'll admit." Cagalli said quietly. "Though sometimes he takes things just a little bit too far for my tastes..."

"When we're dealing with the Brotherhood, I'm starting to wonder if our old definitions of "too far" are still appropriate." Erica mused, almost absentmindedly. She noticed their odd looks. "Don't mind me, just thinking out loud. Just saying, that with the technological advantage they seem to possess, plus the lack of morals and apparent willingness to die for their cause... they definitely seem to me to be the ones with all the advantages in any sort of serious confrontation. We have things to lose, they don't seem to. We have fears, they don't seem to. We can take the moral high road as often as we want, but it doesn't seem to me that it's going to get through to them. Confronting on their own terms might be the only way we can really get them to sit up and take notice. Cyprus seems to understand that. You build your strength, hoping you never have to use it. But if you decide that you do need to use it, you don't hold back anything."

"Yeah, well, maybe if they decide to give us a head on fight, I'll be able to do just that, but at the moment, I don't have a target to drop the hammer on." Cagalli said, sighing with frustration. She was about to say more when one of the door guards walked hurriedly up to them and saluted. She returned the salute, blinking at the sudden interruption.

"Begging your pardon, your Majesty, Mr. Ambassador, but National Defense Command says you really, REALLY need to turn on the news right now..."

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"I can't believe someone actually etched that over the bridge hatch." Mu said, his head craned back to look up over the doorway leading onto and off of the Archangel's bridge, where his personal motto was paraphrased, "Making the impossible, possible".

"I think it's fitting. The Archangel has beaten the odds much more often than not, ever since it was first launched." Murrue replied, standing over the the Captain's chair, in the middle front of the bridge. At the moment it wa only the two of them around, though Kira and Lacus had said that they would remain somewhere nearby, in case they were needed. Though given how broadly Kira had winked, and the almost mischevious expression on Lacus's face, Murrue wasn't exactly expecting any interruptions of a non emergency nature. She looked down onto the observation deck built into the middle top of the Archangel's main section, between the two hanger mandibles and Gottfried turrets... one and a half turrets at the moment, considering they were still replacing the one Mu had sliced off, but close enough... and caught a flash of bright pink hair near one end of the deck. They hadn't gone far, as the crow flew certainly... though renegotiating the Archangel's corridors to get from the observation deck to the bridge would take several minutes, especially if they weren't in any hurry.

"Sure you feel safe, all alone with me, a potential terrorist?" Mu half jested, though he was still clad in a bright red one piece canvas jumpsuit, with bright white letters spelling out "P.O.W." on front and back, plus heeless slippers on his feet that would be almost impossible to run in but couldn't be kicked off either, while his wrists were held together in front of him by padded metal binders. Not that he was planning on running away, not from Murrue, not ever again. "There's no telling what sorts of trouble I might cause."

"Oh, stop that." Murrue chided, unable to completely keep her inner distress under wraps. "Don't even joke about it, please. I... I know you, Mu, and you aren't a terrorist, and never will be. What happened to you was... was not your fault, and even pretending it was makes me angry!"

"Sorry. Guess its just my own defense mechanisms, acting up. I don't like it any more than you'd expect, but I understand why it has to be this way, at least right now, and so I make light of it to keep my mind in happier places." Mu smiled in that lopsided manner that had made her heart flutter ever since the first time she'd seen it. "Though to be honest, I can't imagine too many happier places I could be, rather than alone with you."

"You don't make things easy, do you?" Murrue asked, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. "Or maybe you make them too easy, and the hard choices only come when you aren't around..."

"Hey now, turn off the waterworks, you're making me feel all sorts of bad, and I don't even know why yet!" Mu said with a smile, though he still kept his distance, standing over by the door, where he'd been ever since they'd come here. He wanted to go over to her and comfort her with all his heart and soul, but he dared not. Seven years had passed, and life had gone on without him, and despite the emotions he could almost feel pouring off her, he wasn't sure it was still his place to comfort her, not like he wanted to. "Seriously, I can't stand the thought of you crying."

"Sorry." Murrue brushed the back of her hand across her eyes, but that didn't seem to stop the welling moisture. "I'm not mad at you, Mu, and I'm not really sad. I guess I'm just so happy that you're back that I just don't know what to do. I feel like I just woke up from some sort of dream or hallucination, where I was living a life that was like mine, but not really, and I couldn't get out. Not until you came back and woke me up."

"That's me, always there to bring balance and stability to the world. Its a full time job, but I like it. The pay is awesome, and the benefits are nothing to sneeze at either." Mu smirked.

"Not always, but... close." Murrue allowed with a light sigh. Seeing that her eyes weren't going to clear up, not like this, she shot him a direct and commanding glance. "Are you just going to stand over there like a lump, or are you going to do what you should have done the moment Kira and Lacus bowed out?"

"Uh... are you sure? What about Andrew? I mean, from what I understand, he and you are..."

"Andrew is a wonderful man, more than almost any woman could ask for. I'll never forget the good deeds he has done for me, or the way he was there for me in my darkest hours, or the time we spent together since then." Murrue said quietly. "But... I... you..." She trailed off and shook her head. "I can't figure out how to..."

"Sometimes words aren't necessary, when hearts are doing the talking." Mu replied, striding over to her and slipping his bound hands over her head, so he could envelop her in a close embrace, which she returned, instants before their lips met and sealed, a communion of souls that would never need words to describe. "I missed you so much, but I never realized it until just now..."

"I felt every second you were gone like a piece of me falling away, but now... now I'm whole again." Murrue whispered in reply, leaning her head against her chest, as the tears continued to pour from her eyes, staining his jumpsuit with dampness. "I... I'm sorry. Probably the last thing you want right now is me crying all over you. I just can't help it."

"Believe me, having you here with me, crying or not, is so far from the last thing I want that I can't even express it." Mu answered, his voice fierce and raw, as he held her as tightly but gently as he could. "I'm so sorry for what happened, Murrue."

"You said you were going to come back to me. You just forgot to mention how long it would take. You should be more specific in the future. MUCH more specific!" Murrue retorted with her own fierceness. "And no more stupid heroics from you either, understand? We get more than enough of that from Kira. You're supposed to be the mature one, who doesn't get carried away and distracted by his emotions!"

"It seemed the right thing to do at the time, though in retrospect... I would have done it anyways."

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure you would have." Murrue squeezed him almost hard enough to hurt. "And that's why I love you so much, and why I'm so afraid you're just an illusion, who will go away the next time I close my eyes."

"Trust me. I am going nowhere, unless its with you." Mu promised her.

"I will hold you to that." She warned him. "And I will sic Kira and Lacus on you if you fail to hold up to that as well! And trust me, you don't want them after you."

"Yeah, I've kinda been getting that impression of late." Mu looked out the bridge windows, and caught sight of the flash of pink hair as well. Lacus was sitting cross legged on the observation deck, with Kira lying down with his head in her lap, humming some sort of quiet, relaxing tune to him while she gently stroked and combed his hair with her hands. If he concentrated, Mu could almost hear her words, or were they even words? He realized with a start that she wasn't even making physical noises at all, and immediately directed his attention elsewhere, back to the woman in his own arms. He wasn't fast enough, and he could see Lacus turn her head to look up at them, though she quickly returned her attention to Kira. "Uhm... I'm not sure how to say this, but I had quite a long talk with Kira and Lacus and happened to learn a few surprising things..."

"You're a Latent Newtype, just like Kira, yes, they told me as well." Murrue supplied. "I don't see how it changes anything, just as it doesn't with Kira. You are you, Mu, and whatever extraphysical sensitivites or powers you might possess don't mean a damned thing to me, in regards to my feelings, got it!?"

"Yes, don't kill me, please!" Mu smiled. "Truth be told I don't know what to make of it, though it does make a few things make a lot more sense. My ability to feel when Rau was around, or even what he was thinking or about to do, for instance. I guess even some of my piloting ability. And apparently it has a lot to do with how that kid managed to twist me around his little finger so easily and for so long." Mu clenched his fists for a moment, before forcing himself to relax. Getting angry and frustrated about how Noah had basically enslaved him and forced him to commit numerous heinous crimes was not something he had time for right now. "But that's something I'm sure the Pink Princess and Kira can help me with. Speaking of them, its real nice to see they finally got smart and hooked up. Didn't I say it first though... he could definitely use her as a girlfriend!"

"Yeah, you totally called that." Murrue rolled her eyes. "Too bad you left out all the other parts in between. Might've saved us all a LOT of trouble."

"I can see all, or I can tell all, one or the other, not both at the same time, what can I say? Being psychic isn't easy, you know."

"Neither is being non-psychic, particularly around psychics! Just wait until you spend more time around Katie. A wonderful girl, really. Very nice, very sweet, very talented. Definitely a perfect match for Ysak. But she's so irresponsible with her powers, and unrepentent about it too! I understand we have to try and accept her for who she is, but she needs to understand better that just slinging around telepathy is NOT the way to acclimatise people properly."

"Don't sling around telepathy... note number one." Mu commented with a incorrigible smile. "I guess "don't mind control war heroes" would be note number two, right?"

"Don't even get me started on that little bastard and what he did to you! When I get the chance, I'm going to keel haul him through an atmosphereic re-entry!" Murrue said darkly. "I cannot wait until the USN manages to run him to ground."

"Don't hold your breath." Mu advised. "My memory about my time as Michael Genesis as part of the Brotherhood is still pretty hazy, but I do know some things. Among them is the fact that Noah, whatever his faults, is just simply not the sort of person the world at large is really equipped to handle. Very much like Kira. His abilities and aptitudes are so much greater than anyone elses I've ever seen that I personally doubt there's much he could NOT do, given time and resources. You guys haven't really met him, and I don't remember as well as I'd like to, but the best way I can think of to describe Noah is to say think of Kira, but a Kira that has a goal so overriding he is willing to do anything, to anyone, in order to achieve it."

"Any idea what that goal is?" Murrue prompted.

"Not even slightly. Michael never had a clue about what it was that Noah was actually up to. He didn't really care, and every time he tried to care, he got mind zapped by Noah. I can tell you though, its REAL big."

"Thanks, I kinda figured that out myself. One doesn't generally create an organization like the Brotherhood by the time you're sixteen because you're planning on rennovating your school lunchroom. Or even on building an entirely new university." Murrue replied sarcastically. "The production of Gundams clued me in on that last part. Not many universities need their own Gundam squads."

"Yeah... but think of how cool it would be if universities DID have their own Gundam squads... man, I can tell you, school would be a lot more interesting to me if there were Gundams walking around on school grounds all the time."

"I'd forgotten how you could be just as warped as Andrew sometimes. Honestly, between your crazy ideas and his nigh indecipherable metaphors, I don't know which annoys me more."

"Speaking of annoying..." Mu studied his face in the reflection of the Archangel's bridge window. "These scars are going to have to go."

"I don't mind them. You're just as attractive to me as you always were." Murrue touched the raised ridges of tissue tenderly.

"Well, thanks for that sentiment, but though you may not mind them, I kinda do. They aren't me. This face is the face of Michael Genesis, not Mu la Flaga. And though they might have been the same person, in a lot of ways, I'm not going to feel completely like me again until I can look in the mirror and see Mu looking back, not Michael. Besides, they always remind me of that Lohengrin blast, filling my camera screen, and that always gives me chills." He was going to say more when the phone built into the arm of the Captain's chair chirped to signal an incoming call.

"I should probably answer that, or else they're going to think you're doing unspeakable things to me." Murrue said playfully.

"Well, I can make that true, if you want." Mu joked back. "Believe me, I've got some pretty unspeakable thoughts going through my mind right now." He looked her up and down with a mock leer as he slowly stepped away from her embrace so she could have freedom of movement.

"Yeah, I kinda get that feeling from you." Murrue smiled. "Keep a lid on it though... you don't want Lacus to pick up on those thoughts, now do you? Though she is far from the innocent princess we first discovered, I have the feeling she might be less than prepared to delve into the amorous mind of Mu la Flaga."

"Doubtlessly true. I'm not sure anyone is fully prepared for that." Mu smirked confidently, though his smirk faded, along with his train of thought, as Murrue picked up the phone and listened, her face going blank, and then turning very, very concerned. "Oh damn. I knew it was too good to last."

"You were right about one thing." Murrue said, her face white and drained of color, once she'd put down the phone. "He really isn't afraid to do anything, to anyone."

"That doesn't sound good..."

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"Andrew, what are you doing out here? I thought you were supervising the repairs to the Archangel?" Kisaka asked in surprise. He'd come outside to get a breath of fresh air, after having spent all morning in a series of defense meetings, rehashing the casualties Orb's military had taken during the assault on Galileo, and what was being done to prevent future such incidents from occuring. Barring stationing a permanent force of Gundams on the Moon or at other such permanent extra-Orb holdings, Kisaka personally didn't see many ways to even slightly mitigate another attack of the scale of the one Galileo had suffered. People were rattled enough though, that it seemed even such a relatively ridiculous idea as creating many more Gundams was getting some serious thought. Of course, questions of the insane cost would eventuallly drag the panic stricken worry warts back down to Earth, but in the meanwhile it was a constant struggle to get truly useful suggestions put under consideration. Fortunately, Chief Representative Kurenai had shown a marked preference for listening to Kisaka and other "Cagalli era" military advisors, over the newer incumbents, so keeping things under control shouldn't be too hard.

"I was." Andrew replied morosely, his tone dead and dry, as he sat on a bench looking out at the rolling hillsides descending towards the beach and then the ocean, waves crashing in constant muted background noise, while seagulls wheeled and shrieked overhead. The sky was clear and bluer than blue, the temperature was just warm enough to be nice without causing undue sweating, and a slight breeze seemed to blow only when someone needed the refreshing feeling on their face. It was a beautiful day, a truly Earth only experience, the sort he would normally be treasuring. Right at the moment though, enjoying the day was about the furthest thing from his mind. He stared blankly at the horizon, slowly tensing and untensing his artificial right arm and hand, while the fingers of his left hand tapped meaningless beats on the bench seat beside him.

"Are you feeling all right?" Kisaka pressed, concerned with Andrew's unusally listless and despondent posture. In all the time he'd known the man, he'd never seen him get sick, but he couldn't think of any other real reason for Andrew to be acting this way. "Did you perhaps eat something that didn't agree with you?"

"Heh." Andrew sighed more than chuckled. "Yeah, I suppose you could say that." He looked up at the sky blankly, and then shook his head and sighed again. "It's called Mu la Flaga's dust, and it tastes pretty fucking terrible, let me assure you."

"Ah." Kisaka replied, standing there for a few moments while he made the proper connections in his mind. "Well, this may not cheer you up much, but I think I'm familiar with the taste of that kind of dust. Though my dust was kicked up by the feet of a different man."

"Yeah. I guess this is sorta the same situation I put you through, in a way, huh?" Andrew smiled faintly, before his angst swept the expression away again. "Four years, Ledonir. Four years, and it ends in a week. We were going to buy a house together on Millenium City, once things had quieted down a little. We were talking about settling down, perhaps making things more formal. There was no rush. We were both comfortable with taking things slowly. Stupid me. I should have been more aggressive."

"Hindsight can be deceptive. If you had been more aggressive back then, things might have turned out differently, yes. But differently does not always mean better, Andrew. You could have just as easily pushed her away with extra aggression as pulled her closer. Murrue is a woman that likes to take things at her own pace, especially after having her heart pierced so deeply twice within such a short amount of time. Rushing things would probably have backfired on you." Kisaka said, trying to be comforting.

"The worst part about it is, I can't get mad at her, or even him. I want to, but I just can't. Neither of them is the sort of person I can hate, not even in this kind of situation. They're very good for each other, and I know he'll make her happier than I ever could. And I suppose I'm glad for her. I just wanted it to be me though, is that so wrong?" Andrew complained softly.

"It's not wrong to wish for that sort of thing. But it is wrong to dwell on it overmuch when it doesn't work out that way, or worse, let it eat away at you and turn your emotions into negative feeling." Kisaka advised. "The path they have before them is rocky and strewn with pitfalls enough, without adding the emnity of a valued friend and comrade to the mix."

"I asked her to marry me today, Ledonir. I had the feeling it was too late, from the moment she recognized Mu after I took that helmet off him. But I had to try. I had to take it all the way to the end. That was the only way I could feel even slightly satisfied." Andrew admitted. He looked down at his right hand, and the mangled, crushed little wooden box in his palm, more splinters and wood chips now than anything else, after almost thirty minutes of unheeding use as a worry ball. The ring inside was just a twisted mass of gold and glittering gemstone dust. Almost three thousand dollars down the drain right there, but he supposed it was for the best. Keeping it around, as a reminder of the chance he'd lost, would have been far too painful, long term. "I'm feeling the sudden need to get absolutely wasted. Care to join me in a few rounds?"

"I get the feeling I should not leave you alone right now, to be on the safe side. Let us hope you can handle your drink better when you're depressed than you can when you're happy." Kisaka said with a shrug, as he tried to figure out how he was going to sidestep his duties for the rest of the day. Sometimes, personal friends had to come before military duties. "For a Coordinator, you don't handle alcohol very well."

"I have never yet passed out." Andrew retorted, with a lopsided smile. "Unlike some."

"Passing out is safe, and doesn't generally end up with a trip to the local police drunk tank. Nor does it get Kira and Lacus ticked off at you because you interrupt them with a crank call while they are making love."

"That's only happened once... or twice." Andrew said with a rueful tone.

Kisaka was about to reply when a buzzing vibration from his shirt pocket brought him up short. He withdrew his cellphone, raised an eyebrow at the number he saw on the display, and put the phone rapidly to his ear. "This is Colonel Kisaka..." He listened for several seconds, and Andrew watched Ledonir's face transform into his combat alert mask. He sat up and set the crushed remains of the ring aside on the bench, thoughts of getting drunk and drowning his sorrows banished for the moment. "Understood. I will be there soon." Kisaka clicked his phone shut.

"How bad?" Andrew asked, getting to his feet.

"Noah Borander just tried to assassinate Gilbert Durandel while he was giving a press conference." Kisaka reported.

Andrew winced. "That's pretty bad."

"Initial reports say he used his Newtype abilities to do it. The SecDef is badly hurt, and there are multiple fatalities. Borander escaped unharmed. It was broadcast to the entire world in real time."

"That's quite a bit worse."

"You have a talent for understatement."

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"Gil! Gil!" Pushed his way past the the protesting arms of the nurse, almost throwing the concerned young woman to the floor, and burst through the door of the intensive care unit where Gil had been taken after being seen to in the emergency room earlier. Rey had been working with some USN agents on tracking down the location of the main Brotherhood base, something he felt he really should have been able to solve by now, for some reason, and had only found out about what had happened after being called, which had only happened about an hour ago. Which was several hours after the incident had actually happened, but he'd been working quite a ways away from any sort of communication device or display screen. For some reason he felt compelled to search the structures of the new E-PLANTS under construction, though he couldn't figure out why he felt so confident that enough searching in those half complete colonies would generate the breakthrough results he was so desperately looking for. "Gil...!"

"I'm all right, Rey." Durandel replied, his voice soft and somewhat thready because of all the pain medications in his bloodstream. Still, he was fully conscious and even sitting up in his bed, having been in discussion with a white coated doctor when Rey had come charging in. Several grim looking bodyguards, in full ZAFT military armor and assault rifles stood guard around the edges of the room, and they were jumpy enough to even point their rifles at Rey before Durandel gestured them to stand down with a imperiously raised hand. "I probably won't be dancing any jigs for a while, but I'm in a much better condition than some." Durandel continued, his mouth settling into a deep frown. He had a bunch of gauze wadded up in his nostril to contain the bloody nose, and his left leg was a mass of bandages and flexible casts from mid thigh to ankle, keeping his injured limb rigid and supported while the bones were healed, but other than those, and the IV's in his arm, he was unscathed.

"The patient needs rest." The doctor said severely. "You should wait outside."

"It's all right, he can stay." Durandel interrupted insistently.

"Mr. Secretary, you may feel fine, but that is a function of the pain suppressant drugs. You have been badly injured, and you need to rest in order to recuperate." The doctor replied. "We can fix your leg, but only if you let us, and letting us involves following our orders and recommendations. Too much activity in the early stages of the treatment could prevent the bones from knitting together properly, and might result in permanent damage to your leg, meaning a limp or even worse."

"I understand that, Doctor, and I will do everything in my power to follow your directions, as much as possible. However, I am still the Secretary of Defense of the USN, and I have my own duties to fufill, even if they should cost me the full use of my leg in the future. Having Rey here will not hinder my recovery any more than it already has been, and might indeed do much to help." Durandel replied calmly.

The doctor sighed and shook his head. "Well, don't say I didn't warn you."

"I am grateful for your concern and your considerable efforts on my behalf." Durandel assured him, as the doctor walked out of the room, still muttering and shaking his head. Once the doctor was gone, and the door securly shut and guarded by one of the bodyguards, Durandel allowed himself to wince and sag slightly.

"Gil!" Rey darted forward, putting his hand on Gil's shoulder to help him ease back down to a lounging position. "Don't stress yourself."

"Appearances have to be maintained. Word of my stubborn refusal to give in will spread, vicariously through the doctor's complaints. The people need to think that I am still unshaken and unbowed by this terrible experience." Durandel sighed. "As far from the truth as that may be." He added, in a much quieter tone.

"What happened? I haven't heard a complete report." Rey asked, pulling up a chair and pulling the curtain around the bed, so he and Gil could at least have a little privacy.

"It was Noah." Durandel closed his eyes and shivered in recollection.

"How is that possible? His face and description are plastered basically on every street corner! His accounts are all locked down, and his every place of residence or work is under detailed observation! Not to mention your own security! How the hell did he get anywhere near you?" Rey asked, disbelieving.

"He was wearing some sort of holographic disguise, and a electronic voice camouflager as well. He must have slipped in when they were letting the press inside, and have just been biding his time until he decided to act."

Rey shook his head. "That shouldn't have been possible! Every reporter was searched in a hands on manner, and had all their gear checked and rechecked before they were allowed into the room with you. A holographic projector would have been found out in a heartbeat!"

"If his disguise was purely technological in nature, I would have to agree with you. However, in light of recent events, I am forced to conclude that he has more than just technology at his disposal." Durandel replied with another wince. "It's... its hard for me to say this, Rey... but Noah... has abilities beyond ANYTHING I had previously thought possible. Beyond anything human!"

"Beyond human?" Rey questioned. "I mean, he certainly seems like he's more than human at times, but that's just his charisma and looks..."

"I'm no longer sure if that is true, or if our perceptions of his charisma, at the very least, haven't been coming from an entirely different source." Durandel looked off at the curtain blankly, before shaking his head to refocus his thoughts.

"What do you mean, Gil?"

"I mean, Rey, that Noah has, to the best of my ability to categorize, psychic powers." Durandel said heavily. "And I know how that sounds."

"Psychic powers?" Rey snorted. "He's very good at manipulating people... look at what he did to me... but I think that might be going a bit too..."

"I executed two men and a woman I had been friendly with for years, who all would have gladly stepped between me and an assassin's bullet. People who's wives and families I'd met and befriended. People who had been with us from the start. They knelt against their will at my feet and I blew their brains all over the walls, despite how much I tried to stop myself." Durandel interrupted, his face turning hollow and haunted looking. "I watched, horrified, as other friends and trusted subordinates, comrades for years through thick and thin, turned on each other and themselves, committing suicide while screaming and fighting their own bodies, uselessly, all because of a few words and a gesture from Noah. I saw a pistol float through the air, release the safety, rack the slide and blow a man's head off, without a single human hand touching the weapon at any point in time. I almost shoved a finger into my own brain through my nose, and no matter how much I wanted to run, I couldn't do anything but stand there and watch it all happen, along with everyone else in the room."

"That doesn't make any sense..." Rey protested.

"I know! Believe me, though it happened to me, I can't hardly believe it either! It feels like a dream, a nightmare! I don't want it to have happened! I kneecapped myself and bit down on my own tongue to stop myself from screaming! I have no doubt I would have blown my own head off if Noah hadn't run away. I would have done anything he wanted me to do, shot anyone, killed anyone, even you, Rey, because I was not in control of my body. He was. He was controlling me like a puppet on strings. He took my free will away and made me a murderer on public TV! And he had the gall to preach his doomsday prattle the entire time, citing his righteousness and willingness to sacrifice himself for the good of humanity! It makes me want to puke, just thinking about it! He humiliated me worse than anything I have ever experienced... and, for the first time, he truly terrified me." Durandel admitted. "He read my thoughts like I had written them out for him, and he claimed to have been doing it from the beginning. If he's been reading my mind all these years then... then I really have been played for a fool all along, haven't I?"

"No, you're no one's fool, Gil." Rey said adamantly.

"Thank you, Rey. As always, I can count on you to be stalwart for me." Durandel smiled and yawned sleepily. "I seem to be a bit more tired than I thought. Perhaps I should rest a little after all." He settled down onto his pillows more comfortably. "Damn leg doesn't hurt, it's just all numb and dead feeling. Very awkward. Going to take a lot of getting used to. I guess this will give Talia another arguement for me being a stay at home husband though, eh?"

"Eh, I just don't think that sounds like you, Gil." Rey shrugged, his vision blurring with tears as he struggled to contain the inferno of emotions raging inside him. Relief, that Gil was going to be all right, in time. Admiration, for the way Gil bore up under the trauma, both physical and mental, refusing to bend or crack even slightly under the pressure. Guilt, at not being there to protect Gil against this insane attack. Shame and frustration, at still being stymied and lost when dealing with chasing down the Brotherhood, despite his internal certainty that he already knew the answers he was looking for. Anger, at himself for letting things drag on like this and being helpless. Fury, at Noah, for daring to strike at Gil, for daring to hurt Gil, for trying to even KILL Gil! It all mixed together, revolving around and around and gathering pressure inside him, until it was a raging storm that pushed at invisble bonds, demanding release. Rey put a hand to his forehead and winced as sharp pain ripped through his mind, jolting in his chair as something inside his consciousness snapped and gave way in a rush of white hot memories. "AHHG!" Rey exclaimed, before collapsing forward onto Gil's bed.

"Rey! Rey, what is it!? What's wrong!?" Durandel demanded, his voice a whisper as he fought to stay awake through the sedatives pulling him toward unconsciousness. He fumbled for the nurse call button, but it was out of his reach, and he could barely muster the strength to lay his hand on Rey's head, much less search for the damned remote.

"I..." Rey groaned, slowly pushing himself upright, even as he took Gil's hand in his own and gripped firmly, excitedly even. "I know what he's planning to do! I know what Noah is planning to do!"

"How...?" Durandel asked, feeling slightly more awake as his own excitement kindled.

"I don't know. It just came to me in a flash... I... uh... I..." Rey's vision swam and he pressed his free hand to the side of his temple, which seemed to help a little. "I think I remembered it, actually. Noah told me once, and then made me forget somehow. Except I didn't really forget, I just buried it, and couldn't get at it until now." Rey sat back and shivered, his eyes wide and unseeing as the scope of Noah's plan unfolded in his mind's eye. "Oh... my... God... the air exchangers! Of course! He's going to use the air exchangers to distribute the Green EDEN!"

"The... what...?" Durandel asked, since that was not a term familiar to him.

"It's... it's... uh... well... I'm not sure what it is, exactly." Rey admitted, after consulting his memories, including the new ones. "Something Noah made. Something airborne. It's an outgrowth of the medicine he was testing on me, I think. Something biological or chemical. Maybe both. Maybe neither. I don't remember. I'm not sure he ever told me what it actually was."

"A weapon?" Durandel asked, shaking a few more of the cobwebs from his brain, though only temporarily. He blanched at the thought of a chemical or biological agent being introduced into the PLANTS air filtration systems, which renewed eighty percent of each PLANTS colony's air every few hours. If the agent was released, it would be impossible to stop it spreading throughout the PLANTS, in far less time than any effective quarantine or evacuation could be organized.

"I'm not sure. He... didn't talk about it like it was a weapon." Rey struggled to recall details of the conversation he'd had, several years ago now. "But then again, he didn't talk about his Gundams like they were weapons either, so that doesn't mean much."

"When?" Durandel was fighting with all his might, but he could feel the drugs gaining the upper hand. Doctor had prolly turned up the dose rate before he left, to ensure he would rest whether he wanted to or not. Doctors could be sneaky like that.

"Don't know. I'd imagine soon though, seeing as he seems to be cutting his ties here..." Rey trailed off, before bolting to his feet. "It could be any day now! It could be today!"

"Sto...p... him..." Durandel ordered, even as his eyes fluttered completely closed and he slipped into dreamless slumber.

"I'll stop him dead, Gil. I promise. I swear to you, I'll make him pay for what he did to you... father!" Rey whispered in a steely tone. "I'll make him pay!"

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	42. Grassfire part 4

Author Note: Well, if last chapter didn't shake things up enough, I give you the final chapter of the Grassfire Arc. I wonder how many of you saw THIS coming (especially the end)? I don't think its going to be very many. So sorry to anyone expecting a lot of different topics in this chapter, though a lot gets covered, its very monofocus in terms of characters. But I'll let you read on. And react. I definitely want to see the reactions.

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Meyrin sat in the back of the speeding APC, as it tore across the main highways of Aprilius One, headed towards the central spire with all possible speed, racing against an invisible clock no one dared to think wasn't ticking. The APC, along with two others, was ferrying a mixed pair of hastily scraped together platoons of soldiers, one from the USN and one from ZAFT, who had been seconded to the USN under emergency orders from the SecDef. Almost thirty soldiers, well armed, well trained, and definitely well motivated, with the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, some of them family members or friends, hanging in the balance. You'd better believe they were motivated. Details from high command were sketchy, but what had been handed down was enough to get the pulse pounding of any humane person who knew anything at all about the vulnerability of a closed environment system to large scale airborne attacks. Closed environment systems were great against such attacks originating from outside the closed environment... but if the attack came from within, then they turned from fortresses into prisons, keeping the people inside with the bad stuff and only letting them out in small groups, if at all.

The Brotherhood, it had recently been discovered, was planning on hijacking the air exchanger facilities of the PLANTS and their associated large space stations, and using the extremely high capacity blowers and filtration systems, which dealt with millions of cubic feet of air every hour to distribute an unknown but most assuredly highly deadly bio-chemical weapon across the PLANTS. The effects of the weapon were as yet unknown, but no one was in any particular hurry to find out first hand, as anything prepared by the Brotherhood for this kind of large scale operation could not be pleasant. All of the soldiers were equipped with armored full body CBR (Chemical, Biological, Radiological) Suits and self contained breathing units in their helmets that should protect them against any accidental exposure. Emphasis on the should. Put one piece of gear on wrong, leave one seal untightened, one zipper undone, and you might as well not be wearing the bulky, hot, confining suit in the first place. Not to mention if you got a rip or tear in it. They were armored, but gunfire and sharp edges could still take their toll. Bad enough worrying about getting shot... now, even nonfatal wounds could kill you, even more painfully than a bullet to the heart!

The APC rocked as it took a corner faster than strictly safe for a vehicle of its mass and center of gravity, and the men and women inside jostled and swayed as they adjusted themselves to compensate. Meyrin found herself on the butt end of more than her fair share of jostles and overly hard nudges and even outright shoves, as the soldiers in the APC with her took advantage of the opportunity to convey their flimsily restrained sense of dislike and disgust for her. She bore up under the battering without a word of complaint, despite the bruises and scrapes. In truth, she barely noticed, so sunk into her own mind and thoughts and concerns was she. Much as she knew many people despised and hated her because of her relationship with Noah, the most infamous terrorist of modern times, Meyrin had yet to be able to come to a solid conclusion herself for how she felt. Shock and disbelief had definitely been the biggest things at first... she recalled the suspicious codework she'd discovered during the battle against the Revenant, but that had been nothing more than idle curiousity, really. Noah's security programs were obviously not unique, since the Orb National Defense computer networks used a variation on them, so there was no reason for the ones she'd discovered on the Revenant to have been made by Noah.

Though of course now, it was looking like the very worst case scenario was indeed the real one, and those security programs were indeed made by Noah! But how could that be? Yes, he was weird, and maybe not the friendliest of sorts if you didn't know him, and he had the awkward award nailed down tight... but a fanatical religious terrorist bent on destroying civilization? That was stupid! Noah wasn't religious at all, if anything, he had contempt for most religious doctrines, though it was more the idle sort of someone who simply didn't understand how people could have faith in something they couldn't see or feel or quantify, than anything vehement or angry. He definitely wasn't the sort to persecute people for having whatever beliefs they did. He really didn't care what other people believed, inasmuch as higher powers and the reasons for being and whatnot. He had his own strongly held beliefs, but he didn't try to force them on anyone, not even her. She was still trying to figure out what he'd meant when she'd asked him about it, and he'd replied "Humanity is God, and Humans are Angels just waiting to be born", but it sure didn't sound like some sort of doomsday cult thing.

But everyone believed that Noah had secretly been giving money and supplies to the Brotherhood, ever since the Secretary of Defense had announced it, right after Galileo! Meyrin had looked at the evidence supplied by the SecDef, and had to admit, it was pretty damning... but something didn't add up. The information was too detailed, too complete, to be what the SecDef claimed it was, that being newly discovered information. Newly discovered information was, as a rule in her experience, fragmentary and incomplete, even contradictory at times. The evidence given to the world was not only complete, it was definite... it did not suggest something, or indicate something... it flat out said and showed that Noah was a terrorist, beyond any doubt of any interpretation. Now, that might be because it was simply that obvious and true, but that didn't happen very much in the real world, Meyrin knew. Information that definite, that quickly, out of the blue? That was more suspicious than the security programming, in her opinion. The only way she could see a dossier like that one being compiled was over a long period of time, months at the very least. But if the SecDef had known Noah was supplying money and aid to the Brotherhood for months and months, and hadn't said anything or done anything about it... that didn't make any sense either!

She'd tried to express her concerns to others, but by then the Solar Knights were all already giving her the cold shoulder, and not even her close friends would talk with her or even be around her. No one had said anything to her face, but after finding her travel case ransacked, with almost all her clothes and personal items she'd had shipped up the Moon after the battle either damaged or missing, Meyrin had definitely been feeling scared and alone, even surrounded by people. Things hadn't gotten much better since then either... the written messages and graffitti being the worst, given that they had to be from fellow Solar Knights. "Terrorist Whore", "Murderer's Slut" and "Traitor Bitch" had replaced all of her nametags on lockers and had even been embroidered into one of her uniforms. All the clothes Noah had made for her had been ripped and cut to pieces, even burned, or at least someone had tried by the smell of burnt oil fumes that had permeated the scraps she'd found in a restroom trashcan. The scariest part was that she had no idea who felt like that, and who was merely avoiding her because they were afraid of being targeted too. She felt like she couldn't trust anyone, like everyone was plotting against her behind her back. Being yanked from her duty squad by the Knight-Commander's personal order had come as more of a relief than an embarassment, she was ashamed to admit.

However, the relief of social isolation had quickly turned to a whole new brand of mild terror, once the fact of her relationship to Noah had been somehow leaked to the news media, whether by a secret hater among the Solar Knights or someone else that knew of their feelings for each other, which could be a lot of people, she'd realized, even on up to the SecDef himself! Though why the SecDef would bother sabotaging her image was beyond her... she was just a soldier, not even a full officer, surely he couldn't bear her that sort of enmity? She'd never even spoken to him in person! Eventually the thought had occured to her that perhaps the story of her and Noah hadn't been leaked to target her, but actually to target Noah! That idea had turned much of her terror to anger, because striking at Noah by targeting her was exactly the sort of immoral tactic that terrorists, like the Brotherhood, used to accomplish their goals... finding the USN and even the Solar Knights using them made her feel ashamed to be a part of them, a little bit. She knew Noah was probably much less than pleased himself, a thought that both chilled and warmed her.

Warmed, because she knew that his feelings for her were genuine, and deep. Very deep. Deeper than even he probably knew. He loved her, in a way that only someone who hadn't had much to truly love in life could manage. His family was dead, he had no real good friends, besides Rey and a few others he only rarely kept in contact with... besides his personal projects and maybe a pet here and there, she was his only point of human contact with the rest of the world, and for that he treasured and cherished her in a way that was heartmeltingly endearing to experience. He was just so eager, so frantic to make her happy, basking in her smiles and laughter like they were sunshine, cowering from her frowns and indifferent shrugs like a dog would from thunderbolts, as something he had to accept but could not understand and definitely didn't like. Maybe she just liked being lavished with attention, but was that a bad thing? It wasn't like she didn't return his affections, if not nearly as... over the top. This wasn't her first major relationship, and she was confident in herself and how she felt about people... though she had to admit, Noah was special to her, in a new and very exciting way. He was interesting, in a new way every time they were together, and she really liked that. He could always surprise her too, and usually in a good way.

Chilled, because though she knew he tried to hide it from her, he also had a steely, angry, calculating side that could frighten her as easily as his clumsy attempts at romance could make her smile. His intelligence and skills and abilities and personal resources were all so vast that she sometimes felt like a toddler sitting at the same table as an Angel or other semi-divine being. He could make her feel like the center of the universe, or an insignificant little dost mote, just by looking at her a little differently and altering the tone of his voice. He wasn't precisely mercurial in temperment, but he definitely always had a lot going on beneath the surface, and he simply could not sit still to save his life. He always had to be doing something, accomplishing something, thinking, talking, improving, redesigning, creating, deconstructing... it was like he didn't have an off switch for his mind! He hardly ever seemed to sleep, and he ate huge meals, sometimes as many as five or six thousand calories a day, but though he did relatively little physical exercise, he never gained an ounce of fat, a thought that never failed to make her grimace with jealousy. But the thought of all that energy, all that intelligence and willpower focused on something that made him angry, made him want to lash out to protect himself or someone he loved... yeah, that was definitely chilling.

Being cut off from pretty much everyone else, even Lain and Eric, who were both back down on Earth, in charge of some sort of supply operations, ostensibly on leave, though everyone knew they were being punished for disobeying the Knight-Commander's orders during the battle, Meyrin had turned to her one constant, the one person, besides Noah, who she knew would never hate or abandon her... her older sister. But Luna was different lately. Distant, and very hard to approach, even by friends. She spent most of her time either in her room, doing who knew what, or training on simulators. She was barely commanding her squadron at all, and she would snap at and lash out at anyone who tried to point out, no matter how gently or politely, that she looked a right mess most of the time, sometimes having obviously slept in her uniform or having not brushed her hair for a day or two. Everyone knew why, of course, but no one knew what to do about it. Shinn had not come back from Galileo, and everyone was depressed about it. Shinn had been the unofficial hero of the Solar Knights, the best of the best, the champion they all looked to, unconsciously even, to even the odds when the going got rough. He was the MVP of the varsity team, and definitely the major crowd favorite. And he was gone. Officially listed as MIA, but after several days, everyone knew that was just a PC way of saying he was dead and probably disintegrated, judging by Luna's story of him tackling the Indpendence after its weapons blew up, in order to save her life

After the official announcement of Noah being a terrorist, Luna wouldn't even speak to her anymore. Wouldn't answer her phone, wouldn't open her door for her, wouldn't even look at her in the hall. It was like she was blaming Meyrin for Shinn dying during a fight with the Brotherhood, merely because Noah was supposed to be a part of the Brotherhood as well, and he was Meyrin's boyfriend. As if that made any sense at all! Even if, IF, Noah was part of the Brotherhood, even if he was the leader, like some said, Shinn had died fighting the Independence, not the Brotherhood, and in any case, blaming Meyrin was totally unfair! Its not like she wanted Shinn to die, or didn't miss him as much as anyone else! If anything, she really wanted him to come back so she could give him her heartfelt thanks for looking out for Luna, even at the cost of his own life! Love like that wasn't grown on trees! Luna really had been lucky to have had him for as long as she did... but they were soldiers! Solar Knights. Death on the battlefield was a constant spectre, for all of them! It didn't make what happened any less sad or heartbreaking, but blaming Meyrin or Noah even wasn't fair either!

As if all of that hadn't been problem enough, she had then been publicly assigned, amongst much ridicule and ill feeling, to head up the investigation for tracking down and capturing Noah. As if she had any idea how to track down a "criminal" or "terrorist"! She was a Combat Operations Controller! Feed her all the data from a chaotic battlefield, and she could collate and refine it into an accurate tactical outlay in a matter of seconds, and be ready to brief and provide detailed instructions and strategies for up to an entire regiment's worth of soldiers in a few more seconds after that! But track someone down, when they had all the PLANTS to hide in, even if that person was her boyfriend? "You've got to be shitting me! I can't do that, I haven't the slightest idea about criminal investigations!" She'd protested, but her orders hadn't changed. She'd tried to plead emotional distress, since he WAS her boyfriend, but that hadn't gotten her anywhere either. That had confirmed it for her, right then and there. She was being targeted, being abused even, or at least allowed to be abused, in order to get to Noah.

Which had left her feeling all sorts of angry, and bitter, and self righteous, secure in her feelings towards Noah, and beginning to form a rather unfavorable impression of her "own" side, given their mistreatment of her. She even sorta half hoped Noah would show up like a Knight in shining armor and rescue her from what she was rapidly realizing was a silken cage of circumstance and duty. Of course, those fantasies never really got to the point of where they would go or what they would do AFTER he rescued her, but she was fairly sure he would have some kind of answer for that, even if she didn't. Everything had come to a screeching halt though, with the live broadcast events from earlier today. Everything she'd felt had been turned on its head, and the floorof emotional certainty kicked out from under her, while she watched the TV screen, transfixed and shivering, if for different reasons than everyone else who was also staring, transfixed and shivering. Like most everyone else, she really hadn't been paying attention to the press conference playing in the background, even though hearing them talk about her on live TV made her skin prickle, and not in a fun way.

Then had come the shouting and commotion, and she, like everyone else, had turned to look at the TV, wondering what was going on, in time to see a flickering image ghost out of existence, leaving Noah standing there in the middle of the screen, surrounded by people on all sides and yet somehow manging to be fully alone, as if he was the centerpiece and they only the background. Her heart had leapt into her throat and her eyes had gone very wide... he was, simply put, beautiful, making her throat dry and her mouth water. So strong, so confident, so... angry. She'd seen the emotions warring behind his eyes the moment the camera zoomed in on him, and she'd swallowed very hard. He was blazing mad, and there was something wrong with his eyes. She'd had occasion to peer closely at his eyes more than once, usually while they were making out, but also in less heated moments, and she'd always been entranced by the deep violet color, with the amazing silver and gold speckles. The silver speckles were still there... but his pupils, which were black on every human being she'd ever seen, had turned totally gold, metallic and reflective even. His gold and violet eyes burned with emotional power, and it was strong enough to make everyone who met the gaze, even through a TV screen, gasp and mumble in shock.

Then had come the beginnings of the inexplicable events she still couldn't fully convince herself she'd seen right. Big, tough looking men in dark business suits, with the white spiral cords of earbud communicators trailing down their collars, had crowded into the picture, as it had panned back into a wide angle view, affording all and sundry a very good view of what happened next. One of the guards reached for Noah, only to get cold clocked from behind by one of the other guards, using a stun gun! That same guard then turned the stun gun on himself, ramming it into his OWN eyes, so hard you could HEAR the skull fracture! She had not herself puked, but she'd heard someone nearby losing their lunch at that point in time. Noah had smirked, in a way that chilled the marrow of her bones. His very look claimed responsibility for what had just happened, impossible as it was for her to believe it.

Things went rapidly from bad to worse when the two remaining guards drew guns and pointed them at Noah. Or tried to, anyway, until Noah just sort of smiled at them pityingly and they turned the guns on themselves, biting down on the muzzles of their own pistols, even as they heaved and jerked at their arms to no avail, before blowing the back of their heads out in sprays of gore and skull fragments. She'd puked then, and lost track of events for a minute or so while she recovered herself. It wasn't that gore really got to her... horror movies were some of her favorites, actually, the gorier and bloodier the better. But that was all fake stuff. This was live TV! Two men had just killed themselves... been forced to kill themselves... right before her eyes! By the time she'd managed to drag her eyes back to the screen, things had moved from the merely improbable to the outright surreal.

Noah was still standing more or less where he'd started out, but there was something different about him. Something besides the pistol floating about three inches above his outstretched palm, that is. Not that THAT wasn't enough of a change, but Meyrin found herself drawn into his eyes again, only to gasp once more. Now the violet part of his eyes had also turned to a washed out, metallic hue, making his eyes look colder, almost frozen, with the pupils shrinking to mere golden dots in the middle of a sea of metallic silver and violet. They were scary eyes, inhuman eyes, the eyes of something that might think and reason like a human sometimes, but was operating on a whole different plane of existence entirely most of the rest of time, and especially right at that instant. Those weren't the eyes of the Noah she knew, and the look of cool delight and concentration in them had frightened her worse than a dozen angry bruisers with guns and knives ever could. Noah was looking at people like they weren't people at all anymore. He was, however unintentionally, looking at HER like she wasn't a person anymore! She did NOT like it. Not even a little bit.

Truth be told, she found she couldn't really remember exactly what Noah had said, though she knew he and the SecDef were exchanging words. She was too caught up in the little details that only someone who knew Noah like she did would notice. The little differences, and definitely all the similarities. She still managed to get more than an eyeful of the gun firing without anyone touching it, not just once, but multiple times, before Noah let it drop to the ground, apparently satisfied that he'd made his point. Or at least one of them, because he hadn't let up on whatever it was he was doing to the SecDef and the other three bodyguards, as one of the guards dropped to his knees after giving the SecDef his gun. Meyrin had watched the SecDef press the gun against the man's face, his entire body tense and unwilling, yet powerless despite that. She'd heard Durandel pleading with Noah to stop, and she'd heard Noah's reply. Heard him talk about reading minds, about how he in fact couldn't tune people out most of the time, how he was bombarded with everything everyone around him was thinking. Suddenly his self imposed social isolation made a lot more sense to her... though at the same time, if he could hear thoughts, then had he been listening to hers? The thought was... creepy. A person's thoughts were private! All the uncomplimentary things she or Luna or anyone else had ever thought about him... he'd heard those, and hadn't reacted? How could he...?

She'd heard Noah insinuating that he and Durandel had much deeper ties than anyone suspected, and she found herself thinking about that suspicious intelligence report again. If Durandel and Noah had been working together for a long time, then that report actually made a lot of sense. But that would mean the Secretary of Defense of the USN was a party to conspiring with terrorists! With the very Brotherhood they'd all been fighting so hard to defeat! Durandel hadn't said anything, not even a denial, and then he'd blown the guard's head off, just like that. And the next guard's, and the guard's after that, even when Noah jummped onto the stage to stand next to Durandel. Meyrin had found herself biting her lip, not knowing what to feel. Betrayal was definitely a big part of it though, and that feeling stemmed from both Noah AND the SecDef. The SecDef had been working with the Brotherhood for his own goals all along, she was now sure, but she was equally sure that Noah was everything everyone had said he was, namely the leader of the Brotherhood! They'd both been lying to everyone, to her included, and while the SecDef's betrayal was painful, because she'd believed in and trusted him, even admired him, it didn't even compare to what she felt from Noah's betrayal, which had stabbed her like a knife to the heart!

Had he just been using her, to scope out the Solar Knights? Was that all she was to him, a tool, a means to an end? She thought of all the pleasant memories she had of him of the feeling of his lips on hers, of his lips on other parts of her, of his hands roaming and touching and stroking freely, at her own command even, even as her own hands marveled at the firm and beautiful structure of his own body, and she felt sick. The loss of dignity was total, the loss of pride just as bad. She'd been played like an instrument, and she'd liked it. Hell, for all she knew, he'd used some of the same mind tricks on her as he'd done on the SecDef and the others! She didn't feel any different, didn't feel coerced or controlled, but like he'd said on multiple occasions... if he felt the need to coerce her, he definitely could! And now, now she definitely saw what he meant when he said that, and it made her feel terrified and violated! He could control people like they were puppets, force them to kill other people, kill themselves! Forcing a girl to fall in love with him surely couldn't be that hard compared to that, now could it!?

Despite that... despite all that, despite the pain of the betrayals and the pain of going over all her memories of their time together, every laugh and shout, every pleasured gasp and sunny smile, and wondering what was real and what was just a carefully planned farce, a part of some overarching scheme she could see neither the beginning nor end of... she found herself still confused about how she felt about him. She wanted to hate him, because it would be easy, it would make her feel better, and it was probably the right way to feel. Terrorists were bad people, and she had nothing but disgust for people that would kill innocent men, women and children just to make political points, or even worse, for religious differences. But she wanted to love him too, because he made her feel special, and she just couldn't reconcile his unforced smile and fumbling, awkward attempts at romance with the cold blooded, planned it all from the start, evil manipulator idea she'd gotten. She remembered him holding onto her like she was a lifeline, and crying... CRYING real tears... at the thought of her getting angry with him and dumping him because of some silly mistakes on his part. He'd been so vulnerable then, so open, so needy... she'd looked into his eyes then and seen right through to his soul, to the lonely boy who just wanted someone to love him back for who he was, and she'd never been able to shake that image since, not even now.

That her feelings of love had managed to persist through the opening of her eyes to his real self, through witnessing his unbelievable powers, through the questioning of her own memories and the shock and anger that had accompanied it all confused and frightened her in equal measure. How could she still be in love with someone like this, after all they'd done, to the world, to her even! But she could not deny that as angry and hurt and scared as she was, she couldn't find it in herself to hate him. Not without first asking why, and being able to look into his oh so expressive eyes while he replied. He'd told her that he was incapable of lying to her while she looked him in the eyes, and despite herself, she believed him, even now. If she could but look into his eyes one more time, and ask him why... that would be enough to clear things up for her, and make up her mind. Not that she could think of any acceptable reasons for his actions... but she was willing, surprisingly, to hold out hope.

The APC and its companions rolled to a stop inside Aprilius One's central spire, and the soldiers piled out, forming up and conducting a final ready check before they headed towards the express elevators that would take them up to the atmospheric control station, up near the space port, in the vertex between the two living spaces of the PLANT, where air could be filtered and passed between both living continents the most easily. Contact had been made, and then subsequently lost, with the operators of the Aprilius One control station, and now no one was sure what was going on up there. Meanwhile, hundreds of other teams were spreading out throughout the PLANTS with identical goals, making their way to the control stations to secure them against external attack or internal sabotage, hopefully before the Brotherhood managed to fully prepare to release their weapon, assuming they weren't already in the process of doing it.

The few Solar Knights that Knight-Commander ze Burrel had ordered to the PLANTS as escort for the SecDef were now spread out, in technical command of various anti-terrorism teams as they scrambled to defeat the Brotherhood's master scheme at the last moment. Meyrin didn't think any of the soldiers she was commanding would listen to a single thing she had to say, and not just because they didn't like her because of Noah. She was a noncombatant soldier, a desk jockey, a technical rating that never fired a gun off the practice range in her entire career, most likely. She didn't know the first thing about counter-terrorist operations of this sort. The only skill she really added to the team was her data hacking ability, which would probably be of limited use, since they already had all the entry codes for the secure parts of the control station. She was just an extra body that would probably only get in the way, but they couldn't leave her behind either, because she had to take responsibility for whatever happened. They were probably all secretly happy, inasmuch as they could be, because they could just pin the blame on her if anything went badly, saying they were ill led by someone who probably even sympathized with the terrorists. She crowded into the elevator with them, and wished the sinking feeling in her gut was coming only from the rapid upward motion of the elevator.

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Meyrin advanced towards the main doors that would lead into the interior of the atmospheric control station, feeling foolish and awkward, especially with the heavy CBR suit and mask on. Three heavily armed soldiers preceeded her, their movements swift, graceful and very deadly, while she mostly just waddled and shuffled along, followed by two more graceful and deadly soldiers. They still hadn't managed to raise anyone inside the control station on video or even voice only comms, and tensions were high. Nor had they seen anyone, or anything, to indicate a struggle or fight had taken place, but in this case, no sign was not good sign. The platoons had split up, to come in from all angles, even the nonconventional ones. The main doors were actually rated as the least likely to allow entry if the terrorists had taken control of the station, which was probably why they;d only sent a token force, plus Meyrin, to investigate it. The majority of the ZAFT and USN forces would be coming in from the more secure doors, or even from the stations own ventilation and waste systems, crawling through pipes and ducts to take the enemy hopefully by surprise.

Her group reached the doors, and the sergeant in charge rapidly punched in the security code. Nothing happened. The doors didn't budge in the slightest, thought the diagnostic still showed them as being active. They just wouldn't open. "Damn, they've changed the codes." The sergeant muttered, pounding his hand on the doorway, which thunked slightly as his fist met the thick metal of the door. "ForCom, this is MaDoor. The entry code has been changed, there's no access here. Possibility of hostile entry now above ninety five percent. Will hold position here, and apprehend or annihilate any suspects that attempt escape through this route."

"MaDoor, ForCom, acknowledged failure to access due to changed security codes, concur with asessment of potential hostile presence. You be the net, we be the dynamite, catch em after we blow em out of the water."

"ForCom, MaDoor, will do. Good luck and bountiful harvest." The sergeant signed off. He turned to his squad and began directing them to what few defensible positions there were. "Three on the door, one on our six in case they have a backup team hidden in a rathole somewhere. I'll bounce back and forth as need be. If that door moves, you give one warning, and then you frag them, understand? We got hundreds of thousands of innocent civilian's necks on the line here, and we will NOT hesitate to protect them, is that understood!?"

"Hooah!" The squad replied as one, settling into their assigned places.

"Uh, what do you want me to do?" Meyrin asked, a few seconds later, one hand placed uncertainly on her pistol holster. The sergeant turned as if surprised, as if he'd forgotten she was even there for a moment.

"Uh, you... you can work on opening the door. You are a hacker, right?" He replied, his tone mixed, as if he didn't really know what he wanted to do with her, would probably prefer she wasn't here at all, but was determined to put her to use since she was here.

"Yes, I am." She decided to keep her answers short, since the long answer, that hacking was something she only did on the side, for fun, probably wouldn't be helpful at the moment. The sergeant moved aside, gesturing eloquently at the door, and she shuffled past him, clawing at her equipment pack for her personal computer, which she eventually, after a few fumbles, managed to get hooked up to the door controls. It wasn't exactly easy, with her fine control dexterity limited by the heavy armored rubber gloves! She might as well have oven mitts on! Any sort of serious, fast paced hacking attempt was totally already doomed to failure. She could barely hunt and peck accurately, much less type with the split second speed and adaptability good combat hacking required. Still, it beat just sitting around sweating her ass off and feeling useless. She took one look at the state of the station's data net, or the sliver of it she could see through the door code anyway, and sighed in despair. It was absolutely fucked, no two ways about it. Whoever had scrambled the door code hadn't just changed it... they'd deleted the entire database of possible codes! No matter what combination of numbers you put in, the door wouldn't open!

She typed fruitlessly away for several minutes, but it was just confirming what she already knew. Someone with major skills had ripped through the data net here like a tornado through a balsa wood town, and the scattered pieces were too damaged and fragmented for someone of her self tutored skills to put together in any sort of timely fashion. Maybe if she had a few days, and no restricting CBR suit, and probably several reference guides on the original layout of the system, she might be able to work around the door program and open it, but barring those specific conditions, she was basically useless. On the plus side though, the door was definitely going to stay shut, which meant that no one would be coming out of it, which meant the chances of her being exposed to a straight up close quarters gunfight in a restricted hallway was very, very low. Always look for the bright side, she told herself, though that logic faltered soon enough. Where was the bright side to being the betrayed girlfriend of a mass murdering, apocalyptic minded terrorist, no matter how cute? She was still puzzling that one over, trying not to cry, when a strange shiver passed down her spine, causing her to look up from her screen.

The soldiers were all very still... eeriely still. She couldn't even see if they were breathing or not, though she'd always had trouble with that, given how the suits bulked people out. But right now they weren't even twitching, or adjusting position, or turning their heads to look around or anything! They might as well be statues! She slowly got to her feet, feeling her skin crawl, and cautiously edged over towards the closest soldier, who made no reaction to her approach, not even turning his head, much less his weapon. He was half kneeling behind a trash can, flimsy cover at best, but the only cover available. Feeling like a movie character, in one of her horror movies, just before something big and nasty leaped out at her, Meyrin cautiously reached out a hand and placed it on the man's shoulder. Nothing screamed and grabbed her, though now the tension was even worse for all that! She shook him slightly, but got no reaction. "Hey." Her voice came out dry and cracked. "Hey, are you all right?" She asked, after licking her lips and swallowing to clear her throat. Still no response.

She jumped about a mile and a half into the air, despite her bulky suit, when a harsh metallic clatter from out of her limited field of vision shortly presaged a series of muted "thumps" as the soldiers all teetered and fell over, or else just slumped down in place, limp and still, their guns slipping from relaxed hands and their helmets clinking as their heads lolled loosely. Meyrin felt like her heart was about to burst out of her chest from anxiety, as she slowly backed away from the soldiers, suddenly feeling very alone and vulnerable. She felt the solid metal of the door at her back, and was slightly reassured, though, now that she thought about it, she was backed into a corner with no means of escape, wasn't she? Sweat beaded on her face, and her body felt cold and clammy. She really wished she could take the suit and helmet off, but she really, really didn't want to get her internal organs liquefied, or have her skin flake off, or suffer such severe convulsions that she broke her own spine, or any of the other horrible things that could come from unprotected exposure to chemical and biological weapons.

Nothing happened for a long few seconds, though her computer was making a lot of beeping and bleeping noises for some reason. She was too scared to not have something solid at her back though, so she didn't dare edged over to see what was up. Her imagination was more than fertile enough to conjure all sorts of terrible images and scenarios. She scrabbled at her pistol holster, wanting to have a weapon in hand even if she doubted she'd be able to use it effectively in her current condition. She was still working on getting the flap unbuttoned, something she probably should have done a long time ago, she realized with shame, when the solid presence of the door at her back abruptly disappeared, and a hand came down on her shoulder and yanked her backwards, hard enough to make her stumble and fall. She screamed, loud and shrill. She tried not to, but really, she couldn't blame herself too much. She'd gotten herself all hyped up, and then something HAD grabbed her from behind unexpectedly, just like in a horror film. And now she was lying on her back, in a dark room, and she couldn't see and no doubt all sorts of flesh eating horrors were about to fall upon her and rend her to bits with their bare hands and... the door hissed shut and the lights came back on, revealing who was in the room with her.

"I knew watching "28 Months Later" wasn't a good idea. I told you it would go straight to your head, just like all the other horror flicks you insisted on watching." Noah scolded her, one hand on his hip, while the other typed blindingly quickly at a hand held device hooked to the interior door controls, undoing all the data patches he'd used to open the door after he'd taken down the system the first time. "The scientific premises of that movie were total bunk of course, but the zombies were pretty frightening, I'll grant you."

"N-Noah...?" Meyrin stammered, unable to believe her eyes. He was just about the last person she'd expected to see. Shouldn't the leader be at the home base, hiding out and hatching plans and whatnot? Especially since the PLANTS were a total overturned anthive right now, with citizens roaming the streets in hot eyed gangs, looking for even the slightest sign of a Brotherhood operative to vent their fear and anger over what happened to the SecDef on. "What are you...?"

"Some things you just can't trust to subordinates, no matter how much you'd like to. If the Brotherhood has taught me anything, it's definitely that." Noah looked down at her, lying there in that massive, bulky suit, like a beached walrus, and shook his head while chuckling. "Why are you wearing that ridiculous getup anyway? You look like an extra from a documentary about nuclear waste disposal."

"B-B-But... the p-poison gas!? The chemical weapon!? The germ bomb!? Aren't you afraid of contamination!?" Meyrin yelled, her hysteria coming back. The thought of seeing Noah's nigh perfect body collapsing in a pile of blood and oozing sores was enough to make her want to puke all over again, even though she hadn't had anything to eat since the last time she'd retched.

"Poison gas? What the hell are you talking... oh, oh of course. Naturally, they would say something like that, wouldn't they?" Noah heaved a sigh of frustration. "Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing Gil and Rey would think I was doing, because that's what THEY would do, if they were me. But I am not them, despite how much they wish I was." He shrugged and smiled, extending a hand down to her. "You can take that costume off, I promise it's safe. Besides, it wouldn't protect you against Green EDEN anyway, it's not designed to filter that sort of thing."

Meyrin made no move to accept his hand, or remove any part of her gear. "So you do admit that you're putting something harmful into the air supply!" She half yelled. "How COULD you!? How could you do something like this!? How could you betray me like this!? I thought you loved me!"

"I DO love you, what are you talking about!?" Noah retorted, frowning. "I haven't betrayed you, not ever! I couldn't do that!"

"You're a TERRORIST!" Meyrin full out yelled this time. "You're trying to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians by putting something in the air supply! You LIED to me about what you did, who you were, what you were doing! YOU LIED TO ME ABOUT EVERYTHING! For all I know, you really were the one who got Shinn killed at Galileo, just like Luna said! And yet you haven't betrayed me!? You ARE CRAZY, if you think that!"

"Please don't say things like that, Meyrin, it hurts me very much." Noah said softly, moisture beading in his eyes and his face closing in on itself like a chastised toddler. "Shinn isn't dead, by the way. He's with me now."

"With you now!? You're saying Shinn has become a terrorist too!? A member of your damned BROTHERHOOD!? Shinn HATES you, Noah! Why would he join you? He hates you, because Luna hates you! Just like I hate you!" Meyrin sobbed.

Noah was silent for several long seconds, just staring down at her. "You don't hate me." He said at long last.

"I do! I DO HATE YOU! VERY MUCH!" Meyrin insisted.

"You're saying that because I caused you pain, and you're lashing out at me. I understand. I'm sorry it had to be this way, but it did. Please try to understand, I never intended for you to suffer any duress at all. Not even the slightest bit." Noah crouched down next to her. "Please... I'm sorry, Meyrin. I'm very sorry. Please, forgive me. I didn't mean to cause you pain."

"You're a MONSTER! I saw what you did on TV today! What you did... that was... that was evil! You killed people by forcing them to commit suicide!"

"And nobody regrets it more than me. Human lives are the most precious thing in the world to me, and every loss cuts me deeply." Noah replied quietly. "Even Gil's death would bother me, in that he is a human being. Somewhat."

"LIAR! Don't come near me! I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I HATE YOU!"

"You don't hate me, no matter how much you say you do." Noah replied confidently, riding out her words, though with a tormented expression on his face.

"Oh, so you're reading my mind then, is it!?" Meyrin spat. "Well, go ahead and look real good, you sick bastard! How could you do that to me, to anyone!? How could you violate my privacy like that!? You might as well have raped me!" Noah flinched at that, which brought a vindictive smile to her lips, even as her own heart quivered under the emotional onslaught of her words. Damn it, but this was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? Why wasn't she feeling anything but a deep sense of guilt and hurt, but not the kind of hurt that made her want to push him away! She found herself wanting to seek solace in his arms again. Wait... maybe it was his mind tricks... "GET OUT OF MY HEAD! HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME LOVE YOU!?"

"I am not in your head." Noah told her sadly. "I never have been, and will never be, unless you let me in. Don't you understand, Meyrin? I LOVE you! I know what my powers can do to the people around me, how their minds are affected and changed! Making people love me is easy... it just sort of happens when I want it to happen, and sometimes even when I don't! When I told you that coercing you would be easy, that was an exaggeration... it wouldn't be easy, it would be SECOND NATURE! It would happen naturally, just by me being nearby, unless I consciously shut OFF my powers, which is what I DO whenever I'm around you! At first I didn't like it, didn't like my senses being limited, didn't like feeling half blind and half deaf all the time! But, as time passed, and WE happened, I found I didn't care so much, as long as you were around! That I was as happy, if not MORE happy, without my mental abilities, as long as I was with you, with someone I loved, and who loved me, because they liked ME, not because I wanted them to! Please, Meyrin... I could NEVER make you love me, not like this. Not without making my own love meaningless... and it is NOT MEANINGLESS! I LOVE YOU, MEYRIN HAWKE!"

"Then WHY!? IF YOU LOVE ME SO MUCH, THEN WHY!? WHY ALL THIS!? WHY THE BROTHERHOOD? WHY THE LIES, WHY THE KILLING, WHY DID YOU EVEN PICK ME!?" Meyrin shouted.

"I DIDN'T PICK YOU, IT JUST HAPPENED LIKE THAT! IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, A TWIST OF FATE, AND IT PROBABLY SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED! BUT IT DID! AND I DON'T REGRET IT, AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU!" Noah shouted back. "As for why... its because I love Humanity as well, and I have a duty to make the world a better place for everyone, a place without war, without hunger and disease and poverty and inequality! A utopia, a new Garden of Eden! I have the means to create this world I've dreamed of, and though the process, like all births, is painful and bloody, the end result is going to be as wondrous and beautiful as any newborn child! I want to share this new world, this Eden, with you, Meyrin! With EVERYONE! I want to give you this world, this new life! That is my dream, my hope, my dearest wish! I don't want to destroy Humanity, no matter what Gil says! I want to protect it, help it better itself, help it find a new, golden age of progress and understanding! Don't you... want that as well?" Noah asked, his voice trembling.

"Of... of course I do. Who wouldn't want something like that?" Meyrin replied, stunned. "But your methods are..."

"Regretably crude, but I did the best I could with the materials I had available to me." Noah said. "I fully understand that what I have done is morally wrong, and I don't ask that people forgive me for the sacrifices I've been forcing them to make along the way. In all likelihood, the very first act of the new people of Eden, is going to be ordering my execution. If that is the end result, then I will still be satisfied, if not happy. Because though I will have died, Humanity will grow and prosper through my actions, and there is no finer legacy to leave than that." He reached down and touched the outside of her helmet. "Meyrin, this may be hard to believe or understand, but I have not done any of this for personal power or money or fame or any other reasons than the ones I've already given you, despite the many opportunities I could have exploited for those other, base goals. I swear to you, this is not about me, or Gil, or any single person. Its about the future of Humanity, and always has been. Gil and I have two very different visions for the future of Humanity, and though initially we each needed the other's help to get started on the way to our respective goals, as time passed, our differing visions mandated our conflict. I created the Brotherhood to defend my vision, just as he has utilized the USN and the Solar Knights, among other things, for his own vision."

"So this is just a pissing match between you two BIG DICKS, each thinking he knows what's best for Humanity, is that it!? That's just fucking WONDERFUL! How conceited can you get, Noah!? I don't suppose you could have put it to a vote, actually, I don't know, CONSULTED people to figure out what they wanted to do, rather than just manipulate and FORCE them to do what you want!?"

"Five hundred years of modern democratic history has showed me that merely asking people what they think is best generates a lot of debate, ill feelings on all sides, and even ends up in fights and wars and tragedies of all sorts. In the end, the subject matter that sparked the debates and fights is all but forgetten, as humans continue to involve other outside petty differences and problems, and the situation escalates out of control until people get sick of the dead bodies piling up, and the process restarts with a new "good" idea. Pardon me for being cynical, because while I full expect to live for the better part of three centuries, I'd prefer not to have my dream debased and degraded by that sort of process, nor do I, or Humanity, have the time to wait and see what would happen. Though it will probably mean a sad ending for myself, this strategy of manipulation and forcing, I much prefer that, rather than a sad ending for Humanity."

"But a lot of other, innocent people are getting caught up in the works and crushed." Meyrin pointed out.

"Hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands, yes. Its awful." Noah agreed. "In order to save millions, hundreds of millions, even billions and more though, it is a price that has to be paid, and I accept the burden of responsibility, fully and totally."

"Well and good, but how does that make those who've lost loved ones feel any better?"

"I can do many incredible things. Making everyone happy is not among them, sadly. I can only do my best, and hope things turn out the same way." Noah unclasped her helmet from its throat seals, and carefully lifted it away, when she made no move to stop him. "Meyrin." Noah looked into her bare face intently. "I realize that I have probably alienated you irrecoverably, but know that I will always love you regardless, as you were the first person to ever reach out and touch my heart for the simple reason of your own wanting to, and I will never forget that, nor you, no matter what might happen."

"Nothing I say can say or do will sway or stop you from doing what you will do, can it?" Meyrin asked softly.

Noah closed his eyes painfully. "No. No, my love, not even for you can I alter the course of what I must do for Humanity, though I would rather tear my own heart out bare handed than cause you even the slightest bit of distress or disquiet. Though it hurts me to say it, I must place the greater good of all over even you, should it come to it."

"Prove it." Meyrin said, surprising even herself, though once she said it, she felt a welling sense of rightness, even contentedness.

"What?" Noah asked, staring at her in surprise.

"I said, prove it. I can't just forgive you for all the terrible things you've done, but you are right, I don't hate you. Not if you really are doing this for the reasons you say you are."

"I am."

"Don't say it, prove it. Walk the walk, besides just talking the talk." Meyrin said directly. "You know how I tell you to stop bragging? Same thing. All you've been doing is bragging. Stop bragging, and just do, and let the world judge the results for itself. And to make sure you don't take the half assed route, I'm going to stand behind you and watch you do it."

"You won't leave me?"

"I'm reserving my judgement for the moment." Meyrin corrected. "Don't get me wrong, the idea you talk about sounds wonderful and beautiful, and it definitely seems to be a good thing for Humanity. But what's the catch, Noah? You aren't perfect, and neither is your solution. So what's the dark secret? And don't even think about lying to me again, or we're done and you're just another evil lunatic, ideals or not, do you understand me!?"

"Yes. Yes, I understand. Thank you, Meyrin. I will gladly explain... you have no idea how long I've waited to be able to explain!" Noah was crying again, though not with sorrow. More like relief. "First though, lets get you out of that silly suit, okay? You look like you're really suffering in that thing, and there's absolutely no reason for it."

"Okay... but watch your hands! If you try and cop a feel again..."

"I still don't understand why its okay sometimes but not others."

"Noah... not now."

------------------------------------------------------

"That!? That little paint bucket is your solution!?" Meyrin didn't know whether she should laugh or cry. It wasn't quite a "paint bucket", but it really didn't look like much at all. Just a cylinder about two feet tall and a half a foot around, sealed on the ends, with two hose connections on the sides, opposite each other. She tested the weight with one hand, and found it quite a bit heavier than it looked, but it was still far from wondrous. "It looks like something you'd buy at a used setpiece store, from an old space drama film."

"Impressive aesthetics weren't my primary concern when designing it." Noah said severely, with a hint of hurt pride. "I wanted it to be as effective as possible, not pretty or eye catching." They were at the central maintenance port for the main air filter for this continent, which was actually outside the main station, though only accessible from inside it. They were so close to the "top", more the middle, of the colony that Meyrin could almost reach up and touch the joint between the exo-glass exterior wall and the colony Hub. The view was incredible, especially with the nearby E-PLANT, Millenium One, still half complete, taking up almost eighty percent of space they could see through the glass. Noah had slid back the maintenance port hatch and rummaged around inside for a few moments, before removing the centerpiece of his "solution for a better humanity", which was the aforementioned less than impressive object. "It may not look like much, but this piece of technology can not be replicated by any lab or factory in the USN, not even ZAFT's or Orb's. Because this is not a paint bucket. It's a nano-machine factory."

"Woo. I have no idea what that means."

"Well, first I should probably give you a little background info."

"Do we have time for that? There's a unit of soldiers out there, trying to break in and stop you." Meyrin reminded him.

"They're sleeping right now."

"Not dead?"

"Heavens, no!" Noah replied, aghast. "I meant it when I said I don't like killing people, and I only do it when its absolutely necessary. Its not the soldiers fault they were given hasty orders by people who didn't understand what I'm trying to do. Besides, the more people there are to be affected, the better things will turn out. Though I will probably have to go back and re-work a lot of the other PLANTS, if soldiers have been sent to all of them. My subordinates are rather less accomplished in dealing with unexpected variables than I am. They try, I know, but they are too wrapped up in the religious things to be truly effective. Sadly, things have come to the point where seperating them from the religion would cause more problems than solve them."

"You always have a plan, don't you?" Meyrin shook her head, in faint admiration.

"I do endeavor to, yes. And speaking of endeavors, I need to get my Great Endeavor ready to launch." Noah took out his cell phone, and keyed in a long sequence of numbers and characters, before sending the text message. "There. The fusion pulse reactors are warming up, and all systems have begun pre-launch preparations."

"That was it? You just typed on your phone a little bit."

"I'm sorry if this is anticlimactic for you, but really, this is not the big ending, Meyrin. This is just another small step on the path I have created. I hate to sound grandiose, but things are still just in the opening act right now, despite what Gil no doubt thinks. By sending his soldiers to stop the distribution of Green EDEN to the PLANTS he has definitely inconvenienced me, but in the manner of making me stumble off the starting line, not trip at the finish line." Noah informed her with a smile. "Now, for the background info. First of all, EDEN stands for one of two things. The first is Environmentally Distributed Eugenic Nanomachine, which would be the Green variety. The second is similar, being Environmentally Distributed Elemental Nanonmachine, being Red and Blue varieties. The primary difference is in what they are designed to affect... human DNA and genetic material, in the case of Green, and the physical structure of matter, for the Red and Blue. The type contained by and produced by this nano-factory unit is Green, which was the second type I created, after Blue."

"Wait, wait, wait. Green... Blue... Red... I'm getting mixed up. Could you tell me what they DO, not what they are? I don't really care which one you made first, I want to know why you made them, and what you're going to do with them!" Meyrin instructed.

"Oh. Okay. Then what Green EDEN does, what its designed to do... is make other people, Naturals, Coordinators, everyone... into Ultimate Coordinators like me. That is, Coordinators that are also Newtypes, Active or Latent, and who possess the fertile SEED. In essence, as close to genetically perfect as it is currently possible for Humans to be."

"I got like half of that." Meyrin admitted. "I'm a Coordinator. You're a... "Ultimate Coordinator"? What's the difference now, besides that you are really, really pretty and way, way smart, and I am..."

"Entrancingly beautiful as well, but yes, let me explain." Noah interrupted with a smile. "I told you this before, in Africa, though I skipped around the issue a bit. I suppose you could sum up the major differences as being... I'm pyschic, you aren't. I have a SEED I can use, which allows for temporary, high magnitude increase in all physical and mental capabilities, and while you may have a SEED, you can't use it. Also, my baseline abilities are about two point five times higher than yours, in all areas, on average, with a much higher aptitude cap, or maybe even no cap at all. I'm going to live a lot longer too, and be healthier, and prettier, to use your term, for the same amount of effort. If I was a regular Coordinator, you'd be a Natural in comparison."

"See, thats the kind of explanation I like, even if it is kind of insulting. I understood that." Meyrin replied. "So, Green EDEN makes other people like you... how?"

"By changing their DNA to be more similar to mine, using my own template as a basic pattern, especially the isolated gene sequences that produce the Newtype and fertile, active SEED traits. Though I am an Active Newtype, subtle variations in the human genome will produce a number of minor mutations, resulting in Latents... those Newtypes without consciously usable abilities. As a way of easily telling the difference, Active Newtypes will have gold pupiled eyes, like mine, and Latents will have silver pupiled ones, though the choice of colors has no real meaning or bearing."

"Changing DNA after the embryonic stage..." Meyrin whispered. "That means..."

"ICD and all other genetic flaws will be completely and utterly erased as a byproduct of the process, of course." Noah smiled. His smile receeded somewhat as he went on. "However, like you said, I am not perfect and neither is my process. Green EDEN requires a lot of energy to do its work, and the only available source for that energy will be the host person themselves. In some ways, Green EDEN is a lot like a virus or parasitic organism, in that it feeds off a human or animal body to fuel its work and create more of itself, until it fully permeates the entire organism and begins the rapid genetic changeover process. I will use a variety of terms like "host" and "infection", but try not to take it badly. They are simply the most accurate terms for what happens."

"Okay. I'll try not to freak then, even if you are making it sound an awful lot like a biological weapon."

"It's not alive, though it sometimes acts similarly. Its a cohesive cluster of millions of molecule sized chemical robots." Noah stressed. "Green EDEN can infect a host through any bodily orifice or by slow osmosis through the skin, or quick osmosis by direct exposure to the bloodstream, i.e. through a wound of some sort. It does not decay naturally over time, and can even, in a limited fashion, work to bypass filters and combat most common means of sterilization. Exposure to chemicals, even acids, as well as all but the very hottest or coldest of temperatures has no detrimental effect upon Green EDEN, and can even produce more of it, as energy and stray enivormental molecules are converted to more Green EDEN. Because it is self replicating, the amount of initial does not matter. Even a single nanocluster making its way into your body is enough, eventually it will replicate itself enough times to permeate every cell of your body. They are programmed to seek out the immune system first, preventing the body from fighting back chemically."

"Onset time from initial exposure of course ranges by the degree of exposure, but is usually between six and twelve hours for the average person, assuming anywhere from a single breath to multiple deep breaths of the atmospheric nanites. Once the onset time is complete, the nanites will have permeated the entire body, and the host will begin suffering the first recognizable symptoms of infection, those being fatigue, hunger, thirst and degradation in mental awareness... all common results of the body losing a lot of energy, and combatable by eating and drinking and resting as much as possible during this stage, to provide plenty of fuel and avoid stressing the body. Within five hours of initial symptoms appearing, most hosts will have drifted into unconscious states, their bodies unable to maintain the energy levels needed to stay awake. Their skin will start to wrinkle and will feel hot, especially if they haven't been eating or drinking enough beforehand."

"Uh, does this process HURT by any chance?" Meyrin asked doubtfully.

"By the time serious pain would be felt, the hosts will be unconscious and unable to feel it." Noah replied. "But yes, it hurts. The body is changing on a fundamental level... there's no way to make it painless, I'm sorry. Once a host falls unconscious the process enters its critical phase, and most of the major genetic changes begin in earnest. The immune system will likely start losing efficiency, and hosts may begin rapidly losing weight as fat and muscle is burned to fuel the process, resulting in a "withered" or "malnourished" appearance. By this point in time, Green EDEN will be able to transfer hosts through skin to skin contact, making the host contagious, with slowly moving patches of green coloration, where the majority of the current genetic work is being done. After about thirty six hours from initial exposure, the change will most often be complete, and the host will reawaken, tired, hungry, thirsty, and probably a little sickly, until his or her immune system gets back on track and they rapidly recover over the next few hours, while excess Green EDEN is removed from the body via natural waste processes. In some cases, a slight green tinge to the skin may be present, though that is only likely in cases of massive initial exposure... akin to jumping into a bathtub of Green EDEN."

"So drop the other shoe already."

"Unless a host is recieving high quality medical care, and has properly charged their body with energy and nutrients beforehand, something the hunger and thirst flashes will hopefully promote, they will likely spend a relatively lengthy period of time... ten to twenty hours... without much of a functional immune system. Secondary infections are almost inevitable. Though the host will easily be able to recover from said infections once the process is complete, until such a time, they are even more vulnerable than they would normally be. Casualty rates run anywhere from ten to almost ninety percent, depending on the situation during the unconscious period." Noah said steadily, eying her the entire time.

"So, potentially speaking, ninety percent of humans who get infected with Green EDEN could die before waking up." Meyrin asked levelly.

"Ninety percent of all living organisms, actually. Green EDEN affects plants and animals too." Noah corrected. "Though I am hoping the actual number is closer to forty or fifty percent, or even less. But I planned for the worst case, and assumed the maximum casualty rate of eighty seven percent."

"Half of everything living could die..."

"And half would live, and rapidly procreate to make up the difference." Noah replied. "Life would go on. It always does."

"So my chances are around fifty-fifty, at best? I flip a coin, and if it comes up heads, I turn out like you... but tails and I'm worm food?" Meyrin asked.

Noah closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Well, I was rather hoping your own chances might be a little better, since you know what to do and I can..."

"No." Meyrin cut him off fiercely. "If I'm going to let you do this without a fight, then you're going to have to prove it, like I said. And proving it means giving me the same damn chance you're giving to the rest of the world, do you understand me!? You give me the same chance you're giving Luna, the same chance you're giving Gilbert Durandel! If you can't even do that, then you don't deserve to give ANYONE a chance, and you'd be better off stopping this right now, because there's no way you won't fall from grace eventually."

"But you might die." Noah said sadly.

"And you will have killed me. Or you can stop this all right now, walk away, and I'll live one hundred percent of the time." Meyrin prompted.

"I will pray for your survival with all my heart." Noah said, at last, though he had a very sour look on his face. To his surprise, Meyrin hugged him, hard. "What was that for?"

"For staying true to your dream. For walking the walk." Meyrin replied. "Even if it hurts you like a knife to the heart. I'm starting to believe you really mean to do this for the good of the world, and not just to make yourself feel better." She looked at the unassuming nano-factory. "Let me see it. What it looks like."

"It's just a chalk like dust at the moment. I haven't activated any yet, which is why its perfectly safe for you to be around it." Noah replied, though he carefully unscrewed the cap over one hose connection and tilted the factory to one side, pouring out a palmful of a dark green powder. "See. Doesn't look like much, does it?"

"Nope. Let me hold it." Meyrin directed, steeling herself, prepared for him to peer into her mind and see what she was thinking. If he did, he would say no, or try and stop her. And she would have to then try and stop him, because unless he really was prepared to go through with this, no matter the cost to him personally, then he couldn't be trusted to do it for the right reason, and he would be a real threat to the entire world, to more than just humanity! However, he just looked at her kind of funny and shrugged, before passing over the palmful of dust into her own cupped hands. Before he could do anything, before she could think twice about what she was doing, Meyrin opened her mouth and shoved her palms against her face, guzzling a huge mouthful of the dust, and smearing it over her face like paint as well for good measure. Noah stared at her, and she smiled defiantly at him. "There. Now, if you do choose to activate this stuff, then you will ensure I get infected and go through the process first. If I live, so much the better... but if I die, well that will be the first part of your sacrifice, and you'd better not forget it, either! Or else, you can just turn your back, and we can live, if not happily ever after, at least happily for a while."

"I'm not sure Humanity deserves someone like you watching over them." Noah said slowly. "If you plan on testing me like this every day, I have to say, I wasn't ready for it. But I won't let that, or you, no matter what you do, no matter how you argue, stop me from creating Eden for Humanity. Though, I would please beg you not to randomly eat every sample of EDEN I show you... Red and Blue are decidedly less friendly to the human body, Blue especially."

"You can think of being tested like this as a dry run for what it would be like being married to me." Meyrin replied with a smirk.

"I'm not sure even an Ultimate Coordinator is equipped for that. You'd give me a heart attack in months." Noah smiled back though. "However, assuming you do survive, it would be an experiment worth pursuing, I think." He leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

"Aren't you worried about an infection?" She asked softly, once he'd pulled back.

"From what? Green EDEN is designed to remake a human's DNA to be more like mine. I've already used it on myself once before, to cure my own genetic disorder. Once you've gone through it once, you are immune to it forever after. And I was ninety percent immune from the day I was born anyway. I can't be any more like me than I already am."

"Something for which I should probably be grateful." Meyrin commented. She was about to say more when a sudden noise... or rather, lack of a constant background noise, made them both go silent and look around. Noah was the first to figure it out, and an expression of mixed admiration and disgust filled his face. "What happened?" Meyrin asked.

"The air exchangers are the best way of quickly distributing Green EDEN across the PLANTS. Even if I dumped the entire nano-factory out over the railing, it would take weeks to sift down through the atmosphere to the people below, during which time the PLANT could probably be evacauted. They must have realized that the soldiers they sent had been neutralized, and so they did the only thing they could really do to stop me. They shut off the air exchanger. Probably by cutting the power entirely."

"But isn't the air exchanger power tied into the primary power for the PLANT?" Meyrin asked, stunned. "If they turned off the air exchangers then they would have had to..."

"Basically depower the entire PLANT, yes. An extreme, though effective tactic. No doubt the populace is retreating to emergency shelters to conserve oxygen and heat. They'll probably wait for the air to turn stale, which should happen over a week or so, or more likely yet, will purge the entire PLANT atmosphere, as is standard for a biohazard threat, and then create a new one once they are sure there is no contamination. The interior, especially the flora and fauna, will suffer, but compared to all the citizens, I'm sure they aren't unduly bothered. Bravo, Gil. I see your check." Noah explained, and then he shrugged. "It's not checkmate though, not by a long shot." Noah bent down and lifted the nano-factory in both hands, after touching a small plate on one side for a moment, before heaving it over the edge of the railing. Moving blurringly quickly, his hand darted into one of his pants pockets and withdrew a small, pistol like object, which he aimed at the falling canister. Before Meyrin could ask him what he was doing, he opened fire, expelling three bright green plasma blasts, one after the other in rapid succession, which struck and vaporized the factory in midfall.

"You have a laser pistol?" She asked, deadpan, after the echoes of the three shots faded.

"Plasma actually. Laser's are concentrated light, plasma is ionized, superheated gas. Laser's require a lot more power and have a lot more waste heat. The smallest laser weapon I've managed to make is about the length of my arm. This plasma ejector, as you can see, is about the size of my hand. Much more efficient."

"And why did you use the laser pistol to blow the nano-factory, with all your super duper Green EDEN inside, into flaming pieces?" She queried, still deadpan.

"I didn't want to just leave it here for them to study. Odds are they will have captured plenty anyway, but the more I can keep out of their hands the better, though they aren't likely to figure out what it is unless it activates."

"So you prevented this batch from activating? Now I have to go eat more? You ruined my dramatic gesture." Meyrin accused.

"I activated the batch from this factory before I tossed it. That's also why I blew it up with three shots, rather than just dumping it to fall and shatter or sink. Plasma bolts are hot enough to destroy Green EDEN." Noah replied with a shrug. "You gesture is still intact. In fact, the clock is already ticking."

"I don't feel any different."

"It's been less than two minutes. Give it time. Though I'd prefer to give it time in a safer location... regardless of what the Green EDEN does to you, I'd prefer to not let you get killed by USN or ZAFT soldiers coming after me. Is it all right for me to worry like that?"

"I suppose I can't argue against being protected from gunfire and grenades. Where are we going to go though? Even if we can get to the spaceport and manage to get off the PLANT, there's nowhere to go, and they'll be all over us in Mobile Suits and Warships in seconds." Meyrin pointed out.

"They have bigger concerns." Noah said confidently.

"Bigger than capturing the most wanted "terrorist" in the USN when they have the chance?" Meyrin asked doubtfully.

"MUCH bigger." Noah replied with a smile.

"Okay, now you've got me interested. What could POSSIBLY be of bigger concern than you to them?" Meyrin demanded.

"Why, the home base of the Brotherhood, my Great Endeavor, of course. It's launching."

"Launching? Wouldn't that make it a SHIP, not a base? A single ship is not going to distract them long."

"Not a ship. A SATMARS."

"A what? You and your acronyms, worse than the damn military!"

"A Space/Atmospheric/Terrestrial Mobile Assembly and Research Station. Called the Great Endeavor."

"Oookay... and where is it launching from?"

"Turn around and look. It should be disembarking any second now." Noah advised, pointing over her shoulder. She turned and looked.

"I don't see anything besides Millenium One, what are you tal... HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THE BOTTOM IS BREAKING APART!?"

"That's not very ladylike language." Noah smirked, putting his arm around her shoulders comfortably, as he treated himself to the view. Several hundred kilometers away, though it looked much closer, the bottom of the incomplete Millenium One E-PLANT was indeed breaking apart. Though it was a controlled break, series of breaks actually, as explosve charges detonated and docking clamps disengaged, structural connections ripping or sliding away as the Great Endeavor slowly eased away from the greater mass of the colony, leaving a fifteen hundred meter diameter crater in the bottom of the E-PLANT. The Great Endeavor rotated until it was in an "upright" position, hanging like a great, thick saucer, a few kilometers from the bottom of Millenium One, that had given birth to it, like a glacier calving an iceberg.

It was one hundred and fifty meters tall along the other edge, thickening to over five hundred and fifty meters at the center, with a stepped central ziggurat that housed the primary weapon system, a massive though slim single barreled device almost two hundred meters long from emitter to dissipation housing, which was even then extending and affixing itself into its operational state. Smaller pyramid and ziggurat structures dotting the dorsal and ventral surfaces began splitting apart and sliding aside, revealing engine and large scale weapons ports aplenty, while eight, clawed, leg like protrusions descended from the bottom of the hull, each about the size of the Revenant. Anti-Ship and Anti-Mobile Suit defensive turrets cycled and spun, bristling and ready for anything that dared approach, while large scale Positron and Citadel Shield projectors stood ready to block incoming fire. Inside, the Martyrs, Zealots, Haunted, Traitor, Vengeance, Retribution and Brotherhood would all be preparing for launch, ready to defend or attack as the need arose. Truly the curtain had now finally, at long last, risen!

"ITS HUGE!" Meyrin gaped.

"I did say base, not ship, I recall." Noah replied proudly. "Behold, the new Noah's Ark, the home of the Brotherhood! Upon it, we will survive the flood to come, and from it we will emerge to guide the new humanity to a new, golden age of Eden!"


	43. Flash Flood part 1

"And you are such a bleeding leg!" Noah Borander said, his voice cold and vicious, devoid of mercy and even a hint of human compassion, his inhuman gold eyes shining with something that was a mixture between excitement and boredom, odd as that sounded. Less than a second later, practically even as Noah spoke, the gun in the Secretary of Defense's hand discharged, into his own kneecap, causing an explosion of blood and drawing a harsh whine of agony from Gilbert Durandel, his face scrunching up as he either bit down his own screams, or was prevented from voicing them, it was impossible to tell which. "If there is one person that I will not regret the fate of, it is you, Gil. And maybe that Lacus Clyne impersonator you tried to..."

"Turn it off, please!" Jiro Kurenai directed, holding his head with his hands cupped over his ears as he stared at the tabletop in front of him and tried not to scream or tremble or do any of the several hundred other things he really wanted to do right now, but wouldn't be befitting the head of the Orb Government. The TV, which was replaying the TV broadcast from that morning that had shown and recorded the confrontation between Noah Borander, Great Prophet of the Brotherhood, and Gilbert Durandel, second most powerful man in the USN. Despite all his personal power though, Durandel, and by extension, the USN, sure hadn't come out altogether ahead on what should have been the gift they were looking for, the very terrorist leader they were desperately looking for striding alone and unarmed into their very midst. In fact, there was no way he could see what had occured, impossible as it was, as anything other than a personal and political disaster for Durandel, and to a slightly lesser extent, the USN as a whole. "I wanted to puke the first time I saw it, live, and the three or four recordings I've seen since then haven't made me feel any different."

"Its important to analyze the recording for any possible scrap of information we may be able to discern, Mr. Chief Representative." Lieutenant Cyprus Finch of the Stormhounds replied, not taking his gaze away from the TV for a moment, though he did mute the recording. "There is much we can learn from this display of carnage and hubris, which could be of great benefit to us in the future, if and when we find ourselves dealing with him in person."

"What is there to learn, besides that Noah Borander is a rabid dog that needs to be put down every bit as much as Frost!?" Cagalli spat angrily. "If negotiating with him before was even slightly an option, it certainly isn't now. He obviously has no compunctions about forcing people to do pretty much whatever he wants when he's around them, any sort of meeting would just be throwing hostages into his hands."

"That is one thing we have learned, yes, your Majesty." Cyprus acknowledged without rising to her tone. "Though after consideration, I personally feel this confrontation was something of a personal matter between the two of them."

"Then why did he kill all the bodyguards?" Athrun asked, his brow furrowed, even as he stood by Cagalli's chair and not so casually had his hand on her shoulder and back in a pre-emptive calming manner. "Surely if it was a personal vendetta there would be no need to kill them. From what I've seen, I can't imagine it would have been that much more difficult to make them immobilize themselves or just knock them out with his powers, versus force them to commit suicide."

"Undoubtedly, though I'll leave the analysis of his powers to Ms. Clyne and Ms. Belaruse. However, merely incapacitating the guards would have not been as impressive, in his mind. He wanted to show that he could defy the lions in their own den, and treat them like they were nothing but dolls regardless of their wishes. Sudden unconsciousness could be explained by poison gas or preadministered drugs or any of a host of other, admittedly esoteric, but still rationally explainable causes. Seasoned bodyguards turning their weapons on themselves in front of a major terrorist, or a major government official executing his own protectors and crippling himself? Drugs would not do that. He wanted to leave no doubt in people's minds that he was using psychic powers. In short, he was showing off, flexing his muscles and also, in a way, advertising. He has shown everyone what kind of power is available to people like him. And now he's promising to give that power to everyone, free of charge. Of course most people will be horrified by the display... but some won't be. Some will be intrigued. Some may convert to the Brotherhood's cause because of this broadcast alone, wanting a piece of this power he is offering." Cyrpus informed them.

"That's monstrous." Jiro stated, his face drained and pale.

"I agree, but it is also likely his thought processes, or an approximation of them." Cyrpus replied with a shrug. "Everything I have seen regarding this Noah Borander person so far suggests to me that he is grandiose, arrogant, impatient and perhaps even unstable. Not to mention physically beautiful, extremely charismatic and obviously massively intelligent. A dangerous, volatile combination. He is just smart enough to think his solution is perfect, or at least the best one available, and just impatient enough to not want to wait to fully explore the fundamentally good idea he has, instead rushing ahead to the forcing people stage, when a protracted and entirely legal medical and media program would probably have done the same thing in a decade or two. He wants his results now, not in twenty years, and he thinks he is invincible and has the power to run roughshod over any speedbumps or obstacles to his great plan. In other words, a typical teenager, just more."

"And one who happens to have the intellectual, industrial and personnel resources to design, build and provide pilots for all sorts of highly advanced Mobile Suits and Gundams." Alkire added with a sardonic grin. "So, we're looking at a teenaged, high and mighty, impatient Napoleon or Alexander the Great, eh? I'll leave out the Coordinator part for now... bad apples show up regardless of genetics."

"Ultimate Coordinator, actually." Kira spoke up softly, staring at the tabletop in front of him, one hand tapping meaningless patterns on the side of his glass of water, while his other was firmly entwined with Lacus's under the table. "And no, I still can't really give you a good definition of what the difference is. What I had thought an Ultimate Coordinator to be, what I learned from Rau on the Mendel Colony to be the definition anyway, is not what Noah Borander claims is an Ultimate Coordinator. The two definitions are close, but definitely not the same."

"Does it really matter what his genetics are?" Ysak piped up with a frown. "He's a fucking terrorist no matter which way you slice it, and though I don't often agree with Cagalli, I am right now. What the hell have we learned that we didn't already know? After what happened to me and Katie, I had thought we'd already crossed meeting with the guy off on the list of extremely bad ideas. He stopped my fucking heart with his mind!"

"He caught us off guard though, when we definitely weren't expecting him to be a Newtype. Now we know better, and while I can't promise complete protection, I'm pretty sure Lacus and I can severely blunt any mental shenanigans he tries to pull on us in the future." Katie said confidently. "At least, while we're around anyway. If he gets you off by himself, well, sorry, but you'll be eating your own lead in that case."

"We've learned that he's decided that now is the best time to put his plan into motion. Regardless of what sort of relationship he had with Gilbert Durandel and the leadership of the USN in the past, now they are fully, one hundred percent enemies." Waltfeld replied, from where he was leaning against the wall by the door. Murrue was off preparing the Archangel for launch, and the rest of them would be heading over to the mass driver for the trip up to orbit as soon as they were done with this strategy meeting. "Now, that may not seem all that ground shaking, but think about it... why throw away even a chance of having the USN hesitate over stopping you? No matter his firepower and technology, Noah and the Brotherhood are still the little man on the power totem pole, when it comes to the USN. I would think he'd want them tripping and stumbling over themselves, following all sorts of dead leads and false trails... not pissed off, organized and howling for his blood. He's so overconfident, its staggering. Does he really think he can just take on the whole world?"

"Yes. Yes he does." Cyprus affirmed. "He thinks he is smarter and better prepared than everyone else, and he thinks that no matter what gets thrown into his path, his technology or his personal abilities will be enough to see him through to the other side."

"What about those pilots we captured?" Jiro asked hopefully. "Have we been able to get any useful information from them? They piloted two of the Brotherhood Gundams, didn't they? Surely they know something that could be of use."

"Progress has been slow regarding them." Cyprus replied. "We haven't been able to really sit down and talk with Commander la Flaga in earnest yet, though from what I hear he has indicated his willingness to give us full and total cooperation. However, given the nature of his trauma, especially in light of recent events, I don't think we'll get much more than general information from him, which, while helpful, won't be the sort of trump card information I think you were speaking of, Mr. Chief Representative. As for the other, well, we have managed to learn a few things about her, and nothing from her."

Jiro sighed heavily, and shot a tremulous glance at Cagalli, before mustering his nerve. "While I understand and approve of Orb's long standing stance on Human Rights and the humane treatment of criminals, does that sort of thing really apply to international terrorists? I mean, with the safety of the entire world on the line, can we really afford to not use every means at our disposal to help us prepare an adequate means of protecting ourselves?"

"How can you even suggest we sink down to that level!?" Cagalli seethed, almost standing up before Athrun's hand held her down in her chair. "Being a citizen of Orb means having pride in your country, pride that it stands up for the ideals and principles of the people, and doesn't discard them when they become inconvenient! Other nations may see that sort of thing as acceptable, but Orb is not the FNE or the ALU! Protecting the people means more than just safeguarding them against physical threats from the outside... it requires safeguarding them from moral threats from within their own government body! If we start using coercive techniques on a terrorist today, we've already put a foot on a long, slippery path that leads to creating BCPU's and launching nuclear sneak attacks!"

"Before you two tear each other's political throat's out, perhaps you should let Lieutenant Finch continue on with what he was about to say?" Alkire suggested dryly. Both Jiro and Cagalli shot him frowns, but they settled back in their chairs and adopted the standard serene expressions of politicians who wanted to be polite while they were plotting to cut someone's throat.

"Thank you, Major. All of you may be interested to know that we have a positive identification on the pilot of the Tormented. She is Mary O'Brien, a former nursing student from Orb. From Nara-Attha City actually, though it wasn't called that when she lived here. As far as we've been able to determine, she vanished during Purgatory Day when the hospital she was working at was destroyed during a confrontation between the Merciless and the Grand Buster. Long presumed dead, though no remains were ever found, for obvious reasons." Cyprus reported.

"So we'd have been torturing an Orb citizen for information. That's lovely." Cagalli said, her voice icy sweet.

"Regardless of her citizenship, she's still a terrorist bent on destroying civilization." Jiro replied darkly. "Once a person starts attacking innocent men, women and children, especially those of her own home nation, I should think they have cast off any protections that citizenship might otherwise convey."

"This matter is closed. We won't take it easy on her, but we will conduct our investigation within the strictures of the Orb Constitution and judiciary system. Is that understood?" Cagalli directed in a steely tone.

"Begging your pardon, your Majesty, but you don't have the power to decide that anymore. You are no longer Chief Representative... I am, by your own appointment." Jiro retorted.

"Go ahead and push me, and we'll see exactly what kind of powers I do and do not have, Jiro." Cagalli challenged.

"Whoah, whoah, whoah!" Alkire waved his hands frantically for attention. "Reality check here, people! We've got way bigger problems, we don't need to be chopping each others legs out from under each other right now! Not ever either, come to think of it, but especially not with a gigantic flying saucer headed towards Earth to distribute clouds of green poison death!"

"The major has a good point." Cyprus said. "For that matter, though I would normally be inclined to side with Mr. Kurenai on this sort of matter, in this particular special circumstance, even resorting to the most barbaric of medieval torture techniques would not avail us well. Indeed, even modern drug related coercive techniques would be of little use against Ms. O'Brien, as they all involve putting the interrogee into a relaxed, out of body mental state where lying and deception is almost impossible. However, Ms. O'Brien cannot speak, because of severe damage suffered to her throat and vocal cords during the events of Purgatory Day. The most common form of vocal noise she can make is little more than a loud wheeze, though she has demonstrated the ability to scream at extremely high volumes, to the point of causing pain to both humans and animals. Still, inarticulate screams and wheezes don't answer technical questions, and it is impossible to write coherently while drugged to the gills. I am currently pursuing some nonstandard information gathering techniques, but they are slow moving, and results will be several days in coming, at the very earliest."

"I have a few nonstandard methods of my own we could try." Katie said helpfully. Every head in the room turned to look at her, and she quailed slightly, because few of the looks she was getting were encouraging. Most were somewhere between shocked and dismayed. "What!? She can't talk right? That doesn't stop her from thinking. She wouldn't even know I was in there. It wouldn't be coercive... I've told you all before, I simply don't have that kind of power! I can listen to what she's thinking, but I can't make her think or do anything!"

"Still..." Cagalli said with a troubled expression.

"I agree with her Majesty." Jiro added. "On the matter of using psychic powers for interrogation purposes. It would be too easy to start using that kind of power more regularly, until we'd become a police state where the very thoughts of our citizens would be monitored and regulated. Not quickly... but the temptation to do good by hunting down criminals before they could do more than think of their crimes... its too great a power for humans to have! Just look at what Noah Borander has done! Reading minds, manipulating political figures, making people dance like dolls to his tune, all in the name of some nebulous greater good? No, I will not let Orb go down that path!"

"You were just advocating torturing or drugging her! How is that any different!" Katie protested. "Just cause I'd be the one in control, and not some government institution?"

"Yes, actually." Athrun spoke up. "Its too much power to give one person. Government institutions aren't perfect, but they are regulated and can be changed or even dissolved by the will of the people. Psychics going around listening to or modifying people's actions and thoughts... is less controllable. What's to stop the psychics from taking control? From the looks of things, Noah Borander could make pretty much anyone say and do whatever he wants them to do... he could set himself up as the behind the scenes ruler of any nation in the world if he wanted, just by controlling the head of government!"

"We are not all Noah Borander." Lacus replied in a subdued though firm voice. "It will be very difficult now to convince the people of the world that all Newtypes are not like Noah, since he has shown them some of the very worst ways our type of power can be used, in a public, impossible to ignore forum. But regardless... we are not all like Noah. Many of us, I'm sure, are guided by the same moral concerns and strictures anyone else is. Some of us, me and Katie included, hold ourselves to a considerably higher standard when it comes to the use of our powers, even if we may not always want to. Newtype abilities, like any other form of power, whether it be based in strength, money, politics or even numbers, can be easily abused by those who would abuse power, no matter what kind it might be. To judge a Newtype who went out and controlled someone off the street for the money out of their wallet any differently from someone who got the same money at knife or gunpoint seems silly and even prejudicial to me." She sighed. "I blame myself, to be honest. I let people keep their heads in the sand about Newtypes for far too long, when I had the ability to be making a good case for Newtypes for years now. Instead, I was content to sit back, because it was the easy thing to do and I told myself I had more important things to accomplish, and now, instead of Noah's behavior being seen as what it is, that is an abhorrent fluke of an already damaged person, it will become the normal standard by which Newtypes are judged."

"It's not just your fault. You couldn't have known." Kira pointed out sympathetically.

"Of course I couldn't have. But I should have realized that something like this would be coming eventually. I guess I was just too scared of a possible negative backlash against me and those I cared about, and because I was selfish, now we are going to have a negative backlash against all Newtypes, everywhere." Lacus shook her head sadly. "I have let an untold number of people, now and in the future, suffer merely because I was afraid to stand up for something I really shouldn't have any reason to be ashamed of, and thus, I am ashamed."

"Uh... nobody here blames you, Lacus." Waltfeld said awkwardly, chewing on his lip. "I'm not sure any of us could blame you if we wanted to, and we sure as hell don't want to. I mean, yeah, maybe you did mess up through inactivity, but its not like the rest of us did much to encourage you or Katie. Kind of the opposite, really."

"Indeed!" Jiro spoke up in support hastily. "There is only so much responsibility any one person should be made to bear for the safety of the world and humanity, and I don't think I'd be wrong to say, Ms. Clyne, that you exceeded your quota quite a long time ago!"

"Thank you for your kind words, but they don't change the fact that I let Newtypes, as a people, down through my inactivity." Lacus looked up at them and smiled. "Don't, however, get the idea that I am letting my past failures in any way stop me from doing the right thing now. Very much the opposite. Noah Borander's actions have opened the world's eyes. Now it is going to be my turn to step in and educate them about what being a Newtype really means."

"Well and good. Let's stop the giant space saucer engine of green poison death first, shall we?" Alkire suggested wryly.

"Yeah, so its our job to stop him butt cold and slap some sense into him? That's a mission I'll gladly accept." Dearka said with a wide grin, eager for a topic change. "And from the sounds of things, its not something we'll be doing alone, for once. The USN put out the call to all the member-state militaries to send all available forces to the projected interception point above the Moon. It's going to be the biggest fleet of warships in the history of humanity."

"Am I the only one disturbed by knowing all of that... and seeing that Noah is STILL coming on, into the very teeth of the combined armadas of the USN and all the member-states, and he's not even attempting to maneuver or try some other tactic, like say, striking at the PLANTS to force at least ZAFT to divert forces to stop him?" Miriallia asked. "He's already proved through the initial Brotherhood attacks that he understands the value of hit and run attacks, and striking at unexpected targets in order to achieve his goals, even if they aren't always maximum damage. Like Mr. Waltfeld said... he's the little guy, but he's acting like he's the big guy. And overconfidence aside, I just can't help but think he's got a few nasty tricks up his sleeves that are making him overconfident."

"Even if he deploys strategic level WMD's, something which would be very counter to his character, at least as far as we've seen to date, it isn't likely to tip the balance." Cyprus answered, though he was frowning. "The USN will likely be preparing to use their own WMD's, on a tactical level anyway, to counter that gigantic flying fortress."

"Well, I'm sure you will quickly show him the error of his hubris." Jiro said, mopping at his brow with a handkerchief. "I'll hold down the fort while you are gone, I suppose. Gladly even... the farther away I can be from that ghoulish young man, the better. Just looking at him gives me the chills. And not the good kind one would expect from someone of his appearence!" Jiro's eyes passed over Cyprus's lean body for a moment, on the way away from Athrun's cool stare. His unconscious appraisal ended when he met the frozen laser-like eyes of the Stormhound, an altogether harder and colder shade of grey than Jiro's own stormcloud shaded ones. He managed to hold his blanch in, mostly, and quickly directed his gaze elsewhere. It wasn't that the Stormhound had been looking at him in a hostile or even angry fashion, unlike Athrun of late... it was just like looking into the eyes of a hungry wolf, finding himself being appraised, meat and blood and bones, like a lamb. Appraised and then dismissed, by some logic process Jiro couldn't even begin to fathom. Usually when he looked into a person's eyes, a person looked back at him. Not so with Cyprus Finch. Meet that gaze, and you might as well be staring off a bottomless cliff!

"You'll have your hands full reassuring the populace and keeping them informed... at least somewhat... anyway." Cagalli said with a small smile, with plenty of memories of weary experience of that task. "And preparing the victory party, of course."

"Now who's overconfident?" Alkire muttered, though softly enough no one but Kira and Lacus seemed to hear him. He saw them looking at him, and shrugged uneasily. "Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure we're going to tear him a new asshole right between his eyes. It's simply a matter of what its going to cost to do it. Religious fanatics, from my experience, die the hardest of all."

"Time will tell." Lacus said with a shrug. Truth be told, she wasn't feeling very well... faintly nauseous, with odd hungery flashes that went away whenever she actually tried to eat. She'd been having some trouble sleeping lately too. She'd read that symptoms like what she was experiencing were often side effects of pregnancy, but she was hesitant to celebrate just yet. The tests were still running, though she should know by the middle of the next day. It could just be the stress of the events with the Brotherhood. She didn't want it to be, but she had to admit, seeing Newtype powers, similar to hers in many ways, being used for such... evil... purposes earlier in the day had been quite a system shock. She'd always wondered, and been afraid to really consider, what she might do to people if she snapped and lost control of herself. She'd gotten a glimpse from watching Noah, and the idea that she herself could probably very easily do the same things made her feel all cold and achy inside. Of course, she would never, ever do things like that if she was in her right mind... but if she lost Kira... she clamped down on her worry and shook her head. She would not lose Kira. It wasn't worth bothering herself, thinking about what might be. She'd worry herself into an early grave if she let herself.

"Time, and the hearts and souls of people who care for the future of humanity, and are willing to stand with us to protect it." Kira said, squeezing her hand reassuringly. "Don't fret, Lacus. Next week, we're all going to look back and smile, and this will all seem like a bad dream."

"Hey! Come on, the Archangel is launching in an hour! We need to get over there." Dearka called from the doorway, thru which the rest of the impromptu emergency Clyne Faction council meeting was walking, headed to various and sundry tasks to prepare for the battle ahead.

"Let's go then." Lacus stood up. "Let's go and put an end to these tragedies."

------------------------------------------------

"And this is the reason we should have started building the Solar Protection Fleet two years ago!" Fleet Admiral David Icarus raged, veins standing out all over his face as he stomped back and forth in front of the main tactical display. Currently the only images on it were depicting friendly forces, because the scope of the display only covered the Lunar surface and near space around it, and the enemy ship, flying fortress was more like it, was still several million kilometers from the Moon, though closing at a goodly speed! In space, bigger did not necessarily mean slower, and the Brotherhood fortress definitely seemed to have power to spare in order to boost itself to speeds something of that size should not be able to reach! It was still slow by the standards of modern warships, even the wallowing Agammenon class carriers, which maneuvered with all the speed of a flash frozen crocodile, but then again, it was more than 250 times* the size of the Archangel, the previous ship class to hold the title of largest space going warship! It was bigger than some military space stations, and almost thirty percent larger overall than the GENESIS space laser!

"You've said that two or three times now, David, please, give it a rest." Durandel suggested tiredly. He was still wheelchair bound, with his leg in a rigid protective cast, but though many doctors and subordinates had pleaded with him to stay in a hospital and rest, he simply had not been able to. How could he sit still, even injured as he was, at a time like this? He had a responsibility as the Secretary of Defense of the USN to take charge in times of the greatest need, such as the current times, and guide humanity through the shoals to a safe harbor! "There simply wasn't the funding, or the public support, two years ago. Or even a year ago. Or even six months ago! Hindsight is always perfect, but complaining about it now isn't very helpful."

"Yes, Mr. Secretary, I know. It just frustrates me." Icarus replied, after a series of calming breaths. "I feel like the commander of a flotilla of armed harbor tugs, coastal patrol boats and converted pleasure craft, facing up against the largest, most heavily armed battleship afloat. We may have the numbers, but even a large swarm of bees isn't going to do much when its an elephant that's kicked over the hive!"

"I'm sure you'll find a way, Admiral. Even an elephant will die if you pump enough poison into its veins." Durandel answered confidently. He considered the tactical display. "Over five hundred warships already mustered, and the bulk of the FNE and Orb contributions have yet to arrive from Earth orbit. Its a stirring sight... and a logistical nightmare." Durandel shook his head, considering without much enjoyment the political infighting that would break out the moment the greater threat was resolved. That was one of the other reasons he had to be here personally, rather than sitting in a hospital bed waiting for the inevitable good news to be reported. He had to be seen as being in charge of this situation, in charge of saving the human race against a very real and very dire threat. He was sure it would chop a year or two off the back end of his Destiny Plan to have such a credit as the savior of humanity under his belt before he was even Secretary-General. And he wouldn't even have to manufacture an event, or even really do much besides sit on the sidelines and make himself visible to the media. It was beyond the remit of creduilty that Noah could hope to prevail against the gathered forces of the USN and all the member-states.

"Indeed it is, Mr. Secretary. Are you sure you're feeling all right? You look a little pale. Pardon me saying so, but you really should be in a hospital, sir." Icarus pointed out gruffly. Truth be told, he was kind of looking forward to being lionized as the commander who put an end to the Brotherhood once and for all himself, and if Gilbert was in a hospital, it would be much harder for him to steal the credit for Icarus's own work. Not that he was doing much himself, besides organize the fleets and give the big orders, like "commence the attack!" and "destroy them all!", but those were the important ones the media would focus on, not the nitty gritty of the individual fleet commanders and ship captains fighting the battle.

"I've definitely felt better, Admiral, but don't worry about me. I'll be fine. And I'll definitely feel a lot better once that ungainly saucer is space dust and debris!" Durandel replied with a tight smile, well aware of why Icarus would want the stage all to himself. "I have a duty to be here, taking responsibility for whatever might happen, while the Secretary-General handles the civilian side of things."

"Of course, Mr. Secretary." Icarus bowed his head to hide his momentary gritting of teeth. "Just one ship... just one Incarnate class... that's all I would need! Errg! Even a Myrmidon or two! Goddamn it!" Icarus spun towards the data analyst section of the command bunker. "Commander! Give me some good news. What have you figured out about that monstrosity!?"

"Well sir, it's course is still unchanged. He's throwing himself right at us, on a course that will have him pass over Copernicus and the other major Lunar cities on his way to Earth orbit. I don't think there's any way he could have failed to notice the fleet buildup in his path, but his course and speed haven't changed even slightly."

"So he wants to play chicken, does he? I would have thought he'd have figured out by now that the USN is tired of flinching!" Icarus growled. "What about armaments? Paint me a picture of his offensive and defensive capabilties!"

"We've identified over fifty large scale weapon emplacements spread across the dorsal and ventral surfaces, though almost all of them are currently behind protective shutters that have confounded our sensor's ability to accurately qualify the type of weapon. In addition we have identified several hundred probable locations for CIWS and anti-Mobile Suit or fighter craft type weapon emplacements, again mostly covered by shutters currently. In fact sir, the only weapon that is not currently in a retracted, covered state is the large central dorsal cannon turret. It's not like anything I've ever seen on a warship before, sir... even the eight large leg like structures on the ventral surface have retracted into the interior of the vessel. It doesn't make any sense to us, sir... why make all the weapon emplacements retractable? That's got to eat up a huge amount of interior space..."

"It's because it's not just a space vessel." Rey spoke up, from behind Durandel's wheelchair. "Consider the Archangel, which also has the capability to retract all of its primary armaments inside protective shutters when not in use. Not only does it prevent an enemy from getting a free look at your offensive capabilities from a distance, its also necessary to protect the weapons themselves from being lost during periods of intensive friction based heating of the outer surfaces of the ship."

"What are you saying, Knight-Commander?" Icarus asked, his voice slipping a bit on the rank title. It rankled, having someone so young, so junior, be entirely out of his chain of command, basically able to speak to him as an equal. The SecDef was one thing... his favored lackey quite another! Still, there wasn't much he could do about it, not with the way Durandel had carefully set up the Solar Knights so that they would answer only to the SecDef, and thus, only to him.

"I'm saying, sir, that if those shutters weren't there, if those weapons weren't retractable, they'd all burn off when the Great Endeavor went through the atmospheric interface on its way to the Earth's surface." Rey answered calmly. There was a long moment of silence.

"Preposterous! Something of that size could never make it into the atmosphere successfully! It would burn up in a matter of minutes! It has all the aerodynamic characteristics of a dropped plate!" Icarus snorted.

"Do you think Noah put all those legs on the bottom for decoration?" Rey replied coldly. "Although staying in the upper atmosphere is the best location for him to deploy Green EDEN for maximum dispersal, keeping something of the Great Endeavor's weight aloft in Earth's gravity is likely beyond even Noah's abilities. I'm sure, like the Archangel, it will be able to fly, or hover, at least for a while, but any sort of long term movement would have to be on the legs or in the water, in order to avoid stress and excess power consumption. It's simply too big, too massive, too unaerodynamic, as you said, to fly around indefinitely. At least, that is what I assume." Rey sighed. "I reserve the right to be wrong. This is the Brotherhood we are talking about."

"Speaking of this Green EDEN nonsense, have we been able to figure out just what it IS!?" Icarus asked with a deep frown in Rey's general direction. That young man knew entirely too much about Noah and the Brotherhood to be entirely legit. But what was he going to do, accuse the SecDef's own personal lackey of being a Brotherhood lapdog, with the SecDef right there? Icarus was under no illusions as to which one of them, Rey or himself, would end up out on his ear or in a jail cell, were he to do that! There was nothing he could do besides bite his tongue and hope for a chance to do something about it later.

"Well, thanks to Rey's heroic and quick actions, we managed to prevent Noah and the Brotherhood from releasing it into the atmosphere of the PLANTS with a one hundred percent success rate." Durandel said with a proud smile. "Though it did require shutting down the main power supplies of a few PLANTS, I'm sure the populace will be more than accomodating of the brief inconvenience, compared to the tragedy it was necessary to avert."

"Naturally. We all owe the Knight-Commander a tremendous debt for his actions." Icarus agreed. If you can't beat em, suck up to em... it had always been his policy, and it had served him well so far.

"As a result, we captured a substantial amount of the weapon they were planning to release, though some Brotherhood agents did manage to destroy the weapon packages before we could apprehend them. Unfortunately, all Brotherhood agents were either killed by our own forces or committed suicide, preventing us from getting any information from them, not that I think there would have been much... Noah would not have told his subordinates any more than they absolutely needed to know, to prevent us from learning anything should we capture one. Likely they had just been told to put the packages into a prepared part of the filtration systems, and were little more than manual laborers. Of course, the greatest tragedy is that we failed to corner and apprehend Noah himself, but with the advent of this giant space fortress from the bottom of Millenium One, things became understandably chaotic, and we lost track of him in the process." Durandel continued, with a nod of his head at Icarus's blatant syncophany.

"However..." Here Durandel frowned. "So far our scientists and weapon experts have yet to come up with a good explanation for what exactly Green EDEN is. At the moment, it appears to be an inert green powder, rather like chalk dust or flour in consistency, with no major observable characteristics. It does not dissolve in water or other fluids, though it is consumed by strong acids, but no unusual vapors are released. It is not caustic or an irritant to skin. The individual particles are each a complex molecule of a type not seen before, each and every one of them identical to each and every other one, as far as we've been able to tell, but they don't form any sort of larger pattern or structure. We haven't been able to determine what it is that the substance does, or how. It is, sadly, an enigma. An apparently harmless one at that, but I know Noah wouldn't have gone to all the trouble he did to just release some harmless powder into the PLANTS. We don't yet understand what Green EDEN is... but we will soon." Durandel promised. "For the moment we are labeling it as an unknown but highly dangerous chemical biohazard with unknown but rapidly deadly properties, for public dissemination. We are assuming he plans to bomb the Lunar cities and introduce this poison to mop up the survivors, before heading to low Earth orbit to begin large scale distribution across Earth's major population centers. Of course, since we'll be stopping him here, there is absolutely nothing for the citizens of Earth to worry about. Understood?"

"Completely, Mr. Secretary. I'll inform the troops. Nobody likes a guy who plays with chemical weapons on innocent civilians. I'm sure morale will be at a fever pitch." Icarus said with a wolfish smile. A sudden, disagreeable thought occured to him, and he turned back to Rey, forcing himself to address the young man directly. "Can you perhaps give us an estimate on the number of detachable forces that thing is likely to deploy, Knight-Commander? Obviously, the battle will be decided on a fleet to fleet level, but those pesky Gundams could make things a lot messier than we need. How many of them do you think we'll be facing?"

"As many as he has left." Rey replied instantly, though he was himself far from sure that the Mobile Suit battle would only be a sideline to the greater conflict. "Anywhere between forty and fifty Zealots, about half as many Martyrs, the Traitor, the Haunted, the Vengeance and at least one machine we have not yet seen, which I believe is called the Brotherhood, just like the organization. Intelligence sources indicate the Brotherhood might very well be piloted by Noah himself."

"Intelligence sources eh?" Icarus eyed Rey closely, but got nothing but a composed stare in return. "I see. Do "intelligence sources" have any idea on the capabilities of this new machine, or the abilities of Noah Borander as a pilot? I mean, if I was going to be out there, in a tiny little Mobile Suit, fighting against him while massive capital ships exchanged volley fire all around me, I might want to know what I was going up against before hand, to maximize my chances of survival."

"Unfortunately, we have almost nothing besides the name of the Gundam itself." Rey answered with a shrug. "I would not expect it to be any less dangerous than the Vengeance though. Don't worry though, Admiral... the Solar Knights and the other Mobile Forces will ensure he stays as far away from your lumbering capital ships as possible. I mean, since even Ginns have proved so deadly against standard warships in the past, it would be horrific to see what the Brotherhood machines could do to them, especially all packed together into fleets where it's impossible to maneuver or fire back without perhaps hitting other allied vessels." Rey added with a sweet, reassuring smile.

"Naturally." Icarus gritted his teeth. "I'm sure we'll all feel much better with heroes like you out on the front line, protecting us against that sort of unpleasantness."

"Not just heroes like me, sir." Rey pointed over Icarus's shoulder at the tactical display, which had recently updated to include a grouping of new icons, colored a bright, impossible to ignore orange. "Unless our sensors department has gone crazy, it seems the Archangel and elements of Orb's space fleet have just arrived at the mustering point."

"The Archangel? Huh, that's just wonderful. Glory hounds... glory hounds and romanticized mutineers. That ship is a disgrace to the ideals of modern warships." Icarus shook his head in disgust.

"However, it is undeniably a very effective warship, and the Gundams it carries will go a long way towards evening the odds with the Brotherhood's technological advantage, and may even positively influence the larger battle." Durandel pointed out with a small smile. "I should think it obvious that the most decorated and effective warships should form the vanguard against the Brotherhood. Obviously, casualties among the vanguard will be higher than elsewhere, but that is why you put your best people there, to blunt the enemy charge and pave the way for the supporting forces to reinforce and overwhelm the enemy. What's the term they used to use, in the Napoleonic era? Forlorn Hope?"

"Yes, those were the soldiers who volunteered to be the first ones into any major breach in a fortresses defenses." Rey replied, though Icarus looked blank. "They earned rewards and promotions if they survived, since it was their job to basically distract the fortress defenders while their allies closed the distance and were able to relieve them. Historically, very few of them did much more than die messily, though in the end, that was often distraction enough for more soldiers to arrive in large enough force to carry the day."

"Well, I don't know if we'll use that term, as its rather depressing, but still, I don't see how the Archangel can deny the honor of being in charge of the initial attack against the Brotherhood. After all, the eyes of all the world will be upon them, and they do have such a reputation to live up to." Durandel smiled.

"But what if they do survive, won't they be able to claim they pretty much won the battle for us? They'd steal all the credit!" Icarus pointed out.

"Well, if they survive, I think we can share a little credit with them, don't you, David? Its only fair after all. There will be plenty to go around. And besides, they were only doing as we told them to do, right? Surely its the people who organized the battle, who coordinated the victory, the people in charge of the strategy that saved the human race from a madman, that will be able to claim the lion's share of any aprobation? Especially because the media will be here, and they will be out there... and the media has always been first come, first serve." Durandel explained quietly. He saw the light of understanding dawn in Admiral Icarus's eyes, and his smile grew a little. "Why don't you take care of the necessary details, Fleet Admiral? After all, it is you that is in charge of mustering all the ships of this emergency USN armada."

"I shall attend to it personally. After all, such an important assignment should only come from the very highest echelon's of command." Icarus replied, before turning and striding off, a bounce almost visible in his stride.

"I've always wanted to know, what place his genetics have him at in the Destiny Plan?" Rey whispered with a small sneer on his face as he looked after Icarus.

"I believe it's something having to do with cleaning the shit out of sewer systems. By hand." Durandel replied, and they shared a brief moment of amusement. Durandel reached up and put his hand on Rey's shoulder. "be careful out there, Rey. And watch out for Talia if you can. I don't want to lose either one of you, not now, not when we're so close! We're at the cusp of a glorious new age, Rey, and I want you to be there to share in all its wonders with me."

"I'll be sure to come back, Gil, don't you worry about a thing. Ms. Gladys is captaining the Newton, in the third ZAFT Nazca group. I'll make sure no Brotherhood Gundam gets within a hundred kilometers of her, personally if need be." Rey replied, putting his hand on Gil's shoulder in return. "You need to be careful as well, Gil. If there's one person humanity can't lose now, its you. You really should try and get some rest, or that leg will never heal right."

"I'll be fine." Durandel insisted. "I can rest it just as easily in this wheelchair as I can in a hospital bed, more so even, because at least now I'm not worrying my head off about leaving certain someones in charge of something beyond their means to fully understand, much less control. Make no mistake, this is a pivotal moment, and like all instants of sudden motion, there is a definite possibility of events becoming unbalanced and spinning out of control if a delicate but firm hand is not kept on the controls." He paused, and looked around carefully, seeing they were alone, or as close to as was possible inside the command bunker. "I love you very much, Rey, don't ever forget that. You have made me prouder than I ever thought possible, and I just wanted you to know that."

"I..." Rey swallowed hard, a big lump in his throat. "Thank you, Gil. I love you too." He brushed his hand across his eyes, surprised to find a small trace of moisture there. "I'm proud to be your son, even if we can't tell anyone."

"Not yet, anyway. Soon enough." Durandel promised, as Rey recomposed himself. "Now, you should probably be off. I'm sure you have plenty of details to get straight with the Solar Knights and other Mobile Forces. we still have a few hours yet before the Great Endeavor closes to within combat range."

"You're right." Rey turned to leave, and then turned back. "What do you think Noah is thinking right now, Gil?" He asked softly.

"I don't know. He's probably shivering in his bed, head buried under the pillows as he tries to keep from pissing himself in terror. At least, thats what any sane person would be doing in his position." Durandel replied with a shrug. "At this point in time it hardly matters though. Its all but over for him already. Its just a matter of the screaming and shouting now."

-------------------------------------------------------

"Are you feeling all right?" Noah asked, holding his hand out to Meyrin, as she leaned against the passageway wall with a weary expression on her face. He'd been giving her a tour of the Great Endeavor for the past few hours, both to somewhat familiarize her with what was going to be her new home for a goodly while, and so that the crew of Harbingers and other chosen Brotherhood personnel could see them together and draw the proper connection. So far everyone had been exemplarly in giving Meyrin just as much respect and courtesy as they would have given to Noah himself, though Dylan, Ashino and Randolf had been notable in their absence from the tour route. He shrugged slightly, not really caring what his wayward Apostles felt right now. By the looks of things, many of them wouldn't make it through the coming confrontation with the USN, and those that did wouldn't be in a very good position to do much besides collapse from exhaustion.

"Just feeling a little tired and hungry. And a little thirsty." Meyrin replied, gamely pushing herself off the wall and taking Noah's hand in both of her own. Her vision blurred a little, and she felt herself stagger, but before she could find her feet Noah was already there, supporting her in his arms as she regained her balance. "Sorry about that."

"Don't be. Things are progressing exactly as they should be, given the amount of Green EDEN you were exposed to." Noah patted the back of her head reassuringly, before releasing her from his embrace and leading her along the way they had been going. "Its not much farther, and then you can sit down and grab a snack. Assuming you feel thats not cheating."

"A little snack is all right. I don't feel the need to gorge myself and hook myself up to a life support machine, so I won't do that. But a bag of chips and a bottled juice sounds good." Meyrin replied. "Where are we going again? I'm sorry, but I've totally lost track... this place is HUGE, like I said before. I feel like I might need a electric cart to get around in a timely fashion."

"It just seems bigger than it is because your energy is being used up much faster than it usually would be. The Great Endeavor is actually very crowded inside, and only has about three or four times the interior space of say, the Archangel, excepting the Hanger bay. Most of the interior space is taken up by the defensive systems, engines, automated factories and storage chambers that aren't normally accessible to the crew." Noah informed her. "As for where we're going, I suppose you could say we're going to my quarters. I call it the Atrium."

"So I finally get to see what your room looks like huh? Only took a month or two. I suppose thats about right, now that I think about it. Sure you don't want to clean it up, get the embarassing magazines out of sight before you go showing it to me?" Meyrin teased. "Huh... three or four times the interior space of the Archangel... like thats small!"

"Considering the Great Endeavor is over six million tons and has a volume almost three hundred times greater than that of the Archangel, maybe that puts it in better perspective for you?" Noah replied with a smile.

"Numbers... too big." Meyrin answered with a grin. "How did you build something like this inside Millenium One with no one noticing?"

"Easily. Millenium One was constructed with the Great Endeavor built inside it as part of the original construction plans. It was additional, or constructed in secret. The Brotherhood didn't even build most of the physical structure, that was done by the PLANTS contractors that were hired to build the new E-PLANTS. Some of which were BoranderCorp subsidies, which allowed me to move in and finish up the more secretive, high tech parts later, but again, most of the hull was built by ordinary citizens. You can look through the plans for Millenium One all you want, you'll never be able to figure out where the Great Endeavor begins and the E-PLANT leaves off, because they weren't designed as two parts, but rather one."

"So that big hole in the bottom of Millenium One is..." Meyrin prompted.

"A regrettable but easily repairable bit of battle damage, I suppose you could say. Since the E-PLANT was only about fifty three percent complete, the damage is actually very minor, with no atmosphere to release and no central power to disrupt. The seperation came about at the best possible time, really... as I intended, of course... where the E-PLANT was built up enough not to break apart entirely, but not complete enough to where its operation and systems would be seriously hampered by the sudden loss." Noah explained.

"I don't suppose I even want to know how long you've been planning things, if you thought to have your own base built into the largest new construction project in PLANTS history." Meyrin shook her head in amazement.

"It would not be inaccurate to say I've been planning this my whole life, though only really in earnest since I was seven or eight. So a little less than half my life." Noah answered with another shrug. "Big projects take a lot of preparation, and my project is the biggest in human history to date, at least in some ways." Noah pulled her lightly into an elevator at the end of the hall, and the doors slid shut behind them. Almost instanly they shot upwards at relatively high speed, though they could barely feel the acceleration because of the compensation systems, taken from the GRS mk II he'd used in his Gundams, or rather, the other way around. The ceiling above them cycled open and they came to rest in the outskirts of the Atrium, with bright solar lamps overhead providing illumination over the wide open space, with a glimpse of the starry night of the void beyond exo-glass panels built into parts of the ceiling. Noah took a deep, happy breath, letting all the scents of the Atrium filter through his senses.

"Oh... my... god..." Meyrin whispered, looking around her in shock and awe. She'd been transported, somehow, someway, using an elevator, from the inside of an industrial space station to the middle of a rainforest jungle clearing, surrounded by honest to god TREES and BUSHES, with GRASS and DIRT on the ground, and flocks of birds, humming insects and small mammals moving through the foliage, completely oblivious to their presence aboard a space station! She could smell the sap from the trees, feel the humidity of the air, hear the birds calling to each other and the slight crackle as something vaguely cat shaped stalked through the undergrowth a few meters away! "This... this is a movie, right? A hologram?" She asked.

"No. This is the Atrium." Noah smiled to see her amazement, so pure, so innocent. He put his arm around her waist and held her close, luxuriating in the feeling of her warmth against him, knowing that in less than a half hour he'd be forced, according to her wishes, to leave her to face the struggle of her ascension alone. Still, alone didn't mean uncomfortable, and he couldn't just let her collapse to the deck in a random location, especially with the Great Endeavor headed towards a battle in the near future. Serious damage was unlikely, but he could not risk her, not even slightly! The Atrium was among the safest locations aboard the Great Endeavor, even though it was near the outer surface, protected as it was by overlapping layers of Citadel and Positron shields that could be activated in an instant and were powered seperately from the other such systems that warded the Great Endeavor from further out. Only Noah, or those in his direct company, could come to the Atrium without activating the defensive systems and being blasted to smoking ashes, or mauled by off duty Zam Clan rats or even Phlegethion and Aether, when they weren't guarding him.

"But... how?" Meyrin asked softly. "Its a real rainforest? With animals and... and dirt and trees and even mist!?"

"A small one, yes. Only about one hundred meters by eighty, with a ceiling about thirty to forty meters tall. The most free space I could muster, but it serves." Noah replied proudly. "A completely self sustaining ecosystem, complete with a food chain that ranges from bacteria in the loam up to a genetically engineered pair of miniature tigers, offshoots of my Mini-pets research. Achilles will live here too, once we retrieve him from Earth. It has both day and night cycles, and the temperature can range from sixty to more than ninety degrees fahrenheit, depending on the time of day or even what I want it to be. Come on, let me show you my "room"!" Noah said excitedly, almost dragging her off the elevator platform, which receeded when they were gone, replaced by a cover of grass and dirt indistinguishable from the surrounding field.

Meyrin stumbled and almost fell as her feet encountered soft dirt and grass, instead of metal decking or even carpet. Bushes brushed at her knees and legs, big, floppy, damp tree leaves slapped at her hair and forehead as Noah led her along a faintly visible path, more an animal track, that wound its way out of the grassy field and into the forest thickets themselves. The atmosphere immediately grew close and hot, and she felt herself beginning to work up a sweat, just like had always happened to her in her few, brief forays into the African wilderness around the Solar Knight's base. The thought made her pang with sorrow, and she slowed, casing Noah to slow as well. He gave her a concerned look, and she knew her feelings must be all over her face. "What about Luna? And the other Solar Knights." Meyrin asked quietly.

"They are going to try and stop me." Noah acknowledged. "I will give them a chance to get out of my way, but I see no reason why they would, not now. I am sorry, but I cannot go out of my way to spare your sister, Meyrin. It wouldn't be fair."

"I know..." Meyrin said sadly. "But... she's my sister! I love her and care for her, as much as I do for you! She's family!"

"Then I will hope for her survival, and maybe we can go to her together after we are done on Earth. Once she sees the wondrous effects of what I am doing, and can talk to you, the very first to go through the process, I'm sure she'll be glad to join us, and then you won't ever have to worry about her again." Noah said comfortingly. And if Lunamaria Hawke was killed in the battle, then Meyrin wouldn't have to worry about her ever again either. Either way was fine with him. "Come now, we don't have much time, and there's so much I want to show you still."

"I still have plenty of energy!" Meyrin assured him, even as her stomach growled, embarassingly. She felt her cheeks heat, even as Noah chuckled.

"There's food up ahead too." Noah added. "A wide assortment to choose your snacks from." He led her along for another minute or so, and then they suddenly stepped out of the dense trees again, and he smiled when she gasped in awe. It was a rocky grotto type area, complete with a gently sloped stream that coursed through myriad pathways down a rock face into a pool, and then rushed down a larger, narrow V notch channel to drain away at some further point in the Atrium. The cool mist was thicker here, a relief after the hot closeness of the thickets, and there seemed to be a slight breeze too, though Meyrin could not identify the source. Truth be told, she was having a hard time looking away from the pool, because there was an honest to god king sized bed floating, or apparently floating, in the middle of it, with the headboard facing the myriad waterfalls and the foot facing the draining stream. Mossy rocks were everywhere, and the stone was a comforting, neutral shade of dark grey with dark green impurities shooting through it, and sparkles of gold and silver and crystal when you looked at it from different angles. The entire place was... magical, dream like in aspect.

"Wow." Meyrin breathed, struggling to take it all in and process it. Nothing appeared carved or otherwise shaped by human hands, yet she could definitely tell there was an intelligent design behind the placement of the bed and pond and all the surrounding area. Stepping down from the tree line to the pond shore was easy, and though the rocks looked slippery, the patches of moss actually provided a soft, sure grip on her feet, like velvet velcro. She crouched down and tenatively touched a finger to the pond water. "Its pretty cold." She noted, shaking her finger free of water droplets.

"For the moment. The water temperature can be adjusted as well, up to slightly more than a hundred degrees fahrenheit, for a hot bath like experience. Usually I find something around seventy or eighty degrees to be more comfortable for a protracted soak, given the warm ambient temperature." Noah told her with a smile.

"Spend a lot of time here then?" She asked, arching an eyebrow at bed, with perfectly made dark green sheets and white pillows.

"About an hour a week, when I'm lucky." Noah answered. He saw her incredulous look. "I do try to keep myself busy, and just lounging around soaking in a bath isn't the best use of my time to date. However, I anticipate having quite a bit more free time for the next few weeks, and I'm glad I designed the luxury in ahead of time. No reason to make ourselves uncomfortable, now is there?"

"Don't you think its a little..." Meyrin trailed off, considering. Noah probably didn't think it was a little over the top, not at all. He really loved nature, after all, loved being outdoors, so why wouldn't he want his own personal chambers to cater to that love? And while a bed in the middle of a rocky stream grotto with adjustable water temperature and who knew what other features was definitely... exotic, VERY exotic... she supposed it made sense for Noah. Never content to do things the regular way, no, not at all. She chuckled and shook her head. "Its incredible. But how do you get out to the bed without getting wet? I would think that would be inconvenient, always having to go swimming to get in bed. Not to mention what it would do to the sheets and..." She stopped and stared as Noah just laughed and walked out onto the water, striding along on the surface like it was as solid as glass. Disbelieving, Meyrin crouched down again as he made his way over to the bed, and touched her finger to the water again. Her finger went right in, just like it would into water in a bucket. She looked up at him, seeing he was looking back at her and smiling. "Okay, smart guy... spill it. How'd you do that!?"

"You can't just do it with a finger, its not enough weight. Step out with all your weight, slowly and smoothly." Noah instructed her.

"But I'll fall in and get all wet if I do that!" Meyrin protested, looking down into the crystal clear water, which looked to be at least four or five feet deep even right by the shore.

"Just like I did?" Noah asked, arching an eyebrow as he sat on the side of the bed and pulled off his shoes. A shelf slide out from under the skirts of the bed and he deposited his shoes upon it, before it retracted into the underside of the bed. Barefoot, he stood up and walked back across the surface of the pond to stand, about two feet off shore, in front of her. The water dimpled and rippled under his feet, but definitely supported his weight. "Give me your hand. Come on, trust me." Noah took her hand and slowly but insistently pulled her towards him, until she had no choice but to step out to maintain her balance. She flinched as her foot came down, but other than a slight bit of bounce, like stepping onto a padded gym mat, there was no falling, no splashing and definitely no wet. Her other foot joined the first a second later and there she was, walking, or standing at least, on WATER!

"Oh my god, this is so weird! How is this possible!?" She demanded, even as Noah nonchalantly led her over to the bed. She peered down between her feet as she walked, and flinched and gasped again, almost falling over, until Noah caught her and held her up. She pointed wordlessly at what she'd seen, her heart hammering as it slowly returned to a normal speed.

"Huh. Looks like Phlegethion and Aether have decided to go for a swim." Noah observed, looking down at the black and white mechano-dragons as they cavorted and spun in slow motion, like giant, winged river otters, winding their way along the bottom of the pool, playing chase and batting a weighted rubber ball back and forth between them. They were about ten feet down, and still a couple feet from the bottom, and appeared entirely heedless of Noah and Meyrin standing on the surface of the water above them, though Noah knew the dragons had been aware of them from the moment they'd entered the Atrium, and were only playing now because there was no threat for them to take care of. He'd reprogrammed them to regard Meyrin just like Lacus, and even to accept some orders from her as if they'd come from himself, and though he could often feel the jealousy they had for Meyrin, he'd definitely laid down the law with them. If anything happened to Meyrin because of action or inaction on their parts, he'd promised to return them to their ultimate nightmare, being trapped in a comatose body, awake but unable to live normally.

"Okay... how can THEY... and all those FISH... be swimming underneath us, while we are at the same time STANDING on the surface of the water!" Meyrin asked pleadingly.

"Nanotechnology is a wonderful thing." Noah said with a smile.

"Oooh... that better not be the full answer! Tell me!" Meyrin warned him.

"Well, it has to do with surface tension. Billions of nano-machines are in the water along with the water molecules. They do several things, among them purifying the water to make it safe to drink even after its been used as bathwater, or had animals in it, as well as playing a part in adjusting the temperature. They can even change the physical properties of the water in localized areas, making the water more like soap or shampoo, at least in proximity to a human body. However, the pertinent part of the answer is that they can also link together in a semi-crystalline pattern, forming a lattice that traps water molecules and forces them together so tightly they might as well be a solid, though without the temperature phase change that would result in ice. Its an automatic response that happens whenever focused but still slightly distributed weight in excess of eighty pounds but not exceeding two hundred pounds comes into contact with the water's surface. Weight that is too tightly focused and not heavy enough, such as a fingertip, doesn't provoke the response, as you saw, and widely distributed weight, such as if I lay down on my back, also does not provoke the response." Noah sat down and then lay back, and, true to his words, he instantly sank into the pool. Meyrin felt her footing slip a little bit, but nothing she couldn't easily compensate for, even though he'd only been a few feet away.

Noah surfaced and shook his head, smiling up at her incredulous expression. "So if you want to just get to the bed, you walk out to it. But if you want to take a bath, you walk out and lie down. When you want to get out..." He pulled his arms above his head and thrust down with both palms, fingers widely spread. His hands encountered the water's surface and stopped dead, allowing him to push off them and drag his body from under the water onto its surface, onto his hands and knees. He didn't stay wet either, water running freely down his body, leaving his clothes and skin as dry as they'd been before he allowed himself to fall in. He stood up and presented himself to her for inspection. "Neat, huh?"

"Thats a little more than neat!" Meyrin retorted, eyes agoggle. "How can you be treating this so casually!?"

"Its just a project I did in my spare time a few years ago." Noah shrugged. "A precursor to the LCR armor the Vengeance and Brotherhood have. Its a vanity invention, I know, but I liked it."

"Vanity... VANITY!? THIS IS INCREDIBLE! WATER YOU CAN STAND ON! You could... could build houses on water like this! Overcrowding on Earth would be a thing of the past!"

"Its about to be anyway." Noah pointed out. He took her hand again and led her, sputtering and shaking her head, over to sit on the bed. "Stay here. I'll get the snacks." He walked across the pond towards the waterfalls, slipping between two of them to run his hand across a seemingly blank section of rock, only to have it slid back with a hiss, revealing a very large combination pantry and refrigerator-freezer. A press on a different part of the rock wall revealed a cabinet full of plates, cups and silverware. Noah loaded down a platter with a selection of fresh sushi and sauces, made that day from the cloning labs elsewhere in the Great Endeavor, and selected a few bottles of berry juice, also made from berries grown in some of the Great Endeavor's automated botanical gardens. More automated systems would detect the usage of materials and replacements would be grown or harvested within the hour and delivered by retasked Zam Clan rats or another servitor style machine.

Meyrin was lying full out in the middle of the bed when he returned, her shoes put on the same extendable shelf Noah'd left his on. She was feeling more tired as the minutes wore by, until she was definitely sleepy. The hunger and thirst pulled her towards wakefulness, though not strongly enough to beat the drowsiness forever. She shivered, trying to keep her entirely instinctive panic under control. In some ways it was worse for her, knowing what was happening, than it would be if she thought she was just getting drowsy cause she was tired. She still didn't feel any different, but the nanomachines inside her body were still only just getting started, after all. Her arm and hand trembled as she reached for the bottled juice Noah offered, and she couldn't make herself stop. She closed her eyes and tried deep breaths, but it didn't help very much. "I'm scared, Noah."

"Don't be. You're going to be just fine, Meyrin." Noah replied softly, holding her free hand tightly in both of his. "Drink the juice. It'll make you feel better."

"Can't keep my hand steady, I'm sorry." Meyrin replied, after several aborted attempts. "I know I chose this for myself, but still..."

"Let me help." Noah steadied the juice bottle and assisted her in drinking several long gulps. Seeing she barely had the energy to keep her eyes open and talk, he placed the platter of food next to her and took up one of the pairs of chopsticks he'd brought as utensils. "Open wide. And do you have a preference between shrimp or lobster?"

"Sushi? That's really expensive food... don't usually eat it." Meyrin commented with a smile. "Guess expense isn't really an issue with you, huh? Either is fine." She allowed him to fit the rolled up piece of rice and lobster and seaweed into her mouth, and chewed slowly, enjoying the rich taste before letting herself swallow. "Kind of embarassing, having to have you feed me."

"There's absolutely nothing to be embarassed about. You're so cute right now, I can barely stand it." Noah answered, brushing tenderly at her cheek and then her hair with one hand, even as he moved the chopsticks back to grab the next roll. "Just a few more now. Got to feed that appetite."

"Just a snack..." Meyrin protested mildly.

"Yes. Just a snack." Noah agreed. Just the highest calorie, most energy rich snack he could think of. He would keep his promise. But that didn't mean he wasn't going to stack the deck as much as he could within the bounds of that promise! "Do you want sauce on the next one?" They spent the next several minutes devouring the sushi rolls and finishing off the juice, with Noah eating while she drank, until after the fifth lobster roll slathered in garlic butter sauce, she turned up her nose and gave him a severe look.

"I feel like I could eat these for hours, but five lobster sushi rolls is more than I would normally eat even for dinner, much less a snack. I'll drink a little more juice, but I'm cutting myself off the food right now, okay?" Meyrin insisted. Noah toyed with the sixth lobster roll, before finally setting the chopsticks down, his own appetite dying. He dumped the rest of the sushi rolls carelessly over the side of the bed, to feed the fish or anything else that might care to scavange the water, before tossing the platter like a discus, not really caring where it went right now. He lay down on the bed alongside Meyrin, with her head pillowed on his shoulder, his arm around her shoulders, while he held one of her hands in his own, helping her sip from her juice bottle when she wanted to. They lay there in companionable silence for a few more minutes. "Noah, I..." Meyrin whispered at last.

"You want to see something else cool?" He asked, desperate to prolong this fast ending situation. He let go of her now empty juice bottle hand and made a complex, rolling gesture with his hand in midair, cueing the hidden holoprojectors situated around the pool area. Immediately a theatre sized screen formed in the air above the bed and hidden speakers rumbled, making the pond surface ripple. "Neat, huh?" Noah asked. He got no reply. "Meyrin? It's neat, isn't it? Can't wait to watch a horror movie on this screen, huh?" He got no response then either, and he finally forced himself to look at her, and recognize that she'd drifted unconscious, her face relaxed and serene, half snuggled against him. He lay there for another minute or so, just looking at her, drinking her in, before he leaned close and covered her lips with his. After releasing her from the kiss he gently maneuvered himself away and arranged her in a comfortable position in the center of the bed. "Meyrin, I love you so much I can't bear the thought of anything happening to you. You're going to be just fine." Noah felt the moisture building in his eyes, and made no effort to wipe it away. "Come back to me, Meyrin, and help me save humanity. I don't want to do it without you. Please... Meyrin..." Noah touched his forehead to hers. "Please, Meyrin... show me your strength. Show me the strength that made you make me promise! Please... Meyrin..."

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Noah stepped into the central control room of the Great Endeavor, ignoring the shouted hails of respectful greeting from the already overexcited Harbingers stationed as sensors, communications, damage control, weapons, defenses and CIC operators. Truth be told he didn't need any of them to operate the Great Endeavor in a combat situation, since most of the functions were automated or semi-automated. Still, their presence at least allowed him to focus his attention on only the most important of matters. And while he could also control the Great Endeavor just fine from the Atrium, with Meyrin there he'd never be able to concentrate, and he simply could not afford to fail, not now, not with so much hanging in the balance. He needed to give this his all, one hundred and ten percent even. He glanced at the sensor screens through now dry, if a tad red, eyes and brought himself up to speed, smiling in a predatory fashion as he processed the information. Gil was reacting like expected, and had brought as many forces as he could together in one location to stop the Great Endeavor. Little did he suspect that such a stratgey was exactly what Noah was hoping for, because it would save him a considerable amount of time and effort. Better one climactic battle and complete routing of the enemy forces, rather than being forced to fight them piecemeal over a period of months.

"Great Prophet...!" A senior Harbinger turned to make a report, only to be stopped by an upraised hand and imperious glance from Noah.

"I know. All pilots are standing ready by their telepresence control booths, thank you." Noah replied, having plucked the thought from the man's head as soon as he'd created it. "Remember, my chosen few, that the power of the Angels runs thickly through my blood, now more so than ever! Merely think what you want me to know, and I shalt know it and respond accordingly, if I deem it worthy."

"All hail the Great Prophet! All hail the Brotherhood!" They shouted joyfully, before returning to their tasks before a flaying stare of his golden pupiled eyes.

"I hope you don't expect me to say that." Ashino said, causing Noah and several of the Harbingers to flinch away from where the BCPU was standing in one dim corner of the control room, entirely unnoticed until now. "Because you'll be waiting a long time if you do."

"No. Of course not. I do not require your aprobation as part of our contract. Though I wouldn't mind if you'd announce your presence less suddenly in the future." Noah retorted, straightening his collar and calming his heartbeat.

"I thought you were supposed to know all and see all, Noah?" Ashino remarked casually. "Surely I didn't catch you by surprise in your own bridge, did I?"

"Only in that you should instead be completing the pre-flight checks aboard the Retribution, and not bothering me on my bridge." Noah answered with a shake of his head. "I presume you came here to threaten me again?"

"Maybe you are smarter than you look after all." Ashino replied. "Where is Jean?"

"That's a rather sore subject actually." Noah rounded on the BCPU. "Because you seem to have neglected to mention a few key factors that would have been good to know before I sent men to retrieve her! Such as the fortified and trapped house she was in at that address you supplied! Or the more than competent soldiers that lived there and massacred almost fifteen of my Harbingers in a matter of minutes!"

"I didn't think either of those would be an issue for the high and mighty leader of the Brotherhood." Ashino said caustically. "Especially since I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to try and seize her by force! Why do you think I sent her to Cyrpus Finch's house, if not to prevent any sort of forceful kidnapping from taking place? You assured me that you would do everything in your power to make her safe and comfortable... an armed assault on the house she is staying in is neither safe NOR comfortable!"

"Maybe if you didn't insist on having her here this very instant, and my men could take some time to plan a less forceful approach, we wouldn't be having this damned conversation! But you insist upon immediate results, when waiting just a little bit would be just as fruitful if not more so!" Noah spat. "We'll go and get her once we land on Earth. Is that acceptable?"

"It is, since I find I have little other choice at the moment. Be warned though, this is the LAST chance I am giving you, Noah. Do not mess up again or we will be enemies, and I will crush you like a pimple before I do the same to Durandel." Ashino promised darkly.

"One of these days we WILL have a reckoning, for those words and others..." Noah retorted, reigning himself in. "However, that day is not today. Today we need to stand united in a common cause. A common cause that can be summed up as... "force our way through to Earth through any means necessary". Is that understood, Mr. Ashino?"

"Crystal clear, Mr. Borander." Ashino cast a critical eye at the tactical display screen. "Though I must say, I'm rather interested to know what your strategy is for combating such a massive enemy force. We are outnumbered almost twenty to one, if not more, on the Mobile Forces front, and several hundred to one on the warship front, even counting the great size of this Great Endeavor of yours. I have no problem with fighting long odds, but I prefer to avoid suicidal battles."

"Strategy? Did I not make myself as clear as you said? We will force our way through to Earth by any means necessary." Noah allowed a predatory grin to affix itself to his face, especially seeing the look of sudden misgiving cross Ashino's own face. Noah strode forward a few paces and activated the holographic control scheme that would allow him to command the Great Endeavor with efficency and speed, even while he was involved in other tasks. "Diverting ten percent power from all primary power sources to the 100mm AMP cannon system, commencing pre-firing charge and build up of anti-Lithium matter in the collection chambers. Time to full charge, thirty eight minutes. Time to projected engagement of enemy main forces, forty minutes. Weapons, CIC, pay attention."

"Commencing charge up of 100mm AMP cannon system at fifty percent charge ratio, aye, Great Prophet!"

"AMP cannon system?" Ashino prompted with a questioning look.

"Yes." Noah replied with a smirk. "The main weapon of the Great Endeavor, turret mounted on the dorsal surface, in the center. The one hundred millimeter Anti-Matter Pulse cannon, which fires a torus of pure, solid anti-Lithium massing almost a kilogram. It is the easiest anti-element to produce, since it is the number three element on the Periodic table, with the only things that are less complex being Hydrogen and Helium, which, unlike Lithium which is a solid, are a gas normally and therefore not a very good projectile. More complex anti-elements would of course be more powerful, but the difference is minor enough that I chose to go with efficiency. If it takes me four shots to do what would otherwise take three, well, so be it. And believe me, we probably won't need more than one or two shots, ever." Noah saw that Ashino was still staring at him. "Hurry along now, Mr. Ashino, and do your best to stay alive. It would be such a tragedy if I were to save Jean, only to have to tell her that you died before she could be healed."

"Do not worry about me. I have debts to repay. I cannot die yet." Ashino retorted, before leaving the bridge and heading towards the hanger.

"All debts, Mr. Ashino, are about to be canceled." Noah whispered. He turned back to his controls and then walked through them, heading over to a genecode locked cabinet along the wall, which he unlocked and then removed a comfortable, full head helmet from. It was only about twenty percent bulkier than a motorcyclist's safety helmet, but it would do far more than just protect his head against trauma. He donned it without ceremony and slide the facial visor down, letting it adjust its opacity until he could barely tell it was there at all. He felt his scalp prickle as metal probes from the inner side of the helmet pushed themselves through his skin, through the bone of his skull, and into the proper motor control centers of his brain. Unlike the previous NIC-I, II and III systems, the NIC-IV did not interrupt control of his physical body, instead splitting the signals through a series of conscious mental gymnastics so that he could switch between controlling his body and the Brotherhood with literally a thought, or even control both at once if he really tried. The AI systems he'd added to the Brotherhood to boost his admittedly unpractised skills would also let him divert his attention more successfully. The visor flashed and filled with data.

"Booting up Brotherhood NIC-IV System mk . Loading Limited Artificial Intelligence Control Enhancement Program baseline. LIACEP online and functioning normally. Booting up general systems LAICEP, designated "Jeremiah" mk . Booting complete. Booting ranged targeting assistance LAICEP, designated "Kira" mk . Booting complete. Booting melee assistance and reaction assistance LACIEP, designated "Frost" mk 1.3. Booting complete. All LAICEP's booted and online. Brotherhood NIC-IV System mk now loaded and ready for pre-flight checkoffs. Waiting upon operator command."

"Command given." Noah ordered, his lips twitching up in a smile, glad he'd gotten to have so many test pilots for the Pulsar to take data from. "Prepare the Brotherhood for launch! Send the activation signal to the Revenant! Activate all defensive emplacements and offensive weapon systems! Show them how the ANGELS MAKE WAR!"

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Author Note: So... what ya think about THAT, eh? Pretty intense, huh? Next battle is going to be NUTS! I prolly say that alot. But this time I really mean it. But I'll leave the hype alone for the moment. I was really pleased with the reactions to chapter 42. Really loved em. Glad everyone liked it so much. Hope to see similar results this time. Quick review reply and then I have a couple of quesitons, more a proposal for you people. Its somewhat a shameless bid for more reviews, but its actually something I really am interested to know. But first... FreedomwingsX10A, just send me a PM or a signed review and I'll be glad to give you a page or more on tips for writing Mobile Suit battles, at least the way I write them. But thats a little longer than I want to devote to a simple author note. And you are all right... I have explained Green EDEN now, and Red EDEN vicariously, but not Blue yet. Or Black, which is the big one you saw back in CC. Wait for it. Soon on Blue, not so soon on Black, since not even Noah knows what to do with that one, but eventually.

Now for that thing I want to ask you. Two things actually. I find myself pretty ambivalent on these two questions, able to think of good things to do either way for them both. While I can, and perhaps even will make up my own mind, I'd still like to give you readers a nigh unprecedented chance to actually affect the events of the story to come in a tangible way. But enough beating about the bush. Here... a lot of reviewers have been clamoring for Gilbert Durandel to die. Now, originally, I'd planned on keeping him around to serve as the main antagonist of story number 3, Reclaimation War. However, I can just as easily create a new OC for that role, and that might even be more fun. So, should Durandel die? What do you think? Why? Give me a reason why you think he should live or die. I'm cool with writing either way, and theres plenty of cool stuff I can do regardless of whether he lives or dies.

On that same page, what about Meyrin Hawke? Should she live or should she die? More detailed, should she live through her Green EDEN infection only to die later, or should the Green EDEN be too much for her? Obviously, whatever happens to Meyrin is really going to affect what Noah does and how he acts, but again, I can go either way on this, and still feel like I've completed the story to a satisfactory extent. Meyrin was never a part of Noah's story originally, and though I really like the two of them together, it would be easily as powerful if she were to not make it through. So, same rules... should she live, or should she die, and if die, to what? And why do you think so? Give me a reason or two.

Thanks in advance, can't wait to see what you all have to say.

* I used the following dimensions of 750 meters radius, 250 meters average height for the Great Endeavor, and 420 meters long by 75 meters wide by 50 meters tall for the Archangel. Since the Archangel is not a solid box, the number of Archangels to Great Endeavor is actually probably higher, but that doesn't really matter.


	44. Flash Flood part 2

Author Note: Loving all the reviews and answers for chap 43. Really helps me crystallize what I myself am feeling about those characters and what I want to do with them. Naturally I won't tell you what I've decided, because that would ruin things. If I've even decided anything at all. Who knows. Not even me. With that said, here comes the opening salvoes of the biggest, roughest, hopefully coolest battle in ED to date. And yes, its not the climactic battle. This is the first of three major battles in the last half of the story. Just wanted to get that out there. Now, its been a while since I came up with theme music for my writing, but I've come up with a few songs that I think fit certain characters and the situations pretty well. For instance, the Brotherhood Gundam and Noah, in this battle. Totally gotta go with "... To Be Loved" by Papa Roach. Just start the song the moment the Brotherhood launches and hoo boy! For Meyrin and Noah, pretty much in general for their situation, I'd go with "All Around Me" by Flyleaf. Ashino vs Durandel is "Bullet with a Name" by Nonpoint. Durandel in general I'd say would be "Arm's Race" by Fall Out Boy, though its a little more upbeat than usual for him. Lunamaria and Shinn, especially in the upcoming chapters, "Tears Don't Fall" by Bullet for My Valentine. For this battle, in the Flash Flood arc, "When World's Collide" by Powerman 5000. For the Clyne Faction in general, for this battle, "Taking Back Control" by Sparta. And for Shinn or Mu or anyone else who has been controlled by Noah, "Animal I have Become" by Three Day's Grace. That should be enough for now, besides that I really need to get into Harry Potter fanfic... stories there have 1/10th the words and 10 times the reviews that mine do! Now, writing!

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"Lunamaria... shouldn't you be with your squadron?" Luna jumped when she heard the question, spoken from behind her, and she wondered guiltily how long she'd been standing in the ready room, looking at the screen that showed the exterior of the lunar fleet base, calm and empty at the moment. Her helmet was still in her hand, and she was still clad in her flight suit, and everything was buttoned up tight and snug, but she hadn't started to sweat yet, so she couldn't have been there long. Five minutes at most. Still, five minutes of blanking out was not an especially good thing, especially not right before a major engagement! She had to pull herself together! But... it was so hard, with pieces of her missing that she'd never realized how much she'd counted on being there for her!

"Gawain Squadron is prepped and ready for launch, sir!" Luna said smartly, spinning on her heel and snapping a sharp salute, hoping the Knight-Commander hadn't seen her flinch and jump. When the hell had he come up behind her? Wasn't he supposed to be briefing the SecDef? Had so much time really passed by already? He was already clad in his flightsuit and had his helmet in hand too, which meant he must have changed. Luna chewed the corner of her lip, wondering if she was about to be taken to task for her recent near dereliction of duties. She'd been a right mess lately, she couldn't deny it. But it was so hard to concentrate on little things like keeping her uniform in top shape and eating or sleeping right when... when... she winced and tried to force herself not to think about it, knowing it would bring tears to her eyes, but she couldn't be sure she'd succeeded. The Knight-Commander had been on edge recently too, with the whole Noah Borander thing blowing up in their faces, and the SecDef getting injured and... Luna swallowed hard.

"Please, lets not stand too much on formality right now, Lunamaria." Rey said, wincing inside as he saw how she looked near tears. She was one of his strongest squadron commanders, and maybe even his best pilot now that Shinn was gone and Lain and Eric on permanent training duty down Earthside. And she was also a hollow shell of what she'd used to be, but he didn't know what to do about it! What could he say? Shinn's death in the second battle of Galileo had struck her like a sledgehammer blow to the gut, much as anyone who'd known of their affection for each other would have surmised, but it seemed even worse than normal for her. Following closely up on that was the revelation of Noah as leader of the Brotherhood, and while he knew Luna had never liked Noah, had even actively disliked him, finding out that he was a mass murdering terrorist and, oh yes, her little sister's boyfriend... had to have been hard. No harder than it was for Meyrin certainly, but hard enough. The finishing blow had come most recently, during the rush to prevent Green EDEN from being released into the PLANTS, when Meyrin and Luna had been deployed to different PLANTS, and while both had prevented the release of Green EDEN, Luna had come back and Meyrin... had not. "We've both got more important things to worry about, wouldn't you say?"

"Ye-yeah..." Luna acknowledged in a shaky voice. "Rey... I... well... I'm so..."

"Don't even think about worrying about it." Rey cut her off. "I am very much aware that you're under a lot of stress right now. Frankly I'd be more surprised if you stayed the same as usual... given what has happened. No one is going to blame or castigate you over recent events. Its really my own fault... I shouldn't have kept forcing you to stay on active duty. I'm sorry, Luna."

"Don't be..." Luna turned back to the empty screen. "Its not your fault. What happened wasn't anyone's fault... except for his!" She clenched her fist in fury, feeling the tears coming rushing back. "If he hadn't hatched this insane scheme... if he hadn't been such a madman... none of this would have had to happen! How could anyone be so... so...!" She trailed off with a sob. After a few seconds she felt Rey's hand on her shoulder, and he gently pulled her into a half embrace, not speaking, just standing there for her to have someone to hold on to. "Shinn... Meyrin... damn him... damn HIM!"

"It's going to be all right, Luna. Let it out. I'm here." Rey said, feeling about as awkward as it was possible to be. He had never been good around females, except for a few select older ones like Talia Gladys, and that was hardly the sort of experience that was helpful for this situation! This should be Shinn doing this! Damn it! His own free hand curled into a fist, as Luna sobbed and sniffled into his side and shoulder, her entire body shaking with grief and anger. Damn it all, but couldn't Noah see what sort of suffering he was causing!? Couldn't he feel the tears cascading into an ocean of sorrow because of his actions!? He claimed to be able to read minds... right then, Rey wished Noah could read his, and Luna's! See if he could still look so smug and self righteous! "Shh, Luna, shh... it's going to be all right."

"IT'S NOT ALL RIGHT!" Luna shouted, startling him, though she didn't pull away or even look up at him. "Shinn is.. is dead! Because of me! He died saving me from that traitor Ashino, who was working for Noah! He died SAVING ME, Rey! I... I didn't even get to say goodbye. I... I didn't even get to tell him I loved him..."

"I'm sure he knew. He certainly loved you." Rey tried to console her. "None of us will ever forget his heroic sacrifice, I promise. He was... important to us all. More so than we realized until it was too late."

"I didn't even realize how much I felt for him until he was gone." Luna said softly. "I kept leading him on, testing his patience, his commitment, even though he kept telling me he was interested in me. I was... too skittish to feel comfortable returning his feelings. And now... now I'll never be able to! I'm so stupid! How could I be so... stupid..." She broke down again into incoherent mumbles and sobs.

"We're here for you, Luna. We're all here for you. Even me." Rey assured her. They stood quietly for a few moments, while Luna's tears grew less frequent and her sniffles faded away.

"Meyrin..." Luna said at last. "They couldn't find a body. Couldn't even find signs of a struggle. No note, no calls, no messages of any sort. I'm so worried about her I can't hardly think! She's my little sister, Rey! She needs me to watch out for her, and I couldn't do it! I let her down, I let her think she'd fallen in love with that... THAT ANIMAL! I knew he gave me a bad vibe, but I bit my tongue because she seemed happy. I backed off and turned my head away, when I could have made a difference, when I could have stopped him from brainwashing, from controlling her! I can't sleep or even close my eyes without thinking about all the horrible, perverted things he must be making her do, making her dance to his sick whims like a puppet, unable to control her own body! I failed her, and its my fault she's gone!"

"It's not your fault." Rey insisted. "We were all deceived, all invisibly influenced by him! I thought he was my best friend for years! Its only now... now that I realize how much of our camraderie was all part of what he WANTED me to feel, so he could use me against Gil! For all we know, he influenced you too, made you back off when you otherwise wouldn't have, made you turn the other cheek! You saw the same broadcast I did... he made eight seperate people dance and jump to his whims, even to the point of killing or injuring themselves! Who knows what he's been doing to us while he's around! We probably couldn't have told him no if we'd tried! There's just no telling the extent of his control over us! You didn't fail Meyrin! It was Noah... it was all Noah..."

"But what can we do against him!? He can control our minds and bodies! Make us kill ourselves! How can we fight someone like that!?" Luna protested.

"He can only do it while he's close by, for one, or else Gil would certainly be dead by now." Rey mused. "For all I know he needs line of sight to whomever he's controlling. We just don't know what his limits are! But he DOES have limits, Luna! He's not, despite what he says, divine or an Angel! He's a man, a sick, twisted, meglomaniacal young man, undeniably brilliant and undeniably amoral. But he's mortal, just like all of us, and a bullet to the head will stop him as surely as it will anyone! If need be we'll blow his entire Great Endeavor apart with nukes, or pick it into tiny pieces by hand with our Archons! The point is, by coming to us like this, he's sealed his own death warrant! There is no escape, no running from the position he's put himself in! He's outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded and all he can do is charge ahead as hard as he can and hope we fold out of his way! Never mind the fact that the Brotherhood has not won a single engagement so far, he expects us to just shrivel up and die on his command! He actually sent us a message asking us, politely, to get out of his way! His arrogance is staggering! But it will be his downfall!"

"You're right, Rey." Luna said, drying her eyes with the back of her hand. "Thanks. I really needed that. Sorry for crying all over you."

"At this point in time I'd almost consider it a privilege." Rey replied with a slight smile. "Are you sure you're going to be all right?"

"I'm not all right. I'm not going to be all right for a long time." Luna answered with a determined shake of her head. "But I'm also not going to let that stop me from getting my own back, and more, on that bastard!" She shot a fierce glare at Rey. "Promise me, Rey. Promise me that I can be there when we capture him, assuming that happens. I just want a minute. Just one minute, with just me and him. Then I'll gladly give him back to you. Though you'll probably want a doctor handy."

"I'm sure something can be arranged." Rey said quietly, with a hard grin. "But I didn't say that, and you didn't hear it."

"Hear what?" Luna asked with a mischevious shrug. She looked at him, and her face softened. "Thank you, Rey. For being there for me. I really owe you one."

"Think nothing of it. I was merely filling in for a good friend." Rey replied sternly. "Now, you have a Squadron to attend to, Knight-Ensign, and I have a command to muster! We've only got a few minutes left before the operation begins! Let's not keep them waiting, eh?"

"Yeah. I'm sick to death of waiting. Its time to get our own back..." Luna promised herself.

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"Ma'am, I'm reading a very large energy build up in the enemy ship. It seems to be concentrating power into the base of the central turret!" The sensor operator reported, her voice somewhat uncertain as if she could not quite believe what she was seeing. Talia didn't blame the girl. She was having a hard time fitting the massive shape of the Great Endeavor, as she'd heard from Rey that the Brotherhood ship was called, into her view of what was real and possible and what wasn't. It wasn't simply the size, or the fact that something so big was moving under its own power, or even the fact that it appeared to be designed for atmospheric entry and terrestrial movement. It was what it represented, the thousands, perhaps even millions of man hours devoted to the secret construction of this gargantuan thing, and for what purpose? To spread poison gas around on Earth? She shook her head... all that effort wasted, when a few bombs or missiles could do the same thing for a tiny fraction of the time and materials cost. Of course, she was now glad the enemy had wasted all that time and effort building what was, in essence, a giant turkey for a turkey shoot, but she couldn't help but feel some pity for the idiots on board. She shrugged... shortly enough they would see the error of their ways.

"Well, obviously that big tube is a weapon system of some sort, so I guess its not really a surprise that they'd be powering it up." She spoke out loud, for the benefit of her crew's morale. Just sitting in silence ate at the nerves, especially in strange, tense situations. Hearing a familiar voice, especially a strong, confident one, belonging to a veteran warship Captain like herself, would go a long way towards steadying her crew's resolve and keeping them focused on the proper execution of their duties. "What kind of energy build are we talking about, Sensors?"

"Umm, hold one second, Captain." The girl replied. "Hmm, not that scale... not that scale... not that scale... not... damn... not that scale..." She muttered half under her breath as she kept enlarging the parameters of her display to best fit the readings she was seeing.

"Sensors?" Talia prompted again.

"Uh, sorry, Captain. Energy build up is on the order of one times ten to the eighth kilojoules per minute. Its been holding steady like that for more than a half hour now, but we only just now got through enough ECM to see it clearly."

"Did I hear that right?" Talia turned to look at her Sensor operator narrowly. "Ten to the eighth kilojoules?"

"Yes, Captain Gladys. One hundred million kilojoules per minute." The Sensor operator confirmed. "Wow. Thats uh, a lot."

"What could possibly demand so much energy?" Talia mused, her brow furrowed in sudden concern, ignoring the extra remark from the sensor operator.

"Actually, Ma'am, from what we've been able to determine, thats only about, uh, ten percent of the total current power output of the enemy ship." Sensors volunteered.

"Ten percent of the total power output being concentrated into a single weapon system is not a small concern. Even the positron cannons common on the largest battleships usually only draw 4 or 5 percent of total ship's output, and that output isn't even close to 100 million kilojoules per minute." Talia considered the information. "Where is the point of aim?"

"Pardon me, Captain Gladys, but we've recieved the launch order for the Mobile Forces from central command." The Communications officer reported.

"Acknowledged, Comms. Send out the Elementals. Sensors, the point of aim?" Talia was in her element now, the buzz of command building around her as events moved inexorably towards the inevitable conclusion. The Newton shuddered as the linear catapults fired, hurling the five Fire and Air Elementals of the Sullivan Team out into the void, to join the hundreds and even thousands of other Elemental's, Champion's, Cavalier's, Guardian's, Lupus's, Garou's, Primal's, Dawndrake's, Panzerwulf's and Archon's being launched from their own motherships, forming a solid wall of Mobile Suits that stretched for almost a hundred kilometers in a crescent before the fleet, between them and the approaching Great Endeavor. Behind the Mobile Suits swarmed flights of Moebius Flares and other FNE and USN Mobile Armors, and behind that layer of Combat Air Patrol came the initial elements of the armada, the escort vessels, the fast attack ships and the light capital ships, backed by the heavier warships, and finally with the large carriers and support ships in the rear. The Newton, a Nazca class Fast Frigate, was just behind the Mobile Armors, and would be one of the first ships able to open fire upon the enemy directly.

"Ma'am, current point of aim appears to be the ALU Second and Third attack fleets, on the other side of the fleet crescent from us."

"Which ship? I need details!" Talia demanded harshly.

"Uhm... sorry Captain, but we can't resolve an individual target at this time. They don't seem to be aiming for any one ship, just at that general area."

"That doesn't make any sense... give me a close up, as close as you can, on the muzzle of the enemy main cannon! I want a scale superimposed!" Talia studied the screen intently. "No, no this doesn't make any sense at all. That muzzle is less than half a meter wide at the firing end. It has to be a massive FRALA, or some other focused beam weapon. But why the casual point of aim? And why the ALU forces? They..." Talia trailed off with a sudden dawning look of understanding on her face. "They're the closest to the Lunar surface! Of course! If they can scatter them, there will be a weak point in our line, and if they can get that huge ship in between us and the Moon, we wouldn't be able to use WMD's to crack it open without fear of fallout and debris falling onto Copernicus and the other Lunar cities! They're planning to use the Moon as a shield! That must be it! Get me a line to Central Command! I need to talk to Gilbert... ahem... the Secretary of Defense, immediately!"

"Captain! Enemy vessel is launching Mobile Suits now! Recieving multiple contacts... Zealots and Martyrs, Ma'am!"

"Keep track of them, and I want CIWS and secondary batteries to build firing solutions on any that approach within our defense perimeter, even if they aren't coming at us! Numbers? Comms, get me that line!"

"Working on it, Captain. The comm lines are very full at the moment."

"Over twenty of each so far, Ma'am, and more are launching all the time. They are taking up position in close formation in the front quadrant of the enemy vessel. Looks like a CAP screen. Total of forty... forty five... fifty five... sixty five enemy Mobile Suits so far. They are making no move to engage, though our vanguard is now approaching within maximum combat range."

"The Archangel reports that they are preparing to launch their Gundams!"

"God help those sorry Brotherhood bastards, getting five Gundams unloaded right into their face." The CIC officer remarked with malicious sneer.

"CAPTAIN!" Sensors shouted in a sudden shock and dismay. "Enemy vessel is now powering up and revealing its own weapon systems! There's... there's so many! Too many!"

"Keep calm, Sensors! Start with the big guns and work your way down!" Talia ordered, staying calm and centered. "Comms, get me the SecDef NOW! We don't have much time!"

"Working my way through the chain of command at Central now, ma'am." Comms replied doggedly. "YES, RIGHT NOW! WHAT, DOES URGENT MESSAGE MEAN SOMETHING ELSE WHERE YOU COME FROM!?" He yelled into his mouthpiece vehemently.

"Solar Knights and other elements of the Vanguard Mobile Forces moving to engage and sweep Brotherhood CAP forces. Time to engagement, one hundred ten seconds."

"Initial offensive assessment of enemy vessel coming in now! Mark sixteen 220cm gatling Gottfried turrets mounted on major and minor compass points on dorsal and ventral surfaces... one 800cm Linear Artillery Cannon on each major dorsal compass point... thirty triple 80cm artillery cannon turrets spread across dorsal and ventral surface... over one hundred fifty dual 120mm gatling cannon turrets likewise dotted all over... an even dozen large scale ICBM type missile launch tubes on the dorsal surface... fiftiesh tactical cruise missile type launch tubes across dorsal and ventral surfaces... and more 57mm beam cannon turrets than the system can currently count, spread all over. The thing has more weapons than a hundred warships!"

"Well, then its a good thing we brought a thousand warships!" Talia reminded them fiercely.

"Enemy main cannon power flow stopping. Power gathering and moving inside main cannon turret housing. All indications show firing of main cannon to be imminent."

"COMMS!"

"Another minute or so Ma'am... I'm being cock blocked by some goddamn Fleet Admiral or other!"

"Recording multiple Gundam launches from the Archangel... Seraph... Vorpal... Phoenix King... Dawn Goddess... Warmaster... oh fuck yeah! Go GET THE BASTARDS!"

"Quiet on the bridge!" Talia snatched up her chair phone. "This is Captain Talia Gladys of the ZAFT Third fleet, requesting Secretary of Defense Gilb..." She looked at the phone and then her Comm's officer.

"Loss of comms, loss of all comms!" He reported frantically. "Widespread comm jamming coming from enemy vessel! They're hijacking our signals! I can't keep them out! They're already inside the system! Commencing manual shutdown... NO GOOD!?"

"M-M-Ma'am!? We're seeing a change in the front portion of the enemy vessel. Large doors are opening up. Some sort of ramp is extending."

"Put it on screen. Comms, do what you can, even if you have to pull the wires out by hand! Aux Comms, get the laser comm array out of standby! We can't afford to be deaf and mute right now!" Talia turned to look at the main screen and gasped. That slight exhalation might as well have been a raging shout, because the bridge went dead silent, as all the crewmembers paused what they were doing for a moment to see what had taken their captain aback so. They looked and gasped and froze in momentary awe, just like tens of thousands of others were doing across the armada.

Walking, marching even, in a slow, stately manner, from the darkened cavern leading into the interior of the Great Endeavor were three of the most breathtaking humanoid machines that had ever been seen. The one on the left, the shortest of the three, with two large, knife blade angular wings tucked onto its back, carried a long, slim barreled rifle in one hand, and a massive two handed sword in the other, the blade shining with the light of a frozen star. Its coloration was a curdling red, the shade of blood freshly spilled into water, and its eyes flashed pinkly, like those of an enraged beast, glowing with malice and barely restrained fury. The one on the right was head and shoulders taller than the leftmost, with a single large dorsal wing that ran down the middle of its spine and helped support a multitude of large, wicked looking ranged weapons, while it carried a massive two handed halberd in both hands. It was covered in a sheen of green-blue scales, each about the size of a human palm, that shimmered and rippled with concentrated power, a coat of tiny energy shields that sheathed it from head to toe. Its eyes flared bright green, and it seemed to be staring intently off into some distance, as if looking for one foe in particular to hound.

However, as awesome and impressive a sight as the flanking Gundams were, it was the Gundam in the center, the one the others appeared to be escorting, even guarding, that drew the irresistable attention of everyone who could see it. Head and shoulders taller even than the green scaled Gundam with the halberd, the central Gundam had skin of what looked like pure gold, worked with shining platinum and silver in a winged eye of knowledge across its center breast. It fairly glowed with an inner light, like pure energy taken solid form, and it stared out at the world through blazing eyes of deepest royal purple, which seemed to drink in the vista and then dismiss it as a king would dismiss a peasant. Four large, angular, knife blade wings crowded onto its back, flexing and shivering as if filled with pent up energy even as the Gundam stood and surveyed the field of battle calmly. One pair of wings was mounted inside the other pair, so that they stuck out more directly back from the Gundam, while the outer pair stuck out more to the sides. They buzzed and vibrated, and seemed to shed particles of light like feather down.

In it's left arm it gripped a slim, elegant looking rifle with a medium sized barrel, a little bit larger overall than a standard Mobile Suit beam rifle, though with extra ribbing on the barrel and more cabling connecting from the focusing chamber to the power pack. In its right arm it held a much larger rifle, with a very long, very slim barrel that seemed to narrow to a needle tip and had a very bulky power pack and focusing housing. A few of those looking closely could see that the right hand rifle was almost an exact scale replica of the main cannon atop the Great Endeavor, though obviously sized for use by a Mobile Suit. One the right shoulder was a short, fat barreled projectile weapon of some sort in a turreted mount, while the left shoulder had a longer barreled, but much smaller caliber projectile weapon, that in some ways bore similarities to the rifle held by the red Gundam, which was identifiable as the Vengeance. However, the left shoulder mounted weapon had large ammunition feeds, common to many sorts of fully automatic weapons, so it was anyone's guess as to what it was.

"Holy... shit..." The CIC operator commented for them all. The golden Gundam sheathed its rifles against its legs and held out its hands towards the USN armada, spreading them widely, palms up, like a supplicant begging for mercy... or a preacher speaking to his congregation.

"This is Noah Borander, in the Brotherhood, speaking to those I see gathered before me." Noah's voice came across their comm system clear as crystal. "Please, do not make this a battle. I am begging you to let me pass on unmolested. There is no need for us to fight or for you to die. The future is now, and I am giving it to you free of charge. There is nothing to be afraid of. I don't want to hurt you. Any of you. All of your lives are very important to me, as you are all potential Brothers and Sisters and fellow Angels! Open your eyes and see the future! See the light of Brotherhood! Please!"

Noah didn't get an answer in words, though many of them were being directed his way, none of them complimentary or even particularly clean. However, a lucky potshot from one of the Solar Knights in First Platoon, sniping at very long range with his accelerated impulse cannon, did manage to strike the Brotherhood pretty much dead center on its chest. The purple-blue energy blast splashed and refracted into nothing, neutralized by the Brotherhood's LCR armor, identical to the Vengeance's. The Brotherhood looked down at its unmarked chest and slowly lowered its arms, taking hold of its rifles once more. "Very well then." Noah said, his voice mixed between sadness and resolve. "You have made your choice. And thus also, mine. Let it not be said that the Angels do not try words before weapons! Now, your fates are your OWN!" The Brotherhood stepped forward to the very edge of the launching ramp and spread its multiple wings wide, with the other two Gundams stepping up behind it. "Behold, Vengeance and Retribution! Witness the fury of the Angels at their hands and my own!"

Even as the Brotherhood stepped off the launching ramp, followed rapidly by the Vengeance, who stowed its rifle and brought its sword around in both hands, and the Retribution, which stowed its halberd on its back and drew out the twinned gatling systems, the main cannon of the Great Endeavor was triggered. Deep inside the turret housing, a compressed, forcibly condensed sphere of solid Lithium was bombarded with enough energy to turn it instantly plasmatic, but was prevented from doing so by magnetic fields almost as strong as the gravity well of the Earth, if more localized. More and more power was pumped into the sphere, until its atomic structure could bear no more and it flared, crackled and roiled like a birthing star, matter converting to antimatter in a rush as fast as the speed of light. Unstable, unable to remain compressed and coherent long, the sphere is grabbed by more magnetic fields and hurled down the length of the barrel like a man throwing a live grenade away from his face. As it leaves the barrel it warps and wraps itself into a hollow ring, a torus, that expands over the nanoseconds as it streaks across empty space in its rapidly decaying magnetic wrapper, until it is nearly ten times its original size when it finally strikes solid matter, a luckless Nelson class destroyer in the middle of the ALU formations. The magnetic wrapper dissipates, and over a kilogram of pure, compressed antimatter comes into contact with regular matter.

An explosion powerful enough to rip a hole in a neutron star flares outward for two full seconds, an expanding sphere shaped shockwave that disintegrates everything it touches, regardless of whether it be armor plate, human flesh or space dust. Even the hard radiation drifting through empty space is consumed and annihilated by the antimatter reaction, leaving space, at least for a brief moment, truly, totally empty of ANYTHING. For once, when it was said that nothing was left after the explosion, that was actually the literal truth. The ALU Second and Third attack fleets simply ceased to exist, almost eighty Drake, Nelson and Agamemnon class warships disappearing in a glowing ball so bright anyone looking directly at it had their eyeballs charred in their sockets, even through a camera lens. The antimatter torus, much less the explosion itself, gave off light so powerful that it was visible through closed eyelids AND through solid metal bulkheads, though not enough to cause more than spots and uncomfortable blinking in those cases. Because the explosion happened in space there was no physical shockwave to further cause disruption to the ships that were nearby but not disintegrated, other than the fact that all of their sensors and other electronic systems had been fused into scrap by the release of energy.

"WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?" Talia demanded, not caring for once that she was swearing and causing a scene. She blinked her tearing eyes rapidly, glad for the autopolarizing bridge windows, which were still so black they might as well be painted that color. That'd probably saved them all from being permanently blinded! Around her, her crew was rubbing the spots out of their own eyes and blinking in stunned incomprehension at the dead exterior display screens, which displayed only static no matter which ones they switched to. All external cameras were dead. "Put us on radar only! I need to see the situation! Bring up the tactical display! What's our status? What happened to the ALU fleets? Damn it, don't just stand there like statues!"

"We've lost all external cameras and all sensors pointing in the direction of the explosion. Initial reports now coming back from analysis section indicate a high probability that the explosion was some sort of anti-matter reaction, though far more powerful than anything that has yet been recorded to date! A positron cannon is like a water gun compared to that!" Sensors half sobbed in reply, her vision half occluded by purple and blue spots still. "The ALU Second and Third fleets are... are gone! Annihilated. Literally." She fought for control of herself, trying not to chuckle at something that wasn't funny at all. "Total loss of life, no signs of any wreckage... not even dust! Its like... like they weren't even there in the first place!"

"Keep it together!" Talia exhorted. "What is the enemy doing now!?"

"Enemy Mobile forces are engaging our own units hard, under covering fire from the Great Endeavor. Casualties already reported. Vanguard Fleet units are pressing to the attack now!"

"Order from central command, through laser comm relay... "Attack, Attack, Attack, all ships, full attack! We can't afford to let them keep firing that cannon at us!" No SHIT!"

"Engines, give me combat flank speed! Weapons, pull up targeting resolutions on that cannon! Helm, take us in, and don't hesistate! We have to take out that cannon as quickly as possible, before it recharges! Sensors, any ideas on how long that will take!?"

"Enemy vessel is channeling over five times as much energy into the cannon systems this time! It could be ready to fire in as little as five or six minutes, Captain!"

"Shit! Engines, I don't care if you break them, get us to firing range of that cannon NOW! Secondary weapons and CIWS, keep an eye out for any Brotherhood interference. I'm sure they're going to be expecting us. Keep track of those three Gundams if you can... I don't want those showing up behind us by surprise! Move, people! This is us or them!" Talia stared hard at her display, and hoped she was doing the right thing.

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Noah quickly outpaced the Vengeance and the Retribution, as they peeled off to engage the Clyne Faction and USN vanguard Mobile Forces, along with the Traitor, Haunted and the majority of the Zealot and Martyr units. He relaxed his control over the OS, letting the LAICEPs take over more control of instant to instant actions, avoiding desperate firepower aimed at him, steering around flights of Mobile Suits or Mobile Armors trying to veer into his path, even sending him in a barrel roll around a Nazca class making a sprint for the front lines. It was time to put the Brotherhood through its paces, and after he'd gotten a feel for it in a real combat scenario, then he'd head back and face down those of the Clyne Faction that had survived. Engaged with his own forces, with the Great Endeavor close behind them, he was interested to see how long the vaunted Clyne Faction would last. The 100mm AMP Cannon was recharging at maximum combat rate, and would be ready to fire again in five minutes. Everything was as it should be. Things were going just as he'd planned.

Finding that he was fast approaching the initial line of light warships, Noah took back direct control off the Brotherhood, luxuriating in the feelings of lightness and agility that suffused him. He felt like he could dance on light motes, and run along sound waves! It was time for a weapons test. He took aim with the left arm carried 50mm Rapidfire Focused, Repeatedly Amplified Light Array Rifle at a nearby Drake class and cut it neatly in half with a sweeping cut of the bright blue beam, also severing a Laurasia class a few kilometers past it. He dragged his aim around, slicing apart several more ships, usually snagging at least two or three per shot as he sliced the scapel like beams of pure light through them, melting through them like a red hot wire applied to wax sculptures. Energy blasts struck and rebounded from his golden tinged skin, and he dodged and wove around streams of shells and missiles without even hardly thinking about it, it seemed so natural, and the LAICEPs, usually Jeremiah or Kira, were there to back him up anyway.

Noah activated the Brotherhood's holoprojector, though he used it in a much more refined and effective manner than Randolf could hope to emulate. Instead of creating six visually perfect copies of the Brotherhood at varying distances and using them as visual distractions, since that ploy could be easily defeated through the use of non-visual sensor systems, Noah instead overlapped the images almost directly on top of the Brotherhood, with one or two meters of offset variance for each image, blurring his own outline and making it impossible to easily tell where his arms and legs and wings were really pointed, or where his body really was. Also, by keeping the images in close proximity, he could keep them within an aura of mirage colloid type particles that would confuse even non-visual sensor systems into being unable to tell which was real and which was an illusion. Each holoprojected illusion acted on its own, though the actions they took were at least based off what the real Brotherhood was doing, so when he fired his FRALA rifle, they emulated that too, and it was only by watching where the beam actually came from that the actual position of the rifle could be discerned. And he would then mix it up by moving the real arm through the illusions, changing their placement and otherwise confounding things.

He sliced another pair of Drakes in half and then whirled and ripped off a snapshot from his right hand held 5mm AMP Rifle, directly into the deeper ranks of the heavier warships of the FNE that were moving up to try and support their lighter comrades. Though only a twentieth of the caliber, and more like a two hundredth the size of the Great Endeavor's AMP Cannon, the Brotherhood's AMP Rifle still spat a thumbnail sized hunk of condensed anti-Lithium that, when it struck a Nelson class, produced a blinding flash of light that expanded into a ravening ball of white energy that consumed the Nelson class and four other Nelson classes nearby, leaving nothing behind afterwards. Twenty percent power from the FPR diverted into the rifle, building a new shot in about a minute or so. The capital warships began maneuvering frantically to get away from him, after being the victim of another massively destructive antimatter shot, they obviously had no stomach for a close ranged battle. He took advanatge of their disarray to slice an Agamemnon in half lengthwise with his FRALA Rifle, splitting it like a pizza slice hit by a meat cleaver.

He became aware of a new threat moving in from behind, as flights of Cavaliers and Champions and even a few Elementals, kept behind as reserve forces, deployed to try and occupy his attention so the capital ships could redeploy. He smirked and turned to face them, warming up the left shoulder mounted 20mm Quantum Crystal Spike Driver, an improvement on the 300mm QC Spear Driver the Vengeance carried. Unlike the Vengeance's weapon, which was single shot and slow to reload, the QC Spike Driver could fire over 3000 foot long serrated QC slivers per minute, like a machine gun that fired bullets capable of piercing any armor like it was cloth. He raked a three second burst across a formation of Cavaliers and watched them switch from powered flight to unguided drift as the pilots were shredded inside their cockpits by the white hot slivers of crystal slicing through their hapless Mobile Suits. A twitch of his right shoulder fired the 550mm mortar and sent a mirage colloid cloaked cluster shell into the path of a team of Elementals. Unable to see the projectile coming, or even realizing that a weapon had been fired at them, they made no evasive movements and were blasted to pieces when the cluster shell ripped open like deadly flower and sprayed them with hundreds of indivudal plasma explosive submunitions designed to penetrate even Phase Shift armor with a direct hit.

Overwhelmed by his ranged firepower, the USN Champions decided to try and get in close, which amused him further. He let them charge in, even as his wings vibrated and buzzed and then slashed around, the inner wings pointing over his shoulders and the outer wings under his armpits, as emitters in their tips cycled open and then bathed the incoming Mobile Suits in four seperate fields of bright pinkish-red radiation. Each of the Brotherhood's four cooling wings contained a Thermal Exciter, a weapon based off the Earth Alliance's Cyclops System, which projected a 100 meter long and wide cone of high powered microwave radiation, which, as the hapless Champions quickly discovered, cared little for armor or shields that weren't wide enough to completely stop the radiation beam, and rapidly overexcited and boiled off the water inside the pilot's bodies, causing them to pop like blood filled balloons tossed into a furnace, shortly before their Mobile Suits melted and exploded as the batteries and ammo cooked off. His wings swept around, cornering and surrounding the Champions that tried to dodge, either lining them up for shots from the shoulder or arm weapons, or melting off parts and pieces before moving in for a kill. Only a second or two of exposure was enough to kill a pilot, and five or six seconds to destroy a Mobile Suit.

The arrival of Primals and Orb Guardians and Dawndrakes heralded a new stage of the battle, and they rushed him in a coordintated effort, trying to come in from all sides at once to confuse him and prevent him from focusing his fire on any one group. He showed them the error of their thought process, as each of his wings moved independently to sweep the sky clear of missiles and shells with the pink cones of radiation, before homing in on the Mobile Suits that fired tham and roasted the pilots in their chairs. At the same time, he cut Guardian's and Primal's that tried to stay at long range in half with his FRALA rifle, and sent an AMP shot into the midst of another group, making them flash and vanish like ghosts in sunlight. The Brotherhood had specially built polarized lenses that let it look at the AMP rifle or cannon explosions without harm... little sense in blinding oneself with your own weapons, after all! He riddled a few more Primals with his 20mm QC Spike Driver, and then decided to at long last test out the LAICEP he'd almost not even put into the system at all. Frost. It wasn't really Frost... not the one that was trapped in the computer in his Vault, anyway. No, this was just a copy, an extrapolation, of the data he'd gotten from Frost while he was piloting the Pulsar in battle. It had no personality, no will of its own. It was just a set of instinctive responses for aiding in melee combat. Well... hopefully.

The Brotherhood sheathed its rifles across its lower back, pausing the AMP chargeup cycle as it was detached from the power connector in the right hand. Up to now he'd been defending himself by relying on the LCR armor's beam invulnerability, coupled with shock and extreme maneuverability, plus the Thermal Exciters, to deal with physical type weapons. No longer! With his hands free, he could use the Positron Reflector Shields built into the palms to stop any and everything short of a FRALA blast cold in its tracks! But access to additional defensive weapons was not the reason he had stowed the rifles and was turning over a large degree of control to the Frost LAICEPs. The opposite even. The Brotherhood stretched its arms high over its head and then shrugged its shoulders, as a glowing line spread down the arm from the shoulder joint to the palm, right down the middle of the arm. The LCR armor along the line rippled and stretched into a trench that grew wider and wider as the secondary arm bones seperated from alongside the primary arm bones, until finally, with a shivering recoil, the Brotherhood's arms split in two from palm to shoulder, turning two large arms into four slightly smaller than usual arms, each with a palm with a Positron Reflector Emitter and three fingers. Each arm was capable of moving independently or acting together, and they all flexed in unsion, causing a six meter long, double edged QC sword blade to slide out of each forearm and lock into place. The emitters in the tips of the wings cycled and then four fifteen meter long pink beam saber blades flashed into existence, one from the tip of each wing.

The Brotherhood arched its back and spread its four arms and four wings wide, beckoning the flies closer into the spider's parlor. The flies were smart, and tried to keep their distance. Not that it availed them of much, as the Brotherhood went on the offensive, appearing among them in a golden flash, a whirling blur of fiery beam blades and shining QC edges that struck and slashed and sliced with mind numbing speed and accuracy, often moving so quickly that by the time one Mobile Suit was break apart, its limbs and torso sliced to pieces, the Brotherhood was already a kilometer past it, working on an entirely seperate squadron of enemies. Hands were raised, shots fired, shields moved to the fore, but none of it mattered. No normal pilots, no normal machines could cope with the Brotherhood's speed and power and maneuverability, not to mention the unrelenting storm of attacks from eight different directions at once! The QC sword blades stabbed through shields, even Citadel Shields, without pause, ripping them away, slicing them apart or just piercing through to gouge the life from the pilot hiding behind them, while the wing sabers parried incoming attacks, impaled limbs and sliced molten furrows across torsos, often from behind while the Brotherhood focused on another enemy with its arm blades. Mobile Suits scattered from his path, fleeing for their lives, broken, morale shattered, unable to cope with the golden Angel of Destruction in their midst!

He let some flee, but others... he retracted the wing sabers and fired the twin magnetic grapples contained in the outer edge of each wing. Eight grapples slithered out into space, thunking solidly into the sides of an Agamemnon class carrier that was desperately trying to maneuver away from him. Back aboard the Great Endeavor, new options appeared in Noah's holographic control scheme, and he began rapidly typing, initiating a complete data hacking and hijacking of the Agamemnon's control systems, locking out the crew in a matter of seconds by filling all their screens with a golden winged eye of knowledge on a dark green background and then bringing the vessel fully under his control, reeling the Brotherhood in to stand on top of his new chariot, which turned its guns on the fleet of ships around it and began firing wildly. A pair of Cavaliers clambered out of the inside of the carrier and aimed their 200mm hyper-impulse cannons at him, or actually at his data grapples. Before they could fire, the quantum beacon launcher mounted in the Brotherhood's mouth region hissed twice, and planted a quantum data-link beacon onto each of their torsos. Noah hacked their OS's too, and within five seconds the Cavaliers were standing by his sides, blasting away at their friends all around, pilots trapped inside their unresponding machines, surrounded by the symbol of the Brotherhood on all their screens. "Join me! Join the Brotherhood! Send me your soldiers, so that I may make them my own!" Noah taunted with a smile.

The FNE made the hard choice to fire upon their own ship, hoping to take Noah out in the process, but as soon as he saw the warships aiming at his forced allies, he retracted his grapples and darted away... just before the ships opened fire and obliterated their hapless friends. He tsked and shook his head, and went looking for new victims to demonstrate the power of the Angel's to. He retracted the arm swords and his four arms slithered together to become two once more, and he took out his rifles again, pleased with his systems tests. It was just about time for the real workout, with cousin Kira. However, the party wasn't quite complete yet. No, there was still one more player that had yet to show up. He was really being a sleepyhead too. Noah opened a comm channel. "Cray, where are you? If you don't hurry up, there's going to be nothing left for you to do! Or would you prefer to just sleep there for eternity as just another piece of junk in the junk belt?"

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In the junk belt, the ring of spaceborn trash and debris from centuries of humanity's attempts to expand into space, Junius Seven floated, derelict and dead, a tomb for almost two hundred and fifty thousand innocent Coordinator civilians, lost in a matter of minutes when the colony was nuked without warning by Blue Cosmos terrorists before the First Valentine War. Since the day where its ruins had drifted into the junk belt, it had only been visited by those who were either desperate or wanted to pay their respects to those who had been lost. It was an unofficial memorial, a tombstone reminding humanity what their hatreds could cause them to do to each other. Today, now, that tombstone shivered, shook... and cracked down the middle, as a mountain of pulverized rubble in the middle of the derelict colony ruins shifted and crumbled away, revealing a deep crater in the steel and stone bedrock of the colony. A deep crater that contained a monster, freshly risen and renewed from a grave of he had no business sharing with the innocent. The Revenant, wholly restored and rebuilt by its nano-repair systems, except for a few patches of skin here and there, sat up and pushed itself to its feet, even as Junius Seven started to break apart around it, structural integrity compromised by the impact of the Revenant a week ago, and now fully destabilized by its sudden reactivation, and the firing of the right arm Radiation Cannon that had cleared away the mountain of debris mounded over the crater.

Green-blue energy shimmered and rippled inside the holes in the Revenant's skin, like organs peering out through the gaps in a zombie's flesh, even as its outer Citadel Scales flickered and stuttered their way to full operational power. The Revenant looked up at the void sky, and spread its arms, opening fire heedlessly and joyously into the landscape around it with all of its weapons, exulting in merely being able to stand, to live, surrounding itself with a precursor to the destruction it had dreamed about while in its enforced crypt, while a bestial roar of anger and pleasure ripped its way soundlessly into the depths of space. The Revenant slowly lowered its arms, as dust rose around it and the colony continued to break up around him, though it maintained its orbital position, except for a few small pieces that rained down through the atmosphere like bloody tears before burning up. The Revenant took a single thunderous step and then lifted off on a column of bright blue thruster wash, hurling itself at the collection of glittering lights in the distance around the bright Moon, a self propelled engine of ruin, now finally back on track.

"Halloo! Did ya miss me, ya motherfuckers!?" Cray yelled into the void. "I hope you didn't think I was dead! Daddy... I think they thought I was dead!" "Well, show them different, son. Show them how wrong they were!" "Yeah, Daddy, that's what I'm gonna do! I'm gonna tear them apart like I'm swinging a chainsaw at a preschooler inside a pinata! Except even more fun than that!"

"Took you long enough." Noah commented. "I was beginning to think you'd gone and died for real on me, Cray. I assure you, I was near tears. Of joy."

"Yah, fuck you too, "Great Prophet"! After I wipe those pretty lights out, can you guess who I'm gonna settle my score with? I'll give you a hint... it ain't fucking Randolf!"

"I'll be waiting then, Cray. I think maybe it is time we put an end to the farce we have between us. The dog needs to learn his place."

"We'll see who eats who, Noah! Now, go'way... you're interrupting my triumphant return! I can't get a hard on while I'm talking to a guy. Even if you are cuter than most girls."

"I'll leave you to it then." Noah signed off the channel. He considered for a couple moments, the Brotherhood almost entirely controlled by the LAICEPs for the meanwhile. Finally, he decided to do it. "Initiate backup recording, full spectrum, from the NIC-II data input system. Send data to secure computer archive number two, in the Vault." His voice commands were followed almost instantly, and within a second the computer inside the Vault was recieving a covert feed from the Revenant, recording every last one of Cray's emotions and thought processes in an electrical format. He already had one BCPU on tap, though he had no intention of using him... might as well add another one to the collection! Besides, he fancied it a more fitting punishment, permanent imprisonment, than just mere death. The BCPU's were monsters, and deserved a more than human punishment! He turned his attention back to the battle at hand, secure in the knowledge that his trap was now complete... something the rear elements of the USN armada would be finding out to their detriment shortly! he was pleased... if they kept this up, he wouldn't even have to use Blue EDEN at all... the hideous, nasty, evil substance could stay safely inert and be forgotten about!

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Cyprus made his way into the basement levels of the Orb National Judiciary Department, a few minutes walk from the Orb National Palace. Unlike Major Jones and Major Belaruse, he'd felt no particular obligation to follow the Clyne Faction up to space aboard the Archangel. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable in space, or even aboard that particular warship... warships were warships, regardless of which side they had served on in the past. It was simply that in the middle of a major fleet engagement, with Mobile Suits and capital warships fighting it out at distances of hundreds or thousands of kilometers, was not the best place for him to use his own expertise. He would be almost useless aboard the Archangel, unless they wanted him to work damage control, and even then there were plenty of regular sailors that were more experienced in that line of work than he was. The only way he would be of serious use was if the Archangel was boarded, and though that HAD happened in the past, Noah was NOT Asmodeus Sark, and Cyprus felt pretty safe in assuming the Archangel would not suffer another attack of that sort any time soon.

So instead of attaching himself to the Archangel as an informed but otherwise useless bystander, he'd elected to remain behind and do what he could to develop intelligence on the Brotherhood, to be used upon them at a later time, because even if the Great Endeavor and the primary leadership of the Brotherhood was wiped out now, as everyone was expecting, there would still be a large portion of the organization left that would need to be ferreted out, before they went to ground, like what Tiamat had done after the Second Valentine War. You had to get to terrorists early, and once you started rolling them up, you had to stamp them out like cockroaches, even if it meant burning down the house and rebuilding later. Any less extreme measure just let them get away and feel like they could strike back at a later time. Like Tiamat did. He shook his head in frustrated despair... if only people would listen to him more! It wasn't that his suggestions were immoral... they were just the most effective course of action, and he tried not to bring morality into it at all! Sadly, few people could understand moral-less logic.

He passed through a security checkpoint and was met by Ramierez, who was lounging casually against a wall, an unlit cigarette in his mouth. Cyprus didn't really care if the Hell... Stormhounds, he corrected himself... smoked or drank or whatever they wanted to indulge as their vices off duty, as long as it didn't impair their physical abilities at a later time. Ramierez snapped to attention, slipping his smoke break oral fixation back into his pocket for a later time and rebuttoning his top uniform jacket button to signify that he was back on duty. "Why, hello, sir. What brings you down here?"

"Don't be disingenuous, or I'll make sure Wrenn never sends you another band party invite. I'm sure Hally Osbertun, the guitarist, would be most distressed. Especially because I remember that you owe her at least three hundred dollars from the last poker game." Cyprus replied, stepping past his subordinate and friend. "That smoking habit will kill you."

"I was gonna pay it back. One of these days." Ramierez mumbled, falling in behind his boss. "Its a treated cigarette. The smoke is nonharmful to the lungs. I'm not stupid."

"The moment you light one up at night and give every sniper within two kilometers a perfect point of aim, you definitely become stupid in my book." Cyprus answered.

"Who the hell is going to snipe me in the middle of Nara-Attha... oh fuck..."

"You'd better smoke indoors, and not near a window, until I forget you said that." Cyprus warned with a crooked smile.

"You wouldn't do that to me sir. You like me."

"I would very much do that to you. Because I like you, and would use a rubber bullet. A real sniper wouldn't." Cyprus pointed out, much to Ramierez's disgruntlement. "What's the status on the nonstandard information gathering ploy?"

"The wha...? Oh! She went in a few hours ago. Last time I looked in, they were getting along famously. How the FUCK do you do it, sir?" Ramierez shook his head in wonder. "Though we should, uh, probably not tell Markov we're using his lover-girl to pump information from a Brotherhood Gundam pilot. He uh, probably wouldn't regard that as entirely keeping her safe."

"It was basic psychology, Corporal. Upon looking into Ms. O'Brien's background, I saw that she specialized in providing nursing care to the elderly, the disabled and the terminally ill patients at the hospital she worked at. She's a very empathetic person, very caring. She makes friends easily, especially with people who are hurt or sick or otherwise debilitated. It was a simple matter of logic to decide that if she would not respond to any interrogation, no matter how kindly, from a grown adult, then sending in someone who was not a grown adult, whos condition would play upon Ms. O'Brien's inherent need to nuture people, was the best option available. Jean was merely convenient, I'd have found another sickly child from a hospital if she wasn't here. As for safety, well, with you and the Sergeant-Major and the other Stormhounds watching them around the clock, I think she's safer here than at my house. Apparently." Cyprus told him.

"Um, yeah, I get that first part. But uh, isn't there a flaw in your strategy, sir? I mean, uh... Jean is, er... brain damaged. She's a nine year old at the best of times. She's not going to be doing much to pump Mary for information. I don't even know if she has the mental acuity to ask pointed questions."

"I'm not relying on Jean to get information from Mary directly. As you pointed out, for medical reasons, that would be very unlikely."

"Well, then..."

"I want Mary and Jean to become friends. I want Mary to feel responsible for caring for and helping Jean. We will tell her that the Brotherhood was responsible for what happened to Jean. Mary has been brainwashed into absolute loyalty to the Brotherhood, to Noah Borander especially. I am using Jean to deprogram her, return her to the Orb Nurse she used to be. Not until that conversion has been made will we be able to get any information out of her. However, she should be totally helpful at that point in time, as her loyalty should revert back to where it was previously, and she will likely have a great deal of anger towards the Brotherhood for what they did to her. Who knows... if the Tormented isn't completely disassembled, Mary might even pilot it in support of the Clyne Faction one day.

"Sir, you fucking scare me."

"Good." Cyprus stepped into the room where the prison cell was being remotely monitored from. Glory set his feet back down onto the floor with loud thumps, taking them off the table, while Melissa Raven hurriedly stepped away from the Sergeant-Major's broad back, flushing and hiding her hands behind her back. Cyprus looked at the three Stormhounds in the room, Glory, Kurtz with his eyepatch, and Raven, and shook his head slightly. Kurtz was the only one with his eye on the camera screens, and he only had the one eye! Mary and Jean were playing some form of hand slapping game on the display, oblivious to anything other than each other, but still. "Was that a back rub you were enjoying from the Private, Sergeant-Major?"

"Why, no, sir... thats preposterous! I would never take advantage of my position or rank to ask for a back rub or other favor from junior personnel. That would be wrong." Glory replied with a stone face, and a gimlet eye for Ramierez, who'd been stationed as a long range alert siren to ward off this very situation.

"I'm sure you didn't ask for one." Cyprus looked his best friend in the eyes knowingly, long enough for Glory to shuffle his feet and look away a little bit. "Were you giving the Sergeant-Major a back rub, Private?"

"Just keeping his muscles from cramping sir! Sitting in the chair for an entire watch could lead to potentially dangerous muscle cramps later!" She replied stiffly, though she was still flushed.

"And you... Sergeant Kurtz. Why weren't you assisting the Private with her preventative medical efforts to keep the Sergeant-Major in top form? Surely there was enough back to go around?"

"Uhm. I've got a dick, sir. We've been over this before, concerning Jiro Kurenai."

"The Chief Repesentative?"

"Yes sir, sorry sir. Been over this before, concerning Chief Representative Kurenai."

"Why the fuck didn't you warn us, Corporal!?" Glory hissed to Ramierez while Cyprus was focused, hopefully, on Raven and Kurtz. "I didn't send you out there so you could just jerk off! Where the fuck was the signal!?"

"He came out of nowhere, and if I'd given a signal, he'd have seen it and pasted us anyway! It wasn't personal, Sarge-Major." Ramierez protested back in a whisper. "We're being formal though, so shouldn't you refer to me as Staff Sergeant?"

"You're gonna be a fucking Corporal again soon at this rate if you keep selling out your Sarge-Major!" Glory promised. "So, uh, what brings you here to the dungeons, sir? I mean, uh, it's kinda late... woulda thought you might want to go home. I mean, to the hotel. Since you don't have to take care of Jean, I'm sure Wrenn would..."

"Finish that sentence and you will be doing pushups on watch until the end of the week." Cyprus said casually. "You can never have enough physical exercise. I'm sure the Sergeant and Private can give you plenty of back rubs to keep your muscles from cramping."

"No offense, but I'm not touching the Sarge-Major's back for anything short of a direct order, and maybe a gun to the head." Kurtz volunteered.

"Very well, Sergeant. You can be in charge of the belly rubs then. Abdominal cramps can be the worst."

"Why did I even fucking open my mouth?"

"Rest of us are wondering that too, Sergeant." Ramierez said helpfully. His smile died as Cyprus turned to face him.

"I should really drop the lot of you into punishment exercise right now, but I simply don't have the time." Cyprus shook his head sadly, worse than a blow to the face to any Stormhound, save the Majors. "I have other things to take care of. Rest assured, there will be random inspections on a regular basis from now on. I'd advise you all to make sure your muscles are loose, through backrubs or whatever means you find necessary. The situation with the Brotherhood may be near resolution, but it is no reason to slacken off. There will always be another threat, and we must always be there to meet it. Good night." Cyprus turned and walked out the door, though he stopped just outside once it had closed, listening to Glory, Raven and Kurtz start in on Ramierez and smiled slightly. Always good to keep the troops on their toes. Truth be told, he didn't bregrudge them their slight state of relaxation. They'd worked hard recently, and had a lot more hard work ahead, since rooting out the Brotherhood would be a task for soldiers like the Stormhounds, not Mobile Suits, so getting what fun out of life now, while they could, was a smart idea. Maybe he should look up Wrenn, as Thomas had suggested. Even Cyprus Finch needed a little R and R every now and again...

------------------------------

Author note: So yeah, that's the Brotherhood. Course, the real test of its abilities won't come until it goes up against the Clyne Faction, but it was fun showing off. There, Rihaku, I made a Gundam with multiple arms. Not going to see anything cooler or more advanced than the Brotherhood, not till ED is over. NIC-IV, AMP Rifle, AC Spike Driver, Thermal Exciters, four arms, four wings, LAICEPs. This is truly a monster Gundam. It's as good as it gets... until Reclaimation War, when I get to roll out the Lucifer, or the Exemplar, or the Kratos. And even then, the Brotherhood is still pretty damned awesome. Hoe you enjoyed the brief tease, lots more on it later in this arc.


	45. Flash Flood part 3

"That is one BIG motherfucking ship!" Dearka made the obvious comment, though it was extremely heartfelt. It wasn't like it was the first time for him seeing the Great Endeavor, but all the other times had been on computers or display screens, and that just wasn't the same as seeing it through his own eyes. Or cameras, but whatever. "How the hell did they build something like that without anyone noticing!?"

"That's something we can take some time to figure out after we shatter it like a dropped plate." Ysak replied with a confident sneer. "Its such a big target not even YOU could hope to miss it."

"Oh, I forgot about this sort of crap. When was the last time I heard you guys talking like this?" Miriallia commented with a sigh and a roll of her eyes. "I think it was Purgatory Day." The thought made her quail inside for a moment, and she pushed it roughly aside. This was not even close to the same sort of situation as Purgatory Day. There were no innocent bystanders within range, no city to worry about demolishing. It was just them, and a WHOLE LOT of their allies lined up against a monolithic enemy ship that had no real hope of victory. This wasn't going to be a battle... it was going to be a massacre! Though the massive Great Endeavor was easily the size of one or even two hundred regular warships, they had slightly more than a thousand ships in the armada, the cream of the space forces of all the USN and all four member-states, with close to two thousand Mobile Armors and as many Mobile Suits, all deployed against the Brotherhood's single large ship and less than one hundred Mobile Suits, even counting the Gundams! So, at worst, the odds were 5 to one against the Brotherhood, and more like 20 to one in terms of Mobile Suits! There was no chance of victory for the Brotherhood. None.

"Be ready." Kira's voice cut into the conversation. "They just finished powering up the main cannon, and they'll be in range to fire it in less than one minute. Athrun, Ysak and I will blitz the enemy CAP screen and tie them up, while Cagalli and Dearka and Miriallia focus on assisting the Archangel and the Izumi classes in bombarding the Great Endeavor. So far we've marked the Traitor and the Haunted, but there is no sign of the Vengeance or any other Brotherhood Gundams. The Dawndrakes under Colonel Kisaka's command will be hanging back as a defensive screen to assist the Orb fleet. Miri, I'll leave it to you to coordinate things once the battle starts."

"I'm a Natural though." Miriallia protested. There was a long moment of silence. "Sorry, bad joke I guess. I'll handle it, don't worry."

"No, humor is good. Better than letting it get to us." Athrun said with a slight smile. He shook his head as he studied the disposition of the enemy forces once more. "This doesn't make any sense though..."

"They're religious crazies. They don't have to make sense." Ysak pointed out, almost gleefully. "All they have to do is throw themselves at us, spraying and praying, and let us cut them down, short and sweet. This won't even take fifteen minutes."

"Good. I have better things to be doing than this." Cagalli groused.

"Would have thought you'd be highly enjoying this, actually." Dearka noted. "I mean, not to pick at a scab or anything, but this is the perfect opportunity to get them back for, uh... what happened... right?"

Cagalli was about to reply, to explain that while getting revenge for what the Brotherhood had done to her and Athrun and Orb would indeed be satisfying, it wasn't something she was planning to devote her life or attention to, when unfolding events conspired to interrupt her. Large doors on the outside edge of the Great Endeavor folded back and a ramp or platform extended outward, in a similar manner to the linear catapults of the Archangel or other space warships when launching Mobile Armors or Mobile Suits. However, this one was massive in scale, almost fifty meters square, and Cagalli eyed the cave like opening with a sight degree of trepidation. What could be launching from that portal? Nothing good certainly. "What do you think..." She started to say, before the harsh squall of high intensity comm jamming made her flinch and hurriedly shut off her comm system. She flicked it back on a second later, trying a different channel, but got nothing. No matter which channel she tried, they were all blocked by a solid wall of indecipherable white noise. "Damn it! What is going..." She trailed off as her screens picked up movement from within the portal in the Great Endeavor.

"Well, I guess that resolves the question of whether the Vengeance made it back to the Brotherhood or not." Dearka observed sourly, pointing out the blood red Gundam on the left of the trio making their dramatic entrance. "I just hope whoever they found to replace Commander la Flaga isn't in the same league, or we might have a bit of a fight on our hands after all."

"Comms are down across the board." Miriallia reported, her voice tinged with frustration and a little disquiet. "It just came up out of nowhere... I've never seen signals jamming this powerful before! Its affecting everything within five thousand kilometers!" At the same time as she was trying to restore comms, she was also working on anaylzing the three new, or mostly new, Gundams the Brotherhood had chosen to reveal. "Identified the Vengeance as the one in red. The other two are unknown. Compiling data now. Confirmed Fusion Pulse Reactors in both machines, thermal readings from central Gundam appear more than thirty percent more powerful than Vengeance, thermal readings from the green one appear roughly identical to those of the Vengeance. Working on offensive and defensive capability analysis now..."

"I think we can safely consider the big gold one to be the leader then, huh?" Dearka mused, studying the glittery, ostentatious bastard. "Very pretty. But looks don't count for shit when it comes to Gundams. Damn, I wish we'd put the Spear out right now! We could totally wipe the smirks right off their faces!"

"We've already gone over why we decided not to do that! With the Positron Shields the Brotherhood is known to have, if we give them any warning at all, we'll just waste shots! And we only get the four standard shots every seventy two hours! We're going to have to wait until we more fully understand the defensive capabilities of the Great Endeavor, and can hopefully catch them off guard, before we can use the Spear of Ares to finish them off!" Miriallia chided him. "At least we don't have to sit around anymore... I'm shocked at how much the Spear of Ares OS has been improved in only a week!"

"Well, it kinda helps that they now have actual test firing data for it, rather than just computer projections. They were just guessing before, now they know how it really performs. Still, I agree with you... knocking it down from fifteen minutes to three minutes of prep time, and eliminating the need to remain stationary, at least when not in a light gravity well... remind me to buy the development team a few rounds at an expensive bar when we get back, okay?" Dearka said with a predatory smile. "Being able to fire multiple simultaneous Spears is also going to come in handy, I think. Any luck on that analysis?"

"Not much. Can't get a positive ID on much of anything, besides the obvious halberd the green one is carrying, and a few beam CIWS in each of the heads. The green one has what looks like three pairs of ranged weapons on its back... two gatling weapons... two large beam weapons... and two munition weapons of some sort. Anyone's guess on the gold one... nothing it has looks even remotely familiar. Though the right hand rifle does look very similar to the big gun on top of the Great Endeavor."

"That gives me a bad vibe..." Dearka was in the process of saying, when the central gold Gundam sheathed its rifles against its thighs and stepped slightly forward, raising its arms, palms up in a gesture of supplication.

"This is Noah Borander, in the Brotherhood, speaking to those I see gathered before me." Noah's voice came across their comm system, strident and bold, almost imperious. "Please, do not make this a battle. I am begging you to let me pass on unmolested. There is no need for us to fight or for you to die. The future is now, and I am giving it to you free of charge. There is nothing to be afraid of. I don't want to hurt you. Any of you. All of your lives are very important to me, as you are all potential Brothers and Sisters and fellow Angels! Open your eyes and see the future! See the light of Brotherhood! Please!"

Kira tried frantically for several seconds to open a comm line back to Noah, eager to talk and maybe even avoid a battle, before realizing that the all bands jamming from the Brotherhood had not ceased in the slightest. Noah was speaking... but he was not listening. He was demanding that they, in essence, surrender to him, bow down and let him pass without even saying a word of protest. He was acting like Sai had, during those secret negotiations between the PLANTS and the Isolation on the Moon all those years ago, coming in, laying down the law as he saw it, regardless of the views and opinions of those he was ostensibly negotiating with! Noah's words were conciliatory, but his actions were provocative, and in the end, actions always spoke louder than words. _Lacus..._

_I know, Kira. Nothing we can do here has been able to get through the jamming. He's just talking because he likes the sound of his own voice._ Lacus's mental tone was irritated and a trifle sad. _I've sent a few attempts at alternate forms of communication at him, but he has resolutely shut me out every time. He already knows what he is going to do, and nothing we can do will sway him from his chosen course. He begs for us to leave him be, but he has no intention of leaving us be in turn. It's just a ploy, meant to unbalance and distract us. And maybe an attempt to generate an excuse for..._ Lacus didn't get to finish her thought, as one of the Solar Knight Archons pointed its sword at the Brotherhood Gundam and unleased a blast of strobing purple-blue ionized particles, which flew straight and true to strike the golden Gundam directly in the middle of its chest. The blast shimmered, pulsed and then faded away, having not penetrated and not even scratched or singed the gleaming gold skin of the Brotherhood, for all its fury.

"Very well then, you have made your choice. And thus also, mine. Let it not be said that the Angels do not try words before weapons! Now, your fates are your OWN!" Noah shouted, a medly of emotions, mixing sadness, resolve, anger and even excitement, pulsing from the spot of the mental landscape that was his mind to Lacus's senses. Only resolve and sadness made their way into his voice, but even shielding himself slightly as he was, Lacus could reach out and taste that Noah was far from anxious or worried about the outcome of the battle that had just been provoked. The opposite if anything. "Behold, Vengeance and Retribution! Witness the fury of the Angels at their hands and my own!" Noah cried, as the Brotherhood forces went on the attack. She was just about to send another mental communication at him when the Archangel's bridge windows all turned solid black, barely in time to prevent them all from being blinded, as the main cannon of the Great Endeavor opened fire.

Lacus blinked flaring spots of purple and electric blue out of her vision for several seconds, tuning out the controlled panic of the Archangel's bridge crew around her as they reacted to the devastating results of that attack, which claimed the lives of thousands of men and women in an instant, a brief explosion of surprise and pain off in a distant corner of her mind, like a sun going nova thousands of light years away. The mental shockwave was fierce, as not only the thousands of lives and minds were wiped out, but the many thousands more who witnessed the sudden devastation reacted with horror and anger and shock, but Lacus had been practicing a lot recently, and had come here expecting a battle, with the tempestuous tides of emotion that went along with any large scale life or death struggle involving humanity and she stood like a rock pillar, letting the waves crash and break around her before subsiding. Lacus began to humm, before giving voice to a song, a song that helped her concentrate, helped her expand her pillar of will around the Archangel, around the other Izumi class ships nearby, enveloping them all in a comforting shroud of calm and reassurance.

Murrue blinked, feeling as if a great weight had suddenly been removed from her shoulders, her anxiety and worry and even fear at the monstrous power of the Great Endeavor's main gun fading like it had never been, replaced with a sense of steely resolve and determination to see things through to the best end possible. She looked around, seeing the same determined, almost hellbent, looks on everyone's faces as they turned back to their watchstations with new vigor and concentration. It wasn't until she chanced to look at the communications officer chair, where Lacus was temporarily sitting, and saw her there, eyes closed, face serene, mouthing words that Murrue could feel if not hear, that Murrue figured out what was happening. She wanted to shiver, but found herself incapable of fear or trepidation at the moment, at least while Lacus was focused on bolstering them and guiding them to greater efforts. Well, she supposed there was no reason to argue with a subtle support like this, a morale boosting presence that flitted among them, straightening their spines and clearing their eyes, and so she turned back to commanding her ship, shaking her head in amazement.

_Katie..._ Lacus reached out with her hand, imagining herself as a gigantic, ghostly figure, so big that the Archangel would fit into the palm of her hand, and the entire vangaurd fleet was contained within her billowing dress, every mind that she touched in this fashion being bolstered and rejuvenated, cleansed of fear and even anger, merely focusing on doing their best to survive and defeat the enemy in front of them. Lacus's spectral hand reached the Vorpal and closed around it, gently tugging until another spectral form expanded up out of it, though Katie only grew to about half the size of Lacus, at least according to her current perceptions.

_GAHHH!?_ Katie exclaimed, looking at the massive swirling hurricane of mental energy that was Lacus, encompassing a hundred cubic kilometers of space. She clutched Ysak more tightly, and felt her own mental projection, that of a fierce tornado, swell a bit, but she was still just a stormcloud, versus an entire storm front! _Lacus, what are you doing!? How did you... no... don't tell me._

_What's wrong?_ Ysak asked Katie, concern touching his tone as he felt her shiver and clutch at him, even as he maneuvered the Vorpal through a deluge of cannon and beam fire spraying from the Great Endeavor, dodging most and deflecting the rest with his Bulwark shield. He was dimly aware of the other Gundam pilots and the rest of the USN vanguard Mobile Forces as they moved in to engage the onrushing Brotherhood units, though it was more like he felt where they were in relation to him, like keeping track of dust motes drifting through a room behind him. It wasn't something he could control consciously, but he was grateful for it, as it let him dodge and avoid the incoming fire from his allies as well as the outgoing fire from his enemies, as well as work to provide cover for those selfsame allies. Katie didn't reply in words, so much as just turn a tiny corner of his mind back to look and see as she did. _HOLY FUCKING CHRIST!_ Ysak jerked and almost lost control of the Vorpal for a second. _Is that Lacus? What's she doing?_

_I'm doing what I should have been doing a long time ago._ Lacus cut into their tryst communication as easily as if she was leaning through a window to talk with people inside a room. _Helping out directly, as best I am able to. I cannot fight, not like most people do... but I can still protect and reinforce the minds and souls of those who do fight. The enemy, Noah, is relying on fear and shock and uncertainty in order to help make up for his lack of numbers. I can deny him those advantages, at least in a certain sphere of influence._ They both got an image of Lacus smiling, a fierce smile that made them both quiver slightly. _However, communication, at least, detailed communication, is not something I can do at the same time. I need your help, Katie, Ysak. He has rendered us mute and deaf... its up to you to let us be understood anyway._

_I gotcha._ Katie said, getting over her shock and starting to feel a bit excited even. It was about time she really cut loose and exercised her Newtype powers to the limit! And now she had Lacus Clyne herself backing her up... no way was anyone, not even Cagalli, going to toss recriminations NOW! _I am all over this... not like I can help Ysak-y much against all these robot Mobile Suits anyway!_

_Thank you, Katie... here... this is Kira..._ Katie felt a string of her mind plucked and gathered up, before being connected, kind of like an ancient telephone switchboard, into a socket, and she found herself feeling Kira's thoughts as well as Ysak's!

_Um, hi, Kira..._

_Lacus told me. You'll have to get the others yourselves, it was just easier for Lacus to connect me. Though, quite how she did it is..._

_Anyone's guess. We got bigger problems._ Ysak interrupted. _Get us connected quick, Katie... we got Gundams incoming... the Vengeance and that one he called the Retribution. And they're bringing friends..._

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"How strange it is, to find myself once more on opposite sides of a battleground from the Clyne Faction." Ashino mused, as he flew, marveling at the freedom and ease of movement and maneuver in this new Gundam, this Retribution of the Brotherhood, which acted like a true extension of his own body. An improvement on his own body even, as it was capable of flight and a range of motion his human body could not hope to match. He counseled himself to take things slowly at first, until he fully got the hang of this control scheme, though this was hardly the sort of battle for getting acclimated to a new system. The weight of fire being pumped out by the Great Endeavor was truly staggering, and the return fire from the USN vanguard was nothing to sneeze at either. It was like being caught between two firehoses being lined up and turned on full force at the same time. For all that, at least while in the Retribution, it all seemed to be going in slower motion than usual, and he had no trouble at all evading anything capable of causing serious harm to him.

Ashino looked behind him, though it would be more accurate to say his eyes revolved around in his head so he could look behind, as the Retribution could look in an or all directions at once, since it wasn't hampered by a merely biological set of senses. He discerned that though he and the former Solar Knight, the one known as Shinn Asuka, in the other Gundam, the Vengeance were faring well enough, the same could not be said of the Zealots and Martyrs that were being piloted by remote control by the Harbingers inside the Great Endeavor. Part of him wanted to sneer at the thought of remote controlled Mobile Suits, like something out of a kid's game... and the rest of him wanted to shiver in trepidation, because if mankind was allowed to reduce fighting on a battlefield to just a game, how horrible would war become? As things were, when it was human lives being spent for victory, things were terrible enough... terrible enough to apparently warrant the creation of humans specially bred for fighting, like him and the other BCPU's, no matter the personal cost of doing so! He did not want to see what was further down that road!

Philosophy aside though, in this battle, at this time, the remote Mobile Suits were his allies, and if they kept on going at this rate, they would lose much of their fighting strength from losses due to long range barrage fire from the USN vanguard fleet, before they even got into range to fire back! They were the ones, no matter how much Noah Borander seemed to think differently, at the grave disadvantage in this battle, and their numbers were both finite and small, unlike the massed fleet of the USN, which was by far the largest gathering of military force Ashino had ever seen, stretching like a glittering curtain across space to the front. If every Brotherhood machine destroyed ten enemy Mobile Suits before being destroyed, the USN would STILL outnumber them ten to one when no more Brotherhood machines were fighting! Even the colossal Great Endeavor would succumb eventually, though Ashino did have to admit, the AMP cannon had been very, very impressive. Frighteningly so... such destruction brought into play the very primal powers of the universe, energies not meant to exist in the natural scope of things, not on such a scale.

Ashino throttled back his speed some, letting Shinn and the Vengeance take the lead, sword raised in both hands, even as Ashino activated his chest mounted Obdurate Shield in Citadel mode, creating a wide barrier that provided a momentary lull in the incoming fire along a certain angle of approach, letting the Zealots and Martyrs catch up some. Ashino had been told that the armor of the Vengeance and Brotherhood was impervious to energy weapon fire, and he'd certainly been impressed by the negation of the sniping shot from the Solar Knights just a few moments ago, so he felt little guilt in spinning his twin 525mm gatling hyper-impulse cannons up to speed, before unleashed a flurry of shots from the revolving triple barrels, painting a swathe of void red-blue with crackling energy bolts, sweeping dozens of missiles and shells from existence in a string of firecracker explosions and causing the onrushing enemy vanguard Mobile Forces to heel up and cover behind their shields. Several bolts splashed and shattered upon striking the back of the Vengeance's arms and torso, but true to what Noah had said the Vengeance seemed not at all troubled, and Shinn didn't even seem to notice he'd been struck. The crimson Vengeance was heading on a beeline course for the eminently visible Archangel and the five slightly closer figures of the infamous Orb Gundams, and Ashino conceeded that Shinn had a point. Best take out the enemy's strongest weapons, before they could be properly employed.

"This is nothing personal. It's just one of those unfortunate things that happens in war. I am, and always will be, grateful to you, Ms. Clyne, for seeing the human being inside of me even when I could not. But the past has no bearing on this present situation, and to ensure the future I want to see, I'm afraid I'm going to have to trample you beneath my feet!" Ashino muttered, mostly to himself. The Great Endeavor was projecting wide band comm jamming across the entire USN fleet, one of the few advantages the Brotherhood was currently enjoying, at least until the USN eventually found a way around it. Until then they would be stilted and stiff, having to relay orders by inefficient Line of Sight laser comm signals, and individual Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors would be entirely mute and deaf until regular comms were restored. If the Brotherhood could hit the enemy hard enough, cause enough casualties to shock them back into temporary retreat, they might get them disorganized enough to slip past... that was the only viable strategy Ashino could see. And destroying the Clyne Faction would go a long way towards causing that needed shock.

With strategy decided, Ashino turned his mind to tactics, to how he was going to accomplish that strategy. Shinn was, as far as Ashino could see, devoid of any tactical or strategic mindset beyond charging up the middle as fast as he could, eager to get to grips with the enemy as rapidly as possible. A slight grin tugged itself across Ashino's usual mask of battle concentration. Well, it wasn't like he was unused to going into battle alongside people who had utilized that mindset before, and to great effectiveness, right? And the Vengeance was definitely not optimized for ranged combat either, so it would behoove Shinn to close to melee as quickly as possible. However, one against five was long odds, no matter the technological sophistication of the Vengeance or the battle skills of Shinn, and a heedless charge up the middle often resulted in a vulnerability to flank attacks. Thus, Ashino decided he would, as was he usual wont, cover for his more brash allies, using them as a distraction while he brought in precision heavy firepower and guarded their rears and sides. Hopefully Shinn, as a former Solar Knight, would appreciate the value of teamwork against superior odds, unlike some of the other allies he'd had the misfortune to work with in the past.

The Clyne Faction Gundams proved they were not nearly as disoriented by the devastation wrought by the AMP cannon and the Brotherhood's sudden attack as some of the other elements of the USN armada, and they even seemed to be utilizing some sort of communication system that wasn't subject to the Great Endeavor's jamming signal. Ashino shrugged... he knew better than to rely on something as basic as a lack of communication to hamstring foes of this caliber anyway. They were all independent souls, each a capable leader in their own right, and they had long experience in working together. They almost certainly didn't need to talk to figure out how they were going to react to being charged. The Seraph, Vorpal and Phoenix King moved to engage the Vengeance as a group, the Vorpal and Phoenix King leading, the Seraph hanging back slightly, ready to shift to one side or the other once the Vengeance had committed. Meanwhile, the Warmaster and the Dawn Goddess split up and began circling wide, cutting down options and angling for a clean shot. Ashino rolled his arms in their sockets and swapped out the gatling hyper-impulse cannons for the twinned 150mm Rapidfire FRALA.

His first pair of painfully blue-white beams of coherent light scorched through the void and just barely missed a frantically maneuvering Warmaster, throwing off its aim and causing it to abort its firing of its large artillery cannon. One of the beams drew a cascade of golden sparks from the Warmaster's desperately guarding Citadel Shield, but it was only a glancing strike, and it failed to cause any significant damage. Ashino fired again, sweeping one beam through the tightly grouped knot that was the Seraph, Phoenix King and Vorpal, causing the former and the latter to evade wildly, while the Phoenix King just flew right into the path of the beam without a care in the world, which drew a raised eyebrow from Ashino, since he knew Athrun Zala was easily good enough to dodge... why he would commit suici... Ashino's eyes widened quite a bit more when the Phoenix King took the FRALA shot without flinching and flew on undamaged, though its signature on his thermal sensors bloomed significantly. Ashino's second shot, which had speared right into Cagalli's Dawn Goddess, which also did not flinch or flee, nor was it damaged, proved that it was not just a fluke. Whatever armor those two Gundams had seemed even more proof against energy weapons than the LCR armor, at least up to a point... there had to be a maximum tolerance past which the armor would melt... but the question was, what was it?

Shinn took advantage of Ashino's disruption of the enemy melee fighters to dart forward, sword swinging up and then down and around in a massive diagonal slash aimed at the now lonesome Phoenix King, which would have split the fiery Orb Gundam in half cleanly had it connected, but Athrun reversed thrust and ducked out from underneath much of the length of the blade, catching only the very tip on his layered forearm Citadel Shield projectors in a haze of golden sparks, though the force of impact was still enough to spin the Phoenix King head over heels. A thick green beam blast and a missile streaked in at the Vengeance from the Dawn Goddess, but Shinn swung one of his wings around and blocked the shots with the Positron Shield emitter in the tip. He adjusted his grip on his sword and bulled in close as the Phoenix King recovered, determined to finish one up quickly. Before he could strike though, the Vengeance slammed to a halt, flattened like a bug against an invisible windshield that briefly flared with aqua energy and golden sparks, as the Seraph's Fractal Wings settled protectively around the Phoenix King, giving Athrun that quarter second he needed to recover.

Shinn snatched a hand off his sword hilt to block the Vorpal, which had swung in from the side, shotcannon blazing on full automatic fire mode, though the shells only blinked and flickered like dying fireflies as they were annihilated by the pinkish disc of the palm emitted Positron Reflector shield. Shinn shook his head to clear it after running into the Fractal wing wall face first and then jetted backward to avoid being surrounded as the Phoenix King thrust from the front, the Vorpal fired and harried from the side, and the Serpah came down from above. Both the Seraph and the Phoenix King had equipped themselves with large beam swords, older models originally used in the Sword Striker pack of the Strike Gundam, since only physical edges were effective against LCR armor. The three Orb Gundams moved to keep Shinn on the defensive, only to recoil away from a stream of hyper-impulse blasts from the Retribution, as Ashino circled overhead and off to the side somewhat. He turned the Retribution to face full on towards the Warmaster and activated the Obdurate Shield in Positron mode, effectively warding himself and the Vengeance against any attacks from the Warmaster, though doing so put his back to the three Gundams engaged with the Vengeance.

Which might have been a problem were he limited to the human range of motion. But the Retribution wasn't so limited, and its arms had no problem in revolving around in their sockets to point straight backward, keeping up a steady barrage of red-blue compressed plasma blasts at the Seraph and the Vorpal, keeping them away from the Phoenix King and on the defensive, unable to attack Shinn. His Obdurate Shield flared and crackled as the Warmaster poured cannon and beam fire, as well as flights of missiles into it, but with almost the full force of the Retribution's Fusion Pulse Reactor powering it, there was no way such weapons could penetrate, even the fearsome Earthshaker Magnus only made the Retribution shiver a little. The Obdurate Shield wasn't the perfect defense, as it only blocked attacks from one direction, and it blocked his own return attacks as well, but it was definitely VERY tough, and when employed properly, all but unbreakable.

Alas, his foes were not content to let the situation stand as it was, and the Dawn Goddess abandoned its efforts to flank the Vengeance in order to come after him, a few chance hits from her shoulder 150mm beam cannons drawing puffs of gold sparks from the Citadel Scales covering his body as they warded off the attack. The Dawn Goddess's back seemed to erupt like a volcano as the back mounted missile launchers released their payloads, sending over eighty missiles streaking through the void at the Retribution. Ashino craned his head around and opened up with the triplet of 15mm beam CIWS in his facial area, sweeping clear a wide swathe of the munitions, even as explosions from the ones he'd missed roiled and flickered in brief orange balls against his skin, making him shiver but not much else. He swung one gatling hyper-impulse cannon up to send her packing, and cursed himself even as he let fly, since she just flew right through the plasma energy like a Jean would a spray of water when running through the sprinklers at her parent's house.

The thought of Jean stabbed his heart like a red hot poker, and he gritted his teeth, focusing that pain, that hurt, and using it to energize and motivate himself. While the Clyne Faction were by and large respectable people, at the moment they were proxies and pawns to Gilbert Durandel just like the rest of the USN, and that made them ENEMIES! The Dawn Goddess snapped off a final shot with its hand carried heavy beam cannon, which Ashino had to dodge, not trusting his Citadel Scales against such a powerful attack at close range, and he closed off the Obdurate Shield and turned to face the closer threat, stowing his ranged weapons and drawing out the monomolecular halberd, even as the Dawn Goddess swapped its own gun for its long lance. She thrust it at him like she was trying to impale a frog on a stick, and Ashino flicked himself a few feet to the side, a mere tap of his thrusters, allowing the thrust to slide by him even as he spun around in a backhand, the long, cruel spike on the back of his halberd's axe head aimed at the Dawn Goddess's head and primary sensor cluster.

Cagalli proved she was every bit as much a warrior as he remembered, and she adroitly blocked his attack with one raised forearm, the aqua-green Citadel Shield projected by the back of the forearm catching his spike and stopping it cold, even as the force of the blow rattled the smaller Gundam. She struck back, concealed shutters opening up on the Dawn Goddess's chest, the muzzles of four 80mm gatling cannons sticking out and unleashing a storm of explosive shells into the Retribution's side and limbs at point blank range. Warning chimes hissed and bleeped inside Ashino's head, or so it felt, as Citadel Scales began to fail under the onslaught, until he firmly pushed her away with his halberd against her forearm shield, tilting her chest away from him and giving his armor time to recover even as he scooted back a bit to gain some distance and breathing room. She kept right on his ass, and slammed her lance into his halberd's shaft, locking them together in a bind as they shoved and pushed at each other, each striving to knock the other back off balace to gain room for a decisive strike.

After a few seconds, the greater mass and far greater power of the Retribution began to tell, despite the numbing and painful electrical shocks that the Dawn's lance was channeling into his halberd and arms. Designed to disrupt or even destroy the elctronic systems of a regular Mobile Suit, they certainly weren't fun to encounter, but the Retribution dealt with currents close to those emitted on a regular basis in its own internal systems, and it was nothing more than a crackling annoyance, a buzz at the back of his teeth. The Dawn began bending backwards, and Ashino gathered himself to push her away and then slice with the halberd. If he remembered correctly, while her armor was proof against energy weapons, it was vulnerable, like LCR armor, to physical attacks, and his halberd should have no trouble cleaving right through her. A feeling like a warm iron being pressed into the back of his head warned him, and he snatched one hand off his halberd, conceding his advantage in order to swing that arm around and send a torrent of hyper-impulse blasts at the Warmaster, which had been drawing a bead on him from behind, not too far away. The large support Gundam backed off again, but now Ashino found himself caught between them. It was time to get creative.

He allowed the Dawn Goddess to push him back, even assisting her momentum with his own thrusters, using the Retribution's greater agility to backflip in place, dropping his halberd to grab the Dawn Goddess by the forearms and throw her over his head, even as his jutting kneecap knocked her lance from her grip. Of course, in space, up and down were relative, so she wasn't nearly as disoriented as she would have been from a similar maneuver in gravity, and she tagged him good with her shoulder beam cannons in mid toss, causing a burning sensation to gather along his shoulders and collarbone. Another hit there anytime soon could be problematic. He flitted in close to her, within arms reach and knocked her flailing arms aside with one sweep of an arm, the versatility of the NIC control scheme affording him a massive advantage at hand to hand range. Her chest mounted gatling cannons opened up again and he turned her away slightly, sidestepping around and putting her in what would be a choke lock from behind were they fighting in the skin. He drew back his other hand and three razor sharp three meter long blades slid out of the top of his hand, quickly glowing orange, red and then white hot with channeled waste heat from his FPR.

He was just about to drive his bladed fist home in her back, rupturing the cockpit and likely the pilot inside as well, when he was deluged with light green beam blasts and almost had his head taken off by a ravening red-blue hyper-impulse blast. Ashino gritted his teeth and swung the Dawn Goddess around, placing her between him and the Warmaster as a shield, but the incoming fire didn't slacken off in the slightest, and Ashino cursed himself as an idiot once more. The Dawn Goddess was impervious to energy damage, and the Retribution wasn't... thus meaning the Warmaster could fire those kinds of weapons into the melee as much as he wanted without worrying about causing harm to his ally. It was just so hard to keep track, with all these new specialty armors... he preferred it back when everyone just had phase shift! Unwilling to accept a mutual kill scenario with him destroying the Dawn Goddess but being taken out in turn by the Warmaster, Ashino heaved the smaller Gundam into the Warmaster to distract them and jetted off again to gain some distance and time to think of new tactics, snagging his halberd along the way. This battle was just getting started.

-------------------------------------

_Watch OUT!_

_I see him, thanks!_

_Well you weren't ACTING like you saw him! You were about a second and a quarter from getting bisected by the goddamn sword! Keep your head in the fucking game!_

_Are you honestly telling ME how to fight? That's rich, PANAMA BOY!_

_HEY! We have other problems!_ Kira interrupted the cats and dogs fighting that had been going on ever since Katie had linked Ysak's and Athrun's minds. _We need to be working together, not picking fights with each other!_

_I just saved his life! Would it hurt to say thank you?_

_I was never in danger! I was just setting him up, making him overconfident, making him THINK he had me cold so we could get an opening! Unfortunately the only person I seem to be fooling is YOU, and you can read my fucking MIND!_

_HEY!_ This time it was Katie who interrupted, her mental voice booming like thunder. _Can you guys FOCUS!? Huh? I thought you were supposed to be professionals... this ISN'T nearly as easy as Lacus makes it look! And you guys bitching and moaning at each other doesn't help me at all!_

_Sorry._ Athrun said quietly. _I just don't like sharing my mind with Ysak. Or Kira. Or even Cagalli. Or anyone._

_I'm NOT in your head! We've been over this!_ Ysak snapped in reply. _You're being such a little girl about this, its sad._

_If you're not in my head then why can I hear what you're THINKING and vice versa!?_

_Because I'm in your fucking head, not Ysak!_ Katie retorted angrily. _And all this yelling is giving me the worst fucking headache of my life, so TONE it down! I'm reading your mind, putting it into my mind, and then send it to the mind of whomever you were thinking at, and vice versa, thats how this works! And it isn't easy! Its hard enough picking out what you MEAN to say from the clutter of calculations and other various and sundry thoughts that fill your heads during battle, you don't have to make it intentionally harder by tossing extreme emotions into the mix! If you have to suffer, do it like Miriallia does and do it in silence and stop being such a bitch! And that's directed at ALL of you! Get the sand outta yer cunts and kill this red motherfucker already!_

_There's an image I could have done without. _Kira commented, even as the Vengeance moved back in at them again. The Retribution was being tied up by the Warmaster and the Dawn Goddess for the moment, but he didn't dare direct even an iota of his attention at that battle. Not with the Vengeance so close by. Especially not with the new pilot of the Vengeance, who was, if anything, quite a bit more skilled than Mu. Well, that wasn't perhaps a fair thing to say... Mu was one of the most talented pilots Kira had ever known, but this red guy... he was really something else. So fast, so unpredictable... so angry! He could practically hear the other guy panting and snarling with rage as he was constantly forced to stop short of killing blows. Despite being stronger and faster than any one of the Orb Gundams, with three on one odds, the Vengeance couldn't get the time it needed to really strike home solidly, though he was definitely giving it his best effort. And the experience gap between Kira, Athrun and Ysak vs this unknown pilot, while noticable, was not nearly as wide as Kira could have hoped. Whoever he was, he was damned good, and his style definitely fit the Vengeance.

Kira saw another example of this as the Vorpal pushed to the front of the tri-pointed formation they had adopted, one Gundam engaging from the front while the other two edged in from the frontal sides, limiting the space for the Vengeance to swing its sword or deploy its shields. However, this time the Vengeance faked a thrust with its sword, which Ysak fell for, if only for a moment, and in that moment, while the Vorpal was flitting to the side to let the nonexistant thrust slip by, the Vengeance snatched one hand off its sword hilt and thrust it forward, palm facing the Vorpal's front. The Positron Shield slammed outward, striking the Vorpal and propelling the Gundam back before it like a wrecking ball striking a man on stilts. There was little actual damage caused, but the Vorpal was knocked back and off balance, giving the Vengeance time to move forward into the middle of their formation. Even as it moved forward its free hand snatched out its long barreled rifle and brought it to bear against Athrun, even as it lashed out one handed with the sword at Kira.

Athrun desperately deflected the close ranged QC spear with both of his forearm shields, which actually penetrated them both but lost all its momentum in so doing, drifting to a halt as the Citadel Shield barriers cracked and broke apart in a cloud of gold sparks and fading aqua-green energy fields. The feedback made the Phoenix King's forearms smoke and arc with released electricity and Athrun flinched backward at the close call, which had come despite his best defensive efforts. For his part Kira blocked the QC sword with a combination of his forearm shields and several of his Fractal Wing feathers on Citadel mode, stopping the sword well short of its intended goal. Kira pushed the sword back with both of his arms, even as his feathers whirled away, back into their regular defensive orbit, as Kira moved on to the attack to give Athrun and Ysak time to recover.

The Serpah's hand held weaponry selection had been undergoing a lot of revision in recent times, and while he still carried one of the 80mm autocannons that had originally been designed for his use by Dr. Simmons, along with the specialty EMP shells that went with it, it was stowed on his back for the moment, and he wasn't sure if he would even need to use it, not in a battle like this. For the moment he was using one of the combination 225mm/150mm linear rifle/hyper-impulse rifles that the the Dawndrakes carried as standard in his left hand, while in his right hand he had the anti-ship beam sword from the Sword Striker pack. Athrun also had a anti-ship sword from the Sword Striker inventory, because otherwise the Phoenix King was all but harmless against the armor of the Vengeance. All of the Gundams had recieved a recent refit that had added Armor Schnieder physical combat knives to their hips, just like the original Strike, as emergency backup weapons now that enemies were appearing that were vulnerable to physical blades.

Kira fired a few shots from the linear rifle, since the hyper-impulse cannon was ineffective, which made the Vengeance dart backwards, both of its wings coming up over its shoulders at the same time, swinging down to point their Positron Reflector emitters at Kira, who was already gathering his Fractal Wings around himself. He turned them all to Geischmedig-Panzer mode, remembering that the Positron Reflector shield system used fields of magnetically contained anti-matter to block and disintegrate physical and beam based attacks, as Dr. Simmon's initial report had said. However, he was betting... and hoping.. that the combined Fractal Wings would, in GP mode, emit a stronger magnetic field than that of the Vengeance's shield emitters and thus... the Vengeance's wing emitters flared with pink light and the Seraph rocked slightly, but, just as he'd been hoping, the Positron Reflector fields were unable to penetrate or push back the GP field generated by the combined Fractal Wings, and thus it was the Vengeance that was propelled backwards forcefully, while Kira remained in place and on balance. He aimed carefully and fired, and only missed taking the Vengeance through the head because it put its rifle in the path of the shot, breaking the weapon in half but sparing the main machine. The crimson Gundam took off, gathering distance and giving them another momentary breather.

_You okay?_ Kira asked, eyeing his friends.

_I'm fine. Just need to change my boxers a little. Nothing I won't get over._ Athrun replied with a mental thumbs up.

_I'm going to make him pay for that cheap shot he gave me. _Ysak added with a feral grin. _Nobody brushes aside Ysak Joule and gets away with it!_

_KIRA!_ Lacus interrupted them all, her strident call enough to make them all twitch and turn their heads to look in her direction, even though they were many dozens, even hundreds of kilometers from the vanguard fleet now, which was pressing the attack against majority of the Brotherhood mass produced forces and the Great Endeavor itself. _They're breaking through over here! The reinforcements from the main fleets have been delayed for some reason, and things haven't been going so well with no one able to talk to anyone else. Its very chaotic and confused, and we're starting to take a lot of casualties. I don't know if we can hold out like this for much longer!_

_For some reason?_ Athrun asked thoughtfully. _Come to think of it, where is that golden Gundam? I haven't seen it at all, since the very beginning of the battle. Isn't that the one..._

_... Noah Borander, the high and mighty leader himself is supposed to be piloting?_ Ysak finished. _I wonder what he got off to. Seems impossible for any one Mobile Suit, even a Gundam, to delay more than a thousand Mobile Suits and warships though. Even Kira couldn't do that, I'm pretty sure._

_I knew you were reading my mind..._ Athrun sighed.

_I just know you very well._ Ysak replied with a sigh of his own. _Which depresses me._

_I'm not sure which I like less... the thought of you reading my mind or the thought of you knowing me well enough to finish my thoughts WITHOUT reading my mind. Even Cagalli has trouble doing that._

_Uhm, do you guys think that... uh..._ Kira wasn't quite sure how to ask what he was thinking. Luckily, he didn't need to, because they both knew him well enough to know what he was thinking, even if they weren't connected mind to mind.

_Go. You won't be able to concentrate on the here and now any more until you make things right where she is. _Athrun said, with a trace of fondness.

_Yeah. Go be the knight in shining armor and save the princess from the forces of darkness. We'll handle this red monkey._ Ysak added. _Why is it that everything I hate wears red? This guy... Athrun... its a recurring pattern thats starting to bug me._

_You don't hate me, ya big teddy bear._

_Oh really, I don't hate you? What's this sense of loathing, this nausea in the pit of my stomach whenever I think about you then? Trust me, it ain't love._

_You don't hate me._

_How can you be so sure?_

_Because I can read your mind right now. And I'm really not feeling the hate._

_That arguement is complete bullshit! For the LAST TIME, WE ARE NOT READING EACH OTHER'S MINDS, OR ELSE YOU WOULD KNOW HOW MUCH I DESPISE YOU!_

_YSAK! If you keep shouting like that, I'm going to GIVE you something to whine about when my fingernails dig into your groin! I'm am sick of the loud noises!_ Katie interrupted irritably. _Oh yeah, and INCOMING!_ The Vorpal and the Phoenix King both moved well in time as the Vengeance came tearing back at them, recovered and ready for more. At the same time, Kira turned his back on the confrontation and headed off towards the fracas involving the Archangel and the rest of the USN vanguard.

_Hang on, Lacus... I'll be there soon._ Kira promised as he put all extra power to his thrusters. Behind him, Athrun and Ysak had to modify their tactics somewhat to a more offensive bent, now that Kira and the Seraph's comforting defensive presence was gone. The Vengeance zoomed by, having adopted a new strategy of his own, hit and run attacks with the sword, utilizing the Vengeance's great speed and agility to prevent being encircled or flanked, trying to seperate the Gundams once more, to get them into a one on one combat so they could be eliminated once and for all. In a way, Shinn got his wish sooner than he'd been expecting, as, instead of dodging, the Vorpal met him head on, firing steadily with its 120mm shotcannon, forcing the Vengeance to bleed speed and take one hand off its sword to ward away the shots with a palm Positron Reflector. Ysak added more firepower with his left shoulder mounted twinned 75mm rapidfire Linear Cannon, and then cast the shotcannon aside when it ran out of ammo. He waited, hand lowered at his waist in a quick draw position, near one of the two Siegfried hilts, since he'd brought both along for this battle just in case, and calculated times, distances and reaction speeds in his head.

The Vengeance was still oncoming, plainly planning to knock him around with its shield again and then swipe at him with its sword on the way past, and Ysak was just fine with that plan. He watched a bright blue seed fall through a velvet darkness, blacker than space, colder than ice, until it reached an invisible barrier and shattered in a blazing blue and silver fireball of radiant energy that banished the cold and the dark and all his insecurites and hesitations and doubts along with it! The Vengeance seemed to slow down, even as every physical sensation Ysak was aware of grew far more intense... the creak of his knuckles and gloves on the control yokes, the swish of the oxygenated gel from Katie's tank on his back, the warm, silky solidness of her body pressed against his, holding him tightly, cuddling him like a child holding on for dear life to an adult, relying on them to see them through a frightening situation. He concentrated on the feeling of her, and used it to boost himself still higher, until he was fairly boiling with pent up energy and emotion. This red bastard thought he could just run them down and slice them apart? NOT THIS YSAK! NOT THIS VORPAL! NOT THIS KATIE! HE WOULDN'T ALLOW IT!

Ysak sent more power to his own thrusters and barreled headlong into the Vengeance, shield to the front, until his Bulwark shield collided face to face with the Vengeance's palm emitted Positron Shield. The Vengeance had more momentum behind it, but the Vorpal massed more, and in the end the forces ending up canceling each other out, both being jarred equally, their charging momentum negated, reeling a few dozen meters apart as they fought to recover from the impact. Ysak recovered a fraction faster, feeling Katie tighten her arms and legs around his body, and he drove at the Vengeance with an animalistic leer on his lips, Siegfried drawn and ready in a flash, bright blue blade shining like hope amidst a nightmare. He thrust, right at the middle of the Vengeance's chest, and beat its desperate attempt to parry with its sword, guiding the flat of the great QC blade to the side with his shield even as Siegfried darted for the blazing star-like thermal signature at the heart of the Vengeance. Seigfried jarred to a halt, which was unexpected, as it should have sliced right through almost any physical matter without resistance. Emphasis on almost any, Ysak realized, as he saw the Vengeance's shield hand cradling Siegfried's point in the slender QC blades that sprouted like claws from its fingertips, stopping the thrust a good half meter short of the Vengeance's body.

For his part, Shinn was still in the immediate afterthroes of watching his own dark red seed detonate in a deluge of sorrowful anger and focused pain which made his entire world shake and jolt and lose cohesion for a few moments. He remembered reaching out in blind panic to stop the bright blue sword blade headed towards his heart, but after that he sort of found himself drifting, wondering where he was, and why he was fighting? He remembered something about a huge flash of light, and an enormous pain in his chest, almost unbearable agony really... and then darkness and then he was here, fighting for his life against... as quickly as his confusion started, clarity returned. He was Shinn Asuka, loyal and true member of the Brotherhood, fighting against the oppressors of the USN, and their proxies... in this case, these Gundams from Orb, that most hated of all dens of inequity! They were trying to kill him... just like they'd killed everyone else he'd ever cared about! "DIE!" Shinn demanded, thrusting the glowing blue sword blade aside and bringing his own sword around in a wild sweep that cleared the silver and blue Gundam with the red facial scar away, giving Shinn a moment of breathing room. "I won't rest until I've had my revenge! Until I've righted all those wrongs you've caused!"

Athrun swept in from behind, leading with both hands on his sword, thrusting with all the speed and mass of the Phoenix King behind him, only to stop short and seemingly abort his attack just barely to slow to avoid plowing into the wingtip emitted Positron Reflectors of the Vengeance, crumpling the Phoenix King much like the Vengeance had done against the Seraph's Fractal Wings at the beginning of the battle. However, Athrun's eyes were washed out in the telltale signs of a seed rage as well, and his seemingly brazen attack was both more and less than it seemed. He would have liked to be able to drive his sword blade through the Vengeance's back, like he'd been aiming for, but he'd also been expecting the wing shields to stop him, and even as he hit, the Phoenix King's own wings were sweeping forward and deploying. With the wing shields tied up by the Phoenix King's body, one hand tied up by the sword and the other used to ward off Ysak's attacks, the Vengeance had no more anti-matter fields to use to defend itself as the Phoenix Feathers swarmed off the Phoenix King's back and arced around the wingtip shields from either side in a flurry of red hot shards.

Shinn ducked and dodged away, disengaging from both Orb Gundams as he rocketed away on a thick trail of thruster wash, but not before getting a few feathers stuck in his wings and upper body. They deactivated and floated free once he got a few hundred kilometers away from the two Gundams, but he felt lingering stiffness and soreness in his back and shoulders, indicating at least minor damage that would take some time to repair. He'd been lucky... another second or so of hesitation and his would have been the death of a thousand papercuts as those bladed, red hot feathers swarmed him... at least until the containment on the FPR ruptured, which would have been an unpleasant surprise for everyone within twenty kilometers. They were good... he had to give them that much grudging respect, at least. They were very, very good. It was going to take all he had to defeat them... if he even could! No, he shook his head in denial... Mayu and the others, their spirits crying out in pain... DEMANDED that he defeat them! And so he would! He would not fear, he would not falter, he would not be stopped!

_I can't wait until WE can move like that..._ Ysak groused, as he and Athrun collected themselves after the Vengeance's speedy exit.

_The day can't come soon enough._ Athrun agreed, as the remaining Phoenix Feathers docked with the wing struts on his back, leaving his wings looking slightly tattered but still fully functional. _He'll be back shortly though... he's even more pig headed than Kira. Giving up or trying somewhere else probably won't even occur to him. He'll just keep coming at us until he either beats us, or we beat him._

_Good. We had him on the ropes for a moment there, and I'm eager to repeat the process._ Ysak answered fiercely. _Siegfried and I will show him the true meaning of a sharp sword!_

_Its... odd._ Katie mused, barely loud enough for them both to hear her.

_What's odd? Besides this whole mental thing, which makes my skin crawl if I think about it too much..._ Athrun asked.

_He's... conflicted. Its almost like he's fighting with himself as much as he is with you guys. I was almost sure I could see two... uhm, I guess you could call em "personalities" in there for a little while. One of em is really dominant most of the time, but the other one's plugging away constantly._ Katie replied thoughtfully.

_Kind of like what was up with Commander la Flaga?_

_Well, I wasn't around when he was breaking free of the influence, but I guess so, yeah. This might be what that looks like, pre-reversion. Its tough to tell... this guy's a stump. He might just be a schizophrenic. But I do know one thing for sure... he's got plenty of mad to go around. He makes Cagalli look like a sweet tempered flower girl._

_Are you saying my wife has anger issues?_

_Are you saying she doesn't?_

_Bigger problem incoming!_ Ysak interrupted, as a massive thermal reading began growing closer and closer to them at a very rapid pace. Ysak smiled and raised Siegfried. _All right, you raging bastard... lets see if I can't cut you down to size..._

---------------------------------------------

"Damnit, can anyone hear me? Rey! Jarvis? ANYONE!?" Lunamaria pounded her fist on her comm unit in frustration, hearing only high pitched squeals of static. "Completely fucking useless! If Meyrin were here, she'd have this fixed in a..." Luna swallowed hard as her mind caught up to her words. Regardless of how good Meyrin was at beating comm jamming, she WASN'T here... she wasn't anywhere, as far as Luna knew. She might even be dead, tossed to float free in space by that despicable monster, Noah, or held captive to his perverted whims, just a slave to his evil mind powers! It was so awful that Luna knew she'd only drive herself into a useless, shivering frenzy if she didn't keep her mind on other matters, such as staying alive and blasting that giant fucking saucer out of the fucking sky! A task they were having distressingly little success with, despite the relative advantage of numbers, even with just the vanguard fleet and a few elements of the main fleet that had managed to close the gap.

Luna espied an opportunity and she pointed and fired her 250mm Accelerated Impulse cannon in the same motion, taking a Zealot under the left armpit and blowing most of its center torso out through its right shoulderblade in a spray of molten metal and crackling blue-purple plasma. Eviscerated and decapitated, the Zealot drifted to a halt and then blew up, easing the pressure on another Archon that she was pretty sure was Rey, though it was hard to tell at this distance, as he dueled with two more Zealots in an impressive display of swordsmanship. Rey and a few elements of the Third Platoon had fallen into protective formation around the Newton, a Nazca class fast frigate, shortly before the battle had started and had accompanied it in its mad dash to the front lines after the insane and devastating shot from the Great Endeavor's main cannon that had caused such horrible casualties for the majority of the ALU contribution to the USN armada. There was still the first assault fleet, and a few special units, including Colonel Haman Al'Jib's Garou's, but over two thirds of the ALU military contribution to the battle had been destroyed without even firing a shot...

Luna turned her mind away from dwelling on the terrible power of the Great Endeavor, knowing it would oppress and depress her as well if she let herself brood on it. Rey, or at least the Archon she thought Rey was in, executed a neat little trick involving a shield deflection and a sudden reversal of a feinting sword blade, which claimed the head and left arm of one of the two Zealots he was fighting, disabling it. The last Zealot tried to stab at his back, but was blindsided by a Primal Inferno, part of the ZAFT forces in the vanguard, which impaled the zealot with both sets of twinned supercharged beam blades extending from its forearms, the dark red plasma beams cutting through the Zealot like it was made of mist, until it tore itself apart in a smoky explosion. The Primal Inferno hung by the Archon for a moment, touching its hand to the Archon's shoulder in such a way that Luna realized they were utilizing a direct comm linkage, before they seperated and headed in different directions. The Inferno seemed to notice her floating there, high above the Newton's port side, and threw her a cheery wave, or as much of one as a Mobile Suit could make anyway.

"Well, that's Heine then..." Luna could not help but feel slightly better, knowing the laconic and easygoing orange haired FAITH member was now in the area. She'd really, REALLY prefer to have Shinn by her side... oh my god, she would sell her virginity to the Devil himself to have Shinn by her side, but since that was... no longer possible... Heine would have to do. She felt dampness on her cheeks and gritted her teeth fiercely. She'd already spent too much time crying! The time for tears was over... now was the time for payback! She looked around, and the uncomfortable thought that perhaps her chance at payback was going to be a long time in coming occured to her. The reinforcements from the main fleets were coming in piecemeal or not at all, and with comms down there was no way to find out what was slowing them down! And they were, unfortuantely, needed here! The Brotherhood was fighting as hard as she'd ever seen them, harder even, with little of the indecision and lackluster attitude she was familiar with. It was like they were really fighting for their lives now, which she supposed made sense, since the cotnrol centers for the remote Mobile suits had to be somewhere on that big saucer!

In any case, regardless of the reason, with the Great Endeavor at their backs the Brotherhood Zealots and Martyrs were giving at least as good as they got, and usually a lot better. The USN vanguard Mobile Forces had already suffered more than twenty percent casualties, and while few of them were full on fatalities, they hadn't managed to inflict more than five or ten percent casualties in return, and while the Brotherhood force was still significantly smaller, the numbers were evening at a rapid pace, especially as the Great Endeavor itself closed to within a more accurate range of its weapons, despite the best efforts of the vanguard warships, including the Archangel! The warships were keeping up a steady long range bombardment, but almost none of it was getting through the colossal Citadel and Positronic shields the Great Endeavor was projecting ahead of its endangered sections, which absorbed the incoming fire with large distortion ripples but no other signs of being overtly taxed or drained. What few smart or guided munitions, usually anti-vehicle or anti-ship missiles, that managed to slip past the shields were gobbled up by cotton candy pink cones of radiation energy that converged on the munitions and bathed them in hellish energies for a second or two before the missile would blow itself to smithereens, still well short of the Great Endeavor's hull.

Ahead of its progress the Great Endeavor pushed a zone of almost certain death for any Mobile Suit or warship that dared linger in the targeting crosshairs of its own armaments, as multiple 220cm high energy gatling cannons and 80cm artillery turrets would quickly bracket and then obliterate any large objects, while storms of 120mm tracer shells and 57mm beam blasts would hound and fence in anything small and maneuverable until there was nowhere left to run. Meanwhile, the gargantuan 800cm Linear artillery cannon on the North face of the Great Endeavor, which was the face currently pointing towards them, was sending huge bright yellow tracer shots into the far distance, targeting the mass of the main fleets in the armada, many of whom were packed too closely together to dodge even at that distance, resulting in steadily mounting casulaties and a sense of frustration and despair. Every so often flights of anti-ship class missiles would launch and head towards the vanguard ships, most of which were blasted away by Mobile Suit CAP forces or warship CIWS batteries, but a few did manage to get through here and there, and with every bit of damage or injury, more would get through the next time around.

Luna was just about to head back into the thick of the fray once more when the Great Endeavor's main cannon flashed again, so bright several of her cameras went permanently dead and the rest blanked out for several long seconds, leaving her blinking spots and tears out of her eyes that had nothing to do with sadness. Her screens were going haywire as they recovered from the massive energy and radiation feedback of the anti-matter cannon, but she could still easily see another gargantuan hole in the organization of the main fleets, fifty, sixty ships just GONE, not even dust remaining, just a huge ball of damaging radiation that dissipated in the solar winds like mist on a breezy day. Ripples spread through the armada as ships careened into each other in a futile and entirely too late effort to dodge the shot, chaos reigning as entire fleets crossed vectors and entangled themselves, unable to communicate in any coherent manner. Luna frowned, knowing any serious reinforcements would be a long time in coming. Things were were definitely headed towards that FUBAR thing she'd heard someone mention once. They HAD to take out that fucking cannon or it was going to pick them apart!

It was while she was thinking that, that Luna spied something which she looked past, and then immediately looked back at. On the surface it wasn't anything special... just a battle damaged FNE Cavalier limping back from the front line, trailing smoke from several beam type wounds. She'd been seeing similar sights almost since the battle started, and not just from the FNE, but from all the militaries present. Even the Orb Guardians and Dawndrakes had lost a few, which really hurt because the Orb military contribution was the smallest present, and each loss was a significant reduction for them. But, as she looked closer at this particular Cavalier, she noticed that the smoke from its battle damage trailed off rather abruptly, a little too close behind its form to account for dissipation into space, plus it was moving a little too quickly and surely for something with damaged vernier jets... and, the final nail in the coffin, its IFF code was just a blank, friendly FNE code. Which all in all combined to make her feel not at all bad about pointing her accelerated impulse cannon at it and firing off a shot.

True to her expectations, if not her hopes, the "damaged" Cavalier dodged her shot, though by a narrow margin, its outline flickering and fading a few times as it adjusted to the rapid motion, briefly revealing the outlines of the Traitor Gundam before its holoshroud once more covered it in the guise of the Cavalier. Luna keyed her comm to shout a warning to the FNE warships the Traitor was approaching, but it died on her lips. Comms were still down. And unless the FNE noticed the Traitor on their own, if they saw her diving after it, blasting away at a wounded "friendly", they'd probably think SHE was the Traitor! Well, that was something she'd address when the time came, because just turning away and letting the FNE ships fall prey to that devious bastard wasn't exactly an option either! She fired at him several more times, all narrow misses, as he scuttled around like a spaceborn cockroach, always just out of the way of a killing blow! It was after her fifth or sixth shot, without a single bit of return fire, that her ECM system squawked and told her she'd just been painted by the targeting rangefinders of the FNE Nelson class destroyers the Traitor was headed towards. "Just perfect..." Luna grumbled. "Damn it all, I'm trying to SAVE you bastards!"

Regardless of her complaint, they opened fire upon her with missiles, guns and beams, making her dodge and weave and cover behind her shield, losing precious time and distance as the Traitor sneaked ever closer to the unsuspecting ships providing him with covering fire. She tried to snap off another shot or two, by they went far wide, as the Traitor breached the minimum range of the warship's defensive batteries and then opened fire upon the bridges of the Nelson classes at point blank range, even landing on the dorsal surfaces of one ship to keep the other from firing upon him while he destroyed it, still in the damaged Cavalier illusion, though he was moving very quickly and confidently now. The first Nelson class heeled over and then ruptured as internal explosions tore it apart, and the second rapidly followed its sister ship into doom, drifting to a half as its engines caught fire and melted out, before breaking in half as the main ammunition stores went up and split the keel. "DAMN IT!" Luna shouted, pissed at herself for failing to stop him, and at the FNE for being stupid enough to actually give him covering fire on his way to destroying them!

"You're not getting away!" Luna declared, as the Traitor morphed and shifted its camouflage in plain view of her, almost tauntingly, assuming the form of a ZAFT Elemental, likewise battle damaged, and making a beeline course for the Newton next. Luna swooped down at him, firing with her accelerated impulse cannon, shoulder beam cannons and her missile rack all at once, even using her CIWS, trying to slow him down and keep him away from the unsuspecting ZAFT warship. "WATCH OUT... DAMN IT... SOMEONE FIX THESE FUCKING COMMS!" Luna swore over the shrieking hiss of the jamming signal. "THIS IS BULLSHIT! Damn you, I won't let you do it again!" Luna charged at the Traitor-Elemental, blasting with her accelerated impulse cannon, even scoring a slight hit along his hip, before finally closing to melee range and swinging a blow at his lower back that should have cut the duplicitious bastard in half once and for all!

Except that the Traitor, or its pilot anyway, seemed to have been working on his combat game recently, and he managed to interpose his shield in time to deflect her blow, though the crunching impact made his holoshroud ripple and knocked him from his intended course. He pointed his rifle at her and tried to light her up with a triplet of beam blasts, which she guarded against with her own shield, before taking another determined swing at him, which he blocked once more. Still, it was moving him away from the Newton, and she knew that this sorry bastard was a lobster without a shell, once you tore away his stealth and trickery! She was going to eat him alive, with garlic butter sauce even, it was just a matter of time! He seemed to come to the same conclusion, and he began rapidly shifting through holoshroud schemes, almost blindingly fast, before suddenly disappearing altogether. Lunamaria smirked evilly and activated her Vari-camera array, bringing him right back into view, though colorless, not that it mattered. "Mirage Colloid is old news, ya bastard!" Luna remarked with a sneer.

She aimed her accelerated impulse cannon at his fleeing back, right in the middle center and was just about to squeeze her trigger, had in fact squeezed it, when, at the same time, her Archon was flung backwards by two heavy hits to her shoulders, which tore off her shoulder mounted weapons and sent internal explosions and warning sirens throughout her machine. Her aim was jittered and her shot blasted uselessly off into space, shortly before the sword, and most of her arm, took another hit from the unknown source, and splintered apart in a spray of fire and metal shards. Luna tried to cover herself with her shield, but the shoulder hit had impeded the function of her left arm, and it froze halfway up, still leaving her upper torso unprotected. She cast about desperately for the source of the shots, and was in the process of spinning around when two more hits slammed into her back, so hard she felt like she'd just been kicked in the spine by a giant horse. A hard, dull sensation prodded her uncomfortably hard in her lower back, just above her hips, accompanied by a sound of tearing metal, and she whiplashed again, one of her seat restraints unraveling and snapping, throwing her forward against her screens, spiderwebbing them with impact cracks.

The impact stunned her, but she felt her flight suit tightening up around her in a way she had been told about in training, as it sought to localize and isolate an atmosphere leak in vacuum. She couldn't hear any air escaping, but there was a growing icy cold tingling sensation spreading along her lower back, followed shortly thereafter by shooting spears of red hot pain from the same location, and she arched her back and whimpered, flailing around one hand to try and assess the damage, only to draw the glove back stained with red, after feeling her palm jostle against something cold and metallic that jiggled INSIDE her suit, INSIDE her skin even! A part of the back of the control chair must have broken off and pierced her during that hit... but to do that... Luna gulped and looked over her shoulder, seeing stars... and not the kind that came from hitting her head! The back of the Archon had been blown apart... she'd skipped out on death by a hairsbreadth! Of course, it didn't look like she'd evaded the horseman for long, because she could see the Traitor reversing course on her main screen, assuming the identity of an Archon this time as he approached her, just one comrade moving to help out another. A moving star against the background showed Luna where the Traitor's backup was, at whoever it was, maybe even that other Gundam, the Haunted, moved on to other business.

Luna reached a hand towards her controls but then drew it back. What did it matter anyway? She slowly curled up into a hurting, sobbing ball as she felt her blood soaking her back and buttocks from the shrapnel wound, her Archon dead in space and seconds from being blasted or sliced apart by an enemy that looked like a friend. Shinn was dead because of her! Meyrin was dead or enslaved because she'd been too weak to protect her own little sister! What was her life worth living for anymore!? She'd almost welcome an end to the pain, and end to the grief and the guilt and the shame! _Shinn... I'm so sorry, Shinn... but I'm coming now... and we can be together... forever. We can be happy, Shinn... just... just be there for me on the other side... I don't know what I'd do if you weren't there... Shinn..._

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Author Note: Glad to see all the reviews for last chapter. The Brotherhood has made about as much of an impact as I was hoping, and though it doesn't appear in this chapter, we will shortly be getting a taste of its abilities against real opponents, so don't touch your dials, or anything like that. Dunno if I can promise a quick update, as writing this last chapter, for some reason, took me forever to get started upon, but we'll see what happens. I desperately, desperately want to get this battle over and done with so I can get to the big revelation arc coming up next, one that will hopefully satisfy the cravings for information on a variety of topics many reviewers have been expressing for a LONG time now. Still, can't make the inaugeral battle of the Brotherhood a cookie cutter fight, so there's going to be plenty of surprises and turnabouts and maybe even some deaths before this is all over. Can't wait to see what you think of this chapter, looking forward to it. Thanks for reading, and, hopefully, reviewing.


	46. Flash Flood part 4

"Thanks. That one was all over me." Dylan called, as he reversed course and altered his illusion to something that would attract less attention, at least for the thirty seconds or so he would need to make sure the pilot of the disabled Archon truly understood how much fear and worry they'd put Dylan through! He was pretty sure a few of those shots had shaved more than just armor away, they'd been chipping away years from the end of his life! He wouldn't be surprised if he had a few white hairs when he took off his helmet next! And there was an uncomfortably liquid sensation in the crotch region of his flight suit, a full heaviness that really shouldn't exist there in the normal course of things. Well, he would expunge his embarassment with a few choice swings of his beam saber, which he was now carrying unignited in one hand, and then he'd return to picking off the poor unsuspecting darlings in the fat capital ships that were trying to sink the Great Endeavor. He'd found himself feeling a lot more mean and vicious lately, ever since Mary hadn't come back from the Moon, and he wasn't entirely sure why.

"Don't mention it. I didn't do it because I like you. But you are effective, and that is what we need right now." Randolf replied coldly. "I can't believe I'm saying such a thing, but that must just be how desperate a situation we are in, if even YOU are doing a necessary job."

"I love ya too, buzzard." Dylan smirked. "And I dunno, we seem to be holding our own so far."

"Its been less than ten minutes since the start of the battle, and while we ARE doing better than I expected, its still far too early on for me to feel reassured. That little bastard is too overconfident for my tastes... its MADNESS to challenge the entire USN space fleet all at once, in open, direct battle! Pure MADNESS!" Randolf retorted. "We're all going to die, just you wait and see!"

"Well, with that attitude..." Dylan shrugged. Randolf had been in a foul mood a lot recently. Even fouller than usual. He was definitely nursing a very deep and dark hatred for the Boss now, but he still followed orders, either out of habit or because he'd finally realized, like Dylan had, that they were just birds stuck in a shitty little birdcage, and while they could flap and squawk as much as they liked, they were just an amusing diversion for the owner of the birdcage, that being Noah. He could end them any time he felt like it, and there was nothing they could do about it besides hope he didn't. By being useful, even marginally, that was just one more note in the "keep alive as amusement" column, as far as Dylan was concerned, vs the "render into table salt in the Red EDEN vats" column.

"If you can take out the Archangel, THEN I might feel like we have a bit of a chance. That one ship carries the morale of the entire armada with it, intentionally or not. If it goes boom, we might as well have kicked them all in the groin, each and every man and woman of them!" Randolf seemed almost to be relishing the thought.

"I'll work on it, let me just..." Dylan ignited his beam saber and raised it over his head. "... take out the trash... oh shit..."

"What do you mean, "oh shit"?" Randolf demanded. Then he saw it too. "Oh, shit..."

Dylan tried to flinch, to duck and cover, but there was simply no way in hell it was happening. Not with the Seraph closing in at maximum speed, its sword already in motion as Kira took in the situation, with a hale and hearty Archon with a blank USN ID code menacing a disabled Archon with a beam saber, and figured out what was going on as surely as if there'd been a sign painted for him. The only thing that saved Dylan's life was his proximity to Lunamaria's Archon, and even then the Traitor lost its beam sword hand from the mid bicep down, and then suffered a deep gouge to the back from the backhand second swing as Kira zipped past. "I'm alive...?" Dylan panted in awe, shortly before the trailing feathers of the Seraph's Fractal Wing's caught him in a net of Citadel Shield fields and dragged the Traitor wholesale behind the Seraph like a cat being stuffed in a sack. Kira spotted and fired upon the Haunted almost in the same motion, the red-blue hyper-impulse shot striking and melting away the Haunted's left arm like a candle caught in a flamethrower.

Randolf fired back with his other arm, and the 100mm sniper cannon mounted within the palm, but he may as well have been hucking apple seeds at a flitting mosquito, because he never even came close to tagging Kira, like he'd done the unsuspecting Lunamaria. The Seraph banked and released the Traitor from its wings, sending it tumbling wildly for a few seconds as Kira concentrated on the remaining Brotherhood Gundam. Randolf fired frantically, as rapidly as his chambers could cycle, slowly backing up, though he had nowhere to go and deep down inside, he knew it. He stopped and stared as Kira actually flicked out with his sword and cut two beam tipped shells in half in midflight, though neither had been on collision courses with him. He'd done it just to show Randolf what sort of fight he was in. "T-this i-is pr-preposterous!" Randolf complained, feeling sweat bead across his face and drip down into his moustache. He snatched out his beam rifle and activated his holoprojectors, making four identical copies of himself to confuse the bastard!

Randolf got off precisely one shot, which Kira likewise deflected with the beam edge of his anti ship sword, with an almost casual motion, as if he'd been expecting something of the sort all along. Randolf tried missiles, but they were all blasted into mist and smoke only a half second or so after launch. He tried CIWS, he even activated his nano-mist emitters even though there was no way they could create a big enough cloud in time! Anything, everything he could to do ward off the monster slowly bearing down on him, sword raised. "Damn you, I quit! I never wanted this! This isn't what I wanted! I was tricked! I... I was... I..." Randolf flinched as the sword came down unerringly... and lopped his remaining arm off at the shoulder. The Seraph turned and slammed its leg into his midsection, doubling the armless Haunted up, before Kira turned and pointed the palm of the hand which had recently held the sword, now sheathed on his back, at the mostly disabled Haunted. A cone of bright purplish light bathed the Haunted for several seconds, and when it faded, so too did the Haunted's nuclear reactor, its N-Jammer Canceler burned out and its fuel rods so innundated with extra neutrons that any and all reactions were stifled, meaning zero power output for the conceivable future.

Kira likewise bathed the Traitor in the nuclear deadening rays of his palm mounted Directed Neutron Disablers, after he blasted off all its wriggling limbs with his hyper-impulse rifle, as the Traitor accurately mimed begging for mercy that he was obviously surprised to be recieving. Kira frowned, because he knew he was tempted to just shoot the bastards and be done with it... it was all they deserved. But he couldn't let himself give in to that kind of hate, not now, not ever! That sort of thing was not what Kira Yamato stood for. They would go in for trial, and if the trial decided to give them the death penalty, well then he wouldn't cry. But he wouldn't kill them himself... not while they were helpless like this. He mentally noted the location of the disabled Archon, hoping the pilot was okay, but he had no time to check closely, because, like Lacus had said, things were turning dire for the vanguard fleet, and his help was desperately needed elsewhere.

Even as he thought that, more help arrived from an unexpected but definitely not unfamiliar quarter, as the Eternal, long ago returned to ZAFT after the end of the Valentine wars, once more made its presence known on the battlefield, driving up from behind the vanguard fleet at flank speed, shooting flares, throwing chaff and firing its main cannon with abandon, driving back a cluster of three Zealots that had been about to slip through the weakening defensive line the Mobile Suit Combat Air Patrols were holding in front of the main warships. Still unable to talk through the enemy jamming, the Eternal communicated by doing, and pushed to the forefront of the vanguard fleet formation, a somewhat unexpected move considering its relatively small size and light armaments, compared to the Archangel or any of the Izumi class carriers. The Eternal's primary weapons had been its speed and the Mobile Suits it carried... and while it did deploy a fresh team of Primals to the battlefield, its speed wouldn't avail it much at the front of a major battle formation. However, ZAFT hadn't been neglecting its special warships program any more than it had been its Mobile Suit program, and the Eternal had a few new surprises installed.

The old METEOR systems that had been used to enhance the firepower of the Freedom and the Justice, and to some extent, the Liberty and Righteous, were now gone, since none of those suits was a permanent part of the ZAFT battle order and hadn't been for some time. There had been talk of adapting the METEORs for other Mobile Suits, but that project had eventually been scrapped, citing concerns that there was no need for such firepower in a peacetime military. In retrospect at the moment there were many that wished they had gone through with the METEOR adaptation scheme, but in all reality, the project that had replaced the METEORs was just as valuable, if not more so, than a little extra firepower. Concerned about the massive worldwide increase in usage of beam type weapons, in both Mobile Suits and capital warships, ZAFT had looked into creating large scale defenses against such weapons, and had succeeded. Designated the "Mirrorblade" system, it was an adaptation of the Earth Alliance's Geschmedig-Panzer beam redirection technology, which was itself an outgrowth of Mirage Colloid technology.

The Mirrorblade projectors, large, bulbous contraptions mounted where the METEORs had previously docked, not only projected a several square kilometer GP field in front of the Eternal, providing a screen against beam based attacks for the Eternal and all ships sheltering behind the area of the screen, put also projected a second field slightly behind the outer defensive one. The purpose of this second field was not back up defense, but rather offense. When beams encountered the outer field, going in either direction, their paths were wildly redirected and sent wide of the initial point of aim... but the effect, while seemingly random, was actually far from it, and beams striking the outer field at a certain very odd angle could in fact pass through and be "straightened" out so they flew true. What the inner field did was take beam fire from inside the shield and bend it to that odd angle, so that when it continued on and struck the outer field, it bent back into its true course, basically allowing ships behind the shield to shoot out while enemies could not shoot in! The system sucked power directly from the Eternal's engines, meaning it could not maneuver while the Mirrorblade was active, but then again, it didn't need to as much!

As soon as the Mirrorblade was turned on, there was an enormous slackening in firepower being directed at the vanguard fleet, as many of the Brotherhoods most powerful long ranged weapons were beam based, and for a few seconds, before the Brotherhood pilots and gunners realized what had happened and redirected their fire, there was an incredible pyrotechnic lightshow of multicolored plasma beams bending and refracting away from the vanguard fleet, forming an image that looked something like a knife blade cutting through water from a great distance. The vanguard fleet struck back with a vengeance, and with near impunity to counterattack, they now had a lot more time to line up their shots and focus their firepower, and shots finally started striking home, blasting apart defensive turrets and causing large sections of the Great Endeavor's hull to glow golden red with heat discharge, as the ablative plating, similar to the Archangel's armor, tried to dissipate the heat evenly. Still, the Great Endeavor did not slow in the slightest, and the Brotherhood Mobile Suits quickly discovered that once they were inside the Mirrorblade shield, they could attack normally, and they did so with great fervor.

However, much to their constrenation, they didn't just find the same old, same old mixture of mass production Mobile Suits arrayed against them. No, now there was an avenging angel, a Gundam, the very Seraph itself, loose amongst them, and they rapidly found themselves in the position of sheep with a raging lion in the pen. Some of the controllers merely blinked, and missed entirely the destruction of their Zealot or Martyr as the Seraph winged by, blasting with one hand and slicing with the other, great billowing wings of aqua-green light flowing behind him, entrapping some Mobile Suits like flies in honey, miring them until Kira or other friendly forces could blast them at their leisure, and acting as yet another defensive barrier to prevent the Zealots and Martyrs from getting shots in against their true targets, the capital warships. It didn't happen instantly, but over the course of the next several minutes the Brotherhood forces began to melt away, growing more and more outnumbered, the shoe quite definitely on the other foot now, unable to cope with the lack of covering fire from the Great Endeavor and the unstoppable, intimidating presence of the Seraph. They were teetering on the brink of destruction when the Great Endeavor's main cannon once more reached full charge, and this time there was simply no other target to be had.

Kira, and many others saw the massive cannon barrel swing in their direction, and all the warships save the Eternal began maneuvering wildely, trying to spread out to avoid collateral damage if and when the shot landed among them. Kira flew to the front of the Archangel and spread his Fractal Wings wide and far out in front of him, tuned to Citadel mode. Perhaps it would mean the loss of the wings, but if it stopped the blast of that hideous cannon short, then it was worth it! They only needed a little more time and then the Brotherhood Mobile Suits would be in a route, and from then on it would be all downhill to victory! Familiar by now with the mechanics of the Great Endeavor's cannon, Kira turned all his polarizer screens to max and even shut off some of his main cameras just before he thought the shot would go off, closing his eyes tightly as well. Such it was that he, along with the greater majority of the people in the vanguard fleet, missed the extraordinary events that occured after the Great Endeavor fired.

Because the anti-lithium torus fired by the Great Endeavor's AMP cannon was also, in some ways, a energy projectile contained within a magnetic field, just like a plasma or hyper-impulse blast, if many orders of magnitude more powerful, and when the anti-matter torus struck the Mirrorblade shield it SKIPPED, like a stone would off a pond's surface when thrown at a low angle. After that point its trajectory became essentially randomized, and it spun off at a steep angle, a glowing white streak too bright to look at directly, sailing down out of the night sky like a falling star to impact on the Lunar surface, perhaps tugged by gravity, perhaps not, but fortunately in a dead, empty sector several hundred kilometers from the nearest Lunar city. Still, the flash lit up the starry night like a strobe light burning out, and this time there was a shockwave which could be seen rippling across the Moon's surface, rock twisting and flowing like water as the Lunar crust reacted to the sudden biting loss of several hundreds of millions of tons of rock and dust in a crater almost six kilometers deep and fifty across, a near perfect circle.

The sudden distress of the Brotherhood's main forces was not unnoticed, nor was the negation of the simplest solution unheeded. While Noah had truly been enjoying himself dealing out judgement to the pitiful old racers that had thought they could stop him, play time had to come to an end eventually, and, truth be told, he was glad for it. He'd almost starting growing bored, like with a game set on too easy a difficulty mode. He wanted a challenge again, now that he knew what he was doing. Or at least, knew it better than he used to. Learn by doing, that was what Ultimate Coordinators were best at... and by training against the best of the best, he could make sure his skills improved that much faster! And if he happened to wipe them out in the process... well, that was what simulation battles were for! Randolf and Dylan were reading as disabled to his screens, the useless lumps, and overy sixty percent of the Zealots and Martyrs were likewise disabled or destroyed. Serious damage, but not insurmountable. The Great Endeavor itself had taken more damage than he'd calculated, due to the deployment of that damnably interesting one way beam shield, fruits of one of a very few ZAFT projects they had managed to somehow keep secret from him.

At least the Vengeance and the Retribution were still handling themselves, each tying up two of the Clyne Faction Gundams, though Noah was privately of the opinion that Ashino wasn't nearly giving it his all just yet, because there was simply no way Cagalli Zala-Attha, Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww, none of them being in the top listings of the Clyne Faction, could really pose a challenge to Ashino! Not while he was in the Retribution! He must still be getting the hang of the new control scheme, and the capabilities of his Gundam. That was the only rational explanation. As for Shinn in the Vengeance, dueling with the Vorpal and the Phoenix King, well, Noah was willing to cut his newest convert a little slack. Athrun Zala and Ysak Joule were probably the two best Coordinator pilots alive at the moment, though perhaps he should leave that determination open and see who survived to the end of the battle, since Shinn might very well surmount one of them today! It definitely didn't look like that battle was going anywhere fast, and he was glad for that, because it took two Clyne Faction machines out of the fight, and they were two he was definitely, deep down inside, feeling a little anxious about confronting himself.

Cray was still on approach, but he'd be here shortly. No doubt he'd been spotted already, since he wasn't exactly making any efforts to hide himself as he jetted towards the USN armada's flanks at top speed, but with the communciations jamming still in effect, there was no way for the USN to respond effectively at this point in time. Not that there were all that many "effective" responses those gaggles of deluded fools could muster against the Revenant anyway, but not being able to talk to each other definitely kept them even more hamstrung than usual! Noah smirked to himself slightly, ignoring the murmurs of disquiet from the Harbingers in the bridge around him. If they got this broken up over just a little lack of communication, how would they react when he erased all the financial records and THEN cut off communications on a much wider scale? They'd probably revert to the tribal state, huddling in corners, whimpering at the rage of the gods splitting the sky! He was looking forward to that, he found.

Yes, all in all, things weren't going perfectly, but they were far from out of control. With Cray arriving in the near future he could afford to let off distracting the main USN fleets, as they would definitely be more than tied up with the Revenant. He could now spare the time to do himself, as was usually the case, what his underlings had failed time and time again to do, namely, destroy the Archangel and the Clyne Faction itself, once and for all. He'd been feeling an irritating scratching at the edges of his mind for some time now, and it was coming from the Archangel. It was probably Lacus. He was mildly impressed at her ability to communicate at distance, something he was singularly terrible at. He could listen just fine, but talk... talking was a problem. Of course, he doubted she had much talent for telekinesis, and his mastery of Bodily Systems Control was second to none! To each their own, of course... he could barely humm a note, and she could infuse her songs with enough feeling to make even a demon cry with unabashed happiness! Of course, now he was confronted with the problem of how to destroy the Archangel without killing Lacus at the same time, but he was fairly sure he could disable the warship without destroying it. A boarding action would be messy, but they would have the time after he scattered these annoying fleets, hopefully.

Of course there was still the problem of a certain brown haired, tousled headed, purple eyed genetic cousin of his, and even worse, the Gundam he was piloting to such detrimental effect of the main Brotherhood forces. Noah really, really wished there had been a good opportunity to utilize the nanological countermeasure he'd devised for Kira using his marrow sample and Green EDEN, BEFORE this battle came to pass, but alas, no such opportunity had presented itself, what with Gil provoking matters and all. Thus he'd lost his chance to fight this battle the easy way, by eliminating Kira before he even got a chance to get in a Gundam, but what could he do? The world was not a perfect place. Not yet. He still had more work to do in that regard. He considered what to do about Kira as he flew towards the Archangel, knowing that the quickest and easiest way to get Kira to confront him would be to seem to threaten dear Lacus. His skills still did not match up to Kira's, not even close. However, his technology outmatched the Seraph by a considerable amount. How then, to turn it into a battle of technology, versus one of skill? It was going to take delicate timing, and careful micromanagment of the LAICEPs, Noah decided. And hopefully he could land a quantum beacon on the Seraph at some point in time, then it would be a war on two fronts... and the victor would be the one controlling the Seraph!

He spotted the Seraph only instants before Kira spotted him in turn, the extra heightened spatial awareness that was the main power of Latent Newtypes, at least as far as Noah was aware of, lending Kira plenty of warning of oncoming threats, even ones he wasn't consciously aware of. It was one of the reasons Kira was such an exceptional pilot... he could quite literally feel attacks coming at him from almost every direction at once, and he could keep track of himself and multiple targets, all moving in wildly different directions, as easily as most people could stare at a single spot on a wall! Noah himself lacked much of that kind of subconscious perception... he could keep track of people by feeling their mental presences, but with the distances involved in space combat, he could only do so effectively while in a seed rage, and that was hardly the most efficient way to spend his time! Physical exhaustion was a rapid side effect, as well as mental exhaustion, and he could afford NEITHER at the moment, especially mental exhaustion. He needed to be in top form until they reached Earth, at the very least.

Noah turned control over to the Kira LAICEPs for the moment, interested in seeing how a copy from five years ago would fare against the real deal. He didn't hold out hope for much, but one never knew. The Brotherhood opened up on Kira with a shot from the 550mm mortar, the shell Mirage Colloid wrapped to make it hard to predict, another cluster bomb munition, while the QC spike driver also oriented and opened fire, spitting a hail of QC slivers at the Seraph, while the left arm came up and began firing FRALA beams as fast as the rifle could cycle, cutting some of the QC slivers out of space, the firing angles were so close. Kira guarded against the slivers and the FRALA beams behind a solid wall of overlapping Citadel Shields created by his Fractal Wings, QC slivers skipping and deflecting away in showers of gold sparks, while the FRALA beams carved harmless lines of more golden sparks across the aqua-green fields before dissipating. Noah was impressed by the strength of the Orb Gundam's defenses, but he knew it wouldn't be enough to hold out for long! The mortar shell detonated, having arced over the Fractal Wings, and sprayed the void behind the barrier with dozens of submunitions, a hail of fiery death.

The Fractal Wings barrier broke apart, the feathers whirling randomly, but there was nothing behind them! Noah stared for a second and then overrode the controls, jerking the Brotherhood to the side in a frantic evasion as yellow linear rifle tracers zipped by, within feet of the Brotherhood's body, coming from "below", where the Seraph had ducked under its own shield even as Noah had been distracted by the pyrotechnic effects of his shots against the shield. Noah frowned, still not fully used to fighting in the three dimensional environment of space, and fired several more times with the FRALA, using his own aim this time, but he had no more luck than his LAICEPs, and the Seraph dodged all of his shots, and even managed to close the distance and return fire in the process! Displeased, Noah twitched the Brotherhood around and pointed his right hand, and the 5mm AMP rifle it contained, at the Seraph. The range was a bit close, but the Brotherhood could get clear, Noah was confident. He fired, wondering what sort of panicked thoughts were going through cousin Kira's mind right now? He wished he was close enough to look and see.

Noah was disappointed though, because Kira handled the attack with aplomb and even style, his Fractal Wings having returned to him while he closed the distance towards the Brotherhood, and he reformed his frontal shield, this time in GP mode, flinching away and hiding his eyes and cameras behind his forearm citadel shields as the 5mm antimatter torus lanced out and struck his shield and skipped, just like the Great Endeavor's shot had done on the Mirrorblade shield, though this time Kira was expecting the skip, and while he wasn't able to send the shot back at the Brotherhood, which was what he'd wanted to do, he DID send it at the Great Endeavor, which was a much bigger target. The flaring white speck of antimatter struck one of the Great Endeavor's Citadel Shields full on and detonated, shattering the barrier like glass and scouring a section of the Great Endeavor's hull clean of weapons emplacements and even armor plate, baring inner structure to vacuum for the first time, though only the very outer layers. Noah eyed the damage through the Brotherhood's cameras, even as holographic damage reports popped up on the Great Endeavor's bridge around him, and he frowned heavily. Things were not going as planned.

He was immediately forced to turn his full attention to piloting the Brotherhood, as the Seraph closed to within melee range and almost sliced the Brotherhood in half at the waist while Noah was inspecting the damage to his ship. Still, even as he dodged backward and then dodged, and dodged again, by a narrower margin each time, Noah was smirking again. Because while the Kira LAICEPs had failed to do much against the real Kira, and the Jeremiah LAICEPs wasn't even worth mentioning, the melee LAICEPs, the Frost LAICEPs... he was betting that would be a different story. Zacharis Frost, BCPU level six, had been one of the only people to really challenge, even frighten Kira, once he fully realized his powers as an Ultimate Coordinator. Even a shadow of that, combined with Noah's superior intellect and planning, would certainly be a devastating combination... even to Kira Yamato! The Brotherhood sidestepped and flipped backwards, gaining a few dozens of meters of space as it stowed its rifles and adopted a lower, more balanced stance, even though it was floating in a vacuum and not standing on solid ground.

The four wings swung around, the two outer ones coming up under the armpits, the two inner points pointing over the shoulders, as the Brotherhood raised its arms over its head, cracks of golden light searing down their middle as the arm bones seperated once more, stretching and straining the LCR armor until it tore like gluey taffy, leaving two arms in place of each one, the sight of which brought even Kira up short for a moment. The process happened quickly, over in a little over a second, and at no point in time did he detect the Brotherhood actually becoming vulnerable or immobile. A brilliant, crystalline, six meter sword blade slid out of each forearm of the seperated arms and locked into place, giving the Brotherhood four... even as Kira thought that, bright pink beam energy flared from the wingtip emitters and suddenly the Brotherhood had... eight, eight swords, four of them QC, four plasma beam, all twitching and moving as if under independent command, even as they blurred and sparkled from the eye watering effects of the overlapped holoprojections. Kira stowed his rifle and drew a regular beam saber to go along with the anti-ship sword he had in his right hand. While not of much use offensively, two blades versus eight was better odds than one blade versus eight!

The Brotherhood crouched for a moment long, like a cat about to spring... and then it DID, moving with a blurring speed Kira had not expected from its actions up until now, a surety and a malicious purpose behind its blows that had definitely not been there a moment ago! The wingsabers swung down like a four cornered jaw closing, trying to snip off or pin his arms and gut him through the groin, something he avoided by a tap on his thrusters that sent him to the side, only to meet stabbing and slicing QC blades, which he did not dare meet with either sword, seeing as the crystal blades stabbed right through his beam saber like it wasn't there and scored a couple bright silver scratches on his shoulder and chest before he was able to whirl away, suddenly finding himself very much on the defensive! The Brotherhood simply would not let up on him, its limbs moving with such lightning speed that the holoprojector illusions were all but superfulous, and it took all of Kira's skill, experience and concentration to just evade and keep slightly ahead of the monster!

_Lacus... who's IN this machine!?_ Kira demanded, once more dodging a series of eviscerating blows by what could only have been inches. He parried two wingsabers coming down from overhead with his beam saber, batted a wingersaber aside with his beam sword, and still almost got skewered by the last wingsaber, deflecting it at the last moment with a few Fractal Wing feathers, which he promptly lost to jabbing motions from the QC arm blades, which punched right through Citadel or GP shields to the feathers themselves, shorting them out or slicing them apart, chipping away at Kira's primary defensive weapon.

_Nobody is in that machine, Kira... its another one of the remote controlled ones. Why?_ Lacus asked, her tone deeply concerned as she sensed the amount of trouble he was having.

_Because I could almost SWEAR I'm fighting Frost right now! This attack style... this is the same sort of thing he used on me outside of Denver... but now he's got six extra arms and seven extra swords! I don't know how much longer I can stay ahead of him!_ Kira winced, as even as he thought that, a QC sword slipped through his defenses for a moment and whacked a notch in his right shoulder pauldron. He slid away before the blade could dig in deep, but the Brotherhood kept hounding him mercilessly, as if it was hungry for his very blood! If it wasn't Frost in there, if it was just a remote controlled machine, then it was definitely someone who KNEW Frost, knew what he could do, knew how he fought, and had figured out a way to emulate it, to a frightening degree! _ I don't suppose anyone else is free to give me a hand, are they?_

_They're all... very busy..._ Lacus replied worriedly.

_That's what I was afraid of. Don't worry... I'll manage. I think I was just a little rusty... I'm getting back in the hang of things now!_ Kira assured her confidently, hopefully hiding from her the trepidation he still felt deep down. He WAS getting better, but the Frost-thing kept changing as well, and it's strategy of targeting his Fractal Wings was definitely worrying him. If he lost the Wings, he would lose his best defensive options, and many offensive options as well, and there was no quick way to get new ones, not without going all the way back down to Orb! He was still mulling over what to do when aid arrived from an unexpected source... several Solar Knight Archons and ZAFT Primals had noticed his apparent distress and had decided to come try and help out. He wanted to call out, tell them to stay back, that this foe was too much for them, but he had no comms still, and they weren't part of the tenuous pyschic network Lacus and Katie were maintaining.

The Brotherhood noticed the newcomers as well, and wasted no time in dealing with them. It turned on them so fast it must have seemed like its front melted through its body and replaced its back. Two of the Archons didn't reverse thrust in time, and the Brotherhood pounced on them like a lion playing with rabbits, its wingsabers spreading wide like four cornered jaws once more, before stabbing down as one and impaling one Archon through both shoulder and both hip sockets, instantly destroying functionality in all limbs. The second Archon was sent spinning away in four sparking parts, cut in half at the waist and from groin to crown by two strokes of the right hand arms. The Brotherhood turned its attention back to the impaled Archon and its arms blurred, thrusting and stabbing away with abandon for a full second, landing almost twenty blows in that time, each penetrating all the way through the trapped Archon's chest, until when the Brotherhood ripped off the Archon's arms and legs by extending its wingsabers again, the Archon fell over backwards in two parts, its chest entirely pierced away by the jabs.

_Yeah, that's a Frost type move there._ Kira noted with disquiet. _Flashy, over the top... and all the more gruesomely effective for it!_ He could all too easily imagine having his own arms and legs disabled, and then seeing the blades come flashing in again and again and again... he couldn't help but wonder how many hits the pilot had lived through, if it had been several, or if he'd been lucky enough to bite it on the first thrust? Somehow, he didn't think the Frost like being controlling the Brotherhood now would have made it end that quickly. _All the more reason to stop him here and now, before he can keep his murderous spree going! But how?_

While Kira pondered that, the Brotherhood added a brace of Primal's to its tally, not bothering with flashy moves this time, just a quick stab, in and out, from two arms each, right through the cockpit area, one stab angling down, the other up, cutting the pilots open and destroying the main CPU's, rendering the Mobile Suits limp and dead. That left one Archon and one Primal, one of the Inferno varients, both of whom had managed to avoid the Brotherhood's attacks so far by staying farther back and not rushing in blindly. Which meant they were either canny or scared. Probably both, though Kira wasn't sure if he wanted them to be more canny or more scared... canny would be helpful to him, but scared would help them stay alive longer. Whichever the case, though from different military forces, they seemed to work together well, as the Inferno peppered the Brotherhood with dark red supercharged beam blasts, which skipped and bounced and eddied away from the Brotherhood's armor harmlessly. At the same time though, the Archon threw one of its Mobile Suit class grenades, hoping to catch the Brotherhood napping. Kira could have told them it wasn't going to work, but he applauded them for trying.

The Brotherhood deactivated its top two wingsabers and blasted the incoming grenade with a quick blurt from the two Thermal Exciter's also in its wings, detonating the explosive well short of its target, and half melting the Archon's lower sword arm for its trouble, though it retained the use of its sword-gun, it now could not switch weapons even if it wanted to, with the armor resolidifying around the hilt of the sword. The Inferno danced forward and launched missiles from the detachable tube launchers on its shoulders, the missiles traveled a few meters from the tubes and then burst open of their own accord, releasing huge sheets of sticky, blazing napalm, which could burn even underwater or in space because it provided its own oxygen for the reaction. Whoever was in control of the Brotherhood proved they weren't Frost, because they flinched slightly as the flames washed over the Brotherhood, even though the napalm couldn't possibly hurt something like the Brotherhood. Being covered in flames was scary, and that was that.

Kira saw his chance, as the Inferno brought around its 300mm anti armor shotgun and let loose, right at the Brotherhood's chest, causing it to retract its QC arm blades and extend the palm mounted Positron Reflectors to the front in order to defend against physical munitions from the shotgun blast, as well as a flight of missiles from the Archon, hovering at midrange. All of the Brotherhood's attention was on the two Mobile Suits in front of it, and so Kira dived forward, beam sword extended in an all or nothing thrust for the pit of the Brotherhood's back, just under where the cooling wings attached to the body. Kira was almost sure he'd struck home with a telling blow, even feeling the shudder of the blade crunching through armor and interior structure, until he saw the top half of his sword blade spinning off into the void, having snapped when he'd thrust it against the unyielding surface of a Positron Reflector shield, coming from the Brotherhood's lower left palm, which had spun around in its socket and was now pointing directly backward, guarding the Brotherhood's rear. The two outer cooling wings swung around rapidly, wingsabers still lit, and Kira was forced to abandon the broken sword hilt and throw himself backwards desperately, now berefit of a good way, except for the Armor Schnieders and the linear rifle, neither which the Brotherhood would let him effectively use, to damage the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood reactivated all its wingsabers and unsheathed its arm blades, moving in on the Primal Inferno and the Archon, seeing them to be the greater threats at the moment, though Kira knew the pilot, or the remote operator, or whatever, of the Brotherhood was keeping a close eye on the Seraph, just waiting for Kira to relax or try and retreat, and then Kira knew the Brotherhood would abandon the other two in an instant to come after him. _Okay think... no sword... down to a gun he can easily dodge or knives I have to get WAY too close to use... there's got to be a way around this..._ Kira was still desperately wracking his mind when several flights of missiles, of both the anti-vehicle and larger anti-ship type, sprayed the area, causing the Brotherhood to flinched and guard itself with its Positron Reflectors while sweeping the void around it with its Thermal Exciters, totally forgetting about its melee attacking capability for several moments, all its blades retracted in favor of defense. Kira looked up and saw the Archangel on the approach, and his heart leapt in his chest. This was Lacus's doing, he knew... he could feel her, like a warm embrace, comforting him and bolstering him.

The Archangel opened fire on the Brotherhood with its side mounted Valiants repeatedly, though each railgun round just evaporated in a flash of light as they struck the Positron Reflectors, it still kept the Brotherhood mostly in one place and occupied his attention. Kira took out his 80mm autocannon and the combination weapon he'd borrowed from a Dawndrake and circled to the left of the Brotherhood, while the Primal Inferno took its shotgun around to the right. Positron shields attached to the Brotherhood's palms tracked them around, but when the Archon began edging in, and new flights of missiles began arcing towards the Brotherhood from the Archangel, Kira smiled, because he knew the Brotherhood was in trouble. The pilot might be Frost like, on offense anyway, but he was nothing like him on defense... indeed, once backed into a corner he stayed put behind his shields and static defenses, a rookie mistake if Kira had ever seen one. Never stop moving in Mobile Suit combat... to sit still was to die. People could be aiming at you when you weren't aware of it... sitting still made their job much easier than it had to be!

Kira was just drawing his beads, anticipating where the Brotherhood would dodge once the pilot realized that sitting still would just mean getting swarmed by missiles and that making a break for it was his only chance, when a huge blue-red-green flash and long series of bright explosions from the direction of the main USN armada drew his attention to another new and unwelcome development. Kira zoomed in his camera's on the center of the new conflict and he blanched, staring in disbelief. He couldn't believe his eyes! He'd SEEN that very Gundam DESTROYED a little more than a week ago! Blown to little pieces by the Spear of Ares. But now it was making an unholy mess of the USN armada, having just wiped out almost as many ships in a single shot of its Radiation Cannon as the Great Endeavor had managed with its anti-matter gun! And Cray didn't stop there, oh no, he piled into the fleets like a bull plowing through a china shop, diving right into the middle of the heaviest concentration of ships he could find and coming up shooting in all directions, flailing his beam spiked chain and generally going to town, in a much too lively manner for someone Kira had been certain was finally dead!

_Lacus... I'm starting to get a very bad feeling about this..._

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"WHERE ARE THEY!? WHERE!?" Cray bellowed, so loudly that some of the comm speakers aboard the USN ships blew or shorted out. "These pretty lights are not what I want! Fahg, these small fry annoy me so much... ohh... that was nice... good secondary explosions... NO... NO... where are they!? Where are those bastards, who thought they could kill me?" Cray punctuated his demand by swinging his beam spiked anti-ship chain down onto the bridge of a Nelson class destroyer, shattering it in a spray of metal and glass and plastic polymers, fire pluming and jetting from rents in the upper hull. He turned, his head scanning from side to side, dead yellow eyes glowing with intent, like a predator hunting for prey as he searched for those inconvenient bugs that had thought they could destroy him so easily! He tracked his left arm across a wide arc, spraying two meter thick green energy bolts like water from a hose, until the arc of the arm ended with the axe blades embedded in the side of a Drake class escort frigate, which then blew to pieces as the gatling Gottfried pumped energy bolts into it.

Desperate cannon and beam fire ricocheted and bounced from his Citadel Scaled hide, occassional lucky hits blowing out scales and sections of armor plating, but none striking home to cause more than surface damage. His shoulder mounted anti-ship launchers began chain firing, all single warhead ship killers, instead of the cluster munitions he'd equipped himself with for the Lunar assault. His quad 120mm gatling cannon defensive turrts spun crazily in the target rich environment, spitting deluges of bright orange tracers like sparks from a fountain firework. The four triple 175cm linear cannon turrets volley fired, blowing gaping holes through a pair of Nazca class destroyers, so that they looked like swiss cheese before fire and explosions consumed them. It truly was a glorious tapestry of destruction he was weaving, but Cray hardly even noticed, so consumed with a need to find and crush and obliterate those damned Clyne Faction bastards who had humiliated him again... AGAIN! It was starting to get to the point where those naughty voices in the back of his head that told him snidely that the Clyne Faction pilots were just superior to him were actually sounding CORRECT and that he could NOT stand!

Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors scattered and darted around him like spray cast up by waves pounding against an unyielding rocky shore, chaotic and random in their attempts to come after him, not using any cohesive stratgey at all as far as he could detect, just sort of coming at him in small groups as they "felt" like it. As a result they were just feeding themselves into the meatgrinder of his automatic CIWS systems, but who was he to argue or deny them their chance at violent, painful death? Those who managed to wind their way through the crisscrossing nets of CIWS fire were swarmed and disabled by the Rigor Mortis pods, floating like frozen dolls or models until random blurts of fire, friendly or hostile, blew them apart. The Revenant turned a slow backflip and slammed the toe of one foot into the bridge of a Laurasia class that was trying to circle behind him, the dual 80cm artillery cannon in the top of that foot firing several times until the warship bridge blew out like a point blank shotgun blast to a man's face.

A stinging sensation in his lower left hip caused Cray to rotate around, whirling his anti-ship chain through a flight of Cavaliers, hurling them far and wide like balls from a bat, broken and shattered lumps of metal, to confront the source of whatever had actually managed to slightly damage him. "Aha! I recognize those! They're the ones that go "Squish" instead of "Kaboom!" when I stomp on them!" Cray cried gleefully, glad of at least a few familiar faces to work out his frustrations on. They weren't the Clyne Faction, weren't the Warmaster or Vorpal, but these new FNE models, the ones called "Panzerwulf's", they would do in a pinch. There were more of them this time too, eight versus the three he'd encountered on the Moon, and they at least pretended to be operating as a unit, splitting up into two wings of four to come at him from different directions, trying to sandwich him front and back. At the same time a seperate unit of six or seven smaller, faster moving Mobile Suits, the ALU ones with all the weapons in their forearms, the only worthwhile ones that nation had, was trying to come at him from below. "I accept the challenge!" Cray smirked.

Rockets fell like rain around Cray from the multiple launchers on the shoulders of each Panzerwulf, wreathing the Revenant in a new outer skin of fire and shrapnel, but the rockets lacked the punch to tear through the Citadel Scales, even in bulk, and Cray merely chuckled and shook his head. He'd have wagged a finger at them had the Revenant possessed any, but since it didn't he did the next bext thing and attempted to blast them all to cinders with the gatling Gottfried in his left arm, even as he coiled his chain around his right arm as the 550cm Radiation Cannon once more became operational after the last firing. "Let's see, let's see... ah... as a former colleague of mine used to say... YOU'RE TERMINATED!" Cray shouted, whirling and pointing his right arm at the front group of Panzerwulf's, energy discharge already crackling around the cannon muzzle before an enormous beam of green-red-blue hard radiation spat from the barrel. Three of them managed to sidestep quickly enough, but one was caught almost dead center in the path of the shot, and couldn't get far enough to the side in time to avoid being bathed in the hellish energies of the blast, which ate the Panzerwulf away like a sugar cube held under a sink faucet gushing hot water. Other explosions bloomed in the distance as luckless parts of the USN armada were unintentionally caught in the path of the shot as well.

The rest of the Panzerwulf's and Garou's charged forward with admirable abandon and Cray actually started to feel like he might even enjoy himself a little bit here. Of course, true enjoyment would be elusive until he managed to locate and obliterate the damned white Archangel and its Gundams, but with all the other warships and Mobile Suits cluttering up the view, he was having a hell of a time searching for them! He needed to clean some house, and THEN once things were less crowded he could do a better job of looking. Or, he realized with a happy smile, he could just destroy things until the Clyne Faction came to him, as they invariably would once he'd killed enough fodder. Yes, that was definitely sounding like the best plan... why exert himself when all he had to do was act naturally, and they would soon rush right into his embrace, like long lost family members eager to reunite with one they loved. And Cray knew they loved him, deep down inside... why else would they consistently help him feel so wonderfully alive if they didn't care for him, right? "Aww, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside already... come out, come out wherever you are! Your dear Cray has returned! Don't be shy... come give me a nice, big hug and we'll kiss and I'll blast you into your component atoms and everyone will walk away happy! Ahahahaha!"

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_I'm beginning to think we may have a problem._ Athrun noted with grave misgiving, as he looked over at the main USN armada, which was doing a very good job of falling apart like a sand castle under attack by a screaming, tantrum throwing seven year old, ever since the Revenant had managed to pull the impossible and come back from certain death, with one hell of a chip on his shoulder to boot!

_No, really? You should get a job as a sportscaster... you already know how to state the obvious._ Ysak said savagely, Siegfried twitching in his hand as he clenched and unclenched that gauntlet in a anger control mechanism. This fight against the Vengeance, characterized by brief bursts of frenetic melee combat and then short breaks while the Vengeance circled around and tried to come at them from a new angle, with a slightly varying strategy that still hinged around chopping them up with its massive sword, was not to his liking. Either stay and fight or run away... one or the other, not this chase the target bullshit! Oh, if only he had a Fusion reactor and the same control system as the Vengeance... he'd tear this bastard into fish food, and derive immense satisfaction from it! But he didn't have either of those, and so he was forced to wait for the enemy to come to him, rather than take the fight to it.

_We need to get a Gundam or two over there soon, or its the USN that will be in a rout, not the Brotherhood! Kira's tied up solid with that golden Gundam, the vanguard fleet is still engaged with the Great Endeavor, and the four of us have these two to worry about! Damn it, where the hell is Mu la Flaga when you need him?_ Athrun complained bitterly.

_Down on Earth, in Orb, since he's still a potential terrorist, and we didn't want to risk him falling back under Noah's mind control mojo if he came into close proximity so soon._ Ysak answered unhelpfully. _I must say, your wife is holding up far better than I thought she would. She and Dearka seem to have that big green Gundam locked down tight._

_Cagalli's not all hot air, but I don't think the pilot of that green Gundam is really giving it his all either. Its more like he's tying THEM up and keeping THEM busy, not the other way around. God knows why, but I suppose I can't complain about small favors, huh? Despite what she says, and how she usually acts, she's definitely a lot more shaken up inside than she used to be. I'm usually the only one who she let's see it, but... she's not invincible, despite how she acts._ Athrun replied with a frown of concern.

_She's being a guy about it, huh? Typical._ Katie cut in with a trace of amusement. _I've got an idea. Why don't you leave this red thing, which has my dear Ysak-y so pent up he's fit to burst, to the two of us, and you go help your not as invincible as she appears wife, since ever since your sword broke, you can't really hurt the Vengeance anyway? That way you could ease that background worry for her that colors every thought you send, and free up Dearka and Miriallia to take care of that nasty pest who keeps coming back. The Revenant is much more in the Warmaster's area of expertise than the Retribution after all._

_Are you sure you can handle him by yourselves?_ Athrun asked, torn by the offer. He desperately wanted to go to Cagalli, but Ysak might need his help, even the limited amount he could currently offer.

_How about, for just once in your life, you don't ask me fucking stupid questions like that and do as "I" tell you, huh? Is that too much to ask, that you let ME be the boss, ONCE!?_ Ysak retorted irritably. _Katie and I totally have this guy's number, just you wait and see. I'm going to mount that pink eyed red head on the wall over my bed! So shove off and leave this in my damned capable hands, Zala._

_What Ysak is also thinking, but doesn't want to say, is that the thought of facing and beating this guy by himself is giving him such an incredible hardon he doesn't know what to do, and he doesn't want you around to spoil it._ Katie added helpfully. There was a moment of mental silence.

_Too much information._

_Nothing to be ashamed of. I'm fucking excited, what can I say? Now LEAVE already, damned Zala! We've GOT this, wrapped up and tied with a pretty blue bow!_ Ysak growled firmly, though his cheeks flushed inside his helmet, and he vowed, in the part of his mind that was totally private, to definitely make Katie regret bringing that little side note up where ATHRUN could hear her. Though, in all actuality, he was fairly sure Katie wouldn't regret it at all, and might even have only brought it up so he would do such things later on. Additional motivation for surviving to reach said later on... ah, but he loved her more with every passing second!

_Thanks, Ysak, Katie... I'll see you guys later. Make sure you carve my initials into him as well, before you go mounting any heads._ Athrun spun and shifted to Mobile Armor mode, heading for the triplet of dancing lights that was the Warmaster, Dawn Goddess and Retribution at top speed.

_Just you and me and him now._ Katie noted smugly. _Let's work on reducing it to just me and you, hmm? Maybe then we can do something about that achy stiffness down below, eh?_

_You read my mind._

_I'm rather good at that._ Katie took a deep breath and renewed her hold on Ysak, clinging to him like a barnacle to a ship's hull, trying to eke out every last fragment of contact to boost her abilities so she could not only maintain the mental communication network, which was slowly growing easier over time as she sort of learned by doing, but also utilize her abilities to give Ysak additional advantages against this red Gundam, which had a thinking mind inside it, unlike most of the Brotherhood machines. She stretched out her senses, akin to poking at a fire with a stick, and quickly retracted them when she brushed the enemy pilot's mind. _So angry... he makes you and Cagalli look like tantrum throwing toddlers. He's got a serious mad on about something, and its not the same kind of self serving mad that Cray or Frost feel... this guy feels legitimately wronged and upset... just like you or Athrun would feel if someone hurt me or Cagalli._

_That could be useful. See what you can do about tossing more fuel on his fire. If he's mad right now, I want him blowing steam out of his ears and bursting blood vessels in his eyes._ Ysak replied, bracing himself as he saw the thermal signature of the Vengeance begin zooming towards them once more, as the Brotherhood pilot noticed that he was down to a single foe at long last.

_Umm, you sure? He's one of those people that gets faster and stronger the madder he gets... kinda like you and Kira and Athrun and Dearka, actually. He might even have one of those cool seed things you guys do._

_Well, good for him, it doesn't matter. Anger is a great motivator, up to a point. Some of us, like Kira, and myself, or so I like to think, have a higher tolerance for how far anger can take us, but in the end, we all have a point where our emotions get the better of us, and start using us, rather than the other way around. Once the anger starts controlling you, not the other way around, then your combat effectiveness flatlines, and you start making stupid mistakes. It's happened to me before, and I've seen it happen to plenty of other people. Even Frost succumbed to it, in the end. So, go poke the bear with a sharp stick now, dear. And keep poking until he snaps. Cause that is the moment where we go on the offensive for real._ Ysak ordered with a wolfish smile.

_I love it when you're cruel, Ysak-y._ Katie shivered and rubbed herself against his back in instinctive reaction. She stretched her mental muscles and popped her mental joints. _All right... time to put to use every girl's most potent weapon, and the true sharpest blade on the Vorpal... my vicious and merciless lashing tongue. This poor sap won't know what hit him..._

-------------------------------------------------

Ashino regarded the arrival of the Phoenix King and the subsequent departure of the Warmaster with a variety of emotions, the chief among them being indifference. He was both slightly disappointed and elated with himself because he could not seem to muster up any real sense of hatred against his opponents, despite their best efforts to kill him. It would certainly make it easier upon him if he were able to get angry and desire to kill them in turn, but he was happy to see that the recent string of tragedies and dealings with devils had not damaged his hard won human empathy much, and while he was certainly annoyed at the Clyne Faction for their efforts, they were in truth too weak, those two Gundams, to actually pose a serious threat to him, and so he had been able to waste time with them in an agreeable stalemate, ostensibly providing support to the Brotherhood cause while at the same time casuing no great damage to the strength of the current "enemy" forces.

The equation changed slightly with the swapping out of the Phoenix King for the Warmaster, for the Gundam as well as the pilot itself was an altogether different kettle of fish from the support optimized Warmaster and its pilots, Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww. Ashino could not forget the last time he had faced down Athrun Zala and Cagalli Zala-Attha together, though that had been before their marriage; in Panama, when he had dueled with Athrun and had actually lost the Bane, his first Gundam, to Cagalli. It had been a day of mountainous highs and deep trench like lows, with the loss of his precious Gundam and his subsequent near death experience, but it had also been the day he'd first met Jean, and thus he could not bring himself to remember it in anything other than a golden light. However, the situation was quite different today, versus that long ago date, the beginning of his journey on the path to becoming a real human being, and the Retribution was an entirely different animal than the Bane, as was Ashino himself.

He still couldn't force himself to enjoy the prospect of combat with the two Clyne Faction Gundams, despite his past history of fights with Athrun and the fact that he was Athrun Zala, son of one of the most hated Coordinators ever to live, but at least he could look forward to a more complete test of his skills and the capabilities of the Retribution now. The Dawn Goddess now dropped back into a support role, taking out its large two handed combination rifle once more, while the Phoenix King wreathed its gauntlets in stark pink fire that coalesced into twin dual bladed swords, before diving at the Retribution head on, daring him to focus his attention on the apparently more immediate threat. Ashino sighed and declined to fall victim to such a basic tactic, and kept plenty of attention on the Dawn Goddess, so when she fired her large beam cannon at him, he was able to dodge with ease, even though it came right over the Phoenix King's shoulder, at a tough to predict angle.

He was more impressed with the dart like missile that sped underneath the Phoenix King's left arm and snagged the plasma energy of the Phoenix King's beam swords, dragging it behind it in a twisting fantail until the munition slammed into his hastily erected Obdurate Shield in Positron mode, causing the river of plasma flame to splash and eddy like water as it met the impenetrable wall of anti-matter. The Phoenix King wasted no time in circumnavigating the Obdurate Shield, even as the Dawn Goddess continued to pour firepower at the Retribution's front to occupy his attention and force him to keep channeling power into his shield. More plasma energy gathered in the Phoenix King's hands, until it thrust them both at him, palms first, and fired twin seething columns of heat energy at him, which struck and slammed into his torso and right shoulder, flickering flames snapping hungrily but ultimately futilly against his Citadel Scales. Ashino didn't stick around for the continuous flamethrower stream to eat through his Citadel Scales, throwing himself backward and swapping in his two Glaive Wurm Edged Munition Catapults, since his other ranged weapons were ineffective against the armor of these two Gundams.

He aimed one at each Gundam and let fly, barely a flicker escaping the barrels as the saw disc-esque shells engaged their Mirage Colloid wrappers as soon as they left the firing chamber. Though the Orb Gundams did possess the sensor capability to strip away Mirage Colloid at short ranges, it wasn't something they had on all the time because it interfered with many targeting sensors and stressed the control computers to a high degree, not to mention put everything in black and white, which could be disruptive to pilots used to full color displays and the ability to distinguish weapons fire, among other things, merely by the color of the shot. One disc struck the Phoenix King pretty much dead center in the pit of the belly, while the other took the Dawn Goddess high on the left shoulder. The Phoenix King crumpled like a man kicked in the belly by a horse, armor shards flying from the wound torn in its torso, though Athrun was already reacting and had his forearm Citadel Shields in place to block the follow up rounds, each of which made his shields shiver and vibrate under the force of the explosion, until he reversed thrust and entered evasive maneuvers, throwing Ashino's aim off for the moment.

For her part, Cagalli lost her left shoulder beam cannon, and a good chunk of the shoulder itself, foulling the launch tubes of the detachable missile launcher on the back of that side of the torso. She flinched backward and brought up her own Citadel Shield projectors, somewhat slower than Athrun, but still in time to ward off all but one more hit, whih struck her right hip and half severed the leg. In space that was far from a crippling casualty though, and she fought on gamely, though at a much greater distance from the Retribution than before. Ashino was moderately pleased at the effectiveness of the EMC guns, with the Dawn Goddess down several weapons and with a badly damaged leg, and the Phoenix King sporting a sparking and fluid leaking crater in its stomach. They would definitely be more cautious when attacking him from now on, plainly caught by surprise by the cloaked munitions. Ashino launched more volleys of razor edged explosive discs at them, but both had wised up and turned on their vari-camera's, and they blocked and evaded the stream of shots without further damage. Still, with Vari-cameras constantly on their combat effectiveness would be slightly hampered, and that was almost as good as battle damage, in his eyes.

The Dawn Goddess ejected both of its back mounted missile launchers to free up extra maneuvering thrusters, since half the system was compromised anyway, and the other half almost out of ammunition. Keeping her injured side pointed slightly away from him, Cagalli began resolutely sniping at him with her large beam rifle, blast after blast after blast, as the Phoenix King once more moved in to engage at close range, a close fascimile of the Retribution's halberd forming from pink plasma energy between the harging Gundam's hands. Ashino tracked his EMC's at the Phoenix King, but Athrun easily dodged and wove around the volleys of razor discs, almost making it look easy, which made Ashino shake his head in admiration, even as he continuously backed up, unwilling to let Athrun close to his preferred combat range. The Phoenix King rotated around its vertical axis in midflight, in essence flipping over on its back to get its wings out of the way of a skin clipping beam blast from the Dawn Goddess, taking one hand off its beam halberd at the same time and actually snagging the passing beam cannon blast in midflight, bending and redirecting the voracious energy into an oncoming stream of EMC discs, blowing them apart in a strng of orange-red explosions that popped like blisters out of the green swathe of the beam.

Ashino had to spin to the side sharply to get his left arm Glaive Wurm out of the redirected path of the beam, which would have otherwise shot straight down his barrel, with likely unpleasant results. The sidestep cost him backward momentum though, and the Phoenix King was there in his face in the next instant, beam halberd cleaving downwards, only barely intercepted in time by Ashino's own halberd, made of a beam resistant material similar to that used for Mobile Suit physical shields. The metal haft pushed against the plasma beam haft, until the latter bent, twisted and flowed, looping several times around the metal haft, giving Athrun plenty of grip and leverage to yank the physical polearm out of Ashino's astonished hands, before spinning the beam halberd around, its axe head switching locations from the top to the bottom of the haft in time to slice into the Retribution's right hip, tearing out a line of Citadel Scales and eating into the mechanics and structure bones beneath. Ashino batted the plasma blade away with the side of his forearm, limiting the damage, but that did nothing to clear the Phoenix King from his face, and the halberd was already morphing into another pair of dual bladed beam sabers as Athrun moved in close again.

Until Ashino activated the Obdurate Shield again, in Citadel Mode, and slammed the Phoenix King backwards like a pinball off a bumper, the impact between aqua-green energy field and flame red Gundam giving off a cascade of golden sparks that just plain LOOKED painful. That impression was aided by the way the Phoenix King flipped backwards, like an omelette escaping the grillet from a too enthusiastic toss, taking several seconds to return to normal controlled flight, during which time Ashino once more backed off to a more comfortable range, dodging and twsiting around furious covering fire from the Dawn Goddess. Stalemate, once more. Ashino found himself grinning with enjoyment after that last exchange, inconclusive though it might have been, at least it had gotten his pulse racing a bit. Truly, Athrun Zala was something else, and backed up by his loving and capable wife Cagalli, Ashino could even see a possibility of the tide turning against himself eventually. Berefit of his halberd, with a notch in his right hip, but now finally warmed up properly, Ashino considered his options, taking a moment to observe the battlefield as a whole.

It was then that he realized, to his great chagrin, that the explosions and pyrotechnics involving the main USN armada were no longer the results of Noah Borander's mayhem spree, but were now being perpetuated by an altogether different source, one Ashino had been certain had been expunged from the universe already, and thankfully so! However, as his eyes and sensors proclaimed beyond a shadow of a doubt, Cray had seemingly borrowed some of Frost's unbelievable abilities to return from situations that should have resulted in his death to once more plague the human race! Honestly, Cray was even more tenacious than an STD, and like an STD he always showed up at the most inconvenient of times, even after you were sure he was finally gone for good! Ashino knew that Cray was supposed to be an ally now, that they were both fighting for the Brotherhood, but the mere idea of once more working alongside Cray, for ANY reason, made his spirit quail and his stomach heave with nausea. The only thing that would have made him feel worse would be fighting alongside Frost, but he knew that was impossible. Not even Frost could survive being at the heart of a thermonuclear explosion.

Ashino frowned deeply, the beginnings of a dangerous idea igniting in his mind, before blossoming into full out flame, a flame that seared away his doubts and his nausea, that bolstered his sickened spirit and even made him smile with relief. The Clyne Faction had failed, time and again, to end Cray's reign of merciless destruction. It was obviously time for someone else to step in and finish the job properly. Yes, he would certainly enjoy finally being able to settle things with Cray, a final accounting for all the torments and tortures Cray and the other higher level BCPU's had delighted in inflicting upon him for as long as he could remember. He'd always been the weak one, the fragile one, the one they would take their anger and frustration out on because they knew they could beat him. Well, that situation was no longer the case, and with the Retribution the roles might even be reversed entirely! It was unlikely that the Clyne Faction would let up on trying to kill him even if he were to attack Cray, since in this case enemy of my enemy did not mean my friend, but Ashino was prepared to deal with that. It was time to take the name of his Gundam to heart, and bring retribution down on those who deserved it! And at the moment, that was Craydon Louis Thresher, and the Revenant.

The Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess both seemed startled when he suddenly turned his back to them and flew off towards the main USN fleets, but they were quick to follow nonetheless, doubtless thinking he had been assigned new orders to help disrupt the main USN forces as well. And he would be taking advantage of any opportunities to damage or disrupt any non-Brotherhood forces along the way, to help make up for removing the damned Revenant from the battle, and because it was currently his job and Jean's best hope for the Brotherhood to be victorious today. But his priority goal was the destruction of the Revenant and ascertained elimination of Cray. He would crush the other BCPU into gory paste with his own gauntlets, and make sure he would never come back again! And woe betide anyone who got in his way...

-----------------------------------

Rey backed off from the ongoing fight between the Brotherhood, which was definitely everything Noah had ever hinted it would be, and more besides, and the Seraph, which was also fighting magnificently, not that he expected anything less of the "esteemed" Kira Yamato. Rey sneered, not being particularly enamoured of that individual, despite his skills, given the things he had done in the past to take happiness away from Rey's life... like killing his older brother Rau and constantly being a major thorn in Gil's side, but he did have to admit the limp dicked pacifist DID have his uses at times, when combat against overwhelming odds was the order of the day. Certainly no one else Rey knew of, save perhaps Shinn, could have lasted so long against the Brotherhood's incredible mixture of exotic weaponry, speed, agility and defenses. Indeed, at times it almost seemed like the Seraph had the upper hand, though things were so finely balanced neither Gundam seemed able to seize the advantage for more than a second or two. Still, Rey was fairly sure Noah was going to prove the victor eventually, barring a stroke of extreme bad luck... the Seraph's defenses were slowly being picked apart, and the difference in skill between the pilots was being made up at an almost visible rate, as Noah applied his insane learning abilities to the task of becoming a better Gundam pilot in mid battle.

The Primal Inferno that was being piloted by the FAITH member Heine Westenfluss hung off to his side, plainly waiting on his cue from Rey to spring to the Seraph's aid. They'd had a brief moment of communication earlier, when they'd managed to physically touch, but the current situation was no place for such a vulnerable method, and so Heine was waiting for Rey, as the senior officer present, to shape the flow of the fight. Rey considered things, taking careful note of the damage his Archon had suffered, and the state of Heine's Primal, which was still mostly untouched. If all three of them were to fight together against the Brotherhood, Rey was sure they would beat it, but if the Brotherhood were to take out the Seraph, then that would be one less Gundam the Solar Knights would eventually have to fight, and that was quite a relief. Who knew what sort of technology the Orb Gundams would have in a few years time, when Gil was ready to make his move, considering that Orb was already studying the Tormented. Better to have Kira Yamato die a heroic death now, because Noah, despite his technologies, was still far easier to beat at the moment.

Decision made, Rey dropped further and further back, before turning away from the fight entirely. He had a panoramic view of the vanguard fleet battle, with the Great Endeavor now getting dangerously close to the Eternal's Mirrorblade Shield, despite the best efforts of the remaining warships. The Archangel was trying to support the Serpah and bombard the Great Endeavor at the same time, with the result of doing miserably at both tasks. The Newton was still doing its best to take out the Great Endeavor's anti-matter cannon, coordinating the fire of the ZAFT portion of the vanguard fleet, but that section of the Great Endeavor was easily the most heavily shielded and well protected part of the entire ship, and their efforts were agonizingly ineffective. Beyond their section of the chaotic battlefield loomed the larger crises, with the main fleets in disarray, courtesy of a rampage by the Brotherhood and the more recent re-introduction of the Revenant, somehow almost fully repaired and restored despite being blasted to fragments little more than a week earlier. Rey had had no idea that Noah's self repair systems were so effective, the thought was disquieting in the extreme.

His Archon shuddered, and he realized Heine had once more flown his Primal close enough to touch and initiate a direct link comm. "Shouldn't we go back and support him?" Heine asked, brief and to the point, all business in times of extremis, a quality Rey admired in him. Still, his charitable spirit was probably going to prove annoying now that hard choices had to be made, but Rey put on his best "regrettable, but unavoidable" face to make the best of the situation.

"We'd only be burdening him by trying to interfere in that kind of fight." Rey answered cooly. "Mr. Yamato has a compulsive desire to protect anything and everything nearby him, by removing ourselves we are giving him fewer distractions."

"Understandable... but still... he looks like he could use some help." Heine replied doubtfully, looking back at where the Seraph was diving and twisting, firing backwards across its body with both rifles while fleeing as the Brotherhood pursued relentlessly, blocking shots with all four Positron Shields and scything at the Seraph's heels with the pink cones of the wingtip Thermal Exciters, occasionally trying to seed the Seraph's flight path with a mortar shell, causing Kira to veer wildly but successfully, his mastery of his Gundam being so awe inspiring Heine almost felt tears in his eyes at the spectacle.

"He's Kira Yamato. He'll be fine." Rey said firmly, hoping his bitterness wasn't as obvious aloud as it tasted in his mouth. "We should contribute to another part of the battlefield, where we can be of more use. We need to take out that big anti-matter cannon on the top of the Great Endeavor. If we can remove that, it's firepower will plummet to a level we can certainly overwhelm in time. If we don't get it though..."

"Yeah. It's a bright white oblivion for us all, sooner or later." Heine agreed. He was still somewhat conflicted about leaving the Seraph to fend off that monster golden Gundam by itself, but Rey had good points, both about Kira Yamato and the situation at large. He turned his mind to thinking of ways to get through the Great Endeavor's defenses, and in the process noticed something else. "Say, there's one of your Archons. It looks pretty beat up, but with all this jamming I can't tell if the distress beacon is active or not."

"I'll go check it out. You see what you can do about gathering a group of Mobile Suits... if we all touch the same ship, we should be able to link together through the ship's direct net, at least get us started off with a plan. Rendevous around the Newton." Rey ordered, turning to look at the Archon in question, which was indeed floating derelict. There was no telling if the pilot was still aboard, or what their condition was, but they were a member of the Solar Knights, and he couldn't just leave them to suffer or die if they needed help.

"Will do. Good luck, be safe. See you at the Newton." Heine replied, lifting his Primal's hand from Rey's shoulder and headed off towards the Nazca class in the near distance. Rey slowed his own flight and spiralled down towards the disabled Archon, wary for any signs of a trap or deception. Heck, even if it was all on the up and up, the Archon itself could be dangerous, as it might explode at any time if its battery or weapon systems had been damaged or destabilized, which would be bad for him if he was in close proximity. He would have to make this quick, as mercy sometimes had to give way to overall combat effectiveness, as the situation with Kira Yamato had proven. Rey touched the shoulder of the disabled Archon with one gauntlet while he brought himself to a free floating state nearby.

"Solar Knight, this is Knight-Commander ze Burrel, can you hear me? Respond if you are able. Repeat, respond if you are able." Rey called once the direct comm link had been established. He was about to repeat his message a final time when the comm system crackled and a weak voice he initially did not recognize came back to him.

"R-Rey? B-But I thought... it would be... Shinn..." The pilot of the Archon said painfully before their voice trailed off. Rey stared in shok before his mind reconnected to his body and he began scrambling hurriedly at his seat restraints, unbuckling himself and making sure his flight suit was fully atmosphere sealed. He was surprised to find his chest tight with worry and a harsh taste of bile in his mouth. The memory of a magenta haired girl hanging onto his arm and crying her eyes out against his chest made him ache.

"Hang on, Lunamaria." Rey said determinedly, snagging an emergency medical kit from behind his seat as he opened his cockpit hatch. "I may not be Shinn, but that doesn't make you any less dear to me as a friend. Just hang on, and I'll take care of you, I promise. I owe it to Shinn. I owe it to myself even. I shouldn't have made you go into combat so soon." He rapidly crossed the short distance between the Mobile Suits and opened the hatch of the damaged Archon with his command level override code. The first thing to greet him when the hatch swung open was not a rush of freezing air, but a surge of dark red ice chips, instantly identifiable to anyone who had served in combat in space as freeze dried blood. Rey felt his chest tighten even more, because there was a lot of it, and even more of it rimed across the lower back of the white, black and gold suited pilot floating with her back to him, curled up in a fetal ball position and not moving. He could see a large ragged hole in the lower back of her flight suit, and a glint of metal inside the equally raw wound in the skin beneath told him the injury was just as severe as it looked, perhaps more so.

Lunamaria was still breathing when he reached her, but her pulse was shallow and rapid and her breathing was likewise shallow. She'd held on for a while, having only passed out from the drop in blood pressure caused by blood loss recently. In some ways she'd been lucky, because a crust of frozen blood had formed over the top of the entry wound for the piece of shrapnel and had limited the rate at which she'd bled. Rey carefully slapped a sterilized patch over that section of her flight suit, actually having to use several because of the size of the hole, which was about the extent of the medical care he could provide in the current situation, but should at least be enough to prevent her from getting any worse. Unable to tell if she had any other injuries, Rey had no choice but to risk aggravating them by moving her, since he could hardly just leave her here, not with the battle still in question. He gathered her up in his arms as gently as possible, surprised at how small she seemed, given how much of a presence she had when she was nearby. He wasted no time in transferring back over to his own Archon, settling her onto his lap and securing her in place with one arm as he buckled himself back in.

Doing his best not to jostle or otherwise disturb Luna, wanting to avoid aggravating her injuries as much as he possibly could, Rey began heading for the Newton at the best pace he could safely muster. He was glad most of the Brotherhood Mobile Forces, except for the Gundams, had already been destroyed, because if there was one thing he didn't need, it was people shooting at him while he was acting as an ambulance. "Just hang on, Luna. I'll take care of you. I promise I'll take care of you. Because he can't, I will." Rey muttered, his eyes hot and his throat choked. The Newton loomed larger and larger on his screens, a prime target for the remaining Brotherhood forces because of its target and position at the forefront of the vanguard fleet, but as safe a haven as any place for all that, with things the way they were. Even as Rey flew closer, one of the Laurasia classes flanking the Newton shuddered and began breaking up, victim of one too many hits from the triple 80cm artillery cannon turrets dotting the hull of the Great Endeavor, which weren't at all hampered by the Eternal's Mirrorblade Shield. "Just hang on." Rey repeated, no longer sure whom he was talking to.


	47. Flash Flood part 5

Shinn was seeing red. Blood red. Flames red. The all consuming red bathing the entire world in a ruddy glow, like a setting sun right behind him. He could feel the red pulsing at his brows, up his neck and across the bulging veins in his tightly clenched fists and arms. He was beyond merely angry, had climbed past simple fury some time ago, and was in the process of leaving apolexy and outrage in the dust, constantly needled and taunted by the spectres of his past, haunting him mercilessly, not letting him turn away, not giving him a moment's respite. He turned one way and the broken, pulped remains of his father, beaten into a nearly unrecognizable state by the clubs and boots of the USN soldiers stared him in the face, moaning through shattered jaws as he wiped gore uselessly against Shinn's chest with the wrecked stumps of his hands, pleading for Shinn to stand up and save him, instead of turning his face away and crying like a baby!

Shinn growled incoherently and sliced at the apparaition with his sword, cleaving the zombie in half and making the blue and silver Gundam beyond it jerk sharply to the side to avoid the powerful blow. Shinn shook his head, panting and clammy with sweat, focusing on the scarfaced Gundam with all his ire and might. Shinn had thought it too good to be true when the red, winged Gundam had flown off, leaving just one opponent for him to face and overwhelm, but things had not been going according to plan. Every time he started gaining the upper hand against his singular foe, he was assailed with bloody, gory memories of his tragic past, and while the memories did serve to exhort him on to greater and greater efforts, the horrific visions also made it hard to concentrate on just the enemy in front of him, and he had found himself attacking empty space on more than one occasion already. He struggled to get ahold of himself, to focus, but it was so hard with the red rage eating up everything inside, and growing stronger with every passing second, until he felt like he would burst open like a bomb!

Shinn turned his vertical slash into a horizontal sweeping attack, but the silver-blue Gundam was a savvy opponent, and managed to interpose its large shield into the path of the attack. Golden sparks spat and both gundam's trembled under the force of the impact, but the Citadel Shields covering the face of the Vorpal's Bulwark shield proved once more up to the task of denying purchase to the unimaginably sharp QC edge of the Vengeance's zweihander, and Shinn's stroke was blocked to little result besides the jarring of the enemy. And jarring just seemed to motivate this scarfaed bastard to try harder himself, as the Vorpal thrust back with its bright blue glowing sword, the color of a FRALA beam, skittering off the side of Shinn's parrying blade, going wide of its target, neither dealing damage nor suffering any. What exactly that bright blue sword, with its improbably thin blade, was made of Shinn did not know, but he was impressed by its strength, having caught its slices and stabs against his own sword blade several times, and the other sword was still intact! Of course, so far the Vorpal had managed to avoid parrying any of Shinn's own attacks directly with the blade, so he suspected its durability had a limit the other pilot was unwilling to test.

Shinn hewed at the Vorpal several more times, sword meeting shield in an explosion of golden sparks each time, just barely unable to penetrate the thick aqua-green energy fields that shimmered like oil across the outer surface of the large shield. The Vorpal retaliated with a blurt of rapidfire from its shoulder mounted dual linear cannons, which Shinn ducked under and then backed off slightly, warding away with an upraised palm shield until he had the distance to bring the wingtip Positron shields into play. The Vorpal seemed to have been waiting for just that sort of opportunity, and it fired its other shoulder mounted weapon system at him, a 20mm FRALA spitting a blue-white beam of pure coherent light and heat at him, piercing through his Positron Reflectors like they weren't even there, only to strike his QC zweihander right in the middle of the blade fuller and stop dead, unable to melt through the Quantum layered structure of the crystalline sword.

The Vengeance struck back like its namesake, stopping outside of easy melee range and uncoiling a twenty five meter long heat whip from inside its left forearm, the dull gray links of razor sharp metal rapidly glowing yellow, then orange, then red and finally white hot with discharged heat from the FPR. Poking one handed with the sword to occupy the Vorpal's shield, Shinn swung the heat whip down from above, aiming to crush or split the Vorpal's scar-faced head. However, even as the Vorpal rode out the thrust from the aweihander behind its shield, its own sword sliced upward and met the descending heat whip, cutting right through it like it wasn't even there, sending the top half spinning off into space, a white hot blur of whirling chain links. The Vorpal surged forward, knocking his zweihander awkwardly aside with its shield even as it stabbed for his own face with the incredibly sharp sword. Shinn snatched upward with his left hand, QC fingerblades sliding out and locking into place in time to let him bat the thrusting sword tip aside without suffering damage. Or so he thought, until his pointer and middle fingers kept on going in the direction of his arm movement, cleanly and neatly severed near the base, QC blades still extended from the tip.

The Siegfried strike was parried though, despite the loss of the fingers, and the hand itself remained mostly fully functional, as Shinn proved by buffeting the Vorpal backwards with a shove from the Positron Reflector emitter in the left palm. Shin retracted the claws and heat whip from the left hand and arm, and put both hands back on his sword hilt once more, seething at the minor but definitely noticable injury to his hand. As if summoned by his ire, the shade of his mother now rose up in front of him, blocking out the stars even though she was just a withered torso, drained of blood and vitality, her skin like dried parchement spread tightly across her bones. Burns and cuts and gashes patterned her dried flesh, and she howled at him through a tongueless mouth, empty eye sockets staring at him accusingly, asking why, why hadn't he done anything to save her? Why hadn't he said anything to help his own mother as she was dragged away by the despicable Solar Knights to serve as a vessel for their depravities!? He was a useless, cowardly son, her corpse accused him, who had spurned and squandered the love of his family through his own weakness.

"NO!" Shinn flinched away from that terrible image, flicking his wings forward and bowling her away with his wingtip Positron Reflectors, dissolving the terrible ghost and revealing the Vorpal in its place, knocked flying once more as it endeavored to take advantage of his hallucinations or hauntings, whichever they were! Shinn felt like his very blood was boiling in his veins at that moment, the shame of the weakness of his past scorching his mind clean of almost anything but the desire to get his revenge as quickly and finally as possible. He forced himself through a monstrous effort of will to not just throw himself screaming at the foe in front of him. His anger was a tool for HIM to use, not the other way around! He had to channel it... use it to expunge his past with the glory of the present! The beads of sweat on his skin had turned to small streams, and his panting had become gasping, but for all his seeming exhaustion, Shinn didn't feel in the least bit tired, the opposite if anything. He felt like he had more energy now than ever before!

"TAKE THIS!" He cried, hauling back and swinging his sword down on a diagonal with all his strength, or so it appeared, until the Vorpal reacted as expected and brought its shield into the path of the blow, at which point in time Shinn halted his swing and fired himself directly at the Vorpal at maximum thrust, body slamming into the shield, riding out the shock of impact as he drove its own shield back into its chest and brought his sword down with one hand, while he used the three remaining fingers of his left hand to hold the Vorpal's shield down, trapped between their bodies. His sword sliced easily through the Vorpal's Phase Shift armor on its left shoulder, bisecting the twinned 75mm linear cannons on that shoulder and paring the top part of the shoulder clean off. Shinn yanked his sword free and tried to bring it down again, only to be shoved away by the Vorpal, suffering a huge ragged cut across his chest in the process, as the chainsaw teeth on the edges of the Vorpal's shield ripped through his LCR armor like they were cutting into thick tar. The blow didn't go all the way through the armor, and the nanite colonies of the armor quickly flowed and shifted to heal the damage, but Shinn still staggered back, shocked at the close call, vibrations from the tearing chainsaw teeth shaking his bones.

The Vorpal blasted him with the twin plasma flamethrowers built into the bottom front of its shield, which did nothing to hurt him but did occlude his vision and keep him on the defensive for another precious half seond or so, while Ysak let go of his Siegfried for a moment to rip the Vorpal's Photon Cloak from its back and tossed it like a satin net right on top of the Vengeance. The plan worked better in his head than in the real world, as the Photon Cloak had only ever been designed to stop beam or heat based attacks, not resist physical damage, and the Vengeance tore its way out of the blue cloth almost instantly, giving Ysak no opportunity to regain and stab or slice with Siegfried, as he'd been hoping to do. Ysak sliced at the Vengeance with his shield edge, chainsaw teeth buzzing and making the entire shield shiver slightly. Metal tore and sparks of all colors flew as the chainsaw teeth met the QC edge of the Vengeance's sword and were abraded away or severed, but not before the impact knocked the great two handed blade clean out of the Vengeance's single handed grip. Ysak called out in wordless triumph, bringing Siegfried down in a diagonal blow of his own, that would slice the Vengeance apart from shoulder to hip in one stroke.

Except that the Vengeance raised both palms and activated its Positron Reflector shields, putting twin ovals of magnetically contained antimatter into the path of Ysak's swing, whih had too much weight and force behind it to successfully pull back. Siegfried slashed into the outer edge of the pinkish fields and sliced right through without a problem, the magnetic cutting field of the opposed monopole blade far more powerful than the wider area effect containing the Positron Reflector shield. However, as soon as the outer field was breached, all of the anti-matter within the shields was exposed to regular matter almost instantly, with predictable results. Fortunately for both Gundams, the amount of anti-matter contained within the shields was very tiny, less than a tenth of a gram, just widely scattered, so the resulting explosion was merely powerful to completely obliterate Siegfried and short out both of the Vengeance's palm mounted Positron Reflector shield emitters. The blinding flash of light caught them both by surprise, but the Vengeance was better equipped to handle the sudden bright flare, and it recovered first, popping all the QC claws on its right hand and driving the clawed fist right at the Vorpal's center chest.

Shinn howled a victory cry that devolved into a high pitched scream of mind blanking horror as his clawed fist prepared to plunge into his precious little sister Mayu's naked breast as she rose up before him, a bitter and betrayed, almost accusatory expression marring her usually kind and gentle and loving features. She mouthed something at him as he flinched away, his claws stopping short of their goal, though they still left gory cuts across her formerly flawless, pale skin, slicing her throat and leaving her gasping as bright blood vomited forth from her mouth, staining her teeth and choking back her words into inaudibility. "MAYU! NOOO! MAYU!" Shinn sobbed, retracting his claws and reaching out for her desperately. He caught hold of her hand, surprising himself, and pulled her towards him desperately, only to stare in gut wrenching horror as her arm tore away messily at the shoulder, leaving him holding her severed arm, hand tightly clenched with his own, as she screamed and flailed wildly, blood squirting everywhere, her other limbs twisting and breaking themselves off as well before she fell backwards and was consumed entirely by greasy flames, her shrieks of soul destroying agony echoing around and around him, never quieting.

"Mayu..." Shinn muttered brokenly, his face hot with tear tracks, his heart feeling like it had turned to glass and then shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. He opened his eyes and found himself back, for a moment, on that summer day in Orb, kneeling at the bottom of a hill of fresh rubble, his head ringing and arms and legs stinging from abrasions and cuts suffered while rolling from the concussive blast that had resulted in this freshly destroyed hillside. The hillside his entire family had been on. He looked up, knowing what he would see, dreading it, but unable to stop himself, unable to spare himself the pain, as his eyes settled on the limp and broken form wearing the school skirt and sweater lying a few dozen feet away, her severed arm almost ten feet closer, her clothes smouldering and singed, her body strangely flat, almost jellified by the concussion shock shattering all her bones and liquefying her internal organs. "NGAYYHHHHG!" Shinn screamed, as he always did at seeing that sight, feeling like his entire world was compressing around him to a pinpoint of pain and suffering, before exploding in a red tide of rage that brooked no check!

He felt like his skull had just exploded and painted the walls with his painful memories, because for a few numbing, terrfiying seconds he could see all of his memories, the ones from before the fight on the Moon overlapped with the ones from afterwards, telling conflicting tales of his past in a manner that was beyond his ability to comprehend, before his skull seemed to fly back together like a video tape in re-wind, and he blinked his eyes open one more, his vision clear again, seeing the Vorpal bearing down on him, a new bright blue sword, identical to the first, once more gripped in its hand. It sliced for his neck and he brought his clawed right hand up to block, carefully keeping the fingers themselves clear of the sliding movements of the new Siegfried, shoving the blue-white edge away from himself before lashing out with his knee, landing a staggering blow to the center of the Vorpal's shield, hard enough to make the Citadel Shield ripple and distort, the waves moving in seeming slow motion as a sense of clarity and resolve filled him, banking the seemingly uncontrollable inferno of despair and rage and torment bubbling inside him, making it once more flow to his whim.

A sweeping backhand from his right hand slashed deep grooves into the Vorpal's face, tearing away one eye and ripping a real scar to mirror the painted on version, before his maimed left hand caught the Vorpal's sword wrist and pulled the other Gundam closer into a grapple clinch, where Shinn could put his claws to best use and the Vorpal would have trouble using either its sword or its shield. He brought his right hand down on the Vorpal's shoulder and clenched, carving through the FRALA and stabbing deep into the mechanical structures beneath, claws leaving trails of nigh invisible cuts before bursting out of the Vorpal's upper right chest and scoring jagged rents down almost to its stomach. Shinn was fairly sure he'd penetrated the cockpit with that strike, but judging from how the blue-silver Gundam continued to squirm and struggle, it seemed he'd missed the pilot. He drew back his right hand again, fingers lying flat to form a speartip blade for a thrust that would end the fight once and for all, when the Vorpal stopped trying to pull away and instead pushed back at him, throwing itself onto his claws, which lanced into its gut, but only shallowly. His right arm momentarily pinned, Shinn lost his grip with his maimed left hand when the Vorpal clocked him in the face with its shield, spinning him half around.

Shinn arched his back and yelled in shock more than pain as the Vorpal brought Siegfried down and severed the Vengeance's right cooling wing, right at the base where it connected to the Vengeance's back. A sudden tide of nigh unbearable heat flooded into the area around Shinn as the FPR suddenly lost half its cooling systems, his heart feeling now like shattered glass that had just turned molten in a blast furnace and was now burning its way down and out through the core of his body! The cooling wing spun away into the void, LCR armor reverting to a neutral gray color as it lost contact with the control signals that defined its color and precise shape, violet sparks and plumes of icy coolant fluid trailing from the severed connections in the wing base. More violet sparks and coolant erupted from the Vengeance's back, arcs of brilliant lavender electricity briefly crawling all over the Vengeance's surface before safety systems shut down the damaged parts. Sweat was now pouring down Shinn's face in rivers, and his throat and mouth were dry and parched, his breathing fast and shallow as his exhaustion from the seed rage was now compounded by sweltering heat from the overloading FPR system.

The two damaged Gundams seperated once more and slowly circled each other, with Shinn retracting his claws and nabbing his sword once more, and the Vorpal resettling into a sword and shield pose. Warning alarms blared inside Shinn's head loudly enough to hurt, and his red tinged vision now flashed with orange and black warning signs as the Vengeance's systems warned him that continued operation at full combat power would lead to imminent FPR overload and meltdown with only fifty percent of the cooling systems active! Shinn ignored them, not caring at the moment, his state of mental clarity fuzzing and slipping like an ice cube melting in his fever hot hands. This was NOT over yet, he had NOT lost! His dad... his mom... Mayu... they were ALL with him now, counting on him, relying on him to not fail them again... and he wouldn't! He would kill this blue and silver scarfaced Gundam, and then he would go back to the Prophet and they would rejoice in the building of the new world together and everything would be all right! That was how it had to work... it HAD TO WORK! Shinn raised his sword blade before him in both hands and spread his wing, before cocking the blade back to his right side and charging at the Vorpal with all his hate and rage propelling him onward!

Three pentagrammical pods deployed from the Vorpal's back and maneuvered into a triangular shape in front of the Orb Gundam as the Vengeance blurred forward, Ysak waiting until almost the very last possible moment to activate the Minion pods in Citadel Barrier mode, creating a solid wall of aqua-green energy in the Vengeance's path. The Vengeance slammed heedlessly into the barrier, its sword already in motion, edge striking and then cleaving INTO the side of the barrier, bright gold sparks spitting and flaring as the Vengeance slowly worked the QC blade through the annoying shield of energy. However, the Vorpal was no longer behind the barrier, instead flipping up and over, head actually passing right by the Vengeance's almost close enough to scrap paint from the Vorpal onto the shoulders of the Vengeance, rotating in mid flip so that the Vorpal was facing the Vengeance head on as the Vengeance turned, yanking its sword out of the protesting Minion barricade close behind it, just in time to be crushed backwards as the Vorpal threw itself headlong at the Vengeance, shield to fore, trapping the Vengeance between the two Citadel Shields like a fly between a swatter and a window. Shinn began working his sword free, preparing to slice or stab down at the Vorpal, when the worst vision of all assailed him.

He was on the Moon once more, and as usual for him, he was too late to be of any use when it mattered most. Too weak, too slow, too inept to save the people he cared for most. That was his curse... to be good, great even, but never when it really counted the most for him or the people he loved! He saw Luna's... _Who is Luna again_... Archon lying on the ground at the Independence's feet, white-purple lightning gathering in the Independence's hand as it prepared to blast Luna with an attack that would leave her as less than dust even, and he was too far away to stop it! He'd let himself get too far away from the person he cared about MOST in the world right now, and she was going to DIE because of his sloppiness! LUNA WAS GOING TO... _WHO IS LUNA?_... DIE! And it was his fault! He saw himself throw his sword, but he knew it was a wasted, fruitless gesture born of desperation. _Why am I so worked up? Who is Luna? Why does she matter so much to me? I don't... I DON'T KNOW WHY I'M HURTING SO MUCH!_ Shinn saw a flashed image of a beautiful girl with magenta hair and periwinkle eyes, smiling and waving at him, and his heart seemed to stop beating with joy... shortly before she was haloed by white light and blasted into a grinning, jerking, blackened skeleton of ash and cinder, BECAUSE OF HIS FAILURE!

Shinn vomited all over himself, suffering from intense convulsions as his mind went into something like a seizure, as the overwhelming shock of his failure to save Luna... whom he STILL didn't know from any other girl, but yet somehow knew well at the same time, overloaded his exhausted and heat deluded body. The Vengeance shivered and shook, losing cohesion as Shinn sobbed and wailed in grief and shame that made his feelings for Mayu seem a pale shadow of pain. The Vorpal wasted no time in taking advantage of Shinn's tormented mental state, letting go of its shield with its left hand before crouching up and kicking down with both feet into the back side of the shield, slamming the Vengeance into the Minion barrier again, grinding down with the Bulwark shield as Ysak took hold of the Siegfried in both hands and stabbed down with all the power he could put into the Vorpal's arms and torso, punching the blade through the backside of the Bulwark shield, out through the Citadel Shield on its frontal surface, into the Vengeance's chest, into the cockpit region, through Shinn's right shoulder joint, out the Vengeance's back and through the Minion Citadel barrier, until the hilt of Siegfried jerked to a halt against the interior surface of the Bulwark shield!

Shinn's right arm dropped away from the side of his body in a gush of gore that immediately activated the Vengeance's emergency pilot safety programs, even as Shinn, unheeding of his injury, dropped his left wing down into the Vorpal's face and blasted it away with the Positron Shield emitter, tearing Siegfried out of the Vengeance as it went, leaving its shields behind. The vengeance pushed the Bulwark shield away and began an emergency retreat towards the Great Endeavor, even as Shinn slumped into a dead faint, his flight suit working to seal off the amputated limb to prevent him from bleeding to death. The last sight Shinn saw before blackness fully claimed him once more was Lunamaria's Archon, blackened and charred across its entire front... but still whole, as a nimbus of painful white light ate at his vision. _I didn't fail after all..._

_No, you didn't. You did good._ Another voice, that of a completely strange girl, said comfortingly. And then there was nothing.

"Huh... huuh... huh..." Ysak panted for breath heavily, gasping, feeling like he would never get enough air ever again as his eyes brightened from metallic blue to the more normal cerulean blue color as he came down... or up, he was never sure which, out of the seed rage. His heart was pounding out of control, his face and body were covered in sweat and bloody scratches from where Katie had dug in her fingers during all of the battering around they'd taken, he could see space through holes in his cockpit, his helmet visor was spiderwebbed with cracks and the usually cool gel of Katie's suspension tank felt like freshly microwaved oatmeal against his back and limbs, but he WAS still alive! They were BOTH still alive! "That was... awesome!" Ysak muttered, staring blankly at his lap, before leaning back. "THAT WAS AWESOME!" He shouted to the void. "TAKE THAT, ZALA! HAH!"

_Could you please not be so loud?_ Katie asked wearily. _I feel awful._

_Its just bruising and battering, plus the heat... you'll feel better in a few minutes._ Ysak said consolingly.

_I can't even feel my body right now, Ysak, that's not what I meant._ Katie replied with a deep mental sigh. _I... I did horrible things to that young man. That Shinn Asuka. I made him see and feel such terrible, awful things. I think I might have gone too far..._

_We're still alive. You did what you had to do. He would have had us a few times if it hadn't been for you._ Ysak told her, without exaggerating in the slightest. He flinched slightly from memories of the Vengeance's clawed hand spearing at his face, only to jerk back like a kid who'd just laid a hand on a red hot stove. _I don't know if we killed him or not, but we definitely won!_

_He wasn't dead last time I was in contact, but we hurt him very badly, you his body and me his mind. He'll be a while in recovering... if he ever does._ Katie said sadly. _I just don't know what I'm going to say to Lacus... what I just did is... is too invasive, too horrible... it makes me sick, thinking about what I did to him! What I made him see..._

_Its when you stop being sickened by it that we need to worry, my love. Now, pull yourself together... whatever the future has in store, morality speaking, we still have a battle to survive, and our friends need our help... both of our help. Can you do that with me, Katie? Can you stay with me?_

_I can go anywhere, Ysak, as long as you're there with me._

_That's just what I was going to say for you in return. Let's go then, shall we? Kira might need a hand._

_Let's give em more than a hand... let's give em the sharpest sword... let's give em the Vorpal!_

------------------------------------------------------------

Colonel Haman Al'Jib was heartily sick and tired of this gigantic Gundam, this Revenant that persisted, much like its namesake, in coming back from grave after grave to once more wreak havoc on the living! Except this particular Revenant wasn't coming back to avenge its own murder, merely to inflict wanton destruction in the thrall of a madman trying to wipe out the entire human race! Or whatever it was that Noah Borander was planning to do with his green poison gas down on Earth, assuming they didn't manage to stop his monstrous plans and that great flying saucer dead here and now! A task that had seemed initially... not too hard... and was rapidly turning into a nightmare of truly epic proportions. The Brotherhood had proven itself to be a sleeping lion, and when wakened from its slumber, it had shown that all its previous attacks had merely been lazy swipes of half dreaming claws, compared to the all consuming fury of the current battle, where casualties were already exceeding that of the second battle for Galileo, with no swift end in sight!

Nothing had gone right, or fully right anyway, since the very beginning of the battle, with the advent of the widespread communications jamming that was still keeping the entire USN armada basically deaf and mute, turning their great numbers into an acute weakness as they tried to react to the devastating and chaotic situation, and only ended up causing more chaos as each captain began pursing individual action tactics, with no voerall cohesive plan or strategy! Then had come the bright white balls of annihilation, wiping out entire fleets with one shot and leaving nothing, not even dust as remains! Formerly closely packed together for greater effectiveness of bombardment fire, the USN armada was now frantically trying to spread out, so frantically that many ships had suffered collisions, an almost unheard of thing in the depths of space! After the giant white balls of death had come the screaming golden banshee, a veritable horseman of the apocalypse, sowing ruin wherever it cast its royal hued gaze. None could stand before it, and precious few managed to flee from it before being overcome by one of seemingly dozens of different but uniformly astonishingly deadly forms of attack the Gundam possessed.

And after that wight had left, for reasons currently unknown to Haman, then had come the filthy Revenant, still casting off its burial shroud and shaking the grave dirt from its loins! It had ploughed into the flanks of the fleets like a great corroded knifeblade being thrust into the back of an unsuspecting tourist in the back alleys of one of the seedier cities of Haman's acquiantance, and was currently doing its damnedest to cut the heart and spine out of the USN fleets... and its damnedest was unfortunately very, VERY good. Haman's unit of Garou's had been trying for several minutes to piece together a coordinated attack on the beast, but without comms, they might as well really be a pack of yapping puppies, raw and untrained, trying to tackle a bear! The heavy Panzerwulf's of the FNE had also engaged the monster, with more success than the Garou's, Haman was ashamed to admit, though the Panzerwulf's had paid a bloody price, having lost half of their number in the struggle, while inflicting significant but hardly crippling damage to the Revenant, stilling its waist turrets, lashing away one shoulder mounted missile launcher, but not disabling either arm or the shoulder turrets.

At long last though, salvation had arrived... or at the very least, substantial aid, since Haman was never the sort to give up on the idea of being the salvation himself, with the advent of the Warmaster Gundam on the scene. The Warmaster had previously vanquished the Revenant at Galileo, and Haman was looking forward to an encore performance, though he reminded himself that even with a Gundam of their own, they still had a long and bloody struggle ahead of them as they wore the mighty foe down enough for the Warmaster to really make its heavy firepower count the most. A lot could still go wrong, especially if the Warmaster were to be taken down by an unfortunate attack. The defeat of a Gundam would shatter the already fragile morale of the USN forces in the area, and without comms, a rout would be hard to stop once started. Haman led his Garous over to provide what cover they could for the Warmaster, seeing as trying to get in close with the Revenant was still, for the moment, quite suicidal.

The remaining Panzerwulf's seemed to concur with the unspoken strategy of taking the longer, if painful, road to victory, since it was ultimately safer than trying to rush in and overwhelm the Revenant, something that might have been possible with communications, but was entirely impossible otherwise, and they pulled back as well, trying to shoot the Revenant's weapons and otherwise limit its ability to do damage, especially the incredibly ferocious right arm cannon. That selfsame arm and weapon was already looking a bit ragged and worse for the wear, but proved it was still far from disabled when it unleashed a blinding spear of crackling red-green-blue radiation energy across the starscape, claiming a score of Mobile Suits and a half dozen warships as well, actually a lightly damaging shot, now that the fleets were spread out to a greater extent. Even as the Revenant fired an enormous fireball blossomed high on its left shoulder, jagged shards of armor plate and turret mechanism flying far and wide trailing streamers of flame as an Earthshaker Magnus shot from the Warmaster destroyed the left shoulder triple 175cm linear cannon turret, all three barrels spinning off in seperate directions, glowing like cherry pink straws.

As usual, the Revenant paid its injuries no mind whatsoever, acting like they weren't even happening at all as it swept its left arm, which still worked, frustratingly, up and around, yammering green deathbolts spewing from the spinning triple barrels of the gatling Gottfried, blasting two squadrons of Moebius Flares into so much molten slag and cutting a Laurasia class in half right down the middle. The swing of the arm ended, as it usually did, with an axe blade buried in a Mobile Suit, this time a slow moving centaroid FNE Cataphract, which really had no business doing anything in free floating space combat, but had been deployed anyway out of desperation. The Cataphract sagged brokenly and then detonated, adding two more names to the Revenant's current tally. Other FNE and USN Mobile Suits scattered, ducking and dodging wildly, as the Revenant swung in their direction, fleeing like ants scurrying out of a rainstorm before the Revenant could orient and pin them down with its firepower.

It was into this unholy mess of a battleground that yet more chaos poured, in the form of the green scaled Retribution, pursued hotly if somewhat distantly by the Phoenix King in Mobile Armor mode with the Dawn Goddess riding on top, as the Retribution blasted a wide path with its gatling hyper-impulse cannons, a solid curtain of red-blue compressed density plasma clearing the way before it of everything, even mere wreckage, much less any unfortunate USN soldier or ship to get in the way. For all that though, the Retribution did not attack or even fire upon a single warship or Mobile Suit that was not in its immediate flightpath or that did not try and impede its progress towards the Revenant. Breaking through the USN line at last, the Retribution drifted to a halt, facing down the gargantuan Revenant, five times and more its height and hundreds of times its mass, alone and unafraid.

"And what do you want? Who the fuck are you anyway?" Cray rumbled, eyeing the green scaled Gundam dubiously, with its obvious Brotherhood technology. He didn't recall seeing an Apostle with this Gundam before. "Go away, I don't want any. Try the next house down the street."

"I was going to offer you a special bargain though, Cray." A very familiar voice replied coldly. It was only shock that prevented Cray from replying immediately. "Nothing more witty to say? Are you that unmanned?"

"Rich words from a brat like you, little brother. I remember a time when you used to wet the beds... usually because I'd beaten you to the point where you lost bladder control! Ah, those were the nights, eh? Remember when Frost almost killed you with your own dessert fork? Classic, truly classic. I'm surprised the Doc was able to fix your eye." Cray reminisced happily. "Say, whatever happened to that ugly cunt you had with you in Panama that one time? Talk about a dumpy bitch... not that you'd know what to do with a girl anyway, if I remember right. You had an opportunity to do whatever you wanted to the likes of Lacus Clyne or Cagalli Zala-Attha... and you choked! Talk about pathetic! You always were a loser. But at least you were MY loser, right?"

"I've wracked my mind, trying to come up with a single fond memory that had you in it... and I failed." Ashino replied, resolutely keeping himself calm, though Cray's insulting references to Jean definitely cut like knives across Ashino's heart.

"Aww, is Ashino gonna krwy now? You always was a big krwybaby." Cray mocked ruthlessly. He pointed his left arm at the Retribution threateningly. "Get the hell out of my way, krwybaby, you're blocking my view! You got two seconds to move, or I'll give you something to krwy about, and I don't give a damn which side you're supposed to be on!"

"Funny. I was just about to say almost the same thing to you, Cray." Ashino swapped out the gatling hyper-impulse cannons for the twin 150mm FRALA. "This time though, the tears are going to be yours!"

"Maybe ya DO got a pair of balls after all, little bro. Too bad ya discovered them too late to be any use!" Cray wasted no more words, blasting at Ashino with his gatling Gottfried, only to have the shots splash and veer wildly away from Ashino's Obdurate Shield, in Geischmedig-Panzer mode. "Aww..."

Ashino fired back with both 150mm FRALA, the blue-white beams of coherent light passing through the GP shield effect with no problem, not being affected by magnetic fields, and stabbed into the Revenan't chest, piercing several quad 120mm gatling cannon turrets as the laser beams melted glowing orange tunnels through the Revenant's thick hide... but the inner Citadel Shield still proved too much for the beams to pierce, and Cray's mildly concerned sigh turned into braying laughter. "Ahahahaha! That the best you got? Pathetic! Shoulda known you was all talk... its all you ever were! Talk, talk, talkity talk!" Cray was about to go on in that vein when the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess reached the battle zone as well, and immediately lit into the Retribution from behind, not having been positioned correctly to see Ashino shoot Cray. The Retribution bucked as a huge ball of plasma energy from the Phoenix King shed itself like water from the Retribution's back, and several Citadel Scales blew out from a point blank strafing barrage from the Dawn Goddess's chest mounted gatling cannon. "OI! That's MY little brother you just blindsided! Nobody gets to kill him but ME, ya bastards!" Cray shouted indignantly, swinging his anti-ship chain at the Phoenix King.

For his part, Ashino turned his attention to the Dawn Goddess as she flitted by from her strafing run. Knowing his FRALA were useless against her, and switching to the Glaive Wurm's would take too long, Ashino instead snapped off shots from the Variable Tactical Payload Missile pods on the Retribution's shoulders and thighs. Four bright red missiles left the launch tubes and quickly hounded the Dawn Goddess down, exploding just shy of the target but releasing large quantities of a sparkling red powder that smeared all over the Dawn Goddess's frontal and side armor and weaponry. There was no other immediate effect, just a slight sparkling from the dust and a sudden all over reduction in the Dawn Goddess's external thermal signature, as her armor rapidly dumped heat energy. Ashino furrowed his brow, not entirely sure what those missiles had just done, but the Dawn Goddess was out of range by that time, and there was nothing more he could do. He swapped in one Glaive Wurm and one gatling hyper-impulse cannon, and turned back to Cray, who was still swinging and cursing at Athrun, who evaded his blows comfortably.

Ashino opened fire with both weapons, aiming at Cray's right arm elbow and shoulder joint, blasting and melting away large swathes of armor, having to hose his fire back and forth several times to fully eat through all the armor layers around the joint. Cray jerk the arm away hurriedly and once more pointed the gatling Gottfried at the Retribution and opened fire, proving to Ashino once more that Cray really didn't learn unless you hurt him. Ashino changed the angle of his Obdurate shield in GP mode and banked several of Cray's shots at the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess, more to keep them busy maneuvering than because he expected to hurt them. Indeed, neither even bothered to dodge, their damnable armor absorbing the powerful energy blasts without hiccup, though the Phoenix King's armor remained almost glowing hot afterwards, while the Dawn Goddess quickly lost almost all of the absorbed energy.

The Dawn Goddess fired right back at him, first with a beam rifle blast that he redirected at Cray, who didn't even seem to notice the hit, and then she followed it up with another dart like missile. Before the missile was even halfway to him, Ashino responded with more missiles of his own, the brief menu of choices appearing and disappearing in his mind faster than he could really get a look at them as the Retribution's computers collated sensor information and decided upon the best types of missiles to launch. The first two missiles fired projected Citadel Shields in front of them, deflecting and destroying the oncoming missile from the Dawn Goddess and then shielding the second two missiles from her heavy beam rifle and beam CIWS shots, long enough for them to get close and deploy a pair of very large macro-molecule cable nets that quickly ensnared and fouled the Dawn Goddess's arms and legs, wrapping her up as nicely as a dressed turkey. Ashino was surprised at the inoffensive nature of the missile payloads so far, until he saw the arcing blue electrical currents running across the Dawn Goddess and realized the nets were heavily electrified. Still... it was pretty softcore for Brotherhood weaponry.

The Phoenix King immediately changed course to assist the Dawn Goddess, melting the nets off her by hosing her down with streams of fire from his plasma flamethrowers, which again caused her armor temperature to spike briefly, before cooling at amazing speeds as all the heat energy went... somewhere. Ashino was forced to turn his attention away from the two Orb Gundams, as Cray was once more trying to kill him, relying on his 120mm gatling cannon turrets and single remaining triple 175cm linear cannon turret, on the right shoulder, all purely physical weapons that would not be affected by the GP shield. So Ashino switched to a Positron barrier, and remained perfectly safe, though he would have to drop the barrier to fire back at Cray. Ashino briefly saw something large and bullet shaped flit past him, until a second or so later the Revenant's right shoulder triple linear cannon turret blew itself apart, once again victim to an Earthshaker shell from the Warmaster, who HAD seen Ashino attack the Revenant and was willing to leave him alone, at least for a little while.

The Dawn Goddess and Phoenix King didn't seem to get the message from the Warmaster, which could have easily sniped at the Retribution but had not, and they both came gunning for Ashino once more. Ashino wished, for a moment, that the Brotherhood wasn't jamming comms nearly so comprehensively as they were. For once he actually wanted to talk to his "enemies", but even if they could hear him, which was doubtful, they sure wouldn't be able to reply. The Dawn Goddess fired several times with its heavy beam rifle, but not at the Retribution directly, instead the Phoenix King gathered up the green plasma beams and added to them with venting streams from his own forearm projectors. The Phoenix King flew up at maximum thrust and slammed the combined plasma ball down onto Ashino's Positron shield, even as the Dawn Goddess followed up with several dart like missiles, right into the center of the plasma ball, obviously hoping to break his shield like they'd done to the Tormented the one time. However, the difference between a FPR powered Positron shield and a nuclear powered Positron shield was great, and the Obdurate Shield was powerful even for an FPR type, and all their efforts came to naught.

They didn't let that discourage them, not even for an instant, and both the Dawn Goddess and the Phoenix King moved up around opposite edges of his shield, which was now under sustained fire from Cray as well, the Dawn Goddess swapping her rifle for her lance, and the Phoenix King generating his signature pair of double bladed beam sabers. Under pressure from three fronts at once, Ashino smiled once more... maybe he and Cray were alike in at least one way... they truly felt the most alive on the battlefield, under conditions where regular humans would be sweating and shivering in fear of their lives! Ashino canceled his shield and dove to the side, triple heat claws popping out of each of his forearms, the dull grey blades quickly heating to white hot levels. The Phoenix King stabbed with both swords, and Ashino took both hits on his armored forearms, loosing the center claw on his left hand, but otherwise emerging unscathed, unloading a close range missile volley into the Phoenix King in return, three more of the red powder spraying missiles, which doused the Phoenix King liberally, and then an arrow headed missile that plunged right through the crater in the Phoenix King's stomach, leaving a neatly bored hole all the way through the middle of the Gundam wide enough for Ashino to stick his head through, missing the cockpit but taking out the main control CPU. Of course there was a backup, but it would take several seconds to switch over.

Cagalli stabbed furiously at the Retribution, having heard Athrun call out in shock and some slight pain as fragmenting shards shot up from the floor of his cockpit into his feet and legs as the QC tipped missile passed by less than a foot beneath the cockpit floor. She hit, but it was only glancing, scraping a line of gold sparks along the Retribution's belly. She drew back and stabbed again, only to have her lance caught and locked between the two blades of the Retribution's left hand claw, even as the right hand closed around the haft of the lance about midway down. Though a CUSA required an atmosphere of some sort to project its destructive sonic energy at a distance, at ultimate close range, with the sonic emitter actually touching another solid object, the vibrational waves could also be transmitted, even in vacuum, and so Ashino did, shattering the Dawn Goddess's lance like it was made of ice. Caught off guard, Cagalli was propelled backward by a foot to the chest as Ashino once more turned to the greater threat, Athrun, and beyond him, Cray. And then dodged violently to the side, barely avoiding a hyper-impulse blast and scattering of 57mm beam blasts from the Warmaster, which had finally decided to get involved in the fracas fully once more, seeing that Athrun and Cagalli were in trouble.

The Phoenix King started moving with a purpose again, even as he took several direct hits from Cray's gatling Gottfried, to minimal effect, but now Athrun's armor also dumped all the absorbed heat almost at once. Obviously something to do with the sparkly red powder, but again, what it actually did, Ashino had no way of guessing. The Phoenix King was definitely moving a lot more gingerly, as might be expected with a head wide hole through its belly, though the actual damage seemed to be relatively minor, barring the loss of the main CPU of course. How much functionality the secondary CPU maintained was anyone's guess, but given the nature of the pilot, Ashino did not expect to see a significant drop in effectiveness. With the three Clyne Faction Gundams all grouped together and definitely on the passive defensive, Ashino returned to his true target of the moment, Cray.

Cray spread his arms invitingly wide, automated turret defenses still spraying fire at anything that dared get close to him, but by now most of the USN fleets had backed off a significant ways, still struggling to get reorganized, while the Orb Gundams and a few other, more elite Mobile squadrons worked to distract and wear down the Revenant until the rest of the fleets could get their acts together. "Tired of playing with yer friends yet? Come on home, krwybaby, and your bigger brother will give you a REALLY fun time. We can play Cosmos and Coordinators, just like we used to back when we were but lads at JIHAD. You can be the Coordinator, like usual, and I will be the Blue Cosmos true believer that machine guns you and your family, down to the last helpless infant, to death while you sleep in your beds. Hehe."

"Funny you should say that, given who it is you're working for!" Ashino retorted. "From what I understand, Noah Borander is a Coordinator's Coordinator, the ultimate in genetically engineered science! The Doc would cry to see you working for something like him!"

"DON'T talk to me about the Doc." Cray said warningly. "YOU know NOTHING about the Doc and me!"

"Oh really? Could you point to the parts of the doll where he touched you then? Don't be shy, brother." Ashino replied with a smirk. It took Cray a moment to udnerstand that dig, but when he did, he responded much as Ashino had expected him to... with incoherent, spluttering rage. Whatever his other faults, Cray had loved at least one person in his life, and that person was the Doc. He could not STAND to hear anyone badmouth or insult the Doc, in any way. Cray was certainly the most loyal of the late generation BCPU's. "I always suspected there was something more than a merely fatherly relationship between you and the Doc."

"DON'T YOU SAY ANOTHER LYING WORD, YOU DWARFISH FREAK!" Cray snarled. "How DARE you... YOU, of all... talk about the Doc like that! You're nothing but a FAILURE... a living piece of biological waste! You should have gone into the pit a long time ago, with the other failures! And unlike me, you would NOT have climbed back out again! AWAY WITH YOU, MAGGOT!" The Revenant pointed both arms at the Retribution and fired both weapons at once. Ashino did not dodge, instead turning his Obdurate Shield to Citadel Mode and funneling all available spare power into it. All of his screens whited out with glare as the torrent of Gottfried blasts struck in explosions of golden sparks, only microseconds before the red-green-blue crackling beam of radiation completely enveloped the shield and the Gundam hanging in its shadow, continuing on unabated by the rock that had placed itself in its path. "HAH! Score one for the home team!"

"Might want to watch the replay... I think they might be calling it back." Ashino retorted, as the Radiation blast died away, revealing the Citadel Shield still in place, the Retribution behind it unharmed. "Was THAT your best shot then, Cray? Looks to me like you blew your load before you could really get down to business... though I suppose thats typical for you, right?" Ashino continued to taunt as he dropped his shield, hoping the quaver in his voice didn't make it through. For a few seconds there he'd been sure he'd calculated wrong, and that the radiation cannon was going to bleed through or just wipe out his shield. He had no idea what sort of margin he'd squeaked by on, and didn't WANT to know either. He headed for the Revenant's left arm at maximum speed, sideslipping through the somewhat desperate traceries of CIWS fire Cray was now directing at him, so enraged at a blow to his sexual prowess he couldn't even verbalize at the moment. The Rigor Mortis pods rose at him, but shied away, recognizing him as a friendly target still. Cray swung frantically with his axe blades, like an insect phobic swatting at a buzzing bee, and Ashino stayed just slightly ahead of the attacks, waiting for his moment to come. Cray drew his arm far back, as if winding up, and Ashino seized his chance, flying up to the Revenant's elbow, accepting hits from 120mm shells and beam CIWS fire, sparking and shattering against his Citadel Scales as he placed both palms against the Citadel Scales covering the Revenant's left elbow and activated both of his palm CUSA-D's.

The concentrated sonic energy splintered the arm joint like it was made of balsa wood, even striking through the inner Citadel Shield to rend asunder the actual structure of the arm, ripping the Revenant's left arm in half and sending the gatling Gottfrieds and axe blades spinning off into the void. Ashino turned as Cray rounded on him with an ear splitting shriek, swinging his anti-ship chain around with the full force of the Revenant behind it, only to meet that Obdurate Citadel Shield once more, stopping the blow cold, even though the Retribution was thrown back by the force of impact, its hide pocked and pitted from where the Revenant's CIWS systems had ravaged him, scouring away his missile pods and the two Glaive Wurm EMC's. Ashino was fairly sure the twinned 150mm FRALA system had also sustained damage, leaving him with his claws, the gatling hyper-impulse cannons and his palm CUSA-D's, a not inconsiderable arsenal, but wholly inadequate for continuing to fight the Clyne Faction after Cray's demise. Oh well... equipment failure wasn't his fault, right? Not that he really cared what Noah thought anyway.

A series of impressively large explosions tracked their way across the Revenant from left hip to right shoulder, courtesy of a punishing barrage from the Warmaster's Earthshaker cannon. Seeing the Revenant shaken had heartened everyone nearby and the Panzerwulf's and Garou's were now moving in much more aggressively, while even a few warships were making a tenative comeback, staying at extreme range and firing with their missiles and big beam cannons. The Phoenix King darted and wove through the incoming firepower, reaching out with its gauntlets, snaring a beam blast there, absorbing another here, and basically harvesting the incoming firepower of a VERY large amount of plasma energy, which coiled and swam around his palms and forearms in multicolored swirls that swelled bigger and bigger until it almost looked like the Phoenix King was holding a small prismatic sun in each hand. Actinic white-purple lightning bolts from the Mjolnir Cannons of the Panzerwulf's stabbed deeply into the Revenant's right side, and Cray swung over to point his right arm at them threateningly, the seconds counting down in single digits until he could fire his Radiation cannon once more.

The threatening pose proved to be the opportunity that Athrun had been waiting for, and he swung the Phoenix King quickly around and raced the timer to get in position, Phoenix Feathers falling from his back in a swarm to slice and dice the Rigor Mortis pods trying to intercept him as he cut right across the Revenant's belly region in order to make it in time, swinging up under the Revenant's arm, slamming both hands and all the plasma energy they were governing together into one massive ball, which he then shoved down the barrel of the Radiation Cannon and let loose the BGCS fields. For a long second nothing happened... and then bright white and yellow and blue and red and even green beams of light began shooting out of the Revenant's right arm all up and down its length, until the entire arm started glowing from the inside out... and then with a flash of light nearly as bright as the AMP cannon warhead detonation, the Revenant's right arm simply ceased to exist from shoulder to wrist. The Revenant heeled over to the left, blasted that way by the detonation of the arm, all of its systems knocked haywire for a few seconds by the backlash, which had even penetrated the inner Citadel Shield through the remains of the inner shoulder joint.

Panzerwulfs flayed away huge chunks of armor with their Mjolnir cannons or blasted deep holes with their heavy beam cannons in turret mode, while Garou's clambered over the Revenant's legs and torso and shoulders like rats exploring an elephant's carcass, beam claws shining pink and yellow as they ripped up CIWS turrets and trampled dormant Rigor Mortis pods while they had the chance. One was even clinging to the Revenan't face, driving its arms deep into the Revenant's eye sockets and skull. The Mobile Suits scattered for their lives as the Revenant's systems started coming back online, those that were too slow being blasted to smithereens by the few still operating CIWS systems, usually after being swarmed by the incapaciting Rigor Mortis pods. The Phoenix King likewise retreated, its own arms missing from the elbow down, scorched away in the cataclysmic destruction of the Revenant's Radiation Cannon, though it was certainly not a bad trade off.

"Heh... you think you've won, don't ya, little brother?" Cray said thickly, but still with a sneer in his voice. "Tear off my limbs... pull out my eyes... cut off all my skin... you still can't kill me! None of you pathetic worms can kill me! I'll be back, sooner than you're ready! And then, we'll see what is what!" The Revenant began heading for the Great Endeavor, ignoring the determined efforts by the surrounding USN fleets and units to impede or destroy the half ruined Gundam. "As long as I survive, the Revenant will always return for more!"

"Then I will ensure you do not survive." Ashino said simply, diving forward once more, until he was forced to pull up sharply to avoid renewed attack from the Dawn Goddess's large beam rifle. He rounded on her, seeing her taking up position by the Warmaster, which looked to be readying some sort of special weapon, judging by the number of external sub-units that were deploying from containers on the Warmaster's back. Unlike on the Moon, the Warmaster didn't seem confined or locked into the procedure this time, and it likewise turned its weapons towards the Retribution and began firing. Ashino sighed, but he couldn't blame them for ending the truce, if there even ever had been such a thing. They had no idea who he was, and while he may have helped fight the Revenant, he was still a member of the Brotherhood, and thus their enemy. But all the same, he wasn't going to let Cray just run away and come back again, so he dodged away from the Clyne Faction and went to take up a position closer to the Great Endeavor, along the Revenant's path of retreat. "This will end today, Cray. One way or another, I will see the final nail put in your coffin!"

-----------------------------------------------

"You can't evade me forever, dear cousin Kira." Noah admonished, starting to enjoy himself again as the Brotherhood pursued the Seraph all over creation and back again, taking no damage and definitely keeping Kira dancing on the edge of life and death by the skin of his teeth. "You're very, very good, but you can't outrun me, you can't outshoot me, and now that your sword is broken, you really can't hurt me much at all! But by all means, keep trying to escape... I need the practice after all. I can't wait to show Meyrin this video, of me CHASING the great Kira Yamato, widely acknowledged as the number one Mobile Suit ace, around like a dog chasing a kitten!" Noah chuckled, not letting himself dwell to much on Meyrin, who was still early on in her transformation process. Which she would get through with flying colors, he was certain. He had to be certain, because anything else would be... unthinkable.

Railgun fire from the Archangel zoomed by every so often, but it was becoming the very epitome of easy to dodge it by now, and he ignored the minor irritation. He would take care of that silly white ship after he removed Kira Yamato from the equation. Without Kira around, Lacus would have one less reason to avoid coming with him to help him guide and nurture the new race of Ultimate Coordinators in their first steps into the Golden Age to come! Of course, she would be sad... she did love the brown haired goofball very much after all. But she would forget him eventually, for the good of all. Noah would make sure of it. He smiled as one edge of a Thermal Exciter cone clipped the Seraph's left heel, enough to leave it glowing a sullen orange color. Just a little bit more, and then he could make sure Kira had a VERY warm sendoff.

Noah was still smirking and chuckling to himself when the camera views all spun crazily and the Brotherhood slammed to a sudden and complete halt, dead in space even though its thrusters were still going! "What the HELL!?" Noah blinked and began checking his sensors more carefully. "Very clever, cousin. Very clever." Noah complimented through gritted teeth. Kira's flight path had not been random evasive maneuvers after all. He'd been orbiting a certain point in space, passing through every ten to fifteen seconds, leaving a few Fractal Wing feathers behind each time, deactivated so Noah would have nothing on his sensors to really see, until Kira had left enough behind for him to activate as a wall, which Noah had then flown into, bringing him to a halt. Kira had taken the trap one step further and fully enveloped the Brotherhood in Citadel Shields, trapping it and binding it in a cage of aqua-green energy, golden sparks fritzing and spitting from various surfaces as the Brotherhood strained and pushed at the walls of its prison, its arms trapped low at its sides, its wings all pointing almost straight up. "But what now? This won't hold me forever, and you can't shoot me through your own shields!"

Kira seemed berefit of ideas as well, as he neither moved to attack nor to flee, just sort of hanging around nearby, as if concentrating on keeping the Brotherhood contained within the Fractal Wings. Noah ceased struggling for the moment and took the opportunity to evaluate the larger battlefield, since no one was going to be shooting at him for the next while. Noah started frowning almost at once, as he began catching up on situation reports he had been neglecting while enjoying his pursuit of the "great" Kira Yamato. Brotherhood mass production Mobile Forces had suffered almost eighty percent casualties, and had fallen back almost to the Great Endeavor's hull in an effort to perserve resources. The Traitor and the Haunted had both been disabled and only recently recovered, their reactors forced off line by some fission reaction deadening weapon of the Seraph's. The Vengeance had been severely damaged, including damage to its pilot, who had been moved to the emergency medical care facility with a SEVERED ARM!? He was currently stable, but obviously far from fit to sortie again anytime soon, while his arm was reattached. Fortunately the cut had been extremely clean, so reattachment should be easy, and much quicker than cloning an entirely new limb.

The Retribution had suffered fairly serious damage as well, and the Revenant was, once more, all but destroyed and limping home like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs! But the worst thing was that much of the Revenant's damage had come FROM the Retribution, and vice versa! WHAT THE HELL WAS THE MATTER WITH THOSE BCPU'S!? Did they have to try to kill each other all the fucking time? Couldn't they work together for JUST ONE BATTLE!? JUST ONE!? Not even a full battle... just enough to rout the USN main fleets! But NO... NO, THAT was too MUCH to ask! Noah honestly felt like tearing out some of his own hair in frustration, for one of the few times in his life. "WHAT THE FUCK!?" He shouted, causing all of the Harbingers on the bridge to jump and cower away from him. Just about the ONLY good news was his one sided battle against Kira, and the progress of the Great Endeavor, which had bypassed the original position of the USN vanguard fleet, which was now slowly retreating in splurts before it, falling back behind that shield the Eternal was projecting until the Great Endeavor was too close, and then scooting back and repeating the process. Aside from that one stray AMP rifle shot, the Great Endeavor had suffered only minor surface damage, and was more than capable of continuing on as it was just fine.

The Great Endeavor also continued to project the wide band comm jamming signal that was preventing the USN fleets from getting easily organized, which was now, unfortunately, one of his chief advantages! He was down to the Brotherhood and the Great Endeavor, basically... and though they were incredibly powerful, they couldn't carry the battle alone. Not once the USN finally put their heads on straight since they weren't under constant attack and started chain launching nukes at him! Sure, he would get most of them, ninety nine percent even... but all it would take would be one getting through, and the Great Endeavor could be severely damaged, even crippled! Meyrin's life could be put in danger! Was already, in fact, in danger! Because of the incompetence and infighting among his so called underling's, MEYRIN was in danger! Noah could not STAND IT! A warning warble from the Brotherhood snagged his attention back to his masterpiece Gundam, and he saw that the Vorpal, looking much the worse for the wear after its battle with the Vengeance, was on approach. Of course, it SHOULD have been in itty bitty pieces, so it looked better than it ought to, but he took a little satisfaction in its beat up appearance. Maybe he wouldn't have Shinn's arm put on backwards after all, he appeared to have actually fought... unlike SOME!

Other new icons popped up on his sensor screen, and he could see the Phoenix King, Dawn Goddess and Warmaster all slowly moving in pursuit of the Revenant and Retribution, with the Phoenix King looking very much the worse for the wear with both arms missing from the elbow down, and a hole through its middle, though regrettably not through the cockpit! The Dawn Goddess also had battle damage, but the Warmaster... the plodding Warmaster... was all but pristine! Noah looked again and his frown briefly turned into a smirk, because he saw that the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess had both been hit by some of the specialty Red EDEN missiles from the Retribution, and were both currently having their lovely HAC armor turned into... sandstone, he was pretty sure. He'd have to check the formulas, but he was almost certain that was what he'd programmed those batches to produce. If they weren't careful to remove the contaminated portions soon, in a few days, depending on how much energy was absorbed by the EDEN, they'd have a couple of crumbly Gundam statues, but not much else! It was just too bad it wouldn't affect the pilots... Red EDEN was very vulnerable to chemical breakdown by the human immune system, as a precaution against industrial accidents. It could only devour dead human tissue, not living humans.

Noah eyed the Vorpal, which was cautiously circling the entrapped Brotherhood, apparently communicating in some manner with the Seraph. Perhaps it was the work of that disgusting Natural with Newtype abilities, Katie Belaruse had been her name, he was pretty sure. The pet of Ysak Joule, pilot of the Vorpal. She wasn't much of one for standing up to a real Newtype like Noah, but she probably had certain talents of her own, perhaps extending to communication if he remembered the few scant pieces of information he had bothered to collect on her. It seemed mind boggling that she could stretch her powers over such a large distance, but if Noah had learned one thing from himself, it was that you could not overestimate the power of the human mind, so perhaps there was more to her than seemed possible. It was an intriguing possibility, but a low priority one. So what if they could talk a little bit, it still didn't change the situation overmuch! They couldn't get at him, and he would eventually get out and get both of them, because the Vorpal was in such sorry shape he doubted it would even last a minute against the Brotherhood!

Noah was still trying to figure out what he was going to do after he destroyed the Vorpal and Seraph, debating if he wanted to take out the Retribution and Revenant to clear up that headache once and for all, or if it was better to let them come crawling back so he could use them again, when the Vorpal actually managed to catch him off guard, driving at the Brotherhood from directly behind, a bright glowing blue sword with a narrow blade held in both hands. Noah frowned, wondering what Ysak was thinking, tensing the Brotherhood to move... if Kira thought he was going to be able to drop his confining shields just before Ysak struck and leave the Brotherhood vulnerable, Noah was about to prove to him that at least in terms of pure reflexes, he and Kira were equal at the very least! The moment those shields dropped, Noah's Postrion Reflectors would be up, and a few seconds later the Vorpal would be nothing but radioactive slag, bubbling under the rays of his Thermal Exciters! It wasn't until ust about the very last second that Noah's eyes widened, as he remembered something very important about those blue swords of the Vorpal, which had cut RIGHT through the Traitor's Citadel Shield during their combat at the first battle of Galileo!

"NO!" Noah shouted, ramping the Brotherhood's FPR up to maximum, slamming his wings back and forth frantically, popping all four QC arm blades, ramming them out through other parts of the Citadel Shield, impaling Fractal Wing feathers, shutting them down, lessening the strength of the overall shield... in seconds he would be free! But he didn't have seconds... even as he struggled and fought with all his might, the Vorpal slammed its sword home, piercing right through the Fractal Wings like a needle through a soap bubble, driving in under the junction of the Brotherhood's four wings and its back, slicing right through the LCR armor like it wasn't even there, tearing through the Brotherhood's internals, destroying the Jeremiah and Kira LAICEPs computers, damaging the Frost LAICEP computer and severing the telepresence control link module that connected the Brotherhood to the Great Endeavor's bridge, before protruding several meters out of the Brotherhood's chest. Noah's holographic controls went dim, and his main screens displayed the message "connection lost" in blood red letters. For his part, Noah was staring into space, bug eyed, his face drained of color, unable to believe what had just happened HAD HAPPENED! "My... My Brotherhood..." Noah whispered.

"Great Prophet! The Brotherhood is..." The Harbinger trailed off in a liquid gargle as Noah clamped his jaws down and made the man bite off his own tongue and swallow it, before his heart went into a frenzy of pumping, so fast that blood fountained almost five feet into the air from his mouth before he collapsed into a writhing ball and expired. A brilliant white seed dusted with golden sparkles dropped through an echoing void inside Noah's consciousness, until it struck and rebounded from a great invisble barrier than flexed and shivered under the impact, damaged but not fully compromised, not yet, and the seed exploded with the power of a billion suns, filling him with raging light and energy. He opened his eyes once more, metallic lavender with gold pupils, and reached out with all his anger and denial and hatred for those who had broken his masterpiece! He saw their minds, like thumb sized jewels in a field of beach sand of lesser minds, and he reached out with hands like iron vises, ready to grip and squeeze them until they shattered like glass!

He was just settling his grip around them when he staggered backwards, mentally speaking, his cheek hot and stinging with the force of a slap that would have turned his head around had it been inflicted on him in person. He turned, snarling, furious at being denied his vengeance, wondering who would dare... who would even have the capability to dare... to defend his enemies, and found himself face to face with the most beautiful creature in existence. Lacus Clyne, her eyes nearly the same color of metallic lavender as his own, hovered more or less between those minds he was reaching for and himself, though any such terms as distance or position were largely irrelevant in the mental sphere. She was gigantic, but then so was he, both of them able to stomp on the Great Endeavor like it was a disposable plastic plate. _You're very lovely when you're angry, Ms. Lacus, but I'd advise you not to get in my way. I have business with some people who broke something very valuable to me!_

_Their sin is my own then, in that regard, because I was helping them break it._ Lacus replied, her tone steely. _It is you who should not get in MY way, Noah Borander. I don't want to fight you or hurt you, but I will NOT allow you to use your abilities to the detriment of the people I care about! And that applies to every mind we see here!_

_Why are you being so shortsighted!?_ Noah seethed, considering what to do. He very badly wanted to crush and maim and twist the minds of the pilots of those Gundams, but to do so would mean getting by Lacus, and he very much did not want to damage his Eve. _I am bringing about a golden age for humanity! You should be helping me, not hindering me!_

_From where I stand, it merely looks like you are hurting and killing a very large amount of people for your own selfish and somewhat whimsical goals._ Lacus retorted. _I would have loved to sit down and discuss your idea with you at one point in the past, but after all that I have seen you do, heard of you doing, or ordering done, I am afraid the time for diplomacy of that sort is ended._

_You WILL be my Eve, our Eve... the First Lady of the Ultimate Coordinators, the guiding light of feminity throughout the rest of mankind's history! That is what I am offering you, Ms. Lacus! How can you possibly turn away from that responsibility!?_

_Turning away from a responsibility being thrust on you by other people when you don't ask for it is hardly selfish. I let my actions in the past and presence speak for themselves, and if people want to follow my example, then I am glad for it. But what you speak of smacks to me of forcing people to conform to an idealized persona of me that is very likely extremely different from the real me. My answer is and always will be, no._

_I don't want to be your enemy..._ Noah made a snatched for Ysak and Katie, only to be warded off by another slap to the figurative face from Lacus. He gritted his teeth... it was more annoying or stinging than truly painful. If that was as hard as she could hit, then... he thrust a fist at Kira's mind, not caring about the gritty details, just wanting it destroyed, and hunched his shoulders to accept the slap. Except this time, it wasn't a slap. It was more like being struck by a semi-trailer going at highway speeds. His mental presence rocked far, far back and diminished greatly in size, and his body swayed and staggered even in real life. He picked himself up off the figurative floor and looked up at her towering above him. _Yes... very lovely when you are angry indeed._

_Enough with your empty flattery._ Lacus said coldly. _You may say you don't want to be my enemy, but by attempting to hurt Kira and the others, your actions prove you a liar. Don't make me hit you again... I might not be able to hold back this time._

_You are far stronger than I anticipated, that is true. Bothersome. I apologize for my actions, which were taken in haste._ Noah replied, his presence slowly swelling back up to equal proportions with hers. Quite how she could possibly be so strong, given that she almost never seemed to practice her powers, was a very great mystery to him, one he would have to sink a lot of effort in the near future into figuring out. He stared down at his feet and frowned, seeing the jewels that were Ysak and Katie and Kira's minds moving about in a state of agitation. _What's got them so worked up? I would have thought they'd be HAPPY._ He all but spat the last word, making it ugly and vicious as he thought of barbarians who could possibly be happy with destroying a marvel like the Brotherhood.

_Your "broken" machine is going berserk right now, and they're attempting to stop it before it causes any more damage than you already have._ Lacus informed him coolly.

_Its not destroyed!?_

_Sadly not._

_We will continue this another time then, Ms. Clyne. I'll see you on Earth, if you want to talk. Or more importantly, listen. I have a great deal of information you would likely be very interested to know. I'd advise you not to make up your mind too firmly about anything regarding me or the purpose of the Brotherhood until then._

_Mr. Borander, we will be stopping you here and now, so if there is anything you want to tell me, you should get it off your chest while you still can._

_Come alone, Ms. Lacus, I'll even let you chose the location for your convenience. Send a message at the Great Endeavor, and I will hear it. Well, bring that brown haired cousin of mine along if you must, but no more than the two of you. My knowledge is not for the ears of anyone but my peers._

_Your overconfidence is your weakness, Noah._

_Your faith in your friends is yours. Goodbye, until then, Ms. Lacus._ Noah let himself drop out of his seed rage, which narrowed the limits of his Newtype powers considerably. He opened several new displays and saw what Lacus had informed him was indeed true. With the main control signal lost, and the Kira and Jeremiah LAICEPs destroyed, the Brotherhood had fallen back on its only remaining LAICEPs, which was damaged... not that Frost wasn't "damaged" at the best of times, but he was out of control even for him, attacking randomly, flitting back and forth like a moth that has flown through a bug zapper, while the Seraph and Vorpal endeavored to box it in or contain it, though since almost all of the Fractal Wings had been destroyed earlier, they were having a very hard time of it. Noah was almost tempted to let them continue trying, since in their beat up condition is was somewhat likely the berserk Brotherhood might actually kill them anyway, but in the end he decided against it. The Brotherhood was too valuable to him to risk like that.

Noah opened an emergency comm channel to the Brotherhood and input a series of backup audible binary commands, a very unwieldly system, but the only method he currently had for interacting with the main computer, which was not damaged, merely disconnected. He shut off the Frost LAICEPs and then recalled the mostly dormant Brotherhood, leaving the nigh exhausted Vorpal and Seraph sitting in his dust, though both of them were so worn out, physically and mentally, they didn't even really try to pursue. Which was almost too bad... the closer they got to him, the further they would be from Lacus's protective skirts, until he would be able to reach them and she wouldn't, and then their lives would be his to end as he pleased... but that pleasing fantasy didn't look like it was coming true anytime soon, so he turned his attention to other matters. Such as figuring out a way to recover from this fiasco in a timely manner, so Lacus wouldn't be saying "told you so" in her sweet, dulcet, very aggravating tones! The main hanger doors were opening up as the Revenant made its lumbering way inside the Great Endeavor's defensive perimeter, the hassling Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors at last peeling away dejectedly, having been unable to prevent the Brotherhood from reclaiming its war Gundam yet again.

Or so ran Noah's thoughts until four parallel lines of red and gold light flashed in the far distance, one right after the other, each so closely following the last that if he'd been blinking he probably would have missed them all. He almost instantly correlated their angle of orientation, and he was just beginning to frown when he saw it coincided with the Revenant's current position. It was at that moment that the first Spear of Ares shot struck home, pretty much dead center in the Revenant's lower back, blasting a house sized hole entirely through the damaged Gundam, inner shield and all, sending both legs flipping through the void like shrapnel from a grenade. The second Spear of Ares shot struck home higher, hitting pretty much right behind the life support bubble containing Cray, obliterating the remains of the BCPU 5 before he even knew what hit him, ripping the upper torso of the Revenant asunder as well, holing the nuclear and fusion pulse reactor containment vessels. Emergency shutdown procedures were initiated at once, but by the time they began trying to shut down the reactors were already melting down, two brief yellow suns and one large orange-white one expanding outward from the remains of the Revenant, consuming everything in their path, including every last bit of the Revenant.

One of the other two Spear of Ares shots was lost in the expanding thermonuclear fireballs, perhaps being melted before it could strike anything, perhaps striking a small piece of wreckage and disintegrating, regardless, it did not strike either the Revenant or the Great Endeavor. However, the other shot, fired microseconds before the last one, did make it through, passing through the hole the second shot had made in the Revenant's upper body and continuing onwards, bypassing the outer rings of the Great Endeavor's defensive systems before they even knew they were about to be hit, and striking home near the upper part of the Great Endeavor's dorsal surface, only a few hundred meters shy of the base of the great AMP cannon. Nearby some exo-glass panels that looked almost like large greenhouse windows built into the otherwise blank metal of the Great Endeavor's hull. The Spear projectile did not strike the hull directly, instead being stopped by one of the semi-permanent Citadel Shields that warded the Atrium area during combat, but the impact was still devastating to say the least.

The entire Great Endeavor shook and shivered, as the Citadel Shield units for that entire quarter of the dorsal surface of the Great Endeavor overloaded and went offline, causing secondary explosions that continued to make the Great Endeavor shake and rattle every few seconds for the next thirty minutes. Hull plates were ripped up and scattered about, and thick cracks ran through the exo-glass Atrium windows, but they managed to refrain from shattering completely. Noah picked himself up from where he had sat down suddenly, having both lost his balance and forgotten to try and recover it as he stared, jaw agape, at the space where the Revenant had just been, not ten seconds ago, and where there was now only fading streamers of ionized gases from the triple explosions. "Did... did that just... happen?" Noah asked, dazedly, as the Harbingers of the bridge crew likewise collected themselves, shivering with shock.

"Great Prophet! We have taken a substantial hit to the upper dorsal surface, Northwest side! It does not appear that hull integrity has been compromised, but concussion damage to surrounding areas is severe. Casualties in personnel near those areas are being reported. We are getting secondary internal damage from overloading Citadel Shield systems on the North dorsal quarter... all North dorsal quarter Citadel Shields are offline at this time! Positron fields activated, holding steady. No damage reported in AMP cannon systems. Waiting on further damage reports from all sections of the Great Endeavor..."

"Northw... NORTHWEST!?" Noah screamed, a hideous sound that made every Harbinger on the ship, both those that could hear him and those who could only feel him, flinch and feel a surge of nausea as Noah's fear traveled into them with the force of a hammer blow to the base of the skull. "STATUS OF THE ATRIUM!?" He demanded.

"Atrium is..." The Harbinger collapsed suddenly, choking himself harshly with both hands.

"Not you. You attend to the rest of the Great Endeavor! I was asking the main computer!" Noah called over his shoulder as he rushed off the bridge, running with all his might towards the private elevator to the Atrium, while listening to the Great Endeavor give him status reports over the phone built into his collar. The Atrium itself had suffered shock damage, but was still environmentally sound, thank GOD! If that Citadel Shield hadn't been there... Noah forced himself not to think about it, as an image of Meyrin's body flying out into the depths of space, to implode from rapid depressurization while she was helpless in the process of transformation, raced through his minds eye. He almost puked, and it hadn't even happened! He reached the elevator and impatiently waited for it to transport him up, and he jumped out of it as soon as the security hatch slid away above him, not even waiting for the elevator to fully rise.

The Atrium was an unholy mess of fallen trees, scattered dirt, dust clouds, broken branches and panicked animals running this way and that, running into walls and tripping all over themselves in fear. Noah snarled, anger already sparked by the damage he could see, but he couldn't stop to let it fully sink in... not until... he pushed his way through the tangled and debris choked thickets, stumbling and almost falling several times until he burst out on the shores of his bedroom-pond. And there collapsed to his hands and knees in relief, because while there were several small trees lying in the pond now, and the bed had broken free of its moorings and drifted near the drainage stream, and everything was covered in a thick layer of light brown dust, the important thing, Meyrin, was still perfectly safe, lying in the middle of the bed, with Phlegethion and Aether crouched protecteively over her, their wings spread to shield her from any and all possible sources of damage. They looked up at him and hissed their discontent for the recent ruckus, but he barely noticed, so overwhelming was his relief.

"Great Prophet... the enemy fleets are moving towards us again. They seem to have at last begun to organize around the communications blackout. What should we do?" A Harbinger asked from the bridge, his voice tinny in Noah's ear. Noah looked around dazedly, at the broken and shattered stumps of trees, listening to the shrieking cacophony of his dear animals as they dealt with an event that must have seemed like a prelude to the end of the world, and very nearly had been, smelling the scent of fresh tree sap and upturned dirt, feeling the scratches and scrapes on his palms and knees and feeling the intense feelings of relief turn to almost unreasoning anger. THEY DARED TO TRY AND HURT MEYRIN WHILE SHE WAS HELPLESS! The thought burned like white hot brands pressed into the very fabric of his mind. "Great Prophet?"

"Prep the missile tubes with the dispersal warheads, blue label." Noah ordered hoarsely, almost quietly.

"Great Prophet... blue label?" The Harbinger asked, to clarify.

"YES, THE FUCKING BLUE LABEL, YOU NITWIT! THEY WANT TO PLAY DIRTY, WELL THEN FINE, I'LL SHOW THEM JUST WHAT DIRTY IS!" Noah shouted furiously. "Keep firing until all warheads are used up. Stain that entire fucking armada BLUE! Blue Cosmos used to want a blue and pure world... well, my Blue EDEN will be turning their worlds PURE BLUE here soon! Let's see if they can appreciate the difference!" Noah smiled crookedly. "You all made a terrible, terrible mistake. And very shortly, you're going to be wishing you'd kept this to as simple a battle as Mobile Suits, Gundams and Warships!"

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Author Note: Well, I can't wait to see what people have to say about the combat in this chapter. Much less the frenetic ending. Stay tuned, fans, this arc's ride isn't over yet... things are about to get nasty.


	48. Flash Flood part 6

Author Note: Seeing a new trend in some of the last reviews, people commenting on Lacus and Katie and the degree of their power. Do VERY MUCH bear in mind, dear readers, that at no time during this arc have either Katie OR Lacus been operating solo. At all points in time they have been Resonate-Amplifying with their intimate Latent... Ysak or Kira... a circumstance which does phenomenally boost their power, to a level where they can do stuff that is ordinarily far beyond them (affect people who can't physically hear her, for Lacus, or beat down a Stump barrier, for Katie), and allow them to even run roughshod over someone like Noah, who is just going it alone for the moment. What you might want to draw your attention to, at least slightly, was that even though Lacus AND Kira were working together, Lacus's mental presence in Seed Mode was STILL only a little bit bigger than Noah's, ALONE, in Seed Mode. Now, obviously thats because Lacus was either holding back some or, more likely, hasn't had the experience or practice to fully develop herself yet, but still... Lacus is too powerful... well, at times, when working with Kira, at the right phase of the moon, maybe when she's on her period and pissed off... yeah, yeah she can be. But if you put her and Noah in a cage match, with no extra help allowed... Lacus would be in a LOT of trouble.

The Great Endeavor did get hit, but aside from losing Citadel Shields on one eighth of its surface, and some damage to the "captain's cabin", its really not that heavily harmed. Lost some weapons emplacements, a small hole here or there... if it was a car, it might have a broken mirror and a few dings, but its still more than able to do whatever it needs to do. Comm Jamming is still in effect, AMP cannon still operational. Believe me, when the Great Endeavor takes a big hit and starts having major systems fail, you WILL know about it. There will be BIG explosions and bad stuff going on. Glad to see so many people remembered Noah's recording of Cray's mind... I was expecting a deluge of protests about killing Cray off, especially out of the relative blue so suddenly like that, but it hasn't materialized. Cray has died... but, like he would say, BCPU's cannot die, they will find a way to return, they are merely changed in form, like water into ice. I was unable to resist the Star Wars quote, though it just kinda popped out, wasn't really planning it.

Several people have said Noah's "tantrum" seems sudden or with not enough buildup. I disagree, in some ways. I mean, the Brotherhood is his pride and joy creation, his "masterpiece Gundam", that he's obviously lavished a lot of time and attention and love on. If someone broke my two hundred thousand dollar sports car on its first test drive, that I'd designed and built with my own two hands from the ground up, even making the parts myself... I'd be fucking PISSED too, by way of example. And the damage to the Great Endeavor, the loss of the Revenant, all of that... WAS sudden. It happened without much warning at all, and its put him in a state of angry shock. He's already pissed about the Brotherhood Gundam, and then Meyrin almost becomes collateral damage AND he loses the Revenant for good, especially since for a while there the battle was in the palm of his hand? He's shooting from the hip and its definitely the anger talking, so I even think tantrum is a good choice of words. Its exactly what he's doing. He's a five year old that just got his bottom slapped because he broke his favorite toy, and he's PISSED. Angry impulse control has never ever been Noah's strong suit. Sympathy not fully required... he's being a douche right now.

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"That was FUCKING AMAZING! You totally pulled a game saver out of nowhere. That bastard never knew what fucking hit him! I could almost HUG you!" Ysak shouted across the hanger bay of the Archangel, aiming his voice and wave at where Dearka and Miriallia were clambering down out of the almost pristine, if nearly ammo exhausted Warmaster. For his part he was holding an opaque plastic sheet across the entrance of the Vorpal's cockpit hatch, so that Katie could get out of her tank, wipe off the sticky bits of gel and get dressed in a set of coveralls that Ysak had included as "essential provisions" ever since that emergency ejection she did during the first battle of Galileo. Though having Katie sitting or lying nude in his lap was definitely not something he was often against, it was something he wanted to minimize displaying to other people... ESPECIALLY Zala, as much as possible.

"You know me... if I can't make it a big deal, its no fun for me at all!" Dearka called back, with a weary wave of his own. "I just hope he's really dead this time... if he's not, I don't know what else to hit him with!" Dearka continued in a much quieter tone of voice, for Miriallia's ears only.

"I didn't see any wreckage of the Revenant's torso left at all. I know we declared him dead after Galileo, but now I'm declaring him dead again. For real. I promise." Miriallia said with a relieved grin as she wrapped her arms around Dearka from the side and used him to support her weight. "I feel like I just ran a marathon. Twice. Uphill both ways. So tired I can barely think straight."

"S'Funny, I was just thinking of going to bed too." Dearka mumbled in return, though he definitely had a different intention in mind than sleep from the tone of his voice.

"Oh, stop it... how can you want to..."

"Babe, you should know by now, when it comes to that, I have inexhaustible energy that would put even the Spear of Ares to shame in terms of explosive power."

"Walk me to the cafeteria, before I choke to death on the exaggerated male ego stifling this area." Miriallia ordered, though she was smiling in a manner that definitely lent wings to Dearka's heart. She looked over at the Vorpal, where Ysak and the now coverall clad Katie were also descending to the hanger floor, arm in arm. "That poor Gundam. Dr. Simmons would be in tears if she could see that."

"If Ysak looks like that... we probably don't want to see what the other guy looks like. He tends to give out more than he takes, Ysak does." Dearka said confidently.

"Well, at least ONE of you knows how to come back and make my life easier." A gruff, warmly grouchy voice commented from behind them, and they both turned and nodded to Chief Murdoch, the Archangel's resident and long time head Gundam mechanic, who probably had more experience fixing and maintaining finicky Gundams than any three other men in any military in the world. He'd been with what would bcome the Clyne Faction from the very beginning, when Athrun and Kira were still fighting each other in the Strike and Aegis. Murdoch was looking fondly up at the Warmaster, which while dinged and scraped and singed in spots, was still whole of body and limb, and wouldn't require extensive, round the clock shifts of emergency repairs. He looked over at the Vorpal and squinted his eyes in displeasure, frowning deeply. "That thing looks like my little brother's car... after he rolled it off the highway into a forest going sixty kph. That armor is a total write off, much less the interior! I am SO bugging Erica Simmons for overtime pay when we get back."

"I'm sure she'll be glad to pay, chief." Kira said with a smile, having had a friendly, almost father-son relationship with Murdoch for almost eight years now. "I hate to say it, but the Seraph's Fractal Wings are a total loss, and I'm completely out of ammo. Got some nasty armor damage as well... that Brotherhood Gundam was something else. I don't look forward to seeing it again."

"Yeah, kid, I'll put it on the fricking list, okay? We're going to be working round the clock for the next WEEK fixing up all the stuff I could just SEE when you guys flew in, much less all the other stuff I'm sure you found a way to break that's not immediately obvious! Never seen such a group of people as hard on the machines as you guys are. Its good thing you own em... no insurance company in the world would cover you if you were still making payments on these beauties!"

"Wow, I never thought about that. Can you imagine how much Gundam insurance would have to be, assuming anyone was actually insane enough to insure a war machine against battle damage? Getting gap coverage would SUCK! And I thought paying for the BOAT was bad..." Dearka mused.

"I don't know... the Brotherhood probably doesn't have to pay much... their Gundams seem to fix themselves just fine on their own." Miriallia commented with a shiver.

Murdoch held up a hand disgustedly. "Don't even talk to me about that sci fi bullshit, pardon my french. Trying to put honest, hard working mechanics out of business, that crap! Machines shouldn't fix themselves... its unnatural! I'd rather work a year of eighteen hour work days than watch one of MY Gundams, since they're in MY hanger now, fix itself of even cosmetic damage! We have an understanding, Gundams and I... they do their thing, and I do mine to help em keep doing their thing no matter how broken up their insensitive pilots bring them back, or how often!"

"Well, I guess we'll leave you to your mechanical girlfriends then. I'm famished. Hey, where's Ysak going with Katie... that's just a storage room?" Dearka replied, his attention scattering, as usual for him when he came down from a stressful battle high.

"Kid, I never took YOU, of all of you guys, for being dense in that regard. That storage compartment has a door that locks from the outside... AND the inside." Murdoch answered with a knowing smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Oh... right... that's just a little more... forward than Ysak usually acts." Dearka replied with an uncomfortable shrug.

"You get horny before battles. Ysak gets horny AFTER battles. I think you're both deranged, but I try not to complain, and I certainly don't hear Katie cry about it." Miriallia added, rolling her eyes. "Too much of the opposite even. She likes to brag." Miriallia sighed. "Can't really blame them at the moment though... haven't stressed out like that since the end of the Isolation. I feel all used up inside, and we aren't even done yet!"

"Well, we do seem to have accomplished at least one goal. We have stopped the Great Endeavor. It's just sitting there behind a solid wall of Positron and Citadel Shields." Kira pointed out. "I don't think anyone is going to be doing much for the next few hours... with regular comms still being jammed, its going to take at least that long to sort things out and get organized with just line of sight lasercomms and couriers. We can all take a little bit of a break... attend to whatever methods help you relax after a battle... I think I need to go talk to Lacus." Kira nodded respectfully at the three of them and then headed off, at a brisk walk. They looked after him, and then traded glances among themselves.

"Ten bucks says he does more than talk to the pink princess." Murdoch said at long last.

"No bet. She is trying to get pregnant, after all." Miriallia replied, squeezing her arms comfortingly around Dearka as she said that sensitive word, though he didn't flinch, merely squeezing her back with equal intent.

"Speaking of the pink princess..." Murdoch drawled slowly, almost hesitantly. "She... uh... she did somethin to us in that last fight, didn't she? I mean, I try and keep my nose clean, and stay outta other people's business... especially the creepy stuff that doesn't make a damn bit of sense to me... but, well... there was definitely... somethin... well... dunno how to say it really..."

"We know what you mean, trust us." Dearka replied seriously. "I mean, I understand why Katie did what she did, and I'm even thankful for it... without communications, that would have been far tougher than it was, and that's no good thing. But still... I can't help but feel... invaded, a little. I don't know what Lacus was up to, but I did feel something when we came back to the Archangel... nothing specific, just a... general sense of safety and resolve bolstering me, I guess you could say. It was like I knew I had the home field advantage and a friendly crowd, ya know?"

"Yeah! Yeah, that's just it... I felt like I was being cheered on by the full roster of Playboy girls, that entire battle!" Murdoch sighed dreamily. "Everybody was feeling it... didn't see a single quivering lip or twitching eyebrow, no nervous tics, no near breakdowns... it was like all fear had been banished. Never seen a battle where everyone was so... calm. How'd she do it? I mean, I... I, uh, couldn't hear her, y'know, sing..."

"Soon as I find out, I probably won't tell you, because you wouldn't sleep well at night otherwise." Dearka answered.

"You have a point there, kid."

"Chief! Chief, we got a SERIOUS problem here!" A voice shouted from the bay that connected the two hanger mandibles inside the Archangel, where a group of excited and puzzled looking mechanics and technicians was approaching them, carrying several items on carts, coming from the direction of the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess. Cagalli was with Athrun at the Archangel's medical suite, where he'd been taken immediately after landing to get all the shrapnel taken out of his legs from when the missile had bored right through the Phoenix King's stomach and narrowly missed the cockpit. The wounds weren't life threatening, but Athrun was in a lot of pain and couldn't walk by himself, even in the microgravity of the ship, and there'd been plenty of blood to get Cagalli's eyes wide and worried, before the paramedics had assured her that Athrun was going to be fine. Cagalli herself was bruised and battered around, as was usual for a rough fight involving plenty of melee combat and battle damage, but she refused to let the medics take any time away from Athrun or other seriously wounded people to help her, not until she was sure everything had been done for the truly needy.

"Tell me some FUCKING news, Warren! We're fucking DROWNING in serious fucking problems right now!" Murdoch shouted back irritably. He began ticking off the major points on his fingers, muttering venemously. "Fucking Vorpal... looks like its been mauled by a tiger. An ANGRY tiger. Seraph... doesn't have ANY WINGS, plus armor damage. Warmaster... needs complete resupply, high priority because battle not done yet. Dawn Goddess... missing shoulder weapon, melee weapon and various and sundry external armor damages. Phoenix King... Phoenix Feathers system more than fifty percent destroyed. Head sized hole all the way through stomach region. Main operating computer, just plain fucking GONE. Injured pilot, meaning there's GOT to be some cockpit damage of some sort. Oh yeah, and before I forget... IT HAS NO FUCKING ARMS FROM THE ELBOW DOWN! Does this serious problem of yours rate up with any of THAT, Warren!?"

"You aren't going to like it, Chief."

"Warren... I'm warning ya... ya keep making obvious statements like that, I'm gonna have you scrubbing grease out of the bilges again." Murdoch said sternly. "Break it to me. I can take it. I don't think there's a single sort of problem a Gundam can suffer I have NOT seen at one point or another."

"The Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess are turning to stone, Chief."

"Fuck you too, God." Murdoch mumbled, after he realized it wasn't a prank. "All right, Warren... run that by me again. WHAT'S wrong with the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess!? I coulda sworn you just told me they were turning to STONE!?"

"Don't kill me, Chief, but that's exactly what's happening, as far as we can tell. The armor is just spontaneously turning to... sandstone of some sort."

"Multimillion dollar armor does NOT spontaneously turn to rock, sandstone or otherwise, Warren!" Murdoch retorted wrathfully. He pushed through the crowd of mechanics to where several armor plates were lying on the carts. "Get outta the way... lemme see this shit." Murdoch picked up a bright red shard of armor from the Phoenix King, about the length of his arm and the width of his chest, something he was only able to lift by himself because of the microgravity. Dearka and Miriallia, though exhausted and hungry, crowded in behind him, too intrigued by the weirdness of armor turning to stone to want to miss out on this chain of events. "Doesn't look any..." Murdoch turned the armor plate over, so what would be the outer side was now visible to all and sundry. "Oh my fucking god..."

Dearka tenatively reached out a hand and rubbed it along the grainy, orangey-tan surface of the armor plate, which crumbled slightly under his touch, revealing a pit in the armor where the sandstone-armor had once been. By looking very closely, Dearka could see the sandstone effect spreading across the surface of the plate, another fraction of a millimeter every few seconds, in all directions. Dearka stared at his hand in sudden trepidation, but aside from a bit of sandy dust coating his fingertips, his hand looked fine, and he didn't feel any pain, or like his skin and flesh was turning to stone as well, so he breathed a slight sigh of relief. Whatever it was didn't seem to be contagious. "Care to explain, whiz kid?" Murdoch prompted.

"Fuck me if I have the slightest idea, Chief." Dearka replied, wide eyed. "The armor is, uh... turning to sandstone. Kind of like rust on steel... but way, way faster. And its turning metal to stone, obviously, which is impossible."

"Remind me not to hire you as a technical consultant." Murdoch growled. "How much of this shit is on the Gundams?"

"More than eighty percent of all surface areas on both the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess are starting to show signs of, uh... petrification, Chief. Some of the deeper joints probably are too, and we're pretty sure it's gotten inside the Phoenix King through the arm stumps and that stomach hole."

"Well, at least it's totalled anyway. Might as well turn to stone too. Why FUCKING not!?" Murdoch cried furiously, before slamming his forehead into the armor plate in his hands, raising a cloud of sandstone grit and causing a cascade of sand to slide onto his coveralls, leaving a large section of pitted armor plate, with sandstone edging the pits and growing outward still. "Damn, I really am awake..." Murdoch muttered resentfully, glaring at the armor plate and the sand.

"What do we do, Chief?"

"Take em apart. Discard ANYTHING that looks like its starting to turn to stone. We'll put back together the uncontaminated pieces and see what we have left. And don't let this stuff touch anything else... the last thing we need is for whatever it is to spread to the ship... Captain Ramius would nail my skin to her door if the Archangel started turning to stone too." Murdoch directed. "We'll try and get some samples down to Dr. Simmons, assuming they haven't all turned to FUCKING sandstone before then... maybe she can tell us what the hell's going on. That lady is going to be on the fucking warpath once she hears someone's trying to turn her Gundams into sandstone. It's fucking sandstone... there's no dignity in sandstone! Marble, maybe... but sandstone... that's really FUCKED UP! I can't believe I'm saying these things... I'm cracking up! I'm gonna need a LOOONG vacation after we get done with this terrorist shit."

"You and us both, Chief." Miriallia said in a heartfelt tone. "You and us all."

------------------------------------------

"Gilbert, you really should not be here right now! This ship is at the front line! The battle could start up again at any time, and then you'd be trapped here! Besides, you're still injured... you shouldn't even be standing up like that!" Talia scolded the Secretary of Defense, since it was only the two of them in her private cabin aboard the Newton. A courier ship bearing orders and instructions had landed a few minutes prior, and the entire crew had been surprised and honored to see that the Secretary of Defense had come along as well, in person, despite his injuries, to boost morale and "view the enemy from the perspective of the people that had fought him to a standstill", a statement that had swelled the hearts of many, including Talia's, with pride... but also worry, because the Newton was close to the very tip of the spear right now, and that anti-matter cannon was still fully functional, if not charged at the current time.

"I'm very tired of sitting back in a bunker, blind and deaf to what's really going on in these battles." Gilbert replied, pushing himself away from her desk, where he'd been glancing at her pictures and knicknacks while he waited for her to arrive at her cabin, and floated towards her. His injured leg was still encased in a stiff cast from thigh to ankle that made it impossible to bend the limb while the knee joint healed back together again, a process much accelerated by Curaga gel treatments, though he was still going to have metal pins reinforcing that joint for the rest of his life. It hurt, throbbing even when he was free floating in microgravity with absolutely no weight even close to on it, but that was what local painkillers and willpower were for. "There's worse places to be trapped than on a warship when a battle starts. Especially a warship under your command, Talia." Gilbert smiled, as she reached out to him to gently arrest his momentum.

"You have duties to attend to as Secretary of Defense." Talia pointed out.

"I also have feelings as a man." Gilbert countered, and leaned close to embrace her and kiss her. "Which sometimes need to come first, even for... especially for... someone in my position. I've missed you terribly, Talia... I'm sorry for not making enough time for you before this horrible situation."

"Oh, Gil... your sense of timing really has always been terrible." Talia hugged him tightly. "You really should learn to come to me as Gilbert Durandel the man during downtime, not times of personal or world wide crisis."

"Oddly enough, it seems to me anyways that I have a lot more dead time during times of crisis than in so called downtime. People don't actually want me to DO anything right now... my job ends before the battle and starts again after it... during the actual fighting, I'm just an extra body in the way." Gilbert stroked her back, enjoying the long awaited feeling of the woman he loved in his arms once more, if only briefly. "I wish I could stay like this for the rest of the day, but you are correct, as usual... I have other things people are making me do."

"Don't exaggerate... you do them because you know they need to get done, not because people make you." Talia said fondly, taking another kiss before they almost bashfully seperated. "Now sit down in your chair again before you go bumping that leg into something!"

"Yes, dear." Gilbert smiled faintly, easing himself back down into his wheelchair, the wheels of which were magnetically stuck to the deck. It even had a seatbelt, to keep him from flying out of it during any potential sudden maneuvers. "I know I told your crew already, but I want to say it again, personally... you've done an amazing job, Talia, and the whole USN owes you their thanks for your efforts."

"Don't go trying to make me the lone heroine now, Gil. I'm just one warship captain out of many in the vanguard fleet. I know you're not the most fond of Orb, but without their fleet contribution or Gundams, or the presence of the Eternal from ZAFT, we'd probably still be fighting, if we hadn't all been wiped out already."

"And I will be visiting them too, if time allows." Gilbert replied. "Solidarity in times of crisis does have to take precedence over peace time differences in opinion, of course. But forgive me for choosing to be selfish and allowing myself to visit you first?"

"Of course. I'm so glad to see you again..." Talia laid her hand on his shoulder and squeezed affectionately. "Rey's here too, actually. He brought in a wounded member of his unit during the latter stages of the battle. She's being treated in the medical bay right now... she was in rough shape, but she'll get better. She was lucky Rey came along when he did... another ten minutes out in the vacuum and she would have been a goner." Talia informed him. She leaned close and winked, before continuing on in a more conspirital tone. "I think she's rather special to him... he hasn't left her side since the beginning of the lull, even though the doctors say she probably won't regain consciousness for several more hours. Who'd have thunk it, eh... our Rey, finally finding a girlfriend?"

"Seems like his timing could use a little work too." Gilbert smiled. "I'll make sure to take her, and any other seriously wounded, of course, back with me to Luna and safety when I leave, assuming thats all right with you, Captain?"

"I don't see as I could stop you, Mr. Secretary. Nor would I want to. That's one of the things I love about you so much, Gil... you really do care, even if some people have a hard time seeing it." Talia returned his smile.

"Ah, but if only more people could see me in the same light you do, Talia, how much simpler life would be." Gilbert reached up and squeezed her hand for several seconds. "I have an official briefing, but you've had eyes on the enemy for much longer than any of my intelligence advisors. Do you have any idea what he's up to? I need a better understanding of the situation. This damned communications blackout is the absolute worst hassle."

"I'd put it in stronger terms than that." Talia said thinly. "The lack of communications is probably directly responsible for at least a third of the casualties we suffered, and things are going to be grim once more if we re-enter combat, even with just the Great Endeavor, and comms are still down. We need to be fluid in our response to that monster, and fluidity is VERY hard to come by without being able to talk to people. The Mobile Suit and Mobile Armor forces especially are suffering, since they don't have lasercomms. Fortunately the Brotherhood seems to have lost most of its own Mobile Forces, including that massive psychopathic one, which is a huge relief, but if we assault the Great Endeavor, we're going to loose a lot of people, and a lot more because of the comm blackout. Can't anything be done about that?"

"Our own Electronic Warfare people are working on it as hard as they can, or so I'm told. I'm afraid Noah's technological advantage might be too great to surmount in this particular area, at least for the near future. The Great Endeavor is big enough to have jamming systems that can just outpower us through sheer brute force... its more a Mobile Base than a warship." Gilbert answered grimly. There was a few moments of slightly awkward silence.

"Are you going to nuke it, Gil?" Talia asked at last, softly. Nuclear weapons were a double edged sword no Coordinator would treat lightly ever again.

"Its... one of the options under discussion." Gilbert replied, equally softly. "We're not going to be doing much of anything to it until we figure out a way to get through those shields, but once the shields are down... it may very well come down to that being the best option. Let us not forget he has already used, several times, a weapon of mass destruction. Fortunately no one on Luna was killed, but there have been reports of injuries... and that shot didn't even hit close to a populated area. I shudder to think of what would happen if he turned that cannon on Copernicus and tried to use the city as a hostage."

"Its disgusting, but I'm almost surprised he hasn't thought to do that. I mean, he is a terrorist, one would think it would be second nature to attempt to grab hostages." Talia sniffed with disdain.

"His overconfidence is among our greatest advantages against him. He really believes he doesn't need anything but brute force to get past us... taking hostages would mean, to him anyways, conceeding that his technology and Gundams weren't good enough to beat us, and that would be almost as bad as dying, for him." Gilbert said consideringly. "Thank God for megolomaniacs." He shook his head. "I have no idea what's going through his head right at the moment... it must have been a rude awakening for him, finding out that the world would not order itself to his specifications just because he wanted it to. I'm somewhat surprised he hasn't tried to communicate with us again... some ranting and raving to restore his pride would seem to fit the bill for a loony like him. Its really too bad... he's such a brilliant young man. Think of all the good he could have done for humanity."

"The brightest lights cast the darkest shadows." Talia said with a shrug. "So sometimes you have to extinguish them, no matter how much they illuminate the room."

"Quite so. His silence though, worries me. Nothing good has ever happened when Noah Borander refuses to even talk anymore..."

"I think we've already seen the worst he can do, thankfully. From here on out it should just be more of the same, adapting to what we've already seen. If he could have hit us harder, he would have already."

"Doubtlessly, you are correct, as usual, Talia. I'm just a worrywart... comes with the territory, I'm afraid."

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"Great Prophet, we have a status report." The Harbinger said, somewhat hesitantly, unsure if the Great Prophet was in a mood to be disturbed. The Great One had been in a fiery distemper since the retreat, and though his faith was pure and he would gladly do whatever the Great Prophet desired, he could not but help hope that those desires did not lead to him cutting his throat or tearing his own eyes out and eating them, as had happened to several unfortunate comrades, bearers of bad tidings. Fortunately, the Great Prophet's mood seemed much improved now, and he even was graced with a smile from the Holy One, though it did make his heart quail even as it rejoiced with trembling. The Holy One was happy... but only because a great many others were soon not to be.

"We have finished launching all the Blue EDEN. Excellent." Noah plucked the report from the man's mind and smirked. While the Great Endeavor seemed to be sitting idle behind its layered shields of Positron and Citadel energies, it was in reality far from it. The Gundams were being repaired as quickly as the maintenance silos and self repair sytems could be coaxed to cooperate, and replacement Zealots and Martyrs were already being constructed from stockpiled parts. In four or five hours he'd have the Brotherhood ready to launch once more, alongside twenty or more Zealots and Martyrs, and he could once again take the fight to the enemy... though now that the Blue EDEN had been deployed, that would no longer be necessary. At the same time, Mirage Colloid cloaked missiles were being fired in waves from the tactical anti-ship missile launchers, sneaked out through small holes in the Great Endeavor's protective screens, hidden from the USN armada by the bulk of the Great Endeavor. The long range, remote guided munitions were even now spreading out throughout the USN fleet, circling around to come in from the back in most cases.

The reasoning for that was that Noah did not want to chance, even a little bit, any Blue EDEN being directed at Earth. Keeping the Moon out of the line of fire was going to be impossible, but hopefully with the Great Endeavor nearby they could keep the Moon from being contaminated, using the AMP cannon and rifle to sterilize anything from the USN armada that tried to land, once Blue EDEN had been activated, since conventional weapons would only fuel the process. Truth be told, Noah was already somewhat regretting ordering the use of Blue EDEN... it was the most horrible, destructive weapon he'd ever intentionally created. However, he forced himself to steel his will, remembering the state of the Atrium and the threat to Meyrin's life that had thankfully been averted. Not to mention the crippling losses his Mobile forces and Gundams had suffered. He really was just about down to his last straw, no matter how he sliced it. It was unfortunate, but as long as he was careful, he should be able to prevent the situation from spiralling any further out of control. And he would definitely teach those USN fools what it meant to incur divine wrath!

Noah typed in the twenty seven character password that unlocked the Blue EDEN activation sequence on his personal computer, and then hooked it up to the Great Endeavor's mainframe so he could track the dispersal of the missiles. Each missile was slightly bigger than the Wombat Ship to Ship missile fired by the Archangel, fitting a sophisticated computer navigation system, multiple warheads and several stages of rocket booster into a relatively compact six meter long by meter wide and tall rectangular box like form. Aerodynamics weren't important, since the missiles were designed for space use only. Inside each Blue EDEN missile was packed with what an uniformed observer might easily think were paintballs... thumb sized blue waxy balls filled with a sparkling blue chalk like powder suspended in thick flammable gel to make a sticky paint like substance. Each missile carried several tens of thousands of the balls, each of which also had a ceramic, pencil eraser sized incendiary charge in the middle. As each missile reached its optimal target location, it began to revolve, slots opening in its sides, allowing a few paintballs at a time to be thrown out by centrifugal force as the missile slowly pathed along a course that would take it as close to as many warships as possible, until the space the USN armada was occupying was seeded with millions of the tiny blue warheads.

As the ships moved or even stayed at rest, the blue balls began splattering against their outer hulls, the delicate ceramic incendiary charges shattering and becoming inoperative at any imapct strong enough to break the waxy ball exterior, which then resulted in the sticky blue paint-gel smearing itself on whatever surface it had struck. Each incendiary charge had an ID signal that was routed back to the Great Endeavor, so that the number of projectiles that found targets could be discerned. Most of the balls struck so lightly no one noticed, though a few splattered harder, and the ones that struck windows were hard to ignore, generating surprised looks from anyone nearby, as globs of blue paint weren't exactly commonly found floating in empty space. However, with comms still down, the fact that it was a fleet wide phenomenon went unremarked, and most just shrugged and went back to what they were doing. Even those that were initially suspicious found themselves just staring at a splatch of blue paint for a few minutes, with nothing happening. Probably just debris from the battle, melted plastic paint from a destroyed warship or something. And indeed, until the activation signal was sent, thats all it pretty much was, for safetey's sake.

About twenty minutes after the missiles started dispersing the EDEN, they ran dry, and ten minutes after that, Noah had calculated that over eighty percent of the ships in the USN armada, including every ship in the vanguard fleet, Archangel, Eternal and Izumi classes included, had been struck by anywhere from ten to three hundred or more warheads. Many thousands of other warheads had not found targets... but that was what the flammable gel and incendiary charges were for. A single command from Noah's computer and all the balls that had missed began immolating themselves, flaring like tiny sparks before burning to inert, greasy sludge. It didn't happen all at once, but in waves, and the flares were so small in the background of space that you would practically have to be right next to one to see it. And thus, the hazard of free floating Blue EDEN was at least somewhat mitigated... because until activated, the substance was destructible by any of a wide variety of means, including burning. Of course, after activation of the nanites... that was no longer the case.

Noah recieved confirmation that all missed warheads had been immolated, and he opened the menu for activating the Blue EDEN itself. His fingers hoevered over the menu button for several seconds, before he tapped the key. It was done. There was no turning back now. It was only a matter of time, and his enemies would be laid low. Blue EDEN, which was named for Blue Cosmos, operated on a very simple principle, very similar to that of the other types of EDEN. But whereas Green EDEN used chemical engineering to reconstruct and modify biological DNA, and Red EDEN used chemical engineering to reconstruct and modify the physical structure of matter into myriad other forms of matter, Blue EDEN did one thing and one thing only... it converted anything it touched to more Blue EDEN. It was even more resistant to biological immune systems than Green EDEN, it used almost any form of energy it was exposed to in order to rapidly increase its work processes, and it was very active... if you got even a little bit on you, it would burrow in and could not be brushed of scraped away... unless you scraped away all matter contaminated with it.

Green EDEN was vulnerable to plasma type temperatures. Red EDEN was ineffective against even weak immune systems. Blue EDEN, once activated, could be destroyed by exactly two things. One was antimatter. Two was exposure to solar core tempertures for at least thirty seconds. That was it, and neither of those was exactly a surgical tool. Well, technically another, even more voracious nano-colony could consume it in turn, but none such existed. Well, the Black EDEN, maybe... but Noah had no intention of ever testing it or using it like that. Blue EDEN would consume even the other two types of EDEN and convert them to Blue EDEN as well. It could be contained by strong magnetic fields, but contained was all it would be, not destroyed. Noah had also not programmed in an off switch, to prevent anyone from trying to hack his ultimate weapon... once the control activation signal had been sent, Blue EDEN would grow... and grow... and grow... and consume and consume and consume until... well... it wouldn't stop by itself. It would take a few hours to get started, especially in cold or low light areas, but once a patch found a stable source of material and energy, it could double in size every few hours, faster with more energy. He would have to sterilize the area with the AMP weapons. A dirty cleanup, for a dirty weapon... but he consoled himself with the knowledge that the enemy had been the ones to push him to it... he had tried other methods first, and only resorted to this when there was no other choice.

Noah settled back to wait and watch, as his Gundams were repaired and his enemies were subsumed by his ultimate weapon. He swallowed hard... Meyrin was not going to be pleased when he told her about Blue EDEN. Noah grinned humorlessly for a moment... at least she hadn't swallowed some Blue as a threat! His thoughts also turned to Lacus, aboard the Archangel. _Now would not be the time for your silly selflessness, Eve. I guess I have no choice but to trust my cousin to keep you safe from yourself. Fortunately, he does seem rather accomplished at that task. I suppose its too much to hope for that he would sacrifice himself to save you though, eh? I'm so looking forward to talking with you when I get to Earth... there's so much you don't understand, that I can make clear for you, the blue diamond from the meteor. You have no idea how special and unique you really are. Even for an Ultimate Coordinator._

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"Ohh, what the FUCK!?" Murdoch complained, peering at his feet and the sticky blue mess he'd just stepped in. He lifted one foot and poked at the slimy, paint like substance with his fingertips. It clung to his skin and seemed to stain right in, like spilled ink. "WHO THE FUCK SPILLED PAINT ALL OVER THE DECK!? ITS A FUCKING FIRE HAZARD, YOU DOLTS!"

"Sorry, Chief, it must be debris that came in with the Dawndrakes when they swapped out CAP rotations. Some of em were dotted with it all over." Another mechanic called down, waving blue stained gloves down at his chief, inky blue stains covering his face from where he'd accidentally wiped his hands against his cheeks a few minutes earlier. "Whatever the hell it is, it sure as fuck don't wipe up easy... it just seems to smear. Can't even get it up with a scraper!"

"Well, just try not to splash it around, okay? Got enough to worry about without bright blue, sparkly, sticky paint getting all over shit. Fucking hell..." Murdoch wiped his hand against his pant leg several times, but while his paints were now tinged with blue, the stains on his fingers hadn't faded either. He shrugged... a mechanic's hands were never clean... not if he was doing his job right. A few blue ink stains would just blend right in with all the grease and oil and grime. He stroked his grizzled chin with his hand contemplatively, leaving blue stains on his five o'clock bristles, and sighed... enough lollygagging around, it was time to grab a wrench and get busy somewhere... maybe the Phoenix King disassembly team could use a little help? He shook his hand slightly, fingertips starting to hurt a little, but he ignored it. He was always catching them in something or other, or taking electric shocks, or something... it was a wonder he could feel his hands at all.

-----------------------------------------

"Hey! You there... wash your freaking hands before you come into the medical area! You got paint all over them. Seriously, are you TRYING to give people infections, soldier?" One of the ZAFT medics called, drawing Rey's attention for a moment as a soldier stood up across the bay, his face red with embarassment, sticky blue fluid staining his uniform pant legs, inky blue smears on his palms and fingertips. Small splatters of paint had brushed off against the bed the unconscious young woman was lying on, near where the soldier had knelt, gently caressing her brow with his dirty hands, pleading with her to wake up and be fine... similar to what Rey was doing with Luna, just louder and with more touching. More paint was on the floor around where he'd knelt... he was covered in the stuff.

"S-Sorry sir... I just... I had to see her... because... I..." The soldier stammered, flushed red as he tried to articulate his feelings. He couldn't have been older than sixteen. The ZAFt doctor's face softened, and he laid a hand on the soldiers shoulder comfortingly, staining his sleeve and wrist and surgical glove with more of the blue stuff.

"Listen, young man, I understand you are concerned for her. Its perfectly natural. But you're really causing more harm than help by contaminating a sterilized area. Go wash up, get that paint off you, and then come back. She'll still be here. And she's going to be fine... just a knock on the head. She'll be awake in a few hours." The doctor said reassuringly. The young soldier nodded, obviously fighting back a case of the tears, and he left the medical bay briskly. The doctor looked at his stained sleeve, latex gloves and wrist and shook his head despairingly. "Nurse, I need new gloves. And a clean wipe for my shirt sleeve." The doctor pulled off his dirty gloves and tossed them in a nearby trash chute that would empty out into the ship's automated trash disposal and recycling center, near the engine room. He rubbed at his sleeve stain with the fingers of his other hand. "Damn, that stuff doesn't look like its going to wash out. Nurse, clean wipe!" The doctor looked at the forehead of the unconscious girl, and the blue inky mark in the middle of it and sighed.

Rey turned his attention back to Luna, chewing his lip as he hesitantly stretched out a hand towards her forehead, before drawing it back just shy of brushing her hair away from her face. He felt like he was intruding, like he was betraying Shinn's memory for some reason, even though the dead could not comfort the living, and Luna definitely needed comforting right now. She was so vulnerable looking, he'd never realized. He had a strong desire to gather her protectively in his arms and hold her tight until she recovered fully, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He didn't want to see what look would be in her eyes when she awoke and found him cradling her, and not Shinn. So instead he contented himself with sitting by her side and waiting.

----------------------------------------

"What are you looking at, Andrew?" Murrue asked, after taking a deep sip of refreshing cool water, fresh from the galley. She leaned back in her captain's chair and rubbed a few sore vertebrae with her thumbs... she'd have to really remember to have them make the captain's chair more comfortable, next time the Archangel went into refit. It was very functional, but sitting in a hard metal chair for hours on end was killing her back.

"Hmm?" Andrew looked up from where he was apparently brooding or staring out the bridge windows at nothing, which he'd been doing for the past five minutes straight. "I noticed a few blue splotches on the corner of the window an hour or so ago... probably the remains of one of those FNE ship's paint schemes. Or so I was pretty sure... but unless I'm really going crazy... the patches seem to be growing in size. They're almost thirty percent bigger now than they originally were. I'm sure it's nothing important, but while we're just sitting around here anyway, I couldn't help but get distracted."

"Can't turn the mind off, huh? Maybe you should take a break from the bridge, go stretch your legs a little. Go take a gander at the mysterious metal to stone transformable Gundams we seem to have equipped ourselves with." Murrue recommended with a wry smile.

"If it hadn't come from Chief Murdoch, I wouldn't have believed that." Andrew admitted. "But that man likes weird shit even less than I do, and he wouldn't make a prank call like that. Maybe I will go take a look. Has anyone told Athrun and Cagalli they might soon be the proud owners of the very first Gundam series lawn gnomes?"

"I don't know if that particular bombshell has yet been dropped. Perhaps you'd like the honor?" Murrue's smile faltered somewhat... it was all well and good to make light of a strange, seemingly impossible situation... but the cold, hard facts were that two of their Gundams were now completely disabled, with no recovery in sight. They'd just lost forty percent of their Gundam force. Depending on how severe the damage to enemy was... that could make things very dicey, if and when the Brotherhood decided to stop hiding behind those pink shields. "Bring me back some of that coffee of yours, please?"

"Sure thing. I think I'll get a double for myself. I've a feeling I won't be getting much sleep anytime soon."

--------------------------------------------

"Doctor, we've successfully extracted all pilots from the remaining Panzerwulf units. We're keeping them in hot standby mode as you instructed. So far rescue operations have not turned up any salvage from the destroyed units. I'm afraid they're likely total losses."

"Nothing less than expected, Giresse, if not hoped." Roanoke sighed and rubbed at the worry lines creasing his face. "What about enemy tech, have we managed to salvage anything that way? I'd prefer it if Orb wasn't the only nation to be going through Mr. Borander's trash."

"We're bringing in a lot of parts and debris, Doctor, but most of it looks pretty... rough... to be generous. Orb really lucked out when they captured a Gundam and one of the mass production models almost fully intact. What about a political solution?"

"Jiro Kurenai can be bought, eventually, but by that time Orb will already be working on its own prototypes or even improvements to the systems, and they might very well hoard the very top end stuff to themselves. After all, its not like the rest of us know for sure what's in them or not. That is what I would do, were I they." Roanoke leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Keep looking Giresse... we'll find a diamond ring amongst the kitchen scraps sooner or later. And change your coat... you're tracking blue paint all over my office."

"Sorry, Doctor, it was all over some of the more interesting pieces of recent salvage. I heard some of the ship's crew saying that the polymer paints they use on the outer surface of the warships sometimes melt off during combat and go flying around. Apparently we must have caught a pretty good broadside of it... the port side looks like a kindergartener has been finger painting it."

"You do have a talent for overhearing useless information, Giresse."

"I'm always looking for diamond rings in the kitchen slops, Doctor."

"Good man, Giresse, good man."

"Speaking of, Doctor, grapevine rumor has it that one of our special pilots has, well, become rather close to certain annoying Solar Knights we both know. Intimately close, so the rumors say, though they are very sparse on the details. Should we do something?"

"Don't worry about it, Giresse. Consider it something of a... private pet project of mine. We need to understand how human-like they can become before they start losing the "Tranquil Mind" that is so useful to us. Stella is participating with my full blessing. It certainly has not seemed to impair her performance as of recently."

"That is true. I shall return in a few hours, Doctor... hopefully with good news."

"And a new coat. I detest messes, as you well know."

---------------------------------------------

Durandel stared at the Great Endeavor, hanging like a gigantic pink throat lozenge in space, hiding behind its screens of magnetically contained anti-matter. What was Noah thinking... just sitting there? He had to know the USN would eventually get around those Positron shields... pinpoint FRALA fire to the emitters would hamstring the defense system in a matter of hours, and from then on it would be a simply matter to keep launching flights of nuclear missiles until one or two slipped through, and then the entire Brotherhood would be going the way of the Revenant. This passivity was disturbing, because it was a complete one hundred eighty degree reversal in how Noah had been acting up till now. And whenever the enemy changed their plan of action so enormously, but nothing seemed to happen... that usually meant you were missing something. And that was not a feeling he enjoyed.

"It definitely looks... I don't know... beautiful, doesn't it?" Talia asked quietly, for his ears only. "I hesitate to call anything that dangerous beautiful, but, just sitting there like this, with all those pink shields around it, it kind of reminds me of a big Christmas ornament."

"It does have a certain majesty." Durandel admitted. He waved his hand at one of the other bridge display screens, the one looking back at the still considerable mass of the USN main fleets, lights like gemstone dust scattered across a band of black velvet. "As does that. Regardless, I shall be much more pleased when they are both gone."

"So won't we all." Talia agreed. She was about to say more when they were interrupted by the sensor officer.

"Captain, we're picking up an odd anomaly near the Eternal's engines. I noticed a dramatic dip in the heat output coming off one side of the starboard engine exhaust, and thought they might have suffered some unseen damage during the battle, so I zoomed in to get a better look. I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at now though."

"Put it on the main screen then, Sensors." Talia ordered. Within seconds a zoomed up view of the Eternal's stern replaced the view of the shielded Great Endeavor. Talia's brow furrowed, as did Durandel's and they both peered more closely at what looked like a large, irregular patch of sparkly blue paint, distinctive against the pink armor of the Eternal. "That's weird... debris paint should have been burned off by proximity to that much heat." Talia commented.

"Ma'am... according to my sensor logs of the last fifteen minutes... that blue patch has grown almost twenty five percent since I first started looking at it, and its growth rate seems nearly exponential. And proportional to the amount of heat coming out of their starboard exhaust." Sensors reported, uncertainty making her voice seem quiet and slightly frightened.

"Comm's, get me the Eternal. They should send an inspection team over."

"Aye, Captain. Working on establishing lasercomm link now... link will be established in the next ten minutes, unless we shift position to more directly align ourselves with their transmitter-receiver array."

"No rush, Comms... its just a bit of paint, it doesn't seem to be affecting the ability of the Eternal to keep station. Sensors, keep an eye on it, let me know if anything drastically changes."

"Yes, ma'am."

---------------------------------------------

"Are you okay, Chief?" One of the other mechanics asked. "Hit your hand?"

"I guess." Murdoch replied, wincing and staring at his begloved hand. He'd put on gloves to help move some of the larger sections of the Phoenix King's armor plates, to help protect his hands... but his right hand was REALLY hurting, especially his fingertips, which almost felt like they were on fire! He'd felt similar pain before, when he accidentally put a hand down in a spill of car battery acid while helping his little brother work on his car. "Must have pinched a fucking nerve or something. It really smarts."

"Wanna go to the infirmary, Chief? I think we can handle things here until you get back."

"Shut the fuck up, Simmons. I ain't going to no infirmary for a pinched nerve, not while there's people who are actually HURT there. You bastards would never let me live it down. Gimme the next plate, c'mon... we got a lot of work to do, can't afford to stand around jawin."

"I dunno Chief, something seems to be going around in the past hour or so... had almost half a work crew, all told, head off to the infirmary complaining about burning sensations on their hands and faces. I think we may have taken a few puffs of some sort of toxic chemicals in with the last Dawndrake shift change. I'm sure its nothing serious, but you might wanna at least get it looked at. Chemical burns get worse the longer ya leave em alone, ya know."

"Thanks, mom. Maybe once we get this hip disassembled I'll have a free moment." Murdoch replied, rolling his eyes, knowing full well he'd do no such thing. He came from the old school... were anything less than having your arm torn off at the shoulder was just a flesh wound, and unworthy of a trip to the infirmary. Plus, he really hated needles, and he always seemed to get stuck with one whenever he went there. Nah, he'd just grin and bear it... wouldn't be the first time, or the last.

"Whatever." Simmons shrugged and helped Murdoch maneuver the next half petrified armor plate down to the men waiting below them. "Gotta say though, Chief..."

"Don't you ever shut the fuck up and work, Simmons? Honestly, why do I put up with you.?"

"Because I'm engaged to your neice. But what I was going to say, even compliment you on, is that fantastic paint beard you've acquired somewhere. It looks like you tried to slash your throat with a brush dipped in blue ink."

"Nyuk, nyuk... maybe if you spent more time working and less time flappin yer lips, you'd actually get dirty too." Murdoch hadn't wanted to mention it, but his chin had been itching and even burning a little too, recently. If he had paint smeared all over his chin, that would easily explain the discomfort... paint and bare skin didn't always get along, especially relatively sensitive skin like facial skin. He didn't remember being around any big sources of blue paint though, and sure as fuck didn't remember getting splashed in the face with some. He wiped at his chin with his left hand, and stared at the big smear of sparkly blue paint on the palm of the glove. Damn, but he was all but caked with the stuff. He saw Simmons staring at him again, as his neck really started to itch and burn. "Damn... what're you lookin at?"

"That's some nasty paint, Chief. Looks like you took off the top couple layers of skin when you wiped it. Didn't realize how much you had on you... its all up and down your neck."

"You know, maybe I will go drop by the infirmary. At least to grap a couple of clean wipes to get this shit off. Its really starting to itch. Try not to break the Gundam before I get back."

"And I was just about to carve my initials into it, too."

"Wouldn't doubt it. If you go to the National Military Museum and look at the Strike, you'll find my initials on the top left corner of the right shoulder servo access hatch."

"No fucking way... you signed the Strike?"

"Go look, when we get back. Bet you a round at any bar you care to name."

"No bet, Chief. I ain't stupid."

"Coulda fooled me." Murdoch itched at his chin some more, which was REALLY starting to hurt, like a bad, bad sunburn. And his right hand felt like it was shriveling up and withering away in a fire! He was definitely going to get it looked at... the sensation seemed to be spreading up his wrist too. Damn, what a time to get a chemical burn! It never rained, but it poured.

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Rey stepped gingerly over a big smear of blue paint on the ground, mindful of the doctor's recrimination against contaminating injured people with chemicals, though he was surprised no one had come to wipe up the spill yet. Or for that matter, he didn't remember such a large spill... a few drops or splotches on the floor, yes... but now there was almost a small puddle of it. It was running like rust down the shiny plastic side of the medical cot as well, and spreading in several deep blue circular stains on the mattress by the concussed girl's head, where the young soldier from before had knelt worriedly. Her head was turned away, since she'd been slowly shifting in her sleep, slowly fighting her way back towards consciousness. Luna was starting to show signs of doing the same thing, so he'd tried to make his trips out of the medical bay as short as possible, only leaving to grab drinks, a bite to eat and to use the restroom.

He was just about to turn away and head back to Luna's cot when an out of place shadow drew his attention more keenly, and he bent over the concussed girl's cot, still carefully keeping clear of the spilled paint. He looked around, almost guiltily, but the Doctor and all the nurses weren't paying him any attention at the moment, so he gently tilted the girl's head back into the light so he could get a better look. And then stared, not sure what to make of what he could see. He remembered a few daubs of paint being left on her forehead from her lover, or boyfriend, or whatever... but in the intervening time it seemed to have sunk into her skin, like an ink blot spreading out through a piece of paper, and now there was an irregular, palm sized dark blue stain covering most of her forehead and even down across her nose and fluttering eyelids. Rey was about to reach one hand down to touch the stained skin, which looked... off, somehow... when a raised voice directed in his direction made him paused. "Can I help you, sir?" The doctor called, polite irritation well concealed in his voice. He didn't like having a senior USN officer hanging around for hours in his medical bay, messing with his paitents.

"Er... I think you should come take a look at this, Doctor. I think this girl may have some sort of infection." Rey replied.

"Wouldn't surprise me, given how many people seem to think its okay to just walk over and touch her face, without even using a clean wipe on their hands first!" The doctor said severely. "Basic hygiene doesn't appear to be something they teach in boot camp anymore." He stood up, rubbing at his wrist through his new, spotless white medical coat sleeve as if to scratch an itch that just wouldn't quit. He walked over to Rey, and stepped in the puddle of paint on the ground. He looked down at his feet in disgust. "Nurse! I told you to clean this paint up an hour ago!"

"I did, sir! I scraped it and sponged it and even used industrial floor cleaner on it and there was only a faint blue smear left!" One of the older male medical orderlies replied.

"Sure as hell doesn't look like it to me! It's everywhere over here... we're going to need to change her linens." The doctor wiped at the paint crusting the side of the plastic cot with the hem of his coat, and though a big blue splotch rubbed off against his coat, it didn't seem, to Rey's eyes, to diminish the quantity on the cot frame by much. "What in the name of god...?" The doctor bent over the girl's face, gently probing at the huge dark, bruise like mark he saw there. The flesh was very soft, almost pulpy, and even light touching drew a pain response from the girl, despite her unconscious state. Her distress did not diminish, and her lifesign moniters began bleeping loudly when he took his hand away, his fingertips stained bright blue with paint and dark purple with droplets of what might have been blood. "NURSE!"

Rey backed up to give the medical team room, the sight of the dark blue mixing with the red blood to make thick, gritty purple fluid bringing an unbidden memory to mind, of when he was still taking Noah's medicine and he'd almost missed a treatment, and he'd coughed up blood and a bunch of thick, gritty green fluid that was also blood of some sort. Just blood with other stuff in it... medicine stuff that was supposed to be fixing his medical problems. Rey stared at the doctor's fingertips, and felt a sense of grave disquiet overtake him, as the bleeps of the lifesign monitors continued to grow louder as the girl began to toss and writhe in obvious pain, though still unconscious. Something was seriously wrong.

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"Lieutenant Neumann, make a note for an inspection team to come wipe this gunk off the bridge windows as soon as someone gets a free moment." Murrue called, having picked up Andrew's recent hobby of staring at the growing blue splotch on the other side of the bottom corner of one of the Archangel's bridge windows. "What the HELL is that stuff...?" She asked herself, pressing her hand to the window and comparing the size of the splotch to her hand. The splotch was bigger than her palm now. It had not used to be. Either it was a big glob that was slowly spreading out... or there was a bunch slathered on the side of the ship's hull below the window and it was slowly leaking upwards or... she couldn't think of any other reasons for a patch of fluid to grow bigger. She shook her head and smiled at herself... a giant enemy warship with ungodly powerful weapons was not ten thousand kilometers away, and she was concerning herself with paint spots. The human mind sure could get distracted easily.

"Aye, aye, Captain." Lieutenant Neumann, the longtime helm officer for the Archangel replied smartly.

"Captain... we're getting a lot of reports from around the ship of people suffering problems from some sort of irritant that may be the result of toxic chemicals that could have drifted into the hanger during the CAP switchovers." The communications officer reported slowly.

"That's a lot of if's and maybes." Waltfeld commented, stepping onto the bridge, a big mug of coffee in either hand. "I don't know about what she just said, but there's a bunch of people passing through the infirmary for anti-itch lotion and sanitizing wash cloths. Bunch of mechanics with blue paint on their skin. Looked like rejects from a Highlander set."

"You got some on you too, looks like." Murrue nodded at Waltfeld's right forearm, where there was a pinky nail sized spot of sparkly dark blue.

"Damn! One of em must have brushed against me. Didn't feel it... wrong arm." Waltfeld looked disdainfully at the mark on his artifical arm cover. "I hope that doesn't stain... these things aren't cheap."

"You could say it was a tattoo." Murrue suggested lightly.

"Of what?" Waltfeld gave her a mock narrow gaze. "Elvis, the cockroach I crushed under my bootheel?"

"Its an modern art tattoo." Neumann remarked. "It is what you make of it."

"Hopefully I'll be making it disappear. These arm covers cost more than six months of your rent added together."

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"Doctor... we have something of a problem."

"That's not what I want to hear, Giresse. What is it this time?" Roanoke spun around in his chair to glare at his chief assistant. He did a double take. "Dear GOD man, what happened to your face!? It's BLUE!"

"Yes, doctor, it is. And its really itching badly. I'll be going to the infirmary, if that's all right with you?"

"More paint from investigating salvage? You really should learn to wear some more protective equipment, Giresse."

"This came from my coat, doctor. Which is why I think we have a problem. Two of the special pilots touched my coat while I was on my way to dispose of it... they were attracted by the sparkling hue of the paint." Giresse looked deeply unhappy. "Sir... their hands are beginning to turn blue, and they are complaining of itchy feeling as well. I've heard many crewmembers talking about a recent rash of cases of this spreading blue rash amongst crew that have been assisting in the hangers and outer hull maintenance. Its very distressing sir, but I think we may have picked up some sort of... weaponized agent."

"Dear god!" Roanoke covered his face with his lab coat as much as possible. "Get out, Giresse! Go to the infirmary... you may have already contaminated me, for christsakes!"

"I don't believe it's airborne sir." Giresse backed away anyhow. "Just... don't touch anything I've touched, sir. And keep away from the color blue."

"Thank you for your concern! Now go! And make sure the medical team sends assitance to the Extended's who have been contaminated as well! Pass the word, Giresse... anyone who has been in direct contact with you or those Extended is to report to the medical ward for quarantine evaluation!" Roanoke waved Giresse away hurriedly. He made as if to follow his own orders, but sat back down, chewing on his lip. If this was a weaponized agent, biological or chemical or whatever... then going to the medical bay was as good as garuanteeing that he'd be exposed from some other source! He resolved to sit where he was until more information had been revealed. Sometimes inaction was the best action.

----------------------------------------------------

"Captain Gladys... I'm getting reports of some sort of serious problem in the medical bay." One of the junior officers who presided over interior communications of the ship spoke up. "Details are sparse at the moment, but one of the patients seems to be suffering from some sort of virulent secondary infections. I'm also getting reports from stations throughout the ship of personnel suddenly becoming sick or unable to perform their duties due to painful, itchy rashes spreading across their bodies. Most of them seem to be coming from around the hanger area, or the medical area."

"Did we take on toxic gases or a chemical cloud at some point in time?" Talia wondered under her breath. "No, that would have been detected, surely."

"Something about this doesn't feel right to me." Durandel spoke up.

"I'm getting a bad feeling as well, Mr. Secretary. Perhaps you should return to your shuttle." Talia replied. "Tell the Doctor to hold on... I'll be there shortly. Arthur, you have the bridge!"

"Captain!"

"What is it, Sensors?"

"The Eternal... that anomaly... its growing much faster! The Eternal's starboard engine appears to have just gone off line without warning! I'm seeing signs of some sort of internal damage in their engineroom, cause unknown." The Sensors officer brought the image of the Eternal's stern back up onto the main screen. Everyone on the bridge stared, and Durandel breathed a very quiet curse. Almost half the stern of the ship was dark blue now, and the stain was growing, not quite visibly, but perceptibly.

"What in the...?" Talia stared at the image, perplexed, a sinking sensation rising in the pit of her stomach, like she'd just stepped off a very tall cliff.

"Ma'am... our primary thruster exhaust temperature has recently began dipping to extremely low temperatures, the engineroom reports." The interior comms officer reported, a worried quaver in his tone.

"It's on this ship too." Durandel whispered. Talia nodded her agreement, her face settling into her combat mask.

"All hands to battle stations!" Talia shouted, startling the crew. "This ship is now in a state of emergency! Tell the engineroom to cut the engines, NOW! Mr. Secretary, I must insist that you leave until we have discovered and contained the source of this anomaly."

"Yes, that would seem prudent. Talia, I shall leave this in your capable hands. Best of luck and I will send help as soon as I can."

"Hopefully we won't need it, Mr. Secretary." Talia replied worriedly. "Sensors... do a sweep of all allied ships in the immediate area. Report on the presence of similar anomaly spots on their hulls."

"Will do, Captain..." Sensors stared at her screen, the results coming back much more quickly than she would have liked. Talia and Durandel both read the writing on the wall in the sick look of panicked that momentarily creased the girl's face before she controlled herself. "Um... Captain..."

"Break it to us, Sensors." Talia ordered firmly.

"All allied ships in the Vanguard fleet appear to have multiple anomaly spots on their hulls. Running a scan now of the main fleets... I'm seeing a lot of ships with spots there too." Sensors swallowed heavily.

"I should have known he wouldn't just sit passively." Durandel said icily, furious with himself and with Noah in equal measure. There was no reply for several long moments. And that's when the screaming started, from deeper within the ship.

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	49. Flash Flood part 7

Author Note: Just a word of warning. This chapter's probably going to be getting pretty freaking graphic and gory. At this point I don't really expect that to deter most of you, I just thought I should make mention that I am going to be showcasing the horrific nature of weaponized nanomachines, aka Blue EDEN (which was sparked by Grey Goo, from D20 Future tabletop RPG). Depending on what occurs to me to write, I may end up removing this disclaimer, but likely not. After all, with it here I don't have to worry about crossing a line I didn't mean to.

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"So, I guess the only question is then, are we going to pose them before they fully petrify, or just let them do their thing and work out where we want to put them depending on how they turn out?" Athrun said with a sardonic grin, reacting to the startling news Commander Waltfeld had reported when he'd briefly stopped by the Archangel's infirmary a few minutes earlier on his way back to the Archangel's bridge. Athrun was still in bed, though he was sitting up and definitely awake, his legs wrapped in thick bandages from thigh to toe, but they were just bandages, not casts. He hadn't broken any bones, just suffered a large series of moderate to severe lacerations from plastic and metal shrapnel. It hurt like a son of a bitch, less so obviously now that they had numbed his legs with local painkillers and given him an overall painkiller as well, but the bandages should be able to come off in a day or two, and he'd be as good as new before the end of the week.

"That's funny. That's not what my question was at all." Cagalli said, a mischevious twinkle in her eyes washing away the tension, worry and fear she had been struggling with, at least for a little while. She lowered her voice, and glanced around, seeing that the doctor was currently helping some mechanics with weird blue marks on their skin, and not paying the slightest bit of attention to the two of them. "I was wondering if you'll still be able to have wild, kinky sex with those on? I mean, usually its my legs that do all the bending and twisting, not yours, so I don't see why you would be handicapped in that regard..."

"Uhm, can we wait at least until the wounds fully close? I mean, the bandages and painkillers are great, but I'm still... a bit raw, I guess. Enough so I'd be worried about my, uh... performance." Athrun answered with a slight grin.

"Not RIGHT NOW!" Cagalli hissed furiously, flushing pink. "Geez, who do you take me for... Kira? I've got the shakes right now... I could never have sex right after a major battle! Couldn't calm down enough to enjoy it."

"Well you ARE related to him, fraternal twins even." Athrun pointed out. "And unless my memory took some hits along with my legs, I don't ever recall "calm" as being a good descriptive word for you in bed. Very much the opposite even. Not that I'm complaining, of course... just saying... riding a bucking bronco can't lose out much compared to..."

"Oh shut up!" Cagalli punched his shoulder, probably a tad harder than she really should have, but her pink had turned into a bright red.

"Maybe you should make me? I think I'd like that." Athrun said huskily, his tone putting lie to his earlier protest as he leaned close, pulling her towards him until she was almost on the bed with him. It wasn't like they were going anywhere with half destroyed, turning to stone Gundams anyway. And Cagalli was far better than a snickers bar for those times when he wasn't going anywhere for a while. Her hands clamped down on his shoulders, cementing them together as his arms went around her waist, and he started to lean back into his pillows as she lent into him, eyes only for each other, completely ignoring the rest of the material world. At least, until the material world decided to go absolutely blue with jealousy, and once more intruded on their attempt at a private moment.

"GYAHHHHG!" The wordless howl of agony and shock from nearby made them freeze and snap their heads to the side, wondering what was going on, ardor completely forgotten about. Chief Murdoch, the Archangel's most senior mechanic, who basically made sure all the Gundams and Mobile Suits carried by the Archangel were always in tip top shape and ready to launch, even when it hardly seemed possible that they could be, was standing over by the doctor's desk by the door to the infirmary room. Well, he was sagging and staggering, but still upright. He'd come in a little while earlier, his face torn between a mask of embarassment and discomfort, his neck raw and blue from chin to collarbone, asking for clean wipes and some anti itching cream. Then he'd asked the doctor to take a look to his hand, which he'd reported was suffering from some sort of pinched nerve or muscle cramp that was making it all but useless, and hurt like it was on fire or dipped in strong acid. He'd been gritting his teeth, plainly bearing up under some strong pain with stoic determination, as the doctor took hold of his wrist and tugged at his work glove to get a better view of the hand in question.

The glove came off without a problem... the issue was, so did most of the remaining skin and muscle of Murdoch's right hand, of which there wasn't much, and what there was had a sloppy, jelly like consistency. His hand was raw and bloody, with bones plainly visible through deep cavities in the flesh from fingertips to wrist, on both sides of the hand. And the hand was almost entirely blue, even the bones were stained dark blue, while thick purplish blood splattered all over the doctor, the desk, the floor and then continued to shoot into the air, gradually turning from purple to dark red as it continued to pump out from the perforated and just plain MISSINg portions of the veins and arteries. Many parts of the hand had had nerves eaten away or damaged already, which explained why Murdoch hadn't been in howling agony already, but the sight of the damage caused him to go into almost instant shock. "WHAT THE FUCK!? AGHHHA! OH FUCKING SHIT FUCK DAMN MOTHEROF CHRIST!"

The doctor slapped the panic button, his face and hands and shirt front slippery with the purple and red gore as he tried to use a pressure point on Murdoch's wrist to stem or slow the bleeding. However, Murdoch's wrist was stained dark blue as well, and the doctor's fingers "squished" into the bruised looking flesh, causing dark blue-purple clotted hunks of flesh to drip and slough off the wrist and hand, like jelly being squeezed from inside a breakfast pastry. Murdoch jerked from the agonizing feeling of his flesh falling apart and being eaten away from the inside, ripping his almost fully consumed hand away from the doctor and knocking the man back. The hideous process seemed to be picking up speed as it spread, and his hand was almost nothing but bone now, and even the bones were starting to erode away into a sparkling blue powder that wafted through the air. "OARGHH! AGGHH! AHHHG! OGAAHH! HELP ME! GOD FUCKING DAHHH! MY HANGGGGH! OAGGHHH!"

Murdoch's howls of distress were soon joined by others, as if his agony was calling upon similar pain... and not all of the shouts were coming from the infirmary area, some were echoing from other parts of the ship. Another mechanic, who had been waiting antsily out in the hall for his turn to see the doctor staggered by the doorway, clawing at his face, tearing away rubbery chunks of dark purple, stringy, pulpy flesh from his face, which was covered in inky blue stains from crown to chin. Even his eyes were starting to fill with blue, as dark purple gore gushed onto the deck and he collapsed, his screams becoming gurgles as his tongue was eaten away and his throat began to fall apart. Other victims were tearing at arms or legs or chests, trying to get the vile substance that was eating away their flesh and bone off them, tearing away the "diseased" looking purple jelly that was partially decomposed flesh, and scattering puffs of sparkling blue powder from the deepest and most progressed wounds. A female crewmember fell out of one of the other infirmary beds, her pained writhing having pushed her over the edge. When she hit the floor her insides flooded out of a dark blue patch on her belly like she'd been eviscerated, and many of her internal organs were already starting to turn blue as well. She reached up a hand towards Cagalli and Athrun, and then explosively vomited bright red blood and collapsed face down.

For her part Cagalli was staring, bug eyed, rooted to the spot as if turned to stone, unsure whether she was suddenly dreaming or perhaps hallucinating or not. Athrun too seemed almost paralyzed, unable to believe the situation unfolding before their very eyes, which continued to spiral out of control, as the doctor and then the responding medical assistants struggled to make sense of what was happening and help out their shipmates. They got Murdoch down onto a bed, sitting at least, sucking in deep, wracking breaths, careful not to touch the skin of his neck or throat, where it was dark blue and beginning to glisten with welling purple gore. He tried to talk, but it came out as a wheeze as the blue stuff began eating into the inside of his throat, and lines of red-pruple blood began dripping from the corners of his mouth. Murdoch had tears in his eyes, and they made tracks down his face... tracks that slowly began turning blue as well.

"Amputate, amputate!" One medical orderly shouted, gesturing wildly at Murdoch's right arm, which was now dark blue from wrist to mid forearm, and splotchily blue all the way up to the elbow.

"It's too late! Its already in his bloodstream!" The doctor shouted back. "Besides, we can't amputate his neck!"

"You can't just let the Chief DIE!"

"It's no longer something we can affect! He's too far along! Its spreading unlike anything I've ever seen before!" The doctor shot back, slowly backing away from Murdoch, pain and sadness in his eyes. "It's moving too fast... maybe if we'd caught it earlier..."

"What is it!? WHAT IS IT!? Omigod, it's like its eating him away and making more of itself! What kind of infection does that!?"

"Nothing natural! Sound the CBR alert... we have a biohazard here, some kind of weaponized agent! Unknown transmission type, presumably by physical skin to skin contact! Evacuate anyone who hasn't come into direct contact, NOW! We have to quarantine this area! We have to..." The doctor trailed off, looking down at his hands, which were encased in thin rubber latex gloves for sterility. Except that the gloves weren't very much there anymore, not having much substance or thickness, the blue stuff had eaten through them in a matter of less than a minute, and was now staining his hands from wrist to fingertips. "What in god's name... it ate my gloves!?"

"It's eating my scrubs! Omigod, its on my chest! AHHHG, its spreading, its SPREADING!"

"GET IT OFF... GET IT OFF!" Another orderly raced for a nearby hand sanitizing sink and began rubbing and scraping desperately at his blue stained hands with the most acidic, abrasive soap and sponge he could find, until the water dripping from his hands ran red with blood, and still he scrubbed, using steaming hot water. "Hah... hah... hoo..." He removed his ravaged and raw hands, pink and bloody from where he'd even scraped off most of the top layers of skin, and sighed with relief... until he looked down and saw that his feet and ankles were soggy with purple gore, and blue stains were starting to spread up and around his pant legs as whatever was in the blood that was making it appear that color began spreading onto him. "AGHGA!? What is this STUFF? It eats flesh... eats clothes... its... its even eating the metal of the sink!?" He staggered away from the sink, which now had a thin blue rime on its inner surface as the substance he'd scraped and washed off along with the layers of skin began spreading onto the metal.

"It just got into the water recylcing system." Athrun whispered in horror, staring at where the sink's drainage pipe went into the bulkhead.

"What!?" Cagalli said, and saw where he was looking. It didn't take her but a second or two to figure out what he meant, and her face drained of color. Murdoch slowly turned to face them, inky blue stains spreading across his face from his tear tracks, his arm now blue almost up to the shoulder, the wrist and lower forearm eaten away to the bone, a pile of soggy, sparkling blue dust on his lap all that remained of the eaten away parts. Random blue patches were now appearing like buboes across his body, as the substance traveled throughout his body along with his blood. His lips opened and formed the word "Ru..." but then his head dipped and fell forward, his neck caving way beneath the weight of his skull, with the entire front part and most of the sides eaten away. Murdoch slumped forward and hit the floor, which was criss crossed with smears of red and dark purple fluid... and the proportion of purple to red fluid was growing with every passing second, as the very darkest purple patches flaked away into sparkling blue dust, which then was absorbed by the blood, beginning the process anew. The more of the blue stuff there was, the faster it spread.

"Your Majesy! Get out of here! Take the Ambassador with you!" The doctor shouted, as his orderlies went back to working on trying to help the remaining patients, even though it meant they were getting more blue stuff on themselves in the process. They all knew they were hoplessly contaminated by now. A little more wasn't going to change anything. They scraped fruitlessly at blue patches on flesh, and then began distributing large shots of morphine and other painkillers, to ease the pain of their shipmates. It worked up to a point... until the Blue EDEN in the bloodstreams began eating the painkilling drugs as well, reducing its ability to numb the pain.

"But his legs!" Cagalli protested.

"Damn his legs! If you stay here you'll die with the rest of us! You have to get out of here! And don't let it touch you!" The doctor retorted through gritted teeth, his hands starting to burn, his shirt fraying and falling apart all across his chest. Inanimate objects seemed to fall prey faster than bodily tissue, perhaps because of the lack of an immune system? It was at least a start to figuring out what was wrong and what they could do to stop it or fight it. He opened a videocomm channel to the bridge. "Captain Ramius, the situation here is grave beyond words. Do NOT send help! We have an uncontained chemical or biological weapon on the loose down here! Seems to spread by touch, and it doesn't discriminate between biological and nonbiological matter!"

"WHAT!?" They heard Murrue shout back. "How did something like that get on the ship!?"

"Unknown, Captain. I contracted it from the Chief Mechanic, who presumably came into contact in the hanger bay area. Most of the first victims were mechanics, from the looks of things."

"Is there anything we can do?" Murrue asked, even as the general quarters alarm began to blare throughout the ship, alerting the crew to a state of emergency, at least those that weren't already aware of something being terribly wrong, as friends and shipmates staggered or collapsed, dark blue flesh sloughing off them, purple blood spurting from the wounds, all around the ship. "Let me speak to Murdoch!"

"Murdoch is dead, Captain, and in a few minutes, from the looks of things, so will I be. And anyone else who remains in this area. The Queen and the Ambassador are on their way out... they don't seem to have been contaminated, yet, thank god. Have someone waiting to help move the Ambassador... with his legs he won't be able to get far. The infection seems to spread faster the longer it has to eat away at you, or if you get a lot on you. Don't touch ANYTHING blue unless you are sure it's not liquid!"

"Blue...?" Murrue felt her stomach flip flop, turning to look at where Andrew was turning towards her, reacting to the alarm, leaving off studying the strange blue splotch on the outside of the bridge window. Even at this distance she could see the inky blue stain on his arm cover. It looked bigger than she remembered. "Oh no."

"Let's go. Lean on my shoulder." Cagalli helped Athrun drag himself off the cot. She stared at the multicolored blood slicked floor with misgiving... there weren't many clean spots to put their feet.

"Stay in the red." Athrun advised, hissing as his legs twinged and burned when he put weight on them and forced them to work like they were supposed to. "Red blood probably doesn't have anything bad in it yet." Gingerly, they hop skipped to the doorway, the doctor and the orderlies standing well clear of them, even kneeling down and scraping away bits of decomposing flesh and as much contaminated blood as possible with their arms to keep the vile stuff away from the two of them. The hallway outside the room wasn't much better, with several crumpled bodies lying against the walls or even out in the middle, surrounded by oozing lakes of dark purple, their clothing brittle and dry with a sandy coating of sparkly blue dust. Some of the ones that were the farthest along were little more than partial skeletons eroding away in piles of blue dust, the purple blood visibly drying out into more dust that then spilled like blowing sand along the deck in the faint breeze of the ship's air conditioning system.

"Your Majesty... tell our families that..." The doctor trailed off in a fit of coughing that ended up with red and slightly purple tinged blood trailing from his lips, tucking his decaying hands into his pockets to keep the drips contained.

"I'll tell them." Cagalli promised furiously, tears pouring from her eyes. "And the enemy WON'T get away with this! I promise! I won't let them get away with this!"

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"What's wrong with her?" One of the other infirmary patients asked blearily, tugging at Rey's wrist weakly, nodding at the writhing and squirming girl with the concussion, who was being attended to by the doctor and two assistants trying to hold her down while they documented her new symptoms and attempted to relieve them, with no luck so far. The general quarters alarm was blaring outside in the hallways, and Rey could hear people moving around hurriedly, in a less than organized fashion, banging into walls and shouting back and forth incoherently. Something was seriously, seriously wrong with the ship as a whole if a well trained crew like the one on the Newton was giving in to panic.

"I don't know. Some sort of secondary infection on her face." Rey replied absently, his mind still caught on the purple blood and its gritty texture, like grainy mud or silty water. He was about to say more when the girl's lifesign monitors suddenly crescendoed and then flatlined. Cursing, the Doctor had one of the orderlies jolt her with a external defibrillator system. Her heartbeat peaked once and flatlined again. They shocked her again. Her heart didn't even jolt. It was like the electricity was being siphoned away before it could reach the heart, somehow.

"Damn it, is the system broken? Hit her with everything its got! I won't let her die to this... whatever it is!" The doctor said savagely, his arms slicked with purple and red gore from the elbows down.

"I don't think that's going to help any, doctor." The other orderly said, his face twisting with nausea. "She doesn't have a face anymore... whatever it is, it's eating her skull away underneath her skin. The rest of her body is starting to show signs of the blue rash as well... its spreading through her bloodstream!"

"FUCK! This is why we warn people to sanitize their..."

"Doctor, this is not a secondary infection." The orderly with the defibrillator interrupted, his eyes wide. "It was far too fast... its still spreading! And..." The orderly trailed off, looking at the doctor's arms. "Sir, what happened to your gloves?"

"My gloves!? They're... OMIGOD!?" The doctor looked down at his arms, and his dark blue stained hands, now entirely gloveless. His sleeves were tattered, and dark blue was spreading up his arms like water soaking into a napkin. "What the hell is this stuff!?" The doctor staggered backwards and tripped over a bed, falling over on top of the patient lying on it, who let out a scream as the broken bones in his leg grated together and rebroke, spearing out of the skin of his calf. The doctor flailed and accidently put his hand right on the open wound, which was squirting blood like a perforated water balloon. The doctor stared at his hands in shock, as the body hot red blood almost immediately turned a purplish shade and cooled to an almost icy temperature as all the heat was sucked out of it. It began turning gritty and grimy, even as the flesh of the doctor's hands began pulpifying and falling away from his bones, splashing applesauce like spurts of cold, purple, grainy blood everywhere. "AUUAGH!?"

The doctor's scream was the cue for pandemonium to break loose, as the orderlies, who had also been splashed with blue stuff and purple blood, tore at their clothes in a frenzy, trying to get them off before the fluid soaked through, but it was already too late, as the holes in their scubs and the uniforms beneath them testified, as well as the spreading dark blue splotches on their skin. Their fear spread like a biological weapon of its own to infect all the patients in the ward, many of whom were immobilized or restricted in their mobility, and unable to flee even if they wanted to. Bad enough to see what was going on while retaining the ability to save yourself, like Rey... for the poor souls with broken legs or serious injuries, they could do little but call out in terror and shock as they watched blue stains on the walls, floor and ceiling grow ever larger, slowly creeping towards them, while listening to other people, sometimes people they knew, scream in agony as their flesh and bones and blood were eaten away and turned to dust by the unknown voracious blue substance!

Rey had initially started to step forward to help the doctor, who had fallen to his knees, staring at the gory, liquefying remnants of his hands and forearms, as the blue infection raced up his arms and across his chest, blood still pulsing from the ragged wounds, starting out bright red, turning dark red by the time it hit the floor, and becoming a cool lavender shade a few seconds after hitting the floor, darkening towards blue as time wore on. However, upon seeing how fast the doctor was being consumed, Rey knew the man was beyond any medical help Rey could give, and was probably far more dangerous as a carrier of the disease, or whatever it was, with his twitching and flailing about, than anything else. So Rey did the first thing that came to mind, snatching the pistol from his waist holster and blowing a pink and white rimmed hole through the back of the doctor's head, ending his misery, and more importantly, his thrashing. Still, there were great quantities of the contaminated blood sprayed all over the floor and beds and patients who had been nearby the first victim. Rey could already see a dark blue crust around the wound of the man with the compound shin fracture, and that squirting blood was turning blue as well. Whatever it was, even the slightest touch was enough to spread it, and once it was on you it was over, unless you could get it before it touched your bare skin!

The sound of the gunshot just made the chaos grow worse, people screaming, calling for help, for information, cursing the situation in general and everyone nearby, a cacophony of human noise that pounded like a heartbeat racing out of control, making it hard to think clearly. Rey holstered his pistol once more and dashed for Lunamaria's bed, sidestepping far flung globs of purple blood, which was turning into sparkly blue powder and eating into whatever it touched without discrimination. Thankfully Luna's bed, and the area around it, as well as Luna herself, were free of any of the splatters. Moving her, especially since there was time for anything but a fireman's carry, with a deep shrapnel puncture to her lower back, near her kidneys and liver and reproductive organs, could cause serious harm and maybe even permanent damage to the functions of some of those organs. However, that was a risk he was just going to have to take, because leaving her here to turn into infectious blue powder, flesh mortifying and rotting off her bones, was a fate worse than just about any death Rey could imagine.

Rey gathered her up as gently as he could manage, wrapping as much of her body in her white sheets as possible, to at least put a small barrier between her skin and the blue plague, and hoisted her in his arms, before heading for the doors as quickly as possible, forcing himself to ignore the pleas for help and the snatching, grasping hands that shot out from other beds, pulling at his legs and waist and lower arms as other injuried men and women begged to be saved as well. Rey had never considered himself the most sentimental of people, but he still had tears running down his face at being forced to turn his back on all these people in order to save Luna and himself. Not only did this weapon... and he was sure it WAS a weapon, not an accident... strip people of their very flesh and dignity, it also stripped them of their souls, little by little, as they were forced to turn away from anyone who was infected, out of self preservation! To touch a blue stained person's skin was to invite an infection yourself! Trying to help only made the problem worse! Rey made it to the door, glanced behind him once, his heart quailing with sorrow as he saw a good tenth of the room was covered in a sparkly mass of blue, which was still growing, faster and faster all the time it seemed, and then he stepped out into the hall... into another vision of hell.

Plainly, the blue infection was not confined to just the medical bay, as there were several bodies, some of them even recognizable as formerly human, sprawled in the passageway leading past the main medical room, obviously having been on their way there when the... whatever it was... overwhelmed them. By now, however many minutes and hours after their initial exposure, most of them were little more than vaguely body shaped piles of sparkly blue dust that were slowly being surrounded by larger and larger blue stains on the floor. Blue streaks on the walls showed where hands had clawed or bodies had slumped, and there were even blue blotches spaced like footprints. It was like navigating a mindfield, and there were even spots on the ceiling to look out for. Thankfully the substance seemed heavier than air, and it liked to clump, so as long as he skirted the piles of loose dust widely, inhalation was unlikely. Rey noticed that the larger patches were growing at significantly faster rates than smaller patches, as if the infection continuously gathered momentum over time, a near geometric rate of increase. That was not a good thing... the more time went on, the faster it would grow... the hourglass was emptying from both ends!

Some parts of the ship, especially the areas around the officers quarters and the more sensitive locatons, like the bridge, seemed to still be clear, and Rey passed many people who were still hale, if frightened and confused and disorganized. No one seemed quite sure what to do exactly to combat this threat. Rey had to admit he was fairly stumped himself, but with Luna in his arms his duty priorities were clear. He would check in with Gil and Talia on the bridge, hopefully discover what the centralized plan was, and then he would take his Archon and evacuate Luna to the Moon or whatever the nearest safe harbor was, before returning to assist with other medical evacuations. Assuming that this blue stuff wasn't all over the hanger or, more importantly, the Archon anyway... something which grew progressively more certain with every passing second. He was close to the bridge when the entire ship was rocked by a shuddering explosion from back aft, in the engine room. All the lights flicked for several moments before an emergency power source could come online. Rey forced himself to move faster... if the blue stuff was already discorporating the engineroom, the Newton didn't have much longer... hours at the most.

He turned a corner and almost slammed into Gil and Talia and a group of officers from both the Newton's cadre and the USN unit escorting Gil. He only barely managed to avoid knocking over Gil's wheelchair, the magnetic wheels being the saving grace, though he did jarr Gil's injured leg pretty good. Gil's face drained of color, but he bit down on his cry, stoic for the public face, though that did little to ease Rey's guilty feelings. "We lost contact with the medical bay recently. How are things there?" Talia asked, her tone professional and clipped, not showing any of the worry and fear she must be feeling. Her voice steadied Rey in turn, and he came to as much of a stance of attention as he could while keeping Luna steady and comfortable.

"It's a total loss, Captain. Anyone who hasn't left the room by now is gone, and there are large patches of the blue stuff in the hallways around that area. Given how it seems to be spreading faster with time, I'd imagine the area is all but unpassable now." Rey answered, cool and controlled as well now, fighting down his state of near panic from earlier. "I was headed to the bridge to consult with you, but I see that's not necessary now."

"The bridge has been evacuated. We noticed an irregularity in the outer bulkhead a short while ago, and concluded a large patch was on the outer hull and rapidly eating its way through. Several other places on the ship's outer skin are demonstrating similar irregularities, especially around the aft end and the engines." Talia replied in turn, as they continued walking towards the main hanger. "We're escorting the SecDef to his shuttle and then we will head to the emergency bridge or one of the other damage control centers to continue fighting against whatever this menace is. You should probably escort the SecDef away, Knight-Commander, seeing as you have wounded you need to care for."

"Captain, once more I must urge you strongly to consider giving the order to abandon ship. There is simply too much we do not known about this menace for us to fight it effectively at this point in time." Gil protested, though both Rey and Talia knew what was being unspoken. Anyone staying on the ship for too much longer, unless a miracle occured, was in very great danger of being infected and dying to the blue stuff, and that would distress Gil greatly. Break his heart even. "I understand you have a responsibility to the ship, but you also have a responsibility to the crew, and to the people of a USN as a whole. Too many lives have already been lost, we don't need any more sacrifices, heroic or otherwise. Ships can be rebuilt."

"I'm not ready to give up just yet, Mr. Secretary." Talia said resolutely. "You are correct about our responsibility to the greater USN though... and that includes not spreading this contamination any further than it already has been. Only those people we are completely, one hundred percent certain have not come into contact with the blue plague can be allowed to leave the ship, to prevent it from spreading. It's already infected the majority of the armada... if it gets to the Moon, or god forbid, Earth..." Talia didn't have to finish that sentence. She was opening her mouth to speak again when there was another slight shudder, and the brief waterfall sound sound of air rushing out into space.

"Captain..." One of the other Newton officers started to say.

"Yes, Arthur, that'll be the bridge bulkhead giving way. Find a working comm station, and give the order for the crew to don EVA suits, if they haven't already. The hull could rupture at any point in time, and we don't need explosive decompression taking lives alongside this blue plague." Talia ordered.

"Have we any idea what it is yet?" Rey asked, a stricken look stealing across his face before he composed himself. This wasn't just the Newton then... this weapon had hit most of the entire USN armada!? Catastrophe loomed large on the horizon, especially with the continued comm blackout! "It seems to devour soft, unliving material fastest, followed by living material and then finally hard, unliving material... but I have not yet seen anything it does not seem to affect, though obviously I haven't searched comprehensively. Furthermore it seems to make whatever it infects into more of itself, fuelling and expanding the infection process, geometrically scaling up over time."

"You know what we know, Knight-Commander." Gil said unhappily, still staring at Talia, who refused to look back at him, with troubled eyes. "Large amounts of heat or other energy sources seem to make the substance move faster as well, that's about all I can think of to add. It doesn't act like any viral or bacterial or otherwise biological weapon I am aware of... it could be some sort of hybrid, but I'm unable to think of something that would devour cloth, flesh and steel with near EQUAL voracity... normally, if it took it five minutes to eat through an inch of steel, it would go through softer materials like cloth and flesh MUCH faster... but we aren't seeing that. We are seeing a uniform growth rate, regardless, or almost so, of material. Indeed, living flesh seems to be more resistant than armor plate at times... leading me to believe the human immune system is capable of at least slowing the infection!" A few of the Newton officers looked at Gil in surprise, not having realized or remembered that while Gilbert Durandel had spent most of his later life in politics, as a young man in his late teens and early twenties, he'd been a medical assistant and later an accomplished doctor specializing in genetic studies.

"It doesn't act like any chemical weapon I've ever heard about either." Rey replied, frowning. "I suppose it could be something entirely new, or a hybrid... but that still wouldn't explain it actually growing by devouring other substances. I don't know any weapon that uses what it destroys to create more of itself. Its like its feeding off whatever it touches. That's what made me think it was some sort of biological weapon, but apparently that doesn't hold water." A ruckus from up ahead drew all of their attention as they came to a junction with one of the primary passageways leading to the ship's main hanger. They cautiously turned the corner and were treated to a mind and stomach churning vista of horror, as a group of more recent, i.e. still suffering, victims of the blue plague came into view, either having fled from the hanger or were en route to it, desperately seeking aid.

"Ca-Captain G-Gladys... help... us..." One of the standing, or at least half upright, victims pleaded, having turned around to see who was coming up behind them. He was dressed in standard ZAFT greens, with the insignia of a Electronics Repair Technician, a ring of copper lightning, for his collar devices, and was bent over like he was suffering extreme abdominal cramps. "Way to medical... was... blocked..." He wheezed at them, coughing thickly after each few words, though there was no sign of the blue plague on him... at least until he tried to straighten up to salute and dropped his hands away from his stomach... revealing that he HAD no stomach, just a blue rimmed hole the size of three or four fists where his stomach should have been. Rey could actually see all the way through the man, past a eroding blue column of bone that was the man's spine! His intestines, stomach, kidneys, liver... all of them were just GONE, now nothing but a seething mass of blue dust eating him from the inside out... Rey couldn't see how the man was still standing, much less walking and talking!

"Oh my god..." Talia said softly, her eyes wide. One of her officers barely got his hands to his mouth in time to puke all over them.

"Blue... everywhere... help..." The ERT staggered and fell to his knees, purplish blood leaking from the corners of his mouth, the sudden sharp impact with the floor causing his weakened, pitted spine to snap like a dry twig, and his upper torso collapsed forward to smack into the deck, leaving his lower torso and legs kneeling upright for a few seconds before it too toppled over. Distressingly, he was still arrive, feeling the blue plague start devouring his lungs from the bottom up, and he raised a hand desperately at them, begging them for help they could not give. "Uagh... h-hur... ts..."

If Rey hadn't had his hands full with Luna, he would have shot the man, for mercy's sake. None of the other officers seemed to twig to that idea, nor did Gil and Talia, all standing transfixed by the horror in front of them, and the others in the background. There was another male soldier that was leaving a wide blue streak behind him along the edge between the deck and bulkhead as he pulled himself along on his arms, his legs missing from the knee down. With each few inches of forward progress he made, gasping and crying and frothing with effort, his legs dissapeared that much more, like he was dragging himself across a cheese grater or something. Another healthy looking male was carrying a female in his arms as he staggered along, her arms wrapped around the back of his neck while he made fluid choked gargling noises in his throat and mouth. The girl, who was in her late teens, lifted up her head to whisper encouragement to her friend, and they could all see that there was no back to her head, that her skull, painted blue, was visible from the earline back to the top of her spine. Her voice trailed off as the back of her skull disintegrated away in a powder, causing her brain, dotted with crusty blue, to fall out and "SPLAT" on the deck. The man carrying her did not seem to notice, tottering forward another few steps himself before projectile vomiting a blue-red and purple mash of dissolving internal organs, including what looked like his heart, onto the deck in front of him as he toppled like a falling tower.

"Dear lord..." Gil found his mind numb, his thoughts scattered, barely able to comprehend his surroundings as he tried to deal with the face to face facts of what this blue plague could do to people.

"Shoot them!" Rey urged.

"What? But..." Talia protested.

"Shoot them! Better than letting them suffer!" Rey shouted over her. "If we try to help them, we're just going to get infected ourselves!"

"Knight-Commander ze Burrel is correct." Gil snapped back to himself, steadied by Rey's presence. "Captain Gladys, I am aware of and entirely share your feelings, but these people are already dead. A bullet to the brain will save them minutes, even hours of unimaginable agony and fear. It is a terrible thing... but sometimes the right thing is terrible."

"So we're just going to shoot whoever gets infected?" Talia retorted savagely. "These are my crewmembers, Gil!"

"By your own words we cannot take them with us, and we don't know enough about this blue plague to have a hope of saving or curing them in the few hours it seems to take to cause fatal damage. If I had the choice between a quick, painless death and a slow, agonizing one... there's not much of a choice, Talia." Gil answered softly but firmly. "Furthermore, I am hereby ordering you to abandon this ship, along with as many of your crew as can be... but no one with even a hint of blue on them can be allowed to leave, like you said. Everyone must be checked before they can board a shuttle or evacuation pod."

"What are we going to do, strip them naked?" One officer wondered, half to himself.

"That would be the best way, yes." Rey replied harshly. "Anyone who is infected is an immediate and fatal danger to everyone around them. We're going to be packing people in like sardines in order to get everyone off the ship, given that some of the evac pods are likely damaged, or inaccessible! If one infected person gets through, they'll likely infect everyone in the shuttle before it can land on the Moon... and then the Moon will be infected as well! I don't think any one is going to mind being told to strip, to avoid that sort of thing!"

"You can't order me to abandon the ship, Gil. You're not part of ZAFT."

"I am the Secretary of Defense of the United Solar Nation, of which the PLANTS and therefore ZAFT are a willing part. Furthermore, ZAFT is currently operating under the command of the USN for this battle, and if we had comms, I could get your superiors to tell you that very quickly. However we don't, so you're going to have to trust me, Captain, when I tell you that you DO have to follow my orders." Gil retorted, meeting her angry eyes with his own sad but determined ones. "Please, Talia... there is no shame in running from a fight you can't win. Especially when we WILL return to the fray at the soonest possible moment, once we have this blue plague under control!"

"Damn it..." Talia clenched her fists and looked away for a moment, moisture welling up in the corners of her eyes. "Give the order to abandon ship... all remaining crew are to muster in the hanger, where we will ALL be strip checked for signs of infection... every last one of us, including all the officers and the Secretary of Defense! And then we will evac to Galileo for reassignment. Make it happen!"

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"Doctor!? Doctor Roanoke!? Where are you, sir!?" A worried voice called, and Roanoke looked up from where he was hurriedly, if carefully packing up as much of the project data he could, avoiding the sparkling blue not-paint stains on the floor as they spread, contaminating in a wider area even as they ate through the solid metal of the deck like unbelievably strong acid. He'd tossed a pen onto one spot in a small experiment a short while ago, and watched it turn to dust in a matter of minutes, which had even further accelerated the growth of that particular spot. It was fascinating... and terrifying. He longed for the safety of a laboratory, so he could study this blue stuff in peace and quiet and safety... he had the feeling it might spark any number of interesting scientific breakthroughs if he were to be able to figure out what this blue material was. But, lacking such conditions, he found himself sweating and on the verge of panic at the thought of getting any on himself, and ending up like Giresse in the office next door.

Giresse had headed off to the infirmary, but he'd stopped in his office next door to grab a drink of water or something, and sit down for a moment to clear his aching mind, or so Roanoke surmised. Giresse never stood up from that chair again. Roanoke hoped his chief assistant and somewhat friend had passed out before the end... having your face and the front of your skull dissolve away while still being conscious and aware was too horrible to think about. He'd looked in to the office, noting the door was ajar, on his way to the restroom to wash his face and hands, a compulsary thing for him after being in contact with a sick or dirty person, and then he'd looked in and he'd vomited all over himself, because he could see half of Giresse's brain, and the front of his assistant's body was stained from neck to waist in splatters of purple gore that were turning bluer by the moment. He hadn't gone back to check, but given that the holes in his floor were growing faster the bigger they got, he doubted there was much left of Giresse by now... or even of the chair itself and maybe the floor around him!

"I'm here! Wh-who is it?" Roanoke called back. The door... hatch, actually, since they were on a space ship, not in an office building... to his private office opened up and Sting Oakly stepped in, followed quickly by Stella Loussier, though she was being guided about by one of Sting's hand's wrapped around her own. Stella was a fantastic pilot, and possessed one of the most Tranquil minds of all the Extended... but she had some problems too... including suffering from phases of severe detachment or even sleep walking, especially after stressful situations like combat. Once she was put back in a cockpit or into a dangerous situation she generally became lucid, even excited, again, but would once more become vapid after combat was over. The phases usually lasted between two and eight hours, and then she would snap awake and resume being her normal, if still quiet and somewhat cool, self. But during her sleep walking phases she had to be carefully watched... she'd almost walked or even danced herself off of rooftops and cliffs and down stairwells before. Indeed, sometimes she seemed positively suicidal, it was disturbing. Also disturbing was that he still didn't know WHY she was like that... whether it was a personal flaw or a side effect of Tranquilizing her mind.

"Good to see you're all right, Doctor. It's... I don't understand what's going on out there! Everything just started going nuts about fifteen minutes ago... Rayl got back from the bathroom, you know, where he goes to beat off after every battle, but he came back in screaming and staggering, his pants still around his knees, both hands on his groin. At first I thought it was another one of his stupid practical jokes... but then I saw the pain on his face. Mindy went to go see what was wrong with him, and he almost knocked her over, putting big blue handprints on her chest and neck in the process. I thought he'd done something REALLY stupid, like lubing up with paint or shampoo or something... it IS Rayl after all... but then I noticed... that he didn't have a GROIN anymore! Just a big mass of blue stuff between his legs... no balls... no dick... nothing, like they'd been eaten away by acid! I was just going over to see what I could do to help when I heard a wet tearing noise and all his guts came pouring out from between his legs, and they were all blue and purple and red and falling apart and..." Sting trailed off, looking distinctly queasy, which was saying something, given his dislike of letting his face show how he felt.

"It is a terrible substance." Roanoke agreed grimly, shuddering as he tried not to let Sting's words call up an image in his mind of what had happened to Rayl, one of the younger Extended's. "Did any get on you?"

"No. I backed away as quickly as possible when I saw that... I... I threw up. So did Mindy, even as she kept trying to help Rayl, since he was still flopping and kicking and screaming for help. The only one who didn't seem affected was Stella, and you can dangle her head down off a one hundred story building when she's like this and she won't react, so that's not really a surprise."

"That's not true. I hate heights." Stella protested softly, blinking at them slowly.

"Then why do you always head to the top of the nearest tall building or cliff whenever you have free time? Why purposefully put yourself in a situation you don't like!?" Sting demanded in exasperation.

"I like views. But not heights."

"I don't understand you. You're weird even for a girl."

"We don't have time for this, children. We need to reach either a hanger or one of the evac pods. We cannot stay on this contaminated vessel for much longer, or we will suffer fates similar to Rayl's." Roanoke zipped up his travel case and headed for the doorway. "Where is Mindy?"

"She... she's dead too. I could see her heart beating after her skin and breasts melted away, until it turned blue too. She told us to come make sure you were all right. She stayed with Rayl till the end... I think they were close." Sting replied, looking downcast after revealing the deaths of both of the other two extended who'd made it through the battle against the Revenant. He looked up after a moment of sorrow for another of his Extended family members and went on in his more usual, cold, steady voice. "The hanger's are hopelessly contaminated... we passed them on the way here. All of the Panzerwulf's have blue stuff on them, and its very chaotic in there. A lot of casualties. The blue stuff may have originally come inside from there."

"Very likely so. That is where Giresse was contaminated, and likely Rayl too. The must have touched it by accident and ignored it, thinking it was paint or dye or ink or something else. Staying clean aboard these warships is nearly impossible after all." Roanoke sniffed and handed the travel case off to Sting, who carried it without trouble. They headed out into the disaster area that the passageways of the ship were rapidly becoming, as damage control crews and medical teams rushed this way and that, trying to contain the spreading blue patches or rescue injured comrades. However, neither group seemed to be meeting with much success, as the blue substance just devoured barricades and ate through shut doors and ignored the efforts of brooms or mops until eating them away too, and spreading all the while... while the medical teams started coming down with blue infection as well, from touching their contaminated comrades, even though there were wearing clean suits and gloves, which were eaten away as well in a matter of minutes!

It took them a while, since they had to wend and detour their way through the work crews and spreading blue zones of the ship, but at last they reached a clearer area and the entrance to one of the dozens of emergency lifeboats, used for evacuating the crew of the ship in case of the ship sinking or suffering some other sort of extreme damage, which the current situation was definitely heading towards. They passed a damage control team dressed in silver skinned heat insulated firefighting suits, directing a high pressure hose of mixed firefighting foam and water down a passageway, trying to blast the blue substance back and deny it a foothold. With all the foam splattering around it was hard to tell if they were having any success, but it didn't SEEM that the blue stuff was getting any closer. Roanoke opened the hatch to the lifeboat and led the way inside, beginning the launch sequence at once. Though designed to hold up to fifty people, he had no intention of waiting to fill the lifeboat to capacity. His work was too important to the future of the FNE, and by extension the rest of humanity. Pyschics were a growing danger... as Noah Borander had recently proved beyond a doubt. An effective counter had to be in place NOW, not in the future. The Extended Project of FEAR was that counter.

The door closed behind them and the lifeboat began its thirty second countdown to launch as soon as the hatch sealed shut. Behind them, in the passageway, the DC crew continued their fight, having hardly noticed the passage of the older man and two young soldiers, even though one was pretty girl. Fighting for your life and the safety of your ship wasn't exactly the easiest of conditions to notice physical beauty under. Indeed, the crew was all so intent on watching where their spray was going, so that the blue stuff wasn't getting through or even worse subverting their spray, that they failed to notice the thick, plastic-rubber hose was itself turning blue in a spot near their feet, because the ship's water supply had already been contaminated by Blue EDEN. Without warning the high pressure hose gave way, and doused the entire team with hot foamy water. The foam flew as far as the hatch to the lifeboat, some seeping inside before the ship side hatch fully shut, the power of the high pressure water knocking all the men from their feet and causing the hose to whip about like an angy snake, until they finally managed to get the water turned off at the hose source, at about the same time that the lifeboat launched. The fact that the foam was laced with particles of Blue EDEN didn't become apparent to the DC crew for almost fifteen more minutes... and the foam clinging to the outside of the lifeboat hatch wasn't noticed even AFTER it landed on the Moon, several hundred kilometers from Copernicus. It wasn't until several hours after the tragedy with the fleet was thought over and done that the tiny blue patch on the Lunar surface was noticed.

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"Kira... there's something I've been meaning to tell you..." Lacus said softly, pulling the sheets closer around herself and running her fingers lightly across her belly. Their cabin aboard the Archangel was dimly lit, and very warm... not least because of the recent exertions of the two people residing in it. It had been a few days since they'd last had much time, and they probably still didn't have much time today... but it was always like this for them after a major battle, ever since they'd first started having sex, and then a lot more after Kira's "incident" with the Pulsar and Frost, that had changed him so much. And left him much the same as well, but the changes were becoming more noticable, rather than less so, over time. Not that fighting or battles were a turn on for either of them, quite the opposite really... it was just the stress and worry and burden of responsibility was so great, they each needed a great deal of reassurance and affirmation afterwards, and this was the best way they'd ever had to do so.

"Love you so much too..." Kira mumbled, one arm around her waist hugging her more closely to him as his other hand combed fingertips lightly through her long, often inconvenient hair. She'd often thought about trimming it or cutting it, like most of her friends recommended, because it was a real pain to take care of by herself, sometimes taking two hours to wash, clean, comb and style in the morning, and it was always getting caught in car doors and other things, but Kira liked it long, and she was helpless to ignore so simple a want from him. "Mmm... wha time issit?"

"Wake up, Kira." Lacus rolled her eyes. Men... never awake when you wanted to have a serious talk, never sleepy when you were tired... it was almost like it was intentional. "I know you can hear me. You can hear a glass fall off a table onto a carpeted floor downstairs through three shut doors, you can definitely hear me while you're practically inhaling the back of my head."

"So for once you want me to by hyperaware, huh." She could both hear and feel Kira's slight, amused smile. "I thought it was relaxation time, no serious subjects while the lights are dimmed? Thats the usual rule." She felt him shift position, and his combing hand gently tugged on her hair until she turned her head, and the rest of her body, to face him. "Or is it that you're ready to go again?" Kira whispered, and kissed the tip of her nose.

"You're impossible." Lacus replied fondly. "But I do have something important to talk about. Something personally important."

"I hate being serious in bed." Kira mock complained. He winced, when she gave him the mental equivalent of a hard poke in the side and narrowed her eyes at him. "Okay, okay... I'm listening. Must be really important if you're only willing to say it out loud..."

"Kira Yamato, I want to tell you that, I, Lacus Madeline Clyne, have just confirmed that I am currently P..." Lacus was cut off by the whooping blare of the Archangel's collision and general emergency alarms. "Oh, what the fuck?" Lacus complained, truly upset by the timing, so much so that she broke a personal rule and swore outside the confines of her own head.

"Kira Yamato, Lacus Clyne, report to the bridge immediately!" The PA system announced, a very urgent tone in the operator's normally calm voice. You wanted someone who had ice water for veins and could let an ice cube stay frozen on their head during combat manning the PA system... if they went to pieces on the comm, it would be broadcast all over the ship, and panic would spread. Usually the voice was all but emotionless, even when combat was imminent... that there was palpable urgency in her tone now was not a good sign. "All Hands report to general quarters stations and muster for shipwide emergency damage control! Avoid contact any and all blue liquids, imperative! There may be a chemical weapon loose aboard the ship that is transmitted via touch!"

"Tell me later." Kira suggested, already up and out of bed and pulling his boxers on, before Lacus could even get herself sitting upright in the bed. "This doesn't sound like it can wait."

"Damn it! Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" Lacus muttered angrily under her breath, kicking her way out of the sheets. "I needed another two fucking seconds! I've been working up to that all day!"

"Well if it's THAT important..." Kira said leadingly, as he buttoned his uniform pants and began shrugging into his shirt.

"No, never mind. It would only distract you, and might prevent me from doing any jobs I might need to do also. I'll tell you once we get a calmer moment. It's something that needs to be said out loud, I believe." Lacus sighed and began getting back into her own underwear, wincing as the various recently strained muscles in her body protested the sudden activity.

"Need help?" Kira asked, buttoning his uniform jacket with one hand and extended the other to her as he balanced on one leg, sweeping his boots toward himself with the other foot. His physical balance and coordination was enough to disgust her, and she was a professional dancer!

"I'm fine. Just a little sore. Like usual." Lacus began throwing on her clothes as well. She could dress fast when she had to... if not fly into clothing like Kira could.

"Sorry, I get caught up in you, what do you want me to say? I just... lose control in the heat of the moment. Feels too good." Kira blushed slightly, but not even close to as much as he would have in ears past.

"As long as you save your moments of loss of control for the bedroom, and keep them out of when you're flying that Gundam, I won't complain too much." Lacus assured him. "There's worse annoyances in my life than sore muscles after feel-good sex. Such as untimely interruptions from the ship's PA system. This had BETTER not be a drill."

"Murrue wouldn't hold a chemical weapons drill in the middle of a battlefield." Kira said grimly, even as he began helping her dress anyway, since he was already done. He helped her button her own shirt, and began combing out the snarls and tangles that always attacked her hair whenever she laid down on pillows and sheets for any period of time, much less did anything else on a bed.

"Leave it. I don't need perfect hair for an emergency." Lacus pushed him away gently as she began slipping on her shoes. "There, good enough. Let's go." She put her hand in his and held on tight... in microgravity, they could move much faster if Kira did most of the work and she just let herself be pulled along, touching down a foot to change direction or relieve strain every so often, like a kite on a leash. Not the most dignified way to travel, but again... emergencies were a good time to set aside pride. Their quarters were in the officer's section of the ship's living area, specifically selected not only for roominess but also for the fact that they were about equal distance from both the bridge and hanger, and not too far from either. The only person that had a room closer to the bridge was Murrue... they were in fact living in the XO's stateroom, while Murrue had the Captain's cabin, which she had shared with Waltfeld until recently, and Athrun and Cagalli had the almost luxurious Admiral's quarters, since the Archangel was designed as a fleet flagship, much to their dismay at times. They both noted that there was definitely a sense of urgency, of tightly controlled fear, in the people they passed. This was no drill.

"I can't believe I had that on my FUCKING ARM!" Waltfeld was half shouting as they entered the bridge, plainly either just warming up for a hysterical shouting spree, or just winding down from one. His right arm was bare of its flesh simulation cover, instead showing blackened steel mechanical bones from shoulder to fingertips. He didn't usually show the real artificial arm, because he felt it creeped people out, and he didn't like being reminded of what it looked like, because it reminded him of where... and who... he'd gotten it from. "If that had been my OTHER arm that got brushed, I could be DEAD!"

"Interesting sentence to come into things on." Kira called. "What's going on? Something about a chemical weapon? How could something like that get aboard?"

"Soon as we figure that out, we'll be sure to tell you." Lieutenant Neumann replied, somewhat testily, a definite rarity that showcased even more how serious the situation was. Neumann was NEVER snippy or sarcastic, and especially not to Kira. "As for what, well... we really don't know that either."

"What's the blue spot on the window? Its huge." Lacus asked, pointing over Waltfeld's shoulder as she found her footing by Kira's side.

"That's part of the problem." Murrue told them. "That blue stuff is some sort of chemical-biological-unknown type weapon. That spot is just one of many around the ship. We're going to be evacuating the bridge here in another few minutes... whatever it is, its eating through the glass... AND the bulkhead."

"And it was about to start eating into my fucking arm!" Waltfeld added, pointing angrily at the floor just outside of Kira and Lacus's view. They floated forward slightly and gasped, almost in unison. Waltfeld's faux flesh arm cover was lying on the floor... or at least a small part of it was. Most of it, except for the palm and fingers, was nothing but a pile of blue dust in a vaguely arm shaped piled, which had stained the deck beneath it dark blue... and the blue stain was spreading, even as the palm started to crumble and disintegrate.

"What IS that!?" Kira asked, on reflex. Everyone but Lacus shot him daggerlike looks, and he held up his hands apologetically. "What's our best guess then?"

"It's the most virulent, deadly substance I've ever seen, how about that?" Neumann replied worriedly. "Its not any of the biological or chemical weapons I've ever heard about or been briefed on. Major Jones and Major Belarus are on their way up as well. They're terrorism experts, maybe they know of something strange that we don't."

"Damn, and I was just about to say that since you guys are all technical officers, and way smarter than me, you'd know what it was." Alkire said, walking onto the bridge in full combat rig, armor, grenades, knives, a automatic combat shotgun in his hands, and his Stormhound helmet clipped to his belt. Behind him, Raine was similarly equipped, except with a pair of modified pistols, with laser sights, elongated barrels and massive magazines... almost more like carbines than pistols... that were her standard shipboard anti-boarder weapons, since sniper rifles were impractical in confined spaces. "Whatever the fuck it is, it's fucking everywhere down there. We had to detour three times because there were entire passageways that were covered for ten feet or more on floor and walls with the blue stains. I think it's in the ship's water supply too... saw a broken water fountain shooting light blue water all over the place. Its a fucking nightmare." He turned his gaze to Murrue and winced sympathetically. "Sorry to say it, Captain, but we passed at least a dozen casualties on the way up here. Nothing we could do for em... the stuff spreads by touch. It's... it's uh... pretty fucking gruesome."

"I know, Major." Murrue said stiffly. "The medical bay has been totally overrun with the stuff. Chief Murdoch was one of the first victims. I haven't heard of much from the hanger bay, but if Murdoch was infected, it's a sure bet he was infected from something in the hanger bays."

"Aww fuck no... not the Chief!" Alkire sagged against the wall. He and Chief Murdoch had hit it off well ever since Alkire had piloted the Skygrasper's for the Archangel a few times during the Second Valentine War. He looked over and saw that Lacus was actually holding Kira up, or mostly, and he winced again. Matt Murdoch and Kira Yamato had been close. An favorite Uncle- favorite Nephew type thing, if not Father-Son. He was also the senior enlisted man on the Archangel, and a big chunk of the ship's morale was invested in the gruff, never quite within regulations but friendly and highly skilled Chief Mechanic. The man had saved the entire ship on mutiple occasions, had saved more lives more times than most people could count, and he was one of the original few... the ones that had been on the Archangel since it's first launch at Heliopolis. Only Neumann and Murrue herself now remained of that initial crew.

"What about Athrun and Cagalli?" Lacus asked worriedly, causing Alkire, Raine and Kira to all stiffen anew, remembering that Athrun had been injured and interred at medical as well.

"They made it out okay, just in time. They're with Kisaka in the galley right now, trying to muster as many uninfected people as possible." Murrue told them, much to their relief. "As for the infected people... I'm not sure what to do. From what we've seen, even slight exposure is deadly... all it varies is the time it takes for the substance to devour its way into your body and reach the bloodstream. Once it's in your blood, it travels throughout your body, and begins eating you away from the inside, until there's nothing left behind but infectious blue powder. That's what the Doctor said, before he vomited purple blood all over the videocomm screen and that's the last contact we had with the medical bay." Murrue's voice became near toneless, though it was obvious that she was hanging on to a great deal of grief and anger.

"If it gets on your clothes, get them off in about fifteen or twenty seconds, or it'll eat its way through and get on your skin. You got a bit longer, depending on what kind of clothes you got and how big the spot is, but the faster the better." Waltfeld said, with a shiver. "It went through my arm cover in about ten minutes, but that's rubber and exotic plastics, designed to be way tougher than human flesh."

"What if it gets on you?" Kira asked. There was a moment of silence.

"Cut out the flesh around it, or cut off the limb. That's the only sure way, with something like this." Raine spoke up. "Get it before it gets into your major blood vessels, or you're done. Same sort of thing with some of the weaponized acids or burning chemicals, like white phosphorous... you can't wipe or wash it off, that just spreads it... you got to cut the fuel away from under or around it... and by fuel, I mean flesh and bone. Sounds harsh, but better to lose a limb or a big hunk of flesh than your life. And God himself help you if it gets on your face. Might as well just have Robert blow your skull apart with his shotgun if that happens. It'd hurt less."

"Let's leave that sort of speculation alone, eh?" Alkire looked queasy. He eyed the big blue spot on the bridge window, which was starting to sport a fine web of crystal cracks around it. "Not to get out of line or anything, but I think we'd better get off the fucking bridge, unless we wanna try and WALK back to Earth!" Alkire led the way into the bridge elevator, as Murrue and Waltfeld shut and locked down the bridge behind them. Alkire activated the ship's comm built in the wall of the elevator and contacted the galley. "Colonel... what's the situation where you are?"

"I'd prefer to be unarmed, naked and without cover, under fire from Blue Cosmos terrorists with incendiary weapons." Kisaka replied shortly, appearing on the screen wearing a bulky silver-orange fireman's suit. "At least then I know what to expect, though the situation wouldn't be any less hopeless."

"That good, huh? That's great. We're all smiles up here, after hearing that, let me assure you. Perhaps you'd like to sing a dirge too, really get the mood off to a good start."

"I didn't make this fire, Robert, I'm just lying in it." Kisaka took a deep breath to get himself back under control. Just seeing Kisaka rattled was enough to make Alkire's balls want to climb into his stomach. "So far it seems about half the crew has managed to avoid being contaminated with the stuff. Most of the rest are either dead or missing and presumed dead. We can't get down to or contact the medical bay or the engineroom, so we're going to have to write off those two areas. So far the stuff doesn't seem to have penetrated this far into the ship, but we're going to have to move in the next fifteen to twenty minutes or we'll be cut off from the best route to the hanger."

"Have you had good contact with the hanger?" Murrue asked, shoving her head into the view of the commscreen.

"Yes. Dearka, Ysak, Miriallia and Katie are in the hanger, with a group of uncontaminated mechanics and technicians. They are preparing the emergency lifeboats for launch as we speak. They report that the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess are unreachable and contaminated to boot, as are all of the Dawndrakes, which are mostly gone, they report, which makes me think the Dawndrakes were how it got in. The good news is, the Seraph, Vorpal and Warmaster are all still in the same condition they were in when they landed, which may not be good but at least they can fly. They're clear of immediate threat as well, but again, the situation could be much different in fifteen minutes or so."

"What about Cagalli and Athrun?" Kira asked, from over Murrue's shoulder.

"Athrun is hurting, his leg wounds have re-opened, but he is otherwise fine and will recover. Cagalli is with him..." Kisaka trailed off and swallowed hard for a moment. "She took a splash of the blue stuff to the back of her hand and a droplet on her left cheek, before I reached them and dragged them fully clear of the danger."

"Omigod!" Lacus's hands flew to her mouth, as she instinctively stretched her mind, which she had been keeping tightly focused so as to not be deluged with the pain and suffering and fear of the crew, towards the galley, desperately seeking Cagalli and Athrun. She found them almost at once, and though they were both in pain, and far from happy, there was no sadness or grief, and neither of them seemed worried about sudden or imminent death. "Oh, thank goodness..."

"I was forced to dig the blue stuff out of both locations with my knife, before the contamination could settle in, rather like dealing with white phosphorous." Ledonir's words were calm, but they could see his arms shivering. Cagalli was very much like his adopted daughter, the replacement to his own kids that had been killed, along with his fiancee, before they could be born. Taking a knife to her hand and cheek, even to save her life, especially while she panicked, without anasthetic or anything... that must have hurt him as much as it did her! "She is currently... recovering... but has showed no further signs of infection, so I seem to have been successful. Thank Hameya forever."

"Understood, Ledonir. We're on our way down from the bridge right now. We'll head to the hanger and help out there until we can link up. Be careful." Murrue said softly.

"You too, Captain Ramius. Mind your heads... I've seen a few contaminated by drips from the ceiling." Kisaka signed off, already shouting new orders before the commlink was even fully off. He was careful to keep his hands out of sight of the commscreen view until he was sure it was off, and he was glad he'd donned the bulky fireman's suit, which served to disguise the tourniquets tied around his wrists and upper arms. He'd saved Cagalli, but he'd had to use his own hands to get a good grip, and had been unable to avoid contaminating himself in the process. So far it was confined to his hands, and he was keeping his bloodstream restricted with the tourniquets, or so he hoped, but he could feel the devouring presence inside him, like a parasite. Some of it might have splashed or drifted into his mouth while he was trying to scrape it off her as well... his arms were the worst but he could feel it elsewhere too. There was no sense in creating more panic than need be... only he and a few crew knew of his situation. And he was planning on keeping it that way for as long as possible.

"Great. Now I'm paranoid." Alkire said nervously, checking the ceiling all around.

"Just now? Coulda fooled me." Raine muttered under her breath, drawing a chuckle from everyone present. The elevator slowed and then "dinged to a halt". Lacus was still withdrawing her mental senses from checking on Cagalli and Athrun, and she suddenly stiffened, as Murrue pressed the door open button."

"No, WAIT!" Lacus yelled, but by then it was too late, and the doors slid open, and a wheezing Archangel crewmember, missing both hands and both feet from the knee/elbow down fell into the elevator, from where he'd propped himself up against the doors. Falling backwards he flailed his stumps wildly, trying to regain his balance as he crashed into Neumann's legs and instinctively tried to grab hold with hands he no longer had, smearing large splotches of blue powder all down Neumann's front, much to everyone's horror.

"HOLYMOTHERFUCKINGSHITGODDAMNSHITFUCKER!" Alkire roared in mingled adrenaline and fear, kicking the hopelessly contaminated crewman in the pit of the back as hard as he could, punting the now screaming and twitching torso back out of the elevator, limb stumps spraying fresh spurts of smoky purple gore as the crewman's heart speeded up as he momentarily awakened from his near death shock stupor. A splurt landed on Alkire's boot top and splatted down the inside and outside of his left boot, almost instantly soaking through the sock. His eyes went wide as saucers as he felt the cold liquid touch his skin around his ankle. Neumann was panicking next to him, instinctively wiping at himself with both hands, even though the blue stuff had yet to eat through his clothes, and all he was doing was making it worse. The fear was controlling him though, and there was no stopping him. He started to turn to the rest of them, but then stumbled out of the elevator altogether and fell to his hands and knees out in the hall, next to the already injured crewman, thanks to Raine's hard shove.

"What are you doing!?" Murrue shouted in protest, even as Raine leaned by her and smacked the door close button with one hand and drew one pistol with her other. Before the door could close, Raine fired twice... one shot to the back of the crewman's head, the other to the back of Neumanns, the jacketed hollow point bullets exploding both heads like they were made of eggshell porcelain. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR!? THEY WERE..."

"Already dead. The crewman had it in his blood, and it was all over Lieutenant Neumann's lower torso. Cutting that much out would have eviscerated him and killed him just as cruelly as letting it do its work." Raine replied tonelessly. "I'm sorry, but it was the only thing I could think to do."

"OH SHIT!" Waltfeld suddenly shouted. "It's in Lacus's hair! Blood spatter!" Even as he said that, Kira was already in motion, his left hand snapping downward to wipe the purple blood clots off of Lacus's long pink hair. "DAMNIT, NO KIRA DON'T TOUCH..." Kira's fingertips ran through the gunk, knocking most of it to the floor but staining his fingertips blue from the top knuckle to the tips, and Lacus's pink hair continued to turn blue in both directions. Kira stared at his hand in shock, and then saw his attempt to save Lacus really hadn't done much. She was starting to reach back herself, also operating on instinct, until Raine snatched her hands out and grabbed both of Lacus's wrists. Waltfeld slammed Kira away from Lacus and everyone else, using his mechanical arm firmly planted against Kira's chest, even as Waltfeld carefully reached out with his flesh hand and gathered Lacus's hair together at the base of her head. "CUT IT! CUT IT OFF!"

"I got it! I got it!" Alkrie stepped forward, ignoring his ankle for the moment as he ripped his combat knife out of its sheathe and sawed through Lacus's hair, right at the nape of her neck, cutting all the way through in a single slice of the blade. It wasn't designed for cutting hair, or much of anything, but any edge made to cut through ballistic cloth will definitely cut human hair. Raine pulled Lacus away from her hair as soon as she saw Alkire make the cut, and held onto the started Coordinator tightly, keeping her away from Kira, who was staring at his blue fingertips with stunned amazement, as if he couldn't believe what had just happened. Kira slowly looked up and met the horrified gazes of everyone else.

"Uhh..." Kira said uncertainly.

"Kira!" Lacus tried to wriggle out of Raine's grip, her first instinct, as always, was to go to him, to protect him however she could, but Raine had her in a near submission hold, and there was no way she could break free. Waltfeld carefully dumped Lacus's severed hair in a corner of the elevator and checked his palm for any sign of blue stains. There were none. Lacus struggled again, but only because she couldn't think of what else to do. Kira couldn't... this couldn't happen... not to Kira... not when she was... not now! Her anguish was like a physical thing, and everyone in the elevator could feel it like a bomb going off inside their hearts.

"Don't fucking panic!" Alkire snarled, brandishing the knife. "Waltfeld, hold him fucking still as a statue! Captain Ramius, hold his arm flat against the wall and turn his head away! Kira, find something to put in your mouth so you don't bite your tongue. This is gonna be fucking messy, but we can keep this from getting any worse!" Alkire stepped forward and pinned Kira's hand to the wall of the elevator with one hand, and lifted the knife, even as Murrue and Waltfeld restrained him as best they could, and Kira put his wallet in his mouth and bit down, a very scared look on his face. He looked over at Lacus, and he stiffened and relaxed at the same time, staying upright but going almost limp as she did something to his head that sent his mind far away, briefly, her own eyes squeezing shut as she mumbled prayers under her breath as Alkire began sawing and slicing with the knife as hard and fast as he could, going down a full quarter inch from the bottom edge of the contaminated areas.

"UAAAGH!" Kira yelled through his leather wallet, as the serrated knfie blade bit through pink flesh, and began ripping through tendons and into bone like a box knife cutting through balsa wood rods... except with a lot more blood flying everywhere and dripping in thick streams down the wall. "NNRGAHH!" Kira jerked, as the first two fingertips fell away.

Alkire worked as fast as he could, but it was a good thing Lacus was putting the lockdown on Kira, because he was still flopping and jerking like a beached shark, and might have broken free from Murrue and Waltfeld were it not for the inhuman strength of Waltfeld's mechnical arm. Alkire couldn't blame the kid... he was having his fingertips sawed off by a combat knife, after all! Human fingertips were very sensitive. "I'm fucking sorry, Kid... I fucking am... just hold the fuck on a little more... little more... come on you bastard bone... THERE! Clear!" Alkire shouted, stepping back and prompting Waltfeld and Murrue to yank Kira away from the wall so hard they pulled him off his feet. Blood, hot and red, spat and spurted from Kira's amended fingers, until Lacus ripped the bottom part of her dress off and used it as a big wad of bandages, as she clung to Kira like a limpet, her hair now barely even long enough to cover her ears... it was shorter than his! Kira slowly swam his way back to full consciousness with a pained groan.

"Is this floor clear? Is it!? LACUS!?" Raine demanded, as the elevator stopped at the next floor up. Lacus looked up from where she was cuddling Kira and narrowed her eyes, looking at the door, or rather, beyond it.

"I don't sense any living minds. But there could be an entire wall of bodies there and I wouldn't be able to see it." Lacus replied, her voice trembling with adrenaline. What had just happened had happened so fast she was still dealing from her own fear for having it on her hair, much less the second, far worse impact of Kira's fingertips, which were now almost gone, just blue spots on the ground, along with her hair, now a pile of blue dust in the corner. Her makeshift bandage was starting to become damp, but she didn't know what else to do besides hold Kira close while he gritted his teeth in agony and tried not to flood their link with how he was feeling.

"Motherfucking hell." Raine muttered and stabbed the door open button. "STAND FUCKING CLEAR THIS TIME! I don't want to shoot anyone else!" The door slid open and revealed... a pristine passageway. They piled out with sighs of relief. All except for Alkire, who had a very grim look on his face. "Robert...?" Raine asked, a trifle uncertainly, before her hand flew to her mouth in a similar manner to Lacus, as she saw the purple-blue blood on his left boot and lower pantleg. "ROBERT!"

"I know. There were more important people that needed attention, dear." Alkire gave her a roguish smile, trying to hide his own fear. "Don't go drawing your pistols yet though, love. I ain't giving up without a fight. That old skeleton with the scythe can go fuck himself if he thinks it's gonna be this easy." He carefully cut away his pant leg at the knee, revealing a mostly healthy calf that was splattered with blue spots, like chickenpox, from a few inches above the ankle on down.

"Hold still... let me get my knife..." Raine started to step forward, before Alkire held up a warding hand to stop her.

"Knife ain't gonna cut through my leg. Not in time. Hold her back, Andrew, if you would." Alkire said, still keeping that faint smirk on his face. He looked at Lacus. "I don't know if you know what I'm thinking... I hope you don't... but if you could uh, in any way, numb my leg... I would be very grateful."

"I'll try, but I don't know if my control is that fine." Lacus replied seriously, her brow furrowing in concentration.

"A numb body will be fine too, I guess." Alkire shrugged and sat down in the doorway to the elevator, propping his infected leg up high and curling his other leg back beneath him, out of easy danger. "If you want to keep any recent meals, I'd advise you to look away right the fuck now. You too, Raine, honey. Cover her fucking eyes, Andrew. A man's wife just shouldn't see some things, even if she is harder bitten than he himself is."

"ROBERT WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? DON'T YOU FUCKIN DARE..."

"Saving my own fucking life. I hope." Alkire replied dryly, undoing his belt and tying it tightly around his lower thigh as a tourniquet and bringing his shotgun around and placing the muzzle against his knee, pointing back into the elevator. He flicked the safety off and stared up and away at the ceiling, taking a deep breath. "If this doesn't work right, don't tell anyone I did it. I love you, Raine." He joked, turning the mode select to three round burst, and then pulled the trigger. The triple boom sounded like three fighter jets breaking the sound barrier right overhead, drowning out Alkire's scream as the triple load of buckshot ripped his knee apart and completely blasted the infected lower leg away in an explosion of red blood and pink pulpy flesh and bright white bone shards, sending it careening into the elevator like it had been thrown from a catapult, while the rest of Alkire spun out into the hallway. Blood pulsed thinly from the jagged, ragged wound where his left knee had used to be, but the belt tourniquet kept him from bleeding out in seconds.

Murrue vomited all over herself and the wall, having not heeded Alkire's advice fast enough, but she retained enough presence of mind to take off her own uniform jacket and rush forward, wadding it up and pressing it to the raw stump as an impromptu pressure bandage. Raine was beside her in an instant, snatching through her emergency medical pack to inject Alkire with the biggest shots of morphine she could manage, to keep the pain-shock from causing him to go into cardiac arrest. "YOU STUPID FUCKING BASTARD! HOW COULD YOU DO THAT!? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING!? BLOWING YOUR OWN FUCKING LEG OFF WITH A SHOTGUN!? WHAT THE FUCK!?"

"Seemed like a great idea at the time, honey..." Alkire wheezed. "Looks like it worked too... hooah. Shotgun triage... for the win..."

"If you die from this I will never forgive you!" Raine yelled, tears streaming down her face. "We haven't even had kids of our own yet, you stupid FUCK! YOU OWE ME ANOTHER THIRTY YEARS OF HAPPINESS, AND AT LEAST TWO KIDS FOR THAT FUCKING STUNT!"

"Be glad to pay." Alkire smiled weakly, before directing his gaze at Lacus. "Thanks... I think you took some of it off the top. I was expecting to go into cardiac arrest right off, from the pain. Being asked to numb someone's leg so they can blow it off with a shotgun can't be something you'd train to deal with. But you did good, Kidette."

"You are insane." Lacus replied, staring at him through tear blurred eyes.

"No more insane than the dope shivering in your arms." Alkire put both arms around Raine's neck as she helped him into a one legged standing position. "And I didn't get anyone else dirty, so that actually makes me better than him. Ouch. Owwie. Owie." Alkire took an experimental hop, and the taped on bandages and tourniquet didn't come off. "As for you kid, I'd better not see you crying, or I will forever more call you a little bitch, and expect to see you in pink, color coordinated schoolgirl uniforms! Your hand has to fucking hurt, I'll grant you... Raine... stick em with any morphine you got left... but I JUST BLEW MY OWN LEG OFF WITH A SHOTGUN! You ain't got nothing to bitch about!"

"You're right." Kira said, straightening and standing upright on his own, without any more morphine or anything other than his own willpower. He walked over and extended his arm and shoulder for Alkire to rest his other side, the missing leg side, on. "And compared to the people who'd been completely consumed by this stuff, neither of us has any right to complain at all! So let's not. At least not right now." They made quick progress toward the hanger, and actually reached it about the same time as Kisaka and the main remnants of the crew did. Kisaka's group had lost a few more people as well, but by and large, once the crew realized how the blue stuff spread, it was easy enough to avoid, and though messy it was possible to take preventative action if any got on you. Wounds or amputated limbs were better than slow death, after all. Alkire was far from the only one with a truncated limb... some people had even lost two or three, and none of them had exactly been removed with surgical precision. In fact, most looked like they'd been served with hacksaws or damage control axes, neither of which was exactly a precision cutting instrument.

"I think that's everyone." Murrue said at last, after Kira and Lacus had boarded the Seraph, Katie and Ysak the Vorpal, Dearka and Miriallia the Warmaster and everyone else the big lifeboats. Except for her and Kisaka and Waltfeld that is, as the most senior officers present. "Hopefully the Izumi classes weren't as hard hit as we were, but if they are, we'll head to the Moon and rendevous there. I can't believe we're abandoning the Archangel."

"It'll still be here when we get back. I hope. This stuff has to run out of energy sometime." Waltfeld replied, trying to be cheerful. "I mean, it can't keep going forever."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that." Kisaka said morosely. "Though I think we might be able to limit its growth by denying it as much energy as possible."

"And how would we do that? We can't get to the engineroom or the battery compartment or the bridge!" Andrew said, his tone frustrated.

"Not without becoming contaminated, no. However..." Kisaka agreed leadingly. There was a few moments of silence, as both Murrue and Andrew stared at him, and finally realized the significance of the bulky silver-orange fire suit, which had to be awkward and uncomfortable and was totally unnessecary, as there were no fires on board. They looked up into his face and saw his pupils were extremely dilated... he was doped to the gills, and recently.

"Oh Ledonir..." Murrue sighed sadly. "You are such an idiot. How long have you been...?"

"I do not believe I have functional hands any more, and I feel wetness on my belly that is not urine, though there is some of that as well." Kisaka replied shortly. "It is too late for me, but it is not too late for the rest of you. I will remain behind and do what I can to limit the growth of this toxic substance, until you can return and hopefully contain or destroy it more effectively."

"You selfish, self sacrificing son of a bitch." Waltfeld said quietly, unsure if he wanted to cry or punch Kisaka in the mouth, with his mechanical arm at that! "How the hell am I ever supposed to be able to look myself in the mirror again, after you pull somthing like this?"

"You can blow that ridiculous space saucer out of the sky for me, and scatter it into space dust. That would be a fine recompense, I think." Kisaka smiled ruefully. "Cagalli is sleeping off some pain medication I had slipped to her. I could not bear to have her see what must be done. Athrun knows. I've already passed along what messages I felt needed to him."

"Hey Instructor! You've got that "I'm about to do something I hate but has to be done" look on your face!" Alkire called from the access hatch of the closest lifeboat. "Don't stop to think about it... just do it! And don't worry... we're gonna carve your full fucking name into that bastard Noah Borander's dick... with a red hot dental pick!"

"I'd be satisfied with just a shot to the head, but knock yourself out, Robert." Kisaka called back. "And thank you."

"Don't thank me. Neither of us needs that kind of conversation! Here... hang onto this!" Alkire tossed a spherical metal object through the air towards them. Watlfeld caught it, and saw that it was a high explosive grenade. "Go out with a bang, Instructor... like the hero you always have been!"

"Uhm..." Waltfeld looked at the grenade, and then at Kisaka's limply hanging arms, which were thickly gloved as well. He twisted the dial on the top of the grenade. "It's set to ten minutes. You think that'll be long enough?"

"It should be fine. It's been an honor to know you, Andrew."

"The honor has been all mine, Ledonir." Watlfeld brushed some moisture out of his eye with his flesh hand. "Don't worry about a thing... we'll take care of everything you've been worrying about. I swear to you."

"Oh Ledonir..." Murrue said again, stepping forward and making as to give him a hug, which caused him to step back drastically.

"I cannot tell how contagious I am, so don't touch me, for safety's sake. Please, Murrue... just be happy. Find your happiness, and live your life with him. And don't look back, even on days like this. Look ahead, and brighten the lives of everyone around you, just like you always have, my dear Captain." Kisaka's own eyes glittered for a moment, but then he was back under control again. He nodded one more time, at them both, and then opened his mouth wide, and looked pointedly at the grenade. Waltfeld looked uneasy, but then shrugged and held the grenade up so Kisaka could take hold of it in his mouth, since his arms weren't functioning. They both saluted him briskly, and he stiffened to attention in return. And then headed back into the ship without a single look back, his stride strong and determined, while Waltfeld guided Murrue back to the lifeboat so they could begin their evacuation.

"Oh Ledonir..." Murrue sobbed, as the lifeboat began to move. "I'm sorry..."

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	50. Flash Flood part 8

Author Note: Sorry this took so long, Folks. I got distracted, I have to admit. Real life and all. This is the end of Flash Flood. and next we're going to have The Garden of Eden Creation Kit. Where so much will be explained. By the way, if you are of a mind to do me a favor, and are waiting for days or weeks for me to post again, I should recommend you read/review a story called "Weapon's Waltz" by Strata-Assassin. Its long, and good, and doesn't have nearly as many reviews as it deserves. You'd be a deserving person something of a good turn by giving it a try. I'm also doing beta reading for it. Rihaku, it remainds me, in some ways, of your Dark Kira fic, her protagonist does. Its well done stuff, and an interesting concept for a story, not often done on this site. Definitely worth checking out, in my humble opinion.

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Noah strode back onto the main bridge of the Great Endeavor, several hours after he'd first ordered the deployment of Blue EDEN. He was in much better control of himself now than he had been then, though he did have to admit that his anger was simmering very close to the surface still. And likely would be for a while, at least until Meyrin awoke and could help him calm down. If she awoke... no, Noah wouldn't even let himself consider otherwise! She would ascend, and pave the way for everyone else! Truly, the world didn't deserve someone as great as Meyrin watching over them. And if she didn't ascend, Noah knew it would be because of the contamination from the dirt and dust sifted all over her by the near miss from the attack by the USN and Orb Gundams! It would be THEIR fault... and he would make them regret it, to their dying day's and beyond! He'd had her moved to a more secure location, after he had cleaned her up, not wanting to leave her covered in dirt and who knew what kinds of bacteria. Her immune system was still functioning at the moment, but she would be losing it soon, and while he had promsied to give her the same chance as everyone else, he didn't think she'd mind him giving her a good chance, versus one laden down with negative factors.

The Great Endeavor's display screens showed him a picture than brought a vindictive, satisfied smile to his face, even as a tiny voice in the back of his head wailed and decried him for the cruelty of the action. He told that voice to shut the hell up if it knew what was good for it. Deploying Blue EDEN was not his first choice. Or his second, or third... or even tenth! It was his last resort, because all other tactics had failed or would fail! Like so many other things he had been forced to do along the way to creating Eden, it was highly regretable and disgusting to him on many levels. However, it was also necessary, and because it was necessary he could and would tolerate the offense to his sensibilities. All the same, he was glad the USN fleets were such a distance away... he would not have enjoyed sharing the pain and terror of so many thousands of last moments with the victims of the nano-plague. Noah adjusted the magnification on the screens and looked closer, seeing that the Blue EDEN was well progressed throughout the vanguard and main fleets. It would be time for the Great Endeavor to resume its course soon.

But that was still some minutes away, and Noah settled in to watch the antics of the USN fleets as they floundered, flailed and twitched like a epileptic child on a sugar high, trying to figure out what was happening to them, why and what they could do about it. Noah almost thought about dropping the communication interdiction for a little bit, just so he could listen to them bleat and scream at each other as they were consumed by something beyond the remit of their puny knowledge. It was nothing less than they deserved though... how could they be so obtuse!? Was it really so hard to see that he was doing this for the benefit of everyone, including them? He tried and he tried, and they just plain REFUSED to see what he was trying to show them! No... no, his pity for them had long since run dry and withered on the vine. They could reap what they had sown, and he would not cry a single tear for their stupidity.

"Just what the hell IS that stuff anyway?" An unexpected voice asked from behind him, and Noah whirled, his beginnings of a good, or at least better, mood vaporized in an instant. He almost pulled the beam pistol from his sleeve holster, and to hell with the consequences! However, reason re-asserted itself at the last moment and Noah turned the motion into a flattening down of non-existant creases on his shirt sides, probably not fooling Ashino at all. However, the BCPU did relax from his own near combat stance. Slightly. Of course, he did have some reason to be wary, Noah definitely could give him that.

"You have a lot of nerve just strolling up here and asking a question, like I didn't know what you did to the Revenant." Noah observed nastily, his surging emotions causing the Harbingers on the bridge to wince and shuffle their feet as they edged as far away from him as they could while remaining at their duty stations.

"Cray got what was coming to him. I only regret he didn't get it at my hands, in the end. There was a chain of responsibility between him and I... you could say that while one of us lives, the other could not be happy with that result." Ashino replied calmly. "Go ahead and pull that gun if you really are that torn up about him, but I warn you, I will not lightly accept a weapon being leveled at me, and this time you are not on the other side of a wall of exo-glass. You say I have nerve? You're one to talk, given that you created such a monstrousity of a Gundam for Cray, and let him use it. Not even mentioning that AMP cannon on top of this base. Did you SEE what that did to the Moon? Are you insane?"

"The deflection of the AMP cannon shot was unfortunate and unforseen, but in a battle, such things happen. It doesn't make me happy, and I won't chance the Moon suffering any more damage by firing directly into their shield again. Fortunately, I shan't need to, and even if I do, they have other concerns occupying their attention right now... trust me, that shield is not going to be a problem anymore." Noah said confidently, with a slightly self satisified smirk. "As for what happened to Cray, its not that you tried to kill him... its that you tried to kill him while he was fighting our enemies! You broke off from an engagement that you might have been able to win against the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess, and you proceeded to distract Cray from a vital task which I had assigned him... not indirectly leading to the current state of affairs, and the Great Endeavor even suffering some damage!" Noah lost the smirk and frowned deeply. "I really ought to have you shot, here and now."

"Like I said before. Go ahead and try me, if you really feel you need to. I'm ready when you are. That I'm standing here at all should tell you how I feel about the prospect of being confronted with force." Ashino shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course, since at the moment the pilot of the Vengeance is currently unconcious in a bed while his arm finishes being reattached... a process that gave me a lot of confidence in your claims about being able to heal Jean, I will admit... and your regular forces, including the other two Gundams are in tatters, so you aren't exactly swamped with a lot of allies right now, are you?"

"It would be personally satisfying to test your insulting amount of confidence." Noah answered. He heaved a heavy sigh. "However, you are right, it would not help the current situation for us. It would just be doing the work of the USN for them. And I don't have anyone else to entrust the Retribution to at the moment." Noah half turned to look at the primary viewscreens again. He glanced back at Ashino. "However, don't you dare think I'm not watching you closely, Mr. Ashino. In the greater scheme of things, your actions in the last battle are extremely regrettable, but ultimately forgivable. Cray would not have been coming to Earth with us in any case... one does not populate a garden with rabid animals, not when people are supposed to live there as well. In the future though, if you have a vendetta you wish to excise against someone else in my employ, come to me first, and tell me... I might be able to accomodate you, at the proper time and place. I want a smooth working relationship between us, Mr. Ashino. Conflict is undesirable and wasteful."

"Thats more mature than I was expecting." Ashino admitted. "Maybe there is more to you than a megolomaniacal brat after all."

"So much more that it's postiviely scary, Mr. Ashino." Noah replied lightly, refusing to be baited or drawn by mere words. What did he care what the BCPU thought anyways? He didn't know anything. He was just a child, wandering alone and lost through a pitch dark cave. The image in his mind was definitely amusing enough to take any sting out of Ashino's words. "Is there anything else? You should be recuperating while the Retribution is being repaired and rearmed. The Brotherhood will be ready to sortie again in a matter of minutes. I shall not be requiring any more contributions from you at the moment, so you should probably rest while you can."

"I'm not tired." Ashino said in return. "You didn't answer my original question. What is that blue stuff? And what do you mean, you won't need my help? The USN and allied nation state forces have been hurt, but they still outnumber us by an extreme margin, and they have more Gundams operational than we do. Your great golden Gundam is a terror on the battlefield, but it's hardly the unstoppable god you thought it was... Mr. Yamato was only prevented from destroying it by bad luck... if he had chosen to slash instead of pierce, you would have lost it." Ashino narrowed his eyes. "As a machine it is head and shoulders above anything else I've ever seen. But without a high caliber pilot, its still not exactly a superweapon. And you, Mr. Borander, are quite simply, not a high caliber pilot."

"It was the first time I'd ever piloted in real combat before." Noah retorted, somewhat defensively despite his intentions not to get riled up. "The Brotherhood was only completed a week or two ago... that was more an operations test than a true sortie. I made some mistakes this time. They won't happen next time. I think you might be astonished at my capacity to learn to be better than I used to be, Mr. Ashino. The only one who is even close to as quick a learner as I would be dear Kira himself." Noah glanced at Ashino again. "As for the "blue stuff" as you so crudely put it... that is my last resort. Blue EDEN. It is thanks to your antics in part that I was forced to deploy it, despite my intentions not to. It is a... distasteful weapon."

"I would never have thought squeamishness to be one of your atttributes, Mr. Borander, given what I've seen you do already. What could be any worse than a pure antimatter weapon like the cannon atop this base?" Ashino asked quietly.

"At least the AMP cannon is quick and painless." Noah replied, equally quietly. "Blue EDEN is a nano-plague, Mr. Ashino. The most deadly weapon I have ever created. The science of it is almost certainly beyond your capability to understand, as it stretched even my own mind to come up with it... when I was ten." Noah was not above getting some slights of his own in. "You could liken it to a disease, Mr. Ashino. A disease that is one hundred percent deadly, because it does not infect and modify your cells as part of its life process. Oh no... it does one thing and one thing only... it converts anything it touches into more of itself. One nanite becomes two. Two becomes four. Four to eight. Eight to sixteen. Sixteen to thirty two. I'm sure you see the pattern. And they use all forms of matter and most forms of energy to fuel the process. Fire, even plasma weaponry, only accelerates the growth. Prolonged exposure to solar core temperatures will destabilize the nanites... but other than that, only Antimatter will be assured to destroy Blue EDEN."

Ashino struggled to wrap his mind around what Noah was saying... not because it was complicated, but because of how monstrous it was! "You... you attacked them with a weapon that consumes all matter it touches and grows from doing so!? Something that can only be destroyed with Antimatter!? From what that screen says, more than eighty percent of the entire USN force has been affected!"

"Indeed." Noah agreed smugly. "And it has had several hours to work its way into the interiors of the ships. I imagine they're all quite busy right now... those that are still alive that is. Which won't be too many, at this rate... staying aboard a ship contaminated with Blue EDEN is not a good way to prolong your life expectancy." Noah looked at the screen again, his smile widening as he saw dozens of smaller lights dropping away fro the larger warships like dandruff... Mobile Suits, Mobile Armors and evacuation craft by the look of them. Rats fleeing a sinking ship... rather a whole fleet of sinking ships!

"All right. Begin analysis of all fleeing craft. Move the Great Endeavor to an intercept position between the fleets and the Moon. Target and destroy any craft contaminated by Blue EDEN, without hesitation. We cannot allow even a single contaminated vessel to reach the Lunar surface. Keep the Positron shields on standby in case any Blue EDEN begins to drift towards us. Prepare the magnetic collection units for launch." Noah began issuing orders in a steady stream. He paused for a moment to savor the sight of the Eternal breaking in half, its stern eroding away to display internal structures for a few moments before its plasma reactors detonated, consuming the vessel and leaving a dense sphere of Blue EDEN bloating in its wake.

"This is monstrous. Worse than a nuke." Ashino whispered, still stunned by what he was seeing on the screen, as warship icons began winking out in droves on the threat screens, accompanied by bright flashes of light in the distance on the main screens, or else just empty silence. Fleet formations, already scattered because of the AMP cannon, completely frayed and disintegrated, every ship moving in basically random order as contaminated ships tried to flee, clean ships tried to maneuver to take on life pods, and doomed ships began breaking apart or imploding all around. It was chaos, pure and simple, chaos that made the battle of only a few hours earlier look positively staid and dignified. "Do you know how many thousands of people you have condemned to death!?"

"Probably close to fifty or sixty thousand already, and I expect the number to grow by several tens of thousands more before I am done cleaning up this mess." Noah retorted tiredly. "Don't misunderstand me, Mr. Ashino... I don't enjoy using this weapon. But I have no choice but to use it, if I want to create the Garden I know I can, for the sake of Humanity as a whole. I expect people to hate and revile me for what I do for their sakes. Blue EDEN is just one more thing to add to the tally, I guess. Ideally there would not have been a battle at all, much less a need to use Blue EDEN. Sadly, the world is not yet perfect." Noah turned his back on the main screen, which was winking and flashing almost like it was filled with static... except all the static was caused by ships being blown to pieces by internal detonations, or even panicked friendly fire as uncontaminated warships opened fire on drifting hulks in order to prevent collisions. "You should really rest now, Mr. Ashino. There's a lot of work still to be done."

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"I can't believe we had to abandon the Archangel." Miriallia said softly, as the Warmaster took up a watchdog position near the small flotilla of emergency lifeboats and Mobile Suits that had fled the Archangel's hanger bays a few minutes piror. There were pitifully few... less than half the ship's complement had made it off the ship, and the Archangel had never had the biggest of crews... every missing face was noticable. Even some of the people that were almost legendary, people who had been with the ship from the start, who's very names were intimately associated with the Archangel, were now missing and gone forever. The loss of Chief Murdoch hit Miriallia and Dearka especially hard, as the gruff senior mechanic had been a fatherly figure to every Gundam pilot to spend any appreciably amount of time on the Archangel. Without Murdoch's years of experience in fixing and maintaining the often finicky Gundams, they were definitely at a serious disadvantage... not to mention the morale loss and personal disadvantage of losing such a longtime friend! It was like a kick to the groin, and the feeling was there to stay.

"It really doesn't look so bad from out here." Dearka replied, somewhat numbly. "Just a few blue splotches, a missing window on the bridge..." He shivered in dread and pent up emotional reaction. Though the exterior was still largely pristine, the interior of the Archangel was a vista straight from the bowels of hell. A sterile hell maybe, since what blood and gore there was quickly dried up and turned to sparkly blue powder, but he personally thought it was all the worse for its sterility! The blue stuff was so voracious it didn't even leave blood behind! It just consumed and consumed and ate and ate, on without cease, until nothing was left but itself! He tried not to hurl as the still far too fresh images of some of the crew victims he had seen only minutes prior aboard the Archangel tried to flood back into his mind. People should not have to die like that... nobody should have to die like that, begging for death!

"Communications are still jammed across the board. We can't even talk to the others in the lifeboats!" Miriallia pounded one fist on her armrest in frustration. "Our own situation isn't exactly stellar either... we're only about halfway done with our resupply. The Vorpal and the Seraph are still badly damaged, and we had to leave the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess behind, not that there was much left of them that wasn't sandstone anyway!" her voice began to rise as she fought against hysteria and did not particularly win. "The Archangel is all but lost, all the Orb ships I can see are in similar straits and what cohesion the greater armada had before is now totally gone! How can the situation get any fucking worse!?" Miriallia demanded, casting her eyes towards heaven. Or at least towards her current up.

The blaring alarm klaxons that answered her question caught them both off guard for a moment, though it didn't take more than a second or two to figure out what had set their threat sensors off. The Great Endeavor had dropped its covering of pinkish Positron shields and was now maneuvering at its former plodding pace, since the fleets were all far too busy fighting for their lives to mount any sort of coherent response. A ship here or there began firing at the massive mobile base, but the Great Endeavor easily intercepted the attacks and fired back with punishing force, long range salvos of missiles and artillery shells scouring the sky, while the endless green streams of the Gatling Gottfried turrets dominated the area nearer to the Brotherhood base. The Great Endeavor slowly eased its way past the cordon the armada had been trying to establish, and planted itself squarely in the middle of the fastest route to the Lunar surface from the majority of the USN armada. To their surprise it then came to a halt, though neither of them could imagine why, since hadn't the goal of the enemy been to get by the armada and head to Earth all along?

To their horror the Great Endeavor then turned its weapons on the host of fleeing lifepods and other evacuating craft that were leaving the stricken armada and heading for the Moon's surface, blasting them apart like they were targets on a range, since the slow moving, unarmored craft could do little besides hope they didn't get hit. A few Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors moved to intercept the oncoming fire, to shield their fleeing comrades as best they could, but the overall effect was minor, and usually resulted in the Mobile Suit or Mobile Armor in question being blasted into stray particles in a matter of moments. "Damn it! How monstrous can he get!? As if the blue stuff wasn't bad enough, now he's targeting fleeing lifeboats!?" Dearka shouted in revulsion and hatred. He was just about to send the Warmaster heading in that direction, regardless of the odds, to at least attempt to distract the Great Endeavor from its massacre, when the large hanger doors on one face of the Great Endeavor swung open and the golden Gundam stepped forth, if a tad cautiously.

Dearka's hands clenched on his controls for several seconds as his instincts for self preservation warred with his desire to protect the defenseless. With Kira hurt and barely able to fly the damaged Seraph, much less fight, especially with Lacus riding in the cockpit with him to save space aboard the lifeboats, and the Vorpal still badly mauled, plus operating at less than optimal efficiency since Katie and Ysak hadn't had time to don their special gear or make their usual pre-flight preparations, the Warmaster was basically the only Gundam left. There were a few Dawndrakes and a couple Guardians, but that was now the sum total of Orb's military strength in the area, as all the Izumo class warships were abandoned and being consumed by the blue stuff, as was the Archangel. In any case, with the golden Gundam now operational again, seemingly fully repaired despite the damage it had taken at Kira's hands a few hours earlier, any sort of direct assault upon the enemy was simply suicide. Dearka had seen how Kira and the Seraph were barely able to stay ahead of the thing, and he knew the Warmaster, for all its power, would be all but helpless against something with that kind of speed and maneuverability.

A triple flash of light from over where the ZAFT fleets had been concentrated drew their eyes for a moment, as the Gugnir type warheads that had been carried aboard one of the Nazca classes as a special weapon were either accidentally or intentionally set off by the crew of the decomposing vessel. A huge bubble of bright blue sparkly dust rippled outward from the ship, borne by the expanding magnetic shockwave of the EMP blasts. The surface of the bubble rippled and swam, as the blue stuff absorbed the energy released by the blasts and multiplied themselves. In the end, the EMP blasts did nothing more than spread the blue stuff around and feed their frenzy even more. With that disheartening display fresh in their minds, Dearka and Miriallia once more turned to see what the Great Endeavor was doing. Oddly, though it certainly had the firepower to wipe the void clean of anything that passed into its arcs of fire, the Great Endeavor was actually letting a large portion of the lifeboats past.

"What the hell is he..." Dearka wondered, nonplussed by the seeming randomness.

Miriallia figured it out a few seconds later. She stared at the Great Endeavor with wide eyes, shocked and in some ways impressed with the enemy. And definitely still horrified. "He's protecting the Moon from the blue stuff. He's only shooting down ships with blue stuff on them, to prevent it from getting to the Lunar surface!"

"Well gee, isn't that noble of him... too bad he wouldn't have had to do that if he didn't release it in the first place!" Dearka spat. "And gunning down lifeboats without warning, even for a reason like that, is like cutting off fingers to stop an infection from spreading!" He glared at the Great Endeavor venomously, his hands still twitching on the controls. He watched as a salvo of small missiles launched from the Great Endeavor and headed into the debris field where most of the lifeboats had been destroyed. The missiles exploded, or rather, fell apart, revealing drum shaped warheads inside. They didn't seem to do much of anything, until Miriallia looked down at her sensor readings and saw that they were emitting strongly attracting magnetic fields, with a secondary repulsing magnetic field right around the drum itself. Within seconds huge clouds of blue stuff were swirling and rushing around and towards the drums, scooped up by the far reaching magnetic fields and pulled down towards the drums. Each drum swept clean a swath of space consisting of several dozen cubic kilometers, and the Great Endeavor kept launching the drum missiles almost continuously in a wide spread.

After almost a minute of collection time, the drums were invisble behind huge roiling masses of the blue stuff, all the dust in a 72 cubic kilometer area gathered into an area of less than a hundred cubic meters. And then the golden Gundam drew its right handed rifle, the cut down version of the massive cannon atop the Great Endeavor, ands its reactor power levels spiked to full capacity as it discharged the weapon again and again and again and again, targeting a drum with each shot, the brighter than nova star white light blasts impacting upon the drums and then expanding outward in all directions, leaving nothing, not even the blue stuff, behind in its wake. Less than ten minutes after it first started launching the drum missiles, the space around the Great Endeavor was completely sterilized and wiped clean, and then the Brotherhood Gundam began slowly and methodically working its way outward, assisted every so often by a shot from the Great Endeavor's AMP cannon as well.

The Vorpal and Seraph had drifted over and placed their hands on one of the lifeboats, initiating direct contact for low frequency comm channels, and the Warmaster joined them after a few minutes, once Dearka and Miriallia were able to tear their eyes away from the spectacle of the Great Endeavor and Brotherhood cleansing space. The Great Endeavor was now moving away from the Moon, towards the bulk of the largely drifting and derelict USN armada, and towards the Earth past that. The surviving ships that had not suffered from the blue plague were slowly forming up into a fleet once more, but it was painfully sparse, little more than a thin curtain or screen rather than any sort of real blockading force. Nonetheless they positioned themselves squarely in the path of the Great Endeavor and made ready to sell their lives dearly.

"... not much more we can do here." Kira's voice was saying, as the Warmaster's hand made contact with the lifeboat's exterior and allowed Miriallia to patch them into the conversation. His every word was a bit breathless, as if he was constantly biting his tongue to keep from screaming, which, considering that he'd just recently had all of his left fingertips sawed off with a knife, was not surprising. Given the way his body worked, most forms of anathesia or painkillers didn't work on Kira, since his immune system attacked and flushed them within seconds of entering his system. Great for warding off illness or poisons or other things... not so good when he was in agony from physical wounds and was prevented from even numbing the pain.

"We can't just let him go though!" Ysak retorted vehemently, his voice raw and angry and a little bit hoarse, as if he'd either recently done a lot of yelling or a lot of crying. Or both. In the current situation, Dearka couldn't blame him for either. "He attacked defenceless lifeboats! We can't let him get away with an atrocity like that!" Ysak was particularly inflamed about that, given his own past history with a similar action. Shooting down that shuttle full of civilians was going to haunt his nightmares to his dying day, and seeing a similar situation enacted in front of his eyes dozens of times while he was helpless to do anything about it had put him in a frothing rage, to put it mildly.

"He was preventing any of the blue stuff from getting to the Moon aboard a lifeboat." Miriallia piped up. There was a few moments of silence as people digested that insight.

"That STILL doesn't make it right!" Ysak growled. "He used the blue stuff in the first place, after all. Its like sterilizing an area with flamethrowers after you drop a germ bomb on it... yeah, you've gone and cleaned up the mess, but you're the one who caused the mess in the first place!"

"That's something we're going to have to address at a later time." Murrue said, her voice tired and wrung dry. Ten minutes had come and gone a long time ago, and she could not help but think of Ledonir with the grenade clamped in his teeth, heading for the battery compartment of the Archangel in order to shut off the power in order to slow down the ravenous plague. There had been no sign of major explosions inside the Archangel, at least none the admittedly basic sensors of the lifeboat could detect. _Ledonir... I'm sorry._ "Our fleet has been wiped out, our Mobile Forces are decimated, almost all of our Gundams are either destroyed or too heavily damaged to properly fight, and the enemy has suffered only minor damage. That one golden Gundam could kill us all right now, and there's not a damn thing we could do to stop him. That's the facts. I don't like turning my back any more than you do, but what choice do we have, Commander Joule!? If we attack now, we die, and uselessly at that. That's it. That's all we can do now... retreat or die."

"Captain Ramius is right." Lacus's steely calm voice spoke up. "Much like that time against the Isolation outside of Orb, we have lost this battle, and badly. That does not mean we have lost the war. What we need to do now is regroup and recuperate as quickly as possible. None of us is in any real condition to fight except for Dearka and Miriallia, and they cannot fight alone and accomplish anything other than a heroic if meaningless sacrifice. Principle must bow to reality at times like this."

"Damn, if only I hadn't used up all the shots of the Spear of Ares on the Revenant!" Dearka muttered in self reproach. "That might have at least slowed him down a goodly bit."

"You couldn't have known." Waltfeld replied calmly, one hand, his fleshy one, on Murrue's shoulder to comfort her. "You did what you thought was right and none of us can blame you. At the very least we never have to worry about the Revenant again, and that's no small thing, Mr. Elsman."

"The Great Endeavor is heading this way now." Miriallia informed them. "ETA to Earth orbit is two hours at this speed, more if it keeps pausing to get rid of the blue stuff."

"Noah is nothing if not thorough, and in his way he does really care about the environment. He won't stop until he has cleaned up all of that horrid blue stuff." Lacus told them firmly. "We will use that time to get organized. Captain Ramius and the other lifeboats, as well as the Warmaster and the Vorpal, will head to the Moon and coordinate actions with the USN leadership before heading back to Orb via the quickest means possible. I have no doubt that this is not the last time we will confront the Brotherhood in battle, though it pains me greatly to think of how destructive a battle like that will be on the Earth. However we have little choice in the matter, and whatever the hardships are, we will bear them. That is, after all, one of humanity's greatest strengths."

"What's the Seraph going to be doing then?" Katie asked suddenly. "The Vorpal and the Warmaster are going to the Moon and then back down to Orb. What about you and Kira, Lacus?"

"Kira and I have something to take care of first. The Seraph is not in battle condition, but it will be adequate as a transport, and Kira assures me that enough remains of the Fractal Wings to ensure a safe and reasonably comfortable trip from orbit to the Earth's surface. We will be heading there as soon as I take care of a few little details up here." Lacus replied, her voice carefully neutral.

"Where are you going? I thought regrouping and recuperating was the order of the day now?" Katie pressed, somewhat suspicious, especially because both Lacus and Kira's thoughts had suddenly become very opaque to her gentle probes. They were shielding her, hard, which meant they were trying to keep her from finding out about something. At one point in time she would have just pressedharder, or tried a sneakier method of infiltrating their surface thoughts, but sadly, such a time where that would be at all effective was in the past now. Katie knew she had more finesse than Lacus probably ever would... but no matter how graceful a rapier was, it wasn't going to defeat a battle tank.

"I can't tell you that, I'm sorry." Lacus answered regretfully.

"Can't tell us that? Why?" Dearka asked, puzzled.

"Because we can't have you trying to follow us. We have a chance to potentially distract and slow down Noah even more, and also learn the details of what he is planning on doing. However, if more than just Lacus and I go, he won't talk to us, or worse he might attack us, and we just don't have the strength to resist him right now." Kira replied, somewhat short of breath. His hand hurt like blazes, even with Lacus cupping it gently in both of her own and focusing a lot of her attention of distracting his mind from the sensations of the still sluggishly bleeding fingertip stumps. Piloting the Seraph one handed was certainly possible, but fighting was simply out of the question, especially against something like the Brotherhood. And double especially with Lacus sitting in his lap, unrestrained and unsecured. She'd fly around like a pinball during any sort of real combat maneuvers, and while she was a lot tougher than she looked, she wasn't THAT tough.

"You're going to MEET with him!? But he just tried to kill us all! If you hadn't stopped him, he would have crushed our minds like he was popping blisters!" Katie protested in shock. "He's as much as said he plans to kidnap you if he gets the chance, because he wants you for his Adam and Eve fetish!"

"Kira will protect me." Lacus said confidently. "And I will protect Kira." She added, before Katie could fully finish thinking the protest she'd been planning to voice. "If Noah wants to expose his weakness by talking with us and trying to convince us to accept his vision, well, I won't hesistate to take advantage of that desire, and anything else I can think of in order to wrest some sort of advantage for us from him. I've no intention of negotiating with him, despite what he likely believes. After the events of today, the time for negotiation has long since passed away. But I will listen to what he has to say, and I will cause what damage to him I can with my scorn and words. If we are very lucky I might even be able to get him to see the horrors of what he has done through our eyes for a little while, though I personally rate that as a slim chance. He is all but convinced he really is on a divine mission of rebirth, and the reality of the situation does not have much hold on him anymore."

"So you're going to go listen to the ravings of a religious nutjob who think's he's an Angel and is remaking the world in his own image? I just don't see how that's very productive. You might as well have asked to sit down to tea with Asmodeus Sark and Cervantes Zunnichi!" Ysak opined. "I want to go on record as saying I think this is a really stupid idea."

"Noted. I'm not exactly happy with it myself." Kira replied. "However, its the best option for real intelligence we have at the moment. And, though I hate to bring it up like this, given the state of our forces, none of the other machines can keep up with the Seraph anyway, so even if I wanted you to come with us, you couldn't keep up, much less make it through the atmospheric interface. Don't worry... I'll be getting us out of there at the very first sign of anything shady. Though I too believe Noah is actually sincere about his desire to talk with us. He wants very badly for people to "understand" him and his goals. He won't jeopordize a free chance to explain himself to Lacus and I by attacking us or double dealing."

"Well, we can't exactly stop you, like you say." Murrue said with a sigh. "All I can say is "be careful". We can't stand any more casualties right now... especially not you and Lacus, Kira. We'll meet you in Orb then?"

"We'll be there waiting for you when you get there, in all likelihood." Kira answered reassuringly. He was about to say more when a huge, blindingly bright flash of light from nearby made them all flinch away from the portholes or viewscreens, their eyes tearing up from the sheer brilliance of the white light, which seemed so bright that it could be seen through solid metal bulkheads. There was no sound, no rumble of detonation or rush of wind... it all played out in the eerie silence that was a space explosion from a distance. When the pyrotechnics had died away, and they could all see clearly again, everyone who could crowded around the viewscreens and portholes, trying to see what had happened. For a long few moments no one could see anything... and then they realized that no one could see ANYTHING. The Izumo classes, the drifting and abandoned Dawndrakes and Guardians, even the Archangel itself... were gone. Just vanished, eroded away to less than nothingness in a single harsh instant of apocalyptic energies, as the Great Endeavor's AMP cannon had locked on to the heart of the drifting Orb fleet and fired a shot at maximum power, wiping that section of space clean of everything, Blue EDEN and warships both.

"The Archangel..." Murrue gasped, feeling like she'd just been punched in the gut by a Gundam. It was one thing to have abandoned ship... you could always go back, could always repair what was damaged, reclaim what was broken... but now the ship was suddenly and truly gone, without warning! It was like she'd just lost a part of herself without even realizing it, an arm or leg just falling off and disappearing, leaving her hurting and unbalanced inside even worse than she had been before. Gasps and groans of disbelief echoed around her as the crewmembers, new and old, also reacted to the sudden destruction of the most famous warship of modern history. The Archangel had been more than just a warship... it had been a symbol, a symbol of hope and righteousness and mercy... and now it was gone, like it had never been! There wasn't even an afterimage left, nor even charred flakes of paint! It had just been... erased, like an artist rubbing out a stray pencil mark.

Waltfeld caught Murrue as she sagged and helped hold her up. He was less affected than she, having quite a bit less attachment to the ship. Yes, she'd been one of the best warships he'd ever served on, and he'd been fond of the thing, but he hadn't invested nearly as much blood, sweat and tears in it as Murrue and some of the other crew had. It was just a magnificent ship to him... to them it was almost a second home! Or even a first home in some cases. Just abandoning it had been like putting one of their own blood kin up for auction, given how some of them had reacted, and not that it was gone without even leaving the slightest scrap of debris, many of them, hardened, experienced sailors and soldiers, were breaking down into unabashed tears of loss. There was a long few seconds of shared grief and then Murrue straightened, and adjusted her captain's cap to a more dignified position. She then saluted, stiffly and with the utmost respect and formality, the section of space where the Archangel had used to be. Within seconds, every crewmember was following her example, though they were still teary eyed and in many cases barely able to stand up straight.

"Thank you, for everything. And farewell." Murrue said softly, as if speaking to a loved one who had passed away. And in a lot of ways, she was. The Archangel had been the final resting place of a lot of people she'd liked, respected, admired and even loved. It had been one of the few constants in her life, always faithful, and giving to her when she needed it most. Maybe it was strange to say it, but in a lot of ways, the Archangel had been one of her best friends. Just like the Gundams were special to their pilots, beyond anything their mechanical properties would indicate, so too had the Archangel been more to her than a fine machine. she held the salute for most of a minute and then slowly dropped her arm. Keeping her posture stiff, and her eyes mostly dry, she then turned to the crewman piloting the lifeboat. "Set a course for Copernicus City, Petty Officer. And swing us wide around that giant saucer... let's not tempt fate any more than necessary!"

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Noah turned and pointed the AMP rifle and the Rapidfire FRALA at the Seraph as it glided towards the Brotherhood, which was still engaged full time in blowing apart magneti collection drums or else whole warships, cleaning the gaps and cracks in the USN fleet formations while the AMP cannon on the Great Endeavor annihilated the larger groupings of ships. It was not a quick process, and it was made even slower by his dedication to thoroughness. He would not be leaving the area until he was absolutely, one hundred percent, or as close as could be, sure that he'd picked up and destroyed all of the stray floating Blue EDEN. If any patches were left floating around they would be a hidden danger worse than any minefield, just waiting for some unsuspecting ship to blunder through it and perhaps bring it to the Moon, or even worse, down to Earth! It was tiresome, but he would not jeopordize his Garden, not now!

The Seraph was approaching with arms spread wide and empty, and all of its weapon systems in standby mode, if not exactly powered down. Noah did not let his guard down all the same, well remembering how Kira had tricked and trapped him with just the Fractal Wings during the last battle, since all his other weapons had proven ineffective. Underestimating Kira Yamato was not something a person could afford to do more than once or twice, and usually not even that often. It was only through great good luck that the Brotherhood hadn't been destroyed outright! The Seraph slowed to a halt, drifting several kilometers away from the Brotherhood. Noah scanned the Gundam closely, but, somewhat to his relief, didn't find any traces of Blue EDEN contamination. He lowered the FRALA and turned his AMP rifle on the next cluster of collection drums, even as he closed his eyes in concentration and reached out with his mind, towards the sparkling light of the twin gems that were the minds of Kira and Lacus, tiny but brilliant against the emptiness of space.

_Come to surrender?_ Noah asked slyly, unable to resist poking fun at them. And why not? Was not things at last going to plan again? He was even willing to gloss over his rage at what had nearly happened to Meyrin, for the moment. In a matter of hours the Great Endeavor would be on Earth and at long last he would be in the final, grand stage of his plan to bring Humanity to a new golden age of Eden!

_Hardly._ Lacus replied, her voice as cool and hard as freshly frozen glacial ice. _Though I will still accept yours, if you are willing to see reason, Mr. Borander. Despite your temporary advantage, you must know there is no chance of prevailing against the entire USN._

_That is where you are very wrong, Lacus. But, don't take my word for it... just watch and see. I will prove it to you._ Noah retorted with a shrug. _Do you have anything important to tell me then? I'm somewhat busy at the moment cleaning up this nasty mess._

_This nasty mess that you caused in the first place! That blue stuff... there is no good reason for deploying something like that! None at all! How can you live with yourself, using a weapon like that!?_ Lacus reproached severely.

_It is called Blue EDEN._ Noah informed her, his own voice cool. _I used it because I had no other choice if I wanted to move forward. It wasn't something I wanted to use._

_Wanting too or not, you still DID use it!_

_Yes. Yes I did. And now, I cannot unuse it. So please, spare me your criticism and judgements. It was very regrettable, but understand me on this... I will NOT be stopped in my dream. Humanity cannot afford for me to be stopped. It saddens me that you so willfully ignore that truth._

_Humanity cannot afford for you to succeed! Once you start telling yourself its all right to use WMD's, much less something as terrible as this Blue EDEN, that is when you are going too far! When is the price going to be more than the worth of what you are trying to do!?_

_The worth of what I am trying to do is inestimable. And the price of doing it... I would pay any price, save that of the destruction of the Earth and Humanity!_ Noah answered in exasperation. _I could have sworn I was clear on that before, but hopefully NOW you understand. That said, I AM very busy, so if you have something to say, please say it. If you're just here to recriminate against me, why don't you write me a nasty letter or two. That way I could at least do you the formality of burning it before reading it._

_... You will meet us on the small island a few kilometers south of Serenity Island, which is itself a few kilometers off the coast of Orb. It will be just Kira and I, and the Seraph. If you want to talk, that is the place you should come. Bring whatever you need to in order to feel safe, but know that you have nothing to fear at our hands unless you try to harm us first._

_Alright then. I'll try not to keep you waiting too long. Perhaps you could use the time to reflect on what really is better for Humanity... comfortable stagnation or painful progress._ Noah remarked sardonically.

_I will consider it. And you should consider whether progress born of coercion is really what Humanity needs. If you consider history, I'm sure you'll find many examples of progress by force, and the inevitable end results. Is that really what you want for all of Humanity?_ Lacus retorted fiercely.

_The past is the past. And the future is what we make of it._

_The future is made up of the past, up until the point where it becomes the present. Where you come from makes a lot of difference to where you go in the future._

_True of you and me perhaps. But very soon now, I will be giving Humanity a clean break from the past, and that arguement will become entirely worthless._

_What do you mean?_ Lacus asked, confused.

_I'll tell you when I get to Earth._ Noah said with a smile, and then cut the contact with them, retreating back into the fastness of his own mind, and returning his full attention to the arduous task of making sure no Blue EDEN slipped past his nets. He was dimly aware of the Seraph flitting off and heading towards Earth, smartly circling out wide to avoid going anywhere near the remnants of the USN armada. Had to give cousin Kira credit... he was no man's fool. It was just too bad he was so shortsighted and stubborn, and was keeping Lacus chained to the ground like a boat anchor. Seriously, she could fly so high, soar so beautifully, if only she would let herself... but with him around, that would never happen!

Fortunately he had just the thing to put an end to dear cousin Kira once and for all. A specialized toxin, modeled off Green EDEN and keyed to Kira's DNA in specific, from the marrow sample he'd had taken from him during his medical treatment after his "interview" with Randolf. All it would take would be a single prick from a dart loaded with the toxin and Kira would soon be a mere memory, his own immune system turning against him, going into extreme overdrive and attacking his body from the inside out, pumping out white blood cells and draining nutrients from his system until his body could no longer support itself! It probably wouldn't be an overly quick process... several hours at least. However, the important thing was that a side effect of the toxin should paralyze his voluntary muscle control within seconds, thus preventing him from being a physical threat. With Kira down and out of the picture, taking Lacus back with him would be much easier, and then he could begin gently enlightening her as to the beauty of what she could do for the new Humanity! It was a nice thought, and playing it out in his mind helped the hours of drudgery pass by much faster. Him and Meyrin and Lacus together... what could be more perfect?

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Several hours after the Seraph had entered the atmosphere, a single brief strike of light in an otherwise dark sky, the Great Endeavor and the Brotherhood finally ceased their mop up operation and began heading for Earth orbit. The remains of the USN armada attempted to put up a last ditch fight, but the Great Endeavor simply ignored them, putting up as many shields as were needed to block the relatively pitiful amounts of incoming fire and plowing past them like a professional running back brushing by a group of middle school defenders. Several ships refused to maneuver out of the way, firing and firing until the Great Endeavor physically ran them down with its bulk, though their defiance unfortunately amounted to little besides fluctuations in the power levels of the Positron and Citadel Shield systems as the warships were crushed like soda cans trying to block the path of a car. Seeing that the remnants of the remnants were once again scattered to the four winds, Noah brought the Brotherhood back into the Great Endeavor and began retracting all the externally mounted weaponry and other systems, in preparation for atmospheric entry.

The Harbingers began strapping themselves into couches and beds, in case of turbulence or other unforseen catastrophe, a holdover exercise from many of their time in ZAFT. Noah wasted no effort on such absurdities... the Great Endeavor was not just a ship, at the mercy of the atmosphere! Even with the slight bit of battle damage, there was nothing the planet could throw at him that would overtly disrupt or disturb his landing... not even an active volcano erupting directly beneath him! Noah tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for all the status reports to come back satisfactory. Meyrin was strapped in and secured against acts of God or the Devil, just in case... she was the one thing he was not too proud to baby through this otherwise ordinary, if relatively unique, procedure. The Great Endeavor would soon become the largest object to ever descend through the Earth's atmosphere without breaking apart or causing a cataclysmic explosion upon landing.

The AMP cannon swung upwards until it was pointing almost straight "up", though its actual angle would change as the Great Endeavor progressed through the atmosphere, so that it was always shielded from heat and buffeting by the majority of the mass of the SATMARS. Some damage was likely, given the relatively delicate nature of the AMP cannon, but it wasn't tanything that couldn't be fixed in a few hours or a day at most. And that was far faster than any real resistance could be mustered to oppose him, certainly not any sort that he would even begin to think of using the AMP cannon on. Not on Earth. The collateral damage would be simply tremendous, and that was something he definitely did not want unless had had no other choice at all! It was while he was mulling over that thought that he finally recieved the readiness reports from all stations that he had been waiting on.

"Commence the descent. Land my ark!" Noah commanded, feeling slightly foolish for the drama, but what did he really care? Who was going to judge him around here? Hell, the Harbingers were probably expecting a full blown sermon! There was a long moment of silence and then the barest of shivers began thrumming through the deck as gravity began wrapping its first tremulous fingers around the Great Endeavor as it propelled itself forward and "down", which was rapidly becoming down for real, once gravity had its say in things. The shivers began growing more frequent as they encountered the first layers of the atmosphere, and the bottom of the hull began to turn yellow, and then orange and finally a pinkish white as it absorbed heat via friction, only to have it dissipated by cooling systems similar to those that handled the cooling requirements of the fusion pulse reactors. Compared to the nearly star like temperatures those put off, a little friction heat was barely anything to worry about at all, especially since the Great Endeavor's bottom mounted thrusters were firing at full sustain, slowly the pace of the drop so much so that the SATMARS more glided into the atmosphere rather than dropped, though its trajectory was almost straight down. Rather like a falling leaf... just more than a kilometer in diameter.

Inside, on the bridge, they felt nothing but the slight shivers and rocking every so often, as the Great Endeavor descended through the night time sky like a falling sun, briefly illuminating a swathe of the Earth several time zones wide as its huge bulk slide ever closer to ground level. And it was ground level too, not sea level. Most ships that descended from orbit chose to land in the ocean, both for reasons of safety and because that was usually the easiest place to land, since most of the Earth's surface was water. However, the Great Endeavor's landing systems were far more sophisticated than regular warships, and it was far more sturdy as well. The shock of landing on solid ground wouldn't trouble the Great Endeavor in the slightest. And besides, the sooner they hit ground, the sooner his resource excavators could begin working at maximum capacity to fuel the repair and replenishment of the supplies he had used up in the last battle.

As soon as the Great Endeavor passed through the upper layers of the atmosphere and began reaching the level of the highest clouds, as it descended towards the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic Federation, the old Canada area, the massive 800cm linear artillery cannons mounted one to a major cardinal compass point on the dorsal surface of the Great Endeavor recessed their shutters and began firing as quickly as they could be loaded with the Green EDEN Wells. Large vents also opened up on the dorsal surface and began releasing large clouds of exhaust gasses laced with more Green EDEN, like tall plumes of dark green smoke that were buffeted and spread widely through the upper atmosphere by the air disruption the Great Endeavor made as it fell towards the ground. An observer in space, directly overhead, would have been able to see the Great Endeavor as a circle of darkness trimmed in pink heat, ringed by a long smoky stem of green, like a pink rose falling petals first towards the ground.

The clouds parted before it like flesh before a bullet, and scattered in its wake, rippling and surging as they were blown away by the massive change in air pressure its presence heralded. Its speed slowed with every meter it dropped, until it was moving slower than most cars could drive on suburban streets, and then slower still. As massive as it was, even a little bit of extra speed equated to a LOT of extra energy. Its ventral thrusters roared like volcano's erupting, shooting spears of brilliant blue-white thruster wash spearing Earthwards in dozens of columns thicker than two Mobile Suits together, even as the Great Endeavor rotated slowly in a circle, its artillery cannons launching a new salvo every few degrees, spreading the EDEN Wells like water from a sprinkler, the shells arcing up for hundreds of kilometers before bursting open like seed pods and depositing up to six Wells at a time in a wide dispersal pattern.

Each Well struck the ground and immediately began burrowing, whether it be through rock or loose dirt or even concrete, depending on where they landed. If they hit water they sank to the bottom and then burrowed in, in all cases collapsing their holes after them as they went down, to reduce the chances of interference from outside sources. once they'ed reached their target depths of more than a hundred meters, sometimes several hudnred meters down, they began scooping surrounding dirt and rock and other matter into their interiors, tapping into palm sized nuclear reactors to provide just enough power to slowly begin converting the matter into Green EDEN, by using Red EDEN. Once their Green canisters were full, they would ascend to the surface and expel the load like a geyser, then return to the depths to repeat the process. Over and over and over again. Each individual Well did not produce all that much Green EDEN on a daily basis. But there were hundreds of Wells being distributed, and more every time the artillery cannons fired. It would soon begin to add up, especially as Green EDEN would also self replicate to an extent after being released, and especially when it encountered a host.

As the Great Endeavor descended below five thousand meters, the eight excavation/support legs, each thicker around than the Revenant and taller as well, unfolded from the bottom hull of the SATMARS, their six clawed feet reaching almost hungrily for the planetary surface below. With one final burst of the thrusters, and a sound like a city bus falling from the sky onto a solid steel slab, except a million times louder, the Great Endeavor touched down. Metal groaned and shivered. Earth rumbled and cracked. The legs sank deep into the ground, almost twenty meters down, even with their support claws fully extended to maximise the surface area of the load they were bearing. Almost as soon as they touched down, a Directional CUSA, much like the ones in the palms of the Retribution but far larger, mounted into the bottom of each support leg activated, rendering the ground directly beneath the middle of the "foot" to a loose powder that was sucked up into the leg and from there funneled into the Red EDEN vats in the interior of the Great Endeavor, raw material to be processed into pretty much whatever the Brotherhood needed.

Two legs, on opposite sides of the Great Endeavor, lifted up in conert, rotated slightly and stepped forward. And then another two legs. And another. And then the last set, and the process repeated time and time again, the clawed feet digging out large sandy craters in the ground every time they landed, sucking up huge amounts of pulverized dirt and rock and trees and anything else unfortunate enough to be underneath the descending foot. And the clouds of green smoke darkened even more as the Red EDEN created more Green EDEN, and more Green EDEN Wells, in an automated process that would work without cease until ordered to stop or the world ended, whichever came first! As the gigantic SATMARS began inching its way towards the coast, a few dozen kilometers distant, people in towns and cities across that entire geographical area were already beginning to breath in the first bits of light green haze drifting down from the sky. The Garden was beginning to sprout...

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	51. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 1

Author note: Well, here's the first installment of the new arc. I hope this begins to shed some light on things. Though do bear in mind that if some of your questions haven't yet been answered, this is only the opening few scenes of a much longer and more involved act. Actually, please, speak up in a review and remind me of something you want explained, at least when it comes to EDEn, the EDEN plan, Newtypes, the Seed, or Ultimate Coordinators. I'll see what I can work in. It all makes sense to me, but I want it to make sense to you as well, so please, tell me what you're confused about and I will endeavor to change that.

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"You look different." Kira said quietly, running his right hand through Lacus's raggedly cut new hairstyle, which was barely long enough to touch the nape of her neck in back, though she still had some decent bangs in front and along the sides. He stropped trailing his fingers across her scalp and gently pulled her more closely into his side, a slump in posture more than anything else, which she gamely accepted, resting her head on his shoulder as his arm rested around her side, like a safety railing holding her in place. For a few moments anyway, until he started fidgeting with her shorn hair again, as if stunned by the novelty of not having a waterfall of pink hair draped all over him whenever he was this close to her. "You feel different too." He added, equally softly.

Lacus stirred her bare feet in the freshwater pool they were sitting on the shore of, little more than a hot tub sized cavity in the volcanic rock of the small island that was fed by a natural upwelling of mineral water, what would have been a mountaintop spring if it weren't for the ocean, which made it a seaside spring. All the same, the water was cold, crisp and clear. Definitely good foot soaking water, if not something she'd want to immerse her whole body in if she had any choice in the matter. Her legs were dangling next to Kira's, and they both had their boots/shoes and socks off as they rested in the evening shade and used the water to cool off as they waited for a meeting neither of them really had much interest for. The Seraph was crouched about a quarter kilometer away, on the beach closest to Orb, and they'd walked "inland", though the island was small enough that you could see the shoreline from pretty much any point on the island, especially since there was only a few slight hummocks for terrain features, and a multitude of waist to chest high ferny bushes for vegetation, spotted very rarely with larger bushes, twice her height, like near the spring, where water was plentiful. It was almost idyllic... the dark blue sky of early evening, a bright sun in the sky, a few white clouds high up, the sea-green-blue ocean extending towards the horizon in all directions, a sea breeze to sweep away the humidity, shade to keep their skin safe, and cool water to keep away the lingering heat of the day. And each other... the ultimate in comfort. Time with the person you loved most.

"I don't miss it." Lacus commented, reaching up one of her own hands to catch his petting hand and gently but firmly draw it back down to her waist and hips. Novelty was one thing... Kira's constant touching of her hair was almost fetishy by this point in time. She knew it was just him having his mind a zillion miles away and his hands wandering of their own accord, but encouraging bad habits was not the way to solve them. Besides, every time he ran his fingers through her hair, she couldn't help but be reminded of only a few hours ago, when she'd gotten that incredibly nasty, all consuming blue stuff in her hair and Kira had instinctively tried to rake it out with his fingertips. Which had resulted in her having her hair cut almost entirely off with a knife, and then Kira losing his own contaminated fingertips to that same knife less than a quarter minute later! She couldn't get the slight "crunch" of the steel knife blade biting through the bones, like crisp carrots, out of her ears! Much less the agonized grunt's Kira had made, through teeth clamped down on his own leather belt.

The left hand in question lay on the other side of Kira, carefully resting on a small folded washtowel to keep it out of the dirt as much as possible, all the fingers taped together and slightly crooked, with the thumb also taped, so the hand was a quarter claw with the truncated ends pointing upwards, heavily bandaged with clean bandages and thoroughly disinfected as of a few hours ago, when they had landed on Earth and Lacus had been able to take the time to use the Seraph's small emergency medical kit to the best of her not inconsiderable ability. Dressing wounds like Kira's weren't exactly in her standard scope of experience, but working at the Malchio's Orphanage for years now had introduced her to the frighteningly myriad amount of ways that children could injure themselves while working or playing, and she'd long since lost any squeamishness or hesitation when it came to playing medic or even doctor. Though seeing Kira hurt still made her sick and a bit trembly inside.

Kira claimed the hand, which had lost each of its fingertips, including the thumbtip, from just above the top knuckle onwards, was hurting much less now, as of the last hour or so. Part of that was bravado... both of the standard male sort, and of the Kira specific sort. She'd injected him with what painkillers the medical kit had, and smeared pain numbing cream on his hand before bandaging it, not that she was really expecting it to work on his stupidly powerful immune system, but she had to at least TRY! It hadn't helped, but still, the pain had definitely lessened for him over time, she could definitely sense his mind relaxing by degrees. Whether it was because he was able to distract himself from the pain with thoughts of this meeting with Noah, or some other new function of his body reacting to extreme stimulus she could not say. In many respects, she really hoped it was the former. But the way Kira's mind was unfocused and almost abstract right at the moment was making it real hard for her to convince herself it was all an effort of willpower on his part.

"You feel different too." Lacus answered his second observation. Neither of them had meant it in the physical sense either. Kira's mind had become, for the first time in years and years, unfocused, almost confused. Usually it was a fusion bright fire, barely controlled, pouring off heat and energy at all times of the day and night, that took real constant effort on her part to damp down to levels that weren't annoying. Right now though he was like a fire that had been kicked apart, the various pieces and parts still burning as brightly as ever, but scattered into a million pieces, like sparks. Sparks lying on a smouldering bed of tinder, just waiting to be released in some kind of inferno. Kira was angry, in a way that Lacus had rarely seen, especially of late. The blue stuff had definitely hit Kira hard, and not because of what had happened to him or to her even. The sheer, incomprehensible madness of deploying such a weapon was... beyond the remit of insanity! It was something someone like Frost would do, and that was chilling thought right there! If a person possessed the technology Noah apparently did, why did they have to turn it to such destructive ends!?

"I guess we're both pretty upset." Kira allowed with a distracted half smile. His arm tightened around her yet more, like a snug seatbelt, and he turned his face slightly towards her, inhaling deeply, though Lacus doubted she really smelled at her best right now, since it was quite a few stressful hours since she'd last had access to a good bath or shower. The Seraph's cockpit had definitely become rather cramped and heated during a two hour long flight, much less the descent through the Earth's atmosphere with only half the Fractal Wings operational. The heat bleed through had briefly turned the cockpit into a sweat sauna, which was one reason they were both glad to luxuriate in the cold spring and slight sea breeze while they waited. Still, Kira seemed to derive a great deal of satisfaction from her scent, or maybe it was just her closeness. She shrugged, slightly. It was the same way for her. It didn't matter how dirty or sweaty or banged up or whatever Kira was... he was still her Kira, and she didn't want to be anywhere else but with him.

"I think we have a right to be." Lacus replied with a small frown. She considered her feelings for a long moment. "I haven't felt this wrung out and anxious since Denver, Kira. Maybe not ever. I'm afraid I've become powerless to do what it is that I want to do..."

"You're the furthest thing from powerless." Kira assured her with a smile. She did not return it. "Weren't you the one that protected Ysak, Katie and I from Noah just a few hours..."

"Not like that." Lacus interrupted. "If anything I feel like I've lost my power to make a difference on a world wide level in exchange for these damned mental powers! I'm always second guessing myself these days, wondering if I'm doing the right thing by brining all of my abilities to bear on any given situation! I didn't use to be this way... back during the First Valentine War I had a surety of purpose I've been losing by degrees ever since the end of that war! I know I've been doing good things... the right things... but every day that passes sees me feeling more lost in a haze and wandering blind in the dark than the last! I would have thought I'd be getting more confident in myself, not less... and its all the fault of these Newtype abilities!" Lacus complained, almost bitterly.

Kira was silent for a few moments, his feet stirring gently in the spring water. He then shrugged and pulled her closer still, until she was practically lying across his lap. "Kira...!" Lacus half shouted, before he captured her lips with his own and held them for many long seconds, staring into her eyes as he held her to him. "W-what was that for...?" She asked, once she was able to talk again... a condition she did not reach until several seconds AFTER his lips had released hers.

"Because I love you, of course. And I have faith in you, even if you are starting to lose it in yourself a little bit." Kira answered with a shrug. "I can't say I have any particular answer for you, since I'm not overly fond of this Newtype thing myself. It seems to create more problems than it solves, regardless of what Katie thinks. But I do trust that we'll get through it together, Lacus."

"You're not basing that off of anything though..." Lacus protested mildly, flushing somewhat.

"I don't feel I need to base it off anything but my feelings. And my feelings are even more powerful and solid than the Seraph." Kira assured her. They sat there together in silence for a long time. What more needed to be said? Nothing either of them could think of. The day crept toward evening in a seemingly languid crawl, even as they both dozed for a few hours, recovering as best they could from the adrenaline highs of the recent battle, and the even more recent disaster with the blue stuff. Fighting wore you out far faster than you were aware of it happening, especially fighting on the edge of life and death like they had been doing. It was near evening time when Kira's eyes suddenly snapped open and he lifted his head from Lacus's lap, where he'd been sleeping, stretched out on the ground. His movement woke her up, and she blinked at him in sleepy surprise, as he stood up and began swiveling his head around as if searching for a sound. She listened herself, but, aside from a very faint rumbling, like distant thunder, she couldn't hear anything.

"What is it?" Lacus asked, covering her yawn in instinctive politeness. _My goodness... it's been almost three hours! Where does the time go?_

"A massive atmospheric disturbance." Kira replied softly. "Far off."

"I hear some thunder. We're probably going to have a storm in a few hours." Lacus answered.

"The sky is clear all the way to the horizon." Kira told her, and it only took her a moment to glance around and see that he was indeed correct. The sky was a deep indigo blue unmarred by clouds of any shade in every direction for as far as her eyes could see. She too clambered to her feet, somewhat less gracefully than Kira, who didn't seem to suffer from stiff joints even when hurt. For that matter he had been sleeping on her legs, and they had become a bit tingly as a result. He reached out a hand to steady her, but was shocked when she shied away... only to realize he'd reached out with his left hand, which seemed to have gone completely numb during his time dozing. The bandages were a little bloody, but not nearly as bad as he'd been expecting. He stared at his injuries grimly for a moment... this level of pain reduction and healing was frankly incredible, even to him. It wasn't anything close to the way the BCPU's like Ashino or Frost healed, but it was definitely far better than a normal human. One more change in him to make him uncomfortable. Wonderful. "That'll be the Great Endeavor then. Noah has made it to Earth."

Lacus didn't argue with that assessment, since it was the same conclusion she'd come to. Thunder from a cloudless sky was not unknown, but the rumbling she could still hear was constant and ongoing, and even growing slightly louder over time, as the unimaginably huge bulk of the Great Endeavor pushed relentlessly through the progressively thicker layers of the atmosphere, causing an immense air displacement that would not have shamed a falling comet! The sound of its passage towards the ground was audible around the world, and visible to half of it, as the dull glow of its heat shedding skin lit up the night and late evening sky like a second sunrise. After about fifteen minutes the sound slowly died away, and left them standing together as the breeze picked up for a few moments, whipping their hair around lightly before dying away once more. They began getting dressed again, which didn't take long as all that meant doing was putting on socks and shoes, which for once took longer for Kira than for Lacus, because he was only able to use one hand. Still, he didn't require any help on Lacus's part, even tying his shoes, which had her shaking her head in bemusement.

More time passed, mostly in silence, both verbally and mentally, as they each thought their own thoughts and tried to come to their own terms about the conversation they were going to be having shortly. Contrary to popular belief they didn't always spend every moment of every day peering through each other's emotions and thoughts. Even they needed private time, to come to their own conclusions and make up their own minds, without any outside influence at all. They were still individual people after all, if a lot closer and more intimate than even most lovers could hope to be. Knowing the true extent of each other's emotions was as much a curse as it was a blessing... sometimes it really helped to know just how boundless Kira's faith in Lacus was, for instance, or vice versa. Other times, it wasn't so fun knowing he was only humoring her when he said he liked an article of clothing or something like that, even though he sounded perfectly exuberant to her ears.

Finally, with dusk only one or two hours away, Kira looked up into the darkening sky once more, followed shortly thereafter by Lacus, as they both picked up on another rumbling thunder sound, much fainter than what theyd both heard earlier, but growing louder with every passing second, as the source of the sonic booms barreled ever closer to them. They both looked vainly at the heavens for sign of the incoming shuttle or whatever it was, but neither of them could espy anything, not even after the sonic booms faded away. It wasn't until the harsher whine of VTOL engines became audible in the sky only a few hundred meters above them, and they looked and still didn't see anything, that they realized that Noah's shuttle or whatever his transport was, was equipped with Mirage Colloid cloaking technology. An improved version, if Kira was any judge, since travelling at supersonic speeds should have dispelled the diffused particle cloak that effected the invisibility, at least in the systems he knew about.

The shuttle circled overhead for a few minutes, obviously scouting out the area for any sign of ambush. Kira didn't know whether to be offended that Noah trusted them so little, or complimented. He Almost wished they had set up something to net the bastard... he had the feeling the Brotherhood would be a great deal less effective without its leader. It was just like the Isolation, under Sai. Immensely powerful and organized, but take away the keystone at the top of the structure, and it all came tumbling down, block by block, paralyzed and unable to do anything at all. However, the only thing he had that was a weapon was the Seraph, and he could hardly run to it, start it up and still have any chance of catching a fleeing shuttle, since Noah was probably not going to hang around to get shot down. That the shuttle was invisible to sensors and vision, except in the 500 meter vari-camera radius, would definitely make it even harder to bring down.

At length, Noah seemed satisfied that there was no danger to his person, and the whine of the VTOL engines became a dull roar, and downblasted air began blowing up a cloud of dirt as the shuttle eased towards the ground. Kira put his back to the worst of it and gathered Lacus into his arms, pressing her face against his chest to keep her safe from any flying grit or other debris. He felt a few bush branches whack into his back and bounce away, but it was actually less violent than he as expecting, and the shuttle's engines died away sooner than he was expecting, leaving them covered in dust and grit and a few leaves, but otherwise unharmed. Lacus brushed herself off and patted Kira down as well, as they waited for all the airborne debris to settle, slowly revealing the outline of the shuttle a few dozen meters away. The outline soon resolved into a solid shape, and the solid shape quickly gained color and definition, as the dust seemed to be unable to find purchase on its surface for whatever reason. The shuttle gleamed like a statue of solid gold in the early evening sunlight, bright enough to sparkle and shine into their eyes a bit.

They looked away in unsion, though only to share a secret smile, at how overblown a shuttle seemingly made or plated in solid gold was. Ego much? It was like something you'd see in a sordid, B ranked space opera. As they looked back however, the golden hue dimmed and shimmered, to be replaced by a pattern of browns and greens that almost exactly mimicked the foliage and ground of the island, even down to the placement of the bushes and patches of bare dirt. From a distance, especially to overflights, the shuttle was as good as invisible! Kira and Lacus traded another look, this one mildly impressed. Maybe Noah wasn't nearly as much all pomp as they'd thought. Though Kira supposed that shouldn't be surprising... after all, the Brotherhood Gundam was all gold as well, and it had nearly killed him several times! Lacus whiped the last few leaves from her hair as they stood side by side and watched as a doorway opened in the side of the shuttle and a flight of stairs unfolded from within. For some reason, a tide of butterflies seemed to fill both of their stomachs for a moment, before the feeling vanished as if it had never been. There was movement in the darkness of the doorway. The entire world seemed to suddenly hold its breath in anticipation.

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Noah straightened his collar for what had to be the fifteen or sixteenth time, as his shuttle finished its landing operations. He didn't know why he was being so nervous... he'd as much as challenged them to this meeting, had in fact been planning on it for weeks. Of course, he'd probably be less nervous if it was just Lacus out there, and not Kira as well, but he'd allowed for having his cousin around too. And his nervous fidgeting with his collar and appearance didn't having anything to do with Kira, obviously. He forced his hands to hang idly at his sides, before shoving them in his pockets, and then crossing them across his chest, all within a space of a few seconds as the shuttle's systems finished powerign down into quick standby mode, and the outer hull changed appearance from the standard gold to a more appropriate camouflage coloration. His exhaustive sensor probing of the area, both the island itself and the surrounding ocean for several kilometers in every direction, had not revealed a single thing out of the ordinary, except for the deactivated Seraph and the two Ultimate Coordinators waiting for him a few dozen meters away.

He'd even reached out with his Newtype senses, as much as he could while keeping himself cloaked anyway, and hadn't discovered any waiting minds or leaking emotions. Of course, these days, after encountering people like Markov Ashino, that reassured him less than it used to, but still, he was about as sure as he could reasonably be that there was no one waiting to ambush him as he revealed himself. He still had Phlegethion as a bodyguard as well, and she should prove more than capable of handling most any threat that should suddenly present itself. Aether was back safeguarding Meyrin, while the Great Endeavor continued its inaugeral journey towards the eastern seaboard of the Atlantic Federation, and the powerful gulf and jet streams that would spread Green EDEN through the ocean and air in a very efficient manner. The SATMARS was encountering sporadic resistance from FNE garrison forces as it traveled, of course, but it was nothing to be at all worried about... most such skirmishes were brushed aside in a matter of minutes, comprehensive victories for the Brotherhood, as the Great Endeavor overwhelmed all in its path.

Staring through a one way window in the side of the shuttle, Noah zoomed in his perspective on cousin Kira, and saw with some satisfaction the bandages wrapped around his left hand from fignertips to wrist. The fingertips themselves looked odd, and it wasn't until he did a quick mental comparison with Kira's other hand that he realized that the fingers of the left hand were now about a half inch shorter than the fingers of the right hand. Noah smiled coldly... that would certainly teach his impulsive cousin to look before he touched! It was just too bad the Blue EDEN hadn't been allowed to progress further... claiming an entire hand or even arm would have made any further Gundam fights MUCH easier on Noah. Of course, truncating the fingers was still to his great advantage, until Kira learned how to deal with the loss of sensitivity, since his fingertips were now gone. Not that there were going to BE any more Gundam battles, not if Noah could help it. Handicap or no, Kira was far too dangerous for him to feel totally confident in a one on one Gundam fight, even with his superior technology and growing set of piloting skills of his own.

Noah checked the placement of his personal weapons while his arms were crossed, since he was carrying one in each loose sleeve, against his upper arm, on the inside, between the arm and side of his body. All he had to do was straighten his arm in a particular rapid fashion and the weapon would drop down into his waiting palm, ready to fire in less than a second. His right arm held the beam pistol that had been his personal sidearm for months now, which could fire up to twelve times at ranges of eighty plus meters before exhausting its battery, each shot more than sufficient to kill a human sized target from thermal shock with any hit to the body from the knees to the head. The actual hole the beam made was less than impressive, it was the cooking of the flesh and massive agony of the large third degree burns the hit caused which would stop the heart and overwhelm the brain, causing death. The left arm holster, a new addition, held a single shot compressed gas powered pistol, loaded with a hypodermic round like what was usually used to deliver tranquilizers to dangerous animals from a distance. The range was short, and the pistol only had one shot, but it was a weapon that was, at least to cousin Kira, more deadly than even the beam pistol could hope to be.

Inside that hypodermic needle was a special chemical compound, based off of Green EDEN, and tailored specifically to Kira's genetics through use of the bone marrow sample that had been taken from Kira while the Brotherhood doctors were attending to his injuries after Randolf had "interviewed" him. Once in his cousin's bloodstream the toxic compound would seek out his bone marrow and begin a systematic attack on his bones and blood from the inside out, changing their DNA structure until his body became violently allergic to his own bones and blood, which would then lead to hystamine overload and his autonomic nervous system going into paralytic shock, leading to death through multiple major organ failure. Kira's immune system was indeed something else, such that no normal poison would stand a chance of affecting him before being ruthlessly expunged by his antibodies... a legacy of Zacharis Frost's misguided attempts to poison Kira with his own blood back during the Isolation era. Noah shook his head in prideful exasperation... truly, Frost had had no idea what sort of primal forces he was meddling with when he tried to damage Kira's biology. He as much as assured his own destruction with that simpleminded act, catapulting Kira into the next stage of the Ultimate Coordinator development cycle far ahead of his normal time!

It took something of the caliber of this enhanced Green EDEN to even stand a chance of affecting Kira, and even then, it wasn't likely to be an overly quick process. A normal human, even a normal Coordinator, that got shot with something like the enhanced EDEN, would succumb in a matter of seconds, if not minutes. Noah was estimating it would take at least an hour or two for Kira to be really threatened. Thankfully collateral damage wasn't a concern, since the compound had been genetically tailored to Kira, it wouldn't activate unless it was in his body. Noah had taken the ultimate test of that theory a few hours earlier, pricking a random Harbinger with a needle smeared with a small concentration of the compound. the man had suffered absolutely no ill effects whatsoever... Noah might as well have just pricked the man with a standard sterile needle. Still, he was confident it would indeed have the effect on Kira he was hoping it would. And if it didn't kill him, for some reason, it would still make him very, very sick for a very, very long time, and keep him from being a problem in the near future. He would just have to be careful to avoid exposing himself, since his genetic code was almost identical to Kira's.

The trick was going to be twofold... one, hitting Kira with it in the first place, since Kira's physical reflexes were undoubtedly better practiced and just generally more capable than Noah's own. He'd have to catch him by surprise, which was going to be even harder than usual, because Kira was of course suspicious of him from the beginning. He would be watching Noah like a hawk the entire time, and Noah was fairly sure Kira could, in fact, react faster than Noah could draw his weapons and fire, if it came down to it. And he was only going to get one shot with the hypodermic. So he was going to have to figure out some way of taking him off guard, or else holding him in place with his Newtype abilities. Of course, that wasn't exactly going to be a walk in the park either, with Lacus standing right there. Noah well remembered what she'd done to him only a few hours prior when he'd made a try and crushing Kira's mind. It still didn't make sense to him that she could be so strong, since she never seemed to practice or exercise her powers at all, except during times of crisis... there had to be something he was missing. Not that that would be a huge surprise... he still did not know a lot about Newtypes. Just because he was one of the first, in a lot of ways... he was going to have to discover things on his own, so that future generations wouldn't have that problem. The second problem was going to be getting away from Kira and Lacus afterwards.

Besides just the two hold out pistols, Noah had also taken up an extendable mono-molecular sword blade as a last ditch backup weapon, since he knew that resorting to fists and feet against Kira was only going to end in himself getting the bloody shit kicked out of him. When in storage mode, it looked like just a metal rod about six inches long, that he currently wore clipped to the back of his belt, like a flashlight. However, with a press of a release catch and the flick of a wrist, it would extend and lock into a four foot long blade sharp enough to carve through solid stone or steel like it was butter. The perfect thing to keep a physically superior enemy at bay with, able to slice off limbs with barely a slight tug of resistance. For defense he'd donned a special set of clothing that looked and felt almost like his everday color changing garments, but also included a battery power supply in his back pockets that powered a Phase Shift fiber weave throughout the clothing, much like the Harbingers battle armor, though obviously much lighter in weight. The clothes wouldn't attenuate any of the actual physical force of a shot or blow, but at least they would keep it from penetrating the skin, for a few times anyway, before the batteries ran out.

All that plus Phlegethion should be able to keep him safe, even from a wrathful pair of Ultimate Coordinators, at least long enough for him to retreat to the safety of the shuttle. And once Kira succumbed to the effects of the enhanced Green EDEN, Noah could then come back out and offer Lacus his help in "curing" Kira, in return for her coming with him and serving as his Eve, at least until he could bring her around to the truth of the matter and have her serve willingly. It was distasteful to have to take a hostage for her initial cooperation, but needs must, after all. She was sure to be saddened by the eventual loss of Kira, but she would get over him eventually. She was still young after all. And even if she didn't get over him, she would at least continue to put a brave face forward for the world, and that was what he really needed right now. People needed someone to look up to, someone to assure them that the changes they were experiencing were good ones, despite how scary they seemed. With Lacus Clyne at his side, he would be well on his way to soothing the fears of the general populace, at least those that survived their ascensions.

With that happy thought in the front of his mind, he straightened his clothes one more time, nodded at Phlegethion to preceed him out of the shuttle, and then headed down the stairs himself, quelling his nervousness harshly and locking his thoughts and emotions down tightly, to keep any possible advantage of surprise on his side for as long as possible. This was their first in person meeting after all... and first impressions were the most important of all! He had to show them how confident and in control he was, in preparation for showing the entire world the same thing. It was showtime...

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Lacus felt her breath catch in her throat a bit when she caught sight of Noah for the first time in the flesh. She'd seen him, briefly, on TV before, especially during his publicly televised attack on Gilbert Durandel, but there was a palapable difference between on screen and in person. It was strong enough for Kira to feel as well, and she heard him gasp in time with herself. There was a welling sense of personal magnetism and charisma that seemed to hang around Noah, like he was the eye of an invisble storm, a gravitic body warping the very fabric of space around him slightly, drawing the eye and thoughts implacably towards him. It didn't take the two of them long to realize it was more than just a passive compulsion, brought on by his self confidence and physical beauty. No, this was a mental compulsion that was being projected by him, whether consciously or unconsciously, but in any case continuously. Lacus frowned heavily... this was exactly the sort of usage of Newtype powers that distressed her on a prsonal level, influencing people to like or pay attention to you without their consent or knowledge! Most anyone who spent too much time in proximity to Noah would soon become addicted to the subconscious currents of attraction and awe he was giving off, and from there they would be easy to manipulate as he saw fit. Little wonder he had a fanatical cult of followers!

He was dressed in casual-formal slacks and long sleeved shirt of some sort of fine cloth, with black pants and a white shirt over a purple undershirt of some kind. It went well with his flawlessly tanned skin and arctic blond shoulder length hair, which seemed to float around his head in a slightly ethereal halo, which drew the eye inwards to his delicately featured almost feminine facial features, and from then on his eyes did the rest of the work, sucking in your gaze like a pair of black holes. Lacus found herself disconcertingly looking into Kira's eyes from a distance, except for the metallic gold pupils that reflected the ambient light and glittered like polished coins, a quite inhuman effect that made her a bit dizzy for some reason. For his part, Kira was also quite wrongfooted by meeting Noah's gaze. It was like looking at a negative image of himself in a mirror... darker skin, pale hair, versus his normal pale skin and darker hair, but with eyes that, except for the golden pupils had the exact same lustre and intensity his own did. Noah smiled slightly at their slightly stunned expressions, displaying perfectly white and even teeth and he spread his arms in a gesture of welcoming as he grew nearer, even as his shirt and pants shimmered and switched hues, the shirt turning black, the pants white, and the undershirt turning dark green.

"It is good to see you, Lacus. Cousin Kira." Noah nodded his head at Lacus, and then much more shallowly at Kira.

"I find that hard to believe, considering you just tried to kill me not half a day ago." Kira replied at once, not willing to give an inch to this disconcerting apparaition of a young man. He felt an instinctual dislike of him, an almost primal urge to leap at him and beat him into the ground. A strangely violent urge, even for confronting an enemy, that caught Kira quite off guard. He almost felt... threatened by Noah. Not really in a physical sense, but in an emotional sense. Just standing there, Noah made him feel less secure about... pretty much everything. He felt smaller, and younger, and less skilled and... Kira realized he felt JEALOUS of Noah! He slammed his mental shields up to the maximum he could manage, but the feeling didn't abate in the slightest! But if Noah wasn't influencing him, then why did he have this strange feeling? This need to compete, to best his... rival?... in front of Lacus. It was almost like he was an alpha male of some primal pack, and had suddenly come across another alpha male. Kira frowned, mightily confused by this reaction, which had never happened to him before, not even around other extremely charismatic people, like Sai. Why Noah? Was it because he was an Ultimate Coordinator too? But how could he tell? So far all he had on that was Noah's word... and this feeling!

"Being enemies doesn't mean I cannot be glad to see you." Noah shrugged. "As of the moment, we three are still the only members of our race in existence, and now we are all together for the first time. That in itself is a pleasureable experience, I should think. Can't you feel it? The charge in the air that speaks of destiny?"

"All I feel is faintly offended, that you would think to try and appease us with empty words and bland smiles, much less that subtle manipulative aura of yours." Lacus retorted with a sniff. "I came here only because I thought you had something important to say. If that isn't the case, and all you want to do is beat around the bush and mock us, then we are leaving, and you can go preach to the people who lick your toes, or whatever it is you have convinced them will lead to their immortality."

"Being friendly and being insincere are not the same thing. It wounds me that you'd think I would be so disrespectful to my peers." Noah replied, his lips thinning into a slight frown of his own, before once more curling into a confident semi smirk. "But then again, I suppose you haven't exactly had many opportunities to see my good side, so I can't really blame you for your harsh opinion of me. As for that subtle manipulation you speak of, I apologize... it's not something I can turn off, unless I completely dampen my Newtype senses down to nothing. And I hope you can appreciate that I'm not going to do that unless I have no other choice... its like putting out my own eye. Its a bad habit from my younger days."

"Forcing people to like you against their will is just a bad habit? You liken it to being impolite, like scratching your ass or picking your nose in public!" Lacus said scathingly. "I'd personally rate it as a little worse than that. Something akin to selling addictive drugs disguised as candy to students!"

"Yes, well, you are entitled to your opinion." Noah said with a deeper frown. "I would apologize more deeply, but if the peons were worthy, they would not have fallen under my influence. It is perfectly possible to resist... talk to Gil if you don't believe me. I did not force anyone to like me... I just made it easy for their natural inclinations to come to the fore."

"Bullshit." Kira called. "We aren't here to listen to you try and justify yourself either. As far as I'm concerned, it's impossible for you to justify what you've done today, much less anything else the Brotherhood is responsible for! You've passed the inexcusable mark a long time ago, Noah."

"And thus you dismiss me withotu even trying to understand!" Noah shook his head in exasperation. "I was hoping for at least a pair of open minds. I could have sworn you two were famous for that sort of thing! Why can't you just give me a chance, like you did for Sai Argyle?"

"Sai did not kill tens of thousands of people with a... whatever that blue stuff was! Nor did he launch terror attacks against helpless civilians!" Lacus countered. "There were many things I did not like about Sai. But he was an honorable man. A good man, just misguided."

"History says so anyways. I wonder what history would have said if I hadn't allowed you to dethrone him, hmm?" Noah replied with a smirk at their expressions.

"You allowed?" Kira took a half step forward, causing Noah to tense somewhat, and an indistinct blur to shift forward menacingly in the near distance, but Kira stopped there, regaining control of himself. "What do you mean..."

"I mean that if it weren't for my actions, the Isolation would have been successful, or else Earth would have been thrown into the stone age by Operation Overload. You don't honestly think Frost attacking Denver in the Pulsar at exactly the time you were there to inform President Argle about the Angry Sky was coincidence, do you? You don't think suddenly finding the Angry Sky project information at all, ZAFT's most top secret project of the late Second Valentine War, was just mere good luck on the part of Mr. Dacosta, do you? The Pulsar didn't blow itself up just because, you know!" Noah said vehemently. "Thank you for getting rid of Frost for me, by the way... he was being most inconvenient."

"You're bluffing." Lacus said, her voice only half convinced. "That was five years ago! You'd have only been..."

"Ten. Yes. I am an Ultimate Coordinator, just like both of you, Lacus, Kira. Unlike the two of you though, I was raised from birth with the knowledge of what that meant, and what sort of things I could accomplish if I but tried to do so." Noah cut her off, just like he'd cut off Kira.

"What DOES being an Ultimate Coordinator mean?" Kira asked, interested despite himself.

"What do you think it means, Kira?" Noah returned coyly.

"I don't know! All I know is what Rau le Creuset told me on the Mendel Colony! How I was born in an artificial womb, which ensured no biological drift from my mother's womb. A pure, one hundred percent accurate transfer of the donor genes from my mother and father, with no mistakes or mutations! A perfect Coordinator. That's what an Ultimate Coordinator is, right!?"

"Hahahaha!" Noah was almost bent over in a hysterical fit of amusement. He gasped for air and flailed at the sky with his arms for balance before actually falling over backwards onto his ass in his mirth. "That's fricking hilarious! That Rau... such a card! Spouting off his ignorance like it was God's own word! I just wish I could have gotten a recording of that... I haven't laughed that hard in months!" Noah slowly clambered off the ground, the dirt and debris sliding off his pants and shirt like marbles off a washcloth, unable to find traction on the nanite coated surfaces. He giggled a few more times, and then straightened, and faced a glowering Kira and confused looking Lacus directly once more. "I can see I'm going to have to explain a bit more than I was expecting. How sad, that you've been laboring under such an assumption for so long! No WONDER you've been having so many problems!"

"What are you saying!? What do you know!?" Kira demanded.

"What do I know? I know everything, Kira." Noah grinned widely. "I'm almost tempted to leave you squirming in the dark. But that wouldn't be very friendly, would it? Besides, you're going to need the background info if you're to stand any chance of understanding what I've been trying to do. Attend, children, and I shall share the light of knowledge with you." Noah adopted a scholarly pose, one arm raised as if to point to a blackboard. "What cousin Kira has described is nothing more than the process by which an Ultimate Coordinator is created! That is no more what an Ultimate Coordinator is, than saying "sex" is what humans are! It is almost impossibly hard to have an Ultimate Coordinator born by any process other than an artificial womb. Notice I did say "almost impossible". That's going to be important later."

"If you could avoid condescending to us, that would be nice. We are your elders." Lacus pointed out with a frown.

"Not in the terms of being Ultimate Coordinators, you aren't. You've only both started acting like real Ultimate Coordinators recently... within the past six years or so for Kira, and the past five or so for you, Lacus. I've been an Ultimate Coordinator for at least a decade now, maybe longer. I don't honestly remember when I first discovered my abilities consciously... it might have been as early as two or three years old. I don't recall being punished by my parents very often, no matter how much I acted out, which is a bit hard to explain considering they were quite strict with me otherwise. But that's not germane at the moment." Noah shrugged. "I'll try not to speak down to you, but it's going to be hard. All of this is very obvious to me, things I've known all my life. You might liken it to you telling me how to get dressed in the morning. There's just not many ways for it to not sound like I'm condescending you."

"What IS an Ultimate Coordinator then?" Kira pressed, eager for any scrap or tidbit of information. There was so much he didn't know, and any answers at all would go a long way towards alleviating the identity crises that he was suffering.

"I'm getting to that, be patient. Now, Kira has described for us the process. But let me tell you, the process isn't easy! Quite the opposite even. I don't know how many of your embryonic siblings they went through, Kira... but I'd imagine it was quite a lot. Dozens if not hundreds of fertilized embryos died in the process of getting the artificial womb working properly, and then dozens more were lost because the particular gene sequences required to create an Ultimate Coordinator were so specific and so needy. Even a slight change to the key sequences would render them ineffective, but keeping them pristine put a heavy strain on the rest of your genes. Even for me, being born five years later, the process was still so intensive that though they had the basic idea down, the changes they were trying to make still killed six embryo's before I was born. Of course, my parents did it smarter than yours did... they cloned their prize embryo as many times as was needed to get a success, rather than playing russion roullete with gene manipulated eggs and sperm like Dr. Hibiki did. Strange, considering he helped pioneer human cloning as well, that he did not think to use of it for his own pet project, but then again, given the rather severe drawbacks being a clone has, perhaps he was the wise one afer all!"

"I'm getting confused. Clones? Rau said he was a clone of Mu's father but what does that have to do with Ultimate Coordinators?" Kira protested. "You're a clone too?"

"Yes, I'm a clone of myself, I suppose you could say. I was the seventh clone in the series, and they stopped cloning me after I survived past birth. But whereas Rau was a Coordinator clone of a Natural, I am an Ultimate Coordinator clone from two Coordinators. Both of whom unknowingly had the recessive genes needed to mix together in dominant form to create an Ultimate Coordinator, though they were unlikely to ever achieve that combination naturally. Something on the odds of one to ten million something odd to one chances of even conceiving an Ultimate Corodinator, and considerably less of the child making it all the way through the pregnancy without suffering mutations or complications, or dying. Ultimate Coordinators are fragile when they're still in the womb, especially artificial wombs or the wombs of non-Ultimate Coordinators... so delicately balanced, genetically speaking, that a mere shiver at the wrong time or place can see them fall from their pinnacle, never to reach it again." Noah explained. He saw that both Kira and Lacus were looking at him somewhat blankly.

"Suffice it to say that cloning is an aid process to help ensure an Ultimate Coordinator survives to birth, given the imperfect birthing technologies we have at the moment. It's not going to be a problem in the future, but I'll explain that shortly." Noah crossed his arms across his chest. "Now, as for what an Ultimate Coordinator is... well, you both know what a Seed is, correct? You've both used it before, and can consciously initiate it too, right?" He watched them both nod, if a trifle slowly. "And you know what a Newtype is, basically, right?" They nodded again, a bit less sure. "Well there you have it. An Ultimate Coordinator is simply a Coordinator that is also a Newtype, whether Active or Latent, who can also consciously use their Seed. Because, you see, the Seed without being a Newtype is just incomplete. You might as well plant a rose bulb in dry sand and expect it to flower."

"But a Newtype can nuture the Seed and make it grow, right?" Lacus asked.

"Indeed." Noah smiled at her. "And then, after a while... no one is yet really sure how long, though the postulated theory speaks of around age thirty or so, after reaching sexual maturity plus some wiggle room... assuming the Seed has been properly cared for, it will being taking root and growing into a Tree. What kind of Tree was never said... mine is going to be a towering Redwood, I've decided. When the Seed begins taking root, it will initiate a large number of biological changes in its host... aka, you. Quite what these biological changes are, know one fully knows. Increased physical capabilities, increased biological abilities like metabolism, healing rate and immune system functionality, changes to the natural diurnal cycle, hypersensitivity of the senses, etc. It seems that it will be "maximizing" the potential of a particular human, so to speak. At the same time, the person will enter a period of prolonged intense fertility and hormone generation, perhaps a biological prompt towards reproduction."

"I'm not thirty though!" Kira protested, under his breath, though for all that mattered he might as well have been shouting it out loud.

"I'm getting to that. Obviously you are going through many of these processes, Kira. And it's bcause of what Zacharis Frost did to you. It is postulated that a sudden immense shock to the biological systems of the host could prompt the Seed to take root early, perhaps as a defensive or survival mechanism. When he tried to poison you with his blood, compounded with the injuries suffered during piloting the Pulsar, that initiated the awakening of your Seed, obiously well before its normal time. Which then led to quite a few problems for you, if I remember correctly... even up to hallucinations and pain, right? Until Lacus provided the Seed with the nutrients it needed, that you did not know how to give it. She probably saved your life doing so, you know. Your body would have eventually torn itself apart, trying to make these evolutionary changes without the necessary fuel."

"But how can fuel be emotional in nature? I mean, my Newtype abilities don't do ANYTHING to affect physical matter! I didn't give Kira any nutrients... I gave him emotional support!" Lacus protested.

"And the Seed, despite how it is often described in analogy, is an emotional phenomenon, Lacus, not a physical one."

"Then how does its "growth" precipitate biological changes?" Kira asked.

"Get angry, Kira. Do you feel your blood pressure rise? Perhaps you feel a little hot in the head? Your skin temperature changes. You sweat a bit more. That is just one example of emotions precipitating biological changes." Noah smiled. "Emotional support? You might as well call that viagra, for a Seed. Humanity as a whole is a very emotional species. Far more so than any other animal. We need a lot of emotional support to function in any sort of organized fashion. Without emotional support we wither and die, mentally before physically. Its called losing the will to live, and I'm sure you've seen it before. When the Seed takes root, it's like going through puberty again, but far, far more intense. Imagine what would happen if no one gave you any emotional support while you were going through puberty? If no one understood what you were going through? If no one COULD understand. You got lucky, Kira, that Lacus was there at all." Noah shrugged. "Now, I am a little fuzzy on some of the deeper details myself... such as how an otherwise emotional phenomenon can be passed down through genetics, but I have seen the data, have matched the gene sequences myself, and I have to agree with the premise that it is not only theoretically possible, it has already been done! However, I don't think the deeper theory really interests you, does it Kira? Your question, of course, is "why?", am I correct?"

"Well, yes..."

"Why would they create Ultimate Coordinators, hmm? Where's the need, right? I mean, we already have Coordinators, don't we? And of course, they're absolutely nothing wrong with them..." Noah's voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Oh, besides the fact that they aren't very fertile. Genes are a little too selective after a point of being carefully selected from a pick and choose menu for two to four generations in a row. Too specialized. Not enough natural drift. Too rigid in their thinking, I suppose you could say. They can do what they do very, very well... but they can't adapt or change to accomodate new ideas, or new genes, therefore, no gene combining, therefore no children. Now, I'm only sixteen... but even I can see that that is a problem. Coordinators are a wonderful scientific advancement. But they are fundamentally flawed. Their prevalence is a testament to the impatient nature of humanity... we don't like to wait for something to be perfected if it seems merely "pretty good". We want satisfaction NOW, not later. Coordinators are cookies taken from an oven while only half baked. Maybe they still taste good, but they're nothing compared to fully baked cookies."

"That's a weird analogy." Lacus observed. "It still doesn't explain why."

"I'm getting to it. Be patient. My explanation needs to be perfect too, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait and not pressure me into a "merely good" one." Noah retorted. "Dr. Hibiki was a man with a dream. A singular vision absolutely breathtaking in scope. He wanted to catapult humanity to the next evolutionary level. And he didn't want to do it eventually. He was planning on doing it in his lifetime. Or within a generation or two of his lifetime anyway. He envisioned a three step process. The first step was the creation of Coordinators. The second step was the creation of Ultimate Coordinators... those of us with Seed's and Newtype abilities both. Ultimate Coordinators is as far as current science could take humanity. It is up to the Ultimate Coordinators to produce the third step, the true end result, the actual next step of Humanity. Quite what that is, I don't know. If it's better than an Ultimate Coordinator though..." Noah trailed off specuatively. "As for why... because he could and he wanted to. The same reason most human innovations have come around. Oh, he claimed to be working to fix the genetic drift problems affecting most Coordinators from their time in the mother's womb, but that was just a side effect. An excuse. A cover story even."

"So I'm the next step of Humanity?" Kira asked slowly.

"No. You are the gateway. Same as me, same as Lacus. Through us, the next step will come into being. You might as well call us prototypes. We are the biological equivalent of Gundams." Noah replied. "Gundams that produce something else greater than them, after a certain point in life. Neo-Bio Gundams. Neo-Humans. Angels. Whatever you want to call it. All I can tell you is that who or whatever else the Neo-Humans will be, they will also be Ultimate Coordinators... as part and parcel of being an Ultimate Coordinator is having Newtype and Seed genes be highly dominant. We also don't suffer from ICD, and our genes are passed down without biological imperfections being allowed to creep in, especially if both partners are Ultimate Coordinators. We are also much more fertile than regular humans." Noah began ticking off points on his fingers. "To summarize, the characteristics of Ultimate Coordinators are: A, an active Seed; B, Newtype abilities, Latent or Active; C, being a Coordinator; D the ability to go through two puberty's, both precipitating large hormonal changes in the body's biological makeup; E, having A and B be dominant genes that will pass down to progeny in ninety nine point nine repeating percent of cases; F, once the second puberty is finished, they will possess far superior physical and mental abilities to any non-ascended Coordinator, Natural, Newtype or even other Ultimate Coordinators."

"But what I don't understand, is how can I be an Ultimate Coordinator?" Lacus interrupted. "I wasn't born in an artificial womb like Kira or you. My mother went through a perfectly normal Coordinated pregnancy."

"And yet you possess all of the qualities of an Ultimate Coordinator that I ticked off." Noah answered with a winning smile. "Simply put, Lacus, you are a genetic anomaly. Like Dr. Hibiki himself once put it... a one hundred carat blue diamond inside a random meteor. Recall I said it was ALMOST impossible to happen naturally. You are proof it CAN happen naturally. One in a hundred dozen billion times. That you should be born at nearly the same time as Kira and I were created, is almost enough of an astronomical chance to get me believing in some sort of divine hand of fate. Truly, you are Eve... the mother of a new race of Humanity."

"I'm not very comfortable with that label you keep trying to pin on me." Lacus gritted, her arm around Kira's waist very obvious, as was his arm around hers. "I suppose you've answered what an Ultimate Coordinator is well enough. Certainly enough to give us a lot to think about. But what about Newtypes? You say that word so blithely... but what is a Newtype?"

"Ah, another easy question. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you don't know. Its not like there has been much public research into Newtypes. In fact, as far as the public is concerned, we're fairy tales. Psychic's don't exist, that's what they say. We're all hoaxes. Or charlatans. Or myths. Of course, we know differently. Our powers are very real." Noah said. He grinned darkly for a moment. "I daresay I made a few converts with my little "discussion" with Gil a while back though. More germane to the question you asked though, my dear Eve, a Newtype is a genetic mutant with highly evolved emotional and mental skills, which can even manifest in the ability to influence other things beyond your own mind. Such as the emotions of others, or even the bodies of others. Even controlling inert matter is possible for some of us. How? That I do not know. Science fails us at this point, I'm afraid. I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually, but at the moment it is just something that happens because it... does. However, as much as we don't know about how or why Newtypes exist, there is plenty that is known about what they can do. Plenty by comparison anyways."

"What you did to Gilbert Durandel and those poor men and women was inexcusable." Lacus said quietly, her tone steely and cold. "You took their free will away and made them kill each other. I can not forgive you for something like that. That is evil."

"What is evil is lying to the people of the world about your association with a known terrorist group while staying in regular contact with that selfsame terrorist group's leader, and discussing how the actions of that terrorist group will support your own political policies." Noah retorted flatly. "Save your sympathy for someone who deserves it. Gilbert Durandel does not. Despite what he has told the world, I can assure you, he was in no way decieved by who or what I am, at least in regards to the Brotherhood. I've been working hand in hand with him for almost half a decade now. Most of the skeletons in his closet are there because of me. I think you might be interested to know what HIS real plans for the future of the world are, wouldn't you? Maybe you'd like to see what the "good guys" have planned for the world before you go tossing out terms like "evil" and condemning me, Lacus." Noah continued, witheringly.

"If they are wrong, that does not make you right. You are wrong too." Kira said in support of Lacus. "You've killed tens of thousands of people, many of them innocent civilians. There is no way to justify that."

"Yes there is." Noah told them with a sigh. "I regret the sacrifice. I really do. I don't expect you to believe me. You're too stuck on being righteous to believe me, unfortunately. But it WAS necessary for the good of all. History will prove me right. I don't expect anyone to love me for doing what I am. However, sometimes you have to operate messily to save a patient's life. Its painful, and bloody, and nobody is happy during the process... but in the end, its the right thing to do."

"And what is it you ARE doing then?" Lacus demanded.

"A moment." Noah held up a hand to forestall her. "Let me finish describing Newtypes if you please. Understand, that the background information is vitally important to what I am doing. Going on without you understanding what being an Ultimate Coordinator means would be folly and pointless. And being an Ultimate Coordinator means knowing what it is to be a Newtype, amongst many other things. Newtypes are divded into two categories. Actives, like me and Lacus, who have conscious control over their abilities, and Latents, like Kira, who have no conscious control over their abilities, and are largely just highly sensitive to the powers of an Active. I haven't quite figured out why Latents exist at all... it seems to me like more of a handicap than a boon. About the only thing they have going for them is a heightened sense of awareness, kind of like a sixth sense for detecting the minds and emotions of others, especially familiar others, in proximity to them. From what Rau used to say, he could often feel when his brother Mu was around, or even what he was about to do. Usefully, certainally, but hardly of the caliber of what an Active is capable of." Noah half sneered as he spoke.

_He doesn't know about Latent Amplification!_ Lacus's thought popped up in Kira's mind without warning. He only kept his sense of surprise and grim amusement off his face with a supreme effort of will.

_Well that is interesting. Let's not tell him either. I've a feeling it might come in handy, if he keeps thinking I'm just some poor handicapped halfway product._ Kira replied, with the mental equivalent of a predatory smile. His hand twined with Lacus's and squeezed firmly, recieving an answering squeeze in return.

"As for us Actives, well, the sky seems to be the limit, in terms of powers. I don't know if the full array will ever be catalogued. There's people like you, Lacus, who can influence the emotions of a large group of people over a very wide range and distance, and even freeze them in place with your willpower! Even multiple people at once! Or people like me, who can not only freeze people, but puppeteer them. Or use a limited, weak form of telekinesis. Or talk long distances via mind to mind, like that girl, Katie. I've also heard of people who could steal memories and even whole learned skills like languages from other people, or cause crippling mental pain, or see and hear and feel and smell at a distance. I could go on and on... who knows, even precognition, the ability to see into the future briefly, could one day be in the grasp of an Ultimate Coordinator, or a Neo-Human." Noah said, his eyes shining with the possibilities. "Basic powers do seem to include an enhanced ability to project and feel the emotions or thoughts of others, and many Newtypes have a form of simple telepathy they can use with other Newtypes or those with whom they are extremely familiar. It pain's me to admit I lack such a basic communication skill... perhaps merely because I never had any opportunity to practice it."

"Well, now you've gone and explained the background information." Kira said, still mulling over what Noah had revealed about Newtypes, and especially about Ultimate Coordinators in general. The more he learned about his so called father Dr. Ulen Hibiki, the more he wanted to go back in time and punch the crazy bastard in the face! He may have been a genius, but his grasp of morals seemed particularly tenuous! Progress for progresses sake was not a healthy philosophy to live one's life by! Not when it lead to steps like cloning humans illegally, and sacrificing hundreds of your own potential sons and daughters just to perfect a process! A noble goal, the redefinement of the human race, perhaps, but the ends do not justify the means! Not in a right thinking world, or so Kira believed. Killing every criminal, no manner how minor, might very well lead to a gigantic reduction in crime... but that end was not worth the execution of shoplifters and jaywalkers and people who were in ignorance of minor laws!

"So what are you planning, Noah? What's the purpose of all of this? Why have you done all of these horrible things!?" Lacus asked, almost pleadingly. Its not that she didn't want to understand him... quite the opposite. She wanted to understand him desperately... if for no other reason than so she could understand what the warning signs were earlier if there should ever be a next time!

"Because I can. And because I needed to. I did not want to fight the USN at the Moon, but you gave me no choice." Noah said sadly.

"You wouldn't let us talk to you! We tried!" Lacus protested.

"There was no need to talk!" Noah retorted harshly. "I told you I didn't want to fight. I told you to move. There was nothing to talk about. You could either get out of my way, or stand in my way. That is the only two options."

"The world can't be treated like it's so black and white! You're attacking our homes and loved ones! Of course people stood in your way!" Kira snapped.

"I am attacking nothing! I am freely giving every human being a chance to be like us!" Noah yelled, his voice cracking a bit. "I am ushering in a golden age for humanity! I've said this dozens of times, how can it be that no one has listened!?"

"Saying that but not saying how is the equivalent of saying "this is for your own good" while shooting a gun at people!" Lacus answered, her own voice rising. "How is this golden age of yours going to come about!? You are giving people a chance to be like us? How? What are you doing!? Tell us in plain words!"

"I am creating a Garden of Eden, without war or hate or inequality." Noah said regally. "Why do people hate each other? Because they are different! Because they do not understand one another! Because they are inequal! Nothing demonstrates this better than the Coordinator-Natural conflict! And because they hate, they try to kill each other in wars! I have the power to make people... all people... equal! To make them so that we are all the same, while retaining our individuality! I have the power to help us all known each other and understand each other! I have the power to make everyone an Ultimate Coordinator!"

"That's impossible!" Kira protested. "It took..."

"DON'T TELL ME WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE!" Noah shouted furiously. "I am doing the impossible! Before the end of two months, every last living human being on Earth will be an Ultimate Coordinator! Every last plant and animal living will also recieve the same blessing! I am creating a New Eden from this tired old Earth with my Green EDEN! This is the golden age of humanity, and it is happening now, as we speak! I have done it! I have begun to cure humanity of it's hate! It's all downhill from here!"


	52. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 2

Author Note: Sorry for my relatively extended absence, fans and readers. I don't quite know what to say, other than I guess I needed a break, and it really took me a long time. Can't promise I will update as quickly as I used to, but I will try. Thanks for your patience. I imagine some of the events in this chapter aren't going to be a surprise to some, but I expect a few questions to be asked in the end.

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Kira and Lacus stood and stared at Noah incredulously for a long few seconds, not quite able to believe their ears. "All downhill from here? What do you mean? What are you saying?" Lacus asked with a deep frown, a very bad feeling starting to well up inside her, like an unwelcome cold breeze slipping past her skin. "Curing humanity of hate? Creating a new Eden from Earth? You're not making any more sense now than you did before." She protested. Though that wasn't quite true... she was starting to get a mild handle on what Noah was telling them. It was just so terrifying in its scope and... and wrongness... that she did not want to believe it! Even the Blue Stuff wasn't on this scale. This was the whole world he was talking about. Humanity as a whole! Her mental shell cracked some as she fought to keep herself calm, and Noah smiled beautifically at them both, like a shark that has sighted a crippled dolphin.

"There's no sense in denying it. You may not want to understand, but you do understand me, Lacus." Noah said quietly, his grin slowly fading away. "You understand, and you are shocked, and horrified, and angry. Because what I am doing is a fundamental shift in the course of humanity. And that is fundamentally frightening. And that brings me to why I need you, Lacus, to be my Eve. People will not listen to me. Not even though I am the expert, the very hand beyond this change of path. They will allow their fear and shock and pure, unadulterated stubborn stupidity to block my words from their ears, no matter how well intentioned they are. People will not listen to me. But they will listen to you. If you tell the world that it is going to be all right, that things will work out as long as they listen to what I have to say, they will believe you. Or at least the greatest majority of them will."

"You want her to be your figurehead." Kira said grimly, his face set in an angry half snarl. "You want to use her good image, her rapport with the people of the world, the trust they have for her, for your own benefit!"

"For their own benefit. Not mine, cousin Kira. There is very little benefit in this entire strategy for me. Moreso to my benefit would have been staying with the status quo... as one of the few Ultimate Coordinators, I would have had an insurmountable advantage over pretty much everyone else in the world. I could have been King of the world. The Secretary-General of the USN. The President of the Solar System even, had I just left well enough alone. Do you know what I'm going to be now? Probably one of the most despised and hated human beings ever to live. And I'm going to be just another guy on the street, in terms of capabilities. Perhaps more experienced, certainly more practised than most, but in terms of sheer ability... I won't be anything special. My own benefit? I do not benefit from this, except in the manner of I will no longer be almost alone. Humanity is the ones who benefit here, not me." Noah retorted vehemently.

"But they can not and will not see that unless someone they trust tells them so." Noah sighed in exasperation. "And there are currently only two people I can think of in all the Solar System that enough people trust to make a difference. One of them is Gilbert Durandel. The other is Lacus Clyne. Obviously, Gil won't be cooperating with me, and even if he did, people would, rightly, assume I was manipulating or forcing him, and they would then ignore him as well. That leaves you, Lacus. You are the Eve of the Ultimate Coordinators. Its probably going to be a dirty, painful and thankless job. But you are used to that, and it is for the good of all. I really don't see how you can say no, given how your ethics run."

"People really should learn not to tell me that they know me better than I know myself, or try to predict my actions based off my philosophies and morals. My code of ethics is a strong guiding force for my actions." Lacus said firmly, pausing a beat. "But that is all that it is. A guiding force. Not an absolute law, not a binding code of conduct. A guide. I have had it proven to me several times, often painfully, that my ethics can mix me up and make my situation worse than it normally would be. I am not some semi-divine being. I'm just another girl. I am wrong as often as I am right, and usually when I am wrong more people than just myself suffer because of it. However, my successes are also generally quite good, and this has led to many people having quite a higher opinion of me than I feel I necessarily deserve. Abusing that trust, that faith in me, is not something my ethics, as you so smugly pointed out, will allow me to do either." Lacus stared into Noah's disconcerting eyes for a moment to make sure the point went across. "And that, as far as I'm concerned, is that. No, I won't be your Eve."

"So you're just going to abandon hundreds of millions, maybe even billions, of people to painful deaths, when speaking up on my side, disseminating information that I have that is pertinent to the rebirth of humanity, could prevent it, no matter how distasteful you find it?" Noah asked softly. "And people say I'm cruel and insane."

"What are you talking about now?" Kira leapt to Lacus's defense, that unfamiliar feeling of rivalry welling up inside him again. Was this really his own feelings? It didn't seem like something that would happen to him. But if they weren't his feelings, then what was it? Why was he feeling so confrontational? "Hundreds of millions or billions dead? I thought you were all about bringing a golden age for Humanity. Where did the mass deaths come from?"

"Like any birthing process, this one is going to be somewhat bloody and painful." Noah said with an offhand shrug. "Green EDEN changes the genetic structure of living organisms into a more perfect form, based strongly off my own DNA. You could liken it to a tune up on a car, but more like a complete overhaul, upgrading to an entirely better class of vehicle altogether. Some things don't take so well to being broken apart and put back together again... though all the parts are there, they just don't quite work as intended. Or else, during the process, outside factors, like rust or corrosion, creep in, and the entire project breaks down from the inside. Because Green EDEN functions on living organisms, it needed to have a way of ensuring the biological defenses of those organisms would not impede its work. So it shuts them down for the duration of the process. I suppose you could liken it to a short term case of AIDS, though there's a stronger negative connotation to that than I prefer."

"You are shutting down people's immune systems? But won't that..." Kira started to protest.

"Yes. Yes it will. And it's very regrettable. I'd say we are looking at around fifty percent casualty rates from secondary infections. I'm sure you're well acquainted with your own immune system and its peculiar strengths, Kira. Once the process is complete, our new brothers and sisters should shake off all but the worst of viruses and bacterial infections like a common cold. Its merely a matter of surviving to that point." Noah interrupted with another shrug.

"How can you just say that!?" Lacus demanded furiously. "Fifty percent? Half of all humans could die? Even children? That is what you consider bringing about a golden age!?"

"Yes. People die. It's sad. But they die anyway. By my calculations, considering the projected fertility of Ultimate Coordinators, the population difference should be made up in a manner of a half century or so. Actually, given the extended nature of our lifespans, if we don't get rid of a significant portion of the population now, we will run out of room to live on Earth before the next century. However, population crowding is a problem I am confident we will be able to solve quite easily... probably by moving into more space colonies and the other planets. So if we can minimize casualties in the beginning phase, I would do so. I know how to do it, even. But people won't listen to me. And so more will die. But if someone they would listen to were to tell them, why, the casualty rates could be as low as twenty five percent, perhaps even less! I don't suppose you know anyone who might be willing to help me, now do you?" Noah replied with a slight smirk.

"This is beyond monstrous! You're just going to force people to become Ultimate Coordinators, killing roughly half of them in the process, regardless of age or willingness!? And you expect me to help you do it, just to minimize casualties!?" Lacus shouted, her entire face turning red in her fury. "How about this!? How about we stop you in your tracks and prevent you from doing this in the first place!? I think that's a much better option!"

"You can't." Noah said simply.

"Just because you beat us up in space doesn't mean you've won. We will stop you." Kira said, his voice dire. "The USN is still far bigger and more powerful than the Brotherhood can hope to be, especially now that the Revenant is destroyed!"

"That's not what I mean." Noah shook his head. "I say you can't stop me, because you simply cannot stop me. Why? Because the process has already begun! There IS... NO... TURNING... BACK! Even if you were to kill me now, and destroy the Great Endeavor this very instant, which you can't anyway, you will NOT have stopped me! Earth WILL become New Eden, that was decided the very moment the Great Endeavor reached the surface! As we speak Green EDEN is being distributed across the Eastern part of North America. Before dawn, it will be in the Gulf stream, and within a few weeks it will cover Europe, Africa and most of Western Asia. By the end of three months from this instant, right now, the entire Earth, from pole to pole, will be covered by Green EDEN. And there is nothing you can do to stop it. All you can do is delay the process, and that means even more people might die."

"I refuse to believe that. I will not give up hope." Lacus said resolutely. "What one person has made, other people will be able to unmake. We will reverse engineer your Green EDEN and find a way to neutralize it. You are forgetting, I think, one of the basic tenents of being a human... and that means fighting against all odds when your existence, and the existence of those you care about, is threatened. Humanity has its problems, its fracticious natures, but when we are threatened as a whole, there is nothing we cannot accomplish."

"Agreed." Noah replied with a smile. "The question is merely in the timeframe. I have no doubt that what you say is true. I merely doubt that it will occur before three months have passed. I would be very surprised if it occured before three years had passed, given the sad state of nanological research anywhere but within the Brotherhood. And by the time a so called cure is found, it will have been a moot point for a very long time. By that time, no one will want there to be a cure. For that matter, there is already a cure, you could say. What sort of genius would I be if I didn't have a way to destroy my own creations? Or at least a way to destroy Green EDEN. I don't think I'll be telling you what it is though. And it's a somewhat... unbalanced cure. More a preventative vaccine than anything else. Its not something you can apply after the fact. I have not won, perhaps, but you have lost. I hate to be cliche, but, resistance is futile."

"Resisting madmen and evil people is never futile. Fighting against those who would do harm to others, for their own profit or their own misguided ideals, is not wrong. Even if we can only buy ourselves days, even only hours... we will fight for them. Because that is what humans do." Kira retorted firmly. "You say give up hope. I say, there is always hope. Maybe I'm just as misguided as you. Maybe I am, as some people say, delusional, or self deceptive. And if I am, then I don't see anything wrong with it, because I will not accept just giving up in the face of adversity, no matter how the odds are stacked against me. If that is insanity, then I am the definition of insane and proud of it!"

"That goes for me as well." Lacus said, equally firmly. "Regardless of the reasons you have convinced yourself with, that you are doing this for the good of humanity and not your own benefit, I simply cannot accept those reasons or your plan as a whole. What you are doing is wrong. It is evil. You are taking free will from people and many of them are going to die because of it, and there is nothing, as you say, they can do about it. You are treating people like they are ants on a farm, or experimental test subjects. For someone who complains about always feeling the emotions of other people pouring into his head, you do seem to me to lack a great deal of empathy for others! You may have convinced yourself, Noah Borander, but you will never convince me!"

"Never is a long time, Lacus Clyne." Noah replied, his voice turning chilly. "I honestly thought you cared more about the rest of humanity, but it is becoming apparent to me that you are just as mulish, cold hearted and small minded as the rest of them. Maybe THAT is why they trust you so much. In any case, I am going to offer this one last time. Come with me. Become the Eve of the Ultimate Coordinators. Help me guide this new race that is going to come into existence. Imprint upon them your morals and ethics! The very things that make you so stubbornly resist me are what I want you to give to everyone! Its your spirit and your soul that I want impressed upon the collective spirit and soul of humanity! Not mine, not anyone else's... yours, Lacus. Yours. I will freely admit I am often an immoral or amoral person. It would be wrong for me to be the guiding light of the new race. That is not true of you, Lacus. You DESERVE to lead our new race!"

"And where does Kira fit into this all? I notice you tend to neglect him in your ranting." Lacus asked, her voice equally chilly. "I should think you would want him to be a leader as well, since his morals at the very least match up with mine, and he is the first Ultimate Coordinator after all. He may not have the public following I do, but there are plenty of people that will listen to what Kira Yamato has to say as well."

"Cousin Kira is a suboptimal choice. He has proven to be... unstable. Unpredictable. He is the prototype of the prototypes. A dinosaur even though still a child, in terms of our lifespans. He doesn't understand anything about what and who he is. He lives in a fantasy world most of the time, and people around him pay for his dreaminess. He allows his emotions, not his intellect, to rule him and guide his decisions. He simply does not have what it takes to be the sort of truly great leader our people deserve. He is flawed and he would not guide our race down the proper, though often painful, path it needs to walk." Noah responded with a sneer. "How many people have died because you weren't willing to kill, Kira? Don't answer that... the answer is too depressing."

"I am flawed." Kira admitted. "I'm probably wrong more often than I'm right. I do make a lot of bad decisions, and plenty of people around me, both those I care deeply about and those less familiar, get hurt or killed because of it. But I cannot see the future, and I act as my conscience, my unstable emotions, in your terms, dictate I should given the situation. There are some choices I've made that I would unmake, if I could. But the greater majority, I would never change, no matter the consequences. I don't desire to be some great leader. I'm okay, I guess, with serving as an example to others, but only through my actions in living my everyday life. I don't want statues, I don't want a political office. I want to be me. And that includes the flaws. Being perfect is not what I want. I just want to try."

"Don't want to be perfect, merely want to try to be perfect!?" Noah snarled disdainfully. "Rubbish. If you can be perfect, you should be. Anything else is just a waste. We are Ultimate Coordinators... our strength is our potential! Not utilizing our potential would be wrong! Flaws exist to be eliminated and overcome, not accepted!"

"I wouldn't have Kira be any other way than he is." Lacus said resolutely. "Flaws and all. And I have plenty of my own flaws. And you, Noah, have so many flaws that even you could not possibly overcome them all, even if you lived to be a thousand, even assuming you could recognize them, which I seriously doubt you can. I have said it a dozen times already, but I'll say it again, and again, as many times as it needs to be said for you to understand. I refuse your offer. I refuse your demand. I will not be any part of your twisted plan. I will not tell anyone anything other than that you are a genocidal madman bent on destroying the world, because that is what I see before me. I could never accept being your mouthpiece. Not least because I would never, ever, be able to look my child in the eyes when they are born, less than a year from now."

"Yeah, that's righ... WHAT!?" Kira exclaimed, staring at Lacus, his mouth agape and eyes boggling. For his part Noah just had a disgusted expression of surprise on his face, as he too stared at Lacus, stunned by the sudden revelation. "You're PREGNANT!?" Kira continued to exclaim, loud enough for the whole island to hear him, if there had been anyone else around. "B-b-but... but when!? How!? What...!?"

"Well, the how I shouldn't really need to explain to you, Kira." Lacus said with a small chuckle at his shocked and dazed expression. "As for when, I'm not sure exactly. I only got confirmation recently, but I've suspected for a while. Maybe a month or so ago, give or take a week. I guess I don't have ICD after all. Whether that is because I'm an Ultimate Corodinator, or just lucky, I don't really care."

"This should only make you want to help me even more!" Noah insisted. "Or do you want your child to grow up a pariah? Considered a freak, or a scientific curisosity? Do you want your child to be the only one of their race? Even a Neo Human cannot beget more if they are the only one. Unless you have another child, and decide to force them to breed. As of right now, there are only three confirmed Ultimate Coordinators in the world. Me, you and Kira. We are, at the moment, the only ones who can produce Neo Humans. That should change shortly, but then again, you have professed a desire to not only stop me, but actually reverse my golden age! Why don't you think of your child... how will you look them in the eyes when they ask you why no one else is like them!?"

"Well, not that its any of YOUR business how we rear our children, but I do expect to be asked that sort of question, you may be surprised to know. I've certainly been asked it a lot by various children at the Malchio Orphanage." Lacus answered fiercely. "Because all children are unique in some way. Even otherwise identical twins are entirely different people on the inside, where it counts, in the heart and soul. Its coming to accept people because or though they are different that we become better people, and a better society as a whole. Wanting everyone to be like you is a fantasy of someone who has never learned to accept people for who they are. If everyone was like me, the world would be quite a dreary place, I'm pretty sure. I certainly wouldn't want to live there. I get sick of myself at times already, and I know Kira does too, sometimes, even though he won't admit it, and if people like us can get sick of each other, making everyone like us would be a big mistake."

"P-p-pre-pregnant!?" Kira stammered, still wide eyed and dazed. "B-but... but..."

"Kira." Lacus rolled her eyes at him. "We've been trying to have children for more than a year now. I would have thought you'd be prepared for this to happen, giving how hard we were trying."

"Bu-but you didn't say anything! I didn't even know you were checking up on it!" Kira protested.

"Don't be dense, Kira. Of course I was checking up on it. Every week at the least. I just didn't want to bother you with all the constant negative results. You do tend to blame yourself for things you really can't control, you know. Did you honestly think I paid those weekly visits to Cagalli just to talk with her? Your sister is a wonderful conversationalist, and she's certainly my best female friend. But every week? Forty minutes either way by boat, when a phone call would be just as good?"

"This is the sort of person you want me to consider as a leader of our race? I believe you are making my point for me." Noah commented snidely. Inwardly though, he was reeling. Lacus was pregnant!? With Kira's child!? That was not a variable he'd been counting on. Obviously he'd known they were sexually active, and that Lacus had been inquiring into the state of her genes, concerning ICD, not that she actually had anything to worry about on that scale, but a pregnancy!? He felt like his stomach was doing flip flops and nausea rose in his throat. This threw everything into disarry! Even if Kira were to be... disposed of... now there would be a tangible link to him nonetheless! She would never forget the father of her first child! On the other hand though... Noah started to see some distinct advantages to the situation. This was almost certainly the first Neo Human who would be born. Properly cared for and educated, he or she could be of unparalled usefulness in more fully deciphering the destiny of Humanity! This was a golden opportunity indeed. But finessing the details was going to get... messy.

"Kira is less observant about some things than he perhaps should be. But that is a flaw I can forgive him for, as many times as need be." Lacus said with a small grin. "I don't expect you to understand, but there's something very attractive about a man who is an idiot sometimes. As for being a leader, at least Kira has the humility to admit when he is wrong or out of his depth, and he asks for help. He does not merely assume he is right or the best man for the job, even though he is more talented, or skilled, than other people in many ways. A key part of being a leader worthy of respect is knowing when you aren't the right person for the job, whatever it may be, despite your abilities or qualifications. That is something Sai could not understand, and neither, apparently, can you. Sometimes, waiting and seeing, letting a situation evolve without guidance, is what a leader needs to do."

"Enough of this inane debate." Noah waved his hands irritably, though inwardly he was starting to smile again. Perhaps there was a silver lining to these stormclouds he'd encountered. It was merely a matter of attaining it. "I have offered and reoffered and even demanded your help, and you have spat in my face, figuratively if not literally. I have explained why it is not only a good way, but the ONLY way for mass scale deaths to be at least mitigated, and you still refuse. At the very last, you have held up your unborn child like a shield, citing him or her as an unmatchable reason for not helping me, despite the illogic of the very idea. What you perhaps do not understand is that this is NOT an option. I care about humanity too much to accept your petty refusal. Lacus Clyne, you WILL be Eve, one way or another, even if I have to kidnap you or threaten those you love most to ensure your cooperation. This is bigger than you and me, bigger by far. Doing this is not what I want. But I must do it nonetheless. For the good of Humanity."

"There you go again, trying to take free will away from people, for the purposes of your self defined greater good." Lacus sighed in frustration. "You are right, this debate is inane. Neither side will be convinced by the other's arguement. There is nothing further to be productive gained here. I've conducted enough futile negotiations to recognize another one when I'm in it. You say give up hope, that there is no path but your path, no truth but your truth. I say there is always hope, paths can be created merely by working hard, and the truth is what we, as a whole, make of it. Since there is nothing more to say, we will be leaving. The next time we see you, it will be on a battlefield. This saddens me, but I can get over it."

"No one is going anywhere, except as I decide." Noah retorted harshly. "You have no allies in the area, not for kilometers. Your Gundam is halfway across the island, and neither of you is carrying a weapon. I've already admitted to be amoral or immoral, so I don't think it should surprise you to learn that I am fully armed and capable of stopping you both with force if need be."

"We assumed as much." Kira said, his voice light but his eyes intent. He was still reeling inside from Lacus's announcement, and he was unable to stop himself from staring at her stomach every few seconds, though there was no visible sign of her pregnancy yet. But all the same, his senses were now on the very highest state of alert, or even higher than that! his entire body was zinging with energy. He had a child! He had a CHILD! He was going to be a FATHER! And Noah was threatening the mother of his child! And himself, but that didn't matter nearly so much. "We've dealt with your kind of people often enough to assume attempts at dishonorable conduct."

"That we're still here, and "unarmed" as you say, should tell you how worried we are about that." Lacus added with a confident smirk, her hand held tightly in Kira's. "We came prepared for trickery. You should know, that if you attempt the use of force on us, that there is a major difference between pacifism and passivity."

"And you should know, Lacus, that there is a major difference between "prepared" and "ready"!" Noah snapped in return, his hands snapping down to his sides, activating the spring loaded mechanisms that dropped his sidearms into his hands, even as a whispered subvocal command unleashed Phlegethion from her standby prowl. At the same time he lashed out with the full strength of his Newtype abilities, watching a glowing white Seed, brilliant like new snow, veined with gold, drop through the vastness of his mind, only to shatter and detonate with the very fury of creation, filling the universe with tangible light. Given how strong Lacus had proven to be recently, he didn't expect to be able to overpower her so easily, but Kira was another matter entirely. His mind was well shielded, but he was not anywhere near ready for an onslaught like what Noah launched upon him. All of his voluntary muscle control disappeared in a heartbeat and his body went stiff, microseconds before Phlegethion's decloaking and pouncing mass slammed into his chest and knocked him tumbling to the ground, half yanking Lacus to her knees before his hand was torn from hers. And from there it was only a matter of a second or two to line up a shot. Just a second or two. Just...

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Lacus cursed herself for being caught off guard, despite her confident words of only moments before. Noah had moved far faster than either she or Kira had been expecting. She'd thought they were still in the stage of threating words and bluffs, when they'd actually been at the cusp of direct physical and mental action! Not only that, but neither of them had been expecting a direct physical attack out of nowhere! She'd felt that there was another mind in the area, but it was tough getting a fix on it while she was keeping her attention on Noah, making sure he didn't attempt any coercions upon her or Kira. There was something about the mind in question too, some... incomplete. Damaged even, which made it especially hard to pin down. It wasn't until the mechanical dragonfrom materialized out of seeming thin air as its cloaking system disengaged while it pounced upon Kira, that Lacus finally realized what it was. This was the same sort of monstrosity that her Haro had been turned into! A real, live human intellect, that of a young girl, about fourteen or fifteen, had been stripped from her physical body and used as a control circuit for a robot!

Lacus instinctively recoiled in horror from the poor dragon/girl, losing her grip on Kira's hand in the process. She'd felt Noah strike out at Kira, and though much of the force of the blow had been stopped by Kira's own mental defenses, which was a good thing since the unmitigated attack would have almost certainly stopped his heart and lungs like what had happened to Ysak, enough had leaked by to bind his limbs tighter than any ropes or handcuffs could, basically paralyzing him and rendering him helpless to defend against the dragon/girl. She watched her own Seed, a lavender-periwinkle color, descend like a snowflake or gypsum crystal gently through a cave of still air, only to detonate with a ringing crash that went beyond noise, beyond vibration, to redefine everything she thought she knew. Her connection to Kira was dampened because of his state of surprise and distraction, not to mention the lack of direct physical contact, but she was more than strong enough on her own to toss a coercive attack of her own at Noah, slipping past his own somewhat meagre defenses to lock HIM down for a second or two, in the act of drawing a bead on Kira with his pistols.

Kira broke free of Noah's mental compulsion with a snarl, aided by Lacus's attack diverting Noah's concentration, and his limbs became his own to command once more, and just in time too. The black dragonform extended claws and teeth sharper than razors from its paws and jaw and began attempting to maul him with great gusto and fervor. The dragonform weighed less than him, but had the advantage of its claws and the fact that it was basically standing on his chest, or straddling it anyway. He winced and groaned as it slammed its tail into his lower body a few times, each blow like a strike from a hockey stick, even as he grabbed its forelegs and desperately held the claws away from his vitals. He could feel welling cuts on his sides from where the back paws were scrabbling at him, but the dragonform couldn't manage to contort its body enough to line up a claw for a disemboweling strike. It hissed at him, just like an enormous serpent, and its red eyes seemed to glow with anger.

Noah snapped free of Lacus's attack with a grunt and grimace of his own, displeased that his attempt to blitz Kira out of the picture had failed. Now Kira was all tangled up with Phlegethion, and noah couldn't be sure of a clear shot with either pistol, even at this range. If he struck Phlegethion with the dart, it would all be wasted, and if he shot her with the plasma pistol, then he might not get a second shot, as Kira would be up and moving almost instantly. No, better to let his guardian Dragon deal with cousin Kira, while Noah made sure to secure the true prize, hopefully without too much damage to her or the life within her. He lowered his pistols to his sides and turned his baleful gaze full upon Lacus, who met it with a grim stare of her own, their eyes identically washed out to metallic hues as they lashed out at each other with abandon, grimacing and squinting as they absorbed or deflected bursts of mental energy designed to inflict various delerious effects. Noah tred to shut down her brain, in effect sending her into a deep coma like sleep, like what he'd done to Katie, while Lacus kept hammering at his control of his physical body. She wasn't as strong as she had been in space, and her inexperience with her powers was beginning to tell.

Phlegethion darted its jaws down towards Kira's neck, and only barely missed as he convulsively heaved the dragonform up and away from him, leaving its metallic teeth clashing less than an inch from the flesh of his throat. The tail continued to hammer at his legs and lower torso, causing Kira to grunt and groan as he absorbed the battering stoically, unable to divert a moment's concentration lest the dragonform tear open his neck or rake open his bowels. He could feel a foreign substance entering his body from the shallow grazes the hind legs had inflicted, obviously some form of drug or poison coated the claws and fangs of his opponent, but where most Naturals or Coordinators would be curled up spasming with convulsions from the toxins, Kira merely felt a little nauseous and a few slight muscle cramps, as his high powered immune system ruthlessly combated the poison. The dragonform bit at him again, and Kira was forced to jerk his head and neck to the side as much as possible, though he failed to entirely avoid the attack, and the poison coated razer fangs bit deeply into the muscle of his right shoulder, grating into the bone with crisp little noises. He couldn't help himself, he screamed in agony.

Hearing Kira's distress struck Lacus like a lightning bolt channeled through every fiber of her mind and body. Her truncated hair swirled in a breeze that did not exist, and her eyes, already dire, became positively deathly, even to the point where Noah felt a quiver of true fear ripple through him. He felt small, and vulnerable, like a child who had just been caught being very naughty indeed. However, it wasn't him that Lacus lashed out at, no, she turned her full attention upon Phlegethion, who was about to capitalize on Kira's wound by gnawing entirely through his shoulder, and then letting blood loss weaken her opponent to the point where she could deliver the coup de grace by incinerating his entire upper torso with her flame breath. The dragon/girl was actually smiling, mentally, happy that she had been able to fufill her master's desire. That smile faded when she became suddenly aware of Lacus's undivided attention. Fear was not an emotion Noah had really included during his transfer of Phlegethion's guiding intelligence, except for a fear of not making him happy. Nonetheless, Phlegethion definitely experience a very strong upwelling of trepidation, like she would feel if she ever willingly broke one of Noah's rules, and she instinctively cowered, like a puppy fearing a rolled up newspaper. Her jaws released Kira's shoulder, and if she could have, she would have whimpered.

A part of Lacus actually felt somewhat guilty at the distress she was causing the poor dragon/girl, who obviously hadn't chosen to become a mostly machine/part human monstrosity, or at least had been manipulated into choosing it, but she ruthlessly quashed that guilt. Regardless of the past history of this girl, she was at the moment threatening Kira's life, and that could not be borne! Her child would not grow up fatherless, not if Lacus had any say in the matter at all! The dragon/girl had almost no mental defenses at all, and locking down her control of her surrogate body was the work of a mere thought, as Lacus sent the girl's incomplete consciousness spiralling away into a very deep sleep, deeper even than a dreamless coma, practically to the point of death. If Phlegethion had been in a human body, Lacus's attack would have killed her, as her brain would have been unable to regulate her heart and lungs in the state it was in. As things were, the dragon/girl was well out of the fight, at least for the moment. The black dragon's body stiffened and then relaxed, collapsing down inert on top of Kira, who wasted no time in rolling it off his body and scooting away, left hand pressed to his ravaged shoulder.

However, Lacus's attack did have the downside of diverting her attention away from Noah, and he did not waste his opportunity to blindside her as hard as he could, locking out her control of her body and sending her to her knees, jerking and twitching as she fought to stay conscious. He pressed harder, enraged by what she had done to Phlegethion, and stopped her heart and lungs in midbreath and beat. She could resist all she wanted with her mind, without oxygen flow to her brain, she would succumb in a few minutes! Some damage might occur, but he was confident he could repair her to a usable extent. All he really needed, when it all came down to the nitty gritty, was a figurehead who was undeniably Lacus Clyne. He would prefer her whole, but if she had to be damaged, then so be it! He was so focused on putting her down once and for all that he discounted Kira for a moment or two, and that was all it took. A solid knee to his stomach and a roundhouse right punch to his jaw sent Noah sprawling, seeing stars and feeling like he had broken his jaw, spitting blood and even a tooth chip! Taking his attention back to Kira in order to freeze him up again meant losing control of Lacus, who half collapsed, gasping for breath while she held her chest, but not down and out!

Lacus fumbled her way to her feet and staggered over to where Kira was lying on his face like a log, his own bodily control stolen from him once more, to the point where his own chest was not rising or falling, and his heart was stilled. She reached down into his mind and channeled her own anger and determination into him, shattering Noah's invisible bonds like they were made from glass crystal and returning control of Kira's body to him, even as she all but tripped over him and fell across him, both of her hands pressed hard to his torn up shoulder, which was bleeding relatively profusely. They slowly helped each other to their feet, even as Noah was recovering from Kira's full out punch to the face a few feet away, a few seconds of peace as each side gathered themselves for the next assault. Noah was in better physical shape than Kira and Lacus, despite his aching jaw, but now they were together, connecting physically and mentally in a union that was stronger than the sum of its parts.

Lacus's next strike sent the recovering Noah down to his knees, his ears ringing with sound that had come from nowhere and would not retreat no matter how he shook his head. The follow up attack turned the ringing into a pulsating vibration that felt like his skull was shaking apart from the inside! Her strength had just suddenly tripled, and he was starting to get a handle on why! He didn't know how it was possible, but somehow, someway, the presence of Kira, the direct physical connection between her hands and his shoulder, was endowing Lacus with an extra reserve of power like nothing Noah could even hope to muster! It was all he could do to remain conscious at the moment, and that was largely due to her inexperience... her blows were tremendously powerful, but largely undirected, wasting a significant portion of their force. He shifted to a near total defense, making his mind slippery like ice, and the vast majority of her strength simply slid off him to no effect, like a hand trying to pick up a greased marble. What was left was still enough to keep his ears ringing, but he bore that with gritted teeth as he clambered back to his feet and faced them down.

"Stop fighting." Lacus half ordered, half mumbled, her body aching and her mind weary as she continued to hammer at Noah's frustratingly hard to hit mind with all her might. "You can't beat both of us together. You will wear out before I do. I don't want to hurt you any more than is absolutely necessary! But if you make me, I will do to you what I did to your poor dragon."

"I have no doubt you eventually will. However, much like finding a counter for Green EDEN, it is not of matter of can you, but do you have the time to do it!?" Noah retorted through gritted teeth. "Your mental strength is simply astounding, and whatever Kira is doing to aid you is beyond my understanding. Apparently there is far more to Latents than I knew! This is a matter that will bear much further investigation at a later time! But while the mental battle is tilted in your favor, I think you will find I have the fortitude to bear up under your laughably ill aimed attacks for more than long enough to decide things in a physical manner!" Noah's gritted teeth slowly resolved into a pained smile. "What will happen first, do you think? Will you overwhelm me? Or will blood loss claim Kira? That shoulder wound is rather nasty. Phlegethion did quite a number on him. He will bleed out if you don't get him medical help soon, Ultimate Coordinator or not! I believe that the moment he falls will be the moment you fall as well, Lacus. You know you are no match for me alone!"

"I will be fine. This is just a flesh wound. I've hurt myself worse than this many times before." Kira said, somewhat unsteadily, his injured hand clamped to his injured shoulder, pressing down on Lacus's hands, slightly stemming the blood flow, but his shoulder was torn up worse than mere hand pressure could contain, and both he and Lacus knew it. His right side was a tangle of wet red lines from shoulder to knee, and the ground beneath him was damp and red. "Frost has hurt me worse than this several times. Hell, even your flunky Randolf did more than this during our little talk, and I walked that off!"

"Yes, but I doubt I'll be providing you with Curaga laced bandages this time, Kira. Funny you should bring up good old Randolf and your interview though. It reminds me that there is another option, and no need to wait. I'm sure you don't remember it, as you were only semi-conscious at best at the time, but during the process of reviving you from his attentions, we took a certain sample from you, for future purposes. Purposes like this one." Noah said darkly, raising up his left hand and pointing the dart pistol at Kira. His hand wasn't exactly steady, but at less than ten feet, there was no way he could miss. "If the blood loss doesn't get you, this certainly will. Goodbye, Kira."

"NO!" Lacus shouted, shoving Kira away from her and the line of fire as hard as she could, so hard she even stumbled after him as he fell sideways, even as he twisted himself away from the muzzle of the gun, trying to at least minimize the impact of whatever weapon Noah was aiming at him. There was no bang of a bullet, just a hiss of pressurized air, a loud "PFFT", and a green tufted hypodermic dart appeared as if out of thin air, its needle tip piercing the side of Lacus's neck. Kira only needed an instant to glance at the vicious looking green liquid filling the hypo to know he didn't at all want it in Lacus's neck, and he snatched the dart away less than a quarter second after it struck, hurling the glass cylinder away with all his might, shattering it against an outcrop of rock a few dozen feet away, spilling what looked like several ounces of the green fluid out onto the dirt. A single bead of blood welled from the place where the dart had struck, but that was it. Lacus twitched in shock as she stumbled to one knee, Kira next to her, and they exchanged frightened glances. There was a long second of stillness and then... nothing happened.

Shortly after that instant, they both flinched away from the sound of air crackling and splitting, as Noah fired a triplet of bright green plasma bolts from his right hand pistol and turned the rock and area around where the shattered hypo had fallen into molten slag, a twisted expression of rage and fear stamped on his normally impassive face. All that work, wasted! And not only wasted, but he'd shot Lacus! Of course, any of the toxin that entered her system wouldn't affect her... but her child was another story altogether! After all, half of it's genes were coming from Kira! Noah realized that he might very well have just murdered the first Neo Human, while still in the womb! He gulped, quite audibly, and then gulped again when both Lacus and Kira rotated their heads in unison to stare at him with abnormal intensity.

"What was in that dart?" Kira asked, slowly and clearly, as if speaking to a very slow person.

"D-don't worry about it." Noah half stammered, keeping them more or less covered with his beam pistol, his hand starting to shake quite visibly. "It was... was just a sedative."

"You were telling me goodbye just a moment ago." Kira refuted, almost politely. "WHAT... WAS... IN... THAT... DART!?"

"I feel fine." Lacus said softly, touching her neck with one bloodied hand. "Well, I don't feel any worse than I did before anyway." She stared at Noah, who was looking positively sickly, and found her stomach doing flip flops for reasons she could not quite name. It didn't feel like poison making her sick, not that she'd know how that felt... but she didn't hurt anywhere, not in any new ways certainly. It was just... he looked like something had just gone terribly, terribly wrong, and when someone who thought nothing of killing half the world's population to bring about a so called golden age, thought something was terribly wrong, that WAS cause for concern in her eyes.

"I said, don't worry about it. You got it out before it could inject." Noah wasn't sure if he was reassuring them or himself. "Believe me, she would be showing major effects if it had injected. She would not be conscious." Noah rattled off the lie, hoping it didn't sound as false to their ears as it did to his.

"I thought it was just a sedative. Now you're saying major effects? Tell me what was in the dart, Noah. Believe me, you do not want me to have to force the information out of you." Kira said coldly. "Not now, not when Lacus is pregnant. You have no idea how unhappy I will be if you have endangered our child. I could very easily forget my vow not to kill. Tell us what was in the dart, and tell us truthfully. Right now."

Noah knew he couldn't tell them the truth, because he believed Kira when he said he might forget his vow not to kill. Even though Noah was less than sure himself on what the injected toxin would do to Kira and Lacus's baby, he did know that telling them the dart contained a toxin genetically tailored to kill Kira would not go well for him. Neither of them were stupid, they would make the same connections about their child's genes as Noah had, and just as fast. He was armed with his beam pistol, yes. But they still had the mental advantage, and he knew as well as they that strong emotions could power up Newtype abilities. And he really, really didn't want to see them both fly into "my baby has just been murdered" rages. Not while he was at all close to them. "It was poison." Noah admitted at last. "A strong poison, strong enough to overwhelm even your immune system, Kira. A Coordinator, even an unascended Ultimate Coordinator, would already be dead if they had been injected with it. Seeing as Lacus is not dead, I say again, you got the dart out before it could inject. Or before it could inject a lethal dose anyway... I would strongly recommend getting her to a doctor quickly. A few doses of standard antitoxins should be more than enough to ward off any ill effects down the road."

"I said I feel fine." Lacus insisted, feeling Kira turn all cold and worried inside. "Your shoulder worries me more than that little pinprick."

"Regardless, we can't take any risks. Not now. Not when you're pregnant!" Kira replied firmly, if wearily.

"I should have kept that to myself..." Lacus mumbled, knowing full well she never could have. They both looked up to see Noah warily backing away from them, beam pistol still more or less pointed at them, or their general area. "Where do you think you're going? Do you think I'm just going to accept you shooting me, or trying to shoot Kira full of poison!? Not even mentioning how you tried to kill us with your mental abilities earlier. I don't like hurting people, or fighting... but you tried to murder me, and the man I love most in this world. If you surrender RIGHT NOW, I won't do anything more to you than make sure you get a fair trial. But do not push my generosity an iota further, Noah Borander! If you take one more step, I will drop you in your tracks, and whether or not you survive the experience won't bother me at all!"

"The longer you dither here, threatening me, the greater chance you have of suffering a delayed effect from the poison. Believe me, I designed it myself specifically to kill an ascended Ultimate Coordinator. You do not want to mess around with even a tiny portion in your system. Think of your child... its no longer just your own life in your hands. Each minute could be the difference between life and death for the both of you." Noah replied over his shoulder. "Maybe you could stop me in my tracks, maybe you can't. All I know, is that if you try, I will make sure I resist long enough to ensure neither of you will leave the island either... Kira because of his shoulder, and you because of that toxin. A mutual kill scenario suits neither side here."

"He has a point. I hate it, but he does." Kira said, his eyes fighting for focus as he felt all his strength draining from him, out of his shoulder. _I'm on my last bit of energy here, my love. I need to stop this bleeding, or else you're going to be lugging my heavy body all the way over to the Seraph, and I probably won't be in any condition to fly either. And we need to get you looked at by a doctor as soon as possible. I didn't see much of that poison, and you don't seem to have been affected, but it could just be a matter of time. I can't take that risk! Not now! Not ever, but especially not now!_

_We can't just let him go though! What he's doing... what he's done... its..._

_Its nothing we can affect right now. Even if we captured, or killed even, him right now, its as he said. It would only slow his plans down a little. Come to think of it, we NEED to take him alive, somehow. He knows a way to counter this Green EDEN, even if it is imperfect! We need that knowledge if we're to have any hope of reversing this insanity! And right now, there is no way we can take him alive! A mutual kill serves him far better than it does us!_

"If you are quite done, I will be going." Noah told them, recognizing the signs of a mental conference, even if he couldn't do one himself. He stowed his beam pistol and the empty dart gun back in his sleeves, and strode, somewhat unsteadily and not at all quickly, over to where Phlegethion was lying in an inert heap. It was something of a struggle gathering his fallen guardian up in his arms, since he hadn't really designed them to be easy to carry, but he managed. It wasn't like he could just leave her there for them to reverse engineer, even interrogate! Besides, he owed her his life, and really had quite a bit of affection for her as one of his primary Guardians. Besides even that, he was sure he, or Meyrin, was going to need as much protection as possible at some point in the future, and guardians like Phlegethion did not just pop out of thin air! Well, not in the production manner anyway. "This isn't how I wanted this to turn out, you know."

"All things considered, I don't see how it could have turned out any other way." Lacus retorted acidly. "This is not over, Noah. You have not won yet. You will not win either. You say there is no hope, but that more than anything Kira and I have ever done, is a self delusion!"

"We shall have to see." Noah answered calmly, or perhaps resignedly. "Keep your faith. I will trust to the irrefutable logic of my science. We shall see which wins in a few months." Noah began ascending the stairs to his shuttle, before looking back one more time once he was at the doorway. "At least you understand now, if not in the way I wanted. I don't feel quite so lonely anymore." And with those words the stairs receeded behind him and the door hissed shut, followed shortly thereafter by a storm of grit as the VTOL engines lifted the shuttle into the sky, where it shimmered and disappeared behind its Mirage Colloid and then roared off to the north and east, quickly passing the sound barrier. Left behind were too confused but definitely resolute people, who now did understand. They understood that it was now, even it hadn't been before, a fight for their very existence. And that was the kind of fight they could both actually appreciate.

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"You look like shit." Dearka commented with a falsely jovial expression on his face, as he wheeled the gurney bed that Kira was lying on out of his recuperation room, moving it down the halls to where Lacus's room was. The doctors insisted that they both needed time to recuperate alone, but Dearka knew damned well that unless Kira and Lacus could be within sight and preferably touching range of each other, especially at a time like this, they would be positively miserable, mental communication notwithstanding! And it was tough to get better quickly when you were feeling miserable. And they really, kinda sorta badly needed them both to get better as quickly as possible, given the current world situation. "I think we've said this before, but going down to meet him by yourselves... thats a real, um, YOU decision. And you know what I mean by a "YOU" decision, right?"

"Very, very stupid in retrospect." Kira supplied tiredly. "But what other choice did we have? We had to know what he was up to."

"I'd almost prefer not to, right now." Dearka replied queasily. "Bad enough what Blue Cosmos or the Isolationist's wanted to do, mucking about with the genetics of the entire human race is just totally beyond the pale! Bad enough when he was just a religious nutjob... knowing he is actually bringing about the apocalypse, or basically so, is not happy making." Dearka rolled the gurney for a few steps in silence. "So how's your hand anyway?"

"Hurts less than my shoulder." Kira replied at once, with a pained grin.

"Given that your shoulder was ripped wide open and bitten down to the bone, that's not telling me much. And are you actually serious when you say that painkillers don't affect you?" Dearka said, again trying for lightness.

"I wish they did. See, theres one disadvantage to being an Ultimate Coordinator." Kira didn't chuckle. It wasn't funny. His entire right side felt like it was on fire. Even Dearka couldn't really muster a smile. "Really, I can barely feel my left hand at all. Its almost worrisome."

"Well, the doc's say the damage isn't actually that bad. I mean, they groaned about how messy the surgery was, but after being told that the surgery had been performed in less than a minute using a combat knife, they were somewhat less critical. They even say they might be able to grow the fingertips back, eventually, though it is doubtful that you'll regain full functionality or sense of touch with them." Dearka nattered on, not wanting to let the silence build too much. Silence led to them each thinking about things they didn't want to think about. "About time you acquired yourself a little handicap, ya know. I mean, fighting in a Mobile Suit might actually be a challenge again, for a little while."

"I can't afford that and you know it. Not now." Kira said grimly. He was worried about how his injury was going to affect his piloting skills now. In the past he'd half jokingly prayed for some sort of injury that would keep him from ever having to pilot a Gundam again... now his performance was going to be merely impeded, and it was making him upset! Well, times change, he supposed, and now was a time when he was actually glad for his combative skills. He was going to need them. The world was going to need them. Kira shook his head and dragged his thoughts from the morose path they were going down. "What about the others? How is everyone else doing? I haven't been able to hear much, since I've been here at this hospital pretty much since we got back."

"Well, Ysak and Katie aren't doing too bad, I guess. They didn't suffer any major injuries despite one helluva scare from that Blue Stuff. They're off spending time with Alkire and Raine." Dearka paused a few moments. "Tell me straight... did he actually blow off his own leg with a shotgun?"

"He saved Lacus and me first, THEN blew off his leg with a shotgun. And he was joking about it." Kira shook his head in amazement. "I only wish I was that tough. And before you ask, yes, Raine did kill Lieutenant Neumann. It was... a mercy, I guess."

"That really sucks." Dearka commented, a tad unnessecarily. "And the Chief too. That really hit everyone hard. The Chief can't be fucking dead!" Dearka brushed at his own freshly moist eyes. Chief Murdoch had been like a bigger brother to him. Or a friendly uncle. Or some sort of relation, anyway. He'd been like that for all the Gundam pilots. And now he was gone. Forever.

"How is Cagalli?" Kira asked, a sense of dread building inside when Dearka did not immediately reply.

"Uhhhmmmm... she's about as good as could be expected." Dearka hedged at last.

"That bad?"

"Worse." Dearka saw no point in hiding the truth from Kira. It was a bad thing, all around. "I don't think I need to tell you how close she and Colonel Kisaka were. I mean, hell, he practically raised her. Had at least as much time around her as her father. Probably more. They went through a lot together. More than I know about certainly. And she didn't even get to say goodbye, ya know? She just wakes up, with a hole in her cheek, and wonders where the hell he is... and nobody wants to tell her. She knew, I think, the moment he wasn't there when she woke up, and when nobody would tell her where he was. Still... when Waltfeld told her... man, I don't ever want to have to hear that kind of news. You could just see the hole ripped right through her."

"And Athrun?"

"Oh, he's with her, of course. Still stuck in a wheelchair for the next few days, but I don't think he dares be anywhere else but with her. Kira, I don't know how to put this, but I have never seen Cagalli look this bad. I am really scared, my friend. Really scared. She is not well in the head right now. She won't talk to people! She just sorta stares off into the distance, and cries. A lot. She's broken inside, and it ain't something the doctors can fix. I mean, she seemed to be doing so well, after what the Brotherhood did to her... but now, I dunno. I think she may have just been putting on a good act before. The drug was bad enough... losing Kisaka and the Archangel like that... that's a hell of a one-two punch! Not even getting into the life and death fear she must have had when the Blue Stuff dripped on her cheek!" Dearka shivered all over, queasy again just at the thought. "I don't know what else to say. Get better fast, Kira. Cagalli really needs as much help as possible right now. Orb needs her, and she can't provide right now."

"And what about the overall situation?" Kira asked, as they turned a corner and headed down another long hallway.

"Well, its basically fucked, I wish I could say different, but I can't. We lost a large portion of the Armada. Call it eighty percent, though the exact number is still being decided. Close to fifty thousand confirmed dead, and it keeps getting bigger. The Eternal is gone. The Archangel is gone. The Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess are gone. The Seraph and Vorpal are going to be in refit for days. The Warmaster is doing okay, but by itself its not much help. Orb lost big to that Blue Stuff. We only have one or two Izumi class ships still working, and over two thirds of our Mobile Forces are down for the next while, if not gone for good. I hear that they're assembling a new Dawn Goddess and Phoenix King from spare parts, but it's going to be at least a week or so before we have anything like a functioning Gundam squadron, and maybe longer before we have pilots to crew it!" Dearka reported with a wince.

"The ALU is especially fucked. Their military is in a shambles right now, and thats the best that can be said for them. The FNE is doing better, though they are still smarting big time from all the losses. Same for ZAFT. And the USN is running around like a chicken with their heads cut off and their feet in a fire. The Secretary-General has declared a state of emergency, though thats kind of a no brainer. Durandel is still alive and kicking, though I'm not sure whether to be happy about that or not. He's trying to get some sort of plan together to deal with the Great Endeavor, but it's slow going. Everyone's kind of in a panic right now, and the Brotherhood isn't just sitting around waiting for us to recover. I'm not sure what's going on over in North America, but from the sound of it, things are absolutely going to hell. Something about green clouds and people dropping like flies in the streets. I don't know what to believe. Another mass panic is on the rise though. We do have a fix on the Great Endeavor, although its not exactly hard to find, being more than a kilometer in diameter and walking around on hundred meter tall legs."

"Things are overwhelming all over. Its just too much information at once, too many big things happening at the same time. We're on the ropes, and that's the best that can be said for us. Nobody knows what's going on, nobody knows what to do, and nobody seems to have much of a plan for getting things organized. The entire world, the entire USN, is basically in the situation we were just after the Isolation kicked our asses five years ago. I wish I had some good news for you, Kira, I really do. But we're in a tailspin right now, and I don't see either the ground or the sky." Dearka summed up.

"I have some good news." Kira said with a slow smile. Dearka looked down at him enquiringly.

"Lacus and I are going to have a baby."

"WHAT!?" Dearka stumbled and almost tripped, almost slamming the gurney into the wall before he recovered himself. He stared at Kira, his mouth agape and his limbs trembling. "I mean... what the... how the... when the...!?"

"Those are all questions I asked too. Apparently she's about a month along, though she only found out recently. I didn't find out until after we were talking with Noah. I kinda looked like you do now, except worse." Kira kept his voice light and calm, though inwardly he was still trembling like jelly in a mixture of shock, supreme joy, fear and pure disbelief. It just didn't seem real. He, Kira Yamato, was going to be a dad! He was actually going to have a child! His heart and stomach felt like they were switching places, and he couldn't tell if he liked the feeling or hated it!

For his part, Dearka didn't know what to think. On one hand, he was overjoyed for Kira and Lacus, knowing as he did how hard they'd been trying for a baby, and the sort of worries they'd had. At the same time though, he was instantly and viciously reminded that HE was never going to have a baby, no way, no how. Not with current medical science. And that really made things bittersweet for him, at best. Kira seemed to sense this, because he was chewing his lip in slight constrenation. Dearka noticed, and pasted a smile on his face once more. "Oh, don't worry about me. I'm so glad for you two I can't properly express it. Man, I can't wait to tell everyone else... Katie and Ysak are going to shit bricks! We might even be able to get a reaction out of Cagalli!"

"He said he could cure ICD, you know." Kira said softly. Dearka stopped wheeling the gurney for a few moments.

"I don't want a cure from someone like that. Not if it means what you say it means." Dearka said at long last. "I keep hoping for a miracle... but I'm not accepting one from a devil. Maybe that makes me even stupider than you, but so be it. Fifty percent? Even five percent might be too much for me. There's a lot to life besides sex and children. Maybe I just want the best of both worlds, but I can't... I won't take that kinda chance with Miri's and mine future. Not if I have any choice at all. No... I got a lot of life ahead of me. I wanna be fixed now, but I can wait as long as need be. I know a cure will be found eventually. One that doesn't involve playing russian roulette with my life."

"I understand." Kira replied. "And being an Ultimate Coordinator isn't always as much fun as it seems either."

"That's another thing... could you imagine me, but psychic? The world would end. Ysak would throw himself off a bridge. I just can't commit a crime that serious. No way." Dearka chuckled at the image, though it really wasn't funny in retrospect. "All the same... that Green Stuff is spreading pretty rapidly. Even if only half the people survive, hell, even if only one in ten survive... that's a lot of psychics. And I'm betting they aren't going to be happy. Besides everything else... what are we going to do about that?"

"I'll tell you when I get any sort of good idea." Kira promised.

"Yeah, you do that, man. You tell everyone, please. Ah, and here is Lacus's room. Now, the doc's said she had a clean bill of health, nothing but a bit of exhaustion and adrenaline shock. Certainly no exotic poisons running through her system, far as their tests could tell. No foreign biological matter at all even. I think you really did get that dart out before it could inject, god bless your reflexes. I think I'm gonna leave you two to get some rest while I spread the good news. God knows we need some good news."

"Yeah." Kira agreed. "But always, keep hope alive. We will not lose. I promise you that."

"I believe you."


	53. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 3

Author Note: Guess I am on a roll after all. At least a little bit. Two chapters, 3 days. Not bad. Hopefully this one answers some questions people have had about what else Green EDEN does. Of course, some information is repetitive, but I trust you understand why that has to be the case. As for one recurring comment in reviews, why didn't I make Kira go Seed mode... I guess I kinda forgot. Too much thinking on Lacus and Noah. I really intended for him to have been in a Seed mode that fight. And yes, Noah was still breaking him down, even in Seed mode. Because Kira's mental defenses are geared, more or less, towards protecting against Lacus like attacks. Brute force, those being the only kind he has any prior experience of. And while Noah can be pretty forceful, like one person said, his strength is his relative experience and finesse. And Kira is not so strong against that.

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"Yes, Mr. Secretary-General, I understand what you are saying, but you need to listen to me as well! I am the expert here, if not completely, at least compared to you!" Durandel rubbed at his forehead with one hand, glad that it was a voice only comm, so he could display his frustration and weariness without having to worry about offending the man who was, at least technically, his boss. "And what I am telling you, sir, is that this is not something that can just be labeled and fit into one of our pre-existing emergency response scenarios! We have to throw out everything we had planned, because a disaster on this scale is simply unprecedented! We are dealing with something that combines the worst aspects of a military defeat, a terrorist incident, and a natural disaster! Responding to just one facet of the situation will only result in the problem becoming worse!" Durandel opened his mouth to say more, but was cut off by an altogether waspish and unfriendly stream of comments from the other end of the line. He put his hand over the mouthpiece and sighed, rolling his eyes over at Rey, who was compiling a data analysis on the other side of the small private briefing chamber they were currently using as a control center.

"Yes... yes, I understand... yes... yes I know civilians are dying. They are my people too, sir. Yes, mass panic is very likely. Yes, we aren't prepared. I agree completely sir, it is my fault in part. But blaming people isn't going to solve the problem right now!" Durandel paused and waited out another brief tirade. "If that is how you really feel, sir, then we should just slit our throats right now, because it would be faster and less painful. I didn't think so. I apologize for being rude, sir, but we can't go to pieces now. Especially not people like you and me. Yes. Yes, I am working on it as hard as I can, and if you will permit me to say, these phone calls aren't helping much. Yes. Yes, sir. I will have a briefing for you before noon. Earlier. Yes. Yes sir, I have my very best people working around the clock. Thank you sir. I will talk to you later." Durandel hung up with a much louder sigh. "Politicians." He said in exasperation, to no one in particular.

"If I'm one of your best people, then we are in a lot of trouble." Rey said with a brief smile. "I don't know what to do, or make of this, I'm sorry to say. It's just... too much, too fast!"

"Damn Noah for his ghastly abilities to overwhelm us with the unexpected." Durandel acknowledged wearily. "All the same, we can't just give up. Not now. Not when we are so close to a golden age for humanity." He looked over at Rey, and smiled briefly himself. "I'm glad to see you focused on the task at hand, even if it is rather problematic. When I was your age, I would have been daydreaming by now. Perhaps about a certain young lady." Durandel was gratified to see Rey actually flush a little bit. Looked like Talia was right. And that was not a problem at all. If anything, it was a sign of hope, and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Even in the darkest of times, when everyone was so busy and fighting for their lives, love and romance could still blossom. It was quite the beautiful thing.

"I don't know what you mean, Gil." Rey replied, somewhat stiffly.

"Rey, believe it or not, but I have been infatuated with more than one or two women during my life. When I was your age, it was almost a monthly obsession. Its nothing to be ashamed of. Its quite heartening, even, perhaps especially at the moment. Take your happiness where and when you can get it, my son, because the rest of life won't be so obliging." Durandel advised. Moment of levity passing, he adopted a more serious mein and nodded at the analysis Rey was working on. "So what do you have so far?"

"Not much." Rey heaved a heavy sigh of his own. "I'm starting to recall more details about the Great Endeavor, but the more I remember, the more hopeless it all seems. Now that he's on Earth, Noah's position is basically the strongest it has ever been. We've plotted his likely route, and he looks to be directly hitting or at least closely passing as many major population centers as he can while circumnavigating the globe. That is going to make striking at the Great Endeavor inherently dangerous, in terms of collateral damage. If we go in with full force, that is, a barrage of strategic level weaponry, we might... MIGHT be able to stop him. But we would lose a city or two in the process. Tens of millions of civilian casualties, at the minimum. Perhaps hundreds of millions affected by fallout and secondary effects. But if we go in with anything less, we stand a relatively good chance of being dismantled almost completely in a military fashion. The recent battle hit everyone hard. The largest losses in a single battle since World War One. Everyone sent the cream of their crop to the Armada... and over eighty five percent of them are just plain gone."

"At least we managed to deal heavy blows to his own military forces at the same time. We annihilated his mass production forces, and took that blasted Revenant out of the picture for good!" Durandel half argued. He neglected to mention it was the Clyne Faction that had done most of the annihilating and taking out, but that was how he was spinning it to the media, and it helped when doing that if you actually somewhat believed it yourself. Durandel frowned when Rey started shaking his head almost at once. "What?"

"The only loss Noah suffered was the Revenant. That is the only pilot he lost. Losing machines means nothing to him." Rey answered quietly. "Look at this." He called up an image on his computer screen. The picture was hazy, and tinged with what looked like greenish static all across it, but it was clear enough. There wasn't much to see... a large stretch of flat plains, pockmarked by a series of huge, roughly circular craters punched into the ground in a repeating pattern. A scale popped up over one such crater, and Durandel's eyes widened as he saw it was most of fifty meters across and a good fifteen meters deep.

"What are those!? Explosion craters? I thought we had pulled back all major forces from the line of advance..." Durandel protested.

"Those are footprints, Gil. Of the Great Endeavor." Rey clarified, somewhat unnessecarily. "If you look closer you'll see the bottom of each crater is actually filled with a mixture of rubble and fine particulate. Those craters actually go down another ten to twenty meters, they just backfilled when the Great Endeavor shifted position."

"You're right. What's it mean?" Durandel asked.

"From what I recall, the Great Endeavor's support legs each contain a modified form of the sonic weapon the Tormented was equipped with. However, this time it is used in a much more industrial manner, rather than military. When it places its foot down, it sinks into the ground, and the sonic device activates, pulverizing the earth and stone around the bottom of the foot, rendering it down into a fine sand or powder. That powder is then sucked up into the leg and transferred deeper into the rest of the SATMARS, where it is put to use as raw materials for the construction of new war machines or other supplies." Rey reported.

"But its just sandy grit. You can't make anything important out of sandy grit." Durandel pointed out.

"We can't." Rey said grimly. "Noah doesn't seem as handicapped. I don't know how he's done it, but its the only even slightly rational explanation I can come up with. Noah has managed to master a cost effective form of transmutation of matter on a large scale."

"Transmutation of matter? Lead into gold... that sort of rubbish died out in the middle ages!" Durandel scoffed. "That's impossible. Even if it WERE possible, the energy requirements would be..."

"Well in line with what we have seen the Great Endeavor is capable of producing." Rey finished quietly. "A lot of what Noah has already done would have been considered impossible a few years ago. Hell, a few weeks ago! Like I said, I have no idea how he's done it, but he has. We have to face that he has. And my most conservative rough estimate says with the amount of materials he is pulling in, assuming he has anything like an efficient conversion ratio, we could be looking at three or more mass production models being produced every DAY! Perhaps more. In less than a month he will have rejuvenated his forces completely, even increased them from what we just recently encountered!"

"The clock is ticking then." Durandel mused. "The longer we wait to attack, the stronger his defenses will become. We have to strike while he is weak. I'll get an assault plan started right no..."

"No. That's what he wants." Rey interrupted quickly, halting Durandel as he reached for the phone.

"What?" Durandel frowned at his son.

"Noah knows that I'd be able to give you this kind of insight into his situation. I would be very surprised if he hasn't already accounted for it. Even hoped for it. He is weak, yes, but he is still too strong for us to just haphazardly rush, especially after the casualties we have just taken. Another major loss will be the end of any sort of unified strategy... people will lose faith in the ability of the USN to stand up to the Brotherhood. Our next attack HAS to beat him, and beat him utterly. Rushing to assault him while he appears weak is only going to end with us getting another bloody nose." Rey insisted. "Damn the bastard, but he's not a fool. He's smarter than both of us, perhaps combined. He wants us to attack him as soon as possible, I'd bet my life on it. He's putting the pressure on us from the political side with the attacks on civilians, and he's tempting us on the military side with a show of weakness. It's too good of a situation. I just don't buy it. He's got something planned."

"More of that Blue Stuff?" Durandel said darkly, his fists clenching at the horrid and fresh memories those words conjured up.

"I don't think so..." Rey said hesitantly. "From what we saw, the only good way he had of disposing of it was through use of his Anti-matter weapons. And using those on Earth would cause untold environmental damage. And Noah loves the environment. He won't damage it if he has any choice in the matter."

"Well, at least that's one thing we don't have to worry about then." Durandel said with a sigh of relief.

"Sort of." Rey hedged, once more cutting Gil off from a brief moment of satisfaction. "He probably won't chance using them where they could strike the ground, but as anti-air and anti-orbit weapons, he would definitely use them. I'd thought to put a squadron of Nazca's and Agamemnon's in geo-synch orbit and have them pound the shit out of him, at least as an annoyance tactic, but then I realized that our ships are just plain more vulnerable than his, and we currently lack another Mirrorblade System. The amount of damage we would inflict would not be worth losing as many ships and crews as we would."

"Damn it, isn't there anything he hasn't accounted for!? I feel like I've been played from the beginning! Like I'm just a rat wandering lost in a maze he set up for me!" Durandel groused.

"We have to do something illogical. He's a very intellect and logic driven person, or at least he tries to be. He'll have plans for anything that anyone reasonable would do. So we need to do something unreasonable." Rey said slowly. "Something like just sitting back and letting him make his little sailing trip, at least for the meanwhile."

"We can't do that, Rey. The public is in a frenzy. If we just sit back and watch, we'll all be impeached, and maybe lynched." Durandel rubbed at his forehead again, feeling a migraine coming on.

"I don't mean just sit back and do nothing. I meant don't fight him. Don't impede him. Don't get in his way. Don't even get near him, not with any sort of threatening force. He wants us to fight him. He NEEDS us to fight him, because if he doesn't break our resolve in some way, he knows we will eventually beat him. Sending anything less than everything we have at the Great Endeavor is probably doomed to failure. Failure we cannot afford. So instead of going on the attack, we focus our efforts elsewhere. We return to the peacetime mission of the military forces. Disaster relief and public security... not from outside threats, but from internal problems. And in the meanwhile we have time to evaluate our options more fully, let our troops recover some, let the public outrage inflame our morale, and maybe even come up with a few last ditch technical surprises to tip the balance in our favor. He is not invincible, especially if we don't fight him on his terms." Rey continued, getting more excited as he rolled on.

"You may be on to something here, Rey. Good job." Durandel complimented his son, his leonine eyes shining as he turned the germ of an idea over and over in his mind, and found himself agreeing that it made good sense. It would definitely cut down on the screaming tirades from the Secretary-General, and he was heartily sick of those already. He'd make a world leader out of Rey yet, if this was any indication. "Speaking of disaster relief..." Durandel turned to a vid-screen and opened a channel. The picture, when it resolved, showed a white and clean sterile labratory, deep in a secured bunker in the Atlantic Federation, the old island of England. Figures clad in bulky silver and white full body containment suits shuffled slowly around, peering through thick faceplates at glass canisters of faintly green tinged air, or specimens of plant and animal life, and eve two seperately sealed and covered gurney's with comatose human bodies on them. One of the researchers looked up at the wall and waved awkwardly at the SecDef, before waddling over to attach a wire cord from his helmet to a sterile wall jack.

"Mr. Secretary, I was waiting for you to call." The scientist's voice was somewhat hoarse and raspy, as if he was out of breath. Or perhaps a chain smoker. Or maybe, given how he was shuffling his feet and twitching his arms, just terribly excited.

"Dr. Braun, please tell me you have good news. We could really use some good news right now." Durandel replied politely. He turned to Rey. "Rey, this is Doctor Emilio Braun, formerly of the Eurasian Federation Biological Weapon's Research and Disposal Deperatment. Which never officially existed, of course. Since Biological and Chemical weapons are, of course, banned."

"And we all know what banned meant to Blue Cosmos." Dr. Braun said, almost cheerfully. "You might as well have painted a big "use this, it's really horrible" sign on those kinds of weapons. But I digress. I'm not sure if the news I have is good news, Mr. Secretary, but I do have news. Of course its all still very early on... even the earliest subjects have only been contaminated for about half a day by now, but that in itself tells us quite a lot! Whatever this is, it is not a fast acting agent. This is a good thing, in many respects. It means that light exposure could most likely be treated in the field, or at least prevented from reaching symptoms, with proper medical care. Believe me, the fast acting agents really can send a chill down your spine... some of them can kill you before you realize you're dead. This, thankfully, is not one of those."

"What kind of... agent... is it?" Rey asked.

"That I do not know, Mr. Knight-Commander. In many ways it behaves like a virus or bacterial plague, but it is also not alive. Yet it does seem to have some sort of life cycle... at the very least it can reproduce. Its very intriguing! Very exciting! We may be looking at something entirely new here. The possibilities could be phenomenal!" Dr. Braun could not hide the glee in his voice.

"Be that as it may, Doctor, we are looking for solid facts at the moment." Durandel steered the conversation back to the topic at hand. "We need to know what this... Green Stuff... does. We need to know what the signs of infection are. We need to know how long it takes to infect someone. What's the point of no return? Is there a cure? What can we do to prevent or limit the damage it does? Tens of thousands of innocent people have already been exposed, Doctor. Their lives could depend on what you can find out." Durandel made sure to stress the bit about tens of thousands of innocents. Hell, he probably should have said hundreds of thousands, if not millions. The Great Endeavor had not landed near any major population centers, but it was fast approaching the Eastern Seaboard of old Canada and the United States, and that was very densely populated. The Green clouds had already passed overhead in those locations, but had not yet drifted down to ground level, though people were watching the sky with great trepidation, despite the fact that the greenish mist was invisible in the pre-dawn dark.

"Well, I'll see what I can do." Dr. Braun sounded suddenly less gleeful. "I can tell you though, since this is something entirely new, something unprecedented, a quick response is... unlikely. We just don't understand the fundamental properties of this Green Stuff. We're still calling it Green Stuff, and we're the expert eggheads! We've looked at the inert samples from the PLANTS, and confirmed that they are the same as the activated samples from Earth, but that was not really a surprise. As for your questions... well, we're running into more unexplained things than we are explainable things. From what we've been able to discover, this Green Stuff attacks the genetic code of whatever it infects. And it can infect anything with a genetic code, from the smallest microbe on up to humans and the largest of animals and plants. It does not discriminate. I've never encountered something that virulent, that it affects literally every living thing it touches, even viruses!" Dr. Braun let that sink in, or not, for a few moments before continuing on.

"As for what we've seen of our human patients, the earliest signs of onset are dehydration, hunger, weakness and lack of energy. Of course, many people feel symptoms like those for thousands of reasons, so it may be very difficult to initially tell when someone has been infected. As the infection progresses, the symptoms will excaberate, to the point where the host will eventually be unable to maintain consciousness. And now is when things start getting serious. Both our patients recently entered the coma state, about two hours ago, give or take twenty minutes. It was more or less uniform in timing, but since they had both been exposed at the same time, that is not strange. As far as we can yet tell, stage two of the infection involves shutting down the host's auto-immune system... the part of your body that actively fights against infections. You could say it tears down the castle before attacking the town. Quite a dastardly tactic, if I do say so myself. Dr. Braun sounded faintly admiring, despite his words. "At the same time, the infection begins to attack the host's genetic code. We are still monitoring this stage, and we will let you know what we discover. At the moment though, as long as our subjects stay fed and hydrated, and hopefully sterile, they look to be in no danger of expiration."

"It's not deadly?" Durandel asked, brow furrowed in a frown.

"Oh no, it is highly deadly, Mr. Secretary. Anything that shuts down the auto-immune system is very life threatening. But only in a situation where your weakened body could be exposed to the cornucopia of pathogens, viruses, bacteria and other harmful life forms that surround us as we go about our daily lives. Here, in a contained environment, in a sterile lab, while hooked to life support machinery, those sorts of risks are not present, and so, at least so far as we have seen, that reduces the deadliness factor considerably. Of course, providing similar conditions in the field is going to be rather difficult." Dr. Braun's voice faltered somewhat as he made that rather astute and completely obvious observation. "However, I am not convinced that its purpose is to be deadly at all."

"What do you mean? It shuts down our immune system! How is that not intended to be deadly!?" Durandel replied, in shocked disbelief.

"Indeed, there is that." Dr. Braun allowed. "However, it takes more than five hours to do so. There is no need to take so long. Furthermore, its a rather... hit and miss method of mass death, in my professional opinion. A nerve or blood based toxin would do the job much more efficiently and easily, not to mention quickly. It is almost like the auto-immune suppression is a mere side effect. We just don't know at this juncture, I'm afraid. We will report events as they occur, but we are dealing with the very first cases here, Mr. Secretary. It's all unknown ahead."

"What about its effects on life other than human?" Rey asked, pointing over Dr. Braun's shoulder at some of the other specimen cases.

"Er, yes. Those." Dr. Braun hedged. "Let me refer you to someone more expert in that field. Magnus, if you would come assist me in rendering our findings to the good Secretary of Defense?" Another scientist shuffled over after a few moments, shorter and stockier than Dr. Braun, though it was hard to tell in the anti-contamination suits, clutching a large markerboard in his gloved hands. "Mr. Secretary, this is Magnus Oansson, doctor in Terrestrial Biology, from the Univeristy of Northern Europe."

"Dr. Oansson." Durandel inclined his head politely. "What do you have to say on this Green Stuff."

"I fucking hate it." Dr. Oansson growled, sounding even raspier than Dr. Braun. "Its breaking every fucking rule in the fucking book. Turning my entire world upside down and backwards. And call me Magnus. I get enough of that doctor shit back at school."

"I don't suppose you'd care to expand on that heartfelt though somewhat bland report, Magnus?" Rey prodded.

Magnus sighed, heaving his shoulders so heavily it was actually visible even through the bulky suit. "I'll be able to send you some video in a few hours, but this is a basic summary of what I've found out so far. Besides the fact that whatever this Green Stuff is, is breaking every rule of cross species contamination in the book... what affects a goddamn tree should NOT also affect a goddamn MONKEY... it is also eating up the entire encyclopedia of Evolutionary Biology and shitting it all over the fucking floor! I spent five years of my life practically fucking memorizing those volumes and now its all fucking useless to me!" Magnus muttered some more imprecations under his breath, too quiet for his helmet mic to pick up. He collected himself at last, and once more stared, morosely, at the SecDef on the wall screen.

"Its like this, Mr. Secretary. So far, nine out of ten of non-human exposures have resulted in the hosts dying from large scale bodily system failures in the ten or so hours immediately following exposure. I guess you could liken it to a car running out of fuel... and then exploding. They basically dessicate themselves to death... lack of nutrients in equals lack of energy to the body, plus a systemic drain of the hosts's stored bio-energy, resulting in organs just plain shutting down across the board, for lack of fuel. Still working out why the host's stored bio-fuel, including fats and most forms of stable sugars, is burned up so rapidly, because it doesn't happen in all cases. But the cases it does happen in... flatlines. Or withers, in the case of plants and fungi. If this same ratio holds true in the outside world, we could be looking at a near ninety percent loss of biodiversity across the entire FUCKING WORLD! And that, Mr. Secretary, is about as bad as bad news gets. Like, we all die off in a matter of months because there aren't enough plants converting carbon dioxide to oxygen bad. Which is what I want to say the situation is. But I just can't. Not yet."

"Why not?" Durandel asked, struggling to accept the enormity of what Magnus was saying. The Earth would die!? Well, not the Earth, but life on Earth... would die!? In a matter of months! From asphxiation!? It was impossible!

"Because of the one in ten that is surviving, Mr. Secretary. Not just surviving, but in the case of the plants and fungi anyway, but thriving! Thriving like I've never seen anything thrive before. We have them in special beds that are constantly pumped full of nutrients, to ensure their survival in this sterile environment, and the surviving organisms are just soaking up those resources like... like a sponge soaks water! Except these sponges don't seem to get waterlogged! And it's no wonder why... all that energy is being constantly used! Used to evolve. Its... its like nothing I've ever seen before! There's a rosebush that has gone through more than fifty generations of bulbing and sprouting in the last three hours! And there aren't even any insects in here to pollinate! It should not be possible, but the bush has ALREADY EVOLVED to the point of not needing insects to pollinate! It has adapted itself to this sterile environment in nearly REAL TIME!" Magnus waved his arms over his head in a mixture of anger and shock. "The law's of science as I know them say it cannot be done! It has just been fucking done!"

"What does this mean though?" Durandel pressed, not really making much of what had Magnus so excited.

"Mr. Secretary, I understand you are a geneticist of some note." Magnus said darkly. "Let me tell you this, maybe it will get across better what I am trying to say. This rosebush... it's genes are being manipulated in real time. And it's because of this Green Stuff. This Green Stuff is forcing this plant to evolve at an impossible rate, using up an insane amount of resources, pushing it towards some goal I can't fathom, adapting itself to its environment as it goes! It is changing it's genetic code on a fundamental level. This is no longer a rosebush, though it does bear superficial resemblances to one. It is something new. A new species, evolved out of the old. Hypercompetitive, hyperadaptable, resource efficient like you wouldn't believe, even as it pillages all the nutrients from the soil around it, perhaps preventing competition from other evolving organisms... its starting to choke out the other surviving specimens in the same plot. And here is the truly scary part... it's following a plan. It's targeting those furthest along in their own evolutions first, even though they are not the ones physically closest to it."

"Are you saying the rosebush is becoming sentient!?" Rey scoffed at the absurd idea.

"I'm saying, boy, that I don't know what's going on. And I am frightened by that. So should you be. Plants competing with other plants is nothing new... its a fact of life. They have a whole chemical war going on every day underneath the noses of us animals that we can barely even detect. But its never directed. Its not planned. It functions with the rules of cause and effect. A plant only kills its competitors if there is not enough resources to go around. Here, in a nearly unlimited resource environment, there is no reason for the aggressiveness of the biological warfare we see. Yet it is even more virulent than it is in the wild. And far more directed. That's all I'm saying. And the bush is still evolving, all at the same time. Should we be worried? Yes and no. I don't think oxygen is going to be a problem, even with ninety percent losses of biodiversity. What is going to be a problem is the ten percent of plants and fungi that are left over." Magnus said hoarsely. "And who knows what the fuck is going to happen with the animals. Or perhaps more importantly, with us. If the rosebush is evolving..."

"This is very disquieting news. I think we should keep this quiet for the moment." Durandel said after a long few seconds of deliberation. Rey had hinted Noah could manipulate genes after the fact of birth, since he had cured Rey's own genetic disease. But to think he could do something like that on a large scale... it didn't seem possible! Much less across all species of animals and plants and fungi... all life on Earth! It was simply too staggeringly big to take in, especially all at once! "People are already panicking. Telling them we might have something that causes unknown rapid evolution... mutation by any other word... is only going to send people into a demented hysteria! Civil order would break down in a matter of hours."

"We have to evacuate people as quickly as possible!" Rey stood bolt upright from his chair, his stomach sinking even as he did so, because he realized even as he said those words what a monumental task it would be. An impossible task. Evacuate entire cities? Entire nations? Entire cultures? The logistics would be beyond a nightmare... it would be hell on Earth! Civil order would be the least of their problems! An even more sickening thought occured to him though, striking like a lightning bolt of pure despair. "He's going to cover the entire Earth! This Green Stuff is self reproducing. It will spread on its own. And it will spread faster with him making more of it every second! Even if we stopped him right now, it might already be too late to stop the spread!"

"We will need to evacuate the Earth." Durandel said softly. There was a long moment of silence.

"W-w-what did you say, Mr. Secretary?" Dr. Braun stammered. "E-evacuate... evacuate the Earth!? That's absurd! There are sixteen billion people living on Earth!"

"Yes." Durandel sighed and closed his eyes, feeling like his entire soul had been drained from his body. "We will only be able to save a few. But that doesn't mean we should just give up! We will save as many as we possibly can, or more! The PLANTS, working under emergency conditions, should be able to get Epoch, Millenium and Centennial Cities at least minimally capable of supporting life in a month or so. We can support fifteen million people, maybe as many as thirty million if we pack them in like sardines, on each of those nine cities. The other cities should be able to accept another thirty to forty million refugees amongst them. The rest will have to come to the Moon."

"But... food! Water! Medical supplies! All of those come from Earth! Except for certain heavy and military industries, the Moon has no manufacturing capability, and even less food production ability!" Rey protested.

"I know!" Durandel hissed back at him. "I know Rey, I know. We shall have to take as much from the Earth as we can, while also removing as many people as possible. Damned if we do, damned far worse if we don't. Its like that old saying. If we go, there will be trouble. If we stay, it will be doubled. We have to go. No matter what we do, billions of people are probably going to die horrible deaths, and there is not a single damned thing anyone can do to stop it now. Not even Noah, not that he would. But this still does not mean that he has won! The Brotherhood will be made to pay for this! Noah will be made to pay for this, though the agonies one man can suffer are insufficient in the extreme to compensate for this wound he has inflicted upon all of humanity!" Durandel clenched his fists and gritted his teeth loudly enough to be audible. He was about to go on in that vein, quite overwhelmed with rage at the moment, regardless of the uneasy audience of scientists, when a knock on the door of the briefing room distracted him. "What is it!?"

"Uhm, well, sir... I have a report from the outskirts of Copernicus City, Mr. Secretary, sir." The messenger reported through the door intercomm. "There is a, uhm, a problem."

"What now?" Rey groaned. "Well, at least whatever it is, CAN'T be any worse than what's happening to Earth..." he muttered to himself under his breath. He adjusted his volume and called back through the door comm. "What sort of problem!? We are currently engaged in a strategy session of the highest importance. If this is not life or death for a large number of people, it can wait!"

"It's... uh... it's a Blue problem." The messenger reported, conscious of the many listening ears. No need to start a panic. Well, there was every need, but it wouldn't help. Ah hell, why sugercoat it? "Apparently some of that Blue Stuff that, uh, decimated the Armada... made it to the lunar surface. We currently have it contained... we think... but every attempt we have made to destroy it has failed. Spectacularly. Its only made the problem worse, actually. We're kind of at our wits end here. We were hoping you knew what to do." He was going to continue on in that nervous vein, conscious now of the eyes and ears all directed at him from the offices around the SecDef's strategy room, when the door to that room hissed open and the Knight-Commander of the Solar Knights stuck his head out, an expression of furious disbelief stamped on his young features.

"What did you just say!?" Rey demanded, his voice actually cracking a bit.

"There's a patch of Blue Stuff about fifty kilometers outside of Copernicus City's western edge. Some escape boat landed there after the battle, and, well, must have been contaminated. The boat's gone now... fell apart into Blue Stuff... and the patch is growing. More slowly now that we've stopped trying to destroy it, but definitely growing. We don't know what to do. What DO we do?"

"We pray for a miracle." Durandel's voice echoed out to them from inside the dimly lit room, like a groan escaping a tomb. "Because right now we need all the help God can give us."

---------------------------------------

"What're you looking at, buzzard?" Dylan asked, his tone a mixture between weariness and needling, as he stepped out onto one of the many sealed observation decks that ringed the circumference of the Great Endeavor. It was about as far from the main hub of quarters and control rooms and hanger and factory facilities as it was possible to go while remaining aboard the SATMARS. That meant it was quiet. Empty. You could hear someone coming from a long way away, if they weren't being stealthy. And the corridors leading to the various observation decks were uniformly straight for much of their lengths, like branches reaching out from a trunk, so with careful positioning and good eyesight, someone already on the deck could see other people coming from more than a hundred meters out. All in all, about as perfect a place for a surripetious meeting as could be found aboard the Brotherhood's fortress. Not that it was truly perfect... as far as anyone knew, there was no place on the Great Endeavor that was not within Noah's purview. However, this was as good as it got, and Noah had not been seen much of late, spending his time closeted in his Atrium, moping about as he waited for his sleeping beauty to wake up.

Randolf, for one, was hoping that the bastard was waiting in vain. It would serve him right, after all the shit he'd put everyone else through, especially Randolf himself! Kids... they always thought the world revolved around them! It wasn't until they gambled and lost something truly important that they really started to figure out that the world was a harsh, uncaring place, that had no place for wild, impossible dreams. Randolf folded his arms back across his chest, not even bothering to hide the fact that he was taking a hand off a sidearm, and turned back to staring out the transparent armor window that ran the length of the deck. The view, he did have to admit, was spectacular, in a "just before doomsday" sort of way. Every few seconds the floor would vibrate a little as the Great Endeavor lumbered another step forward, like some collossal land crab, but other than that barely dectable shiver, it was like he was just standing in a stationary building, more than forty five story's above the ground. In the far distance he could sea the glimmer of the Atlantic ocean, and the near distance was packed with the sky clawing architecture of modern day city sprawls, growing closer at what felt like a snail's pace but was actually a steady 10km/hr.

"I'm surprised you actually had the balls to show up, Dylan. Then again, I suppose this sort of thing is your stock and trade, so how could you not be here?" Randolf sneered, fingering the scrap of paper in his pocket that he had found lying on his chest when he woke up that morning. He shivered, slightly, knowing that someone had managed to break into his room, while he was in it, albeit sleeping and, without waking him in the slightest, place a note upon his chest and then leave again! And he was a Coordinator! And even for a Coordinator his hearing was sharpened to a razor edge, because of the loss of sensitivity in his eyes! The note had instructed Randolf to be at this observation deck at a certain time and place, for a "meeting of concerned minds". Apparently the "Great Prophet" wasn't quite as popular as he deluded himself into thinking. Randolf smirked bitterly. Well, that was what happened when you went around acting like you were god all the time, and making people dance like puppets, even hurting themselves, even killing themselves, just on a whim! It was about time some people got together to do something about it!

"This is not treachery. This is just a few people talking about something that concerns them." Dylan retorted. "Trust me, as you say, I am the expert. If this were full blown treason, we'd already have a plan. This is just a precursor stage." Dylan paused a few beats. "I take it you got a note too then? I'd be damn interested to know how whoever it was got into my room with me in it and none the wiser!"

"That'll have to stay a trade secret for the moment." A somewhat muffled voice replied from off to the side and behind both of them, causing them to whirl, Randolf's hand going to his gun, Dylan stepping back and preparing to flee, though, on second thought, there was nowhere safe to really run. Neither of them saw any figure to put the voice too... not until a section of wall panelling was pushed outward and to the side and Ashino wriggled out through the crack in the bulkhead thus made like some sort of muscular cavern worm. The wall panel snapped back into place and as hard as Dylan stared, he could not discern where the seam was that had allowed Ashino to pry it away from the adjacent panel. "Though I can assure you, there are quite a few more ways in and out of spaces aboard a ship than merely doors." Ashino added, perhaps a trifle smugly. "Especially if you're a bit on the short and flexible side."

"How long have you been back there!?" Randolf demanded. He did not like Ashino. Not very much at all. A little bit of research on his part had turned up some of Ashino's past, and it had not been pleasant reading. The little redheaded bastard was a BCPU... some sort of partial cyborg or something, designed by Blue Cosmos to exterminate Coordinators on the field of battle! As if that wasn't bad enough, but Ashino had even given Randolf grief personally... he'd been one of the three ambushers that had decimated Randolf's unit in the desert outside Gibralter those years ago, that had ended up with his life and his soul in tatters, and had directly contributed to his current predicament as an accomplice to a madman! Ashino was one of the men directly responsible for the shambles Randolf's life had become! And now he was one of Noah's new favored Apostles... called a partner even! Like he was equal, and not subject to commands! Randolf was half looking forward to seeing Noah take the starch out of the little punk with his damned mind tricks! His other half was just sickened, remembering very well what it was like to be under the influence of those same mind tricks!

"I was back there before you got here, Mr. Randolf. It would hardly do for me to call a meeting and then be the last one to show up, right?" Ashino replied with a slight shrug. "I wouldn't want anyone to try and set up an ambush for me, now would I? Not that we are, really, doing anything wrong... this is just a meeting of Apostles. But trust seems to be in short supply around the Brotherhood these days. At least those of us not swallowed by the mainstream religious mania." Ashino stared into Randolf's polarized sunglasses for a few heartbeats. "And you may keep your hand on your weapon if it comforts you, but if you try to draw it in my presence, I will show you no mercy, Coordinator." Ashino infused the last word with more than a smattering of disgust. Maybe it was just his old conditioning acting back up again, but his time aboard the Great Endeavor was really inflaming his dislike of Coordinators quite a bit.

"So what is the purpose of this meeting then? Are we just gonna sit around, hold hands, sing kumbaya and commiserate about how the world is going to hell because of us?" Dylan asked, slowly settling back into a relaxed state. Or at least as relaxed as he could manage these days. He'd really felt, of late, like there was a gun pointed at the back of his head pretty much all the time. It wasn't a feeling he enjoyed.

"Basically, but let's hold off until the final member gets here." Ashino answered. They waited in uneasy silence for about five more minutes, before nonstealthy footsteps from the passageway drew the eyes of Randolf and Dylan, and another faint smile from Ashino. He hadn't been entirely sure the last invitee was going to show up, given his peculiar circumstances... brainwashing, of a sort so powerful even Ashino was impressed, and he'd been worked on by the master brainwasher himself in his time! But apparently there was some part of this Shinn Asuka who hadn't been entirely subsumed into the chattel of Noah. Or so Ashino strongly hoped. Randolf and Dylan were one thing, but if he could get Shinn onto his side, he would truly have a power bloc capable of crippling the Brotherhood, if Noah didn't fufill his promises, which was starting to look like the far more likely conclusion of late.

Shinn entered the observation deck and blinked a few times, somewhat blearily, his eyes adjusting to the bright morning sunlight outside, versus the artifical illumination inside the Great Endeavor. His head was feeling really wooly, and he was still tired and achy as all hell, especially in his right arm, which felt like it had been sliced off and then hurriedly reattached! He didn't remember much of the end of the battle in space... lots of heat and red and blood and painful memories, but it was all mixed up into a confusing mental slurry that he couldn't, for the life of him, sort out. For that matter, he wasn't sure why the right arm in question was cocooned in bandages and salves, from just below the shoulder all the way down to his wrist, the wrap both stiff and flexible, keeping his arm mostly straight but allowing enough bend in his joints so that it wasn't a major handicap. Obviously he'd suffered some sort of battlefield injury... but he just didn't remember how or when! And whenever he tried to concentrate on remembering, his head started aching like red hot pins were being shoved into his brain!

"You invited HIM?" Randolf scoffed. "What's the point? He's just a lackey."

"We're all just lackey's, ya buzzard." Dylan pointed out, though he was somewhat perturbed at Shinn's presence as well. If any of them could be said to be actually loyal to Noah, the newest Apsotle was definitely it! "And not even particularly successful ones, in your and my case."

"His track record isn't exactly perfect either. Just look at what happened to him!" Randolf retorted.

"At least I actually stood up to my opponent, rather than getting rolled and tagged like a deer on a range!" Shinn spat back. "At least I think I did anyway. Everything's so hazy recently."

"None of us has much to be proud about, concerning that last battle." Ashino interrupted, before a pointless argument could occur. "We lost a Gundam, and all of our mass production forces."

"The mass production forces are a goddamn joke! Even with highly advanced technology, they barely break even against the rank and file of the USN!" Randolf scoffed again.

"Whereas you have a Gundam, and you can only beat those selfsame rank and file." Ashino answered calmly. "Any time you encounter an actual Gundam, you get your ass roundly kicked. You may have been a ZAFT commander at one point in your life, but now you're just a pathetic, bitter wreck of a man. But I don't entirely blame you for that. It's not all your own doing. Mostly yours, but not all."

"What would a manufactured product like YOU know about it?" Randolf grumbled, though he could not find it in himself to deny Ashino's accusation either. He was a wreck, and he knew it. A ruin, a spectre of what he once was. Haunted... how fucking apt it was! "I didn't see you destroying any Gundams. Hell, you helped destroy ours!"

"What would a "normal" person like yourself know about what is between us "manufactured products"?" Ashino countered cooly. "Cray and I were due a reckoning a long time before that. And as for destroying Gundams, perhaps not, but I did disable both the Dawn Goddess and the Phoenix King. I took both Cagalli Zala-Attha and Athrun Zala out of the fight for at least a few hours, if not days, before Noah rendered all our efforts moot and void!" Ashino let that hang in the air for a moment. "But we aren't here to accost each other over our accomplishments, or lack thereof, on the recent battlefield."

"I repeat then, why are we here?" Dylan asked, staring nervously out the window at the cities inching closer. He could see helicoptors and jets flying all over the sky, mostly fleeing away from the path of the Great Endeavor, and he knew that for every jet and helicoptor, there had to be a hundred cars and a thousand people on foot! "I don't really know about the rest of you, but I don't think I can watch us just walk over those cities. They're full of people!"

"That didn't stop you from selling out JOSH-A!" Randolf snipped.

"Lest you forget, buzzard, I sold out BOTH sides on that one, though not quite intentionally! I knew JOSH-A was a deathtrap! I gave that information to Le Cresuete! How the hell was I supposed to know he was a genocidal maniac, and wouldn't warn his own side!?" Dylan responded with a weary shake of his head. "Listen, I know I'm fucking scum, alright? But just walking over a fully populated city in this gigantic death machine, spraying who knows what the fuck sort of green shit all over the place... that gets me queasy, all fucking right? I don't recall signing on for mass genocide!"

"And that's why I've called this meeting." Ashino spoke up. "By all accounts, we have accomplished the Brotherhood's mission. The Great Endeavor has reached Earth. Noah's so called recreation is occuring as we speak. And yet from where we stand, right here, what do we see? I don't know about the rest of you, but the only angels I can see looking down with pleasure upon this spectacle are the ones holding scythes!" Ashino swept his arm at the horizon to horizon cityscape they were approaching. "How many people out there, do you think? Fifty million? Five hundred million? A billion? The eastern seaboard of North America is one of the most heavily populated regions on Earth. It could easily be more than a billion people out there. All of whom are in a mass panic right now, as a gigantic war machine directly out of their nightmares bears down upon them, filling the air with a sparkling green gas like a farmer spraying pesticide, effects unknown! Even if this Green Stuff, this Green EDEN, I think it is called, is some sort of miracle product that grants immortality and eternal youth, which I highly doubt, hundreds of thousands if not millions are still going to die in the panic to get away from us."

"If they would listen to the Great Prophet, then such tragedy could be avoided." Shinn recited, almost dully. He shook his heads and chewed his lip a few times, as if surprised at what he had said. "It does... seem a little callous though." He added, a second or two later, eyes downcast.

"My god, maybe your brain isn't a total mush after all." Randolf muttered. "I agree. We do appear perched on the edge of a calamity. But what can we do about it? Are you only now realizing that Noah Borander is, simply put, an egotistical madman bent on remaking the world in his own image, regardless of how many things he has to break to do it? Believe me, that is not news to me. I wish it was, almost. But it isn't!"

"Noah Borander is a visionary!" Shinn insisted. "He is going to recreate the world!"

"Insane is insane, no matter what sort of pretty words you use to dress it up." Randolf retorted scathingly. "And unfortunately his madness is the sort that stains everything around it with its taint. Just look at the four of us! Swept up by promises of wealth or revenge or whatever it is our hearts desired, and now here we stand, witnesses to the end of the world as we know it... by our own filthy hands!" Randolf stared down at the hands in question, as if they were caked with gore.

"Here we do stand. But that doesn't make us helpless." Ashino told them. "Regardless of the sins of the past..."

"No. There is no regardless." Dylan interrupted. "I hate to agree with the fucking buzzard, but he's got a fucking point. Even if we cut and run, right now, this very instant, it could only end one way. In us dying pointlessly. Either at Noah's hands. Or the USN's. We may have helped DESTROY the human race! They aren't even going to bother with a trial now! If we're lucky they'll shoot us on sight. If we aren't, they'll shoot us someplace nonvital, haul us in for "special questioning" and keep tightening the screws until there's nothing left but a bloody shit-stain on a chair! And even the questioning will be pointless, because, face it, we know jack DICK about what's going on right now! Sins of the past? There is no past now! The present is the only thing that matters, and we CAUSED the present!"

"There's no need to run." Shinn looked at the other three strangely. "All we need to do is keep supporting the Great Prophet, fighting and preferrably defeating the wicked USN and any others that try to disrupt his great plan, and we will all ascend to the ranks of the angels. He has said it himself countless times. All we have to do is trust him, and he will guide us there."

"Will you shut the fuck up and listen to yourself!?" Randolf shouted. "You used to be part of the USN! You're a fucking Solar Knight! One of their goddamn officers! You used to be our enemy! And now you're spouting off like Noah breast fed you himself! Its really fucking sad! I don't know what he did to you, to put you so deep in his thrall, but frankly, it scares the shit out of me!"

"I was never part of the USN." Shinn spat in an icy tone. "The USN took everything from me when they invaded Orb. My mother. My father. My little sister. My friends. Everything. They almost killed me before the Great Prophet came about to save us!"

"Man, I don't know what the fuck you're saying now!" Dylan snorted in disbelief. "The USN, invading Orb? Yeah fucking right! Durandel probably would have LIKED too, given how well he and former Chief Representative Zala-Attha got along, but Orb has all the fucking Gundams! They got a damned soft voice sometimes, but they carry a big fucking stick! Nobody messes with Orb these days, not since the Isolation! What sort of fucked up alternate history shows have you been watching?"

"It HAPPENED to me! I remember it! How can you say it never happened!? All the human rights violations... the beatings... the forced labor... the mass graves... you can't tell me they kept all that a secret!?" Shinn was flabbergasted.

"Take it from an expert. What you remember isn't always what is true." Ashino recommended with a bitter smile. "I can honestly tell you, one hundred percent truthfully, that I don't remember my family. Not even slightly. I could walk by them on the street and the only way I would recognize them is if I'd recently seen a picture of them, and even then I'd have to trust the picture wasn't a lie. It has HAPPENED to me before! But does that mean I never had a family? Of course not."

"You don't understand! I REMEMBER it! I see Mayu getting crushed and torn apart under those tank treads every night before I fall asleep!" Shinn insisted, almost frothing at the mouth.

"You remember something. Whether or not it happened is another story. It sounds to me like you may have had a very traumatic experience sometime in your past. A talented brainwasher could easily build upon and modify that into quite the motivation compulsion." Ashino mused. "But of course you won't believe anything we say. That is the point of brainwashing... to make someone unthinkingly loyal."

"It's starting to sound to me like YOU three are the ones that have been brainwashed! I don't know how the USN managed to get to you, but don't worry, the Great Prophet is merciful to those less fortunate. He will be able to fix you." Shinn replied with a fierce grin.

"I've seen how he fixes people." Randolf said softly. "If it comes down to that, I'm going to eat a hot lead breakfast, if I can at all help it. Bad enough that he takes my pride and my life... he shouldn't get my soul as well!"

"That's another thing!" Dylan spoke up, unusually talkative, perhaps because of the mostly sympathetic... or at least understanding... audience. "You two haven't seen it..." He waved his hand at Shinn and Ashino. "But let me assure you, he's anything BUT merciful when you piss him off. He made Mary cut off her own fucking fingers and sear the wounds closed with a glowing hot coal! And he made her like it!" Dylan gritted his teeth in unaccustomed fury. "And then he fucking abandoned her to Orb without a second fucking thought! Who knows what they're doing to her to try and get information about the Brotherhood out of her!? Humane treatment, my ass, she's a fucking terrorist officer! She's killed Orb civilians while working for the Brotherhood! They're a forward thinking country, but they get real hostile when you start fucking with their civvies... all countries are like that!" Dylan huffed and puffed for a moment. "We don't mean shit to him anymore! We're just parts! If we break, oh well, at least he got some good use out of us, right? If ever he did need us, now he certainly fucking doesn't! She fucking loves him with all her heart and he's just going to let her rot in prison!"

"Sounds to me like she's not the only one who loves with all their heart." Randolf commented snidely. "Never would have expected you to grow a conscience, Dylan."

"Fuck off. It ain't like that. She's a good girl, is all I'm saying. She and I didn't get along any better than you and I do. She don't deserve being discarded like a used condom and forgotten about! Merciful to those who are less fortunate? Rewards to those who serve him well? Mary would die for that smug bastard if she had the chance, and he acts like she was never fucking around! Where's the mercy and rewards there? It ain't right. It just ain't right! Maybe I'm a fucking hypocrite for calling HIM a treasonous bastard, but I guess it takes one to know one, right!?"

"Welcome to day one of life as a BCPU." Ashino said, cracking a grim smile. "We are just parts, to be discarded when we wear out or our owner loses interest. As long as we do what we're told, and don't cause any major problems, he doesn't care about us, at all. We don't mean anything to him. He simply doesn't care anymore. He has other, apparently bigger concerns than his four Gundam Pilots, and their job satisfaction. Never mind that we could be plotting his death. That we could all try and sell out to the USN at any time. He simply does not care. Any promises he may have once made, mean nothing to him now. He won't tell us that to our faces, but we are now, basically, surplus inventory. Handy to have around, but not vital. And there will come a time when the surplus inventory has to be... scrapped."

"I will for one have nothing to do with any plots against the Great Prophet!" Shinn insisted vehemently. "He's the one good thing to come about in this dark age, and you want to talk about killing him just because we can't understand his divine plans and concerns? He is watching over the birth of the very first new angel! What could possibly be more important than that right now!?"

"He's pining over his sick girlfriend. It's nothing special or magical. Birth of a new angel... rubbish! He's just so head over heels infatuated with her a simple fever or cold gets blown all out of proportion and now its the next coming of the messiah reborn! I am heartily fucking SICK of this religious bullshit!" Randolf said caustically. "You young people and your lusty thoughts... its a plague on humanity, I tell you!"

"You perverted older guys are a real blessing in contrast, I assume?" Dylan countered wryly. "Don't think I don't know about your Lacus Clyne OCD. You wanna call it protecting her, sure, whatever... I call it a sixty year old man stalking a girl four decades his junior, because he couldn't get enough of banging her goddamned mom and now he wants to try out the daughter!"

"That is a heinous lie! Elaine and I... how did you even KNOW about that!?" Randolf hissed, his face going even whiter than its burn scarred norm.

"This may be a surprise to you, Mr. super smart former ZAFT commander, but you aren't the only guy who likes to check in on the background of his so called friends. I know all about you and Elaine Clyne. Nasty, terrible thing, that car accident-suicide. Guilt really sucks, don't it? I make my living by finding out secrets and selling them to other people! Come on, did you really think I wouldn't dig up a bunch of dirt on a cantankerous old buzzard like you? Everyone has skeletons in their closets, its all a matter of finding the right closet!"

"I have nothing but the noblest of intentions towards Ms. Clyne! Now, that ungodly leech that calls himself her lover, that is another story altogether! I will find a way to crush that bastard Yamato into the dirt and leave him broken and worthless for what he's done to her!" Randolf insisted. "And you, Dylan... if you speak one more slanderous word I will perforate your skull!"

"No one will be doing anything of the sort." Ashino cut in. "Being at each other's throats only serves Noah at the moment. You don't have to like each other... I certainly don't like any of you... I would scrape you off my boot with a knife if I found you there... but like it or not, since Noah has no care for us, we four are the only possible allies we currently have."

"I am no ally to anyone but the Great Prophet." Shinn said frostily. "Don't think I will waste any time in informing him of your rebellious mutterings either!"

"Good fucking luck." Dylan muttered. "Nobody but nobody gets into the Atrium but him and his girlfriend. If he doesn't want to talk... and he really doesn't seem to want to talk... there is quite simply nothing you or anyone else on this ship can do to get him to talk."

"All the same, I'd prefer not to risk it." Randolf decided, and drew his sidearm, a standard hypervelocity 5.6mm Martius Industries pistol, the most common sidearm in the ZAFT armory. "If you're not going to join us, then I'm afraid you somewhat automatically become against us. He may have been able to reattach your arm... I shall be very much more surprised if he can piece together a new working brain for you!" Randolf leveled the pistol at Shinn, who was standing about ten feet away. Or who had been standing ten feet away anyway, but Shinn, though still somewhat bleary from his recent stay in the medical ward, was neither stupid nor slow when it came down to life threatening situations, even with his head so damned foggy, and he was already moving even as Randolf was drawing his pistol and completing his threat. Randolf got off one shot, which was like a thunderclap, though the bullet itself made only a zipping hiss followed by a series of light metallic "plinks" and "pings" as it ricocheted down the access hallway, having missed Shinn by a good two feet.

Before Randolf could swing his aim down and fire again, Shinn was next to him, throwing forward his right shoulder and arm into a cross body block that slammed the bigger and heavier Coordinator backwards with all the force and momentum at Shinn's disposal. He felt his shoulder pop for a moment, and his arm screamed in pain under the bandages, but he gritted his teeth and fought through it. Randolf slammed into the armored crystal glass of the observation window hard enough to drive the breath from his body. He'd been trained in the ZAFT military arts, and was in phenomenal shape for a Coordinator his age, but Shinn was a redcoat elite, and a motivated one, plus forty years and more his junior. Perhaps if the fight could have been brought down to experience and pure size, Randolf would have had a chance. As it was, speed was the greatest determining factor, and Shinn had that in spades, at least compared to Randolf.

Randolf was still recovering from the brutal body block when Shinn's left hand grabbed his gun wrist and twisted it awkwardly to the side and upwards, even as Shinn's right leg swept around and kicked Randolf in the back of the knee's, chopping his legs out from under him. Randolf collapsed sideways and fell flat on his back, redriving the breath from him and leaving him stunned for a half second. During which time Shinn ripped the pistol from his grasp, spun it around, caught it by the barrel and slammed the butt down on Randolf's forehead, gashing his scalp and knocking him into a semi-conscious daze. Shinn flipped the gun back around and slipped his finger through the trigger guard, pressing the muzzle against Randolf's face, right between his flickering half closed eyes. Shinn was just tightening down on the trigger when the world exploded in a flash of white pain and then everything faded to blackness before he could figure out what was going on.

Ashino curled his hand back into a loose fist, from the spearing fingers blade form he'd just used to deliver a precision blow to the back of Shinn's head, just where the skull met the vertebrae of the spine. It wasn't a chop, which was made with the side of the hand, but actually a concentrated spear of fingers impacting tip first, imparting an extreme amount of force to a very small area. If he'd put his full strength into the blow, he could have easily split Shinn's skull in half and shoved his hand out through the back of his face, but that wasn't the point here. Shinn collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, gun tumbling from loose fingers to clatter on the deck as he sprawled face first down onto Randolf, who barely grunted, still lost in a land of swirling stars and choking mists. "It doesn't matter what Noah knows or doesn't know about how we feel. He doesn't care, remember? Go ahead and tell him, Shinn. He'll just smile and shrug and say he'll take care of it when the time comes." Ashino pointed out with a sigh. He turned to look at Dylan, who was backing away with hands raised defensively.

"Why don't you handle the rather boisterous Mr. Randolf. You two seem to have such a great rapport already." Ashino commented sarcastically, as he bent down and lifted Shinn up like he was picking up a bag of sugar, collecting Randolf's pistol at the same time. "I'm going to take this unfortunate young man back to the medical ward. He just had his arm reattached, he really should know better than to go around exerting himself so much."

"Um. Yeah." Dylan hesitantly agreed. "Are you sure it's going to be okay to let him live? I mean, he's hardcore brainwashed. He's not going to wake up happy."

"He's not going to wake up for a good four to five hours either, so hopefully he'll have calmed down some by then. And killing him would be one of the few things garaunteed to bring down Noah's full and merciless attention upon us. Shinn is Noah's golden boy, right now, remember. He's the only one doing things right, in Noah's estimation. If we kill him, we will be striking directly at Noah's power in an overt way. That puts us in the same category as the USN. And he will gleefully squash us. But if all we do is grumble and moan and plot... well, he considers himself so far ahead in the game that he can afford to let us get away with that sort of stuff, because he doesn't want to waste time or resources punishing us. He think's he's invincible, and that, Mr. Dylan, is the only thing keeping us alive right now. We can't do anything to change his feelings." Ashino instructed with a predatory smile. "Pride goeth before the fall. Its a rule I'll be glad to teach Noah one day soon."

"What about... them?" Dylan asked quietly, nodding his head at the window and the city beyond.

Ashino's smile died away at once. "If you're a religious man at all, I'd suggest you start praying for a miracle. If you're like me, you grit your teeth, shut your eyes, and walk headlong into the wind, just like always."


	54. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 4

Author Note: I've been meaning to add this for the last few Author notes, but keep forgetting. Oh well, its nothing major. For anyone trying to get a visual image of what the Great Endeavor is like when it's moving, assuming you're having any trouble that is, what I always see is that Volcano weapon thing from Origin: Spirits of the Past. That's about the size of the Great Endeavor, if taller. But seeing those huge legs come crashing down in a relentless pattern, that's definitely the way the Great Endeavor walks, crushing buildings and pretty much anything in its path like it was walking over crunchy grass. Not sure if this insight helps or hurts, but its there nonetheless. Stoked as ever to see and read your reviews, I've already replied to several, and if I haven't replied to you yet, I still might. But anyway, on to the next chapter of GECK, and though I doubt it will surprise the familiar reader too much, one never knows.

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"And this is Karen Wayne, reporting live from Neo New York City Harbor, keeping us updated on the situation on the ground regarding the Brotherhood Crisis." The newscaster announced, as the view switched from the staid digital background of the anchor's studio and reformed to show the harried and drawn face of Karen Wayne, her auburn hair mussed and a bit stringy, her pale blue eyes weary and red rimmed, plainly fighting off the stress of the situation with much caffeine as she continued to report on the situation as she'd been doing pretty much ever since the Great Endeavor landed, almost a day earlier. It was early evening on the East coast of North America, even though it was just barely past dawn in Orb, on the day after, because of the vagaries of the international date line. In the background behind Ms. Wayne, stormclouds rippled and rumbled through the sky, their surfaces dark grey and shimmery green, like oil on water and in the very far distance, out near the horizon, where the grey sky met the cobalt blue ocean, an indistinct shape humped up like a turtle's shell, the Great Endeavor being so huge as to remain visible even when more than a dozen miles from shore.

"Thank you, James." Karen said, the haunted look in her eyes reaching out to touch the souls of people tuning in around the world, or already glued to their TV screens, their guts twisting with a mixture of horror and uncertainty. "Behind me you can make out the Brotherhood's gargantuan walking fortress, now become a sailing fortress, which has slowed it's relentless advance to a near crawl in recent hours. Quite why the Brotherhood wishes to remain in relative proximity to the Eastern Seaboard is yet unknown, the only certainty being that it is not in the best interests of the people of the world." The camera zoomed past her to focus in on the blurry Great Endeavor, though the distance and atmospheric conditions made it so that it only showed up as a bigger blur, rather than showing any real detail. As the camera refocused on Karen, audiences around the world were treated to a brief view of the famous Statue of Liberty, an ancient monument from the time of the old United States, a former beacon of freedom and hope. The bronze statue was lying on its side, legs broken off at the knee level, having been mercilessly run over by the Great Endeavor a few hours earlier on its way out to sea.

The camera panned around to show the path of destruction the walking fortress had created as it had marched inexorably through the suburbs and edge of some of the commercial districts on its way towards the Harbor and access to the ocean. Houses were crushed flat like soda cans run over by a semi-trailer, and wreckage was scattered about in a wide circle around each section of devastation, though there were large swathes of ground that were still completely undisturbed, having been lucky enough to not be in direct line of movement of one of the Great Endeavor's massive legs. There were twenty story buildings that remained pristine and upright, having been entirely passed over by the colossal machine, though anything above thirty stories was either collapsed or half collapsed as the lower edge of the fortress proper had collided with their top or middle sections and burst clean through without pause. The view cut again, this time displaying footage shot from earlier on in the day. The venue had changed, as the news crew was now on top of a building, looking out towards the suburbs and sprawl area's of the mega-city as the granddaddy of all war machines crawled towards them like a harbinger of doom.

"This was shot this morning." Karen's voice cut over the ambient sounds, people talking and a steady "THOOM... THOOM... THOOM" of the Great Endeavor's footsteps echoing closer each time. "As the Brotherhood's walking fortress, called the "Great Endeavor" according to our sources, approached the city from the west. At the time of shooting we did not realize how fully in the path of the monstrosity we were. For viewers just tuning in, please bear in mind that the following video may be too intense for young children and those who are easily excited." The video segued forward a few hours, and suddenly the Great Endeavor wasn't just approaching, it was right there, less than a half kilometer away, filling more than half the view of the camera and all but blotting out the sky! A pillar like leg thicker than a building reared up and slammed to the ground on the right side of the screen, moving with impressive grace and silence, no bending of metal, no squealing of joints, just the sound of air whoosing around the massive mechanism and then a thundercrack "WABOOOM!" that made people flinch away from their screens and stab at volume down buttons, only to realize their volume was already well down.

The entire screen shook like it was being filmed from the deck of a storm tossed boat for a few moments as shockwaves and vibrations spread out from the Great Endeavor's footstep, which was echoed by the crack of splitting concrete and various incoherent and barely coherent shouts and curses and cries, loud and nearby from the news crew, and fainter from the streets and buildings around them. More thundercrack footsteps echoed from near and far as the other legs of the Great Endeavor adjusted their own position, moving the entire fortress another hundred meters closer by the time it came around to the visible leg again, several minutes later. The rumble of collapsing buildings and the screech of tires mixed with shouts of horror and dismay from the streets below and exclaimations of shock from the news crew as the bulk of the Great Endeavor started passing overhead as the near leg swept up again, slamming through a high rise apartment building like a child would kick through a gingerbread house, kicking blocks of wreckage for hundreds of meters in all directions. The camera panned up as the Great Endeavor blocked out the sky, its bottom still obviously far above where the news crew stood.

The leg came down once more, and this time there was no noise, though the view jumped and shook even worse than before. In fact, sound died out altogether, except for Karen's voiceover. "A flying piece of rubble destroyed our primary sound system at this point in time, and claimed the lives of three brave technicians in the process." Karen's voice was choked up. There was a brief shot of the camera panning towards a section of rooftop that was cratered under a large piece of concrete that had fallen from the sky, unidentifiable pieces of black metal and plastic all that remained of the sound gear in question, and all too identifiable splurts of pulpy red and pink and white organic matter that was the technicians. The view cut out before more than a glimpse could be shown, obviously editing to spare the greater populace the horror of the smashed bodies. When the camera came back, it was once again showing the underside of the Great Endeavor, studded with dozens of weapon emplacements and other protrusions of un-nameable function. The weapon turrets tracked and spun, still noiseless, tracking for potential threats, but they didn't fire. They didn't need to.

"While the fortress was passing overhead, the following message was being broadcast audibly, as well as across all wireless comm channels." Karen spoke up, as a recording was edited into the soundless video. "People of Earth, do not panic." A calm, reasoned male voice thundered, amplified to a level that could probably be heard for miles. "The Brotherhood is not here to harm you. We are your saviors, here to offer you all a free chance at blessed ascension! Do not panic! Do not flee! Stay in your homes or your places of business. Fear not, for something wondrous is about to occur. All you need do is be patient. Conserve your energy, eat and drink as much as you can, and above all, avoid filthy or dirty conditions. A golden age is about to begin for us all. Do not fear. Do not flee. We are your saviors. All hail the Great Prophet!" The camera view cut away from the belly of the Great Endeavor, and showed streets jammed with cars and hordes of people fleeing in all directions from the Great Endeavor, pointing over their shoulders at the sky and generally not at all paying the least heed to the Brotherhood's annoucement. The message started to repeat itself, and the recording cut off.

"All things being equal..." Karen said, a trace of grim humor entering her voice. "I think they could have picked a better venue to broadcast their propoganda from, don't you?" Her tone turned bitter. "We as of this moment have no solid figures for the number of casualties suffered, direct or indirect, from this calamity, but I would not hesitate to put a number reaching into the thousands in both categories. People have been run over, trampled, shot, stabbed and even beaten to death in the throes of mass panic, and who knows how many have stayed put in their homes and places of business only to be crushed into oblivion by the monstrous tread of this gigantic death machine! Neo New York City has been turned into a disaster zone by the passage of the Brotherhood, and the real disaster may still be ahead." Karen said, as the camera segued again, the Great Endeavor now no longer overhead, though the screen still shook from its nearby footsteps. The sky was filled with stormclouds, and they were tinted green, even as a green mist began descending from on high, spewed out of great vents on the Great Endeavor's dorsal surface.

"As yet we have no official word on the effects of this greenish substance the Brotherhood is distributing across the Earth. No one has yet reported to us here any adverse ill effects from exposure to it. However I think I speak for everyone when I say we are still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is very doubtful this is just the Brotherhood's version of confetti." Karen stared frankly into the camera screen again, returned to a live broadcast. She looked even more tired and haggard than she had before, the stress obviously catching up to her despite frequent sips of caffeine and bites of energy bars. She looked like she was barely able to stay on her feet, and her eyes were bloodshot like she'd just gotten off a drunken binge, her eyelids drooping and fluttering as she directed a considerable amount of willpower in staying awake. "This is Karen Wayne of the Federated News Network, reporting live from Neo New York City, where the Brotherhood has just recently passed by on their doomsday march, leaving more questions than answers, and more misery than salvation in their wake. James, back to you."

"Thank you, Karen. We will have word from the USN official press conference on this Brotherhood Disaster here shortly, after the break." The male newscaster said, looking with studied grim intensity into the camera lens as the view switched to a commercial break. Glory stabbed the mute button on his remote, and then returned his hand to the knife it had been holding, which he used to cut another four layer thick slice from the mound of syrup and butter and jam covered pancakes on his plate. He shoved the hunk of delicious starch and sugar and fruit-substitute into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, as he considered the new's clip he'd just been watching, his mind turning over like an engine at rest. It was his first day off in the last two weeks, and he was still doing work. At one time that would have depressed him. In the current situation though, they needed all the advantages they could get, and any information at all was welcome. Sadly enough, the news was actually one of the best sources for intelligence at the moment, as nobody else had the slightest fucking clue what the Brotherhood was doing.

Well, that wasn't technically true, as Kira and Lacus had met with the head enemy honcho himself, and instead of putting a bullet or three through his face like they shoulda done, they'd instead listened to his evil villian monolog and then went their seperate ways. Well, maybe not quite that cut and dried... they'd both ended up in the hospital when they came back, but still... Glory, and most of the rest of the Stormhounds as well, were quite irritated at the missed opportunity. He hadn't yet gotten the brief in from the Lt, seeing as he was otherwise engaged on his night when they had returned, and today was his day off, but the Stormhounds grapevine was second to none, and there were already some notes from Ramierez in his email when he'd woken up that morning and checked it after his morning wake up workout. In truth he was glad the notes were somewhat sparse... he'd kinda sorta tied one on last night, and his head was still pounding. Nothing he couldn't deal with, but there was no sense aggravating his pain.

"That looks both disgusting and somehow yummy at the same time. Even if you are making a mess a toddler would envy." The other person in his apartment said, shaking their head as they looked at him from the doorway leading from the kitchen to the living room, where he was sitting on his oversized recliner, clad in his size XXL boxers, covered with a fluffy and somewhat worn dark blue bathrobe that barely fell to his knees and strained to contain his build. A logo depicting a cartoon rabbit, light blue in color, with a kid friendly cross eyed look, an RPG launcher in one hand braced on it's shoulder and a smoking Uzi in the other, was embroidered across his wide back. His feet were encased in yellow fluffy house slippers with the faces of ducks. All in all, quite the ridiculous picture, and his guest obviously could not contain their amusement, as he heard her sniggering. Glory turned his head with stately gravity and gave her a level look, his chin and cheeks stained with syrup and jelly and bits of half chewed pancake.

"If it's good, you should show it. That's what my mom used to say when I was growing up anyway. Side's, its my own damn house. I'll be messy if I damn well want to." He told her imperiously, eyeing the off white silk shirt she wore like a tent, its tails hanging down past her knee's and the sleeves a good six inches past her fingertips. "Why the hell are you wearing one of my good shirts, Mel?"

"Because a certain ham fisted brute tore my good silk nightie practically in half sometime last night in his drunken rush. Don't suppose you can tell me where I can find such an inconsiderate beast, can you Thom?" Melissa Raven retorted with more than a hint of ice in her tone, as she held up a slinky black night gown, which had a huge rip going from the neckline almost all the way down the front.

"Meh." Glory grunted with a shrug. "I don't remember doing that. Guess I'm on the hook for a new one, huh?"

"I don't remember you doing it either, Thom, but yeah, you are." Melissa replied firmly. "Last night's kind of a blur. What were we drinking again? I thought I could handle my liquor, but those things were something else."

"You convinced me to show you some combo's I learned during my years with Asmodeus. DTC Blaster's are not a fucking joke, that's for damn sure." Glory agreed with a slight smile. "Surprised you stayed conscious really, given that you were matching me shots."

"DTC?" Melissa queried.

"Death To Coordinators. The drink of choice for the Blue Cosmos suicide bomber corps." Glory provided. Melissa looked at him for a long moment, before realizing he was fully serious.

"Not exactly the most PC of drinks." She commented.

"We weren't so big on PC at the time." Glory shrugged. "Only thing more hardcore than DTC Blasters was the Blue and Pure. But that shit takes really expensive, highbrow liquor. Like, paying fifty dollars a shot. Only had those a few times. Loved it every time, and regretted it every morning."

"I can't believe this all really happened." Melissa switched tracks, crossing her arms across her stomach and leaning against the doorframe. "My instincts are telling me we're going to get in SOOO much trouble, Thom!"

"Why?"

"Because I'm a fucking private, and you're a fucking Sergeant-Major! A fucking Company Sergeant-Major even, of my company! You're the senior enlisted member of my chain of command! And I spent the night, very enjoyably, at your apartment, getting drunk and dirty and wild! I can just see the Fraternization Investigators drooling!"

"The who?"

"The people who are going to drum my ass out of the military and bust YOU down to private and THEN drum your giant ass out of the military!"

"Ain't gonna happen." Glory said with another shrug. "This is the Hellhoun... Stormhounds."

"We're still in the military! Rules apply!"

"Not in Alpha Platoon they don't. Not if the Lt doesn't say they do. And while there ain't much left of Alpha Platoon now, the same deal applies for the Stormhounds. Long as whatever the fuck we do in our off time doesn't follow us back into work, the Lt could give less of a shit what it is. He cares about our performance, not our adherence to strict military regulations. Hell, have you seen Ramierez even get CLOSE to passing a uniform inspection, should one ever be held? I can tell you now, he's been like that for as long as I've known him, and that's years! Hell, he's cleaned his act up a good bit! And Quentin... Mel, the guy's a great guy... but he's a fucking GEEK! Big into those online games. He's got a fucking private Gundam Wars arcade in his basement, one of those hacked ones that lets him play for free, which is of course illegal! And you don't even wanna know what kinda porn he looks at! What I'm saying here is, long as we keep this to off time, we're golden. We bring it into work, and the Lt will skin and eat both of us raw. Them's the only rules you need to worry about."

"But we fucked!" Raven protested vehemently. "How can it not follow us back into work!? How the hell am I supposed to look at you in the locker room the same way ever again!? Much less what everyone else is gonna say! I mean, we kept things on the downlow, but its never been a secret that we're "mutually interested"!"

"Don't worry about everyone else. The old hands have dealt with this plenty of times before. And the new fish will keep their damned mouths shut too, or the Lt will drop down on them like an avenging angel made of pure wrath and they WILL get the point. I won't even have to get involved, and neither will you. As for not bringing it to work, well, that's your damn problem. You're a damned fine woman, Mel, and I think I really like you. But at work you are, and always will be, Private Fucking Raven to me, got it, or Blackbird if I'm feeling personable, regardless of what kinda nights we may have had. If you can't handle it, speak up now and we can get you out of the Stormhounds, no questions asked, no hard feelings."

"Uh, no, thats not what I meant. I mean, yeah, I can handle it. I can stay frosty. I don't wanna leave the Stormhounds." Raven stammered.

"Glad to hear it. Getting another Support Specialist at this phase of the game would really suck. Though it would be kinda nice to inherit that Warhawk of yours." Glory replied, leaning forward to take another bite of his breakfast. The commercial break was pretty damned long, but he supposed all the news services were kinda on overload right now.

"I gotta ask, Thom." Melissa spoke up after a few seconds. "What IS up with that bathrobe? And you'll take my Warhawk only if you pry it out of my cold, seared to the bone fingers! Maybe, if you're real nice and make me very happy in bed, I might let you shoot it. Once or twice. But inherit it? Perish the very thought."

"Another relic of the Blue Cosmos years. I don't expect you to recognize Jethro the Jackrabbit. You're too old to have been part of his target audience, and he was never really broadcast on most public channels."

"Jethro the Jackrabbit?" Melissa prompted, arching an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I suppose you could call him a Blue Cosmos adaptation of Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse. Did the standard slapstick sorta comedy. Had the standard funny voice. Spent most of his time hopping around like he was on crack, firebombing Coordinated Pregnancy Clinics and mowing down Coordinators and Coordinator Supporters in droves as they ran screaming and burning from the ruins. The Coordinators and their friends all tended to have fangs and red scaly skin for some reason, and always were shown beating up Naturals and taking their lunch money and doing other bullyish type things. Completely over the top in terms of propoganda, of course. And WAAAYYY too bloody and violent to be shown to normal kids in the three to eight year old range. But he wasn't for normal kids. He was for true believers in the Blue Cosmos philosophy to help indoctrinate their precious young ones in the harsh realities of the genetic war that was being fought."

"And why do you have such a perverse image on your BATHROBE!?"

"I was part of Blue Cosmos for a long time, you know. I mean, I might not have really been a believer, but I was steeped in the culture pretty deeply. Jethro's a pretty badass bunny, and he's good with making kids laugh, though most parents wouldn't let their kids be around him for an instant! Kinda like me, in some ways." Glory said softly. "I guess you could say I identified with him, as fucked up as that is. Nowadays though, I just sorta keep him around from inertia, I guess. Its hard finding good bathrobes in my size, and I don't wanna waste another few years breaking in a new one."

"That is fucked up." Melissa agreed. She thought for a few moments. "I don't suppose there was a Babs Bunny or Minnie Mouse equivalent for Jethro, was there?"

"You aren't ready for the story of Jennie Jackrabbit, Mel. Even the Lt gets a bit queasy when it comes to her." Glory picked up the remote and hit the mute button again, bringing the sound back as the newsroom finally returned. "Hold on a for a moment though, hopefully there's a new update."

"We apologize for the lengthy break, but we have finally recieved an official video broadcast from the USN Secretary of Defense regarding the plan of action for dealing with the ongoing crisis." The newsroom anchor informed them. There was a second of pause, and then the view switched to a press conference room, filled with anxious and intent looking reporters sitting in chairs, and a stage at the other end of the room, on which was a podium bearing the USN symbol. Behind the podium stood Gilbert Durandel, supported and braced by Knight-Commander Rey ze Burrel, the leader of the Solar Knights. Durandel's leg was still in a heavy cast, and it was obvious he was in quite a bit of pain from his injuries. The room was almost an exact replica of the one where he'd sustained those injuries in the first place, and Glory knew that was no accident, but instead a subtle message stating that despite those events, Durandel and thus the USN was not cowed or intimidated.

"I'll cut right to the chase." Durandel on screen said, his tone both weary and resolute. "The situation as it stands is dire. So dire that there is little point in using jargon to muddle the issue, so I shall not do so. Recently, the USN and the various member states assembled a large Armada of warships and military assets to confront the Brotherhood mobile fortress, known as the Great Endeavor. This confrontation took place as the Great Endeavor was passing over the Moon on its way to Earth. Initially our heroic forces stopped the advance of the terrorist vessel, and a fierce battle broke out, involving all branches of the military service. However, despite our best efforts, the enemy's advantage in pure technological might was too great, and we ended up suffering a great deal of losses, and indeed, lost the battle entirely. There is no way to dress a defeat of that nature up as a victory, so I shall not try. We lost that battle. But we have NOT lost the war!" Durandel said fiercely, clenching his fist and stressing the last sentence.

"We did manage to inflict significant damage upon the Great Endeavor and almost annihilated the Brotherhood Mobile Forces, including their largest and strongest Gundam, the one known as the Revenant that was responsible for so much destruction at Galileo LFB in the recent past. As our forces were regrouping from the Brotherhood's deployment of a new type of WMD, the Great Endeavor slipped past our blockading forces and made it to Earth orbit, where it rapidly commenced landing operations, eventually touching down in the Northeastern region of North America, where it then proceeded to make its way to the coast, forging a path of death and destruction amongst the civilian cities and populace in its path. As of yet we have not been able to muster enough military force to ensure a defeat of the enemy, even if it were not holding the civilians around it as de facto hostages against our retaliation. Do not, however, think that we are afraid to confront this menance! In the proper time, at the proper place, we will stop this enemy cold and send them to oblivion, you can have no doubt of that!"

"However..." Durandel took a practised sip of water from a cup on his podium. "While we are preparing our counterstroke, we will be focusing as much of our efforts as possible on protecting the civilian populace that is the Brotherhood's primary target." An animation of the Great Endeavor popped up on screen, showing it walking across a flat plane, while clouds of green smoke billowed from its upper surfaces. "The Brotherhood fortress is deploying a wide scale biological agent as it moves. Make no mistake, the effects of this agent are highly dangerous and may even prove fatal! If you have been exposed or think you may have been exposed, report to your nearest Emergency Room or Clinic or Military Base for an assessment as quickly as possible. When caught early, treatment can and will save your life. The very last thing you should do is listen to the lies being broadcast by the mobile fortress. Staying put, huddled and afraid in our homes and workplaces is exactly what the enemy wants, as it will make it almost impossible to effectively treat victims of their biological attack. I repeat, if you have been exposed or suspect you may have been exposed, report to your nearest governmental medical authority as soon as possible!"

Another animation replaced the first. It showed a zoomed out view of the Earth, with a solid red line terminating in an arrow marking the path the Great Endeavor had already taken, and a pulsing red dot showed it's current location. A dotted red line extended away from the current location, curling and weaving a bit, but moving more or less straight across the Atlantic Ocean, up into the Mediterranean Sea, jinking and juking around Europe a bit, and then moving east across the most populated sections of Asia and the Middle East, before finally crossing into the Sea of Japan, across Japan, out into the Pacific Ocean and eventually across Hawaii and onto the western coast of North America, and finally back to its landing point. "This is the current and projected course of the Great Endeavor." Durandel explained. "As you can see, they intend to pass through or close by as many cities and major population centers as they possibly can, to more quickly achieve their genocidal goal. Our current projections indicate that the Great Endeavor, assuming it maintains a constant speed comparable to what it was initially moving at, will take about three to four months to circumnavigate the globe, following this course. This gives us plenty of time to evacuate the populace ahead of their line of march."

"Wait, what did he just say!?" Melissa exclaimed.

"Shh." Glory shushed her, turning up the volume more.

"Priority will be given to nations closest to the current location of the Great Endeavor, but a systemic evacuation of all threatened areas will be in effect, as of now. Do not panic, that is very important. This is a very large scale logistical operation, and it cannot suceed unless you help us by remaining calm and cooperative. Do not overpack... living supplies will be provided for you. Do not pack anything that is not neseccary for your survival... transports will have strict weight limits, and any excess baggage will be left behind. This is an emergency measure. I repeat, this is an emergency on a world wide basis. More details on the evacuation status of your area will be forthcoming from local area governments. Be patient and do not despair. We will not leave anyone behind." Durandel promised. "The Solar Knights will be spearheading the counter-terrorist efforts while the rest of the USN works with the member-state governments to effect the evacuations. We can all rest easy with our future in their competent hands." He turned and smiled proudly at Knight-Commander ze Burrel, who did a good job of looking serious and stoic. The video ended there.

"And there you have it." James the news anchor said, levelly enough, though there was a definite sheen of perspiration now showing up under his makeup. "Let's go to Karen again and see what the people on the street have to say about this recent announcement from the USN." The screen dissolved and then reformed once more, though it took Glory and Raven a moment to figure out the image being shown to them, and to most of the rest of the world. The view was all messed up, because the camera was lying on its side in the street, looking down the length of the boulevard, which was populated with lots of stopped cars, some of which looked recently wrecked or damaged. There was also a lot of people... well, bodies. It was hard to tell if they were alive or dead, as they were all sprawled in heaps. The nearest body belonged to Karen Wayne, laying back down on the pavement with her face towards the screen, her eyes closed but flickering slightly, her chest rising and falling in a slow rythym. The sound was still on but there was nary a sound to be heard, save a car horn blaring constantly in the far distance. There was no shouting. No talking. No movement. Nothing but stopped cars and collapsed people for as far as the view went.

The view suddenly streaked with watery green, and in a matter of seconds the camera screen was speckled with dozens of droplets of water as the surussing sound of rain droplets striking pavement became audible, slowly building to a pounding roar of a true skyburst storm. Thunder cracked in the sky above, and lightning flashes lit up the tableau ever so often, making the rain glow green for fractions of a second each time. The screen grew blurry and then went to static and then darkness as the camera internals got soaked and shorted out. Glory stared at the black screen for a moment, before James the news anchor reappeared, looking significantly unprepared, his mouth hanging open in shock and his eyes bulging. Glory turned the TV off and leaned back with a grunt of contemplation.

"Thom...? What just..." Melissa started to ask, her voice very small and quiet.

"Damned if I know, Mel. Damned if I know. But it ain't fucking good. Get dressed. Our day off just ended."

-----------------------------------------------------------

Ysak didn't care much for hospitals. Oh, it wasn't quite the mixture of fear and loathing Dearka professed for them, but he had no love for the sterile corridors and rooms filled with pain, misery and, in rare cases, hope. At times it reminded him of his own time spent in places at least sort of like this, the first major time being when he'd recieved his trademark facial scar, but far more often after the end of the first Valentine War. He'd really had the shit kicked out of him on more than one occasion. Several times he had been very lucky to survive, much less stay whole and mostly healthy. He knew quite a few people that were not that fortunate, and had seen far more he didn't know suffer horribly. So yeah, hospitals were a depressing place for him, and he didn't spend any more time in them than he absolutely had to. But this was one of those times where he had to. All the same, he'd felt somewhat like a odd wheel sitting in the recovery room with Alkire and Raine and Katie. He couldn't help but stare at the way Alkire's legs weren't the same length anymore, and his stomach was twisting and flopping quite fiercely after a while.

He was very glad Katie had not been at all close by when Alkire had been infected with the Blue Stuff, and then decided to blow his own fucking leg off at the knee with a shotgun! Ysak shook his head at the mere thought. He was glad he hadn't been close by for that either, come to think of it! Regardless of the fact that it had been the only option at the time that even had a chance of saving Alkire's life, that was one hell of an option! Brought new meaning to life or death choice! Ysak shivered and walked faster for a few seconds, trying to banish the thoughts. Alkire had then displayed a resevoir of pluck and tenacity that Ysak wasn't sure he could have emulated and not only stayed conscious, but managed to crack a few jokes and even hop more than seventy meters and down a flight of stairs to get to the hanger! That he had later passed out on the shuttle ride to the Moon was less of a surprise and more of a relief!

Not only that, but instead of bowing out like pretty much anyone else would after traumatically amputating their own leg with a firearm, and retiring to the sidelines for a long recuperation, Alkire was insisting, even demanding to be fast tracked back into active duty, saying that if Kurtz could damn well serve with only one eye, then a simple matter of having one foot shouldn't stop Alkire! Ysak was glad he hadn't been around for that argument between Alkire and Cyprus and Raine. They'd eventually reached a compromise after talking with Athrun in one of his few moments away from Cagalli, and Alkire had ended up getting fast tracked... to the top of the line to recieve an experimental new prosthetic surgery that was the result of years of study of the robotic arm that had formerly belong to Vladimir Valkavich! The surgery wasn't even for military testing yet, much less ready for widespread use, but with the pull of the consort of the Queen, Alkire was now slated to be the first human being to recieve a fully operable mechanical leg. Lower leg prosthetics had been granting mobility to amputees for centuries now, but Alkire's would be the first that was actually, in some ways, an improvement over the leg he'd lost!

Alkire would be undergoing the pre-surgery surgery later in the day, where the doctors would remove his ravaged knee joint, amputating the extra flesh because of the ragged and frankly disasterous state of the nerve endings in the current stump, courtesy of the shotgun blast not exactly being a precision cutting instrument. Hooking up the experimental circuitry of the leg to the ragged stump would have been doomed to failure from the very start. Of course, making a mechanical leg with an operable knee joint was much more difficult than a below the knee prosthetic, but the Orb scientists were more than confident their product would be able to handle the stress. Ysak was reserving his opinion for now, but there was the example of Waltfeld's arm, the other arm of Vlad's, which had very good elbow and wrist joints. Given Alkire's persistence though, he'd probably be able to take a wooden peg leg and still come back as good as before, so there was still plenty of hope.

Ysak stayed sunk into his thoughts as he walked, not really watching where he was going other than to avoid people and objects in his path. He had a lot to think about, and while normally he'd find a dark, secluded place to do it, he'd had enough of sitting around recently. With the Vorpal still undergoing repair and refit in Morganroete's extremely efficient facilities, there was nothing for him to do there. And going to Alkire and Raine's house wasn't much in the cadrs either... he couldn't just sit around and wait for something to happen. He had to be in the core of action, even if there was no action he could affect at the moment! It was just the way he was. And with Katie preoccupied with the state of her adopted father, there wasn't much of anyone else he really wanted to or could talk things over with. Dearka and Miriallia were off doing their own thing, recuperating as best they could. Cagalli was having her problems, and Athrun was trying to help, Ysak didn't even want to think about that. Kira and Lacus had already given him more than enough to think about, and they were still resting and recuperating as well, even as Lacus underwent intial testing regarding her pregnancy.

Ysak snorted. Kira and Lacus were having a baby. Not that it should have been a surprise, given that they'd been sexually active for years now. But still, it seemed to have come from nowhere, and slightly unsettled all of them. Dearka and Miriallia were putting on a good face, but Ysak knew that his friend was smarting once more with the knowledge that he was once again the only one afflicted with ICD in their peer group. Ysak wanted to tell him that it didn't matter, but he knew it did. It would matter to Ysak if he was in Dearka's place. Athrun was overjoyed of course, but that was no surprise. Cagalli was harder to read, especially now, but she'd almost smiled for a moment, or so Ysak had heard, before sinking back into the pall of uncommunicative depression that had gripped her ever since she'd awoken and found out they'd been defeated and Kisaka killed.

As for Katie and himself... well, upon hearing the news, Katie had begun shooting him some very significant and frankly predatory looks that did not make him feel at all comfortable. So damned what if the average age for second and later generation Coordinators to have their first child was age twenty, and he was twenty two? He did not feel at ALL ready for the thought of producing the next generation of Joule's! Good for Kira and Lacus, not so good for him! Especially right now, with the world in crisis! Even as he thought that though, Ysak realized it was something of a tired excuse. There was always going to be a crisis of some sort going on in the world, imperfect as it was. And given his inability to just sit back and let the "experts" handle things, he was probably going to be involved in solving most of those crisises, at least those that at all even slightly affected anything he cared about. No, saying there was no time was just an excuse, and it was hollow even to his ears. But all the same... a BABY!? No fucking way was he going to have a baby! He was NOT ready! Unfortunately, him not being ready was a sad constant of most of the major life events that had occured to him since becoming involved with Katie and Chanel in the first place!

Not least of which was something that had changed his life forever in a fundamental way, much like having children would! And by that he meant the condition, whatever it had was, that Chanel had gifted or inflicted upon him that had turned him from Ysak Joule, confident and relatively normal Coordinator Redcoat into the very confused Ysak Joule, Latent Newtype Coordinator Redcoat. Neither he nor Katie nor Lacus had any idea how Chanel had managed to convert Ysak, a normal Stump, into a Newtype of any sort, but happen it had. Whether he'd absorbed some of Chanel's abilities, like Katie felt he had, or he'd always had the potential all along and all Chanel did was awaken it, he could not and did not know, and wasn't sure he wanted to know! In his experience, the deeper he delved into the subject of Newtypes, the more confused and frightened he became! And that had become doubly or triply the case now that they had encountered Noah Borander, who displayed entirely different Newtype abilities from what any of them could utilize, and in such strength he could quite literally kill people with his mind!

But worst of all, now that Noah was around, he could not AFFORD to NOT investigate Newtypes further, despite how he felt on the subject! Lacus, Kira, Katie and he all had a lot of learning to do before they would even be able to approach the sort of understanding and confidence that Noah displayed with his powers, utilizing them in new and varied and adaptable ways like it was second nature, just another talent in the repetoire! And that meant learning to do more than send each other thoughts and emotions, more than just relying on enhanced spatial perception and the ability to dimly feel what others were feeling. They had to be innovative, unpredictable, creative... they had to push the boundaries they couldn't even see, because if they didn't they would never truly stand equal with Noah, even with their advantage of having discovered Latent Amplification! And now, as of the recent confrontation with Noah by Kira and Lacus, that trump card had been played, and Noah was no doubt working hard to devise a countermeasure!

At the very least, or so he assured himself as much as he could, trying to drown out a very tiny doubting voice in the bottom of his subconscious, he didn't have to worry about this Ultimate Coordinator bullshit that Kira and Lacus were facing down, in addition to everything else. Yeah, Kira had always had abilities that were frankly stupid unfair in their scale, but to learn that all of that was intentional... that he'd been designed from the moment of conception to not only be better than pretty much all Coordinators, but indeed was designed as the biological equivalent of a Gundam that would in turn procreate and produce a strain of humanity even more capable and genetically advanced!? That was a LITTLE much to take, all at once or in small bites! And apparently Lacus was one of these bio-Gundam-things too, at least according to Noah!? It was all too much, too fast. For a moment there, after hearing Kira talk about what Noah had said, Ysak had been matching up the images and not liking the picture. Coordinator, check. Seed capable, check. Newtype, check. On the surface of things, he did meet all the criteria to be an Ultimate Coordinator! And if Lacus could be naturally born and still be an Ultimate Coordinator, why not Ysak himself? But in that case, why had Noah dismissed him as an abomination and tried to kill him?

At the moment, the best answer he could come up with revolved around him being born a Stump and somehow changed into a Newtype by Chanel, rather than it being a innate part of him that she'd awakened. Of course, that raised a whole new level of concerns... if it could happen to him, could it happen to other people? Could Newtypes create other Newtypes from "regular" people? Chanel had died during the process, but maybe someone stronger would not. They just couldn't know until it was too late! They could be knee deep in Newtypes even without Noah's crazy plan revolving around this magical Green EDEN stuff that Ysak was still trying to figure out. It was enough to make a logical, grounded person, like he fondly imagined himself to be, want to scream and tear out his hair in frustration, weeping tears of anger and confusion the whole time! And speaking of weeping... Ysak's ears perked up as he stalked past a particular doorway, and heard the sound of crying from inside. Given that this was a hospital, that wasn't entirely unexpected or strange, but it was the fact that the crying was familiar that stopped him cold in midstride.

"I... I need you to listen to me..." The familiar voice said brokenly, sentence structure interrupted by sobs and sounding very nasal. "I-I know it hurts, what happened. It hurts me too. But we... I need you... I need you to be with me now. I can't do this alone. I can't go anywhere without you, not like this. I need you... to tell me what I can do to help. Please... let me help. Please. Please tell me..." The voice trailed off for a long few moments. "I love you. Come back to me." The voice said at last, much fainter. "Be strong for me. I'll be back in just a few moments."

Ysak regarded the door with a look of horror. The hallway he was in was long and empty, extending at least thirty meters in both directions before there was any sort of turn or visual obstruction. There was simply no way he could make it, not without making enough noise to alert the people in the room anyway. He swallowed, hard, and then composed himself to make the best of a situation he really didn't like, as the doorknob to the room turned and Athrun Zala backed out of the darkened room, head down, hair over his eyes, shadowing his face, his posture slumped and dejected. Athrun closed the door and leaned against it for a moment with a loud sigh, before finally turning around and noticing Ysak standing about six feet away down the hall. Athrun's eyes were red-shot and there was no way to hide the tear tracks on his cheeks. His hair was mussed and ragged, and he looked like he hadn't slept since before the battles up in space. The two childhood rivals looked at each other levelly for a long moment.

"I'm sorry you had to hear..." Athrun started to say.

"I heard nothing." Ysak cut him off fiercely. "I was just pacing, lost in my own thoughts, and I heard nothing."

Athrun regarded his friend for a long moment, before rubbing at his eyes with the back of his sleeve and straightening his posture. "Yeah. Thanks, Ysak."

"There's nothing to thank me for, so don't." Ysak replied with an uncomfortable shift of his shoulders. "Every time you try and get buddy-buddy with me it just pisses me off and makes me want to beat you that much more, so don't even think about it, okay? It was the same way after that battle at Orb when you were headed up to the PLANTS. I still maintain that I should have been the one Le Creuset picked to be the team commander, not you."

"You're probably right. I don't always tend to make the best decisions, militarily speaking." Athrun admitted. He started walking down the hall alongside Ysak. "I don't suppose you want to be the one in charge right now, eh? I could really use someone to fob off a bunch of responsibility on."

"No, you don't." Ysak retorted. "And I'm gonna do you a favor and forget that you ever said something so wishy-washy. Giving up or delegating responsibility in a crisis isn't something Athrun Zala does. That's not the sort of guy Ysak Joule has as his rival. If you turn out to be pathetic and worthless, how does that make ME, who's always striving to be better than you, look? Pathetic and worthless. So you aren't gonna be like that, not if I have anything to say about it! Life's come up and kicked you in the teeth before, and you got past that, so you're gonna get past this, and I'm gonna keep being superior to you, and not getting noticed for it, and that is going to be that, got it?"

"Thanks, Ysak." Athrun said again, after more walking in silence.

"Don't thank me. I told you that already. Its unnerving." Ysak replied, as they passed a door leading to a bathroom. Athrun paused, and Ysak looked back over his shoulder as he walked on. "You'd better damn well remember what I said, Zala." Ysak warned.

"I will." Athrun promised.

"See that you do." Ysak replied, as he turned the corner. "Or I will bring the point home again, stronger. As many times as need be." He added to himself.

--------------------------------------------

Attaining true peace of mind was not nearly as easy as people and self help videos would have you think. And that was even more true when your mind was normally a voracious calculating machine that was adapted to thinking about multiple complex concepts at a time while also dealing with the vagaries of everyday life! All the same, that was the state Noah was currently trying to attain. A blank mind, free of concerns and worry and any bothersome thoughts that would make his blood pressure skyrocket and his heart pound in his chest and his stomach feel like it was doing flips and his head hurt like he'd been beating himself with a hammer. Any thoughts about Meyrin for instance. Just the thought of her name brought an increase in his heart and breathing rates! He tried to focus on something else, something boring. Simple mathmatical equations. But it didn't help. He solved all the equations as fast as he could think of them, even when he graduated up to complex algebra and even quantum calculus! For once his great intellect was more a bother than a help! Noah sighed and opened his eyes, relinquishing even a tenuous grasp on peace of mind.

He was in the Atrium, of course. There was simply no other place he could be, not right now. Not when, at least according to his fervent and constantly checked calculations, Meyrin would be reaching the end of her ascension very soon now. Within minutes. He knew he really should have been elsewhere, working with the Harbingers to adjust the Great Endeavor to terrestrial operations, or overseeing the replenishment of supplies using the Red EDEN vats, or the construction of new Martyrs and Zealots. Or even dealing with the rebellious mutterings and ill feelings of his Apostle corps, except for Shinn Asuka, who was pleasingly loyal, not that he had any choice in the matter! Noah's lips quirked in a brief smile at the thought of having Luna's precious lover boy as his thrall, and he was eagerly anticipating revealing that fact to her at some point in time, but there was always something else more important to do at the time.

It was just... none of that mattered really. Not nearly as much as Meyrin did. And it wasn't just because of his feelings for her. She was going to be the first person, besides himself, which didn't really count, who had successfully ascended to the ranks of the Ultimate Coordinators via the use of Green EDEN! She was going to be the first in a long line of new Angels! The Great Endeavor was largely automated, it could take care of itself. The same for the resupply and construction projects. His underlings, though far from the sort of intellectual giants that should have been working for him, were more than competent enough to observe the automated systems and follow guidelines laid out months in advance! And his Apostles could grumble and moan as much as they liked, it wouldn't change their situation. Their destiny's were now fully tied up with Noah's, and if they broke away, they would only die in vain, alone and despised by all. No, like he'd told Kira and Lacus... it was all downhill from here. He had, for once, plenty of free time to take care of issues important to him personally. And there was no issue more important than Meyrin.

Noah was sitting cross legged on the water by his bed, upon which Meyrin was still reclining. He'd cleaned off the dust and debris that had fallen onto her when the Atrium had been near missed during the battle at the Moon, wiping her down from head to toe with sterile wipes to try and reduce the chance of infection as much as possible. He hoped she wouldn't accost him too much from stripping her down and replacing her clothing, but it was filthy, and since it was clean when she started out, he didn't feel like he'd broken his promise, rather like he'd been keeping it. He would give her the same chance as anyone else, and that meant reducing negative factors as well as avoiding positive ones! He slowly climbed to his feet and looked over at her, chewing on his lip. It was beginning to look like he should have tried to press the boundaries a little harder. She was looking awfully thin. Of course, emaciation was expected of those who went through the ascension, as the Green EDEN burned any and all available sources of energy to fuel the process, including fat and muscle tissue. But Meyrin hadn't exactly been a meaty girl to begin with, and though he'd gotten her to eat a full and energy rich meal, the process had hit her very hard.

Her arms and legs were like thick sticks, and her flesh had a slightly wrinkled and dry appearance, leeched of water and other nutrients. Still, as bad as she looked, her eyes continued to flutter and her chest continued to rise and fall, if a bit unevenly, with a hitching cough every now and again. She'd contracted a fever and a cold several hours back, about when the Great Endeavor had landed, and for a while there she'd really been burning up and shivering, which had torn at his heart something fierce. Since then the fever and chills had subsided, mostly, but it was still enough to worry him, especially with the wheeze in her lungs and the cough. If sickness had taken hold in her lungs and sinus's, then she could very easily die. But if that was the case, there was not a damned thing he could do about it! Not and still keep his word! And oh, how that word, that damned promise, tortured him, like red hot whips against his soul! He had no choice but to sit and watch... him, the one who had always been in charge of whatever was around him, was helpless to do anything but sit and watch passively! For one of the first times in his entire life, he wasn't entirely sure of the outcome of a situation, and this was the most important situation for him personally! Uncertainty was one of his greatest fears... either it was one thing, or it was another... dealing with might be's and could be's, even should be's, was unnerving in the extreme!

Noah wanted to take her hand in his, or touch her brow to lend whatever subconscious support he could, but he dared not. Not when his immune system was functioning at high power and hers was not. Infections and viruses that his body was ignoring easily might cross to her and kill her while her defenses were down! Not until she woke up, not until she spoke coherently, could he be sure she'd fully ascended and was on the road to recovery! Not until then could he touch her. Even stripping her and wiping her down had been done through the use of a anti-contamination sterile suit. Noah stared down at her shrunken form, listening to her wheeze and watching her eyelids flutter and her brow crease, and he could not bear it! He turned away and stalked to the shoreline, refusing to let himself turn and look at her again, it was simply too painful! Phlegethion's crumpled form lay on the rocks between the trees and the water, still and inert, her consciousness still banished to the depths of slumber by Lacus's furious attack. Noah half bent to run his hand tenderly along her armored black neck, but it just wasn't working... Phlegethion would recover in a few days, and this wasn't distracting him from Meyrin at all!

It was then that he heard Meyrin groan, and he froze, listening harder than he ever had before, though he did, barely, remember to keep his Newtype senses shuttered. He had promised himself that until Meyrin woke up, he would not touch her with his mind. Whether she was Active or Latent, he didn't care... he just wanted her to wake up again. He knew he'd be able to feel her consciousness awakening if he tried, but it just wasn't worth the risk... if he was in her mind and she wasn't going to wake up... the thought of being in Meyrin's head as she died was too hideous to imagine, it made him want to curl up and sob! She'd made it this far, which was a good sign, but until she really awoke, she would not be out of danger! It was as he was considering that, that she groaned again. Not an incoherent moan, not a slurred half mumble... a groan of discomfort! Noah didn't even remember turning around, but he found himself on his knees by the bed less than a second later, studying her with all his might, hands clasped and wringing in front of him. "M-Meyrin?" He asked, barely daring to hope.

There was no reply, and most of a minute later he hung his head and tried not to cry. False start. He was about to push himself back to his feet, though it was taking all his effort to just keep his eyes dry, much less move his body, and then she spoke. It was faint. Less than a whisper. He might not have heard it if he wasn't right there at her side. "... Noah..."

"Meyrin! Meyrin, I'm here!" Noah's head popped up and the tears came anyway, despite his efforts, not that he cared anymore. "Meyrin!"

"Noah..." This time she was louder, though still very, very quiet, her tone weary, like she was having to fight for every letter in his name. Her eyes fluttered but stayed shut, no doubt hurting from the indirect lighting, but there wasn't much he could do about that! They would adjust quickly enough, once she was ascended. "Hungry... thirst... y... hur... ts..."

"I know. It's going to be okay, Meyrin." Noah promised, his eyes so blurry he couldn't see straight as he snatched up a bottle of water and a tube of specially prepared nutrient paste, like an energy bar but moistened and ground up into a slurry. It smelt kinda funny, and definitely felt nasty, but tasted not at all and had all the vitamins and minerals and calories her body needed so badly. "Here. Drink. Sips. Not too much." He held the water bottle to her parched lips and gently tilted it, just enough to trickle into her mouth. He forced himself not to give her more than a small mouthful. Too much water too fast and she could choke. It was agonizing, seeing her so weak, he wanted her to get better immediately or sooner! But he had to take it slow, and so it was most of ten minutes later, after her lips and mouth were well moistened, that he finally squirted a bit of the food paste into her mouth. Near the consistency of yogurt but the color of a cereal bar, it didn't require chewing, and she quickly swallowed it down.

Finally, more than an hour and a half after her first conscious groan, he'd emptied the water bottle and fed her all the nutrient paste he'd prepared. Her breathing was much steadier now, and the wheezing and coughing had died away almost a half hour prior as her new immune system used the resources present in the food and water to kick into high gear and annihilate all the little nasties afflicting her body. He laid the back of his hand gently on her brow, and was gratified to find it cool and not sweaty, signs that the fever had died away as well. It was going to be hours, maybe days, before she regained her muscle and fluid mass, but she had done it! She had survived! She had ascended! Now Meyrin was an Angel too! The first of the new race! "She's alive... she's ALIVE! Meyrin is ALIVE! AHAHAHAHAAA!" Noah shouted at the top of his lungs, ecstatic almost to the point of incoherence.

"So... loud..." Meyrin commented, keeping her eyes tightly closed, since every time she tried to open them they hurt like they were being stabbed with needles, they were so dried out. The water she'd drunk would fix that soon enough, but for the moment she was having to rely on her other senses, which included a very much improved sense of hearing. She felt like she could hear every single living thing in the Atrium moving around, even the stuff way off against the walls! She was pretty sure she could hear Noah's heart beating like an out of control drum in his chest, though that might just be an echo of hers, as her revitalized blood raced around her body, bringing nutrients and energy and life back into her a little bit at a time. And there was something else too. Something beyond just taste and touch and smell and hearing and eventually sight. She could... could feel... something. Everything. From around her. Like a pulse of warmth that had nothing to do with the air temperature. She could put good words to it, though just thinking straight at all was not easy right now!

"Sorry. I'm... I'm just so glad..." Noah said, much quieter, brushing at his eyes with the back of his hand, and not doing much besides smearing his tears around. "Meyrin... I love you!"

"Love you too... believed in you, Noah. You... you promised. And you were... right."

"Yeah. Yeah I was." Noah hoped he didn't sound as relieved as he felt, because he had not been sure, not at all. Meyrin had faith in him... had believed him absolutely, but he'd been speaking on a guestimation and his fervent hopes! But he'd been right. He was right! This was the right thing! He was right! It worked! It really, really worked! He'd always been sure, but here... here was the proof! And this proof made him the happiest man who had ever lived! "I said you were going to be okay, and you are. You are, Meyrin. Oh Meyrin!" Noah reached out and gathered her small hand in both of his own and pressed it to his forehead.

"Noah..." Meyrin didn't know if she was chiding him or comforting him. He was quite overcome, that was for sure. She was the one that had just been through the traumatic experience, at least physically speaking, but Noah had definitely been suffering emotionally. And she wasn't sorry for that. If he hadn't been hurting, he wouldn't be the sort of person that should be doing the things he was. Because what had happened to her was going to happen... was happening... to thousands and millions of other people, who had loved ones who would be going through the same turmoil as Noah, but even worse in many cases. If he couldn't feel how they felt, if he couldn't understand that fear and pain they were going through, then he really was going to turn into a monster. Thankfully, judging from his tears and sobs and carrying on, he seemed to have gotten the point, even if he didn't consciously realize it. He had been hurting, but he'd kept his word, she knew he had. And that made her so proud of him, it was a whole new sort of hurt inside, but the good sort. She hurt because she had caused him such pain, and she never wanted to do that if she had any other choice! But she would if she had to. If she had to use his love for her to keep him on the path he professed to be taking, then so be it. She could deal with that.

"Meyrin... I... I have something to show you. Something wonderful." Noah said slowly. He watched her turn her head to look at him even though her eyes remained closed. "Just... let me show you. Don't do anything. Just relax and let me show you, okay?"

"I'm not going anywhere." Meyrin promised. "Am I going to like this surprise, Noah?"

"You're going to love it, Meyrin. I promise. Now, just lie still... this is probably going to feel kinda weird. I'm only going off second hand knowledge here. I've read about this a lot, and seen other people do it, but this will be my first time doing it for real, with someone I love." Noah answered, climbing onto his bed... their bed... and moving to straddle her, bending his head down to touch hers, though that wasn't required. He still did it anyways, because he simply didn't ever think he'd be able to get enough of the feel of her body against his. And the physical touch helped him stay focused. "Stay relaxed. Keep your limbs loose. Breathe slow and easy. Trust me, this is going to be incredible." Noah whispered to her. There was a minute or so of silence.

"What are you doing? That feels weird!" Meyrin told him.

"Shh. Its part of the process. Just put up with it."

"But it kinda hurts... HEY!"

"Sorry. Stop squirming. This isn't easy you know. Gotta get the alignment right..."

"Seriously, that's uncomfortable! Don't push so hard! I'm not going anywhere, there's no rush!"

"I gotta get... in... sorry. Its a tight squeeze! Stop wriggling!"

"But now it feels REALLY weird! I've never felt things like this before! I feel strange..."

"You'll get used to it. Everyone does, eventually."

"Hey! Don't move! Stop that! Hey! No! Don't go so deep! Not so fast! Noah!"

"Grh... stop squirming around! Its really distracting! This is a complex procedure!"

"You're just saying that! This is your first time, you just said that! You're just making it up as you go!"

"Maybe so, but I'm still the expert here! Now... almost there... bear with me... I can barely describe how this is making ME feel, ya know! Its kinda weird... but its a good weird. I think feeling like this more often is going to be a good thing."

"So like a man to say that! Weird is always good in your minds..."

"There's no need to make this dirty, you know. Men and women are going to do this every day, its a fact of life. Connecting on a level this intimate is always going to feel weird the first time. But its necessary for the continuation of our race!"

"Necessary!? HEY! AHH! Watch where you're going! NO! Not there... don't... no, not THERE!"

"Sorry, didn't mean to."

"Yeah, sure."

"I really didn't mean to. It was an accident. I got distracted."

"But now I'm the one with a mess. Convenient."

"Look, its a bit too late to pull out now, so you can rag on me if you like, but I'm finishing up. Almost there. Just bear with me a little bit longer. In the future, this is going to be much easier and more fun for both of us."

"If you say so..."

_I do._

_Yeah, you would... hey, wait a minute..._

_I told you that you'd like it. Feels good now, huh? All that squirming and wriggling... now you're just soaking it up..._

_Is... is this really happening? I'm... I'm not going crazy am I?_

_Nope. At least, not clinically speaking. I'm sure there will be people that cast aspersions on our sanity in the future, but we are not crazy. By the way, this is the first time I've ever been able to talk with someone else like this. It's always been them contacting me before. And this is a lot more pleasant than those times. If I can feel like this all the time... wow..._

_I don't know about all the time. Yeah, this does feel really, really good... but always? A girl's gotta have some privacy..._

_I didn't mean to look there. I really didn't._

_Yeah. And now you just happen to accidentally know that it's going to be my first time THEN too. Pervert. And you spilled all those emotions I was bottling up all over the place! Seriously, do you know how long that's bothered me!?_

_Why would staying a virgin bother you!?_

_Its not the fact of it, its that finding someone to lose it to was feeling... you know what, lets stop talking about this. This is way more intimate than..._

_I'm in your head. You are in mine. Physical intimacy is nothing compared to the melding of minds and emotions. This is the kind of connection that is going to make hatred and warfare and jealousy a thing of the past. Obviously not every bond will be as deep as the ones lovers share, but even a simple transitory bond allows you to communicate your true feelings with absolute ease._

_Is feeling people's true emotions really going to be that helpful?_

_Of course. How could it not be?_

_Well... nevermind. I've trusted you this far, no reason to stop now._

_You know, you can probably open your eyes now._

_But I like looking at you like this. You glow._

_Do I? Everyone's mental vision is different, you know._

_How do I look to you?_

_You're an enigma. A conundrum._

_A what?_

_A theoretical problem that no one yet knows how to answer. In my mind, I see those around me as mathematical equations, abstract laws of math in visual form. Almost all of them are equations I can solve without hardly even trying. But you... I don't have an answer for you. Its going to take a lot of research, and I might never actually learn the answer. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to try with all my might. Some things, like you, are worth pursuing even if you aren't sure you'll understand them in the end. Why are you laughing? THAT feels weird._

_That was REALLY geeky. But SOOOO cute! I love you too, Noah._

_Come on. Open your eyes._

_Why?_

_Because I want to look you in the eyes when I tell you I love you._

_Hm. Well, when you put it like that, there's no way I can say no..._ Meyrin cracked her eyelids and eventually forced them fully open. It helped that Noah was leaning over her, casting her face in shadow as his forehead rested on hers, blocking out the light from directly above. "There. Happy?" She asked, blinking up at him, meeting the unearthly gaze looking down at her, metallic gold surrounded by a sea of majestic purple.

"In ways you can barely even understand yet." Noah replied, his lips barely moving as he was entranced by the eyes looking up at him, metallic silver surrounded by pale lavender. His lips touched hers and they stared into each other's eyes deeply, captured by each other. _I love you Meyrin Hawke!_

-------------------

Author Note 2: Jethro the Jackrabbit is actually based off something from real life. Hezbollah apparently bought out the rights to Mickey Mouse, at least for a little while back in the 60's. They apparently have a live action TV series starring this guy dressed as the Mickey Mouse imitation, that, I kid you not, preaches fundamental anti-semitism to the 4-10 year old crowd. Its pretty disgusting, in my mind, but if there's one truly creative force in the world, I guess it's hatred. Damn, that sounds like something Frost would say.


	55. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 5

"Man, this whole situation really sucks, you know that?" Lain complained, staring morosely out the window at the African savanna stretching out to the horizon. "I mean not just a little... this is probably the worst suckage I have ever encountered in my life!"

"I hear you there." Eric agreed, unable to take his eyes off the small TV screen in one corner of their shared barrack's room, where constant updates on the situation with the Brotherhood were being reported by the news agencies of the world as fast as they could film them. They had, quite literally, up to the second intel on where the Great Endeavor was and what it was doing, as swarms of news helicopters and planes circled the gigantic mobile fortress, keeping the world's eye on the situation. The helicopters and planes were buttoned up tight, external automated camera's only... those crews that flew in with open windows or doors didn't tend to last too long before either limping off back to base or just plummeting into the ocean as their crews succumbed to that green gas stuff the Great Endeavor constantly produced. "This is truly a world class FUBAR situation."

"Definitely, dude, definitely. I mean, we're two heroic Solar Knights, and we're fucking stuck on base doing fucking supply work while everyone else is out drinking, partying and making time with cute girls. This blows." Lain sighed unhappily. "I shoulda stayed in Orb."

"Yea... wait, what the FUCK are you talking about!?" Eric swiveled his head over to stare at his friend. "The world is ENDING out there, and you're bitching about being stuck on base!?"

"Yeah, whats wrong with that? I mean, I can't really do much to stop the end of the world, can I? I mean, if we could do something to stop it, we would be DOING it, not evacuating the entire fucking world as fast as we can, wouldn't we?" Lain answered with a shrug. "So in absence of being able to do anything about that, I'd really like to see if I could get lucky with Stella. Maybe more than once. Priorities, dude, priorities."

"Maybe you should make it a priority to figure out how we can get out of this chickenshit assignment and actually back to making a difference, no matter how slight!" Eric retorted with more than a hint of bitterness. Not only was supply work insanely boring, not to mention beneath a man of his talents, it kept him well away from the rest of the unit, even his old squadron! He was going a bit stir crazy with just Lain for company day in and day out. "And keep yer damn thoughts out of the gutter. Stella's mine, ya hear, mine. And I intend to romance her the right way, sweetly and formally. Go find someone else to rut with."

"That's cold, man. Not everyone likes to takes things slow... ain't the victorian age anymore, my friend! If you and a girl are both feeling it, no need to hesitate!" Lain replied with a smirk. "And judging from the amount of tongue she slipped into that kiss, she's feeling it. Oh, she's feeling it. Another bites the dust to the Debora charm, baby." He turned away from the window and gave Eric a more frank stare. "As for getting out of here, good fucking luck, dude. You're on the Knight-Commander's shit list, big time. He wanted to kill you, I'm pretty sure. And because I backed you up, I'm on his major shit list too. We couldn't get out of this gig if we walked on fire and turned water to wine! We are BONED... S O L... SKWUUED... DOWN AND DONE! We'll be damn lucky to even pilot a Mobile Suit on the training field again, much less in combat!"

"Sorry to get you dragged down with me." Eric said morosely.

"Wasn't you dude, wasn't you. You stand by your damn friends, thats what's important. Ain't like I got the highest opinion of the Knight-Commander or the SecDef anymore anyway." Lain shrugged. "Whole unit's getting kicked to shit anyway, ever since Shinn bought the farm. Amazing how losing just one guy can cause the whole ball of string to fray and unwind, eh?"

"Not just Shinn. That situation with Meyrin was another kick to the balls." Eric pointed out. "I mean, I still don't know what to think about that. Consorting with the enemy? Aid and comfort to the worst terrorist in history? Dude... its... its just more than I can wrap my head around! And that guy... her boyfriend... mental powers!? WHAT THE FUCK!?"

"Hey, let's not talk shit about Meyrin, okay? Do remember those mental power shits... he's probably got her hypnotized and shit." Lain replied softly. "Or else just plain fucking imprisoned. If she's even still alive. I mean, he's not exactly Mr. Nobel Peace Prize, is he? And its easy for a unit to start getting in the pits if you been through the shit we have. I mean, Galileo kicked our ass up around our shoulders. Then the whole Meyrin-betrayal whateverthefuck. Then the USN Armada, along with most of the Solar Knights, gets just plain obliterated! We're down to less than a Platoon now! And from what I heard in the grapevine, Luna took a bit of a hit."

"Yeah, I heard that too. Lucky to have lived through it, I hear. Rey's a fucking cocksucking pretty boy, but I got to give him at least a few props for saving her ass in the middle of a battle like that." Eric said, spitting into the corner as Rey's name came up. "Not to mention saving her ass AGAIN when that Blue Stuff was eating the ship. Maybe not long on common sense or courtesy, but he does have some pretty serious balls, our Knight-Commander does."

"We should go see her, next chance we get. Or we make a chance. I mean, who the hell's even gonna notice we're gone? Half the time, nobody checks up on us, and the rest of the time they don't care!" Lain opined.

"Not a good fucking idea, dude. Sure, you wanna slip off and go see Stella, I can get behind that all the way, assuming we can even find out where she is. But Luna... Luna don't really want us around, nearby, ya know?" Eric pointed out.

"I don't know. What?"

"Dude, don't be obtuse. She totally blames us for not being there to support her and Shinn when he bought it. Hell, she's probably right to do so." Eric said flatly. "I don't think she hates us, not really... but us coming to visit is only gonna tear at her emotional scabs in a hardcore fashion. We gotta wait until she comes to us. Luna's a tough girl, but she's gotta be near the end of her rope right now. Hell, I can understand. My situation is kinda similar. I mean, one of my best friends is either dead or supposedly a traitor to the USN too, and my little sister is missing, hurt last time I heard, pretty bad too, but just gone and there's nothing I can do about it!" Eric clenched his fists as his eyes blurred for a moment and his throat choked up with worry for Jean and Ashino. "If I blamed her for what happened to Ashino and Jean, you can damn well bet I wouldn't want to see her around, not for a LONG time."

"I've lost family members before too, ya know." Lain replied quietly, his mismatched blue and green eyes downcast. "My little brother, Jason, was killed during Purgatory Day, ya know? He was in that hospital that got blown up by the Grand Buster's artillery shell. Never had a chance, never even found a body. I mean, yeah, he had a terminal illness, but he was alive, Eric! He was alive! And then he died, and he couldn't even run away! He had no chance at all! Blaming the pilots of that Gundam would have been easy. Hell I could understand it, yeah. But I can't. Because I just can't see myself making a different decision from them, if I were in that situation! Same here... I mean, I just don't see how we could have acted any other way, not being the people we are! Right at the moment, the world is going to fucking hell in a handbasket, and we're letting ourselves get divided by stuff none of us is really sorry for! Do we regret what happened? Yeah, hell yeah! But are we sorry for how we acted? Not a bit! We did what we thought was right, what we thought best, and the world made of it what it did!"

"You got good points. But if we show up with that attitude to Rey, he's gonna court martial us for real, and throw us in the damn brig! He doesn't trust us anymore! The only reason he hasn't already completely shitcanned us is because we made a good show at Galileo, and a lot of people like us! Even that vampiric prune Roanoke likes us now, ever since we stepped in to help Stella out! It wouldn't look good politically speaking to fuck us over any more than they have already! But if we push it, I think they'd sooner disappear us than chance us in the field again. Fool me once, fool me twice sort of shit!" Eric replied with a frustrated shake of his head.

"That's only if they got any other fucking choice BUT to let us help." Lain argued. He waved his hand at the TV screen. "Judging from the looks of that, we're down to a very, VERY small number of choices at the moment! We're at the point where we can choose to take it in the ass or the mouth, but either way, we're getting fucked! He doesn't have to like us! He doesn't have to trust us! He needs every able pilot and soldier he can get his hands on, and he knows it. Everyone knows it! The world has bigger fucking problems right now than whether we did or did not mutiny up at Galieo!"

"Alright, alright, you do have a good point there." Eric agreed, holding up his hands placatingly. "Still, we're gonna have to take things slow and easy. If we just march on over there and get in Rey's face, he'll probably just shoot us on instinct. He's got a lot on his plate, since he's been called out as the official "will save the world by destroying the Brotherhood" point man. Probably under just a little bit of pressure, from well, everyone. Literally. We gotta approach this like ninjas, dude."

"Go in the back way and kill him in his sleep?"

"Not that kind of ninja. I mean, we gotta keep things on the downlow. Let him know, circumspect like, that we understand how he feels, but the situation is dire, so let bygones be bygones, at least until the world is saved. He's not stupid, and though he is pig headed stubborn, he can see sense when there's nothing else to see."

"Damn. I was really looking forward to taking out some guards with throwing stars. And those masks... those masks are badass. Ninja masks, hell yeah..."

"Could you focus?"

"I am focused, dude. Focused like a ninja..." Lain took a stance he obviously fondly considered to be reminscent of a ninja. He looked more like he'd just swallowed a turd covered in hot sauce.

"Don't ever pose like that again. I should never have brought up ninjas. I can't believe I forgot how immature you are. At least its not lions." Eric bemoaned.

"Ninja lions! That's it! Ninja lions, ninja lions! I have an AWESOME IDEA!"

"Shut the FUCK UP, Lain. Seriously. NO."

"No, no, no, no... listen, man... this is a kickass idea! It kicks even more ass than normal ninjas do! You're gonna love this..."

"I'm going to HATE you if you keep this up."

* * *

Stella looked down at the imperceptably spinning blue and green and brown and white ball outside the observation window. The view was nothing less than spectacular, the Earth shining like a rare and precious gemstone magically suspended in the midst of space. She remembered the first time she'd seen the Earth like this, from space, looking down and seeing a whole huge slice of it all at once. It had been during a training event for the Program, and that simple view had been quite enough to completely distract her from her mission, which had resulted in her dismally failing it. Dismally. The trainers and Doctor Roanoke had been very much less than impressed. But despite the onerous remedial program she'd suffered through, one of many she'd endured while growing up, she'd never forgotten the magic in that first view, the way it had touched her soul and made her feel warm and proud and beautiful inside. The way it had made her happy. Since then, she'd sought out other views as often as she could, and could usually feel a dim echo when she found a good one. But this... this was the real deal again.

There was only one marr, and it was growing, like a tumor or a bleeding wound, staining the view with its ugliness and discord. Off the eastern coast of North America there was a blot of dark clouds, like a hurricane but far darker, a disquieting deep grey that was spreading in all directions at once like ink diffusing in water, just that this ink did not dissolve away, no matter how much water there was! Already a large portion of the Northeastern section of North America was covered by the hideous stormclouds, and at the rate the blot was growing, it wouldn't be long before it covered all of the Eastern and Southeastern portions of that continent as well, and began heading both inland and further south towards South America. Prevailing winds were heavily retarding the growth of the blot inland, which was some small relief, but by the same token, those winds were carrying tendrils of the blot quickly out to sea. "Is it going to be all right?" Stella wondered, not fully aware she was speaking out loud. "Is everyone going to die?"

"No. Not if we can help it." A strong, self assured and above all calm male voice replied from behind her, and Stella looked over her shoulder from where she floated in the microgravity with her hands and forehead pressed against the window to see Sting coming in through the doorway from the hall outside, his tall, lean form backlit as he drifted into the dimly illuminated observation room. "I thought I'd find you here. Its technically the highest point on the ship, though micro-G kind of renders that moot. At least you can't fall from here."

"It's not the height..." Stella started to say.

"It's the view, yeah, I know. I was just teasing you." Sting finished for her with a slight smile, holding out a hand to arrest himself against the window a few feet away. He looked down at the Earth, and the blot of darkness, and sighed. "To think that something like this would come to pass. Are we really so weak?"

Stella didn't reply, mostly because she couldn't think of any way to. Verbal communication was not her best skillset, even around people like Sting and Auel, who were the closest things to an older and younger brother she'd ever had. Her lack of verbal communication skills was not seen as a handicap by Doctor Roanoke or the others in charge of the Program, but it did make things awkward when they had to interface with people outside of the Program, often making her seem slow or stupid or airheaded when she really wasn't any of the three. Well, maybe a little easily distracted, and a trifle oddball at times, but certainly not stupid or slow. Sting understood though, and so did Auel. Just because she didn't say much didn't mean she wasn't thinking things. And just because she was usually content to follow, more or less passively, her more outgoing friends, didn't mean she lacked independent spirit or free will. That was just how she was. Tranquil. That quality Doctor Roanoke spoke of so highly, Stella had in a degree far higher than any other canidate of the Program.

Tranquility wasn't always easy for her to maintain though. She still had emotions, plenty of them, though sometimes they seemed to be kind of fuzzy and indistinct. Other times they would come in sharp and clear as knifeblades. Fear was a big one, a constant bogeyman. Fear of loneliness, fear of abandonment, fear of uselessness... and the biggest, fear of death. Even the mere thought of that word was enough to make her shiver and hug herself. Death. The final diminshment of life. The point which after there was nothing. Could there be anything more terrifying than that? Stella didn't think so. Anger also sizzled in her, constantly at a low boil just below the surface, waiting for fear to open the hatch and let it come fountaining out, usually during a battle where she felt very much in danger. Anger was good. It drowned everything else out, made the fear go away, even when she was suffocating with it. Fear was her enemy, anger was her friend.

The one she couldn't make up her mind about was love. Affection. Caring, for others. Especially strong for certain others. At times it seemed to be a very good thing. The warm and pleasant feeling inside when she was around Sting and Auel, listening to them squabble or compete. The surge of happiness she got when Doctor Roanoke praised her and smiled fondly at her, making her feel all light and energetic. That sense of belonging it created when they returned to the Facility after a long time away, and she knew she was soon to be reunited with all the other Canidates she'd gotten to know during her upbringing there. The strength she could draw from Sting and Auel just being in the same room as her, knowing they had her back, and she theirs, that connection of trust that was deeper than with anyone else, to a level of instincts! But there was also a negative, disruptive side to it, that brought fear into her life even when she wasn't in combat. Fear for what might happen to Auel or Sting or Doctor Roanoke or even, like just now, everyone! It intensified the fear of being alone to almost an unbearable level... she could not sleep if there wasn't someone in the room with her that she trusted. Even the recuperation beds could not fully calm her if she was alone.

Beyond all that, there was the physical side of things. She was a girl, relatively unmodified, with all that being a girl entailed. She had gone through puberty, just like any normal girl would. The purely physical side of things was not really much of a concern for her... the recuperation beds handled that side of things for her, every month. But the hormones, the thoughts, the feelings, the uncertainties... those still plagued her as hard as they did anyone. Perhaps harder. She knew she loved Sting and Auel. But she loved them like siblings. There was no physical desire between them. She knew Sting felt much the same way in return. He cared for Stella, cared deeply... but not as a man cares for a woman. He could definitely notice she was a woman, but noticing and desiring were very different. Auel was... less stable... in his affections, but then again he was the youngest. At times he made her somewhat uncomfortable with the degree of attraction he professed, other times he treated her like a big sister, and still others it was like he was trying to pick on her or be mean to her. At the moment he seemed to be stuck in one of his mean stages, though that was probably because his near brush with... flinch... death at Galileo, and the enforced recovery period he was still in.

But it wasn't her relationship with Auel and Sting that was causing her confusion. Nor was it her relationship with Doctor Roanoke, as topsy turvy as that always was, one week his golden child, the next his biggest failure. She was used to that, used to pats on the head and treats one day, and remedial training the next. The Doctor was very stressed, and he cared so much about all of his Canidates, all of the Extended, that it got to him sometimes, and made him erratic for a little while, before he got hold of himself and everything was okay again until the next minor stressout. No one blamed him for that... his job was much harder than theirs after all, if not in a purely physical sense.

"You seem even more lost in thought than usual." Sting noted, studying her as Stella stared out the window, not even looking at the view anymore. Her eyes had the slightly glazed, faraway look that told him she was deeply enmeshed in her own mind. Some people thought she was an airhead or a ditz or a lamebrain, but Sting knew that there were few deeper thinkers among the Extended than Stella. Admittedly, she sometimes acted like an airhead or a ditz or a lamebrain, but everyone had their off moments. Stella just had more than usual.

"Yes." Stella admitted, barely paying attention to what Sting had said as she at last got to the true crux of the matter, what was bothering her and making her so confused. Those two pilots from the exhibition show. The ones that had saved her life at Galileo. The tall, blond and blue eyed one, Eric Kellson. And the shorter, stockier dark haired one with the mismatched blue and green eyes, Lain Debora. Solar Knights. Heroes. Very confusing and distracting young men! Stella was reluctantly coming around to the conclusion that she had a crush on them. She'd heard some of the other female Extended's talking about this "crush" phenomenon, but had never really expected it to happen to her. She was usually pretty well insulated from other young men her age who weren't Extendeds as well, or related to the Program, both by Doctor Roanoke's orders and Sting and Auel's own independent efforts... they guarded her like a sister, definitely so. But those two... Eric and Lain... they had broken through the usual barriers, and had somehow managed to crawl inside her heart while she wasn't paying attention.

They had saved her life. She just didn't know what to do about it. She'd saved the lives of Sting and Auel before, and they in turn to her, but she'd never felt obligated to do more than smile and say "thanks" later. That wasn't the case here at all. No, here, these two men, they made her mouth dry up a bit, her heart speed up and her extremities feel tingly for no good reason at all. Stella flushed slightly as she remembered walking up to them and kissing them both. She'd thought that would put an end to her feelings of obligation. It hadn't. Quite the opposite, it had made everything so much more confusing! Especially because she knew they had strong feelings for her too. And there were two of them! And she just couldn't, for the life of her, untangle which one pulled at her heart more strongly. It was very unpleasant. But for all that, she found herself being distracted by them more and more of late... especially ever since Doctor Roanoke had mysteriously stopped interfering with Eric and Lain. They hadn't had any direct contact since Galileo, but all it would take to change that would be a vidcomm on her part. But could she do that? Could she really work up the nerve to vidcomm them, especially given her lack of verbal skills? Lifting a Panzerwulf with her bare hands seemed easier.

"You're thinking about those two guys, aren't you?" Sting asked, noting the slight flush of Stella's cheeks. He sighed in mild exasperation, and ran a hand through his lime green hair. He sighed again when she turned to look at him, a wistful expression on her face. "Look, I ain't gonna tell you who and who not to like, okay? You're a big girl, you can decide if you want to fall in love or not. I just... I just don't want you to get hurt, you know? I mean... they're normal people, Stella. They can't... they can't be part of our lives in the long term. They aren't Extended. It's not against the rules to have a boyfriend or girlfriend, even outside the program, assuming you have any spare time for it. But the Program... the Program always comes first, Stella. You know that. There will come a time when the Program will come between you and them. I just don't want you to be sad when that happens, okay?"

"I'm worried about them." Stella said quietly. "They're down there. Down there with... that." She inclined her head fractionally at the dark blot. From what they'd been told, the reason for the dark blot of clouds was because of the green particulate stuff that the Great Endeavor was constantly producing, like a colossal smoke screen. The same stuff that made people sick and go into comas. It was a very fine, grainy substance, too small to be seen with the naked eye. As it floated through the air, it gathered other particles to it. Dust. Gas. Water droplets. It formed clouds. But unlike the normal white clouds, these clouds were dark, because of all the particulate matter and water in them. They started out as light grey, then turned darker and darker and darker, and were even starting to look slightly green in some places, even from orbit. The clouds were playing merry hell with weather patterns of all sorts, as they were heavier and thicker than normal clouds, and absorbed heat from the sun rather than reflecting it, causing a sharp spike upwards in temperature wherever they formed.

Besides just affecting the weather, the clouds were also disrupting wireless communications in areas they covered. Almost a decade after they had first been launched, ways had been found to counteract the jamming effects of N-jammer's, once again allowing for long range wireless comms across the Earth and in near orbit. However, the green clouds seemed to have an abnormally high metallic content, which reflected and diffused many electronic waves used by sensors and communication arrays, sharply decreasing their range and clarity. Not only that, but the clouds were heavily charged, electrically speaking, not only resulting in near continuous lightning storms beneath their cover, but even further screwing up electronic devices and comms with electromagnetic interference of startling intensity. Surface to orbit comms from beneath the clouds were simply impossible, no matter how powerful the relay or antenna. Not that there were many to converse with beneath the clouds... anyone not in a sealed environment when the Green Zone, as it was starting to be called, swept overhead only had a few hours before they were exposed to whatever the green stuff was, and only a few more hours after that until they succumbed to the effects, effects that no one, even a day after the first people had been exposed, had yet awoken from.

Steady flickers of light, like raindrops in reverse, slowly trickled away from the Earth in several spots, all well removed from the Green Zone. Those would be the surface to orbit shuttles and hurriedly assembled, Mass Driver launcher Mass Transport Modules, ferrying the first portions of the evacuating populace away from Earth and up to the PLANTS. The lines appeared so very, very tiny against the gigantic backdrop of the Earth, and though Stella knew each shuttle carried hundreds of people, and each MTM almost a thousand, there was simply no way it could ever be enough. Not unless they had years, and the best estimates she'd yet seen gave them only months before the Earth became one big Green Zone. And they had no idea how to stop it. Or if it even could be stopped. Some were saying that the Green Zone was self sustaining and self multiplying, that even if they destroyed the Great Endeavor, it wouldn't change anything in the long term. Stella didn't want to believe that. Destroying the enemy base had to make a difference, didn't it? Had to. Because if they couldn't do anything, then anyone who tried to fight and got killed would die in vain. Eric and Lain might die in vain... Stella clutched her hands to her suddenly achy chest.

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Sting said, noting her distress, though he was more sure of the opposite. She had it bad. So much for tranquility. Course, who was he to throw stones, right? "They're Solar Knights after all. And they're pretty capable and stubborn. They're not going to just roll over and d... and give up." Sting caught himself from mentioning the "D" word that always sent Stella into a shivering panic. Or a berserker rage, if she was already angry. They all had their little tics, their words they could not stand. Auel's was "Mother". Seemed innocuous enough to Sting, but Auel would seriously freak out if people started talking about mother's. Him? He could simply not stand to hear the word "Spider". Even thinking it made him grimace. He wasn't arachniphobic. The creature's themselves didn't bother him in the slightest. But that word... that word made him want to crawl into a hole and pull it in after himself. "Trust me. I've traded punches with them. They're pretty tough."

"Why did you do that?" Stella asked, her tone somewhat odd to Sting's ears until he finally realized what it was. He held up his hands placatingly.

"Hey, now don't get like that, Stella. It was just a little tussle amongst guys, back when we all thought they were trying to get to you for less than honorable reasons, okay?" Sting told her. He himself was still not sure that their intentions were honorable, but since Stella seemed to like them, he wasn't going to put a brick wall in her path. Mostly because if she really wanted something, she'd go through pretty much anything to get it, without a second thought. Not that he thought she was really angry with him... she was just protective of them, like any girl would be over those she really liked. Or any guy, for that matter. "I'm sure there were no hard feelings either way."

"You're avoiding my question." Stella observed. Her fingers toyed with the slit on the back of her uniform jacket that allowed her access to the combat knife she wore across her lower back whenever she was not in her cockpit or in a recuperation bed.

Sting could not help but notice her not so idle gesture, and he was not ashamed to say that he gulped. Stella was such a sweet and gentle girl most of the time. She was also the best knife fighter out of all the Extended's, hands down, far and away. She could do things with her knife that were frankly amazing. And cause injuries with it that didn't bear thinking about, even for a combat hardened veteran like Sting. Even Auel knew to back waaayyy the hell off when Stella started playing with her knife, and he sometimes seemed to have the situational awareness of a particularly dim gnat. The sort that kept flying into a window for three hours straight. "Not avoiding. Merely talking around. What do you want me to say? Tell me what you want me to say that doesn't end up with you tickling me with the point of that knife, and I'll freaking say it, as sincere as you like!" Sting said quickly, pushing off from the window and drifting towards the doorway.

"You didn't hurt them, did you?"

Sting thought about Auel kneeling over the short guy with black hair, holding a knife in one hand as the Natural spat at him through a mouthfull of blood and chipped teeth. He thought about how he'd been within a hair of either breaking the tall blond one's neck or crushing his windpipe as he tried to strangle the bastard unconscious from behind. He thought about how dextrous Stella could be with her blade. "Hurt them? No. Never. Never ever. Not even slightly did we hurt them. We... we had a competition. A punch throwing competition. Purely for fun."

"For some reason I don't believe you." Stella replied, peering at him under narrowed brows. She transfixed him with her stare for several more long moments, before abruptly turning back to her treasured view, like nothing at all had been happening. Sting sighed in relief. Again, he didn't think he'd really been in danger... the knife would have been drawn if she was really mad... but he would definitely know better to be careful on the subject in the future. He was just turning to go out the door when Stella spoke. "Don't ever hurt them again. Not even in fun." She said, softly, as if talking to herself. Sting knew better than to think she was.

"Right." He answered. "Try not to get too distracted. We've got a lot of work to do soon, and it's gonna be dangerous. If you aren't paying attention, you're never gonna get to see this view again, Stella."

"That... would be bad." Stella agreed. This time though, she was talking to herself.

* * *

"Well, I suppose this makes a few things make more sense than they used to. Such as why I was such a natural with the Moebius Zero system, which kicked the crap out of more than ninety nine percent of pilot candidates." Mu commented with a slight shrug, staring at his restrained hands where they rested in Murrue's lap. "I wonder how many of the rest of the old Zero squadron had genes like mine?" He wondered, staring up past the sky for a moment or two. He and Murrue were sitting on a section of the roof of the Orb National Palace, along with Kira and Lacus, who had been released from the hospital, though not without strict orders to avoid aggravating their injuries, earlier in the day. Mu had been allowed to wear civilian clothes instead of an Orb prison jumpsuit, and though there were still many that gave him a cold shoulder or a suspicious glance in the hallways, by and large most people had a lot more to worry about than the treatment of a "coerced former terrorist". Especially one that was doing everything he could to give up as much dirt on the Brotherhood as possible, though as yet there wasn't much to be done with his information, which included much of the interior layout of the Great Endeavor.

"I don't know about the rest of your original squadron, but it sounds to me, from what Kira and Lacus say, that Rau was also a Latent. And so then was your father." Murrue answered, squeezing his hand gently, her fingertips brushing against the plastic cuffs around his wrists and drawing another slight frown. She wished she could just cut them off, and she probably would have if it was just the four of them, but there were almost certainly one or two unseen observers about, probably even Stormhounds, and she didn't want them to get the wrong idea. They probably wouldn't hesitate to take Mu down with tear gas or worse if they thought he was attempting an escape attempt or anything else untoward. And she'd only just gotten him back, she wasn't going to chance anything that would result in him going away. She was afraid to let him out of her sight, to be honest.

"I had heard people say my dad was quite a flyer in his younger days." Mu said distantly. "By the time I came around though, that was long in the past. I suppose it also accounts for how I was able to pick up piloting the Strike so quickly. And here I'd thought it was just because I was that talented. Thats kind of a bummer."

"You are that talented." Kira said with a small smile. "The enhanced spatial awareness that is part of being a Latent certainly helps out, but its not a conscious skill. Its no substitue for experience and training and a creative mind. Its just a slightly keener edge than most have. Just because you have good genes doesn't mean you're automatically better at something than others. You still have to try. Its just like being a Coordinator."

"Except without all the hassle." Lacus put in with a smile, lifting one hand to rub lightly at her neck, where she'd been shot with the needle gun. She realized what she was doing almost at once and put her hand back down on the rooftop, not wanting Kira to worry any more than he already was. It was just a phantom itch anyway, all of the blood tests and other scans the doctors had done had come back completely negative on any known toxins or contaminants. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her, other than general batteredness.

"Yeah, from what you guys say, being an Ultimate Coordinator isn't nearly as much fun as you'd think, huh? I honestly don't know up from down with all this stuff you talk about, Seed's and next steps and whatever the hell Noah is up to, but it sounds like a lot of complicated bullshit I'm really glad isn't part of my life. I've got enough problems with everyone thinking I'm a terrorist." Mu said with feeling.

"Like everything, there are upsides and downsides." Kira agreed wholeheartedly, more lighthearted than he felt. It was kind of hard to forget the cast on his left hand, and the phantom twinges in the ends of his fingertips that were no longer there, and the way Lacus's hair tickled only the tops of her ears, rather than puddling on the ground around her, was a constant, if almost subconscious hiccup in his attention, which caused him to always look twice whenever he looked at he. She looked... different. Still Lacus obviously, there was no way he could ever mistake who she was... but short hair... just weird...

"Interesting new look with your hair, princess." Mu noted with one of his trademark casual grins. "Must be a relief not carrying around all that snarltastic weight, eh?"

"I like it." Lacus admitted. "I got an extra thirty minutes of sleep this morning, simply because I didn't have to take care of the usual mop. I'll probably end up growing it out again though. Maybe after all my impersonators have decided to have a trim too." Lacus said with a slightly wicked smile, which faded after a moment or two. "I do hope no one else has to cut their hair like I did."

"I really can't believe the kid did that." Mu shook his head in bitter wonder. "I mean, he was always grandiose, and touchy, definitely touchy, but I never had him pegged as the mass murder type. Guess I can understand him not wanting me to believe that though." He paused, and looked down at his and Murrue's hands, turning unwonted serious for a moment. "He can't do it again, right? I mean, I've been practicing that shielding stuff you and that Katie girl told me about every free moment I get. He... he can't get me again, can he?"

"Shields are just like walls. Anyone can get through them eventually, its all a matter of how much effort you put in." Lacus answered frankly. "I'm still painfully new in this subject as well, I'm afraid. All I can do is try and smash him like I have a hammer in my head. Sometimes its a very big hammer, but he's very good at blocking me, and he gets right through my own defenses like they're hardly even there. I can work with you if you like... I need to practice too... but I'm just a brawler and he's a trained fighter."

"Same here. I was using my Seed and everything, and he put his claws in me with ease." Kira added, with a shiver at the invasive memory. "Just shields aren't enough. Keeping your distance helps... he gets much weaker the farther away you are... at space combat distances, you really don't need to worry about much, especially with Lacus and Katie around to watch your back. Use your shields like a sort of warning system, to give you time to cut and run when you start feeling pressure on them."

"Katie and Ysak are working on new methods of mental combat as quickly as they can. She's much more expert than I, still." Lacus said with a frown of self displeasure. She was still leaving too much of this particular burden to Katie, in her mind. Yes, she had a pregnancy to worry about, but given how extraordinarily powerful Noah was, even with Katie and Ysak together Lacus had strong misgivings over their ability to prevail. Katie's abilities just didn't tend towards the sort useful for a direct mental confrontation, at least as far as Lacus understood. "However, I think I can give you some reassurance that though he will be able to affect you with his mental powers, Noah shouldn't be able to put you back under his total mind control. Not without a lot of work. From what Katie and I have discussed, there is just no way we can see that sort of deep conditioning taking less than hours of time. He can still kill you, can still make you move or black out or who knows what... but he can't make you rejoin the Brotherhood unless he gets you alone for a few hours. I promise."

"I suppose that's some comfort." Mu said with a small smile, as Murrue leaned into him reassuringly. "I suppose it's all kind of crazy for me to be worrying about what to do if I face him in combat eh? I mean, its not like anyone's going to let me into even an old prop fighter, much less a Mobile Suit. Hell, I probably need to unlearn a lot of bad habits anyway, I've gotten used to the easy life of having a NIC system. Using standard controls is going to feel so awkward."

"I'm sure you'll manage." Murrue said supportively. "And given the dire straights the entire world seems to be in, I think you might find that few will put up any serious protest about having Mu la Flaga rejoin the battle line, on the proper side this time. With those three monstrous Gundams, plus the two remaining originals and who knows what else he has cooked up, we're going to need all the help we can get. Especially with..." Murrue trailed off and shot a somewhat guilty look, first at Kira's hand, and then at the hospital in general. "With the setbacks we've recently suffered." Murrue continued in a much quieter voice.

"Just doesn't feel real." Mu agreed. "We went through so much shit with that ship, and now it's just gone. Feels like my dog has just died." Mu was quiet for a moment or two. "Guess that means we'll just have to go get another dog, right? I mean, I'm sure Orb is going to continue its warship program, and I can't see anyone better suited to being the captain of the next major battleship than you. Assuming you still want to, of course."

"I don't know what else I would do, to be honest, if it doesn't have something to do with ships." Murrue admitted. "I don't know if I have it in me to captain another expermintal battleship, but I'm definitely going to have to think about a more full time position with Morganroete's shipbuilding division. Assuming the world doesn't end in the next few months anyway."

"The world is not ending." Lacus said, her voice firm, where Murrue's had been lighthearted. "It is changing, for the worse, in my opinion, but even if we can't stop Noah, the world will not end. We shouldn't be so conceited as to think that the Earth cannot survive without us."

There was a few moments of awkward silence at that, before Mu stepped up to fill the conversational gap once more. "So, uh, besides the spatial awareness, what other cool superpowers do I have? Leaping tall buildings, being more powerful than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet sort of stuff, right?"

"You're very, very sensitive to the emotional states of others." Lacus replied, after a short shared chuckle.

"But I'm male. Surely that's impossible." Mu protested, drawing more chuckles of amusement. It felt good to laugh, certainly, since there was little enough to laugh about of late.

"You can make Active's more powerful." Kira said seriously, after the chuckles died away. "Either by touch, or by, um, linking purposes I guess. I'm really not sure how its worked between me and Lacus in the past, but we've Resonated while she was on Earth and I was in orbit before. I think that might require a very deep emotional connection between people though. Deep enough that no one else is likely to ever forge one with Lacus." Kira told them. _At least if I have any say in the matter._

_Thanks for the thought, I guess, but you remind me of something else._ Lacus replied fondly. "You can also hold mental conversations with other Actives and Latents. We've been working on a sort of unspoken comm network between even the non-Newtypes in the last battle. I won't speak into your mind if you don't want me to, but Katie sees things differently than I do when it comes to mental etiquette, so you may not find her so polite. I found it really strange at first, but now it's second nature, so much so that I sometimes have to remember to speak out loud when other people are around. People are going to look at you funny, especially at first, because it takes a bit of work remembering to only think things, rather than say them outright. But its very convenient, at the end of the day. And no, just because we are talking in your head does not mean we are reading your mind. Sometimes we are reading your mind, but... its not like most people think. You put the thoughts at the "top" of your mind and I skim them off and put mine there in turn. I don't look below the surface unless I have to or need to. Privacy is important to people. Too important in some cases." Lacus said the last with a long sigh of frustration.

"Huh?" Mu asked, puzzled to know what could so bother the infinitely patient pink princess.

"Don't worry about it, its something between me and Cagalli." Lacus replied, pasting a smile back on her face.

"Ah, yeah, she's in a bad way at the moment, or so I hear. She just can't catch a break, can she?" Mu mused.

"She'll get through it. I have faith in her." Kira said resolutely. _Though its absolutely killing Athrun at the moment._

_We offered again, you know. He wouldn't hear of it. Honestly, I don't know what to say anymore. Thats only the second time in my life I've seriously wanted to punch him or shake him until he sees sense._

_I'll talk with him._

_The only person he's going to listen to is Cagalli, and she's in a depressed fugue. Katie's thinking about going behind their backs, you know? I'm not sure I should stop her. Orb needs Cagalli right now._

_She'll never forgive you... neither of them will ever forgive you or Katie if they discover you going behind their backs, even if you have their best interests in mind._ Kira said gravely.

_I'm aware of that. I'm also aware that there might be bigger concerns. We're rapidly approaching a point of no return, Kira, and at the moment a third of our fighting and decision making force is entirely inoperative. Athrun can't even drive a car at the moment, much less pilot the Phoneix King once its rebuilt._

_We have to give them a little more time. Its only been a day or two since it all happened. Give them a week or so, and if she's not showing any signs of improvement, then... well..._

_A week and a half at the most. That'll put the Great Endeavor just off the West Coast of Europe, which should hopefully be mostly evacuated by then._

"You're right, that is going to take some getting used to." Mu said, having been watching Kira and Lacus trade glances and subtle nods and other nonverbal cues usually reserved for a private conversation, but with no words spoken out loud. "So the question of what I can do is still kind of open, is what I'm hearing?"

"That is correct." Lacus replied. "The field of Newtype abilities in general is one that is very mysterious to us all, and Latents in particular are an enigma. Anything you find out on your own would be very helpful to us all." Lacus was going to say more, but just then a footstep from nearby, intentionally loud, drew all of their attention up towards one of the air conditioning units on the roof nearby, and the Stormhound in full battle gear, including mask, leaning not so casually against it, arms crossed across his chest. His appearance was no surprise to Kira, who'd heard him move into position or Lacus, who could see on the mental landscape, but both Mu and Murrue looked a little unsettled at having a heavily armed soldier appear within easy talking distance as if by magic. "Can we help you, Mr. Kurtz?" Lacus asked, smiling slightly at the flicker of surprise at being addressed by name caused in his consciousness.

"Request from higher." Kurtz replied, respectfully, eyeing Lacus warily. She was getting creepier and creepier the longer he knew her. That utterly serene expression on her face, like she'd known exactly where he was the whole time, the quite confidence in addressing him by his name even though there was no nametag or other identifying mark on his armor. Maybe her eye for detail was just that good, that she had memorized all of the Stormhound's appearance, but he doubted that was the case. There was a significant group of Stormhounds with similar build and height, him, the Lt, Major Jones, Ramierez and a few more. With armor and mask on there shouldn't be any way a human eye could tell them apart at just a glance. "The Chief Representative is holding an executive meeting with Dr. Simmons to figure out if Orb has any sort of coherent response for this crisis that doesn't involve abandoning the entire country. He'd like the both of you to attend, since, well... the Queen and the Ambassador are, uh, indisposed."

"Those guys scare me." Mu said in an undertone to Murrue, eyeing the tall, lean soldier wearing the slowly shifting camouflage armor with the full head mask in the shape of a snarling demon dog with glowing blue eyes.

"They scare everyone." Murrue replied. "Except for maybe Kira and Lacus. Don't get me wrong, it's great having them on our side... but they're a little too hardcore for me to be comfortable with. And they're constantly giving me frights, stepping out from under bushes and trees and around corners without warning."

"I know Kira's got senses like a hunting cat, just like Noah, so I see how he keeps track of them, but what about Lacus? Come to think of it, Noah seemed even more perceptive than Kira is. I could NEVER sneak up on him, not even through a soundproofed passageway!" Mu wondered.

"Lacus can see people's minds." Kira supplied, grinning slightly when Mu jumped, obviously having thought his conversation with Murrue was inaudible, as it was barely at the level of a whisper.

"That's actually not fully accurate, according to Katie." Lacus added, getting to her feet and brushing off her dress fastidiously. "Every mind gives off mental energy that affects the enivornment of the pyschic region around them, I suppose you can say, like a boat leaving a wake in the ocean. I can see those wakes, which are different for each person. The better I know a person, the clearer I can see their wake, and the clearer a picture of that person I get, even when I can't see them. Every Active Newtype sees these wakes differently, and they often have elements of synthesia. Katie's pictures start out as simple colored cartoon animals, and rapidly acquire smells and tastes and feels the better she knows a person. Mine start out as mere outlines of a person that get more and more filled in by abstract representations of their defining characteristics and current emotional states as I sense them."

"Sounds complicated. Glad I don't have to deal with that." Mu said with a grin.

"You and me both." Kira said fervently. "Bad enough having hyperactive senses, if I was constantly seeing and feeling and tasting and smelling these "mental wakes", on top of all the smells and sights and sounds of the physical world, I think I'd go nuts. Though I think it might be interesting to see Lacus's wake, once or twice."

"Katie says I look like a pink songbird, which I guess is no real surprise, but that I taste sweet, smell strongly refreshing, feel firm and unyielding and sound like a snoring giant keeping." Lacus said, and then shrugged. "If that helps any."

"Well, since everyone experiences wakes differently as you say, not really." Mu answered, holding out his hand. "Thanks for taking time to try and explain things to me."

"Its not trouble at all, Mu." Kira shook the proffered hand, his eyes widening a fraction as their hands touched, getting a brief, hard to define but definite feel for how Mu was feeling. Mu was staring at Kira in mild shock as well, having got a similar instantaneous glimpse. "That happens every so often, when two Latents are both pretty riled up, emotionally speaking. Its like static electricity building up around you." Kira explained without waiting for Mu to ask.

"I see." Mu didn't, but they kids were busy enough at the moment, he shouldn't take up any more of their time than needed. God damn it, but he hated feeling so helpless and useless, but he understood there was little there could be done about it. He was still suspect, damaged goods in the eyes of all but a select few. There was nothing he could do about it besides be on his best behavior and wait for time to tell though, and idleness had never grated well with him.

"I will talk with Mr. Kurenai about your status at this meeting." Lacus assured him. "With our current levels of force diminishment, not putting a skilled and willing person like you to use would be simply criminal. If Mr. Finch is as successful in deprogramming that poor girl, the other Brotherhood pilot, as he expects to be, we may very well be finding some way to deploy her as well. One never knows which will be the straw that breaks the camel's back." Lacus took hold of Mu's hands in both of her own and held them tight. "Just be patient for a little while longer, please."

"Of course." Mu looked at her with wide eyes. He stared down at his hand and then after her and Kira as they followed the Stormhound, the one caleld Kurtz apparently, away towards the nearest roof access stairway.

"Something wrong?" Murrue asked, after the others were well out of earshot, except for whatever other Stormhound was keeping watch upon Mu from hiding.

"Nah. Just a little surprised." Mu said with a smile, turning and putting his cuffed hands over her head and down to her waist, pulling her towards him into a warm embrace. "Thought I could see something for a moment there. Like a psychedelic flashback. Its nothing." He told her, reveling in the feeling of being able to just hold her, and be held in turn. He could not help though, but dart his eyes towards another bank of machinery about forty feet away along the rooftop. He wasn't sure, but he could almost swear he could see a patch of shifting color that shouldn't have been shifting. It wasn't something he would have noticed unless he knew exactly where to look, but during that brief psychedelic flash, he'd seen something over there, something like a flight simulator pic of a fighter jet, bristling with weapons, rakish and lean, dangerous in the extreme, hovering around that spot of the roof.

"See something?" Murrue asked, seeing him turn his head and peer.

"Just the most beautiful woman in the world." Mu turned his gaze back to her. _You got better things to worry about, flyboy._

* * *

"I need something to tell the people, other than "please trust us, we have everything in hand"." Jiro said forcefully, planting both hands flat on the polished wood of the table as he half stood, head bowed, at the head of the table. At his left sat Kira Yamato, Lacus Clyne, and most surprisingly, Athrun Zala, though poor Athrun looked like death warmed over, his eyes heavily ringed, his chin unshaven, his hair and clothing unkempt and wrinkled. Jiro's heart really went out to him in that moment, like never before, and he strongly wished he could lend a shoulder for Athrun to lean upon and hold onto, but he refrained from acting upon that particular fantasy. Painful as it was to recognize, there was no doubting the fact that, regrettable as it was, Athrun Zala was wedded firmly and permanently to the Queen, in mind, body and soul, and there was simply nothing that could come between them, least of all someone like Jiro Kurenai. This latest crisis was perfect proof of that. At Jiro's right sat Cyprus Finch, acting as the Director of Intelligence, Andrew Waltfeld, representing the regular military and then Dr. Erica Simmons, representing Morganroete. Other advisors and aides hugged the circumference of the room, waiting to be called upon to provide helpful facts and figures.

"The USN has already started conferring with us about using the Kaguya Mass Driver for the evacuation effort." One of the aides from the Department of Foreign Affairs spoke up. "Of course, Orb citizens will have priority of use, but we are more than a month and a half at the earliest from being in critical danger of this Green EDEN stuff, at least according to current projections."

"Do we really have no better option than to cut and run, abandoning everything we've worked for over the centuries since Orb gained its independence?" Jiro snapped in frustration, wishing he could slam his head on the table a few times. It would probably hurt, but maybe it would clear his head a little. Nothing else certainly seemed to be working. "Orb has been conquered and liberated, ruined and rebuilt so many times over the years that its become part of our national character to be courageous in the face of tremendous adversity... are we to forget all of that in the face of this latest challenge? Is that what I am to tell the people? That we are giving up this time, so sorry, this is too much for us?"

"Sometimes there is no dishonor in retreat." Cyprus pointed out. "When faced with a foe you cannot defeat, it only makes sense to re-engage on terms more favorable to your own victory at a later date. And Green EDEN is not a foe that can be killed with weapons or forced to surrender... its much more a natural disaster, it can only be allowed to run its course, and then pick up the pieces after."

"I refuse to accept that. Green EDEN is a man made substance, surely there is a man made countermeasure we can deploy!" Jiro retorted. "Dr. Simmons? Morganroete has led the world in terms of applied scientific achievements for almost a decade now. Surely there is something you have, something that can counter this Green EDEN?"

"Respectfully, Mr. Kurenai, as of the appearance of the Brotherhood, Morganroete has NOT been the world leader in terms of technology, and hasn't been for a while." Erica replied with a frustrated sigh of her own. "Though the technical sophistication of the Brotherhood varies far more widely than similar situations in regular world governments and militaries, there is no denying that even the least advanced Brotherhood technologies are at least equal to our current top secret level projects, and their advanced technologies are years, even decades ahead of our fondest dreams. Noah Borander is, simply put, the foremost living expert on the engineering and deployment of Nanotechnology. Give me ten years and an unlimited budget and I can promise you, I will find a way to counteract Green EDEN, perhaps even Blue EDEN, especially given the examples of Brotherhood technology we have captured to build off of. But as far as providing a magic bullet in time to do the Earth any good... its simply impossible. It would take a miracle of divine proportions."

"Hameya helps those who help themselves." Jiro muttered the saying under his breath. "Okay, so destroying or counteracting Green EDEN is out of the question then. What about destroying the source, this Great Endeavor monstrosity? Would that not buy us quite a bit of additional time?"

"It would." Waltfeld agreed. "But I just don't see how it would be done. The USN military forces are all involved with the evacuation procedures, as are the militaries of the FNE and ALU. Even ZAFT is sending support units to Earth to help keep order. With the massive losses suffered during the Armada Fiasco, everyone's reserve levels are dangerously low. One more lost engagement of similar scope would be the end of active military resistance. Everyone is leery of losing their militaries entirely, because there is simply no way to confront the Great Endeavor unless it is with overwhelming force. I've no doubt the USN will eventually make a last ditch effort to destroy the bastard, but by that time it will be too late to matter for Orb."

"Damn it! DAMN IT!" Jiro slammed his fist on the table resoundingly. He controlled himself with a very difficult effort of will, the silence in the room at his brief outburst all but crushing. He slowly looked up and caught Athrun's haunted gaze. "Will the Queen be available for presenting a joint statement to the people about our decisions at this meeting?"

"I..." Athrun trailed off and looked downcast. "I wouldn't count on it." He said, every word feeling like it was being dragged by barbed pincers from the pits of his soul.

"I see." Jiro said softly.

"I don't." Athrun replied, mostly to himself, though he was clearly audible. "God help me, but I don't..."

Lacus cleared her throat to cover the uncomfortable silence that followed. "I may not be the Queen, but I will offer what moral support as I can, Mr. Kurenai."

"Appreciated, Ms. Clyne. You presence and words are, as always, a fount of resolve and fortitude for us all." Jiro replied thankfully. "Does anyone else have anything to add before I adjourn the meeting?"

"I've been thinking." Kira spoke up, drawing attention from everyone. Kira did not often speak at meetings like this, usually leaving the talking to Lacus, while providing emotional support and a calming presence, as well as private advice and observations through their private link. "About how Noah disposed of the Blue EDEN up in space after he was done destroying the Armada. He used some sort of electromagnetic field devices to collect the scattered clouds of nano-particles, so he could destroy them with those anti-matter weapons."

"Yes. So what? Gathering the stuff up doesn't help us much since its being constantly produced." Waltfeld pointed out, somewhat testily. Stress was getting to them all.

"Obviously the Blue EDEN was magnetically charged, or else the EM field wouldn't have been able to suck it in so effectively. What if Green EDEN is also magnetically charged? Couldn't we like, scoop it up and then destroy it, or somehow force it away from areas where people are? Filter it, kinda like a big bug zapper?"

"We're pretty sure that it is charged, given the merry hell it plays with regular communications and sensors in all the area's its covered." Erica answered thoughtfully. She suddenly stood bolt upright, an expression of revelation on her face. "That's it! Of course! You're a genius, Kira!"

"Um, I guess... in some ways..." Kira flushed slightly at the praise. "Why am I a genius now?"

"We can't counteract Green EDEN. And destroying it is just not time or cost effective, certainly not with the Great Endeavor still active. But the strength of the stuff is also its weakness!" Erica was talking so fast the words were tripping out of her mouth.

"Care to explain, for those of us without class A scientific minds?" Waltfeld asked dryly.

"Green EDEN is a nano-cluster... a chemical robot the size of a molecule or a couple molecules! That is very, very small, talking nanometers (one milionth of a meter). Which means it can get pretty much anywhere, especially into something as molecularly porous as a biological organism! It also means its easy to distribute over wide areas through natural forces like wind currents or water. But it also means that it has very little mass and inertia... meaning it can be deflected easily! Regular materials obviously would block it, but we don't have the time or resources to build bubbles of Exo-glass over Orb. But we can build bubbles of another sort. I'm sure I can modify something out of the BGCS system... yes... yes, it should work... the power requirements are going to be huge... and we're going to need a lot of projection apparrati, but its doable... doable but very expensive..." Erica trailed off specuatively.

"Dr. Simmons, have you a solution for us?" Jiro asked hopefully.

"Maybe?" Erica replied distractedly. "Its all highly theoretical of course."

"Maybe is not good enough, Dr. Simmons." Jiro said forcefully. "Do you have a solution or do we need to evacuate? If you aren't sure that this will work, then waiting until you are sure will be as good as dooming our people to suffering the full effects of Green EDEN. Whatever those are."

"Its not poison gas." Lacus reminded them. "Many will die, but many will live as well."

"Its those that live that worry me more than those who die." Cyprus said bluntly. "If what Noah says is true, and those that survive become Ultimate Coordinators, then we are already going to be dealing with tens of thousands of people with new physical and mental gifts like those of you and Mr. Yamato, but without your ironclad moral codes and experience. If that thought doesn't scare you, then it should. But that is a problem for the future, assuming we have one."

"I don't like being forced to make this call." Erica told them.

"Join the club." Jiro replied sardonically. "The fate of Orb is going to be decided by whether or not your theoretical solution can be made practical in the next month and a half. Eighty million lives, including those of everyone in this room, depend on your answer. No pressure."

"If Cagalli were here, she'd just order me to do it." Erica grumbled.

"Cagalli is not here though." Jiro said sadly, with a cautious glance at Athrun. "And I will not issue an order like that blindly."

"We can do this." Kira said confidently. "There is always hope."

"I agree." Lacus said simply. "I have complete confidence in you, Erica."

"I hate to disagree, but this is not the time for experimental measures." Waltfeld countered. "We should begin planning and executing the evacuation now, or else we'll never get everyone off planet in time."

"I agree with Commander Waltfeld." Cyprus said. "We have been defeated for the moment. Sticking up for our ideals now would just result in a mountain of corpses. I believe I've had this discussion before somewhere..." He looked at Lacus bluntly.

"Athrun?" Jiro asked after a multi second wait.

"I... I don't know." Athrun said brokenly. "I just..." He trailed off and shook his head.

Jiro waited a few seconds more, but Athrun didn't speak up again. "I must say I'm leaning towards the side of Commander Waltfeld and Lieutenant Finch. That would be the safe course of action, even though it sits wrong with me to abandon our homes."

"I can do this." Erica blurted. "Its going to take everything we've got, and its going to be damned close... but I can do this. We can do this."

"You are willing to gamble eighty million lives on that?" Jiro asked seriously.

"I'd gamble more if I could, but there's simply no way we have the time to protect more than the Orb home islands with this strategy." Erica replied fiercely. "As things go, we're going to be working twenty four hours a day, pulling in as much support labor as we can, and its going to be by the skin of our teeth. But we can do this."

"I see." Jiro sat back down in his chair heavily. Three ayes, two nays and one abstain. Not the sort of resounding consensus he could have hoped for in this kind of situation. He really wished the Queen was here to lend her vote, but if Athrun himself was any indication, there would be little input from the Queen for the forseeable future. He met their gazes one by one, a business strategy his father had taught him. Read their eyes, for they are the window into the soul. In the movement of the eyes there was the key to what people were really feeling. Erica's eyes told him she was worried, but still confident in her choice, now that it had been made. Waltfeld's eyes were worried but resolute, wanting to hope but feeling he had to go the route of safety. Cyprus was, as usual, unreadable and implacable, like looking down into the depths of a mist shrouded grotto. Kira was firm and unyielding, convinced as always of his chosen path. Lacus was much the same, though there was a steely undertone to her gaze that made him shiver. She was angry about something. As for Athrun... his eyes were drained and empty, the eyes of a man who has lost his moorings in life and isn't sure if he should sink or swim.

"Very well then. We will stay and trust to the fortitude and ingenuity of our people." Jiro said at long last. "Dr. Simmons, just tell me what you need to save our people, and you will get it. You will have the full cooperation of every branch and agency of government that you need, I think that should go without saying."

"We're going to need a lot of labor for construction purposes. More than we currently have available in Orb. Obviously, public support will make up for some of that, but if we could draw in even more help, that would significantly widen our margins of error. I know this is unprecedented, Mr. Chief Representative, but you might want to think about ways we can recruit help from among the refugees evacuating elsewhere from Earth. Offer them citizenship for them and their families or something, in addition to premium pay. We need engineers of all sorts, as well as anyone with a background in electronics, industrial construction, physics and a half dozen other fields. I'll prepare a full list of criteria before three pm. We're also going to need to start considering what to do about food and other supplies, since we're likely to be cut off from imports for the forseeable future, and anything outside of Orb won't be edible to regular humans without high risk of Green EDEN contamination." Erica said at once.

"I will prepare a public briefing and release it at once." Jiro replied. He looked over at Lacus. "Could I ask for your help in preparing a similar broadcast for the international audience, Ms. Clyne?"

"I would be glad to, but I'm afraid I need an hour or two to take care of some very pressing business first." Lacus answered immediately.

"That should be fine. I want to make the domestic announcement first anyway." Jiro said, privately wondering what the delay was about. Perhaps it was about whatever had put that dangerous look in her eyes. He shivered... that which earned the ire of Lacus Clyne was not a fortunate thing. "If there are no further questions, then I suggest we end this meeting and get started, as we obviously do not have time to waste." There were no objections, and people immediately began bustling about to begin facilitating the decisions made.

Lacus swept out of the room so quickly Kira almost had to run to catch up. _What's up?_ he asked cautiously, wary of the stiffness in her spine and the clipped and rapid pce she was setting. Lacus was very much not happy.

_Cagalli should have been there. Jiro was floundering without her presence._

_She's not well though... even Athrun looked like he was barely holding on!_

_Then its time she got better. Her country, her people and her friends and family need her now._

_We said we were going to wait a week or so though..._

_We don't have that kind of time, and you know it, Kira._

_Athrun is going to flip..._

_Athrun needs to take a rest. You should go make sure he does. He's a wreck at the moment. I have never seen him look so bad._

_He's not going to want to listen to me, you said as much yourself._

_Kira..._ Lacus stopped and turned aa very icy look indeed back at him. _Athrun needs to rest. Please ensure that he does. And ensure that he does it away from Cagalli's room. This farce has gone along too long as it is. Either Cagalli is going to shoulder her responsibilities, or she needs to just give up altogether and leave the stage permanently. I'm sure we can find a nice psychiatric ward for her somewhere. Remaining in limbo is causing more damage than we can afford right now._

_But..._

_There is no but. I will do all I can to avoid using my Newtype abilities, out of respect for her wishes. But like Mr. Finch has just reminded me, yet again, we are at a point where sticking up for our morals and ideals to the bitter end is simply no longer appropriate, when the end result is a mountain of innocent corpses. Go and take care of Athrun. I will go and take care of Cagalli. One way or another, Orb will have a resolution regarding their Queen before the end of the day._ Lacus started walking again, leaving Kira standing in the hall, blinking back worried tears, his fists clenched at his sides. She did not look back. The time for looking back had passed.


	56. Garden of Eden Creation Kit part 6

"Ms. Clyne, what brings you up here?" One of the two Stormhounds standing guard on the door leading to the recuperation room Cagalli was currently installed in, asked as Lacus turned the corner and stopped in front of the pair of very intimidating and professionally frightening looking guards. The shorter, broader one on the left hand side of the door caried what looked like some form of automatic shotgun mixed with a grenade launcher, plus an assortment of pistols on web straps across his chest and sides, while the taller, slimmer one on the right carried a wicked looking assault rifle complete with bayonet and a variety of extra knives strapped to his legs and shoulders. Both wore full combat body armor, including helmets, the camouflage coating on the outer surfaces of their armor turned a pale shade of cream to match the whitewashed walls of the hall, their helmet camera lenses glowing blue and baleful. They looked like a pair of demonic statues next to the slight and cheerful figure of Lacus.

"I came to check up on Cagalli." Lacus replied with a small smile. She rubbed absently at her neck, before catching herself again and lowering her hand back down to her side in annoyance. "Athrun needed some rest, so I'm taking his place for a little while, Mr. Ramierez."

"Sounds good to me, Ms. Clyne." Ramierez, the taller man on the right, replied agreeably. "The Ambassador looked terrible when he left to go to that meeting. I've seen prettier looking corpses on a battlefield. Ur, I mean..."

"I understand." Lacus assured him. "I'm sure he appreciates your concern, even if he is currently not so good at expressing it. We are truly fortunate to have guardians as caring as you and the other Stormhounds. I don't believe we can thank you often enough for your hard work."

"Not at all ma'am!" Ramierez insisted, highly uncomfortable with public praise from THE Lacus Clyne. He could feel Newbie Alpha, one of the newest Stormhound recruits, who was still so fresh he didn't even have a nickname yet, despite his years of military service in other branches, which didn't count in the Stormhounds hierarchy, looking at him askance from across the doorway. On casual speaking terms with Lacus Clyne? Holy shit. "We're just doing our job, there's nothing exceptional about it at all!"

"Only the most exceptional of people couldn't see anything exceptional in what you do, Mr. Ramierez." Lacus answered, charming them both with another small smile. "May I go in?" She asked, cocking her head to the side a little.

"Of course!" Ramierez opened the door for her, feeling as awkward in her presence as a schoolboy inviting his first crush into his room. Lacus just had that effect on him sometimes, made him feel like he was barely worthy to be standing in her presence at all! He wasn't the only one to feel like that, he knew. He smiled a bit himself, imagining the wide eyed look on Newbie Alpha's face at coming face to face with such an awesomely famous and important person, and finding her just as magnificent and overwhelming as all the stories said, more so even! That was a relative rarity when it came to famous people... often they appeared as just another somewhat hassled and world weary person when you met them in person, somehow smaller than the image you had built up of them in your mind. Not so for Lacus. When Lacus turned up the charisma, even the Lt went a bit weak in the knees. "We'll be right outside if you need anything. Just ask or push the nurse call button." Ramierez trailed off, struggling to get something else off his chest, something he'd never have been able to tell Athrun. Lacus seemed to sense his intent, and she paused a moment in the doorway. "I... I hope she gets better soon." Ramierez said, in a very quiet whisper.

Lacus patted the Stormhound affably on the arm. "I hope so too. We'll just have to put our faith in her strength, like always, ne?" She answered, equally quietly, smiling in an effort to give him confidence and reassurance. She stepped into the room and felt the door close behind her, and sagged back lightly against it. Her smile disappeared and was almost instantly replaced by a frown of determination. Being cheerful and uplifting for the sake of others, even though she herself felt far differently, was nothing especially new to her. But she hated having to give false hope to people, especially people like Ramierez, who really cared, even if they had a hard time saying it. She felt the sparks of anger inside her ignite further, and she straightened with new steel in her spine and looked around the room, except towards the bed in which Cagalli reclined, ostensibly asleep. The room was dim, the lights off, light trickling in from between the window shades, providing just enough illumination to find the light switch. Lacus left the lights off for the moment.

"I know you aren't asleep." Lacus said, pitching her voice to carry easily inside the room, but also to be very muffled and incoherent to anyone trying to listen in through the door. "You might be able to fool Athrun like that, but then again, I doubt it. But I'm not here to humor you like he would. This has gone far past the amusing stage." Lacus turned her head to glare at Cagalli, who breathed in and out deeply and evenly and softly. Cagalli made no reply, but her brow did furrow slightly, barely visible in the dimness. A large bandage was taped to her right cheek, covering up the skin graft that had covered the hole that Kisaka had created when he cut the Blue EDEN infection out of her face with his knife. Morden medicine being what it was, in a few months you'd barely even be able to tell there had ever been an injury, unless you knew exactly where to look and what to look for. Too bad the emotional scars could not be so easily erased. Not by modern medicine anyway.

"Stay silent then." Lacus said after a short wait. "You can listen for a while." She stepped away from the door and walked casually over to the windows, before throwing the shades wide, letting sunlight flood into the room, driving away the gloomy dimness and replacing it with the magnificent view of Nara-Attha City and the Pacific Ocean beyond, extending out to the horizon in a gently undulating plain of silver and blue, the sky clear and dotted with fluffy pale clouds, the sun shining brightly. It was a beautiful day in Orb. "There, that's much better, don't you think? There's just something about a bright, sunny day that lifts the spirits, don't you agree?" Lacus asked lightly. Again, Cagalli said nothing in return, though her eyes were slitted open now. Cagalli turned her head away, lips pursed and stared woodenly at the wall.

"So, I know you've already been told this by others, but I wanted to tell you myself." Lacus said, looking over her shoulder at her friend's head. "Because it's something that makes me so happy and proud, I know it has to mean something special to you as well. I'm going to have a baby, you see! Kira's, of course. The preliminary tests say its almost certainly going to be a boy. I'm going to be a mommy before the end of the year! Kira is going to be a great dad, don't you think?" Lacus paused and waited for a reply, which was not forthcoming. Cagalli was still turned over, facing the wall. Lacus's frown deepened. "I was so worried it was never going to happen, you know." Lacus admitted softly. "You used to tease me so much when I would sneak over to use your pregnancy test kit, but I was desperate... we seemed fated to suffer nothing but setbacks and painful non-results. Even though we were... are... good and deserving people, fate seemed to be conspiring against us to deny us that form of happiness. But in the end, we perservered, and now we've been given our reward, and that makes all the pain and heartbreak so worth it, don't you agree?"

Cagalli said nothing, but she did shift position a little on her bed. Lacus carefully kept her Newtype senses banked for the moment, wanting to give Cagalli every last chance she could to do this pleasantly, but her patience was wearing very, very thin. Of course, losing Kisaka like that was a terrible blow to Cagalli, the loss of one of the sturdiest pillars holding up her life, like losing her father all over again, but without even the slightest chance to say goodbye this time. Lacus didn't exactly have someone like that in her life, but she did know what it was like to lose a family member from a distance, since she and her father had been at seperate safe houses when he was ambushed and gunned down by ZAFT military police. She'd never gotten to say goodbye to either of her parents, when her mother killed herself in that car crash when she was just a little girl, or when her father was executed as a traitor on the orders of Athrun's father, in part because of her own actions in giving Kira the Freedom! She knew exactly how Cagalli felt. But that sympathy didn't extend to this broken, self pitying, self absorbed shell of a girl lying in the bed and trying to shut out the world that so desperately needed her help!

"Just think... you're going to be an Aunt soon, and Athrun's going to be an Uncle! It all seems so soon, and I guess it is, but my Mother wasn't too much older than me when I was born, and I know plenty of people my age up in the PLANTS who've had kids for years now." Lacus shrugged. "I must admit, I talk a good game, but I'm really quite frightened. This is all new and uncertain territory for me, Cagalli. Complicated enough, just having a baby... but everything else too... what Noah said... what's happening to Kira... what might happen to me... to our children... what's happening to the whole world... I don't know what to make of it all! Its just so much to take in, all at once! But I'm also sure, despite my fear, that we will prevail in the end. Kira and I won't let anything bad happen to the world, our son and all the other children will be able to grow up happy and free and unburdened by wars and hatred and pain. Huh, listen to me, saying such things when I'm just a insignificant mortal girl... like I have any real control over the universe, right? But I do have some power, I guess. People listen to me. My opinion matters. People... people need me, find strength in having me around, even if I'm just a figurehead most of the time."

Lacus turned and looked directly at the back of Cagalli's head, her expression quite fierce now. "In that, you and I are completely identical, Cagalli. We have power, just being the people we are, living the lives that we do. Maybe we don't always want to have that power, or live those lives, but we don't really have much choice in the matter, do we? Nice as it would be to be able to shift responsibility to someone else, that is simply not possible at this point. It is us or nobody, and if it is nobody then its already all over. Is that really what you want? Do you want it to be all over, Cagalli? Do you just want to let the world, let everything you've worked for ever since before I even knew you, just slip away now because of that wound in your soul you don't want to show anyone else? Because you thought you were strong enough to handle it yourself, and you were wrong? Is admitting you were wrong so hard? I guess it is, when it comes to people like you and me, where being wrong can mean the lives of millions of people."

"Is that it?" Lacus asked intently. "Is it just too hard for you to deal with anymore? The strain of always having to be right? Can you no longer bear that burden, is that what you want to tell us by this... this obscene act of yours!?" Lacus stepped right up to the edge of the bed and leaned down, putting both hands flat on the sheets as she peered down at Cagalli's face, where her friend was staring at the wall with stubborn concentration. "There's nothing wrong with that, you know?" Lacus added softly. Cagalli blinked. "You can give up, Cagalli. That always has been an option. There is no law that says you can't turn your back and drop out when the going gets too rough. People do it every day, in all situations and for all sorts of reasons. Is that what you wish to do? Tell me. Tell me, if you can't tell anyone else. You and I both know Athrun wouldn't be able to understand this, and Kira would be completely clueless, but I can understand the feeling very easily. I won't lie, and say its never tempted me as well. To just say, "screw it all", and just be Lacus Clyne, regular girl. I can't tell you how much I want that to happen, actually... its one of my fondest dreams."

Lacus sighed loudly, and leaned back, turning around and sitting down on the bed, her back resting against Cagalli's, her hand going up to rub at the phantom itch in her neck in frustration. "If only I could though. Maybe I actually could do it, you know. Just fade into the background. Take up an identity as a Lacus Clyne impersonator, get a job waiting tables or modeling or something non-stressful and boring and everyday. Settle down in a quiet home with the man I love more than life itself, having a few children, relax and grow old in peace, right? Who wouldn't want that sort of idyllic life? I can tell you who wouldn't want it, and the reason I could never ever do it. Because Kira couldn't take it. He says he could, says he'd love that sort of life, but for him it's the love of a dream he would never be able to stand to live. He cares too much. He feels responsible for others, even when there is clearly no logical reason for him to do so. I think that I, Lacus Clyne, could give up. But Kira Yamato could not. And the one thing I, Lacus Clyne, cannot ever give up, is Kira Yamato. Does that make me weak, being so dependent on the man I love that I would accept a life of hardship and pain to be close to him? I guess it does. But its a weakness I can stand. It used to be a weakness I thought we had in common. Now... now I'm not so sure."

"Have you seen Athrun recently, Cagalli? Have you actually looked at him and seen him when he keeps his vigil at your side?" Lacus asked, her voice turning cold. "Have you heard him when he cries and begs you to talk to him? I have, if you haven't. And I can tell you, I have never seen anything so pathetic in my life. Not him. You. You, sitting there while the man who has always meant more to you than your own life, whom you have risked your life to be with on many occasions, is reduced to a sobbing, exhausted, neglected wreck, when all that you need to do to help him, to give him the strength he needs to go on, is simply turn your head and smile and say his name, no matter how much you're hurting inside. But you won't even do that much. And that is quite simply something I cannot stand by and watch any longer. Forget Orb, forget the USN, forget the Brotherhood, forget the entire fucking rest of the world, forget me, forget Kira, forget everyone and everything... but you should NEVER FORGET ATHRUN ZALA! That is the ONE PERSON YOU CANNOT NEGLECT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, YOU SELFISH BITCH!?" Lacus felt Cagalli jump, as if stuck with a live wire, but she didn't roll over and she didn't say anything.

Lacus waited for almost a full minute, but all she could hear was a few sobs from Cagalli, certainly no reply, and not the slightest hint of an apology. "Very well then." Lacus hung her head in weary resignation. "I can see you're too sunk in your own misery to be reached by my words, no matter how direct. Some of that is the effects from the drug, I do understand that. But you were right, you know... you didn't need my help or Katie's help to deal with that. It was a struggle for you, but it was a struggle you were winning. I could feel it. You were strong enough to go on by yourself. But now you've lost that strength, and I need to determine if it's gone forever or if you've just become temporarily worthless. If its the latter, well, that very regrettable, and I will have lost respect for you as a person, but respect can be earned once more. If it's the former, then..." Lacus trailed off and swallowed, her voice choking up. "Then someone is going to have to take care of Athrun, because you won't, and he can't go on by himself without you. Not now. Oh, he'll hold out for a while, put on a brave face, do his duty as a soldier... but without you, he's dying inside, and it won't be too long before you'll get to be together again... lying in seperate beds in the same damned room, sobbing and staring off into different voids for the rest of your lives!"

Lacus stood up, still evoking no response from Cagalli. She walked stiffly to the door, her limbs feeling light and numb, her head both clear and fuzzy at the same time. She wiped tears from her eyes she hadn't even realized she'd cried and composed herself with a great effort of will, her face adopting a sere mask similar to the one she'd walked into the room with. Even as she did so, a lavender-periwinkle blue Seed dropped through a vast gulf of emotions, sad and resolute and angry and everything in between, before detonating with a flood of cleansing energy that made everything stark and clear and seem to be happening in slow motion. Her mental awareness expanded for a brief moment, encompassing the entire hospital grounds and spreading outward still, brushing across tens of thousands of individual minds in a several block radius, sending chills up spines and goosebumps crawling along skin before Lacus controlled herself and focused her awareness in just the room she was currently in, packing in the mental energy like she was overfilling a suitcase, until the very air itself seemed charged to her senses.

She opened the door and peered out, looking up to meet Rameirez's startled gaze. "Uh, can I help you, Ms. Clyne?" Ramierez asked, a sinking feeling refusing to leave the pit of his stomach. Lacus was smiling, just like she'd been earlier, and her face was serene and pleasant... but something was seriously not right. Very seriously. Her entire poise had changed, from the charming charisma of a pop idol and peacemaking icon to... something else. Something steely and cold and determined and kept tightly in check lest she run amok and cause untold damage. Ramierez had seen the sort before... the Lt got like this when something really, truly pissed him off. Not like "someone fucked up training" pissed but "someone hurt someone I care about and I am going to do something about it" pissed.

"Cagalli and I are going to be discussing some... delicate feminine issues. I understand the door blocks noise, but I'd still appreciate it if you and your friend backed off and gave us a little privacy." Lacus said, her voice sweet but her tone brooked no arguement.

"Uhm, well, I can understand your position, but we're under strict orders to keep this door secure." Ramierez replied, sweating freely for some reason as her eyes bored into him like lasers. Newbie Alpha looked like he was having to fight very hard not to break position and take a few steps back, such was the aura of restrained ferocity Lacus was putting off. Kind of like being in the same room as a hungry tiger, and knowing there was no other food around but you.

"You can keep it secure from further down the hall." Lacus told him descisively. "I would also deeply appreciate it if you would make sure no one else enters before I come out again."

"What about the Ambassador?" Newbie Alpha spoke up, his voice sounding somewhat strangled.

"Athrun is sleeping and he won't be by for some time." Lacus answered, the confidence in her voice making the very idea of arguement seem silly.

"I don't know... we're supposed to be protecting the Queen..." Ramierez desperately didn't want to keep talking with Lacus, not with the way her eyes were piercing through him, regarding him in a way he decided was decidedly unfriendly all of a sudden.

"Oh, like anyone could possibly be in danger from me. I'm Lacus Clyne." Lacus replied and smiled a very, very chilly smile. That smile did it for Ramierez. He almost wet his drawers when she unleashed that on him.

"Right then. We'll keep watch from further down the hall, and we'll do our best to keep the room private." Ramierez decided, stepping away from the door, hands clutching his weapon to his chest for dear life.

"But, Staff Sergeant, the Lt said that..." Newbie Alpha protested.

"I'll handle Cyprus Finch, if it comes to it." Lacus cut him off, and made a little shooing motion with one hand. "You go and stand over there now, please." Newbie Alpha responded as if shoved, his feet almost tripping over themselves as he hurried down the hallway after Ramierez, his posture stiff and jerky and awkward. Lacus watched the two Stormhounds go, and then stepped calmly back into Cagalli's room, shutting and locking the door behind her.

"Why am I walking?" Newbie Alpha asked, his voice filled with tremors.

"Don't think about it too much, kid." Ramierez recommended, cold sweat pouring down his spine. "Trust me, we are glad we are moving farther away from that room."

"We are?" Newbie Alpha sounded very confused. "But we violated direct orders..."

"Definitely. And don't worry about that either. Lacus Clyne is one of the few people the Lt will stand aside for when she gets like this. He's seen her do something very scary once. For that matter, so have I. In fact, I've seen her do very scary things multiple times." Ramierez forced himself to look over his shoulder at the door to Cagalli's room. "One way or another, I think her Majesty is about to get a taste of a scary thing as well. Hopefully it'll put her back on the right track... if she knows whats good for her."

"So that was Lacus Clyne?" Newbie Alpha mused. "She's a lot more frightening in person than she is on TV."

"She can do a pretty good number through a TV when the mood strikes her." Ramierez assured him with a shiver. "If you value your life, do not ever, even in jest, point a weapon in the direction of Kira Yamato when she is around. If you listen to no other piece of advice I ever give, listen to that one."

Back in the room with Cagalli, Lacus flipped on the lightswitch, completely banishing any vestige of shadow in the room. Cagalli was sitting up in bed, one hand pressed to her temple, a look of confusion on her face that rapidly faded as soon as her wide eyes met Lacus's metallicly washed out eyes. Cagalli knew very well what was going on when someone's eyes did that, though she'd very rarely seen Lacus do it. The last time had been in NORAD mountain in colorado, during the final confrontation with Frost actually. Having Lacus's attention when she was like this directed and focused upon her was not something she found at all comfortable. her hand tightened on the little remote control that could raise and lower her bed into a recliner or chair, as well as alert the attendant nurses when she needed something. Being alone with Lacus right now was probably not something she'd find pleasant, it was just a gut instinct. Even less pleasant than Lacus's hurtful and not entirely inaccurate words earlier.

"So you can move proactively after all." Lacus noted lightly, as Cagalli's finger tried to mash down the nurse call button... and froze, just short of being able to complete the motion. "That's actually a good sign. If you'd just sat there and stared at me like a lump on a log, I would have been much more worried. But if you care enough to be afraid of me right now, which you definitely should be, then I don't think you're nearly as broken as you think you are." _And from there, we have a starting point, wouldn't you agree? The only question now is, how deep will I have to go before I find that strength you've misplaced?_

"Get.. OUT... of my head, Lacus!" Cagalli said vehemently, her voice flat and dangerous, though very quiet.

_Make me._ Lacus challenged, not only keeping Cagalli's fingers frozen, but immobilizing her entire body by taking away her conscious muscle control as well. It wasn't something she'd ever imagined she'd be doing to anyone, much less her best friend, but desperate times apparently called for desperate measures. _Its perfectly possible to resist, you know. Especially when I'm not holding you with all my might. You want me to stop? You want your precious privacy back? Then get up off that bed. If you can get off that bed, then I will gladly leave your head._

"This is a violation of our friendship and my privacy." Cagalli gritted out. "I trusted you not to break into my mind."

_And I trusted you not to abandon the people who need you. Looks like we've both disappointed the other, hmm?_

"You are hurting me, Lacus."

_Not yet I'm not. I'm just holding you still. I suppose that it is something of an injury against your pride, but I wasn't sure you had any pride left, after your performance during the last few days. Compared to what you've been doing to Athrun, this is nothing. Don't you talk to me about hurt. Everyone hurts right now._

"You don't understand..." Cagalli's eyes were downcast, tears beading in the corners. "It's not that I..."

_You are right. I don't understand. But I will soon._ Lacus retorted, driving her mental focus inward and downward, though directions were largely meaningless in the mental scope, much like in space. Direction was something she ambiguously assigned, in her current mood, she was towering above Cagalli, reaching down into the morass of her emotions and memories, stirring about and plucking up bits of interest at random, a deeply invasive and embarassing process for the both of them. _I don't like this any more than you._ Lacus opened her own feelings to Cagalli, showing her exactly how MUCH Lacus did not like doing this. _But if Athrun's pain cannot get through to you, then I have little choice. Athrun needs you. Orb needs you. The entire world needs you. There is no time to wallow in self pity and remorse and hurt right now._

"Is that what everyone thinks this is? That I'm so sunk in my own grief that I've become nonfunctional!?" Cagalli asked bitterly.

_Is it something else? I haven't seen much to disprove that theory yet._

"I don't know what to do anymore." Cagalli replied with a heavy sigh. "I can't think of anything to do that we haven't already done. I just feel... so drained... so empty... so tired of it all. I couldn't do anything, not when it mattered. All I can seem to do is get people hurt protecting me."

_I'm no different in that regard. Thousands of people have been maimed and killed in my stead over the years..._

Cagalli shook her head. "You are different, Lacus. The fact that we're having this... this confrontation... is proof of how different you are. You've only grown stronger as time has passed... and me... I've stagnated. I'm the same Cagalli I've been since the day my father died, an idealistic, overconfident, selfish and childish little girl who doesn't understand anything about how the world works! I play with my guns and my Mobile Suits and my politics, but thats all it is... its playing a game that I grew up training for, never knowing anything else. Everyone has so much faith in me because of what I've done for Orb, glossing over the fact that much of what has happened to Orb has ALSO been because of me. I've cleaned up my own messes. How is that an achievement? All those people dead, and for what? To give me a chance to get a whole bunch more dead in the future? I've just been decieving myself. Despite what they think, Orb really is better off without me."

_And what about Athrun? Is he better off without you too? And Kira, the same? Is this pleasure that Athrun gives you..._ Lacus called up one of the more recent memories Cagalli had of her and Athrun having wildly mutually satisfying sex, pressing the repeating images and sensations into the middle of Cagalli's minds eye, forcing her to watch herself gasp and groan and writhe in happiness and enjoyment over and over again._ Is this a deception too? Is the talk you have had with him about having children just that, talk? Something you said for your own amusement, to watch him flop and twitch?_ Lacus walked over and lifted one of Cagalli's unresisting arms and pressed her hand against Lacus's own lower stomach. _Feel here? In here there is a life growing. A life your brother and I created, together. Is that just a joke to you? Your envy tells me otherwise, Cagalli. You want this. You want what Kira and I have, and that is no deception at all._

"You have no right to look at those memories and my thoughts like this!" Cagalli replied furiously. "How could you do this to me?"

_Because I care enough to cause you pain, in order to prevent greater pain later. Not just to you, but to Athrun, and Kira and uncounted others. You are precious to me Cagalli, never should you think anything else. For what its worth, I can promise you that what has happened here will always stay just between me and you._

"Is that promise worth as much as the one where you said you would never enter my mind without my permission?" Cagalli asked savagely. "Why don't you just call Kira in here now, and share ALL my damned memories with him, get everything out in the fucking open, all my secret fears and unkind thoughts and dreams and angst and lewd thoughts and EVERYTHING, while we're at this!? Save you the trouble of violating me at another time when you feel your needs outweigh my own..."

_Its not my needs that are in question here. Think of Athrun..._

"Athrun loves me, and always will... what's there to think about?" Cagalli sneered. That sneer lasted less than a half second, before Cagalli's head slammed into the wall behind her hard enough to make her vision fill with black and white stars. Stunned, Cagalli slumped over onto her side, sheets tangled around her body, blood dripping from both nostrils to stain her bedclothes, her head ringing like it had just been kicked by a Gundam, spiky memories of outrage and pain ricocheting around her skull. "OWWWW!" Cagalli screamed, almost breathless with agony.

_Be grateful I am in a very forgiving mood._ Lacus thought darkly. _Because if you EVER take Athrun's feelings for granted like that again, I will..._ Lacus trailed off and shuddered, hugging herself tightly._ Don't. Simply don't. Even like this, even now... you're better than that. You've always been better than that. I am going to forget you even jestingly thought what you just thought, because otherwise I don't know if I can keep myself from doing something so horrible to you that you would never recover._

"Oh yeah?" Cagalli challenged. "Like what?"

_Like letting Athrun and Kira feel you say that you take their love for granted, as your due and nothing less. I frankly don't know of anything worse I could possibly do, than allowing you to irrecoverably damage the best things that have ever happened to you, your relationships with Athrun and Kira, and let you live on with the knowledge that, for once, it was entirely your fault._ Lacus shuddered with revulsion at the very thought. _Don't make me do that, I beg you. For all our sakes._

"You got anything else to say?" Cagalli forced herself upright on the bed, unwilling muscles spasming all the while, blood leaking steadily from her nostrils. "Or are you done preaching?"

_That depends on you. Are you ready to step up and take on the pain of life again, or are you just going to sit on that bed and stay the broken whiner you are now? You say you've been stagnant... maybe you have, though I don't agree with that assessment. But you don't have to stay that way. Now is when the people closest to you need you to give them strength. They're willing to give you their strength in turn, but no matter how much they reach out to you, it doesn't matter unless you reach back._

"If I get up off this bed, if I go back to doing the job I've never had any choice but to do... lots of people are going to die. Maybe not now, but eventually, people will die for me again." Cagalli said softly.

"People will die regardless of whether you are Queen or not. All you can change is whether or not their deaths are meaningless." Lacus replied, equally softly. She cocked her head and looked down at Cagalli intently.

"Let us get one thing clear then." Cagalli said, her voice hoarse and rough. "If you or Katie ever, EVER, enter my mind again without my permission, REGARDLESS of reason, I will permanently exile you from Orb and cut off all contact and support for the rest of our lives! No ifs, ands or buts, no questions, no mercy, no apologies, GONE! Do you understand me, Lacus?"

"I understand perfectly." Lacus bowed her head, and relaxed her mental grip on Cagalli, who slid off the bed and stood up, practically face to face with Lacus as she chafed her arms and body to get rid of the tingling sensation of her muscles regaining control of themselves. "Its a perfectly reasonable stance."

"Glad you think so." Cagalli said darkly, with a grim frown on her face. Lacus never saw the punch start, but she certainly did feel it land, right against the side of her cheek, not a slap but a full on punch, not pulled in the slightest, splitting her lips as they mashed against her teeth, twisting her head to the side and knocking her reeling off balance, so much so that she sat down hard on the floor, barely managing to catch herself to cushion the blow to her abdomen and the precious cargo within. Cagalli's hand hung at her side, her knuckles raw and split, dripping blood onto the floor as she stood over Lacus, staring down at her with eyes brimming with outraged tears. "Did you understand THAT too, Lacus?"

"Another perfectly reasonable response." Lacus mumbled through swelling lips, spitting bloody saliva onto the floor as she gingerly probed her cheek with her tongue. "I'm glad we could settle this peacefully."

"That WAS peaceful." Cagalli replied coldly. "You'd know it if I wanted to get violent, but you're pregnant, and I'm looking forward to being an Aunt."

"Did I say it wasn't peaceful?" Lacus slowly picked herself off the floor, neither asking for nor recieving help from Cagalli, who stood and watched her the entire time. "Like I said, a perfectly reasonable response. If we're through here, we both have work we need to be doing. I have a TV appearance to make. You have to apologize to Athrun and then confer with Mr. Kurenai. Orb is once again swimming against the current. There will be no evacuation. Orb is through running." Lacus rubbed at her neck, feeling exhausted and drained by her efforts, even more than she'd feared she would be.

"And so, it seems, am I." Cagalli muttered, more to herself than anything else. It was a bright, sunny, beautiful day in Orb.

* * *

"Knight-Ensign Lunamaria Hawke, Gawain Squadron, Second Platoon, reporting as ordered, sir!" Luna said briskly, snapping to attention and throwing a sharp salute as she stepped into Knight-Commander ze Burrel's private office, the one just adjacent to his living quarters, rather than the more spacious one in the main administrative buildings. Truth be told, despite her carefully groomed appearance and parade ground manners, Luna was feeling just about the opposite of energetic or chipper. On top of everything else going wrong in her life, she'd just pulled a double rotation of riot control duty in Western Europe, three days of standing guard in her Archon, yelling for the crowds of terrified civilians to stay orderly, form lines and be patient, trying to give them hope and assurances when anyone with half a brain could see there was simply no way they were going to be able to evacuate even a tenth of the civilian population before the Great Endeavor arrived over the weekend.

It was truly heartbreaking work, towering high above the morass of human misery, too clear cameras showing her the faces of men, women and children, some not much older than herself, many far younger, crowded together in squalor and despair as they waited for their number to be called, hope wilting more and more with each passing string of numbers drawn at random by lottery. The lottery, which chose ten consecutive numbers at a time, itself was a hateful invention in her opinion, that paid no attention to family or other ties a person might have... families were all supposed to be given consecutive numbers, but in execution that had far too often turned out to not be the case. Luna had lost count of the number of weeping fathers and mothers, husbands, wives and siblings she had seen seperated by the whims of fate, the "lucky" ones taking their meagre possesions they were allowed and heading to the buses that would take them to the airport, and from there on to the spaceports and Mass Drivers, the "unlucky" disappearing back into the mire of humanity, hopelessness stamped large across their faces.

There were many that did not passively accept their fate, and thus came the riots. Riots over winning lottery tickets. Riots over families being seperated. Riots over lost tickets. Riots over food and the living conditions around the evacuation centers. Riots because too many people were packed too close together in a climate of hopelessness and fear. Riots, just seemingly because nobody had anything better to do while they waited for the world to end. Violent crime and corruption ran rampant through the refugee camps, militant gangs corralling as many available resources as possible, miniature fiefdoms forming and dissolving from hour to hour as people scrabbled to make sense of this disintegration of everything they had ever known. Murders, rapes, beatings, arson, looting... the very worst aspects of humanity seemed to be being squeezed out like blood from a rock in the pressure cooker environment, and it was only getting uglier as G-Day, the time when the Great Endeavor reached the coastal cities, drew inexorably closer and closer.

Much of the anger was focused against the USN and member-state military forces, which the civilian populations blamed, not entirely unfairly, for not being able to protect them from the terrorist threat. Luna was safe in her Archon, but the ground troops were not so fortunate, and casualties ranging from bruises from thrown bricks and rocks to gunshot wounds and third degree burns from homemade incendiary grenades were a daily occurence amongst the infantry soldiers manning the checkpoints and emergency supply distribution centers. Sometimes, entire squads would just disappear while performing riot control and violence suppression patrols in the refugee camps. Luna had been called on thrice, not to just intimidate with her presence but to actually lend fire support to embattled groups of soldiers coming under fire from military grade weapons fired from buildings and the anonymity of crowds. The Archon's weapons didn't just kill people, they vaporized them, left nothing in their wake but scorched ash and stinky steam. And collateral damage was almost impossible to avoid... it was the sort of combat that weighed heavily on the soul afterwards, but there was simply no other choice... order HAD to be maintained.

Not that the forces of Order were always very helpful in that regard. Luna had of course forbidden it, and policed her squadron and any unit placed under her command with draconian severity, but there were many units, even some in the Solar Knights, that were running their own "evacuation" services under the table, accepting large payments of money or sexual favors in order to transport people to the airport without recourse to the lottery, or even onto the evacuation shuttles and mass transports themselves. It was a double edged sword though... many, most even, of the people trying to buy black market spots on the shuttles were selfish and immoral scum who thought their lives were worth more than those of their fellows because they were wealthier or more beautiful. Luna had no pity for such parasites at all. But there were some that were buying spots not for themselves, but for their children or loved ones. Those people Luna could not hate. One could only see so many mothers whoring themselves out to buy their babies seats on a shuttle before one was driven to do something, even if it was just to find a back alleyway and puke until your guts felt like they were coming out your mouth!

"Ah, Luna. Good." Rey said distractedly, his mind clearly distracted by any one of a hundred different critical tasks. Luna knew she felt like shit, but as bad as she was, Rey looked about three times as bad as she felt. He didn't look like he'd had any sleep since coming down to Earth four days prior, his eyes were sunken and rimmed with shadows, and his hair was somewhat unkempt and scraggly. Blond fuzz bristled on his cheeks and chin, the beginnings of a beard he hadn't had time to properly shave. "I read your report on the situation in Western Europe. It sounds like the second layer of Hell out there."

"That good? Let me rewrite it, its not accurate enough." Luna managed a weak smile, though the humor wasn't really funny at all. She wanted to collapse against a wall, or even better, in her bed, but she also feared sleep almost as much as she did the thought of not sleeping. Sleeping brought the dreams after all... the dreams about Shinn and Meyrin and the Brotherhood and all of Luna's own many, many inadequacies and failures.

"I know what you mean. But as bad as this is, its going to be a walk in a spring park compared to what happens in Asia." Rey replied with a bone weary sigh. "I'm already getting reports of mass genocide taking place in some of the less developed countries, old grudges reigniting, social order breaking down on a widespread scale. Asia is going to be a warzone long before the Brotherhood gets anywhere near it. We'll be lucky if we get a hundreth of the people out. The lines at the airports are already ten miles long. Ten billion people... its too staggering a number to think about."

"Plus six billion more throughout Europe, Africa, Oceania and the Americas." Luna said desolately. "Do we even have space to house a fraction of that number?"

"Maybe. Probably not." Rey admitted. "The PLANTS are filled like sardine cans already, though they should be venting atmosphere into Millenium, Epoch and Centenial Cities about the time Western Europe is dying, so that should give us space for a few hundred million, though we'll lose a lot of them from lack of basic living supplies. Food is already critically short in space, and its only going to get worse. We'll be packing people onto warships and all the old abandoned colonies in space suits before we're done, and the lucky ones will be drinking recycled piss and eating emergency nutrient packs. We've already halted work on the Solar Protection Fleet, though that bastard Icarus actually bitched about it, can you believe the nerve? We're retasking the Lunar yards to building a new class of space colony, each designed to house roughly four hundred million people indefinitely. If we're lucky, the first one should be ready... in two years."

"Fixing the barn door after the horses are gone." Luna agreed bitterly. "Not that there was any way they could have seen this coming but..."

"I could have." Rey said softly. "If I had been stronger..."

"You can't think like that, sir! We all saw what he did to the SecDef and his bodyguards... no one man, no matter what kind of willpower he has, could resist that kind of monstrous power! Not when he didn't even know he was being influenced at all!" Luna argued fiercely, her anger at the mere thought of Noah burning hot and fresh and strong. "You're just lucky you managed to break free at all. Mey... Meyrin hasn't been so fortunate." Luna's voice caught on her sister's name, and she only continued on with difficulty, her throat choked up and tears in her eyes. She looked up to see Rey regarding her intently. "D-don't worry about me, sir. I'll be okay in a bit."

"Of course I worry about you, Luna." Rey told her tenderly. "You're my friend, amongst many other things. You're very important to me."

"Th-Thanks..." Luna rubbed at her face in embarassment at breaking down in front of her commanding officer, even if he had saved her life two or three times over already. "How about the Moon? Have we got that Blue Stuff under control yet?"

"Gil has been keeping very quiet about that, which I do not regard as a good sign. We seem to be losing that battle as well." Rey admitted. "We may end up losing the Moon as well. It would very likely be the final nail in our coffin." Rey carefully looked at Luna again, seeing how fragile she was at the moment, debating whether he should pass on what he'd called her for after all. In the end he decided it was better to get it over with now, rather than leaving it to pop up at an inopportune time later. Besides, Luna deserved to know, even if it was going to break her heart. Again. "I didn't call you here to talk about how badly screwed we both know we all are though, Luna."

"Sir?"

"Call me Rey. This has more to do with you as a person than as a Solar Knight, Luna."

"I know I've been having trouble sir... Rey... but I can keep going! I... I don't know what else I would do if I didn't have..." Luna started to protest, thinking she was getting retired from active duty.

"This isn't about your military performance either." Rey assured her, waving off her concern. "Which has been exemplary, given the situation you are in. Truly, Luna, you're an inspiration to us all. No one in the Solar Knights has sacrificed as much as you... and that is one reason this is hard for me to tell you, because I really don't want to hurt you any more, and though I hope it will bring you happiness, I strongly doubt it."

"What will bring me happiness now?" Luna asked, almost afraid to know the answer, the pit of her stomach fluttering nervously.

"We've... received a communication for you." Rey said slowly. "From Meyrin." He watched the surprise and relief march across her face, and she sagged against the wall near the door, seemingly barely able to stay on her feet, tears of relief and joy running hot and unashamedly down her face.

"She... shes all right?" Luna asked, barely able to believe it. "She got free? Where is she!? What did she say!?"

Rey sucked on his teeth, already feeling terrible, because he was now certain the message was going to dash Luna's hopes. He and Gil had already watched it, of course, looking for any clues or other advantages they could use against Noah. "Let me play the message for you. You should probably sit down." Rey recommended, getting up and offering her office chair. She sank into it, her entire body trembling with nervous excitement, as Rey reached down and opened the message file, then leaned back, standing behind his chair, hands holding onto the back, ready to provide support if Luna needed it.

The screen was initially filled with nothing but static, though there was no sound. or at least, that's what Luna thought, before her ears pricked up and she heard something she'd been dreading that she'd never hear again... the sound of Meyrin's infectious giggles! Luna leaned closer to the still fritzed out screen, straining for every last little noise she could pick up. She could hear two people talking, faintly. "Stop that, I'm trying to set up the camera!" Meyrin scolded someone, her tone a mixture of irritation and fondness. Whoever she was talking to replied, but Luna couldn't make out what was said, just a blurb of muffled male voice. "Oh hush, this was your idea in the first place, ya know?" Meyrin continued. The screen jumped a few times and then went black for a brief, heartstopping instant before it came back, clear as crystal and vibrant with color, to reveal Meyrin standing in the middle of the screen, visible from the knees up as she stood in some sort of rocky grotto somewhere.

Luna inhaled sharply, her hands going to her mouth in shock, her eyes wide and staring in disbelieving incomprehension... the person on the screen was Meyrin... but she also WASN'T Meyrin! Not the Meyrin Luna had grown up with and barely tolerated for all these years, and dearly missed for every moment since she'd been abducted by that monster! Luna dimly heard Rey's knuckles tightening on the back of the chair as he too reacted to the changes that had come over the younger Hawke sister. Most of it was subtle, the sort of things only someone who knew her very well would notice. Meyrin had always been... chubby wasn't the right word... but she definitely kept flesh easier than Luna did, merely because she lived a more sedate lifestyle, spending lots of time playing video games and surfing the nets on her computer, rather than running around outside and playing sports like Luna. She kept fit though, she just was... softer and more curved, more girlish than Luna's athletic tomboy figure. That softness was gone now, replaced with a lean, almost hungry trimness that turned her from pretty and cute into almost regal and entrancing, just by subtly altering a few lines of her body.

Every detail of her body seemed more vibrant, fuller, more colorful, more real than it had in the past. Maybe that was just Luna's overwrought mind decieving her, but there was something more, some fundamental change in the way Meyrin carried herself. Her self confidence had improved magnitudes, she'd always been somewhat self conscious being the center of attention, even if she hid it well, but now... now she practically commanded attention, demanded all eyes on her, just standing there with that instantly recognizable happy smile on her face! But Luna didn't want to look at her sister's face... because that would mean looking her in the eyes. And those eyes... those damned alien eyes weren't Meyrin at all! Meyrin had always had liquid grey eyes that complimented her cherry pink hair well... now... now though, her irises were a steely lavender color, and her pupils, oh god but her pupils were pure silver, inhuman and glinting with reflected light in a very disturbing manner! "M-Meyrin... oh Meyrin, what did he do to you!?" Luna sobbed, hands half covering her face as she stared, wondering if this was some sort of terrible dream, almost wanting it to be a nightmare, because at least she could wake up from those!

"Hey Luna, how's it been?" Meyrin asked lightly, cocking her head and smiling her usual lopsided smile, and Luna had to look away from the screen, her vision blurry with tears. Seeing this... this altered form of her sister make such gestures, so painfully remiscent of the old Meyrin, her Meyrin, was almost too much to bear. "I imagine you're kinda freaking out right now, because of, well, everything, but just bear with me, okay?" Meyrin in the recording said earnestly, leaning forward towards the camera conspiratorially. "Just between you and me, the eyes kinda weird me out too, when I look in the mirror. Gonna take a while to get used to them. I guess it'll be easier when everyone has em, huh?" Meyrin leaned back from the camera again and shrugged, a self conscious gesture from the old Meyrin that made Luna blink back tears too late again.

"I know you're probably beating yourself up about how things were between us before the whole fiasco up in the PLANTS, so I just want to tell you know... I forgive you, Luna. I understand how I made you feel, what you were going through, and I forgive you for how distant we both were with each other. I hope you'll eventually be able to forgive me too, though my decisions will seem strange to you, I'm sure. Everyone is going to say I'm a traitor and a terrorist and a whore and who knows what else... God knows, that's what they were saying even before I came to the Great Endeavor, I can only imagine how vicious they are now. I just hope no one is giving you a hard time because of me." Meyrin on screen fidgeted a bit, as if unsure what to say next. "I miss you, don't ever think anything different, okay Luna!? You're still my favorite older sister, and that'll never change, okay!?" She blurted at last, flushing with emotion.

"A-anyway..." Meyrin recovered herself after a few seconds. "I wanted to try and clear things up, straighten things out between us, help you understand what's really going on better. I'm sure you think that I'm being forced or coerced or brainwashed or even straight out mind controlled. Noah is capable of doing all of those things after all, we've all seen him do it. But its not the case with me, Luna. I know you might want it to be, because that would hurt less, but I'm sorry, its really not. He doesn't need to do that with me, doesn't want to do that with me, WON'T do that with me. Why? Because I love him with all my heart, and he loves me back the same way." Meyrin paused, a dreamy look passing over her face for an instant. "I... I don't quite know how to explain how right it is to you. How Noah and I feel about each other... its something special, Luna. So special it makes me want to cry, I'm so happy! It's like gravity between us, each keeping the other grounded, providing the support we each have always needed but never really realized was there! Its the best feeling in the whole world, Luna..."

"You bastard..." Luna hissed. "I don't know what you've done to her, but this will NOT convince me! I will never believe that Meyrin could fall in love with an inhuman beast like you!" Luna's fingers dug into her cheeks furiously as she watched Noah manipulating her precious little sister, treating her like a playtoy and making her like it... it was almost more painful than she could bear, but she couldn't look away! It was still Meyrin on the screen, and she hungered desperately for every last bit of seeing her sister, even if it was just a recording, a taunt directed at torturing her even more!

Meyrin panned the camera view around and away from her for a few moments, showing off the area around her, a rocky grotto complete with a flowing stream and series of waterfalls. Towering trees thick with greenery and slick with moss reached up off screen off to the sides of the grotto, Luna wasn't sure but they looked like some sort of jungle or tropical tree. Humid mist filled the air, and though Meyrin herself wasn't sweating, Luna got the feeling it was quite warm where she was, though obviously cooler because of the action of the stream and waterfalls. Small animals scampered and scurried in the jumble of rocks, there were fish in the brilliantly crystal clear waters of the stream, and the song of birds and crys of some sort of small primate twittered from offscreen. It was a vision of a jungle from a dream, nature in all its harmony come together. And then it was all thrown jarringly off, as the view passed over a pool directly below the waterfalls.

Impossibly, floating in the middle of the pool was a gigantic bed, king sized or larger, its sheets green and gold with the emblem of the Brotherhood, a staring eye with wings at the corners, emblazoned on covers and pillows. The bed was in messy disarray, the covers pulled back on one side and bunched on the other, the indentations where two people had slept side by side, snuggled together clearly visible, causing another grimace of hate to tear across Luna's face. bad enough that Noah was raping her sister's mind, the knowledge that he was almost certainly defiling her body too was like a knife stabbed in her belly! That knife twisted when the object of her deepest hate came into view, only a few feet from the bed, dressed only in pajama pants and a loose workout shirt, upside down in a handstand... and handstand on TOP OF THE WATER! Luna satred, knowing it had to be an illusion or a trick, but unable to tell where his support was... she could SEE fish swimming just below his fingertips, and the water of the pool rippled beneath his palms! Even as she looked on, water pulled upward from the surface of the pool, in defiance of all the rules of gravity, twisting in a helical shape almost exactly like that of a strand of DNA.

"Show off." Meyrin commented fondly from off screen. Noah was too far away to hear the whispered comment, and though he was facing towards the camera, his eyes were shut and his mouth never moved, but all the same, Meyrin let out a giggle of amusement. "Oh, yes you are!" She insisted, even as the water helix dissolved and reformed into a heart, and then reformed again into a pair of tiny stick figure like people intertwining and kissing. "Oh, so NOW you're showing off, is that it? Keep it up, smartass, just see if I don't walk out there and push you over." Meyrin giggled again. "You'll have to forgive him, Luna, he didn't have a very normal childhood. Sometimes he's so childish... but he's cute like that, isn't he?"

"FUCK NO!" Luna shouted vehemently. "That evil motherfucker, cute? Cute like a bubonic plague! Forgive him!? I'll NEVER FORGIVE HIM! NEVER!" She calmed down when Rey's strong hands dropped reassuringly onto her shoulders, and Luna flushed, embarassed to get so worked up shouting at a recorded message. Getting her worked up was no doubt exactly what Noah wanted... he wanted her so affected she couldn't do her duties anymore! She balled her hand sinto fists and rested them on the armrests of the chair. She noted that Rey didn't take his hands off her shoulders when she'd calmed down, but she was grateful for the human contact right now.

Meyrin continued to pan the camera, showing a view of those two draconic robots lying at rest on the rocky shoreline, looking for all the world like two dogs sunning themselves after a playful romp in the water, a couple heavy balls of leather or rubber lying on the rocks near them. A few terrier sized black robots with four legs and snouts that reminded Luna of rats or mice scurried around a boulder, playing some form of tag or chase, creepy in their amusement, machines that looked like animals but acted like young children. Finally the view returned to Meyrin herself. "So, yeah, this is kinda where I live now. Its called the Atrium, and yeah, it is on the Great Endeavor. I know it looks weird, but its really a nice place, Luna. The computers here... oh my God, thats all I can say. Its like a wet dream." Meyrin winced. "Okay, so you probably didn't want to hear things phrased like that. But despite appearances, Noah actually hasn't laid a hand on me that I haven't asked him too, Luna. He's a very chivalrous sort... he's almost afraid to touch me without my sayso, lest I get mad at him. He's so afraid of me getting mad at him, its very cute and a little sad."

"Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that Noah really isn't the monster that everyone makes him out to be. Yes, he's made choices I'm not proud of, done things that are, in a word, abhorrent, but he doesn't do them because he wants to do them, Luna. He does them because he has to, in order to achieve his goal of a better humanity. Its a goal I believe in, Luna. I know you don't want to hear that, but I won't lie to you. I believe in Noah. What he's doing is right! Its painful and bloody and I know everyone is scared... but its going to be all right in the end, Luna. I promise. Stop running away, please! You're only killing people before they even get a chance! The process is scary... I know... I've gone through it! I've gone through what everyone else is going to go through, Luna! I have been there and done that, and look at me! I made it through alive, and I can promise you, I've never felt better! This thing that Noah is doing... it really is a gift, a wonderous gift! I feel more alive now than I ever did before!" Meyrin had returned to earnestly looking into the camera lens.

"I've only scratched the surface of my new capabilities, Luna, but its absolutely breathtaking! Noah is keeping me busy learning all sorts of things I never would have been able to learn before... I'm even learning how to pilot a Mobile Suit, though its actually not that hard. You should SEE his control systems, Luna! Oh my God, they're amazing! There's so much Noah has to offer the world, I just can't see why everyone is so set on trying to kill him or stop him? Its like greeting Santa Claus with a pistol instead of milk and cookies!" Meyrin shook her head in exasperation. "Besides, I've already run the numbers and looked at the data myself. For what its worth, its my professional opinion as a CIC operator that the USN and allied member-states just don't have the military forces and technology to stop the Brotherhood now. All you're doing is prolonging the inevitable, and costing millions of people their lives! Luna, have you SEEN those refugee camps!? How can you possibly think that's helping people!?"

"We can't just leave them to die." Luna replied softly. "Oh, Meyrin... he's kept you blind and deaf to what's really going on in the world. You're just a playtoy to him, a pretty mouthpiece that he'll discard when he gets bored! I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Meyrin! I failed you as a sister and as a person! Meyrin! Oh Meyrin..." Luna broke down into sobs, Reys hands tight and firm on her shoulders as her body hitched and wracked.

Luna watched through tear blurred eyes as the hateful figure of Noah stepped into view of the camera and swept her precious sister up in a tight embrace from behind. Meyrin squealed... with enjoyment, and Luna felt like throwing up! Meyrin snuggled back up against Noah as he clasped his hands around her stomach and breathed in her scent from the top of her head, his eyes briefly closed in supreme enjoyment, before he blinked them open and stared smugly into the camera, his gold pupiled eyes a slap to the face with Meyrin's silver eyes just a foot or so lower. Noah rested his chin lightly on Meyrin's head and pulled her closer still, one of her hands reaching up and back to caress his cheek while her other hand clasped down on top of both of his. "Yes, yes, I was just wrapping things up." Meyrin said, though Noah had not said a single thing.

"Luna, before I go, I just wanted to say that despite what's come between us in the past, and the problems you and Noah have had, you're still my beloved older sister, okay? If you want, you are welcome to come join us here, no questions asked, no hard feelings, Noah has promised. Think about it, Luna... really think about it, I beg you! There's so much good to be done here, such a bright future to secure, and I really want to do it with you alongside us, not trying to tear us down! Besides just me, there's someone else here that would be really, really happy if you came to be with us. I know you're not going to believe it, but..." Meyrin trailed off, going somewhat crosseyed before giggling raucously. "Stoppit! Stoppit! That tickles, damn it! Stoppit! Gahhh! Luna, he's tic... tickl... tickling my mind! He's... Noah, I'm trying to talk with my sister. Dang it, Noah that..." Meyrin broke off with a pleasured gasp as Noah bent his head down and captured her lips with his. She tensed up for a moment, before her resistance melted away and she moulded herself into the kiss with every sign of great enjoyment.

"Turn it off." Luna said quietly, as Meyrin and Noah continued to kiss, turning to face each other, Meyrins arms going up around Noah's neck, his hands slowly stroking up and down her back. "Turn it OFF! TURN IT OFF!" Luna demanded, her face turned forcefully away, eyes squeezed tightly shut, trying to get the image of her sister and Noah devouring each others mouths burned out of her eyes, but it was impossible while the muted sighs of pleasure and happiness and the wet sound of lips meeting lips were playing from the desk screen. "TURN IT OFFFFFFFF!" Luna pleaded desperately, even as Rey reached forward and stabbed the message close button, immediately ending the recording and replacing it with the bland view of his desktop. Rey half knelt by the side of his chair, one hand still on Luna's shoulder, feeling her tremble and shake, the other balled at his side, nails biting painfully hard into his palm as he listened to her sob and cry.

"Luna... I'm sorry. I'm here." Rey said softly, wishing he could do something besides crouch there, but what could he do? This was Luna's pain, and it wasn't like he could sweep her off her feet and carry her to safety, not when it was all internal wounds caused by Noah and Meyrin! Rey had no idea what it would be like to have a sibling betray you and everything you believed in, but it had to be one of the worst feelings imaginable! Bad enough that Noah had crumpled up their friendship, if indeed there ever really had been such a thing, and tossed it away like a used candy wrapper, if he'd also seduced someone Rey had grown up with, was related to by blood and caring... he simply could not imagine how much that had to hurt! And then taunting her with a message from her own, obviously brainwashed sister, that was just sadistic cruelty!

"Was... was there anything more?" Luna asked, her voice barely a whisper, reaching up with her own hands, feeling drained and empty and light as a feather, and placed them on Rey's strong and warm shoulders.

Rey opened his mouth, but didn't say anything for a few seconds, before finally closing it, angry tears glistening in his eyes. No, no he couldn't do it. He couldn't tell her, not now. Not when she was hurting as much as she already was! He couldn't hurt her like that! "No. No, there was nothing else. I'm sorry, Luna." Rey told her, very conscious suddenly of her hands on his shoulders, and how close his head was to hers. He started to pull back, to give her space for her grief, but her hands tightened convulsively on his shoulders and she arrested his movement.

"Don't..." Luna mumbled through tear stained lips. "Don't pull away from me, Rey. Don't you leave me too. I could not bear it."

"Luna..." Rey said with concern, as her head inclined down and she rested her forehead against his chest, tucking her head up under his chin as she sobbed. He slowly, awkwardly closed his hands around her back and held her tight as she bawled her confusion and fright and heartache and anger and frustration out into his shirt, secure in the warm circle of his arms, holding onto him with all the tenacity of a drowning person clutching a lifeline. He lost track of time as he held her, providing a last bastion of stability in her otherwise unmoored life, not being able to find the proper words to comfort her, so he just held her tightly in silence. At long last her sobs quieted and she bumped the back of her head into his chin, and he loosened his grip slightly to allow her to raise her face to look at him. "Luna, I'm so..." Rey started to say, before she pushed forward hard, her lips capturing his as her body slumped out of the chair and knocked him to the floor as she embraced him tightly.

"Help me, Rey... help me forget how much it hurts..." Luna whispered, when she finally released his mouth as he stared up at her from the floor of his office.

"But, Luna... what about-" Rey started to protest, before Luna cut him off with a finger on his lips and a shake of her head.

"Shinn is dead, Meyrin is gone, Lain and Eric have lost my trust, my parents are out of contact, the world itself is tumbling down around our ears and there's nothing I can do to stop it... please, Rey... I need something... something to prove to me that life is still worth living!" Luna breathed, slowly lowering her face towards him again. "Help me forget, Rey. Help me forget how much it hurts..." She pleaded, and he could not deny her, not when he so desperately wanted something of the sort himself, succor from the trials of the crisis of everyday life, meeting her kiss willingly this time, deepening it, even as his hands slowly roamed down her body, awkward, unsure, but willing to learn by doing. They sought relief for their worries and troubles, and found them in the embrace of each other, two pained souls wrapped about each other until the moment finally overcame them both with a mutual gasp of release and the office became silent once more.

* * *

Rey blearily cracked one eye as the "beep-beep-bip" of an incoming call warbled for his attention from the portable viewscreen on his bedside table. He flailed about for a moment, his body uncoordinated because of weariness, one arm finally striking out to hit the "call acknowledge" button, his other arm pleasantly trapped beneath the firm and warm weight of the girl lying next to him in his small bed, moulded to his body beneath the sheets as she slept, weariness and half remembered satisfaction lending her peaceful dreams for the time being. Rey gripped her shoulder with his trapped hand, drawing an incoherent mumble as she shifted one of her legs slightly and rubbed her cheek against his neck. There was only one pillow on his bed, as he'd never expected to share it with anymore, much less with Luna, and so they were practically entangled with each other. Rey's face heated as he remembered them being entangled quite a bit more thoroughly than they were now, first on the floor of his office, and then again after he'd picked her up and taken her into his room so she could get some rest. Rest wasn't what she'd wanted at the time though, and one thing had led to another, once again, before she finally passed out into the sleep of the exhausted but safe.

"Rey, I'm sorry to..." Gil's voice trailed off awkwardly as the screen clicked on and he saw that Rey was very much not alone, despite the time of night and the fact that he was abed. Gil blinked a few times as the redhead mumbled something incoherent and snuggled closer to his adopted son, the sheets sticking to her body revealing that she was not overly endowed with clothing at the moment. Gil coughed and rapidly averted his eyes, feeling somewhat dirty for some reason to be looking at a naked girl about half his age, especially one sharing a bed with his own son.

"Call me back in a couple minutes, in the office." Rey replied, as quietly as he could manage, feeling like his face was on fire with embarassment. Gil's image disappeared with alacrity, as Rey turned himself to the delicate and unfamiliar task of disengaging himself from Luna's needy embrace without awakening her. He was helped in this by her complete emotional and physical exhaustion, which made her roll over and curl up in a protective ball in the center of his bed when he finally managed to pull away from her, but she remained asleep. Her eyes fluttered lightly as he put a hand on her cheek, a intense welling of fondness and protectiveness flooding through him as he looked down at her, but then he turned away, pulling on a shirt and boxers and heading into his office.

A few seconds later, his desk beeped an incoming call at him, and he sat down in his chair and accepted it, steeling himself for a strong reprimand from Gil. Rey was supposed to be working around the clock to figure out some way of stopping the Brotherhood, and he'd lost who knew how many hours having sex with Luna. Normally he'd be angry or disappointed in himself for failing Gil's trust, but he just couldn't muster anything but gladness in his heart at the memories of his body against Luna as they provided each other with the love and care and mutual understanding and need they'd both not even really realized they required. Even though he'd probably only had about four hours of sleep in the last fifty hours, at the moment, Rey felt like he could take on the whole damned Brotherhood single handed! "I'm sorry, Gil, I didn't mean for it to happen but one thing sorta led to another and..." Rey said contritely.

"You have nothing to apologize for." Gil cut his son off with an amused chuckle. "Most everyone's first time happens like that, you know... few people intend to delve into that level of intimacy the first time. One thing leads to another is probably the most common way of losing your virginity. It was for me."

"But, my duties..."

"Rey, you're a human being. A very exceptional one, but still mortal. You have needs. Sleep. Food. Water. Shelter. Love. I could no more begrudge you for taking care of your emotional and physical need for love than I could fault you for taking a drink of water when you're thirsty. If I did, it would make me a very bad hypocrite, I assure you. Talia and I can not often be together during times of crisis, but we try to be there for each other as often as possible. As for your duties, you are performing them in your usual beyond all expectations manner. I was going to order you to take a break if you were still working when I called anyway."

"There's more I could be doing." Rey insisted.

"And you won't be doing anything if you work yourself to the point of collapse." Gil countered. "Trust me, I know. I've been there before. Take the morning off. For both of your sakes... the morning after the first time is always a delicate time. Emotions and passions are still running high, you don't need work distracting you. I assume this is something deeper than a spur of the moment tryst?"

"I feel that way... Luna... I don't know..." Rey admitted. "She's having a very hard time recently. That message from her sister almost pushed her over the edge."

"It was designed to. Noah is truly fiendish when it comes to psychological warfare." Gil agreed. There was a moment of silence. "Did you, ah, mention that other thing?"

"I... I couldn't." Rey replied, looking dejectedly at his lap. "I couldn't tear open her scabs like that, not when she was already hurting so much. I don't know how I'm ever going to tell her that her sister isn't the only one who's been brainwashed by Noah..."

"Perhaps its better we keep it a secret. I doubt the news that Shinn Asuka, one of the most popular of the Solar Knights, has become a Brotherhood convert, no matter how unwilling, and is now piloting the Vengeance against his former friends, would be at all good for the morale of your unit, much less Miss Lunamaria herself." Gil said stonily. "Yes, in fact, I think that would be much better off for all of us if he continues to be a martyr and a focusing point for our righteous anger, don't you think? Shinn Asuka is better off dead, and we are better off too."

"I am going to kill Noah with my bare hands if its the last thing I ever do!" Rey promised suddely, a fierce light in his eyes as his hands clenched into fists once more. "For everything he's done to Luna, I can't forgive him, on top of everything else! But especially what he's done to Luna!"

"Patience, son, patience. We'll get our chance soon enough." Gil answered firmly. "In the meanwhile, we have another new problem regarding that Green EDEN abomination. I think we can agree that we can't afford to let the public know its not poison gas. If the people learned that there was any chance, any chance at all that they could become Ultimate Coordinators, the genetic elite, simply by staying at home and waiting for the green rain to start... it would be the end of everything we've worked for!"

"I don't see how we're going to be able to stop the story from getting out though." Rey said tightly. "The fact that there are survivors in the Green Zone won't be easy to keep secret. Already search parties from the FNE and ALU are gearing up to go into the Green Zone and find out what's going on. Communications with the rest of the world will be impossible once they enter, but should they return, I'm sure the story of the burgeoning population of psychically gifted Ultimate Coordinators will be across the Earth and out into space in a matter of heartbeats. From there, what semblance of social order we still have will be gone like a kite in a hurricane."

"I've already dealt with the FNE and the ALU with political pressure for the moment." Gil replied. "So that's some extra time there. I've been having some very disturbing and intriguing discussions with a certain Doctor Samuel Roanoke of F.E.A.R., who is surprisingly briefed in on psychics. I'll probably be bringing him onboard as our resident expert on this Newtype phenomenon in the next day or so. If even a fraction of what he has told me is true, especially based off my own personal experiences, we could already be looking at a disaster that makes the current one a birthday party by comparison. We could have millions of immoral, half crazed pyschics running around down there. I'll be sending in investigative teams to determine the extent of the contagion... and then we will respond with the harshest possible measures. We cannot afford to let the rest of the world find out. In that we are fortunate, because everyone already thinks the people in the Green Zones are dead. All we're going to change is the cause of death."

"I don't envy the men you task with those missions." Rey said with heartfelt relief.

"The investigation missions will be quick. We already have sterilization measures primed and ready, pinpoint from low orbit warships, and widescale from the ballistic missile submarines in the oceans. Its truly regrettable, but if the Destiny Plan is going to have any chance to get out of its infancy, its a sacrifice that will need to be made. We cannot afford to let any more Ultimate Coordinators survive than absolutely necessary. They may have survived the Green EDEN... I don't think they'll do as well with nuclear fire. As for the ones we've already taken for study purposes, hopefully they'll gve us some more insight into what we can possibly do to counter Noah and his ilk in the future."

"Hopefully the future historians will forgive us." Rey muttered.

"Of course they will." Gil answered with a grim smile. "They won't know any different."


	57. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 1

Author Note: Well, we've had a very exciting arc in GECK, and now we move on into some more action and some very dark happenings, as the name of the chapter may be a hint to. The road to Heaven will definitely be passing through Hell. Maybe more than once. I just wanted to thank you all for your time and effort, just reached over 500 reviews for the first time, and getting close to 1000 reviews across both stories! Hoping to reach that mark before the end of the Disaster. A dream would be 1000 reviews for Eden Disaster alone, but I don't expect to reach it, unless I get a bunch of new readers. In any case, I love you guys and girls, you make it all worthwhile. This next arc will contain a lot of set up for Reclaimation War, presaging the comeback of some very popular figures (I'd call it the reincarnation, but that might give away too much... oh.. too late... heh), including one of the major underlying driving forces for tensions between the Edenites and the Earthlings. Plus the appearance of some minor characters that people have been demanding to know about for a while, and plenty of other stuff. Lets see, what else... oh yes. Was thinking about theme music. I think Luna has recently been themed to the song "Until it Sleeps" by Metallica, and possible "No Leaf Clover" by Metallica as well. Works for Cagalli too. More as at it occurs to me.

* * *

"Can I say that this place really creeps me out?" The whining tone of Sergeant Marcus Jayne, USN Special Operations Force, team Mike, once more breached the concentrated silence of the dead city around them. His voice was heavily distorted by the electromagnetic interference that the Green Zone was rife with, but clear enough to understand at short range. Which was unfortunate, in the opinion of most of the rest of the squad, who had been putting up with his usual nervous chatter for hours now. Usually a few reprimands from the Captain and some needle nosed teasing from his squadmates was enough to shut him up and leave everyone else in peace, but that wasn't good enough today. Or tonight... it was very hard to tell when they were beneath the stormy clouds of the Green Zone, which were a gloomy dark grey shot through with disturbing twists and flows of deep green, like rotting whipped cream, stirred about by howling winds that were quite audible through the sealed and armored environment suits they all wore. Every so often a thunderous shower of rain, the slimy color of old pond scum, would pour from the heavens and streak their faceplates before dripping off to join the small puddles that were everywhere underfoot.

"Sergeant, give it a rest, will you?" Captain Vaughn said sharply, his voice caught somewhere between annoyed tolerance and true anger. Sergeant Jayne was a good man, a hard worker, very on point and sharp... but his nervous tics were getting ridiculous! "This is the last time I'm going to warn any of you... keep your minds on the task at hand and idle chatter off the comm lines! The next person to step out of line is getting their ass nailed to my office door when we get back to base! We're supposed to be fucking professionals, not a gaggle of school kids exploring a haunted house! If you're not careful, Marcus, we'll all start calling you Sergeant Bitch again!"

"Besides." Sergeant Huey, the other noncom in the team, spoke up wryly. "That's like the fiftieth time you've said that. It was funny the first few times. Now its really old, Marc old buddy."

"I wasn't trying to be funny..." Sergeant Jayne muttered sullenly, looking around at the skyscrapers towering on all sides of the avenue they were walking down, reaching into the sky like crumbling tombstones, their windows empty and broken like gouged out eye sockets. There wasn't a living thing in sight except for the ten members of Mike Team, though there was plenty of dead things... dry and withered plants lying soggy in the gutters, the corpses of dogs and cats and rats and even people of all ages and sexes lying in all sorts of contorted and pained positions, their flesh wrinkly and emaciated, dead eyes staring at the ground or the sky. Many were already in an advanced state of decay, even though it had only been days at most since they died, most looked like they were weeks or even months along on the path to dissolution. Sergeant Jayne was grateful his suit was a sealed environment, the stench had to be murderous! He shivered, goosebumps writhing down his arms, unable to shake the feeling that despite how dead everything was, how dead everything had to be after being saturated with poison gas for days, that he was being watched...

"Hey, I didn't want to say this on an open comm..." Sergeant Huey commented in a private line to Captain Vaughn. "But Marc has a point. This place gives me the willy nillies. Hard to believe Neo New York City could be so damn quiet, except for that fucking wind! Its like its the screams of all the people that died, trying to escape the city or something..."

"Someone's been playing too many supernatural thriller shooters in his spare time." Captain Vaughn replied with a small grin. "This place is pretty dark, I'll grant you, but it's just a dead city. No different than any third world village, bombed out in civil wars, except in scale. This place has been swimming in the most deadly of biological poison gases for days, Sergeant, there's nothing to be afraid of but a suit breach, and we all know these things are rated for repelling even direct assault weapon fire... a suit breach is almost impossible. Nothing could be alive here, theres really no point to us checking it out before they burn it down. Just fucking politics, like always."

A screeching buzz in his ear made Captain Vaughn twitch uncomfortably as he tuned his comm system fruitlessly. Someone from one of the other teams, maybe Major Travis from Romeo Team, was trying to contact him, but the combination of the buildings of concrete and steel around them commuting signals, and the interference from the atmosphere inside the Green Zone, meant that pretty much anything out of line of sight comms was useless. "You're breaking up." Captain Vaughn told whoever it was, listening to his comm buzz and shriek for another minute or so before he killed the channel. He checked his misson chronometer and saw that they had another hour and a half before they were due to complete their sweep and rendevous with the other teams at the dust off point. Reports would have to wait until then. He suppressed a shiver... Mike Team was on its own now. He forced a sneer onto his face... Mike Team was one of the most elite armed units in all the USN, trained to confront and defeat modern armed forces many times their numbers! They had nothing to worry about walking around a dead city.

"Movement!" One of the soldiers reported, causing everyone to drop down into ready crouches, spreading out in a silent display of teamwork that was practically telepathy, weapons pulled tight to shoulders, overlapping fire lanes set up in moments as they pressed themselves into what little cover there was in the street, mostly abandoned cars, parked and crashed at haphazard angles across all lanes. Captain Vaughn noted the dispersion was a little slower than usual with one part of his mind, even as another told him that it was just because of the bulky environment suits, basically space suits, and not because his team was getting rusty or complacent. He lifted a hand, raised three fingers and made a sweeping motion towards where his trooper had spotted movement. Privately he doubted it was anything but the shadows getting to someone with tightly wound nerves, but they were professionals, and thus they would react professionally even to ghosts. Three people, one of them being the trooper who'd spotted movement, another being Sergeant Huey and a third trooper armed with a SAW (Squad Assault Weapon) medium machinegun, broke formation and began to slowly explore and search for the source of movement.

Several minutes passed, as the fire team picked through the ruined street, helmet infared lamps probing every shadowy nook and cranny for hiding threats, the muzzles of their assault rifles, underslung with shotguns and grenade launchers, following every jerk of their eyes, infared laser sights crawling over dented car hoods and flashing through broken windows like flourescent green beams. None of it was visible in normal light, but normal white light lamps would only highlight the position of his squad, which was highly undesirable in any sort of stealth situation. Of course, they weren't expecting combat, but there was no reason to indulge bad habits. Finally, after five minutes of nothing, Captain Vaughn activated his squad comm. "Got anything?" He asked neutrally.

"Nothing, sir." Huey reported. "This place is deader than a cemetary at midnight."

"I could have sworn..." The trooper who'd called the warning muttered, shaking his head in frustration.

"Just rain shadows. Stay sharp people, we do have a timetable to meet." Captain Vaughn decided. He was just turning his head to consider their route forward when a shadow moved over in the corner of his vision and he froze. "Movement!" He called, those nearest him spinning around to point their weapons in the directions he indicated. Huey and his fireteam hustled back towards the main group through the maze of cars, boots splashing in the puddles, the noise oddly loud in the otherwise silent streets. Even the wind had died down to a whisper. Vaughn scanned the buildings fronting the street intently, probing for whatever he'd seen move. He hadn't been able to make out much more than the fact that something had moved... something smaller than a man, but about the right size for a child. But that was impossible... the very air was toxic to all forms of life, there could be no way a child could survive! The sky opened up on them again, rain splattering and pinging off their heads and shoulders and the car hoods around them, a liquid and metal symphony that was deeply unsettling for some reason.

"There's nothing..." One of the other soldiers, armed with an automatic grenade launcher instead of a rifle, started to say, when he abruptly shut up with a sharp intake of breath. That same gasp was repeated nine times over when the rest of the squad, recently rejoined by Huey and his fireteam, caught sight of something that sent an atavistic shiver of fear running up each of their spines. Standing half in and half out of an alleyway about thirty feet away was a dog, something wolflike, perhaps a Husky, though of abnormal size. Its head and shoulders were in view, grey-silver fur dripping with wet greenish streams of rainwater as it looked at the group of men and women, its head cocked to the side, tongue hanging slightly out, studying them warily. That wasn't too strange or arresting... what WAS were the dog's eyes, which shone a brilliant gold, like freshly minted dollar coins, reflecting the IR and regular light back at them. Vaughn could have almost sworn the dog met his gaze directly as it stood there panting lightly, holding the entire squad entranced with its impossible presence in the otherwise dead city.

The moment was shattered an instant later when a shot rang out, and a puff of dust exploded from the wall of the alleyway behind the dog, which whirled and disappeared from sight even before the dust had halfway reached the ground, gone between blinks of their startled eyes. "Cease fire!" Vaughn called angrily, regaining use of his tongue. "Who was that!?"

"Me." Sergeant Jayne spoke up at once, his voice unsteady and shaking. "It was... it was looking at... me... and..."

"Get ahold of yourself, Jayne." Vaughn said disgustedly. "You're letting this place get to you too much. It's just a stupid fucking dog."

"I ain't never seen a dog like that." Huey confided privately, placing a reassuring hand on Jayne's shoulder. "Those eyes..."

"Well, it isn't a survivor according to the standard rulebook, but anything, man or beast that can survive days of exposure to a poison atmosphere, especially in such health, is bound to be of interest to someone important." Captain Vaughn said decisively. "Besides, its just a dog. It won't take too long to track down and collar. Poor thing's probably half starved for food and companionship anyway. I wonder what happened to its owners?" Vaughn shrugged even as he said it, knowing the likely answer. They were dead. Just like everyone else in this godforsaken place was. Except, apparently, for this one dog. He led Mike Team into the alley, noting that everyone was still tense, surprised as they were by the discovery of an actual survivor, even if it was a pet. He wondered what made this particular dog so special, that it could resist such deadly poison? Perhaps they'd be able to isolate it, whatever it was, and make a cure or vaccine for humans to use? That would be awesome! "Weapons on safe. We're going to capture it unharmed. It could be very important." Vaughn ordered firmly.

About halfway down its length, the alley was choked with rubble from where a building had mostly collapsed nearby, its foundation having not been up to the challenge of dealing with the nearby passage of the Great Endeavor. The debris were piled up taller than Vaughn, and sloped so steeply there was no way a dog could have climbed over. A hole in the brick wall just to the side, half blocked by the rubble, showed where the dog had fled. Perhaps it had a den back there, someplace to get out of the incessant rain and wind. A few minutes of quiet work by the squad widened the hole enough for them to pass through even in their bulky environment suits, and they filed through in single file. Vaughn really wished he could contact Major Travis and tell him that they were going to be late for the rendevous, but that was impossible, so he was just going to have to make this side trip as quick as possible and hustle to make up the difference. Being left behind when the nukes came down was not on his agenda for the day!

The building interior was half collapsed as well, forcing the squad to wind their way around places where the ceiling had caved in, or holes in the floor leading down into the moundations or even the subway system, by the echoes of water dripping down one of the holes. Office furniture lay sprawled everywhere, soggy piles of paper and splintered faux wood desks, mildewing chairs tipped over, metal legs bent at odd angles. The one thing he didn't see, which was somewhat surprising, was corpses. This office had obviously been populated at one point in time, surely there would have been a body or two, or even some blood from an injury? But the place was picked clean. Vaughn frowned as he passed by a place where debris from the ceiling had fallen. He called a halt with a raised fist and knelt down by the spot, gently probing with his hands. The rubble fall had been disturbed in the time since crashing down from the ceiling. He grunted as he turned over a piece of wreckage and found it coated with a dry, flaky substance he instantly recognized as blood. But if there was this much blood, where was the body? And why was the rubble disturbed... like something had been digging at it sometime in the last half day or so... something was fishy here.

"D-do you hear that?" Sergeant Jayne suddenly said, his voice trembling. "The barking in the distance?"

"I don't hear a damn thing, man." Huey replied, cocking his head and listening as hard as he could. "Nothing besides the drip of water and the wind. Keep it cool man, this ain't the time or place to fall apart."

"I'm serious though! Surely someone else can hear it!? The barking!? Its getting louder!" Jayne insisted.

"Sergeant, I think we're going to have to have a serious talk after we get out of this place." Vaughn said regretfully. Enough was enough, Jayne was starting to compromise the mission with his psychological breakdown. It was too damn bad.

"I'm not fucking kidding, sir! It sounds like a whole pack of dogs is bearing down on us! Goddamn, they're really howling! They sound... they sound hungry..." Jayne muttered fearfully.

"Marc! Seriously dude, shut the fuck up!" Huey said forcefully.

"Woof, woof." Someone said mockingly over the comm system. "Woof, woof, woofity woof."

"FUCK YOU!" Jayne shouted, spinning around and pointing his weapon more or less at random. "The barking... the barking... its all around us! Come on, you bastards, you HAVE to be able to hear it!"

"The only barking I hear is him. Barking mad." Huey said worriedly over a private comm to Vaughn. "He's snapped, poor guy."

"Sergeant Jayne, put down that weapon..." Captain Vaughn said firmly, eyeing the sergeant warily. There were few things more dangerous than a highly trained and well armed soldier having a psychotic fit in an enclosed space. A single burst of autofire or a squeeze on the secondary trigger, releasing a frag grenade, could wipe out a good portion of the squad. Even a minor rip in the suit was deadly here, because it would let the Green Zone inside! "Just calm down, okay? I don't know what you're hearing, but there is no barking. Its all in your head, man."

"I'm not fucking crazy, sir!" Jayne pointed his weapon through an empty doorway. "They're there... the barking... the BARKING! Shut up... shut up... shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP ALREADY! DAMN YOU, SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Jayne jerked his trigger and sent a long burst of automatic fire spewing through the door, the sound shatteringly loud in the enclosed room, five jets of flame blazing in a star pattern from the pressure dispersers on the muzzle of his rifle with each bullet fired. The other members of Mike Team hit the deck, swearing and shouting as they threw themselves at whatever cover they could find as Sergeant Jayne emptied an entire clip into dead space, dropped the spent clip, reloaded and then hosed down the empty room again, his shots tearing through the walls and turning the debris into swiss cheese. Second clip wasted, Jayne hit his secondary trigger and sent a frag grenade thumping into the ravaged room, blowing a flaming hole in the floor and splattering the walls with metal shards. Smoke and dust roiled and gusted into the room with Mike Team, drawing another wave of curses. "The barking..." Jayne whimpered, fumbling for another frag grenade.

Huey hit him low and hard, sweeping his friend's legs out from underneath him and spilling him hard to the ground, where Captain Vaughn aggressively pounced on his subordinate and started to wrestle for control of the empty weapon and the frag grenade in Jayne's other hand. "Damn it, Sergeant, stand the fuck down already!" Vaughn shouted desperately.

"The BARKING! They're all around me! Oh god, they're all around me!" Jayne screamed, fighting viciously to load the frag into the underslung launcher. "Bastards! Bastards! I'll shut you up! I'll fucking shut you up! Bad dog! BAD DOG!" Jayne kicked out hard and caught Huey square in the faceplate with his reinforced combat boot, propelling his friend backwards off him with a harsh crack of splintering armor-glass. Huey yelled in pain and panic, clapping both hands desperately to his cracked faceplate, knowing he was already dead if any of the poison atmosphere got inside his suit!

"I didn't want to fucking do it this way, Sergeant, but you leave me little choice!" Vaughn slammed his elbow into the side of Jayne's head hard, stunning his flailing sergeant. Vaughn tore the rifle from Jayne's limp grasp and sent it skating across the rubble strewn floor well out of reach, and then pried the frag grenade from Jayne's other hand just as the Sergeant was starting to wake up again. Vaughn picked himself up, holding Jayne by the collar, before kicking the psychotic sergeant's feet out from under him again when he was halfway up, sending him to the ground on his face. Vaughn knelt on Jayne's back and ziptied his wrists together behind his back, before unbuckling the web belts and straps supporting Jayne's pistol and grenades and knives and other gear. "Stay the fuck down, Marc, or I swear to god I'll shoot you in the fucking head!" Vaughn threatened furiously. "Huey, report status?"

"I... I think I'm good, sir. Faceplate is cracked, but I think it's just the first layer. Air still tastes fine... no signs of falling down and dying a horrible death. Yet." Huey said, his voice brittle as one of the other Mike Team members knelt by his side and put sealing tape over the cracked parts of the faceplate, just to be double sure. "Holy fuck, I thought I was dead... what the hell got into Marc? I never seen a man go so crazy so quick..."

"We're all under a lot of stress. The world is going to hell in a handbasket. It must have been too much for him to handle. Poor bastard." Vaughn agreed, taking his hand away from his pistol holster.

"The barking..." Jayne sobbed. Vaughn resisted the urge to kick him, but only barely. The squad was spooked as it was, no need to ratchet things up any more with unnecessary violence.

"Shut up, Marc. Just shut up." Vaughn sighed. This was not going to go down well in the AAR. With one man crazy, and another in danger of losing suit integrity, it was time to call off this fools venture and proceed to the rendevous point as quickly as possible. Fuck that dog, it was probably unlucky anyway. Vaughn was just about to give the order to regroup and withdraw when the situation exploded around him.

"AHHHHHHHG!" Jayne screamed, so loud and frightened everyone else jerked to look at him, momentarily forgetting how to use their weapons or even point them. "AHHGGHH!" Jayne screamed again, this time in mixed agony and fear. And well he did too, because an absolutely monstrous dog, the size of a Great Dane but built more like a wolf, rippling with muscle, had darted out of the room Jayne had been demolishing and fastened its jaws around his ankle, teeth sinking deep into the armored fabric, not quite penetrating, but allowing the canine to bite down hard enough to break Jayne's ankle with an audible snapping of bone. Just as the soldiers were bringing up their weapons, oaths on their lips, the dog-wolf-thing blinked its gold as gold coin eyes at them and bounded away, its jaws still locked around Jayne's ankle, dragging the screaming man behind it like a puppy pulling on a chew toy. With his wrists bound, Jayne could do nothing but kick at the animal, but it just weathered his ineffectual blows like they weren't even happening.

"HOLY FUCKING CHRIST!" Huey shouted, firing a three round burst at the canine apparation as it made off with his friend, but it moved so quickly that his shots only kicked up plaster dust. "Marc!"

"GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF ME! ITS TEARING OFF MY LEG! OH MY GOD! OHMYGOD AHHHHHG!" Jayne screamed agonizingly over the comm system.

"After it!" Vaughn ordered, pistol in hand as he charged through the door, shocked at how far down the hall the dog and Marc were. Only a few seconds had passed, and despite dragging over two hundred pounds of man and armor, the dog-wolf was almost sixty feet away, near a bend in the hall. Vaughn brought his pistol up and snapped off two shots, but the dog-wolf actually dodged them both, twisting its body from side to side, letting the bullets blast into the floor to either side as it hauled Marc around the corner, not even looking back! "What the fuck was that!?" Vaughn demanded of no one in particular. It was like the dog knew where he was aiming, and when he was about to fire. _Woof, woof, woof._

"What the FUCK!?" Vaughn stopped short. _Woof, arf, woof, woof, WOOF, ARF, woof, woof, woof woof woof woof WOOF WOOF ARF ARF ARF ARF!_ "WHAT THE FUCK!?" Vaughn shook his head, as he heard the sounds of what sounded like dozens of dogs yapping and howling, the sound growing as it closed in on him from all sides, growing especially louder the further he got into the hallway.

"I hear it! I hear the barking! What the fuck is that!? What the fuck is going on here!?" One of the other Mike Team soldiers demanded.

"HELP ME! OH GOD HELP ME! ITS TRYING TO EAT ME ALIVE!" Jayne pleaded. "Get it off! GET IT OFF PLEASE GET IT OFF!"

"Hang on, Marc!" Huey shouted, pushing past Vaughn, who as still shaking his head, trying to clear out the cacophony of barking, with little success. Huey rounded the corner and then instantly slammed backward with a crunch that was loud enough to speak of broken ribs and plentiful internal injuries, as another large dog, smaller than the wolf-dog but even more muscular, with short hair, perhaps some form of doberman or gigantic pit bull, bulled into his chest and slammed him backwards into the wall hard enough to put a hole in the plaster and drywall. The dog, which had short fur in black and brown, shook its head once and then fastened its jaws on Huey's gun wrist, crushing the armor like a soda can and pulverizing the wrist bones with a series of wet pops and snaps. This dog also had shiny golden eyes, which were slitted half closed as it worried its jaws on Huey's forearm, trying to rip the hand off. "AAHHH! AAAHHG!" Huey yelled, beating at its back and shoulders with its other hand, to little effect.

Vaughn put three 5.6mm hypervelocity hollow point pistol rounds into the pit bull's side and haunches before it finally released Huey's mauled wrist, leaving the sergeant half embedded in the wall, laboring for breath with shards of ribcage piercing his lungs and stomach, left wrist crushed flat, hand dangling limply at a sickening angle from the rest of the arm. The dog whimpered and whined, its thickly muscled side awash with blood and gore, intestines poking through its split belly as it slowly settled onto the ground, legs kicking spastically as it started to die. It died hard though, biting at Huey's ankles with its jaws until Vaughn fired a fourth round and blew half its jaw and skull away. "Jesus fucking Christ..." Vaughn panted. "Four JHP rounds for a fucking dog!? What the FUCK!? Huey? Huey, talk to me, sergeant!"

"I'm in trouble sir..." Huey reported in a gasping, bubbly tone, blood frothing on his lips. "Damn dog crushed my chest. Hand is fucking gone... armors the only thing keeping it attached. Internal bleeding... bad... I'm..." Huey trailed off and his body slumped in its wall depression. "Fucking dog..." Huey said faintly, before his head dropped down to his chest and he went limp.

"Sir, what about Jayne?" One of the other soldiers asked, his tone fearful and flinty. Nothing had been heard from Jayne for several seconds.

_Woof, woof, woof, woof woof!_ Vaughn shook his head to clear away the sounds, but it didn't do any good. It sounded like they were barking in his ears now... and the barking had taken on a new tone. An angry tone. He could feel a sense of loss and anger and a desire for vengeance in those barks. Vaughn shivered... what the fuck was going on? These were not normal dogs... "We go after him. No way we're letting Mike Team get beat by fucking dogs!" Vaughn said furiously, taking up Huey's rifle and leading the way around the corner. No dog lay in wait to ambush him, though he could see the wolf-dog who had Jayne at the far end of this leg of the hall. Jayne was lying very still, while the wolf-dog pawed at his back and nudged him with its muzzle. Just as Vaughn was sighting in on the bastard, it looked at him. Right at him. Met his gaze even. And then bounded away, biting down on Jayne's other ankle, crippling him completely as it continued deeper into its lair.

Mike team pursed the wolf-dog relentlessly, never quite seeming to be able to catch up as it led them on a merry chase through the collapsed building. More dogs of all different sorts, from more pit bulls to retrievers and labs and sheep dogs and even a pack of poodles, all with those disturbing golden eyes, ambushed the soldiers repeatedly, darting out from under desks and through holes in the walls and even dropping down from above in one case. Most times the dogs ended up getting slaughtered, especially when they charged in directly, but it only took that occuring once or twice for the dogs to change their tactics completely, and from then on they only struck from the flanks or where the soldiers could not effectively shoot as a group. It was like the dogs, though they were all different breeds, were learning and communicating with each other what strategies did and did not work. Mike Team lost two members when they crossed a weakened patch of floor and fell into a basement... a basement where three pit bulls waited and pounced before the dust even settled, steel trap jaws closing around legs and arms and throats and crushing the thick skinned prey to death.

After a half hour of ambushes with only glimpses now and then of Jayne and the wolf-dog, Vaughn was really starting to get the feeling that they were being toyed with. Every time he started to consider just giving up, cutting his losses, the wolf-dog would appear, Jayne in tow, just a little bit further away, and so they would push on determinedly. His men were starting to run low on ammo, and everyone was getting tired. It was like they were being deliberately worn down, using up their strength on fruitless struggles. Vaughn knew dogs in the wild used pack tactics to hunt, but this... this was something else! Some of the ambushes were being executed with nearly human levels of skill and planning, like the luring of the soldiers over the weakened floor with forces waiting beneath! That was no beast tactic! And the way the dogs avoided long range fire, like they knew where the soldiers were aiming... that was more than just uncanny! And lastly, the barking from nowhere, that they could all hear now. People were at the snapping point, and Vaughn was one of them!

Finally, they emerged from the confines of the building, into a relatively clear space, perhaps a park or open lot or something. Buildings towered on all sides, alleys leading to major streets in all four cardinal directions. Rubble was heaped in two and three story piles all over the open space, like small hills. In the middle of the cleared space, equidistant from all the buildings and each of the alley mouths lay Sergeant Jayne. He was limp and unmoving, his feet twisted at sickening angles from his legs, his armor scratched and dusty from being dragged along for so long. He did still appear to be breathing, and his life signs on Vaughn's helmet isplay were still there, if dipping well into the yellow and nearly into the red. He was lying on his front, and there was nothing else in view. Had the dogs lost interest? Gotten tired of getting chased? Decided that they'd lost enough packmates to the deadly firepower of Mike Team? Whatever the case, Vaughn was more than glad to get this nightmare over with. Anything to shut the barking up! Mike Team slowly inched into the open, heads on a swivel looking for threats as the slowly surrounded Jayne's limp body.

"Sergeant? Marc? You still with us?" Vaughn asked, kneeling by Jayne's form.

"The barking..." Jayne whispered. "They're talking..."

"They're dogs. They can't talk." Vaughn replied, though he figured Jayne had to be in shock. He was just starting to hoist the Sergeant up into a fireman's carry on his shoulders when a sudden sensation crawling up his spine made him freeze. "Oh, you fucking crafty bastards..." Vaughn swore softly, realizing that he'd been played. Of course the wolf-dog wouldn't just drag Jayne all the way out here and then leave him. He was bait. And Mike Team had taken it, hook, line and sinker. And now they were in a clear space, an equal distance from any sort of defensible position. Sure, they had superior firepower, but they were all tired and low on ammo and... Vaughn stood and looked around, knowing that they were trapped. _WOOF._ The bark sounded almost smug. Satisfied. _Woof, arf._ The wolf-dog strutted into view from around one of the piles of rubble. Truly, he was a magnificent animal, proud and powerful, a true alpha with more than a dash of wolf in his veins, his pelt shaggy and a striking silver grey color, his eyes luminous gold. He stared right at Vaughn, and Vaughn could have sworn the animal was laughing at him. "Fuck you." Vaughn snarled, and fired a burst at the bastard.

The wolf-dog sidestepped the bullets almost casually, the dust kicked up by the missed shots close enough to sift onto his paws as it settled. Vaughn blinked, having never imagined such a big animal, probably a hundred and thirty pounds of muscle, being able to move so fast! It had been a blur, avoiding three hypervelocity bullets at a range of less than forty feet! The wolf-dog cocked its head at Vaughn mockingly, as if daring him to try again. Even as it did so, the remainder of its pack showed themselves. Dogs seemed to materialize from nowhere and everywhere, cresting piles of rubble, slinking out from the buildings in groups, even appearing in the broken windows of the second and third stories of the buildings all around the open square. They were a mixture of pit bulls, retrievers, labs and poodles, and as each dog revealed itself, golden eyes practically aglow with hungry intent, another bark could be heard adding to the chorus. But the thing was... none of the dogs were barking. They panted, they slobbered, they nuzzled and nosed each other familiarly... but not a single one barked. Vaughn shivered, as the howling, woofing cacophony in his head continued to build while the dogs stared at them silently.

"S-s-s-sir!?" One of the soldiers said in a very small, scared voice. "What's going on..." He looked with wide eyes at the scores and scores of dogs surrounding them, so many pairs of golden eyes in the shadows, edging closer, strings of drool slobbering from hungry jaws.

_Woof._ Vaughn started as another wolf-dog, just as big as the one that had abducted Jayne as bait, pushed forward out of one of the alleyways, the other dogs of the pack cowering away from her path as she stalked regally across the plaza to stand by her mate. Like her mate she had shaggy fur of grey-silver, and she was absolutely massive, practically big enough for a child to ride like a horse. But unlike her mate, her eyes were pure silver, not gold. She nuzzled and rubbed up against her mate, who nuzzled her back tenderly. After the momentary greeting, both wolf-dogs turned their implacable gazes on the prey huddled in the midst of the ambush zone, brushing up against each other lightly. _WOOOF!_ The bark was so loud that Vaughn and the other soldiers winced, some falling to their knees, shaking their heads in pain, weapons clattering on the ground. _WOOOOOF! WOOOF! WOOOF! WOOOOOF! WOOOF!_ Each successive bark was like a hammer blow of invisible force, making their heads feel like they were exploding, leaving the soldiers all gasping on their hands and knees, some curling up into fetal balls, screaming with agony as the mental attack battered them from the insides out. All the while, the pack crept closer on all sides, eyes gleaming like a reflection of avarice.

"F-fu-fuck y-you!" Vaughn sputtered, raising his pistol drunkenly as he knelt on the ground. Both wolf-dogs watched him with studied indifference, even as the gun turned in their direction. Vaughn strained to keep his hand steady, but it was impossible, the barking in his head driving out all other things but pain and the noise itself. Blood dripped freely from his nostrils. _WOOOOF!_ the wolf-dogs blared, and Vaughn collapsed on his face, crying with pain. From there, it was all over except for the screaming. Tonight, the pack would eat well. There was no need to range further afield when the food came to them. That was good. There were many new dangers in this place, this false place. The pack was nearly at the bottom of the food chain. The least of the dangers that stalked the cold canyons of this place. As the prey finally stopped struggling and screaming, the pack lifted their heads in a communal howl of triumph that reverberated from the buildings around them... and reached far farther on the mental landscape, like a beacon sung into the sky, calling to other, less successful packs in the area.

* * *

"What the hell was that!?" Major David Travis wondered out loud, tapping the side of his helmet experimentally, wondering if there was more wrong with his comm system than just environmental static. "Anyone else hear that? Like a pack of wolves howling at the moon?"

"Hmmph!" The snort of disdain that immediately answered him made Major Travis frown deeply. He wasn't exactly sure why Dr. Brandt and his team of eggheads had been assigned to go along with Romeo Team on this investigative mission, but he did know one thing... he loathed the good Doctor, and he'd only known him for a few hours! Major Travis could put up with a lot of bullshit, it was part of being a successful soldier, but Dr. Brandt was pushing his limits almost to the breaking point with his smug, superior holier than thou attitude. Not to mention the fact that despite Major Travis being responsible for the Doctor's safety, and that of his cronies, the Doc was being impossibly anal and tight lipped about what exactly his reason for being there at all was. This was no place for an idle observer! As far as Travis could tell, the Doc and his bunch were looking for something... what exactly they expected to find in a city innundated for days in the most deadly poison gas ever created was beyond him though.

"Do you have an opinion, Doctor?" Travis asked through gritted teeth, forcing himself to be polite. Insufferable as he was, the Doctor had been brought in at close to the SecDef level of command, and no doubt had the ears of some very powerful people. Pissing him off just because the Doc was an asshole wouldn't be helpful to Travis's future, not with the boards for Light Colonel only a few months away, assuming the world didn't end before then.

"It's just the wind, Captain." Dr. Brandt replied dismissively. "Honestly, I've never met such a jumpy bunch of nervous deer! Are you sure you're really soldiers?"

"Yes, Doctor, I'm very sure." Travis retorted with a sigh. _Sure enough that I could kill you in twenty different ways just using my left hand, fucktard!_ "And I'm a Major, sir."

"Whatever." Dr. Brandt didn't sound like he gave a damn either way. Or even understood the difference between the various military ranks, Travis wasn't the only one he mixed up. A real ivory tower type, Dr. Brandt... super smart in his field, sure, but a retard when it came to real life. "Have you had any contact from your subordinate units?"

"Not yet, sir. Atmospherics are playing hell with our comms, and the buildings aren't helping much either. We're just barely staying in contact with the insertion craft at the rendevous point." Travis reported crisply. "I'll be sure to inform you the moment I hear from them, assuming they have anything to report."

"See that they do." Dr. Brandt answered imperiously. "We'll be moving on soon. There's nothing here that we are looking for." He indicated the ransacked grocery store the team plus civilian detail were currently investigating. It looked to have been extensively looted at some point in the recent past, most of the items on the shelves spilled to the ground, and some of the shelves themselves tipped over. However, the freezer units were still mostly intact, and even still provided with power. The bodies of rats and birds and plenty of unfortunate people were scattered up and down the aisles, their bodies withered and emaciated, even though they were surrounded by food. It was like they'd all fallen asleep and starved to death in a manner of hours, which, as far as Travis knew, was a pretty accurate summation of what the gas in the Green Zone did to you. The mechanics behind it hadn't been released yet, and frankly he was scratching his head to try and figure out how it worked, even an approximation, but he kept coming up blank. If Dr. Brandt knew, and Travis had the sneaking suspicion he did, he wasn't telling.

"I'll say again sir, if you'll just tell us what you're looking for, my soldiers would be more than happy to help. We're all trained scouts and observers, surely an extra ten pairs of eyes wouldn't hurt?" Travis asked hopefully. Maybe once he knew what they were looking for, he'd have a better idea of why they were there at all, and why they'd been ordered into a target zone for a strategic nuclear missile only hours before it was due to drop. Hell, maybe he'd even be able to figure out why they were nuking one of their OWN cities, even if it was devoid of life.

"That won't be necessary, Captain. My own assistants will be more than sufficient to the task. You just be a good soldier and make sure nothing interrupts us while we look, and stop worrying so much about stuff that does not concern your area of expertise." Dr. Brandt replied haughtily. "We'll be ready to move on in a minute or two, be sure to be ready."

"Yes s..." Travis heard Dr. Brandt sign off the comm channel. "...hithead!" Travis finished vehemently, with an evil glare in the direction of the Doctor and his entourage.

"Now sir, that's not nice." The mischevious voice of his second in command, Second Lieutenant Roberta Garcia, sounded in his ears on the private command channel. "You're making shit look bad, comparing him to it. I mean, at least shit has some redeeming qualities. It was formerly something good after all. The same can't be said of a certain doctor."

"Heh, you have a point, Lt." Travis allowed himself a grim smile.

"As for your earlier question, yeah, I kinda did hear something that sounded very much like a pack of wolves, way off in the distance. So did most of the troops, and I'm betting the doctor and his fuckbuddies did too. Thing is, sir, I played back our aural recordings for that time... and there's nothing there. Its enough to put some serious goosebumps in places I don't want goosebumps, sir."

"Ever get the feeling that high command thinks we're a bunch of mushrooms, Lt?" Travis asked wryly.

"Best kept in the dark and fed on shit, sir? All the time. But its way worse today." Garcia agreed. "I mean, bad enough we get orders to take a tour of a place thats going to be ground zeo less than an hour after we leave, with no margin for error if something breaks down, but we also gotta escort a bunch of holier than thou eggheads we never heard of around, without so much as a why or what? Not only THAT but once we get here, to the middle of the fucking Green Zone... nothing makes sense to what we were told before. There are some seriously fishy things going on sir. And I mean fishy like bad smell, don't hit that thing."

"Got anything specific? I mean, I've been noticing a few things myself but its nothing I can put a firm finger on." Travis asked, trusting her keen senses and logical mind as much as he trusted his own, if not more.

"Well, yeah, now that you mention it." Garcia replied. She pointed at one of the human corpses with the muzzle of her shotgun. "Lookit him. Can't have been dead for more than forty eight hours, and he looks like he's been rotting in a marsh for a month. Flesh just falling right off the bone, rigor mortis come and gone, internal organs turned to mush, must stink like the ass end of hell's latrine. But why is he decomposing at all? I mean, yeah, he's dead, but the body doesn't decay by itself very quickly at all... most decomposition is done by microbial and bacterial life. But all the microbes and bacteria is supposed to be killed off by the Green Stuff as well. Obviously its not. And it even seems to be acting like some sort of booster or something... these bodies are decaying at three or four times the rate they normally would. Those bacteria must be fucking hungry..."

"That IS strange." Travis agreed, brow furrowed in thought. All briefings agreed, the Green Stuff was inimical and one hundred percent deadly to ALL life, from humans to plants to fungi all the way down to viruses and bacteria. There should be NOTHING at all living in the Green Zone. But the bodies were still decaying and rotting away, and at such a pace too. "Somewhat off the current topic, but I've been wondering this for a bit. Why exactly are our comms messed up anyway? Why the widescale environmental changes? I mean, this is just poison gas, right... it shouldn't stir up stormclouds or jam comms with electromagnetic noise. Its a biological agent... what sort of biological agent creates atmospheric EM fields? No, something is definitely not right here. But what is this stuff then?"

"Shelve that thought for a moment, sir." Garcia spoke up in a small voice. "I think I just found what those bastards are here for." She was staring at the mess strewn on the aisle floor, and Travis could hear the tremor in her voice, as if she'd just seen something that deeply disturbed her.

"Roberta?" He asked softly, as she slowly bent down and sifted through the mess for a moment, before picking something up, a package of some sort. She showed it to him wordlessly. It was a plastic package containing processed meat sticks, a form of beef jerky combined with sausage. The package was half empty, and one of the remaining meat sticks had what looked like bite marks removing more than half of its length. he took it from her and studied it, trying to figure out what had set her off. It was just an open packet of food. Some looter had probably been forced to drop his meal halfway, either because of the authorities showing up or because of the poison gas. "I don't get it." Major Travis admitted.

"Those are organic beef sticks, sir. My little brother, super-greenie enviro-fag that he is, is all about the organic foods. The ones that don't have any preservatives or artificial flavors and additives, even artificial coloring is out. Course, it makes the food taste like shit, but whatever, right, to each their own." Garcia replied, her tone tremulous.

"Uh, okay... go on..." Travis encouraged, still not getting it.

"Sir, look at the corpse." Garcia explained quietly. "Now look at the beef sticks. Both are dead biological matter, exposed to the environment. Why is one decayed while the other isn't? I mean, if those beef sticks have been stewing in the Green Zone air for as long as that poor bastard, they should be lousy with rot and mould by now... but they're just a little stale, at worst."

"That is strange." Travis agreed. "But so what?"

"Sir, come on. If that body is decaying at four times the normal rate, those beef sticks have got to be decaying just as fast if not faster. In fact I'm sure they are decaying just as fast. After an equal amount of exposure to the air, they'll be way more rotten than the corpse, I'm sure of it."

"What are you saying, Lt?"

"I'm saying, sir, that the meat sticks haven't been exposed to the air for very long at all. Probably an hour or two at most. That's the only way I can explain why they aren't decayed." Garcia said, letting that hang in the air for a moment. She eyed Major Travis, who eyed her right back, both thinking the same thing, neither daring to say it. "Sir, we aren't alone in this city." Garcia managed to choke out at last. "Somebody survived."

"Or something... it could have been rodents or insects or something..." Travis said, knowing it sounded lame the moment he did.

Garcia shook her head. "I ain't never want to meet the bug that can eat half a package of beef sticks in under an hour, sir. Besides, look at the way the package was opened." Garcia fingered the slice in the back of the plastic package, which was thin and even and straight. "You telling me a mouse nibbled a knife edge slit in this package sir? This isn't bitten or chewed or ripped or torn... this is cut. Cut with a knife or a scissor blade or something sharp. Someone used a tool to open this. And they did it about the time we were landing. They must have heard the VTOL engines and run off."

"But why would they do that? I would think survivors would head towards the sounds of a vehicle." Travis wondered.

"Couldn't tell you that, sir. All I know is, somebody ain't dead like they're supposed to be. And if one person ain't dead, its a pretty sure bet they aren't the only one." Garcia was quiet for a long moment. "And I don't think high command is at all happy with that little fact."

"What do you..." Travis trailed off. "The nukes... but the city isn't entirely dead! There are survivors! We have to tell them to call off the strike!"

"Sir, did you not listen at the brief? They won't call off the strike for us, why should they call it off for a bunch of people already listed as dead?" Garcia replied bitterly. She was about to say more when they had an unwelcome interruption.

"Captain? My people are ready to leave. We're waiting on you." Dr. Brandt managed to sound like that was the height of rudeness, to make him wait for even an instant. "Could you please try to keep to the timetable? We don't have forever you know."

"I'm well aware of that, Doctor. We'll be there in a moment. And sir, I'm a Major."

"Whichever."

"What are we gonna do, sir?" Garcia asked worriedly. "That bastard already knows there are survivors. He must be looking for one, maybe trying to figure out how they lived through the gas, if it even IS gas. But in any case, he also knows this place is gonna get slagged in a couple hours, regardless of who is or is not here! He's not going to be happy if he figures out we know what he knows. If high command is willing to nuke one of our own cities, with our own people in it, to keep this quiet, getting rid of a few too observant soldiers isn't going to even ruffle their hair..."

"Keep it to yourself for the moment, Lt." Travis decided grimly, discarding the telling piece of evidence, throwing it back into the morass of decaying food on the floor. "But don't forget about it either. And stay sharp. Razor sharp. We don't know what kind of condition these poor people are in... they could be very desperate indeed, and encountering an armed group could get very messy."

"And high command? Sir, this is evil!"

"Worry about what we can do right now, right now, and what we can do later, later." Travis ordered, his voice tinged with fury, not at her, but at whoever had made the cold hearted decision to consign the cities to slagging while there were untold numbers of survivors living in them! Why!? WHY!? It didn't make any sense at all!

"Captain? The clock is ticking!"

"God, I hate him..."

* * *

"What is it THIS time, Captain? Honestly, I've had just about enough of you dragging your feet!" Dr. Brandt said waspishly, as the group of soldiers and scientists stood in the street outside a building a block or so deeper into the city from the grocery store.

"Major, sir... MAJOR. Its a different rank, sir." Travis said wearily. "Sir, this is an orphange. What could possibly be of interest to us in a domitory for wards of the state?"

"Never you mind, Major. All you need to worry about is providing light and a wall of bodies between us and anything that might go wrong. Surely that isn't beyond your capabilities, is it?" Dr. Brandt retorted with a roll of his eyes. Oh, the limited mind of the military knuckle draggers... he so wished he didn't have to deal with the primitives, but there were dangers, oh yes, dangers indeed, and it was best to go into those kind of situations with plenty of violent disposable assets, if you had to enter them at all.

"Not at all, Doctor, not at all." Travis answered, barely even able to get mad anymore, so distracted he was by the greater injustice being purveyed by high command. How far up the chain did the rot go? All the way up to the SecDef? Surely not... Gilbert Durandel was a champion of the people! There was no way he could be signing off on this genocide! "I'd just prefer not to go tromping through a building full of dead children if I don't have to."

"Squeamish, Captain? I wouldn't have expected that from a soldier." Dr. Brandt said nastily. "It's just a bunch of dead kids, no big deal."

"No big deal!?" Garcia spat hotly. "WHAT THE FU..."

"Lt!" Travis cut her off. "Cool it. He's doing it deliberately." he added on the private channel.

"But sir!"

"I know. Just bear up. We don't have any choice at the moment." Travis tuned back to the general channel. "Doctor Brandt, I don't know what your conception of the military mind is, but to me, sir, anyone who is NOT squeamish at the thought of what has happened to those poor children has lost a bit too much of their humanity. Please refrain, sir, from making any utterances in poor taste in the future. We do not find them amusing."

"I don't really care how you find them. All I care about, all your chain of command cares about, Captain, is whether you can do the job you're assigned to do." Brandt replied, his tone glacial. "If that job requires you to wade hip deep through the torn remains of newborn babes, I would expect you to do it without complaint. That is the picture you superiors painted of you, a man who gets the job done, no matter how messy. Was that picture incorrect? I have an extremely important mission here, Captain, which you are currently obstructing the completion of with your damned blathering about ethics! This is not the time for concerns like those! The world is ending, Captain. We have to do WHATEVER is necessary to preserve our species. Can you comprehend that? Shall I use smaller words? Perhaps sign language? Do you need me to give you a banana or two to whet your appetite for knowledge first?"

"For the last time, I am a MAJOR, sir." Travis gritted, a nervous tic jumping above his eye as he fought the rage down, the only safe thing he could think to say, on the very edges of his self control.

"It doesn't matter what you are! If I give the word, you'll be a Private when we get back to civilization, Major!" Brandt countered. "You don't have to like me, Major, but you do have to do as I say. Now come on, we've wasted far too much time with this pointless conversation already." He led the way into the building, head held high, though Travis noted with a bitter smile that the Doctor and his party held up and waited for their "simpleminded" military escort to catch up with them in the lobby before they delved further inside the building. Good enough to die for them, not good enough to get any respect. God damn, but why had he sworn an oath to defend people like this? There should be a clause saying "with the exemption of total fuckheads" in the whole "I swear to protect and defend..." contract.

"Just give the word, sir, and I'll have a weapon misfire and blow the three of them all over the staircase." Garcia volunteered viciously, her shotgun pointed meaningfully at the three scientists. "Nobody will see a thing, I promise."

"Belay that kind of talk, Lt." Travis replied tiredly. "It won't do us any good. Its our mission to protect these bastards after all, if they don't come back safe and sound, we're going to be in a world of hurt. Someone would eventually crack, and then it'd be a long walk to a short drop with a rope necklace for us. They aren't big on murder and mutiny for some reason. Even if there is just cause." Travis swept his lamps around as the party continued up several flights of stairs, past empty cafeterias and classrooms, up to the actual dormitory levels. Thankfully, the corpses they encountered were few and far between, and mostly adults, staff members or social workers by the looks of their dress. Still, Garcia's fingers tightened on her shotgun grip with every small withered corpse they passed, and Travis reminded himself that Garcia had two young children of her own. Dr. Brandt had no idea how close he'd probably come to getting wasted with a shotgun with that "just a bunch of dead kids" remark.

"We're getting a heat bloom, doctor." One of the lab assistants said excitedly, looking at some sort of esoteric scanning device in his hands. "Nothing on the Neuro scanner just yet, but definitely life signs." He seemed to realize what he'd just said a moment later, looking guiltily over his shoulders at the soldiers. "I mean, uh..."

"Don't worry, Leo, they won't talk. They're sworn to silence. Its part of their job. One of their few admirable qualities." Dr. Brandt said with an airy shrug. "I should think you are already aware, Captain, that anything you and your unit witness during the course of this operation is a matter of utmost secrecy. Only people with personal clearance from the SecDef or higher can be told of the particulars of this mission. Is that fully understood? I understand some very unpleasant things can happen to those who would breach information security in a crisis situation like we find ourselves in."

"We understand you perfectly, Doctor." Travis replied stonily. "I don't suppose you'd care to tell us what life signs these might be? Isn't everyone supposed to be dead in the Green Zone?" He asked witheringly.

"Everyone in the Green Zone IS dead, Captain." Dr. Brandt replied ghoulishly. "The Brotherhood's poison gas has utterly wiped the Green Zone free of all human, animal and plant life. Anything left over is merely a scientific abnormality, an aberration of nature. We are here to collect such aberrations for further study."

"And why are we searching for "aberrations" in an orphanage!?" Garcia demanded in a very dangerous tone.

"Our studies of the poison gas indicate a certain... resilience to its effects... in younger specimens. Perhaps because their biological structure is not fully set yet, but we are still investigating that. As long as they haven't gone through puberty, there is an interestingly large number of... statistical anomalies with regard to the gas's effects." Dr. Brandt answered with another shrug.

"We're collecting kids who survived the gas?" Garcia asked softly. "So that you bastards can experiment on them!?"

"No. We are collecting specimens. Kids would imply they were human. They are not. They may look human, but let me assure you as an expert... they are not human anymore." Dr. Brandt turned back to his man with the scanner. "Now, if we're done playing twenty questions, we have specimens to collect, and little enough time to do it in, thanks in large part to your warbling."

"Warbling..." Garcia's shotgun started to come up.

"Lt. Enough." Travis reached out and pushed her gun back down. "Your kids need their mother." He added on the private channel. "Just endure it."

"I don't know if I can sir..."

"Do your best. Concentrate on your own kids." Travis hated giving such cold hearted advice, but what else could he do?. Meanwhile, the Doctor and his assistants had moved closer to one of the dorm rooms, each of which looked to be capable of housing between ten and twenty children of various ages. Dr. Brandt was now holding the odd scanning device, while his two cronies had taken out bulky looking guns and were loading them with racks of feathered darts. Underslung on the barrels of the tranq rifles were heavy duty taser launchers, rated at six hundred thousand volts. Potent subdual weapons. A bit overkill for dealing with kids though... even ten thousand volts in a taser would knock a kid down hard. Not that the Doctor and his friends seemed all that concerned in that regard, they plainly didn't regard their targets as human in the slightest.

"Neuro levels increasing. They've sensed us! They're staring to move!" Dr. Brandt said excitedly. "Captain, if one of your men would be so kind as to open this door and then step back, I would be obliged. And if you could form a corden of the surrounding hall in case they try to bolt, that would be helpful too. But no firearms... they must be taken alive at all costs."

"I wouldn't do anything else when it came to kids." Travis muttered, moving up to the doorway himself, while Romeo team split up to block the hallway uneasily. Nobody wanted to be going up against kids. That wasn't funny, not at all. Major Travis took a deep breath, crossed his fingers, hoping the scanner thing was wrong, or that it was rats or a dog or something and not kids, and then kicked the door down with one blow, shattering the flimsy faux wood portal. Dr. Brandt immediately shone a portable floodlight into the room, illuminating it brightly, as his cronies sighted in with their rifles, their every movement jerky and awkward, clearly unsed to using weapons of any sort in a field environment.

At first, there was nothing to see, except for bunk beds, all a bit messy with some pillows heaped under the blankets, each with a nametag on the end of the bed, plus a variety of toys common to all childrens rooms scattered on the floor. The walls were plastered with crude artwork, finger painting and crayon portraits, and little paper kites hung from the lights and fans, gently turning in a faint breeze. The room looked deserted, until Major Travis realized the blobs hiding under the covers on two of the beds, the ones marked "Matthias" and "Jessi" were actually shivering and moving slightly. Those weren't pillows, those were kids, huddled under their bedcovers, probably scared half out of their minds! Travis was about to step forward and try to reassure them, coax them out, when the two lab assistants opened fire wildly with their automatic tranq guns, spraying the quivering bundles with a volley of air driven sedative darts, striking each huddled mass multiple times from short range, causing them to jerk and then flop still almost at once. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" Travis shouted wrathfully, turning and slapping both gun barrels towards the floor. "THOSE ARE KIDS!"

"Don't interfere, Captain! These are dangerous animals we're dealing with!" Dr. Brandt shouted back. Even as they shouted at each other, another pile of covers was thrown aside, revealing a young boy, maybe ten or eleven years old, fully dressed, who leapt out of his bed and charged towards the doorway at top speed. He moved fast and sure, so fast it was hard to keep track of him, but Major Travis had a lifetime of combat experience to fall back onto, and he swept out and arm and a leg to block the kid as he tried to jet past him into the hallway, fist snapping closed on the kid's shirt collar and yanking him to a halt. The kid screamed in terror and anger, striking out with fists and feet, and Travis was surprised by the strength the kid displayed, he could actually feel the blows even through his armored environment suit!

"Hey! Hey, calm down! We're not here to hurt you!" Travis yelled as he wrestled with the boy, who was ornery as a stuck wildcat and slippery as an eel, especially with the slightly reduced dexterity the suit handicapped him with. The boy was just on the verge on slipping out of his grasp entirely when there came twin "pop" noises of springs being released and then the boy jerked, eyes flying wide, golden pupils shining in the glare of the floodlight for a moment before he arched his back and let out a piercing wail as both 600 thousand volt tasers emptied ther capacitors into his back and neck. Sparks flew and arcs of electricity crawled up and down the boys convulsing body for several seconds as he, somehow, impossibly, fought to stay conscious through the electrical overload, his cries of agony ripping wounds in Travis's heart as the kid half fried right there in his arms. By the time the tasers had exhausted themselves, and the kid went limp as a wet doll, his skin was turning red and blistered and smoke rose from his hair and clothes. "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?" Travis bellowed, his pistol suddenly in his hand as he supported the sagging weight of the child with his other, he waved the gun in outrage at the scientists. "HE'S A CHILD! A CHILD!"

"It is a vicious beast, not a child, Captain. Leo and Mike just saved your stupid life, the least you could be is grateful." Dr. Brandt said severely. "You're lucky they were able to take it down before it got ahold of your mind. There's no telling what sort of devilish things it could have done to you if it hadn't been panicking. You got very lucky just now."

Travis couldn't get the piercing, agonized scream of the kid out of his ears, it seemed to be reverberating through his skull. He gently lowered the kid to the floor, pistol dropping heedlessly out of his other hand as he cradled the boy, who was semi-conscious. That in itself was insane, the boy should have been dead! Over a million volts would have killed a grown man of Travis's size, no doubt about it! That a ten year old kid could still be even somewhat conscious afterwards was just unreal! "Lucky!? I had him... and you bastards just shot him with enough electricity to take down a rampaging ox!"

"And it was barely enough!" Dr. Brandt retorted. "Can you imagine how much worse off you would be if you'd encountered an adult? Can you not see how dangerous these beasts in human form are?"

"You keep referring to them as animals... but this is a child." Travis said quietly. "Look at him. This is a child!"

"It ISN'T a child. It just masquerades as one." Dr. Brandt refuted. He bent down and prised open one of the boy's eyelids. "Look, Captain. Look well. Look at this eye. Look at the golden pupil that proclaims the devil within. This is not a human eye. This is the eye of a monster! A monster just like that arch-monster, Noah Borander! Surely you remember what he did to the Secretary of Defense? You were only moments away from a similar fate. Your pity for these monsters, these abominations, is nothing but a weakness that will get you killed, Captain! In the war for survival of the human race, the true human race, this IS the enemy."

"Wow, you sound like Blue Cosmos, almost." Garcia commented nastily.

"How dare you!" Dr. Brandt snapped back furiously. "My daughter is a Coordinator and so is my wife! But these... these gold and silver eyed beasts... they are NOT like Coordinators and Naturals! They are outside the natural order of things! They are the product of mad science! They cannot be allowed to spread their taint any further!"

"He's a child!" Travis insisted.

"Not according to the Torino Protocol it isn't."

"What!?"

"Genetic manipulation is forbidden on Earth by the Protocol. Any products of genetic manipulation are declared null and void, without rights, illegal and to be destroyed immediately for the sanctity of the human race. You can look it up if you want." Dr. Brandt answered calmly. "And these aberrations are the product of genetic tinkering most foul."

"You can't mean that!" Garcia protested, horrified.

"I can and I do. Furthermore, international treaty and law backs me up. We would be well within our duties to the law to shoot these monstrosities through the head and burn the remains. Its rather more humane to take them for study, don't you think? At least they live and contribute something worthwhile in that case."

"That's a horrible twisting of the spirit of the Torino Protocol." Travis said with a frown.

"It is the currently accepted definition of that clause, according to the leadership of the USN. That is the official position of our government. But we don't have time to debate this. This city is due to be purged soon, and I'd rather not be here for that, wouldn't you agree, Captain? We can have this arguement another time, in an official forum if you like. And you'll still be wrong there too." Dr. Brandt said smugly. "If you'd be so kind to transport that one back to the rendevous point, my associates and I will take the other two." He jerked his thumb at the pair of silver eyed toddlers, their faces droopy with medicated exhaustion, being bundled up by the lab assistants, who secured their arms and legs with plastic ties and then covered their heads with black bags.

"Is the gestapo treatment really necessary!?" Garcia complained, pointing a trembling finger. "They're toddlers! They can't be older than FIVE!"

"How many times do I have to say it? These are NOT little kids. They are dangerous animals! You'd not object to us treating a rabid ape like this, why do you object now? If we don't keep them restrained and disoriented, they could easily kill us all in ways too horrible for me to describe to you. They have abilities and powers that are frankly unholy, in my professional opinion! Is it necessesary? Its ESSENTIAL! The bare minimum of safety precautions!" Dr. Brandt sighed in frustration. "As things are, we'll probably have to sedate them again before we lift off, and again during flight. You might as well consider them biological land mines, just waiting to blow up at the slightest mishandling or laxity in safety precautions." Dr. Brandt took one of the air rifles from one of his cronies and reloaded the tranq dart clip. "Shall we go then?" He prompted meaningfully.

* * *

"Sir, I can't do this anymore!" Garcia said, once they were back at the transport. "As soon as we get back, I'm done! I'm out! I can't sit by and let this evil happen!"

"I know how you feel, Lt, but just cutting and running won't do us much good. You can bet that bastard Brandt is going to give the higher ups an earful of his opinion on our "weakness". If anyone cuts and runs, they're going to get hunted down like a mad dog. We're little people, and we'll get ground up by big gears if we aren't very careful." Travis replied, his voice dead and drained. Carrying the half burned child back had been one of the worst ordeals of his life. Not because of anything the child did, because he hadn't done much of anything besides mumble incoherently, moan in pain and twitch now and again. It was walking the whole way with Brandt training the gun on the poor kid like he was about to sprout fangs and poison claws and start tearing out throats. Try as he might, Travis just couldn't see what was so demonically scary about these kids. They'd been hiding under their bedcovers, for chrissakes! Not exactly movie monster material!

"Mike Team, this is Romeo Six Actual, at the dustoff location. Do you copy? Dustoff time is five minutes that is zero five minutes away. Please respond." Travis broadcast, hope already well withered on the vine. It wasn't like Vaughn to be late, and even less like him to be late without sending some sort of message, even a runner since the comms were down. "Damn it, Vaughn, answer me! I don't wanna leave you out here, but I'm not gonna have much choice!"

"Captain! Captain, could you come here! There is a problem!" Dr. Brandt called, though he didn't sound very worried.

"Oh shit, what the fuck is it now..." Travis groaned and headed back into the VTOL transport jet's interior. "What, Doctor, what now?" Travis asked icily, making no attempt to hide his active hatred of the man.

"Subject C is not healthy enough to survive the trip to the research facility." Dr. Brandt said brusquely, indicating the ten year old with the gold and blue eyes with a slight nod of his head, who was strapped to a stretcher, arms and legs tied down firmly, bands across chest and forehead completing the immobilization. "Apparently the tasers did more internal damage than I was anticipating. Its regrettable to lose a specimen, but this is an imperfect world after all. Would you be so kind as to dispose of it for me?"

"Dispose?" Travis made the single word sound like a whole string of curses. "What do you mean dispose?"

"Must I explain everything?" Dr. Brandt sighed. "Taking it with us would be a waste of resources. It is already dying anyway. Just, put it out of its misery. Its the humane thing to do. And get it off this aircraft, please. Its body is probably contagious."

"You want me to kill him!? To murder a helpless child!?"

"Essentially, yes. But remember, this is not a child and it is not murder. You are disposing of medical waste, that is all. No different from throwing away a syringe."

"For you and the sickos like you, maybe! But not for me! I refuse to kill a child, no matter your twisted rational!" Travis retorted furiously.

"You're really stuck on that whole child thing, aren't you, Captain? You frustrate me so much." Dr. Brandt said sadly. "This is why I hate working with the military. They just can't see anything that's not right in front of their face!"

"I see plenty. And I don't like any of it! You do a lot more than frustrate me, Brandt! If I hadn't sworn a sacred oath, I'd shoot you in the face and dump your body in the woods right now!" Travis threatened. "As things are, I'm really considering breaking that oath. A man can only be pushed so far!"

"Well, I guess if you won't do it, someone else will have to. What's the name of your second in command again?" Dr. Brandt asked casually. "And where in all the good names of God is your second unit? We're leaving in a matter of minutes, they'd better hurry if they don't want to be left behind!"

"Nobody in Romeo Team will harm one hair on this child's head, Brandt. In fact, I'm pretty sure I should stop you from attempting any further harm to him!"

"Fine. Let it slowly die of internal burn injuries for all I care. Its all a monster like it deserves anyway. Its all the same to me." Dr. Brandt shrugged.

"You're a monster!"

"I'm a unsung hero. My work with these aberrations may save billions of lives in the future, Captain. Can your outdated and inconvenient morals do the same? I think not." Dr. Brandt stood up and met Major Travis glare for glare. "Regardless of what you think, Captain, I am saving more lives than you with every breath I take. And I do not lack for resolve, even if you do." Dr. Brandt knelt down by the stretcher and rapidly unbuckled the dying boy. He then dragged the boy out to the end of the lowered cargo boarding hatch, having to struggle with the mostly dead weight even though the child could barely weigh sixty pounds at most.

"Just going to throw him off the plane? You're a real sweetheart. Your daughter must love you so much." Travis said cuttingly.

"My daughter adores me." Brandt replied frostily. "Because I am kind." He produced a shiny steel scapel in his other hand and without a flourish or a moments hesitation, he slit the golden eyed boy's throat from ear to ear and then shoved him off the ramp to sprawl in the dirt. "And treat her fairly and with a firm hand." Brandt continued, looking down at the writhing body as it rapidly bled out onto the dead grass of the park without emotion. "Just like any good father." Brandt turned his back on the pool of gore and the still form lying in the middle of it. "Do you have any other inane comments to make, Captain?"

"None worth saying aloud." Travis gritted, unable to tear his eyes away from the casually murdered child, his lips white with fury.

"I'm glad we understand each other then. We'll be lifting off in a couple of minutes, Captain. Do try to remember to be aboard before then."

* * *

Less than an hour after the VTOL jet had taken off, the body of the golden eyed boy was already almost gone, thick roots entwining around the still form, pores on the slimy bark opening up and sucking thirstily at the rich nutrient fluid the body had exuded, other pores regurgitating strong digestive acids that broke down flesh and organ and bones into a slurry paste that could be more easily absorbed by the hunting tendrils. The main body of the carniverous bush was several hundred meters away, deeper into the park, but already, only a few days after awakening, it had spread its influence so far, and was gaining another dozen meters of progress every hour! Before long it would be able to reach deep into the lairs and burrows of the mind impulses that danced and flowed at the edges of its perceptions, and the ones beyond them, and the ones beyond them, so forth and so on. So muh rich blood to harvest, so many nutrients to store. So little time.

What the Vampire Bush could not know was that it had much less time than even a barely sentient carniverous blackberry bush could imagine. And that was not very much time at all. A lean, dart like shape pierced through the clouds high above the not even close to abandoned city, falling like a meteor from the heavens before splitting open and releasing five smaller munitions that spread out in a star shaped pattern. Most of the life forms living in the city paid the falling debris not the slightest bit of attention. Most of them had not the words or concepts to even understand what the debris were, much less what was about to happen. Much of the remainder, who were intelligent enough to grasp the tragedy about to unfold, were either asleep or not looking at the sky, or just not experienced enough to truly understand what was about to happen. And they wouldn't have any time to learn.

The five 600 kiloton nuclear warheads fell to just over five hundred feet from ground level before detonating, five brief sun flare bright flashes of consuming light and energy and heat that devoured everything it touched for a kilometer around each blast point, sending ripples of destruction out ten times as far. In a matter of minutes, Neo New York City, as well as each of the other mega cities on the eastern seaboard, ceased to exist in a string of nuclear firecrackers that would have been visible from orbit... if the clouds of Green EDEN hadn't obscured the view. Over two billion surviving sentient organisms of all types were wiped out in the nuclear surprise attacks, the largest loss of life in any war to date, the death cries of the burned and blasted erupting across the entire world in a psychic scream loud enough to knock anyone sensitive to such things reeling off their feet, and to trouble the dreams of even the most dense of non-sensitives. The nuclear blasts may not have been witnessed... but there was no way to hide the aftermath. The very world itself screamed in agony... and swore revenge.


	58. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 2

Author Note: Well hopefully this will answer some of the concerns about what Meyrin thinks about what Noah has done. I got a few people wondering about the behavior of the dogs, wondering if they would really go so feral as to hunt humans, only a few days after their transformation. I'd say there's points in favor of going either way, but I'd say that the trauma of the transformation, as well as the subsequent boost in intelligence and emotional depth that follows, might not have regressed the dogs to being more feral, but in fact PROGRESSED them to being more feral. More human like, actually. They're responding more like humans would in that kind of situation, banding together into packs for protection, even across normal social lines, such as different breeds of dogs living as one pack, becoming more violent and crafty than they would be in their normal domestic lives, in other words adapting to the harsh realities by forming a wasteland gang sort of mentality. They may not have hunted Mike team just for food, but also because they were removing a threat to their territory, and because it would make them look strong and powerful to the other packs around, increasing their status and importance, making them less likely to be attacked or bothered. And do bear in mind these are the UC version of the animals, the gateway generation so to speak... their progeny will be the Neo Human version, and thats when things will get really scary. Well, heres hoping you enjoy this chapter.

* * *

A small part of Meyrin's mind noted that finding her way around the labyrinthine corridors of the Great Endeavor was fast becoming a matter for her subconscious. For the first few hours after she'd awoken from her "ascension" and definitely when Noah was giving her the brief tour before, she'd privately thought she'd never be able to learn her way around. The place was absolutely huge after all, "only" a few times bigger in its accessible interior spaces than the Archangel. Which just happened to be the largest and spaciest warship class EVER, until the Great Endeavor, of course. There were fully self sustaining space stations smaller than the Great Endeavor! But now, only a scant few days later, she found that all she had to do was think about what her destination was, and her feet seemed to carry her there of their own accord, perhaps not with total alacrity, but she definitely didn't spend an hour wandering in circles anymore before desperately calling for Noah's help, which had been more than faintly embarassing. In truth, the layout of the interior was actually surprisingly simple, with the hanger/construction bay for the Gundams and Mobile Suits in the center of the ship, then smaller hangers, construction bays, maintenence labs and armories encircling the main hanger, which also had the main launch ramp extending from one wall.

In each "quadrant" of the Great Endeavor, named after a cardinal compass points, there was a power reactor, one of the amazing Fusion Pulse type that provided enough energy to power several entire PLANTS for the next thousand years, which contributed towards the total maneuvering power of the ship as well as supplying the weapons and defensive armaments of that quadrant. In addition there was a fifth power reactor directly above the hanger, between it and the fearsome AMP cannon that was the Great Endeavor's main gun, which was tasked with supplying primary power to that main gun, and backup power to any quadrant that needed it. The sheer amount of energy being produced by the five reactors, even when they were only ticking along in quarter or half power mode to save stress on the cooling systems, was absolutely staggering, bordering on the ludicrous. By itself, the Great Endeavor probably produced as much energy as all the solar collectors of all the PLANTS combined, perhaps even more! It produced far more energy than its weapons and shields could ever possibly need, and even adding in the motive systems like the legs and the gigantic hoverthrusters barely taxed the reactor output.

At first she'd thought this was just Noah being very, very, VERY sure that he would have enough power for whatever needs arose. And in some ways that was true. But in actuality, the Great Endeavor was fully capable of using every microwatt of power it pumped out, and more besides. The secret to this gargantuan consumption was the substance known as Red EDEN, another of Noah's miraculous nanocultures. Unlike Green EDEN, the nanoculture that had transformed her genes and body into a more advanced, more robust form, Red EDEN couldn't affect living biological matter. Well it could, but it was designed to be so vulnerable to chemical breakdown by the body's immune system that a person would have to literally bathe in a vat of the stuff for days on end before any harm would occur. Of course, anyone falling into an active vat of Red EDEN would be much more concerned with the gigajoules of energy being channeled into it, heating the quicksand like Red EDEN to a glowing pink hot temperature. Meyrin didn't quite understand the process, yet, as Noah always hastened to assure her, but somehow Red EDEN could break down the atoms and molecules of one substance and reconfigure them into another substance, turning sand into stell, shit into silver, anything into anything else, using copious amounts of energy in the process. Of course, the Brotherhood had copious amounts of energy to spare, and the Earth provided a nearly unending supply of raw materials.

At the moment they were using sea water, hundreds of thousands of gallons of sea water sucked in through the collection vents in the bottom of the Great Endeavor's legs every minute, either pumped into vast storage tanks for purifying and use in the various life support and cooling systems of the Great Endeavor, or dumped raw into the massive Red EDEN vats, lined up like a series of colossal sandboxes in the outer layers of the Great Endeavor, more than one hundred vats in all, each a hundred meters long by fifty wide by twenty deep. Each vat was individually programmable to produce different quantities and types of material. Most of them were concentrating on raw structural materials used for building Mobile Suits, steel, titanium, carbon ceramics and more exotic alloys as well. Others sifted out gobs and gobs of a greenish, chalk like powder that was inert Green EDEN, which was then funneled up to the discharge tubes, activated and then spewed relentlessly into the atmosphere above the Great Endeavor. Still others, the most recently tasked, concentrated on producing more Red EDEN, in preparation for expanding the Brotherhood's production capabilities to a secondary location.

That last was her fault. Well, actually it was Noah's, but also hers. It was complicated. Meyrin winced as she thought back on just how complicated it had been. After reviving from her near death slumber, she'd been filled with a voracious appetite, not just for food and drink, but for knowledge. She felt so energetic, especially after downing close to six thousand calories in a sitting, that her body was demanding some sort of release! And while there was some value in a physical release, as she re-started up the exercise program she'd first used upon joining ZAFT to make sure her body was within physical regulations and because she hated getting fat, getting fat was, at least according to Noah, not really a concern anymore. The way an Ultimate Coordinator body was designed, it would always be able to use pretty much as many calories as you put into it, without leaving anything over to start building as waste material. They were just designed to be more energetic than regular people, though fuelling that energy required a lot of eating, enough to have made her sick in her old life. And from what Noah said, this was only the beginning... at some point in the future, she was going to go through something he called a "second puberty", which didn't sound fun at all, and her body and mind was going to get ever more hyped up!

But as she'd been saying, besides just the physical hunger, there was a mental hunger, a restlessness that wouldn't go away unless she was deeply involved in learning something new or doing something that challenged her former limits, that left her twitchy and even grouchy if she didn't keep herself occupied most of the time. Some of it was from Noah, he'd admitted somewhat guiltily, leakby from how he felt through their mental link. Noah was one of those workaholic types, and a perfectionist to boot. He could sit still for any length of time only through the greatest efforts of willpower, and was happiest when he was doing something new and exciting, usually working on some fabulous new technology or scientific problem, or else scheming and plotting in his head how best to ensure his golden Garden of Eden would come about the quickest and with the least loss of life. But it wasn't all from him... some of it was honest curiosity from herself, to see just how far she could go, to test her own new limits, whatever they were, to see what being an Ultimate Coordinator meant for her. It was something Noah strongly encouraged, practically insisted upon actually. In his words "As the first of the new race of humanity, it is our duty to hold ourselves to the highest standards of excellence in all categories, so that those who come after will have good role models to emulate". Meyrin had to admit, it was kind of intimidating to know that she was going to be a role model for millions of people, but it was very, very cool too!

Unfortunately, a byproduct of her increased desire and ability to learn had resulted in her delving deeply into the actions and technology of the Brotherhood. Which had, after a day or so, led her to the discovery that there were actually three types of EDEN. Green, of which she had personal experience, and slightly mixed feelings on... largely she felt it was good, though she did acknowledge that it could be made better with more work. Then there was Red, which she thought was simply awesome, one of the coolest things she'd ever seen. And then... then there was Blue. Blue she hadn't known existed. Noah hadn't talked about that one, except in passing. In retrospect she could see why... who wanted to brag about the most voracious weapon of mass destruction ever created, after all, especially to their girlfriend? But what was worse than the fact that he'd never told her about this monstrosity was the fact that he'd already USED it! Used it to practically annihilate the USN Armada that had gathered to stop the Great Endeavor on its way to Earth. At first she'd been absolutely horrified, as she read up on Blue EDEN and how it converted all types of matter and most types of energy into more of itself, an ever expanding wave of brilliant blue death. It seemed the most evil and horrible of weapons to her.

But as her initial shock and repulsion had worn off somewhat, and she'd looked deeper into not only what it did, but how Noah had deployed it, and furthermore how he'd cleaned it up after he used it, Meyrin found her outrage subsiding a little. She realized a large part of what had made her so shocked and angry was that she still strongly identified with the USN, her comrades and friends in the Solar Knights, plus more in ZAFT and other places, who had been on the recieving end of the Blue EDEN. However, Noah wasn't her, and he regarded them as nothing more than enemies and obstacles in his path to building a better future for humanity. He had given them a warning, had demanded they get out of his way or face the consequences, and while Meyrin could understand the skepticism of the USN forces when confronted with such a demand, given their massive numerical superiority, well, given how it had turned out perhaps they would have done better to listen. It wasn't like Noah had made a reputation of not carrying out his threats in the past. Quite the opposite, he had consistently proven himself to be the greatest threat the USN had ever faced. That they still hadn't taken him fully seriously was not his fault.

It was one of those things where she, as a former Solar Knight and now a willing convert to the Brotherhood at Noah's side, could see both sides claiming, truthfully enough, that they were wronged and that their actions were justified, while the actions of the "enemy" were barbaric and evil. Noah hadn't wanted to fight at all, would have been just as happy if there had been no battle whatsoever, happier even, but when confronted with force, when attacked first, as camera footage definitely proved had been the case, he had responded with all the power and fury at his command. And when that had somewhat surprisingly not been enough to tip the tide decisively in his favor, and the Great Endeavor itself had been damaged and her own life thrown into danger, along with the future of the entire Brotherhood and all of Noah's hard work, he had responded with anger and his most powerful weapon. Was Blue EDEN overkill? Maybe. But then again, history had proven time and time again that if a commander didn't go in with overkill, if he ended up striking his finishing blow too softly, it inevitably turned back upon him, either in an enemy that came back to fight another day, or one who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

In the end she'd also forced herself to remember that it had been deployed on a battlefield involving strictly military forces on both sides. There had been no civilian targets, no innocent bystanders. Everyone that had died to Blue EDEN had been in some way assisting in trying to destroy the Great Endeavor. They had been soldiers, who had come to fight for what they believed in, prepared to, if not looking to die for their cause. And die they had, which was sad and, as Noah frequently would say, very regrettable, but that was the choice they'd made. The USN forces had made a choice, Noah had made a choice, and Noah's choice had ended up being the one that proved superior. And, at the end of the day, all things being equal, dead was dead, whether it came from a gun bullet, a missile explosion, a beam blast, a hundred million nanobots devouring your body or a annihilating blast of antimatter particles. Meyrin knew without a doubt that the USN would have used strategic level weapons on the Great Endeavor if they'd had the chance and nobody would have cried for the Brotherhood, but Noah's defenses had been too strong and they'd missed their chance. No, after looking at the whole picture, she couldn't blame Noah for using his ultimate weapon... in THAT case.

That wasn't to say she was eager for him to use it again, particularly on Earth. Fortunately, he thought similarly to her on that matter, and when she'd confronted him, not angrily, not shouting, but just spoken up softly at dinner a night ago that she really didn't see any need to ever use Blue EDEN again, no matter the provocation, Noah had frozen with his spoon halfway to his mouth, an extremely guilty look on his face. He'd eventually managed to swallow, his every action, not to mention his mind itself, radiating nervousness like a bonfire, and had cringed inwardly as he waited for her to launch into a tirade. Of course, she'd done no such thing. There was enough that he'd done that was legitimately wrong for her to have plenty of excuses to haul him over the coals, she didn't feel the need to castigate him over a battlefield decision, the conflicting morals of which would stump a whole room of philosophers for years. She'd explained as much, and had then shrugged and told him once again that while she understood why he'd used Blue EDEN then, she did NOT see any such good reason for using it again, especially on Earth, and that she would be extremely disappointed with him if he thought to use it once more.

She'd also asked him what he was planning to do about the patch of Blue EDEN that was being kept a very tight secret by the USN, since they obviously didn't have the resources or technology to deal with it properly. Initially, when he'd shrugged and calmly replied "Nothing right now", she'd been shocked and infuriated at his callousness. However, he'd held up a hand to forestall her anger, and then explained his reasoning. He brought up plots of his projected growth rate of the Blue EDEN infection, given such minute details as the current amount of solar wind and ambient heat given off by the lunar cities, combined with the admittedly limited ability of the USN forces to contain and retard the spread of the Blue EDEN, which showed that as long as the USN didn't do anything stupid, like try and burn or blast the Blue EDEN away, it would be more than a month before any civilian populations were directly threatened. In the meanwhile, the USN wouldn't be able to keep the Blue EDEN secret for much longer, and once it was known that there was a voracious nanocolony that made Green EDEN look like a mild flu active on the Moon, there would hopefully be far fewer people willing to evacuate there, and therefore more people for Green EDEN to affect on Earth.

"Let it eat rocks and a few people braver than they are smart." Noah had said. "It's a dog with a far bigger bark than bite, as long as they have intelligence and a sense of self preservation stronger than that of lemmings. Long before it becomes a true threat, I will sterilize it myself, I promise you. I cannot allow the Moon to suffer major damage, without causing catastrophic damage to the Earth as well, and I will not risk damaging the Earth if at all possible. Also, all the people on the Moon are potential brothers and sisters of the new humanity, I need them to be alive and healthy for when I go there after Earth has become Eden. But at the moment, it better serves my purposes to have the USN panicking about it, and hopefully diverting their people elsewhere or keeping them on Earth. It's about the most effective, least bloody distraction I could hope for at the moment."

"I suppose that makes sense." Meyrin had allowed, her anger mollified for the moment by his calm and reasoned explanation. In truth she was almost embarassed, she'd been about to tear him a new asshole, over something he'd not only worried about, but already made plans to take care of.

"Don't feel bad." Noah had said with a fond smile, reaching across the table to shyly touch her hand. "I think its a good thing that you're so willing to challenge the ethics and morals of my actions. Someone needs to, and I'm incredibly bad at judging myself, I have to admit. None of the Harbingers have the balls to do it. And the Apostles lack true understanding of the situation, too caught up in their own perceived injustices and problems to be objective."

"About them..." Meyrin had been reminded of something else that had been bothering her. "I've been meaning to ask. What have you done to Shinn? He's like a completely different person? He didn't even remember me! Or even Luna! How could he forget Luna!?"

"I tinkered about with his memories." Noah admitted, holding to his promise not to lie to her, no matter how painful the truth might turn out to be. "After losing Mary and the Tormented, as well as Michael, during the battle at Galileo, I desperately needed new pilots to bring my Gundam forces back up to par. When the Vengeance returned on autopilot with Mr. Ashino and Shinn inside, I had to make the best of a bad situation. Shinn was badly injured and would have died were it not for the advanced medical technologies on the Great Endeavor. I will admit to there being no love lost between Shinn and myself, he is quite on your sister's side when it comes to viewing me, regrettable and false as her impression is, but I made use of him because he was the best pilot in the Solar Knights and I needed a skilled pilot to replace Michael for the Vengeance. At the time I was unsure if I would be able to make use of Mr. Ashino or not, and did not have a Gundam for him anyway."

"But still, using your abilities to tinker with his memories, make him forget all his friends, even the person he loves..." Meyrin had grimaced in distaste. "He's not Shinn anymore. He's a fanatic who looks like him."

"One more sin to unequivocally lay at my feet." Noah agreed without arguement. "I needed a competent pilot for the Vengeance, and so I made myself one. I am not sorry I did it either. It was one more necessary and regrettable step on my path. Perhaps, when all is said and done, I will restore his old memories, or allow my grip to loosen enough that he asserts himself by his own will. I haven't changed him permanently, you see. The Shinn you know is still in there, he's just repressed, copied over you could say, by my Shinn. Though, when all is said and done, he might be happier if I kept him as Shinn of the Brotherhood, rather than letting him return to being Shinn of the Solar Knights."

"Would you be happier if someone tinkered with your memories and made you forget about your feelings for me?" Meyrin had challenged icily, taking Noah aback with her tone. She'd watched him turn the thought over and over in his mind, seriously considering it.

"No." He admitted at last. "That would make me the very opposite of happy actually."

"Then I should think you not assume that Shinn would be happy forgetting about Luna, even if the rest of the world thinks he's a terrorist." Meyrin had said firmly. "I'm not happy with what you've done to him, Noah. Its a very personal violation, worse than a physical rape. But I also understand why you have done it. We've already covered that your goals justify your means, even to the point where you would sacrifice me, the person you truly love, if it meant assuring the completion of your goal, no matter how much it would pain you personally. If I can go along with that, and I can, there is no way I can fully condemn you for what you've done to Shinn. I don't like it, I wish you hadn't done it, but now that its been done, I can't argue that its an effective addition to your plan." Meyrin had trailed off, and then fixed him with a piercing glare. "But I want you to promise you won't ever do it to anyone else again, and that when you don't need him anymore, you'll return Shinn to the way he was and do whatever you can to clear his name with the rest of the world."

"But, Meyrin..." Noah had said, slowly and painfully, his voice worried. "What if I need to do it again?"

"Find another way. What's that motto you have written above your personal lab? "Aut viam inveniam aut faciam"? I will either find a way, or make one? If the situation comes up where the only way you can see going forward is to ruin someones life by erasing or modifying their memories, then you aren't approaching the situation the right way. You told me we're supposed to be the role models for everyone else, what kind of role model are you being if you show people that its okay to force other people to change to suit your own convenience? If millions of Edenites believe they can solve their problems by forcing other people to do what they want, you won't have solved a single problem facing humanity... you'll just have made them worse! So promise me, Noah, promise me that you'll no longer resort to memory modification as a tool of recruiting people."

"I promise." Noah had replied, and she'd felt his sincereity through their link. He didn't like it, thought she was being quite frustrating about it to be honest, but he did mean what he said. "I assume you don't have any problems with how I handle the other Apostles, do you?"

"In truth they seem to avoid me as much as possible. They don't seem overly fond of you, to be honest." Meyrin had answered. "From what I gather, they seem to believe you haven't been holding up your end of the various bargains you have made with them."

"They are impatient." Noah had sighed. "Randolf in particular. I promised him I would help him rescue Lacus Clyne from Kira Yamato's clutches. The man is quite convinced, through some little effort on my part, that Lacus is being held captive by Kira, and he has taken it as his personal crusade to free her, feeling obligated as the former secret lover of Lacus's mother, Elaine Clyne. And I will follow through on that promise. However, it is not a priority of mine, and that is where his dissatisfaction stems from. As for Dylan, he is upset that we have not mounted a rescue operation for Mary. Again, its something I will eventually do, but at the moment I have much bigger concerns. The exact same situation for Mr. Ashino. I promised to heal his beloved's hands and mind when she was injured during Durandel's attempt to assassinate Mr. Ashino. And I will. But other things need to get done first. The dispersal of Green EDEN over the entire globe has to take priority over everything else."

"You might want to think about throwing them a bone sometime soon." Meyrin advised. "They are your Gundam pilots after all. The USN is sure to mount at least one or two more last ditch attacks, and you will need their help then."

"They aren't going anywhere." Noah said confidently. "Where is there to go anyway? The USN will kill them on sight after all. No, I understand their impatience, but they will just have to stick it out. It is in their best interest to stay with the Brotherhood."

"Not all of them are worried about their own best interest." Meyrin countered. "I'll grant you that Mr. Randolf and Mr. Dylan probably are, but Mr. Ashino is different. He's quite a frightening man. I'm surprised you didn't put a mental hold on him as well."

"I would if I could." Noah said fervently. "But for whatever reason, I don't know exactly what, Mr. Ashino is completely invisible to my Newtype abilities. I wouldn't go so far as to say invulnerable, but hitting a target you can't see is almost impossible."

"Well, in that case, wouldn't staying on his good side be even more important than usual?"

"What would you have me do? I already attempted to bring his girlfriend back here, but he neglected to mention he'd sent her to be guarded by a unit of high caliber soldiers, and my effort was unsuccessful. Now she has been moved and her location is unknown to me, beyond that she is likely still in Orb. Shall I take days, perhaps weeks, out of my plans to rip that nation apart piece by piece looking for her, causing untold hundreds of thousands of casualties in the process, perhaps even killing her in the process? No, I simply cannot do that. And a covert operation is impossible unless I know her location, and might very well end in failure again as well, as they are sure to be even more on guard than before, and sending in enough forces to ensure victory would result in the same sort of collateral casualties as before. Like it or not, until we can spare some time to confront the situation in Orb with our full attention, there is no way I can accomodate his wishes, no matter how much I want to!"

"I see." Meyrin had replied sympathetically. "Have you told him that?"

"Not in so many words, but yes." Noah answered. "He does not want to hear it."

"Would you, in his situation?" Meyrin prompted.

"No..." Noah admitted with a sigh. "I'm not so good at placing myself in other people's shoes though."

"Then I shall talk with him. Its about time I started contributing to the plan in a way other than the ornamental, don't you think?" Meyrin said cheerfully.

"I'm not sure I like that idea." Noah said, his tone full of misgiving. "I mean, I am overjoyed you want to help contribute, but Mr. Ashino worries me. He is a very dangerous man. I'm not sure I like the thought of him being around you without me around."

"I'll be fine." Meyrin assured him. "I've only met him briefly, but he doesn't seem the sort who would attack someone in order to hurt someone else. If he has an issue with you, he'll go after you, not me. I mean, that's what he did to Durandel, or tried to anyway."

"I guess I can hardly argue." Noah had agreed at last. "Just be careful..."

Back in the now, Meyrin found that her feet had carried her to the doorway leading to Noah's private workspace and lab, which had that latin motto "Aut viam inveniam aut faciam" emblazoned above the hatchway. She pressed her hand to the reader by the door, which was programmed only for Noah, and now her, and the heavy door, almost two feet thick of solid armor, slid aside with a smooth whine and let her enter the cool and dim confines of the lab. It was here that Noah personally worked on the very latest and most amazing Brotherhood technologies, where he designed his Gundams, where he'd created the various EDEN nanocolonies, where he spent a very large portion of his time just thinking and experimenting before some new wondrous discovery was spat forth from the near supercomputer that was his mind. The lab seemed empty and spacious to her, and she knew that this was also her fault. Shortly after the whole Blue EDEN and memory modification conversation, she'd asked Noah if he had anything else that he thought he might be ashamed for her to know about, to clear the air so to speak.

His long pause before replying had given her a very deep frown, that there were so many things he could think of that he didn't think she would like. In the end, she'd decided to extend something of an olive branch, before he freaked out and had a heart attack trying to figure out how to tell her about all his various experiments in whatever the hell it was. "Look..." She'd said. "Obviously you can think of more than one or two things you're suddenly not proud of anymore. Let's save some time and say that anything you don't think you'd want me to know about is something you should NEVER EVER use or do again, just like memory modification, no matter how hard that might make things for you in the future. I'm sure you only had the best of intentions when you made whatever it is you've made, you always do, but there are just some things that aren't okay, Noah. Again, we're supposed to be the role models, right? Think... think hard... about these "grey area" projects of yours. Are they something you want to see children emulating as they grow up? If they aren't, then you should probably get rid of them."

"Getting rid of some of them would be very difficult." Noah had answered. "And though I am not proud of them now, it is not because of what they do. It is because of what use that I have put them. Many of them are truly wonderful artifacts of high technology, absolutely breathtaking in their possible applications, even to me. Just because I have misused them, doesn't make the technology itself evil. It would be a criminal waste to destroy blameless technology when the fault lies with me."

"Well, if you really feel that way about them, don't destroy them. Just get them away from you, if you're the problem, not them." Meyrin had said relentlessly. "If you've misused these technologies before, the temptation is already there to misuse them again, especially if you're around them when you work. So get them far away from you, where you can't see them, can't touch them and can't use them without a great deal of hassle. We can sort out what is good and bad technology at some later date, when we have more time and less other concerns."

"I don't have anywhere else to put them though." Noah had admitted. "My lab is the most secure location on the entire Great Endeavor." He'd shrugged, calling up a schematic of his lab and pointed to one wall, where an honest to god bank vault door was set. "Actually that vault is the most secure, but same difference. Its still accessible to me with ease. And though I could change the code on the vault, make it so I couldn't get in, there's not enough room in the vault for even half of what I'm thinking I need to be rid of."

"You don't have any other bases or anything?" Meyrin had arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Please tell me the Great Endeavor isn't the only bastion of the Brotherhood. You didn't put all your eggs in one basket, did you Noah?"

"The Great Endeavor is the only base the Brotherhood needs. We have safehouses and gathering points throughout the world, but none more secure than a hidden basement or the like. Certainly nowhere I'd want to store technology of this caliber." Noah had replied with a uneasy shrug. "As far as baskets go, the Great Endeavor is pretty impenetrable."

At which point Meyrin had resoundingly smacked him across the back of his head, drawing a sharp cry of protest and a curious look as he leaned back and rubbed his head. "You don't have ANY backup plan in case some act of god disables the Great Endeavor? Pardon me, but didn't we take SOME damage during that fight up at the Moon? Enough that you freaked out enough to use Blue EDEN, right? We're hardly invincible, Noah." Meyrin had scolded. "You NEED some sort of backup plan. I mean, I understand your confidence... but only a complete idiot doesn't have a backup plan. And you're not a complete idiot. Close, sometimes, but not complete."

"I'm one of the most brilliant scientific minds to ever live." Noah had countered with a sniff.

"And you're still an idiot much of the time. Just because you're really smart doesn't mean you can't also be an idiot at the same time. You make mistakes, Noah. It only makes sense to have some sort of fallback strategy or base, in case, for whatever reason, the laws of the universe turn on us and the Great Endeavor gets too damaged to continue on. I don't expect it to happen, mind, but it technically COULD happen. And so you should be ready for it. That's the kind of leader you're supposed to be. You're supposed to be the man with all the answers, Noah. That's one of the things I love about you the most... you always, ALWAYS have the answer I need, even if I have to dig it out of you by force. Some people might find that really intimidating, but I like it, especially when you don't get snooty about it. You are one of the most brilliant people to ever live, but you're still a mortal being, and I'm only going to love you more when you learn to accept that. The best men know they have limits, and work to expand them, rather than pretend they have none at all!" Meyrin had chastised him, and then followed it up with a kiss to help salve his pride.

And so now she was exploring his lab, the lights dimmed wherever items that had been removed once were situated, and was amazed to see that almost three quarters of the lab was dimmed. There were holographic models of all the Brotherhood Gundams along one wall, with space for several more after the Brotherhood, as well as design schematics for the Great Endeavor itself as well as many of its component systems, like the legs and the shields and the AMP cannon. There was a case full of displays cataloging the development of Green and Red EDEN, as well as several other types of nano-colony. There were a few examples of things like Quantum Crystals and the electrically controlled Liquid Crystal matrix the Vengeance and Brotherhood used as armor. There was a complete neural layout of the human body, including the brain, with connection points for the NIC systems, versions one through four, ranging from full body wire harnesses to helmet only wire harnesses to the current wireless helmet Noah used for the Brotherhood. From the looks of things, he was working on a newer version that was even smaller, like glasses or a simple headband. There was also a few displays showing the evolution of the Gravitic Reduction System, from its beginning as supermagnets and a fluid filled cockpit, to the modern fluid filled flight suit and then a tenative prototype that was purely magnet based.

"There's so much empty space..." Meyrin sighed. _What were you working on, Noah?_

_Its better you not know, at least for the moment._ He replied, as the bank vault door opened up and he walked out, carrying a large metal suitcase in both hands. Whatever it was, it was heavy, as he was struggling to limp along with it as he moved it towards a robotic lifter device. It was also plainly very cold, the metal covered with hoarfrost and breathing fumes of white vapor from its surface. _Don't even ask me what is in this case. Most of the technological artifacts are just that, technological artifacts, which are inherently neither good nor evil. However, I do have a few... items... that I cannot foresee any positive, non destructive use for. In this case is one of those items. Something that even I am deathly afraid of._

"If it's that bad, why don't you just destroy it?" Meyrin asked, watching him manhandle the frosty case onto the lifter robot.

"I'm afraid to." Noah admitted, his voice very quiet as he looked at the cyrogenically cooled case with a mixture of dread and distaste. "What is in this case was an accident that should not have occured. I am not sure what might happen if I tried to destroy it. The possibility exists that something very, very bad could result. I just don't know enough to say one way or the other, and I'd prefer not to risk it."

"I don't really understand, but I kinda get the feeling that's a good thing."

"Yes. And additionally, just because I can't forsee a nondestructive use, doesn't mean there is no use. Sometimes, you need to destroy something, whether it be a wall, a bridge, a house or an entire system of belief and government. Sometimes it might be that you need to destroy everything, so that you can start anew. When you asked me if I had a backup plan, something that I could fall back on if my current plan is, for some reason, made to fail, I had to think very hard. If my current plan does not succeed in its entirety, the world and humanity will be in a very tough spot to say the least. The lines demarking the genetically privileged and those less fortunate will be far more sharply defined than they ever were between Naturals and Coordinators. Tension and conflict is inevitable in that situation, and the wars that might result would be bad enough to make everything else the human race has suffered through so far look like a birthday party lasertag fight by comparison." Noah shivered at the thought.

He turned to look her full in the eyes, their link opened as wide as possible for maximum effect, so much so that she felt she could practically see herself looking back at him, so deeply enmeshed was she in his mind. "In the event of such a divided world forming, humanity will need a reason to put aside their differences and unite for a common greater good. The artifact in this case contains the reason for humanity to unite. A great threat that is powerful enough to unite Edenites, Coordinators and Naturals in order to defeat."

"You make it sound like the end of the world." Meyrin shivered herself.

"He is." Noah replied simply. "And we shall speak no more on this matter. It is something best left not considered." The lifter robot moved away with its precious and very dangerous cargo, and Noah moved to take Meyrin in his arms, holding onto her tight and breathing a sigh of relief as that abhorrent object was taken away, to be loaded aboard the transport shuttle with all the other disassembled items. After a few hours deliberation, he'd decided upon the best place for his final bastion, his vault of darkness, and he had to admit, it was quite the apt and ironic location. It would take a few days to make it secure, and to begin construction of the facilities, but once things got to a certain point they could be automated, and he would be able to return to the real plan and forget all about his pit full of dirty little secrets. He could hardly wait. Hopefully it would be something he never had to consider again, but, like Meyrin in all her great wisdom had said, it WAS best to have a just in case, last resort.

Noah was just leaning in for a kiss when the entire world seemed to explode around them, a keening wail of tortured agony that spiralled up and up through all the registers of pain until the very infinite torments of hell seemed a stubbed toe in comparison, a billion different types of painful death being communicated across the world in an instant of fire and light, and then, just as Noah thought his mind was going to incinerate itself, the sensation was gone! Meyrin and Noah were both kneeling on the floor of his lab, tears streaming down their cheeks, bodies juddering with adrenaline as their tendons and muscles untwisted from the agonized rictus they'd been locked in. The echoes of their cries of pain and fear resounded from the corners of the dim lab, as they panted and clutched onto each other like each was the only reason the other could remain conscious and whole. Noah hugged Meyrin's face to his chest, forcing the jagged splinters of the psychic death cry out of his mind like a surgeon removing nails before sending bolstering feelings of support and caring to Meyrin to allow her to start recovering as well.

_W-w-what was t-t-that!?_ Meyrin demanded, trembling and sobbing in remembered pain. _It felt like I was burning to death from the inside out!_

_It wasn't us that was burning._ Noah answered grimly, keeping her locked tight in his protective embrace, cocooning them both in as many layers of mental shielding as he could muster, blocking out the whole world except for the two of them, in case of another death echo, or a backdraft of the same one. He'd felt things like this before... when people died, they gave off mental signals conveying their final moments that could be felt by pyschics, especially if their deaths were violent or sudden. And in the case of pyschics dying, in painful and violent manners, the signals were much louder and farther carrying. And if a whole bunch of pyschics died sudden, painful deaths all at the same time... then... well, something like what they'd just experienced would occur. _But a great many Edenites have just died, and not just the humans._

_But how!? How could so many die all at once!? And what pain they felt... Noah, what happened!?_ Meyrin wasn't yet up to speaking physically, even conveying her thoughts took effort, though she could sense the warm and secure blankets of protection Noah was draping around them, so to speak. He was so much stronger than usual, but that was a function of her own abilities, or so he said. Frankly she didn't understand this whole Latent-active dynamic, she wasn't sure anyone did.

_I don't know._ Noah admitted. _But I don't think it's too hard to figure out. There's only a few things that could cause such a loss of life so quickly, especially leaving the memory of bright ligh and searing fire so widespread. Nuclear weapons have been used on Earth._

_BUT WHY!? What possible reason could anyone have to use nukes!?_

_It may be that your talk of needing a backup plan was prophetic, my love._ Noah said bitterly. _Because the first blows in the war between the Edenites and those who are not Edenite has just been struck. I did not think Gil would be so callous, but in retrospect, given how the world media is portraying Green EDEN, I see how he would be able to take advantage of that to serve his own ends._

_What do you mean?_

_According to Gil, Green EDEN kills anything and everything it touches. Nothing living is left behind in the so called Green Zones. Obviously, we know that is a blatant lie, but the people of Earth and Space trust Durandel, in large part due to my conflict with him. Thus, they flee when it is really in their best interests to sit tight and stock up on food and water. But its not in Gil's best interests for that to happen, you see. Gil's vision of the future has always been a new, genetic based caste system, the Destiny Plan, where a person's role in life is predetermined at birth based solely off their genetic disposition towards certain talents. Do you know what predetermination he got after he tested my DNA, which I provided to Rey as a joke? Something along the lines of Supreme World Leader. Because my genes are idealized, as are yours now, and those of any Edenite. But we can't ALL be supreme world leader, or else Gil's plan will fall apart before it even gets started._

_So this is just a result of the same petulant pissing contest that you two have been engaged in this whole time, over who gets to control the future of the human race!?_

_Yes. I am ashamed, but that is the truth._

_You have nothing to be ashamed of. Not compared to a man who would order the use of nuclear weapons on his own people, just because they no longer fit into his neatly ordered plans for the future! Its genocide!_

_It is. And there isn't much we can do to stop it at this point in time. The Great Endeavor is only one ship, and for all its power it cannot defend more than a few dozen kilometers in a radius around it while on Earth. I will allocate what forces I can to interdiction duty in each major population center, but all it takes is one miss and we'll have a repeat of what we just felt._

_We have to be able to do more than that!_

_If the people of Earth would but listen to me, we could. However, they are use to sucking from the teats of the world media, which Durandel firmly controls. I would not be surprised if he attempts to blame this heinous act on us... and the people of the world will, sadly, believe him. Because I am a terrorist, and he is the savior of the human race._ Noah did not have to hide his bitterness in that statement. _Its a good thing you had me send away some of my toys. Else I'd be very tempted to use a few right now._

_An eye for an eye won't do us any good. We are Edenites. The genetic elite, as you say. It is our duty and our burden to take the high road, to provide the example for those less fortunate._ Meyrin said determinedly. _We will face this trial and conquer it, but we won't descend to the same level as our enemies. Because we are better than them. Because the many don't deserve to pay for the actions of the few._

_I've said it before, I'll say it again. The world doesn't deserve someone like you watching over them._

_Sometimes its not a matter of deserving. Sometimes, its just what has to be done. For all of us._

_Indeed. For all of us._

* * *

Lacus woke with a start, coughing and retching painfully through a burning and raw throat as she fumbled for the bedside stand and the cup of cool, balming tea she'd strategically placed there before going to bed. Her trembling fingers at last closed around the cool plastic and she raised the cup to her lips and drank deeply, slopping a little bit onto her nightclothes and the bedsheets, but managing to get the most of the soothingly chilled, herbal scented liquid down her throat. The sensation of rawness and burning in her neck and throat slowly receded over the course of a minute or two, fading back to the constant, low level ache it had been for the past day or two, except for infrequent bursts of pain like what she'd just experienced. Lacus coughed once or twice more, and swung her feet over the side of the bed, in preparation for getting up to make some more tea. It was still early in the morning in Orb, several hours before dawn, but she doubted she'd be able to get back to sleep now, even though she'd only been asleep for three or four hours. There was just so much to do, and it was almost impossible for her to rest when her throat was burning, only true exhuastion and some light medication had gotten her down in the first place at all.

Lacus knew she was sick, that she should really go and see a doctor soon, but there just wasn't the time, especially not for something as minor as a sore throat, which was very likely brought on by the weakening of her immune system due to the stress everyone was constantly operating under! Most of the time she was able to forget she wasn't feeling well by keeping busy, it was only when she had time to herself or tried to rest that the problem cropped up. Well, that and the periodic throat burns, where it felt like she'd just swallowed a few red hot coals all at once, but there was herbal tea and a few mild painkillers for those. She kept telling herself, just as she was right now, that the very next time she had one of the rawness attacks, she was going to go see a doctor, if only for a stronger perscription medicine, but she knew she was fibbing to herself. Though usually a very responsible person, she knew she was very stubborn and pigheaded when it came to her own health, and that it would take something very dire and potentially life threatening for her to go see a doctor by herself. Kira usually had to force her to seek out medical aid in those few times she got sick. Of course, the reverse was true in turn, when Kira hurt himself, rarely enough as that was, she usually had to force him to get something done about it. Neither of them liked causing problems for other people, even when it hurt themselves, they were just too damned polite.

Not even the knowledge that her own health could potentially affect the health of her unborn son was enough to shift her, not for something as minor as a sore throat! Maybe if she started developing stomach cramps or abdominal pain, or began having breathing difficulties or muscle spasms, yes, she would definitely seek out a professional's opinion, out of concern for the baby. But for mere pain and discomfort, no matter how severe, in her throat? Doctors had better things to spend their time on right now. Given how much public speaking she'd done in the past few days, since Orb made it's resolution to stand its ground against the tide of Green EDEN, she'd really be more surprised if her throat didn't hurt! Trained operatic and pop singer as she might be, that didn't mean she couldn't overstrain herself by trying too hard. And if there was one fault she knew she had, it was that she always tried too hard.

Lacus's hands pushed off the middle of the bed as she forced herself to her feet, and she grimaced slightly at the feel of the cold, empty, undisturbed side of the bed next to the warm indentation she'd made. Kira had the same fault as her, liking to work too hard, but he was better at it than she was. Indeed, except for the dire circumstances, she might have almost thought he was enjoying himself immensely, as he threw himself into the "Glasshouse" project, which was the name that had been given for the countrywide electromagnetic fields that were being put into place to keep out the Green EDEN. Ever since the dramatic change to his internal biology and body chemistry that had occured as a result of Frost's attempt to poison Kira during Orb's fall to the Isolation, Kira had needed very little in terms of true sleep and rest in order to maintain his energy. An hour's catnap in every thirty or so hours was plenty for him, the rest of the time he meditated or dozed so as not to disturb her own slumber. But now, he was able to work around the clock, emptying his seemingly endless energy reserves into the national project.

Unfortunately, his admirably great dedication left very little time for the two of them to be together. Lacus did not begrudge him his efforts, just as she knew he'd never begrudged her the time she had to spend away from him due to her own political meetings and rallies and other public events requiring her presence. All the same, she missed his presence terribly, as she always would whenever he wasn't in near proximity. Not that he was gone, not like he would be if they weren't connected via their link. All she had to do was try, flex her mental muscles a little, and she could caress his mind and talk to him whenever she wanted. But there was a difference between his mental presence and the physical feel of his arms around her, the blazing warmth of his body against hers in bed, the reassuring touch of his hand upon her brow or the way his fingers combed through her slowly growing hair in the morning. For that matter, she was forced to admit she missed his presence in bed for more than just his warmth under the covers... she was still in the early stages of pregnancy, and saw no need to give up on physical pleasures just yet, if not quite at their former frantic level.

Alas, it was just one more trial she would have to endure, Lacus reminded herself with a bittersweet smirk, as she headed into the kitchen of their apartments within the Orb National Palace and set about making another pot of her herbal tea. She could feel the attentive mind of the Stormhound standing guard outside the apartment door, and knew she could have sent to the Palace kitchens for fresh tea and snacks and have it arrive in minutes, but she always felt that food she prepared herself tasted better, and besides, she did so hate to place other people at even a minor inconvenience, even when it was their job to be inconvenienced. One of her hands drifted down and rested on the still unbulging flesh of her belly, lightly stroking her stomach through the filmy material of her nightgown, marveling to herself that there really was an unborn life growing inside her. She couldn't tell whether she was looking forward to or dreading the time when she began to show, and all the various inconveniences and discomforts associated with the later stages of pregnancy. Not least of which would be all the media attention... so far they had managed to keep her condition an open secret amongst the higher levels of Orb's government, and amongst their immediate friends, but she knew it wouldn't be too long before the word was out, and then the inevitable press storm would follow.

Assuming anyone could bear to tear themselves away from the drama of the world itself coming to an end, at least according to the mainstream news networks, even for something as usually significant as one of the most famous public figures of the modern age becoming pregant. Lacus grunted a snort of bitter amusement to herself, as she and Kira had often joked to each other, that just about the only thing that could have ever diverted the media from their relentless quest of discovering the details of her and Kira's intimate life was the imminent end of civilization as the world knew it, and lo and behold, that was indeed the situation they were in. Oh if she could only offer a million sordid stories to the tabloids in order to turn the world back to the way it had been before the Brotherhood had appeared, if only it worked like that! Lacus shook her head at the wishful thinking, one hand still stroking her belly idly, while her other hand rose up to rub insistently at her neck, where the flesh felt hot and tight and tender to the touch. She checked herself in the reflection off the polished steel refrigerator, but didn't see any sign of a rash or discoloration.

Knowing it would be several minutes yet before the water was hot enough to boil, and several more minutes after that for the tea to steep, Lacus wandered over to the cleared space in front of the kitchen, between it and the sitting room, and resolved herself to a few full body stretches and limbering exercises. It had been quite a while since she'd been able to find the time to indulge her full workout schedule, and though she didn't exactly fear a few extra pounds here and there, in fact knew they were almost inevitable as she put on baby weight, Lacus was determined to stay in the best physical shape she could. Not only was it healthier for the baby like that, but she desperately did not want to turn into one of those women that had to be helped around the house because their bodies had ballooned with baby fat and the ravages of hunger flashes. Besides, as she remembered with a shiver, there might very well come a time when she needed to rely on her physical fitness to save her life, such as the running around on the Archangel to escape the Blue EDEN.

That last thought almost inevitably brought her to thinking about the situation with Cagalli, and she panged inside with a frissure of emotional pain. Outwardly, publicly, the relationship between her and Cagalli, and her and Athrun, and both of them and Kira, was all smiles and happiness and the usual camraderie. Privately... well, there was more than a large workload behind the reason why she wasn't talking to Cagalli and Aathrun much these last few days. Lacus couldn't find it in herself to blame them for the reaction, indeed she anticipated the wound would stay fresh for quite a while, and who knew the long term consequences in their relationship? What was certain was that Cagalli and Athrun had been badly shaken by what they regarded as Lacus's reckless decision to ignore Cagalli's fervently stated wishes and desires, even if they were in Cagalli's own best interest, and that their trust in her benign feelings towards them had been quite damaged as a result.

It manifested in a variety of small behavorial changes, hard for an outsider to spot, but painfully obvious to someone who had formerly been like a sister to both of them. Cagalli no longer invited her over for private chats, indeed went so far as to ensure she was never in a room alone with Lacus, and there was a definite hard note of challenge in her words whenever they spoke together, as if Cagalli was expecting, daring even, Lacus to overtly coerce Cagalli to do something with her powers, to give her a reason to follow through on her threat to exile Lacus. And Athrun, dearest Athrun, would hardly even look her in the eyes anymore, and when he did he was cold and distant, treating her much as he would any other politically important person that required some of Cagalli's time. On one hand he was delighted beyond words at the sudden turnaround in Cagalli's situation, on the other he was furious almost to the point of physical action that Lacus had so blatantly violated Cagalli's trust, to the point of even causing her direct physical harm with her powers! It seemed to have struck some sort of careful balance inside him, and while he did not turn away from or avoid her, neither did he seek her out for advice like he'd used to, nor did he privately confide in her anymore.

Lacus could only hope the passage of time and her steadfast dedication to trying to regain their trust while remaining true to herself would eventually salve the wound and rebuild the bridges between them to at least a semblance of what they had been. Certainly Orb and the Clyne Faction could ill afford to have such tensions between their leaders at such a crucial period in history, where the fate of the entire world hung in the balance, even more than it ever had in the past. It was even harder on Kira than it was on her, in some ways, because while he had not directly done anything to Cagalli, Athrun could not help but realize that Kira had been sent by Lacus to keep him away from Cagalli while Lacus did what she had, which made him at best a co-conspirator. Even the certain knowledge that Kira had been hurting almost as much as Athrun himself had because of Cagalli's condition had not been enough to lessen the extent of the betrayal in Athrun's eyes, which he had likened, in no uncertain terms, to him keeping Kira busy while Cagalli had Lacus's baby surgically removed, for her own good!

Needless to say, the rest of their friends were doing their best to stay well clear of the situation, despite the secondary pains and tension it was causing them. Nobody but nobody wanted to be the one that set off the spark that lit a battle, verbal or otherwise, between Lacus and Kira on one side, and Athrun and Cagalli on the other. Miriallia and Dearka seemed to be leaning more towards the side of Athrun and Cagalli, though they were wise to spend as much of their time aiding in the construction work as they could rather than hanging around waiting for a conversation none of them wanted. In truth, Lacus had begun to feel a slight lessening of her connection to Miriallia and Dearka as well, both of whom had made no secret of their discomfort with Newtypes, and especially the lost connection with Dearka, who was now once again the only one tormented by the spectre of ICD. Not that they were anything less than overjoyed at Lacus and Kira's baby, but still, Lacus could feel how much the knowledge twisted the screws inside Dearka's head. He kept it under tight wraps for the moment, but that didn't mean it wasn't eating away at him, and at Miriallia, who had never needed psychic powers to know what Dearka was feeling.

On the other hand, Katie and Ysak were nothing less than fully supportive of what Lacus had done, seeing it as past time that someone had stepped in and done what needed to be done, no matter the fallout. Personally, Lacus would never have imagined that Katie and Ysak, who were significantly different in terms of morals and personality from her and Kira, would turn out to be their closer supporters now, but the shared bond of being Newtypes was quite strong, and only getting stronger as time passed, as they found more and more ways to relate to each other in ways their other friends just could not maatch. Katie had expressed significant envy over Lacus being pregnant, and Lacus could not imagine it would be too many more months or even weeks before Katie would be announcing her own joyful discovery, at least if the very intense looks and feelings she had been shooting at Ysak had been any indication. Lacus shook her head, at the thought that Katie could be thinking like that even in this time of crisis... and then smiled, because she was GLAD Katie could still think llike that, even in this time of crisis. The world went on, after all.

Lacus found herself saddened, that she was even beginning to think of the situation in terms of supporters of herself and Kira vs the supporters of Cagalli and Athrun, like they were choosing sides in preparation for some sort of conflict, when that was far from the case. Or at least so she fervently hoped! Yes, there had been misunderstandings, and things done that could not be undone, trust lost, but that did not mean they were breaking apart! It just meant there was a... a wall between them, that had not been there before. Or at least, no one had realized it was there before. A line in the sand, now starkly drawn and highlighted by her recent actions. But lines could be erased and walls broken down, it was just a matter of time and willpower on both sides! The one thing they could not afford right now was to break down in infighting, even if it was just strong verbal disagreements, between the various members of the Clyne Faction and the Orb government. Disunity in the face of the Brotherhood would bring about nothing but total defeat, and the destruction of everything they'd worked for over the years!

A part of her quailed, because even if they managed to bring defeat to the Brotherhood, the question of what would happen next loomed large and unanswered in the future. The world was changing, had already been changed in spots, by Noah's Green EDEN. The whole dynamic of the political power balance had already been irrecoverably changed, with the USN taking a far more prominent role than it had ever been intended for, becoming much more a centralized government for the solar system rather than an international peacekeeping and dispute settling body, while the FNE, ALU, ZAFT and even Orb were being reduced to the status of junior partners or allies, who contributed resources and opinions, but in the end just followed the orders and decisions flowing from the USN. Not only that, but the man nominally in charge of the USN, the Secretary-General, was nothing but a figurehead and mouthpiece for Gilbert Durandel, and Lacus had very great doubts about the sincerety of that particular man's devotion to the greater good of the common people. There was just too many connections between him and Noah for her to believe Durnadel's explanation of being decieved. And if he hadn't been deceived, that made him complicit in the world's current woes, in many ways every bit as bad as Noah himself.

Beyond even that was the question of what was going to happen now that there would be hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions or more Ultimate Coordinators, Newtypes, in the world, struggling to adapt to a fundamental change in their genetics, not to mention all the esoteric and confusing changes coming with suddenly gaining psychic perceptions and powers. Lacus had unwittingly lived most of her life as an Ultimate Coordinator, and the last seven years as a Newtype, and she was still lost and confused most of the time. She could barely imagine what it would be like to wake up alone and scared, in the midst of the ruins of your former life, weak, hungry and tired, and suddenly find apparently magical powers at your disposal, plus a body that was very nearly superhuman in many regards. Not only that, but everyone around you, at least those that weren't withered and dead, was in the exact same situation... chaos didn't even begin to describe it! Her heart went out to them, but there was nothing she could do at the moment, with communications into the Green Zone jammed by the very environment within, and so much to do here in Orb, so many obligations to fufill, duties to attend to. She was just one person, she couldn't be everywhere at once.

It was as she was thinking these thoughts that Lacus heard the whistle of steam coming from the stovetop, indicating that the water had reached the boiling point, and Lacus rose from her stretching. Even as she did so a sudden flash of vertigo almost overwhelmed her, her head spinning violently as the burning sensation invaded her throat and neck once more, much worse than she'd ever felt it before. Lacus groaned, her voice dry and cracked, and put out a hand to steady herself against the back of the couch. For several long moments it was all she could do to remain upright, her head reeling, her throat blazing agonzingly, every breath an effort, her knees trembling, her other hand held to her throat as she gasped and coughed weakly. The skin on her neck felt like it was aflame, and it itched abomindably, the itching feeling slowly spreading both up and down her neck, the burning feeling inside spreading with it. Some tea. She really needed some tea. And then she would sit down. And then perhaps ask the nice Stormhound outside to call a doctor. This wasn't funny anymore.

At that very instant, a roiling tide of fire and agony exploded into her mind from all directions at once, sending her crashing to her knees on the carpet, eyes half rolled back in her head, a strangled scream of agony whistling from her dry and raw throat, drowned out by the wail of water boiling on the stove. The psychic tide swamped her from all sides like a wave of solid magma, the pained last moments of billions of sentient creatures forcing themselves into her subconscious mind in an endless stream that seemed to continue on for an eternity, the screams and gibbers and moans and less coherent sounds even than that all blending seamlessly and senselessly into a chorus of death cries that threatened to knock her out from its fury. Unknowing, Lacus had both her hands clamped to her throat now, fingers bent into claws as she scratched and itched convulsively at her throat, which was turning a sickly fishbelly white, with glistening sheen of light green here and there, spreading outward from the point where the hypdermic needle dart from Noah's gun had pierced her flesh almost a week before. She panted, taut and shivering for several more seconds, until the final echoes of the brutal death cries faded, leaving her mind feeling trampled and shattered from the onslaught, even as the pains of her body began reasserting themselves in her attention.

Already on her knees because of the psychic backlash of the death echoes, Lacus toppled forward onto her face, landing hard, thankfully on the relatively soft carpet, her tongue feeling bloated and swollen in her parched mouth, raw throat constricting as unbearable itching spread inexorably across her skin. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong! Lacus tried to call out, but she could barely manage a feeble croak, her throat hurt so much! Seeing that her physical voice was useless, she tried to reach out with her mental voice, first to the Stormhound outside the door, and then, when she failed to muster the strength to send more than a chill down his spine, she tried to reach out to Kira, but all she got through their link was a backwash of surprised pain, as Kira struggled to reorient himself after the death echoes as well. The same for Katie and Ysak. Lacus tried to push herself to her feet, or even to her hands and knees, keeping her itching hands away from the raw flesh of her neck with a mighty effort of will, but it was no use. The psychic shock, combined with the rapidly accelerating spread of the sickness, had drained her of her strength, and she collapsed back down onto her face after a second or two.

Lacus found it hard to get enough air all of a sudden, her neck throttling closed, or at least feeling like it, her throat becoming so tight and raw that even swallowing felt like she was gargling razorblades, and she whimpered soundlessly in agony. Blackness started to creep in along the edges of her vision, and though she desperately fought it, it crept inexorably closer as the burning in her throat started spreading down into her chest, and the skin of her face began feeling like it was combusting from the inside out, the sickly pale pallor flushing all the vitality out of her skin as it spread, gangerous patchs of pale green showing up wherever the flow of blood was particularly strong. Lacus coughed convulsively, and her eyes widened to see the mucus was tainted with oddly dark, almost brown blood when it came out. Definitely not a good sign! Lacus was still trying to call out when the blackness closed in from all sides and robbed her of her senses. It wasn't until nearly fifteen minutes later, when all the water in the boiling teapot steamed away, and the harsh smell of overheated metal drifted under the soundproofed door to the keen senses of the Stormhound on duty, when Lacus was finally discovered behind the couch, her breathing shallow and hitching, her skin a ghostly white mixed with sickly green, quite unconscious.


	59. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 3

"I appreciate you coming here today, Commander la Flaga." Cyprus said formally, looking away from the one way mirror that made up one wall of the the interrogation suite. One the other side of the reinforced and soundproofed glass was a much more spartan room, consisting of bare concrete floors and ceiling, with a single metal table firmly bolted to the floor, illuminated from above by harshly bright lights recessed into the ceiling. The room that Cyprus and the other Stormhounds, plus several other key personnel Cyprus had decided should be here, was dimly lit in contrast, so that the eye was naturally focused upon any and all events taking place in the interrogee room. At the moment there wasn't much to see, the two inhabitents; one handcuffed, the other unrestrained, sitting side by side chatting quietly, while across from them were three more chairs, all empty. Well, one of them was talking, the other was typing responses on a provided keypad and vidscreen, since she lacked any vocal capability.

"I dunno if you should call me that, er, Lieutenant." Mu replied with a slightly self conscious shrug. "My status is still, um, very uncertain, to say the least." He looked around at the various technicians watching the sensors trained upon the interrogation room, which monitored pretty much every physical aspect of the prisoner, looking for the warning signs of agitation or some other pre-meditated act of violence or resistance. All sorts of non-lethal and even a few lethal countermeasures would only be a touch of a button away, should the prisoner try anything the watchers didn't like. Mu wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Is all this really necessary? I mean, I realize she's a terrorist officer, but so am I, and all I have to deal with are these silly plastic cuffs and an escort." Mu gestured expressively with his linked hands at where Murrue was leaning against the wall by the outer door to the monitoring chamber, her distaste for the prison facility, humane as it was, stamped clear on her face.

"With any luck, we'll be able to graduate her to your "trustee" status sometime today, if all goes well." Cyprus replied, looking back through the mirrored glass at Mary O'Brien and Jean Kellson, as the former Orb nurse and the injured girl continued their conversation, or at least as much of one as Jean could handle in her damaged state. Much as he'd predicted, Mary's old, mostly buried instincts and original personality as a nurse had kicked in during her association with Jean over the past days, and the two young women had become fast friends, at least as much as was possible for people in their respective positions. In truth, Cyprus was somewhat surprised at the degree of progress that Mary had been making in recovering what he presumed was her "original" personality, though he strongly doubted she'd ever be able to snap revert to the way she was before she joined the Brotherhood. The human mind and soul didn't work like that... unlike Commander la Flaga, she had only been influenced, guided, decieved maybe, but not directly controlled or forced to become an Apostle. "As for your military status, well, you've yet to face any formal Court Martial and be stripped of rank, so you are still Lieutenant Commander la Flaga to me."

"That's something of a technicality, don't you think?" Mu asked with a shrug. "I mean, its not like there's any arguement about my guilt, regardless of the circumstances, extenuating or otherwise."

"Regardless, it is how I see the situation, but that is not germane." Cyprus answered. "I asked you here for specific reasons, Commander la Flaga. As a fellow member of the Brotherhood in the persona of Michael Genesis, you and Mary had something of a closer relationship than she had with her other comrades, from what I gather?"

"I looked out for her if that's what you mean, yes. I mean, we weren't buddies or anything, didn't talk outside of "work", but I have something of a bad habit of putting a protective wing over the worthwhile rookies I team up with. Seems to have worked out well enough for the last couple." Mu replied with another shrug. "Mary wasn't exactly the most stable of the Apostles, but she wasn't bad at heart, not really... just in a lot of pain and very confused. As far as I can remember, she followed orders because she believed in what Noah was doing, at least to her limited understanding of that, and she thought of him as her personal savoir from some sort of tragedy in her past. She never really talked about it, and I never pressed."

"You saved her life when she was overextended during her attack on Orb as well. Seems Noah couldn't erase your chivalrous spirit even if he was keeping you under mental control." Cyprus noted dryly. He respected the man for his beliefs, much as he respected Kira and Lacus for theirs. They weren't HIS beliefs, not in many ways, but he could understand risking ones life for a subordinate in that kind of situation. She was his responsibility at the time after all, as he had been the "leader" of the Apostles, at least as much as there ever had been one. He'd do the same in an instant if for some reason Thomas or Ramierez put themselves into the same situation, indeed any one of his Stormhounds. There would be something of a reckoning later, as he discussed with them the reasons behind them putting themselves in such a predicament, but such things could wait until after they were safe.

"I did what..." Mu trailed off. "Yes." He said simply. "He didn't turn me into a drone. He just... changed my perspective on things, made me forget most of my recent past. I don't think he was perfectly happy with the end result, but he needed me for my piloting skills, and my "chivalrous spirit" as you put it, is an integeral part of those."

"Making the impossible, possible, yes it's a very good motto. Wish I'd coined it myself at times." Cyprus admitted with the barest hint of a grin. "In any case, we've made a lot of progress in deprogramming Miss O'Brien by reawakening her older personality as a nurse, versus a Brotherhood pilot, but we're still some way away from cracking her completely. It may be weeks, months or even years yet before that occurs, if it ever does. Brainwashing of the sort she has suffered is a tricky thing to undo. Unlike what happened to you, where coercion was nine tenths or more of the problem, Miss O'Brien has merely been persuaded to become a zealot by someone in a position of great advantage over her. I believe that if we can show her someone from her "past" in the Brotherhood, someone she liked and trusted, in as much as she trusted anyone, someone who can present to her another point of view, one that differs from the view of the Brotherhood, it may speed her progress along."

"So you want me to tell her that everything she used to believe is a lie, that she's been used from the beginning and now discarded since Noah no longer needs her?" Mu asked with a crooked half smile. "I may not be a brilliant counter-intelligence officer or psychologist, but even I can say that sort of conversation isn't going to be pleasant."

"Which is why I don't want your conversation to be anything like that. All I want is for Miss O'Brien to see Michael Genesis... and talk with Mu la Flaga. Let her draw her own conclusions. She's not a stupid or insensitive person." Cyprus said back. "Right now she's caught on middle ground, psychologically speaking, her old beliefs and feelings in conflict with the person she has become. I don't believe it is possible that she will fully revert, I don't even believe you yourself have fully reverted or even can, Commander. Not from trauma of the sort you've both suffered, any more than Major Jones can ever fully recover from what happened to his leg, cybernetic replacement notwithstanding. But finding a new path that incorporates the old and the new peacefully, rather than destructively, is something that is more than possible."

"Well gee, I almost get the feeling you really care about what happens to us." Mu said, somewhat sarcastically.

"Of course I care." Cyprus answered blandly. "If you and Miss O'Brien can successfully incorporate your old personalities with the new ones Noah created, you'll be much easier to interrogate in a friendly, productive fashion. You'll be making my job much easier, and as a consequence, I won't have to resort to more extreme procedures to gather whatever vital intelligence you might possess."

"I think you're forgetting who you work for now, Mr. Finch." Murrue spoke up coldly from the wall. "I know you've a background with Blue Cosmos, and despite that you seem a decent enough fellow, but the government of Orb will never allow mistreatment of prisoners for any reason, ever."

"I am not the government of Orb." Cyprus replied, equally coldly. "I prefer to work within the law, Captain Ramius, if at all possible. But I will break as many laws as need be in order to preserve my life and the lives of those I am sworn to protect. If you think Ms. Clyne and Mrs. Zala-Attha are unaware of how I work, you are less astute than I gave you credit for. They don't like it. They don't have to. The only thing that matters is that I get results, and my results save lives. Now, if we are done debating the morality of what might have been, we don't have all day. If you please, Commander la Flaga?" Cyprus gestured at the interrogation room, where Jean and Mary were still conversing animatedly.

"Mu... you don't have to..." Murrue started to say, as Mu walked resolutely towards the doorway beside her, on his way to the interrogation room.

"No. He's got an unpleasant way of saying some things, but the Lieutenant is right. If I can help Mary come to terms with life now that the Brotherhood is... is over... then I should make the effort. I owe it to someone who used to look up to me, even if it was in pursuit of something I personally find despicable now." Mu answered. He lowered his voice, casting a dark look over his shoulder at the grey haired, straight backed officer standing across the room. "Besides, if I don't do it, I get the feeling he won't hesitate for an instant to get unpleasant with her, and that thought just makes me sick. Screwed up as it may be, at least he's giving her a chance with me."

"The people we're forced to work with in order to assure peace." Murrue shook her head, not bothering to keep her voice low. If any of the Stormhounds took objection to her opinion, they were far too professional to show it. "I don't suppose there is any problem if I accompany him in there? I wouldn't want a potentially dangerous prisoner wandering around alone after all."

"I would in fact prefer it." Cyprus answered without looking up. "Murrue Ramius's relationship to Mu la Flaga is one of the key differences between him and Michael Genesis after all."

"Got it all thought out, huh?" Murrue said with a sneer over her shoulder as she turned to leave the room.

"I certainly hope so, Captain Ramius. I certainly hope so. It would make everything so much easier."

"Remind me not to invite that man over for dinner anytime." Mu said, once they were alone in the hallway. The walk was brief, a matter of steps, but he was still glad to be away from the Stormhounds for a moment. A nessecary evil, he supposed. The world seemed to be getting more and more of those as time went on. "He makes my blood run cold."

"He has that effect on a lot of people. Usually he doesn't get to me so easily but..." Murrue trailed off, biting her lip in frustration. "It's been a tough week." She added in a smaller voice.

"Hey, it could be worse." Mu said with a grin.

"How so?" Murrue challenged, still grumpy. "I can't think of a worse week in my life, not even we were defeated during the Isolation of Orb!" She was about to say more when Mu leaned in with a devilish smile on his face and kissed her, just briefly, but with all the usual intensity and more.

"That might not have just happened. That would be much worse." Mu said with a jaunty wink, as the door to the interrogation room slid open for them and he stepped inside, leaving her standing outside in the hall for a moment or two, shaking her head in bemused shock. She'd forgotten how incorrigible he was. Just realizing that was kind of painful... what else about him had she forgotten in the time when she'd thought he was dead? Murrue squared her shoulders after another second of self recrimination, since now wasn't the time for that kind of mental torture, and she followed Mu into the room and the door instantly hissed shut behind her.

The Apostle, Mary O'Brien, had risen to her feet in shock when Mu had entered the room, and she was still staring at him, her eyes wide and somewhat frightened, darting flicker glances at the mirrored glass wall as if she was trying to discern who else she knew might be hiding back there. Her mouth worked a few times, but only wheezing gasps came out, the nasty scar across her throat bobbing and twisting as her muscles worked, but her larynx was well and truly destroyed and scarred through, and her voice was gone, never to return. After a second or two Mary came back to her senses and she spun the keypad and vidscreen around so that Mu could see the screen, typing rapidly on the small pad with the hand that still had all its fingers. Meanwhile, the other girl, who was several years younger than Mary, stared at Mu and Murrue with somewhat glazed eyes, wrist stumps fidgeting and rubbing together anxiously in her lap at Mary's obvious surprise and distress.

**They captured you too, Michael!?** Mary typed furiously. **I can hardly believe it! Bad enough what happened to me and the Tormented, to think that you and the Vengeance could also be overwhelmed... Master Noah must be very angry indeed!** Mary shivered a little and looked a bit sick at the thought.

"Yeah, I think we can safely assume the kid is less than pleased." Mu said, suddenly awkward. Mary thought she was being confronted with a friend and ally, and breaking the news to her was suddenly much harder than he'd thought it would be. Not that he wasn't friendly towards her, she wasn't a bad kid, but... well, things were complicated, weren't they?

**I see they have you guarded day and night as well.** Mary gave Murrue a significant and dark look. **Their loss. Nothing these people can do, no security precaution they can devise, will be enough to stop Noah when he comes for us. They are foolish even to try.**

"About that..." Mu sat down in one of the metal chairs somewhat heavily. "I don't know how to break this to you, kid, so I'm just going to blaze ahead and ask you to keep an open mind, okay?"

**What's wrong, Michael? Have they done something to you? Have faith... Noah can fix anything they do to us, it's only a matter of holding out until rescue! We are his Apostles, Michael, he will come for us and**

"My name isn't Michael Genesis, for one." Mu interrupted, causing Mary's frantically typing fingers to freeze. She looked at him like he'd suddenly started speaking gibberish. "Bear with me. I know I used to call myself that, that it's the name I've always used around you, but its not my name. My name is Mu la Flaga. Michael Genesis is the name Noah's parents gave to me after they found me wounded and drifting in the wreckage after the battle of Jachin Due. They nursed me back to health, in a fashion, but it wasn't for altruistic reasons. They needed a bodyguard for their son, and I happened to be convenient. It's easy to influence a man when he's doped up on painkillers for months at a time. And then the kid got to work on me in his own fashion, and all the drugs and other stuff became obsolete."

**What are you saying, Michael!? You're not making any sense!?** Mary typed desperately, looking at him very worriedly.

"I'm saying, Mary, that the guy you know, the Apostle Michael Genesis... he's not me. He was an artificial creation, a second personality forcibly overlaid over my real self. I was brainwashed, in the most literal fashion."

**That's impossible! Noah wouldn't do something like that!**

"Mary..." Mu said gently. "Noah ordered us several times to attack civilian populations, people in their homes, on the streets, noncombatants. Women, children, the elderly, the helpless, the sick, he didn't care. Do you really think he wouldn't resort to brainwashing someone to accomplish his goals? Honestly, do you believe that?"

**He wouldn't do it to us. Not to you! You were like an older brother to him! He loves me, Michael! Everyone's always trying to tell me he doesn't, but I know! He loves me! That girl, that magenta haired bitch, she's just a phase! A PHASE! He'll discard her any time. Probably already has! She's one of the enemy! He can't be in love with her! It doesn't make any sense!**

"He made me forget, Mary." Mu said, his voice still soft, barely above a whisper. "He made me forget so much. So much that was incredibly important to me." Mu turned his eyes away from Mary and met Murrue's supportive gaze from where she stood behind him. He reached up his hands and took hers in his. "He made me forget things I had done, places I had been... people I loved. He made me into Michael Genesis, and I am Mu la Flaga. Do you understand at all what that means to me?"

**You're wrong! That's not true! Noah wouldn't do that! He didn't make me forget! He didn't make me forget anything!** Mary protested, her breathing becoming erratic as she became more agitated. Mu could almost feel the fingers tensing on the buttons for incapcitating gas or electric tasers or whatever other control systems were in place to handle unruly prisoners. He didn't think they'd be too discriminatory either, better to take out the room and sort out what was what later on than risk missing a threat.

"Calm down, Mary." Mu said, more firmly now, taking a tone of command, like he'd used to do whenever she got too excited on the battlefield. "I'm not suggesting he made you forget anything. I'm just telling you what he did to me. So that you can understand how I feel. He changed me against my will, and it was only through purest luck that I recovered at all."

**So now you're turning traitor?** Mary slumped almost listlessly in her chair, all her energy and passion bleeding out of her in a rush, her fingers tapping slowly at the keys as if she was in arthritic pain. **Oh, Michael, you're going to make him so mad at you. Not even fingers will be enough to assuage his rage. All you need to do is keep your faith in him, Michael, and he will reward you beyond your wildest dreams. He promised us that, remember? He is creating a utopia, a garden of Eden, to be populated by Angels! Why would anyone want to stop him is beyond me!**

"I am not turning traitor. Mu la Flaga never was, and never will be, loyal to the Brotherhood, especially after being forcibly enslaved by them." Mu said patiently. "You know, I've been thinking, Mary, I really have. About Noah and his dream. If he'd come to me and asked... ASKED... for my help in creating a utopia without war and hatred, I think I would have at least heard him out. But he didn't ask me, Mary. He forced me. I can't keep faith with something I never truly believed in, and rewards promised to someone who never really existed in the first place are meaningless. The only reward I ever wanted while I was in the service of the Brotherhood was to be me again, and that was the one reward he would never have granted me."

**You don't know that. He might very well have been planning to return you to whoever you were before he needed your help after he was done. But that's all gone now that you've turned your back on him, on all of us, on the entire future of mankind!**

"Maybe so, but at least it was by my own will this time." Mu answered.

**So why did you come to talk to me, if you have already become who you once were and turned your back on who you should have been?** Mary asked, her eyes bitter.

"Well, believe it or not, despite me not being me at the time, that doesn't mean the stuff I did as Michael Genesis didn't happen. I don't know if we could ever have been called friends, Mary, but we were friendly at least, right? I'm concerned about you."

**You came to help me?** Mary arched her eyebrows sardonically. **How? By offering me hope and then shattering it with these wild tales? I'd rather not have help like this, Michael.**

"Would you have preferred I kept it a secret and pretended to still be who I'm not?" Mu countered. "I'm not sure if there is anything I can do to help you. Regardless of what personality was in control at the time, I performed terrorist actions, helped kill hundreds of people, soldiers and civilians both. No matter how you look at it, its a crime of the highest sort. I'm offering all the help I can give the people... my friends, the people I love and care about, the people from my real life... who are opposing Noah, but that's not even a half step on the road to paying for what I've done, willing or not. I'm not here to tell you to give up what you believe in, or that you've been lied to, or that you're deceiving yourself. Because I don't know. Maybe you have been, maybe you haven't been. It isn't for me to know. Maybe you really, totally do believe in what Noah is doing, that hurting all these people is the right thing to do."

**No system is perfect.** Mary stopped typing and cast a quick, guilty look at Jean sitting next to her, the lost look of a child in an very adult conversation writ across her face. **It's not to say I don't regret what has to happen to people but in order to achieve**

"Stop right there." Mu raised his bound hands imploringly. "We've both heard that justification a million times, I don't need to hear it again. Maybe its crazy. Maybe I'm just a stupid idealist. But any plan that requires people to be hurt and killed with no say in the matter, for their OWN GOOD, is not a plan that Mu la Flaga would ever want to be a part of. And deep down, Mary, if you'll permit me the observation, I don't think hurting people, innocent people, is something you're fully okay with either. Randolf, maybe. Dylan, certainly. Cray, absolutely. But not you. You were always one of the best of the Apostles, morally speaking. Its something you'd do if there was no other way... but is there truly no other way, Mary? Is there no other path? Do you really believe that? I just can't, I'm sorry."

**But Noah**

"Forget Noah for a moment." Mu interrupted again. "If it was you in charge, how would you do things? Would people getting hurt be an inevitable result in your plans?"

**Not if there was a way around it. But there isn't! People won't listen to him!** Mary protested.

"That's people for you. We're not so good at listening to people when they tell us to do stuff we really don't want to do, especially when it puts our lives and those we care about on the line, for our own good or not. People like to make up their own minds, Mary. If you try and make up their mind for them, you're going to get resistance. That's just how people are in this day and age. We value our individual freedoms. Noah has to realize that. But he goes on anyway, without even considering that resistance is inevitable just because he is bringing change, for good or ill, and change is ALWAYS resisted! Or is it that he has considered it but just doesn't care? After all, its "other" people that are being killed, and its mostly their fault for resisting what's right and good in the first place, right?"

**Adding sarcasm to your argument isn't making me want to listen, even less than I already do. Noah's plan isn't perfect, but its the best one available.** Mary retorted angrily.

"Is it really?" Mu asked. "I'm not sure. Maybe it is. Maybe I am wrong, and he is right. Its just... the people in the Alliance High Command used to think the exact same way, Mary. They made choices that involved lots of "inevitable casualties" for "the greater good", and everyone calls them despicable and evil these days. But Noah is doing the exact same thing. Maybe the problem is me. I couldn't stand to go along with the Alliance High Command, and I can't stand to go along with Noah either, even if it is for the greater good. I guess I'm just part of the inevitable resistance to change, for good or ill."

**Are you trying to make a point?**

"I haven't the slightest of ideas anymore. I think I started out with that intention, but things ended up getting muddled along the way." Mu snorted and shook his head, before slowly clambering to his feet. "I guess I just wanted to tell you that though I might not be the man you remember, I'm still friendly, and I'll do whatver I can to help you get out of the tight spot you're in, as long as you want to get out of it. If you're happier just sitting here and waiting for rescue from Noah, that's fine too, I can't make up your mind for you. Noah decieved and controlled me, Mary. I hope he didn't do the same to you. I just want you to be sure of that."

**He loves me.** Mary typed simply.

"Sometimes its those we love that we end up hurting, for precisely that reason." Murrue spoke up for the first time. "Love is no barrier against deception and control, especially with someone who acts out of concern for "the greater good". I'm not doubting you, Ms. O'Brien, when you say he cares for you, as you certainly care for him. But does he care for you as much as he cares for his greater good?"

**Even if he doesn't, that is no reason to doubt him.** Mary hesitated for a few moments. **Thank you for your honesty, even if it wasn't something I wanted to hear. Its good to know where I stand.**

"Its about the only thing I have to offer at the moment." Mu answered. "You should really think about cooperating a little, even if you don't believe in changing your mind about Noah. There's nothing you know that can really harm the Brotherhood now, and I'm sure Noah wouldn't want you to suffer needlessly." Mu's eyes caught on Mary's maimed hand, and he choked a bit on that last statement.

**And they claim to be better than Noah?** Mary asked with a snide look.

"I've never heard them claim that." Murrue said with a shake of her head. "And they also strongly believe in a greater good." She nodded stiffly at Mary and then once more at Jean, who hardly seemed to noticed, more caught up in the decorations on Murrue's uniform hat than anything she was doing. Murrue shivered with pity for the poor young woman, well remembering, at least in principle, her own near vegetative condition shortly after the Second Valentine War. Though that trauma had been emotional in nature, and Jean's injuries were physical, they had both resulted in a loss of the self that was crippling. Murrue had recovered... hopefully medical science would be able to give Jean the same chance.

Once they were both back in the hall and the door to the interrogation room was securely shut behind them, Mu slammed his doubled hands against the wall, none too lightly. Murrue looked at him questioningly. "The one thing I didn't want to do was to try and preach to her, to bring her around to our point of view." Mu explained with a deep sigh. "And yet that's exactly what I was trying to do, trying to argue her into seeing how she's been used. I probably just undid days of work, made her all the more convinced to hang out for Noah."

"You did exactly as I thought you were going to do." Cyprus said, surprising them both by fully opening the door to the observation room, which had been cracked, though neither of them had noticed. "And exactly what I aske you to do. I asked you to go in there and be Mu la Flaga, not Michael Genesis, and that you most certainly did. Mu la Flaga is, from all the data I have on you and my own personal estimation these last few weeks, exactly the sort of person who would reach out and try to sway someone else with argument if the opportunity presented itself, wise choice or not. To paraphrase what you said, you just can't help resisting change, its in your nature. From what I gathered, Michael Genesis on the other hand, is more of a follower. Mary no doubt was quite stunned by the difference, subtle though it might seem to you... to her it would be shocking, such a shift in your attitude and viewpoint, how you act and speak."

"Which lends credence to his story about being controlled and deceived." Murrue said with narrowed eyes. "Which will in turn, even if subconsciously, prompt her to look at how she has been changed from how she was to how she is now, and wonder if any drastic or subtle changes are really of her own volition."

"Indeed so. You have not set us back at all, Commander. I would say you've done a good job of laying a foundation for us to work off of." Cyprus grinned a little, like a satisfied wolf.

"You'll pardon me if I feel slightly used?" Mu said darkly.

"There's no slightly about it." Cyprus replied with a shrug. "Though in your shoes, I would be glad I was used in such a gentle manner, given the possible alternatives."

"I have this funny feeling that you wouldn't fit very well in my shoes, Lieutenant." Mu retorted stiffly.

"Perhaps I'll have to try them on sometime. I don't lack empathy, I merely control it when it is inconvenient." Cyprus turned away from them. "I'll be in touch if I need you for anything else."

"I can hardly wait." Mu said, turning to head towards the stairs, before a wall of molten pain hurtled out of nowhere and drowned his mind in purest agony. He was unconscious before he even had time to scream, much less figure out what was going on.

* * *

"Is she going to be all right?" Miriallia asked in a quiet voice. She and Dearka had arrived a few minutes ago, having gotten the bad news about Lacus even later than everyone else, since they'd been out helping deliver construction supplies to some of the outlying smaller islands using their salvage ship. Their ship's cargo capacity wasn't much more than modest, but literally everything from two man fishing boats to cruise liners were being pressed into service in the frantic rush to construct the Glass House system, and every little bit helped out. When they weren't helping haul supplies with the _Dawn's Light___they were helping with the largest construction projects, using the Warmaster, stripped of its protruding armaments, as a bulk lifter and hauler. All of the MOUS's, the MObile Utility Suits that were the grandparents of Mobile Suits and Gundams, that construction and engineering firms used were tasked and they were still short, so they were pressing as many stripped down military suits into emergency service as they dared, mostly old Astray's and M-4's, but the pure brute power of the Warmaster was too great to leave untapped.

The waiting room was crowded, already filled with concerned people sitting anxiously or lounging against the walls, too full of nervous energy to even sit down. Ysak and Katie sat with Alkire and Raine, Alkire being given a little extra room to stretch out his recently reconstructed leg, and he had a sour look on his face, though whether it was because of the emergency situation, the fact that he hated being treated like a baby, or that his cybernetic leg hurt like a son of a bitch was impossible to determine. Probably a mix of all three. Dearka looked hard, and found it very difficult to tell the difference between Alkire's left and right legs, at least until he looked at the left foot, which looked nothing at all like a human foot. It was "Y" shaped in form, made of some form of heavy gauge steel alloy, and was a matte grey color. Apparently they were still having trouble exactly mimicking the supportive properties of the shape of the human foot, at least when dealing with prosthetics.

"No, I had it made that way." Alkire spoke up, having noted Dearka's glance. "And I'm not psychic. Everyone and their brother has asked me about it." He added with a dour frown. "But to answer your question, Miriallia... nobody fucking knows."

"Do we even know what happened?" Dearka asked, taking the chair next to Ysak, who was massaging his temple gingerly, as if suffering the aftermath of a stupendous hangover or headache. "All I got was a call from a hospital clerk saying she'd collapsed and was in critical care, and that we should get here as soon as we could. I don't see Kira, Athrun or Cagalli... Kira's with Lacus, obviously, but..."

"No he isn't." Katie interrupted. "They won't let anyone get close to her. She's in a quarantine room, completely sealed off. He nearly threw a doctor through a plate glass window when they wouldn't let him in. He's in the room right next to hers though. Cagalli is in a meeting with Chief Representative Kurenai, she'll be here as soon as she can, but the needs of the nation have to come first. Athrun is here somewhere, he went to go get some solid answers, even if they're only guesswork, we're waiting on him to get back and give us the news. We only know about the quarantine thing because of the fuss Kira caused." Katie too rubbed at her head, pinching the bridge of her nose and generally seemed to be fighting down a case of general pain of the worst sort.

"Are you all right?" Miriallia asked, looking at Ysak and Katie with concern. "Too much time staring at vidscreens or something?"

"I wish it was something that simple." Ysak muttered darkly. "Or that painless."

"We heard an Echo." Katie summarized. "About an hour and a half ago. About fifteen minutes before they found Lacus collapsed actually."

"An echo?" Dearka prompted, brow furrowing in confusion. "What sort of echo? Listening to music too loud?"

"A psychic Echo." Ysak grunted softly, looking around the room, seeing that no one was paying much attention to them. "Like when Chanel died."

"But immeasurably worse." Katie added grimly. "Millions of times worse. Maybe even billions of times worse."

"Oh." Dearka said, like that meant anything to him, which it didn't, since he had not the slightest frame of reference. "So these echo's hurt?"

"Like white hot pokers shoved into my sinus's and stirred around by monkeys hopped up on Waft." Ysak supplied. "Except even less pleasant than that."

"An Echo is like a death scream, except it contains all the emotional sensations of a Newtype that has died a violent or painful death." Katie explained. "Usually they don't travel far, a mile or two, but its been theorized that if enough of them happened at once, they could amplify each other and even extend all the way around the world. But for that to happen, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands or more Newtypes would all have to die agonizing deaths almost at the same time. And there simply aren't that many Newtypes alive, not even close. At least I didn't think so... now... now I'm not so sure."

"I don't remember feeling anything. What time did this happen?" Miriallia asked.

"You probably wouldn't have felt much more than a sudden shiver down your spine or some goosebumps for no reason." Katie replied, almost enviously. "If you felt anything at all, at this distance. Whatever happened, it happened far away, almost on the other side of the world."

"So this Echo thing came about and what?" Dearka wondered. It was odd, sure, but he didn't see how an isolated incident meant much... he sometimes had random headaches of great potency, that didn't mean anything much.

"Dearka..." Ysak skewered his friend with an intent glare. "Do I have to spell it out for you? Katie and I felt the agonized last moments of millions, maybe even billions of sentient creatures, psychics one and all, hit us all at once, like a big seething emotional tidal wave. If fucking Glory took a sledgehammer to my skull it couldn't have put me down any harder! Every Newtype on Earth felt whatever happened happen, and they felt it like a kick to the balls by a Gundam. Katie felt it. I felt it. Kira felt it. Lacus must have felt it, and it might be one reason she collapsed in the first place. Commander la Flaga was admitted to the emergency room downstairs with a severe head pain, he was probably the most open of us all, not knowing how to shield properly yet! And who knows how many countless more people around the world felt it too!"

"But I thought you said there were only like a hundred or so Newtypes alive at all!" Dearka dredged that fact up from the depths of his memory.

"That was before Noah and Green EDEN." Katie countered. "Remember what Kira and Lacus said? That stuff is supposed to remake your genetic code to be more like Noah's... and that includes becoming a Newtype!"

"But that's not really possible is it?" Miriallia protested. "I mean, I know Noah believes it, and it sounds kinda-sorta plausable... but fundamental genetic changes after the womb? Really?"

"They also said it kills more than half of everything living it infects, so obviously the process isn't quite risk free." Ysak pointed out. "It sounds like science fiction to me too, but we've all seen he's mastered at least some forms of nanotechnology, such as the repair systems and the Blue Stuff. Can we afford to not believe him about Green EDEN? And I can't ignore that horrible death Echo."

"Yes, but the rest of us can't feel that." Raine pointed out dryly. "So pardon our skepticism for the moment."

"It's hardly the top of our list of problems." Alkire agreed. "I don't even think it makes the top ten."

"Its so damned frustrating." Katie muttered, mostly to herself, but she challengingly met their gazes when she realized she'd spoken aloud. "I understand where you guys are coming from, but its like trying to explain color to a bunch of blind people! This Echo, this was probably the most traumatic psychic event of my life, by far eclipsing what I felt when Chanel was murdered or when Noah put me into a coma and let his goons rape me! I felt millions of minds BURN TO DEATH all at once, a great blast of fire and light that seared away everything that perceived it! I could FEEL THEM DIE like it was happening to me, in a hundred million varying ways all in an instant! To you all, its nothing, like hearing about a tragedy in a newspaper but even more distant... but to me and Ysak, it was like being hit with a nuke! This single event has already changed everything I thought I knew about the number of Newtypes alive! And if we felt it, you can be damned sure Noah felt it! It's bound to be on HIS list of major problems!"

"Maybe Noah caused whatever it was?" Miriallia suggested.

"No Newtype would cause something like that." Ysak said vehemently. "Not even a bastard like Noah."

"Not even someone basically destroying all sense of world order?" Alkire commented sardonically. "I wouldn't put anything past him anymore, not after that Blue Stuff."

"You just don't understand!" Katie hissed angrily. "A Newtype causing an Echo like that would be like one of you sticking your head into a pit of red hot coals to pop a zit! No matter the reasoning, the pain would be worse than any possible reward! I'd blow both my legs off with a shotgun without anasthetic before I felt that Echo again, if I have a choice, dad!"

"Calm down, dear. We're obviously having something of a failure to communicate." Raine said cautiously.

"Calm down? Calm down!? CALM DOWN!?" Katie shouted, standing up out of her chair. "I FELT MORE THAN A BILLION FEELING LIFEFORMS DIE IN BURNING AGONY LESS THAN TWO HOURS AGO AND YOU WANT ME TO CALM DOWN!?" Katie broke off into a near hysterical giggle. "Ludicrous! Absolutely ludicrous!"

"Honey, I think you might need to go lie down somewhere quiet." Alkire said gently, noting that the entire waiting room was now staring at them. He shot an intent glare at Ysak, prompting his son in law, or as good as, to start helping with damage control here. For his part Ysak glared back, thoughts filled with Katie's frustration and exhaustion and terror, on top of all his own.

"Quiet!? Quiet!?" Katie shook her head and chewed on her lips to fight down another attack of the giggles. This sort of public breakdown was not like her at all, but given what had happened, she was almost surprised she wasn't foaming at the mouth and gibbering in a corner! She'd never felt quite so seperated from her family and friends, except for Ysak of course, as she did at this particular moment. They just couldn't understand! They treated this like it was some sort of joke, a psychic hiccup, when it was the most important and traumatic psychic event to ever take place in all of history, or so she was pretty sure! Even Noah's little stunt with Durandel and his bodyguards was nothing... NOTHING... compared to the implications of that Death Echo! Katie wished Lacus was here... they would take her seriously, especially after the recent business with Cagalli! Everyone was treating Lacus like she was an active grenade because of that! But Lacus was out of reach right now, and so was Kira, and so she was stuck holding the bag as the expert, struggling to explain to a... to a... a bunch of Stumps what feeling a billion sentient life forms last moments all at once was like!

"I can't do this." Katie staggered, only to be caught by Ysak as he stood up in a flash. "I just can't... do this... right now."

"We'll be back." Ysak said decisively, feeling Katie was strained to her limit just keeping herself even as calm as she was. They needed to get away from others, someplace private, where she could have her screaming, shaking, stomping fit, where she could unleash all the emotions burning up inside without worrying about anyone else. Certainly the middle of a hospital waiting room filled with anxious and nervous people waiting on the status of various loved ones was far from a suitable location, they'd already upset more than enough people as it was. "But not soon."

"Take your time." Alkire said softly, staring at his adopted daughter as she was half led and half carried away by Ysak, with great worry. He'd never seen her so strung out, not even after the death of her twin sister, nor the deaths of any of the other members of her surrogate family, James, Vlad or Victor. He glanced aside at Raine, saw his own worry echoed in her white knuckled hands and tight lips. There was a gulf between them and their child, and it was not one they could cross. Only Ysak could do that, of the people currently around, and Ysak looked to be near his own limit as well. Alkire had greatest respect for his son in law's physical and mental fortitude, if even Ysak was stretched to his limit, then perhaps Alkire and the others were treating things too lightly. But how the hell else were they supposed to treat it, when the worst they could feel was a sudden case of the willy-nillies? It was just impossible to square a few shivers with the agonized deaths of millions of people.

"At a time like this, I almost wish I could infect myself with that Green EDEN stuff." Raine said into the silence that followed. "Because I just can't think of any other way of wrapping my head around..." She trailed off, her hand going to find Alkire's and squeezing tightly. "Its like we're speaking two entirely different languages."

"So I bet it's a relief to be able to walk around again, huh?" Miriallia piped up, feeling a change of topic would be welcome, even if it was to discuss something else not normally comfortable.

"More like hobbling, for the moment." Alkire replied, shifting the leg in question heavily. "It's like having a sixty pound weight strapped to my knee. I can feel pressure, but not texture, and sometimes I slip, especially on metal stairs. But man, can I ever jump! All in all, it definitely beats out a peg leg, even if it isn't quite as stylish."

"Well, you're about a tenth of the way to being the world's first man sized Gundam." Dearka observed with a wan smile.

"That's about two tenths further than I was ever hoping to be. I prefer to do my fighting honestly." Alkire kept a straight face for a moment, before breaking out in a halfhearted smile of his own. "Or at least not as unfair as jumping around in a hundred plus ton avatar of war." He was going to say more, try a joke or something else to lighten the mood, but at that moment a sudden hush came over the waiting room, conversations dying away to be replaced by awed whispers, and the four of them looked up to see that Athrun had entered the room. Certainly, his status in the opinion of the common Orbite had undergone an extreme deal of revision in the years since his marriage to Cagalli after Purgatory Day, he'd gone from being someone who was barely tolerated and openly disliked to a figure almost half legendary, not exactly beloved like Cagalli, but respected and not a little feared. He'd been Cagalli's Consort. Now, he was the Ambassador.

He also looked like shit at the moment, at least to Dearka's familiar eyes. In his experience, Athrun didn't much change outwardly unless something really dire or wonderful had happened... he was like Ysak, he preferred to keep his pain and worries to himself, not only out of a value for privacy, but because he didn't want to burden others. Even if it meant it was harder on him than it would otherwise be. But no matter how bad things were in the past, Dearka had never seen Athrun let himself go to shit like he currently was, unshaven, clothes rumpled, hair unkempt, eyes baggy and red, almost staggering rather than walking, but still proud and stiffly upright despite it all. He looked like a zombie with a stick up his ass. It was only when Dearka heard a few muffled chortles from Alkire and Raine, and felt Miriallia's elbow dig painfully into his side that he realized he'd made that last observation at least somewhat audibly.

"It's been a long week." Athrun could not help but admit, his lips twisting in a very faint semblance of his old boyish grin at that incredible understatement. The amusement faded from his eyes and face almost at once. "And at this rate, it may end up a long month, or year even."

"Bad news?" Alkire asked quietly.

Athrun heaved a sigh and wobbled his way over to a chair, pulling it away from the wall and sitting down more or less facing the four of them, more like collapsing downward than anything else. he rested his hands on the armrests and seemed to have to fight hard to keep his chin from drooping down to his chest. Dearka didn't know when the last time Athrun had any sort of good rest or sleep was, but from the look of his friend, it may not have been since before the battle up at the Moon. He shook his head slightly in amazement and disapproval... he couldn't imagine himself even being half as aware as Athrun if he hadn't slept for a week, not even mentioning all the other shit that had occured! He'd be lucky not to have ended up in a mental ward, or collapsed from alcohol poisoning!

"It's not so much bad news as it is no news." Athrun told them with more than a hint of frustration in his tone. "Which is in itself bad news. Put shortly, the doctors don't know what is wrong with her. Its not a disease, its not a bacterial infection, its not poison or anything else. If anything, they say its close to something like a genetic disorder, but Lacus doesn't have any of those! The... whatever it is... is attacking her DNA directly, but its not destroying it. It's changing it, or trying to. Specifically, its attacking her immune system, and it seems to be trying to turn her own body against itself. Its trying to make her allergic to her own flesh and blood."

"That's... not good." Alkire observed.

"Its doing it to her baby as well." Athrun added darkly, drawing intakes of breath from all four of them. "If anything, it appears to be targeting the baby with greater success than Lacus herself." He shivered with dread. "It doesn't appear to be contagious, at least to most people, despite what they initially feared, but the mechanics behind the illness, whatever it is, are still unknown, so they are keeping her isolated from the rest of the world, at least until they have a better idea of what is going on."

"Not contagious to most people?" Miriallia asked, her attention caught by that qualification.

"From the preliminary genetic studies they've done on her infected blood, and that of the baby, the illness appears to be most virulent and active against DNA that isn't Lacus's at all, but is instead from another source." Athrun paused and sighed. "From Kira, to be exact. Whatever this thing is, it attacks and converts Kira's DNA in a matter of seconds. It doesn't seem to have any effect at all against my DNA, or any of the doctors, or any of the other random test samples. For most of us, we aren't at risk of infection at all, even if we got blood or fluids from Lacus directly on us. For Kira on the other hand, the slightest touch might be deadly after a matter of minutes or hours, at most."

"So whatever this was, was actually an attack aimed at Kira, not Lacus?" Raine asked with a frown.

"It appears that way, yes. Lacus said something about getting shot by a dart or needle or something when she and Kira went to talk with Noah shortly after the defeat at the Moon. She made it sound like nothing major, and indeed when we tested her then for toxicology, we found nothing. I... I talked with Kira, a little bit, and we both agree that the dart was almost certainly intended for him, and the way the poison or whatever it is acts definitely backs that theory up. Lacus got hit, and got infected by a minute portion of the payload of the dart, and it was dormant or something, because her DNA wasn't right for it to attack, which is why nothing showed up on our tests. But it spread through her body over time, and eventually made its way to her womb, where it interacted with the DNA of the baby, which was also not Kira's... or not fully Kira's. It was probably enough to prompt the poison to activate, and it probably infected the baby first and mutated to deal with the already changed strands of DNA it found, and from there gained the ability to at least somewhat infect Lacus as well, and spread back out into her body from the baby."

"Is she going to be all right? I mean, this poison or whatever wasn't designed to hurt her, right?" Dearka asked hopefully. "It'll just make her really sick or something, right?"

Athrun sighed again. "We don't know. From what the doctors tests show, the poison is ungodly powerful, designed to overwhelm even Kira's immune system in a matter of minutes or less, and we all know how damned resistant to chemicals he is! If this thing was tailored to one of us, it would probably kill us before a minute had passed, at the outside! The only reason Lacus and the baby have lasted as long as they have is that their DNA isn't Kira's, or wholly Kira's, and so the poison had to adapt, which is in itself a scary thought, and isn't operating at full potency. None of the treatments or antibiotics are having any effect on the poison, and it doesn't appear to be any natural venom either. Even radiation therapies have utterly no effect on the samples taken, if anything bombarding the poison with high energy particles makes it work faster. In a lot of ways, it reminds me of that Blue Stuff." Athrun let that horrifying comparison sink in.

"And the baby?" Miriallia prompted, even though the mere thought made her stomach twist and churn painfully.

"The diagnosis is... bleak." Athrun admitted. "In truth, the doctors are surprised the baby has lasted this long. Its in a very vulnerable stage of pregnancy at the moment, where even slight chemical imbalances can have major lasting effects. They... they won't tell me the chances for survival, and there is no way of knowing how... how whole the child will be, if he manages to make it through." Athrun swallowed heavily. "Lacus herself seems mostly stable for the moment... she's unconscious, and they are helping her breathe by keeping her throat clear, and providing nutrients intraveinously, but she doesn't show any signs of waking up any time soon. For what its worth, her brain is unusually active, though Kira tells me that their mental connection thing is shut down, or at least unusable. I've... I've never seen him look so frightened." Athrun stared at the floor. He knew how Kira felt though. When Cagalli had... had shut him out, earlier in the week, he felt like his entire life had come unmoored. It had to be the same way for Kira right now, worse if anything.

"So all we can do is hope then." Alkire said resolutely. "Wouldn't be the first time, god willing, it will be the last. We're in a dark place right now, but that's all the more reason to climb out of it, right?"

"When did you become such a beacon of hope, dear?" Raine commented with a mixture of sarcasm and relief. "That's not your job at all."

"I'm diversifying." Alkire smiled back. He thumped his heavy artificial foot loudly on the floor. "Recent events have made me think that perhaps being a front line soldier isn't something I want to do forever. Oh, that's not saying I intend to retire anytime soon... but I'm keeping my eyes open, ya know?"

"I hate to break the mood..." Miriallia said, reaching out to touch Athrun on the knee, as his eyes were starting to drift closed of their own accord. "But how is Kira doing?"

Athrun blinked a few times to clear his muddled thoughts, resolving once more, all too likely falsely, to get some rest the very next chance he got. "Kira is... well... um... remember how I was?"

"That bad?" Dearka winced.

"Worse even. I have never, ever seen Kira this angry. When Lacus got hurt in Denver, that was only a pale reflection of how he is right now. I quite literally felt scared to meet his eyes." Athrun told them. "I really hate to say it, but I think the best thing any of us can do right now is give him the space to work things out himself. Not only everything happening with Lacus, he also seemed to be dealing with an absolutely insane headache for some reason. I've never seen Kira become needlessly violent before, but he was tearing that room apart with his bare hands, and I was almost afraid he was going to start in on me if I stayed around too much longer."

"Katie and Ysak were suffering from the same thing." Miriallia said thoughtfully. "Something about a gargantuan echo of the dying moments of millions of psychics resounding around the world or something like that. Didn't make much sense to any of us, but they were both seriously worked up about it. So much so that they had to go take a walk to calm down."

Alkire was about to add his own two cents when a buzzing and vibration from his pocket caused him to fish out his cellphone and hold it to his ear. "Major Jones here. I thought I told you I didn't want to be calle... oh." Alkire trailed off, a surprised look crossing his face before it settled into a mask of concentration, his battle face. "You got a report from who? The National Seismic Institute? What the fuck do a bunch of geologists have to do with anything!? Don't tell me we're gonna have a fucking volcano on top of everythin... oh, oh I see." Alkire narrowed his eyes. "They picked up WHAT KIND of readings!? Oh holy motherfucking god..."

"What?" Athun asked, intent and focused himself now, seeing the stricken look on Alkire's features. If it was bad enough to dismay even someone like Alkire, the news had to be almost incalculably bad.

"Hold on, I'm reporting to the Ambassador." Alkire put his phone in his lap for a moment. "The National Seismic Institute recorded a series of pressure waves dissipating throughout the Earth's crust a little more than two hours ago. From what they've been able to determine, the pressure waves are the sort caused by surface level or near surface level nuclear detonations of several hundred kilotons... more than a dozen of them in concert. They were able to backtrace the source of the pressure waves, at least generally..." Alkire paused and swallowed heavily. "The Eastern Seaboard of the North American continent."

"That's in the middle of the Green Zone." Raine said with a frown. "Why would anyone set off a bunch of nukes there? The place is almost emp... ty..." She trailed off with a horrified look.

"When did this happen again?" Dearka asked grimly.

"About two hours and fifteen minutes ago, give or take." Alkire confirmed with a sickly smile. "Just about the exact time that Katie and Ysak reported feeling that echo thing they were so worked up about."

"The death cry of a billion psychics... but surely that many people didn't survive the Green EDEN..." Miriallia protested.

"They never said anything about people. They just said feeling beings." Raine countered. "Though I'm puzzled myself as to the difference."

"What's that crazy bastard Noah doing now?" Athrun muttered in distressed anguish.

"I don't think this was the Brotherhood. They've never used nukes before, why start now? They have better, more destructive weapons if they need them." Alkire replied grimly. "And if it wasn't Noah, and it wasn't us... that really only leaves one person with the power to authorize the use of nuclear weapons on Earth." Alkire frowned. "The question is, why is Gilbert Durandel using nukes on our own cities? What does he know that we don't? And why won't he tell us?"

"No." Raine said with a shake of her head. "The question is... is this the end of something? Or the beginning?"

* * *

"Hah! Gotcha, ya little bastard! Dodge and weave, weave and dodge all you like, but it doesn't do you much good anymore!" Meyrin snarled triumphantly, as the wreckage of her opponent tumbled down to the ground far below, secondary explosions ripping apart the few remaining sections of armor as electronic components and ammunition supplies cooked off. A warm sensation on her shoulderblades bespoke of the slightly overheated condition of her Zealot's twin 150mm beam cannons, given how much she'd been using them in the last few minutes of the dogfight, and Meyrin marveled once more at the sophistication of the... before she could finish the thought, her viewpoint rocked and shook and spun violently, and she caught a brief glimpse of armor and what looked like entire limbs spalling off and dropping away from her position before her screen went black and displayed the message "connection lost" in bright red letters.

"Awww, damn it, I never even saw that one coming." Meyrin said with a pout, as she accessed the simulator data and saw the other USN Champion, the one armed with the heavy hyper-impulse cannon instead of the beam rifle/heavy machinegun combo that her dogfight opponent had, as it lined up its shot as she hovered exulting in her victory over its digital partner, and then blasted her Zealot into a thousand molten pieces with one shot of its massive blue-red energy beam. She was getting better, considering she'd never piloted any Mobile Suit ever before the last week, but she was still a long way from being even slightly competent, much less fighting on the level Noah assured her that she was capable of. Despite what he said, she personally doubted she'd ever be able to be "just as good as Kira Yamato", no matter what her genetics were. She just didn't have the knack for it, and no amount of training could make up for that lack.

Still, it was fun playing with the simulator, since she'd always liked video games, and it was just as real as piloting a Zealot in actual combat, and she never tired of admiring the sophistication of Noah's inventions, even if they were weapons or weapon trainers. It took some getting used to, the helmet with all the wires sticking out the back, and the brief pressure sensation of the leads making contact with the back of her head, but it wasn't like it hurt or anything, and after a few days of off again, on again use, she hardly even noticed the NIC system interfacing. She was still in a state of awe as to how it translated her movements so exactly to a Mobile Suit, and even made things like thruster assisted flight seem like a completely natural movement, so much so that she could jump and fly just as easily as she walked or rolled or slid, even though the Zealot weighed almost a hundred tons. Definitely, definitely beat the old joystick and foot pedal controls, or even the hand held controller of video games hands down, no contest!

And when even the movements of the mass production machines were so sweet, Meyrin could barely imagine what it must be like to pilot one of the real Gundams, whether it be the "dated" models of the Tormented, Traitor or Haunted, or the "standard" models of the Vengeance and Retribution, much less the next generation Brotherhood itself! Noah had promised her that he would let her fly the Brotherhood sometime, once she'd reached a certain level of base proficiency in using the older systems, and once they had some free time where they didn't need to keep everything on combat readiness. she was definitely beginning to see why Luna was so wrapped up in the great mechanical monstrosities... they were just so damned cool to pilot! So much power at your fingertips, it was like really ascending to become an angel or god whenever you took control of one of them, moving combat onto a higher plane, where only other angels and gods stood any chance at all of troubling you!

Reluctantly, Meyrin told the simulator system to turn off, feeling a slight tug on her scalp as the NIC wires disengaged their connections, and she doffed the helmet as the hatch on the control pod, a little bit larger than a standard commercial virtual reality simulator booth, levered open and the interior lights came on, illuminating the handholds so she could climb out. She did so, and sat on the lip of the pod for a moment, her unbound hair ruffling in the mild breeze from the Great Endeavor's air conditioning system, since pigtails didn't fit under a helmet so well. Muted hums and beeps from the pods on either side of hers bespoke several Harbingers running their own simulation missions or refreshing themselves on other tasks... the pods could simulate far more than just Mobile Suit piloting, pretty much any mechanical or electrical task up to and including operating the Great Endeavor itself! She'd tried that one herself once, but had found out, somewhat to her disappointment, that Noah had made the Great Endeavor all but idiot proof... it was just like driving a gigantic car, all the complex stuff was handled automatically and beyond the normal control scheme.

Some other Harbingers, either on their way to the pods, or back to somewhere else in the ship, noticed her and bowed deeply in her direction, many not even daring to look directly at her, with a reverence that was entirely religious in aspect. It made her uncomfortable, to say the least, but the Harbiners acted the same way around Noah, and it was one of those things she was... not fully pleased with him about... that he'd basically formed a cult of people to worship Edenites. Edenites were special, and maybe they were a cut above the rest of humanity in terms of pure genetic potential, but Meyrin didn't feel that was any sort of reason to be worshipped or regarded as semi-divine. She was just her, Meyrin Hawke, regardless of her genetics. On the other hand, she couldn't deny how useful it was having an organization that demonstrated such fervor and loyalty to Noah's plan, and they certainly wouldn't be able to get far without them... even Noah couldn't operate the Great Endeavor and his Gundams at the same time.

On yet another hand the awe in which the Harbingers held her made it very hard to form any sort of personal connection with them, they just wouldn't talk to her as a person, rather than an Angel. She didn't want servants, she wanted friends, but they were too intimidated and ingrained in their ways, and she had made practically nonexistant progress in breaking down their reservations. She wasn't going to give up though, it ha only been a week after all, and they'd had years and years to have bad habits ingrained upon them. She'd tried reaching out to the Apostles as well, but had even less success there... at least the Harbingers were friendly, or at least respectful... the scorn she received from Aireg Randolf was frankly distressing, and Jean Dylan kept her at more than arms length, seeming to be pretending she didn't exist at all. Shinn didn't remember her, and he acted more like a Harbinger, he would be extremely polite and attentive to her wants, but as for a real conversation, making a connection as human beings... he couldn't or wouldn't do that.

As for the last Apostle, Markov Ashino, well he was definitely an odd case. More than half the time, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't find him anywhere, and even the main computers of the Great Eneeavor seemed to frequently lose track of him for long periods of time. Noah had shown her more of the secret parts of the Great Endeavor than any two dozen Harbingers knew, and she still couldn't figure out where Ashino was disappearing off to. It was more than faintly troublesome, though Noah kept blowing it off with false bravado, acting like Ashino's actions were of little concern or consequence. She could feel through their link that Noah was quite a bit more troubled by Ashino in general than he let on though. For a guy as smart and perceptive as he was, he still seemed to be unable to realize how perceptive she herself was, especially now that she was an Edenite too, and could detect nuances in his posture and breathing and small ticks she never would have spotted before, much less having a direct link to his emotional state inside her head. It wasn't even like reading a book, it was like reading a giant streetside billboard, figuring out what he was thinking or when he was or was not being completely truthful.

Not that he was lying to her, not that, they were clear on that point. He was just leaving things unsaid, or exaggerating, or not being fully clear... usually out of concern for worrying or distressing her, which she supposed was a sweet sentiment, but she was also resolved to ironing that stupid propensity out of him! She'd told him that she believed in him, and was going to make sure he walked the walk, besides just talking the talk, and it was going to be very hard to do that effectively if she was only dealing with half the story! She'd have to have another heart to heart talk with him when he got back, but that wasn't going to be for a few days, as he and a goodly force of Harbingers were off preparing the "Time Capsule" where Noah was going to store all the dangerous inventions she'd made him get rid of, as well as begin construction on a secondary headquarters for the Brotherhood, should anything ever happen to the Great Endeavor. She didn't exactly know where it was going to be, though Noah had told her it was somewhere on the western coast of South America, somewhere he apparently knew of old.

Meyrin closed her eyes for a brief moment, feeling a twinge in the back or bottom of her mind, she could never decide which, a twinge that was answered, some impossibly long and short fraction of time later by a twinge in the front of her mind, as Noah, wherever he was, felt her mental tap on the shoulder and replied with the equivalent of a wave. He was distracted by something, she could feel that she only had a very small part of his attention. Not worried, Noah was almost never worried unless whatever it was involved Meyrin herself or something almost impossibly dire, such as Gilbert Durandel's nuclear attacks, but definitely distracted. Meyrin didn't mind... it wasn't like she expected or even wanted to be the focus of his attentions at all times, talk about controlling or limiting, no thank you! Indeed, should she ever encounter a time when his thoughts put her first, before everything else, that was going to be a time when she would have to get him back on his professed track again, because they had both agreed that the Eden plan was the top priority for them, no matter the personal cost.

When she opened her eyes, Meyrin started backwards with a gasp of surprise, almost overbalancing and falling back into the pit like interior of the NIC system pod. She would have indeed fallen, despite all her newfound grace and agility, if the person who had surprised her by appearing like a ghost in a time only a little longer than a blink, hadn't reached out and steadied her for a crucial instant before withdrawing his hand, the movement so fast she barely even felt the touch of his hand on her shoulder, much less saw him move. Regaining her equilibrium, Meyrin flushed at her reaction and stood up off the lip of the pod, the majority of which was sunk into the floor, leaving only a knee high lip protruding above the deck. "Thank you." She said quietly. "That might have been a little more than embarassing. You startled me."

"I should not have surprised you in the first place." Ashino answered with a shrug, folding his heavily muscled arms across his stout chest. Though he was quite a short man, barely even as tall as Meyrin herself was, Ashino was easily the most heavily built man she'd ever seen outside of magazines and movies, he looked like the sort of person who could bend metal bars and kick down locked doors with just a twist of his hips. And if what Noah had talked around with her at one point in time was true, that sort of stuff was actually child's play for Ashino, his true capabilities were much more frightening. "Though it is refreshing to hear some honesty regarding your ability to be surprised. Your lover is not so honest with himself."

"He's NOT my lover. He's my boyfriend." Meyrin corrected primly. "There is quite a tangible difference... even though we do sleep in the same bed, we aren't having sex, so we aren't lovers."

Ashino cocked his head and considered her. "Tomato, tomato." He said at last, pronoucing the world slightly differently each time, with a "aa" the first time and a "au" the second time. "The intention is there, that is plain to see, whether or not physical intimacy has occured. Besides, aren't you connected on some sort of intimate mental level? That is what the rumor says anyway."

"Which rumor is that?" Meyrin asked, wondering how that could have gotten out, not that it really mattered.

"The one I heard." Ashino nonanswered. "In any case, it is good to see one of you can admit she isn't near omnipotent."

"He does have his male pride." Meyrin agreed. "And he really is so very capable, its hard for him to admit he's been beaten at anything by anyone. And you are the only one who can sneak up on him."

"I knew someone like that once." Ashino said slowly. "He was the worst monster to exist in human history to date at that time."

"You have such interesting friends." Meyrin commented wryly. "The black sheep of your friends circle I guess?"

"No, that was me. Having a soul meant I was something of a defective product." Ashino shrugged and smiled thinly. "But that is all the past."

"Ah, sensitive topic, huh?"

"You could say that. Something I prefer not to consider. Were it not for the actions of a few people very much like you yourself, I could have become soulless like my... peer... and never known that there was any other way to live life." Ashino's eyes hooded and his tone turned grim.

"You're talking about Jean Kellson, your lover?" Meyrin asked, as delicately as she could. Despite that, Ashino flinched, ever so slightly, barely perceptible even to her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to prod a sore spot. Noah told me about why you are working with us."

"Did he happen to mention how sick and tired I am of being told to wait? Its a feeling most of the Apostles share with me, except for poor mister Asuka, of course, who doesn't know any better." Ashino replied cuttingly.

"He did, actually." Meyrin refused to be bothered by his tone. "So don't think he is unaware of how you feel. Its simply a matter of priority."

"And his priorities rank higher than mine?"

"Well, to be blunt, yes." Meyrin told him. "I can understand your concern for your loved one, really, I can, but Noah's dream, his Eden Plan... its bigger than any one person, and the feelings others might have for them. Even I, whom Noah does truly love, as much as you love your Jean, am not unexpendable if it means ensuring the success of his plan."

"You love him even though he considers you expendable?" Ashino asked curiously.

"Noah does not consider me expendable in the slightest. I forced him to place his love for me subordinate to his duty to the rest of humanity." Meyrin corrected. "It is by my will, not his, that if it comes down to it, my life will be spent and sacrificed to ensure the success of his plans, not because he desires it, but because it is necessary for the future of all of humanity. And yes, I love him very much, even though I can recognize that he has done much wrong, he has the potential to do more good, enough good to more than balance the scales."

"Do you think your opinion might be biased, considering your personal feelings for him?" Ashino wondered.

"Of course it is. Just as your opinion might be biased by your own personal frustrations and feelings. If there is a way for a human to consider the actions of another human without any bias at all, I don't think it has been discovered yet." Meyrin answered with a slight smile. "Trying to pretend otherwise is just that... pretending. We're all biased, in some way."

"And where is our Great Prophet anyway?" Ashino asked, changing tack suddenly. "Its rare to see you alone, given how besotted he is with you."

"I'll thank you to use a kinder term than "besotted", accurate as it might be." Meyrin said frostily. "Noah hasn't had much chance to love people in his life, despite all the other advantages he has had. I should think it perfectly normal for him to be a bit clingy and effacious, considering."

"Oh, he's had a hard life, has he?" Ashino asked bitterly, his eyes cold like frozen emeralds. He leaned closer, making Meyrin twitch and quail slightly just with his solid physical presence. "He knows NOTHING about a hard life. My life... my life was hard, though I never minded it, because I did not know any better. I had best not hear him complaining about how terrible his life has been, with all his money and power and freedom and physical beauty and possessions and natural gifts! I don't know if I could restrain myself from acting upon impulse if I did."

"He's not afraid of you, Mr. Ashino." Meyrin said resolutely. "Noah's not afraid of any person."

Ashino leaned back and smirked, the malevolent expression sending a chill throughout Meyrin's body. "I think you might need to reconsider that opinion, Ms. Hawke. Maybe you're right, he isn't afraid of me, though he really ought to be, but I know for a fact he is afraid of some people." Ashino's smirk faded. "Granted, any sane person would be afraid of these people, but sane isn't always something that can be applied to Noah."

"I hear that a lot, but I never hear people doing more than casting aspersions on his sanity without any sort of logical argument behind it. It seems to me it would be better for them to say, I don't he is is sane, rather than he is insane. I don't think he's insane at all. Quirky, definitely. A genius, without doubt. Light years ahead of most people in terms of pure brainpower, demonstratably so. But just because most people can't understand his motivations doesn't make him insane."

"Thinking he knows better than the entire rest of humanity and that he is right to make them bend to his will regardless of how they feel about it is about as definitive a description of insane as I can think of. Granted, he's a charismatic insane, but so was Cervantes Zunnichi!" Ashino argued. "Call me small minded, but I never would have thought in a million years to force a drastic change on all of humanity, for better or worse!"

"I won't call you small minded, but I might just say that you don't think like an Edenite." Meyrin told him. "What is completely beyond the pale of a Natural or Coordinator's imagination could very easily be the everyday thoughts of us Edenites. What you consider grandioise and impossible seems to us to merely be challenging, a worthwhile endeavor."

"You say "us" like you're a whole new race." Ashino noted. "Rather than just the two of you."

"Noah might call us a whole new race, but I don't think so. We are just another subset of humanity. As for our numbers... I think you might be surprised how many of us there are. I certainly was. Though fewer now than there used to be." Meyrin narrowed her eyes with rage, recalling the emotive death screams of the survivors on the East Coast of North America as their lives were consumed by the nuclear fireballs. "Call us insane, when it is you "normal" people that resort to widespread use of weapons of mass destruction on your own former populace!"

"What are you talking about?" Ashino asked, confused. "I'm not aware of any WMD use since that Blue EDEN Noah unleashed against the USN fleets."

"We could continue this argument until Noah returns from his trip, but I don't think either of us would convince the other." Meyrin said, recalling Noah's desire to keep the news of Durandel's latest outrage close to the vest for the moment, until they had definitive proof besides their own personal surety of the crime.

"And where has our glorious leader gone to?" Ashino pressed. "One would think that right now would be something of a delicate time, requiring his personal touch as often as possible. He certainly doesn't seem to delegate well to me, it seems strange that he would suddenly decide to start doing so now."

"It's a personal trip." Meyrin hedged, unable to avoid the suspicion that Ashino's interest in Noah's whereabouts was not out of concern for his health.

"A personal trip that required him to bring along heavy construction equipment, several squads of Harbingers, and who knows what else packed into those sealed crates." Ashino arched a cherry red eyebrow at her. "I may just be a poor boy at heart, but that seems a little extreme for just a personal trip."

"Why do you care so much?" Meyrin huffed, turning slightly away, making as if to walk away. She was shocked when Ashino grabbed her by the wrist and tugged firmly, twisting her back around to face him. Instinctively she tried to pull her hand free, but she had even less luck than she'd had against Noah, the first time he'd grabbed her wrist. Ashino's fingers were like a steel vise around her wrist, and she found she could no more pull away than she could lift a car with her bare hands! "Let go of me." Meyrin added flatly.

"Your boyfriend owes me, and I'm starting to have very serious doubts about his intention to pay up." Ashino told her, equally flatly. "And when I come to talk to him about it, I find he's gone off for an indeterminate amount of time, along with materials and forces that looked very suited for creating a hidden base or hide out, and anyone who knows anything about his intentions is being very tight lipped and unhelpful to me, almost like they are trying to hide information from me. A suspicious man might think that his debtee might be planning to skip out, and I am a very suspicious man, Ms. Hawke."

"Let go of my wrist." Meyrin retorted. "I won't talk with a man who is resorting to physical coercion of any sort."

"And if I say no, I don't trust you to try and run or something else?" Ashino inquired, though he looked puzzled when Meyrin laughed right in his face.

"You're being obtuse, your concern for your lover must be making you stupid." Meyrin said, her tone softening. "A sentiment I can understand. But know this, Mr. Ashino, that here on the Great Endeavor I have absolutely no need to run from you, or anyone else. Awkward as it usually is, given the regard the crew and passengers hold me in, if I but let out the slightest call for aid, you would be swarmed in moments by dozens of very unhappy men and women. Whatever your personal capabilities, you can't fight the entire crew and even if you could, Aether and the Zam Clan would finish you off. And for all your desperation, or maybe because of it, I certainly don't get the feeling that you consider a scenario of mutually assured destruction to be favorable for you. You have someone to live for, a person to avenge... dying here would be pointless and a disservice to the person you love."

Ashino considered those words for several seconds before loosening his grip and returning his hand to his side, clenched into a fist of mixed restrained anger and deep shame. She was right, his concern for Jean was making him hasty and stupid... but how else was he supposed to feel!? These days of idleness, he simply could not stand! "For what it's worth." Meyrin broke into his thoughts. "Noah has no intention of running from or avoiding you, and he does fully intend to keep his promise to you regarding Jean. I have discussed that concern, and many others, with him personally, and you have MY word, not just his, that we WILL do everything we can for Jean... as soon as we can fit it into the schedule. I understand it is the most overriding concern to you, but to the Brotherhood as a whole it is not nearly as overpoweringly vital. We have other things we need to attend to first, rather than the specific wants of just one person, no matter how important." Meyrin paused a moment. "And really, you haven't acted much like the Brotherhood's goals are important to you, from what I've heard of your battle conduct, why should the Brotherhood consider your own important in turn?"

"He came to me for help, not the other way around." Ashino pointed out, though he could not argue that she had a point. Worse still, she was being entirely too calm and rational and even empathetic about it, and he couldn't muster any of the choler or disgruntlement that trying to talk to Noah about this brought forth in him. Truly, females were his bane, he could not stand against them outside a real battle!

"You each feel like you are entitled to the other's service, and neither of you has done much of anything to earn the other's trust." Meyrin sighed. "Just like two prima donna males, certainly. You may very well be our most deadly Gundam pilot, though Shinn would definitely contest that assessment, but you wouldn't go much of anywhere if Noah had not provided you the Retribution, or the use of the Great Endeavor as a base of operations. Without the help of the Brotherhood, you'd just be another angry person with a grudge against Durandel, hunted and alone. On the other hand, without your help, our chances in pitched battle against the forces of the USN and the Orb Gundams definitely become more bleak, even worrisome, and we all know there WILL be another pitched battle sooner or later. We need you, you need us, can you admit that?" Meyrin waited for Ashino to nod his head.

"You chafe at being forced to sit around here all the time, while the person you love is still suffering." Meyrin said, and Ashino blinked, shocked at how perceptive she was. In her way, she was more frightening than Noah was, because she was very much still connected to the vagaries and intricasies of how other people felt and thought, since she hadn't been pyschic all her life, and even now, from what he understood, wasn't psychic in the way Noah was, couldn't read thoughts and emotions merely by wanting to. "Just like anyone would." Meyrin added, and sighed. "Noah has told you to stay here, and limited the controls on the Retribution so you can't fly it more than a few kilometers away anyway. We could very well be attacked in force at any time, though the possibility is still remote at this time, and he doesn't want our defenses diminished in any way." She paused a few moments, and then leaned conspiratorially towards Ashino. "But Noah isn't here right now, and just between the two of us, he's not going to be back until the end of the week at the earliest. You are right, he is constructing a second hidden base, but its on MY orders, you could say, not his. The how and the why aren't really your concern, but I figure the basic outline isn't dangerous for you to know."

"What are you saying?" Ashino asked with a confused frown.

"Dense, dense, dense... Jean must have had her hands full with a boy scout like you." Meyrin put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "As long as you're here when Noah gets back, who's to know what you've been up to in the meanwhile? I doubt he'll even think to ask, and I certainly don't see any need to burden him with anything more to worry about, he has more than enough on his plate in my eyes. Its just like sneaking out of your room at night to go to a party while grounded by your parents... as long as you're back before morning, and don't get caught by the police or otherwise noticed... what they don't know won't hurt them."

"I never had a chance to do that when I was growing up." Ashino reminded her humorlessly. "Automated sentry guns and motion sensor activated landmines are a little more difficult to deceive than parents. And there is still the question of the distance restriction on the Retribution's operations, which Noah himself set."

"Let me worry about that." Meyrin assured him confidently, since Noah had given her command override access to the Brotherhood equipment that was every bit the equal of his own, even exceeding it in some cases, since he trusted her moral judgement over his own when it came to the most destructive weapons, like the AMP Cannon and some of the specialty strategic level missiles. "You just make sure that during the course of whatever errands you see fit to run while Noah is away, that you don't get caught or draw a bunch of attention to yourself... there's not much I can do to save you if you go and get in a fight with the USN or Orb, and Noah will definitely not be happy to find out about it. And you absolutely must be back before he is or the gig is up, but that still gives you a few days."

"Why?" Ashino asked, cocking his head in puzzlement. "Why are you going out of your way to help me?"

"Why not?" Meyrin countered. "Are we not on the same side? I suppose not, not really... I don't believe you truly believe in what Noah is trying to accomplish, Mr. Ashino. But you are Noah's partner, are you not? You are an important asset to us, and us to you. Should not we try to help each other, be in harmony with each other? It can only be to our benefit to have you in our debt, and only to yours to have us in your debt." Meyrin's silver-lavender eyes glittered. "Besides, I can understand how you feel about Jean. Though my relationship with Noah has been quite short, only a few months, nothing compared to the years you've had with Jean, if he were to be hurt or captured or in trouble, I would do just about anything to help him, and just sitting around doing nothing would grate on me terribly."

"Mr. Borander does not realize how fortunate a man he is to have you." Ashino declared, impressed.

"Men rarely do." Meyrin replied with a smile. "And you're wasting time. Let us go to the hanger, and get you absconded!"

"I won't forget this, Meyrin Hawke." Ashino promised.

"I wouldn't expect you to, Markov Ashino. I wouldn't expect you to."


	60. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 4

The mountain tableau was undisturbed, an achingly clear day, nearly cloudless sky, the sun shining bright and cheerful down on the mountain valley in the southern part of the Andes range, the largest mountain range in South America, where peaks commonly towered to over twelve thousand feet, or even higher! From a distance, to an untrained or unexpecting eye, there wasn't much to differentiate this particular mountain valley from any of a dozen or even a hundred other similar locales spread throughout the continental range. It was only when an observer got closer, or knew exactly what to look for and where, that the piles of rocky rubble and patchy growths of young underbrush, the scarred and slightly darkened faces of the peaks, started to tell a different story. For instance, a long meadow, dotted here and there with piles of rock, thigh length grass growing profusely, with the addition of doughty brush beginning to intrude from the edges of the rainforest on the downhill slope of the valley plateau, its oddly rectangular and regular shape only superficially hinting at the concealed runway that had once stood there. Or the rubble strewn dirt tracks wending their way to seemingly no purpose up the lower slopes of the three battered and grim peaks surrounding the vale, to disappear into large landslides or rockfalls, upon closer inspection there were patches of asphalt and concrete, indicating that the tracks had once been roads, roads leading somewhere, up from the airstrip.

The first sign of the Brotherhood presence was neither Mobile Suit nor Shuttle, though an observer with keen ears could probably discern the high keening note of far off thrusters in hover mode, somewhere in the higher reaches of the glacier carved valley, though any inquisitive viewer would have been disappointed, despite the clarity of the day, there was no sight of any flying objects, technological or, somewhat disturbingly, biological either. Indeed, something that would quickly become unsettlingly apparent to any experienced outdoorsman, there were absolutely no signs of animal life in the valley at all, unless you counted a few buzzing insects, and even they were few and far between. For all its lush greenness, the valley was still and silent as a rocky tomb, the atmosphere tense and frightened, like a man hunching his shoulders expecting an unseen blow. The "CRACK" of metal on stone was shockingly loud, as a metallic canister, about three times the height of a tall man and a good five feet around, appeared out of thin air, fired or launched from unseen vantage, rooting itself deeply in the decaying concrete underbedding the meadow-airfield's central runway.

Even as the echoes of the metallic landing were resounding from the peaks, a hissing sound, like a disturbed serpent but a thousand times louder, emanated from the cylinder, as a faint, glittering haze, like dewdrops on spiderwebs, was ejected from dozens of nozzles studding the outside of the cylinder. In seeming defiance of the normal rules of gravity, the mist rose up into the sky rapidly, though there was only a slight breeze, forming a layer not unlike a pearly, iridescent cloud about five hundred feet off the valley floor, rapidly spreading out from the central meadow to encompass the whole valley in less than an hour. The shimmery cloud sparkled once or twice more, all the particles flashing in unison as they adapted to the baseline environmental conditions and then their glimmering faded away, and it was like the cloud never was. An observer from the ground would only see the now empty deployment cylinder standing proud of the meadow, and the same cloudless blue sky and shining sun as before. An observer from the air, at least from above the five hundred foot mark, would not even discern that much... the valley would appear as empty as it ever was, any and all non-environmental objects beneath the Mirage Haze cloud cover being rendered invisible to any long range aerial or orbital spying.

Not that Noah expected the USN or anyone else to have much time or energy to waste on spying on the top secret remains of a destroyed scientific and military facility, but it was better to be careful rather than caught, especially as this as supposed to be a highly secret base, unknown even to most of the Brotherhood, a place of final refuge and security, should all else fail. It would be very inconvenient if they were to be discovered, finding a new secret location, especially one that was already mostly prepared like this one, would be nearly impossible, and would add weeks, even months to his construction time. Once the Mirage Haze was fully deployed, he sent down two of the five Zealots he'd brought along, specially equipped with Mirage Colloid additions for stealth purposes, along with the Brotherhood itself, for secruity purposes. They quickly reported back that there were no signs of indigineous life, animal or otherwise, which confirmed his preliminary sensor scans but again, it never hurt to be too careful. Once he was on the ground, he would scan again, this time with his genetic gifted powers, which could detect almost any living thing no matter how well it was technologically hidden or cloaked.

The Brotherhood landed next, followed by Noah's shuttle, bearing himself plus the technological artifacts that he was burying for safekeeping, and then the convoy of five heavier shuttles, all also outfitted with external Mirage Colloid units for this mission, bearing the Harbinger teams and automated construction equipment, plus some of the essential materials they would need to get started, before the whole construction process was turned over to his computer controlled minions. All they needed to do was map out what they wanted done, and secure the area, and then, over the course of the next few weeks and months and years, the automated construction systems would build the base to his specifications without any need for outside human labor at all, using Red EDEN and a modified form of the nano-repair system on the Brotherhood. Though converting the mineral matter of the mountains would account for the majority of the construction materials, Noah had brought along a goodly quantity of pre-processed exotic materials, which would speed along the construction of such essential elements as the Fusion Pulse Reactors and the advanced central computer controller.

Noah was the first one on the ground, as the dust and unsettled debris from his shuttle's VTOL thrusters was still flying about in the air, though a telekinetic exercise kept the air immediately around him free of dust particles, the exercise brought a pleased smile to his face... he was getting stronger, if in small increments! Phlegethion prowled down the boarding stairs behind him, her black snout tasting the air suspiciously, glowing red eyes darting around, looking for threats, or even signs of life. She hissed and grumbled, cocking her head to the side in slight confusion as her scans came back almost totally negative on animal spoor or pheremones, her hackles and wings rising at this oddity. Oddities usually meant threats, even if she couldn't detect anything more threatening than a mildly poisonous plant within the nearest kilometer. Noah noted the distress of his appointed guardian, his thoughts fleetingly returning to the Great Endeavor, where Aether, Phlegethion's white scaled sister, watched over Meyrin with resigned dedication. A brief caress of Meyrin's thoughts through their link generated a sleepy rush of contentment, and Noah withdrew his touch before he could full awaken her from her nap.

Closing his eyes and limiting the input of his other pyshical senses, Noah reached out with his mental gifts and cast wide his detection nets, permeating the valley with his invisible gaze, and even reaching up onto the peaks and slightly beyond. He saw a herd of doughty mountain goats on the eastern peak's upper slopes, and felt tribes of marmots and other ground dwelling rodents, again all on the higher ground, several thousand feet removed from the valley floor. There were a few flocks of birds, predatory, scavenging or otherwise, but they were few and far between as well, and Noah frowned at the desolate nature of this valley, which was lush and green and inviting. He wasn't expecting some lost world, but there should have been a thriving population of quadruped herbivores at the very least, and a few predators, and plenty of scavengers in the form of birds and rodents... but he couldn't sense ANY of that! A furtive rat, here and there, a truly frightened monkey daring the lower boughs of the canopy in starvation driven haste, solitary, wary birds alighting on the treetops, wings tense, ready to lift into the air at the slightest disturbance in the undergrowth... the animals here were scared, conditioned to flee and hide at the slightest hint of threat, as if they were in the process of being hunted to extinction... but where were the hunters!?

Noah frowned, as an odd sensation, a brief stabbing pain, like stubbing his toe or jamming his finger, emanated from partway up one of the slopes of the mountains, the one that had formerly concealed the majority of the factories of the old JIHAD facility, the nerve center of Blue Cosmos in the days before its destruction by the Archangel during the Second Valentine War. He tried to focus his attention upon the disturbance, but whatever had startled him, he had startled in equal turn, and when he focused, quick as he was, he still caught nothing but a fading echo of the same feeling, like footsteps fading down a distant hallway. Noah's frown grew, and he automatically turned to face in the direction of the disturbance so that when he opened his eyes and other senses once more, he scoured the area for any sign of what his mind had detected, but he could see nothing besides slightly charred and melted rubble and scorched dirt.

"Great Prophet?" A voice asked from nearby, the Harbinger maintaining a respectful distance from his Prophet during his meditations with Angelic powers, knowing well that disturbing him when he was communing could be very unpleasant for anything but the bearing of the most dire or joyful of news. The Prophet turned his Angelic gaze upon the Harbinger, who quivered with joy at the mere gaze of his lord and master, who stood bare to the elements except for standard leisure clothing, his downy hair fluttering in the wind. The Harbinger on the other hand, wore full body armor and enclosed helmet, his armored clothing fully sealed against the outside environment. A part of him longed to enjoy the pleasures of the day like the Great Prophet was, but the greater part knew that his duty was not to enjoy pleasant summer days, but was to stand as a sword and a shield of the Prophet's will, and that required him to be armed and armored as he was, pretty much at all times outside the Great Endeavor. "We have completed landing procedures, and are in the process of establishing a base camp and a perimeter."

"Good work." Noah said, tearing his gaze away from the mountainside, closing off his mind almost completely, the annoying buzz of his Harbingers thoughts reminding him how inconvenient fully opening his mental senses could be when there were other thinking beings about, not just animals. Still, it wasn't like he could manage the preliminary setup of the base by himself, not in any sort of reasonable time anyway, and if there was any sort of threat, having a few dozen heavily armed and armored and ultimately disposable soldiers around to put between him and danger would not be a bad thing. Noah touched a few buttons on the watch controller on his wrist, prompting Merlin, his multimedia and stored knowledge assistant, to come floating out of the security of his shuttle and hover over his shoulder as he headed to the cover of a nearby grove of trees, where the Harbingers and a few automated construction lifters were setting up camouflage shelters, half dug into the ground. He had brought extra Mirage Haze canisters for "cloud cover" but it was better to guard against any technological accidents, and besides, Mirage Colloid wasn't foolproof these days.

While the greater majority of the Harbingers worked to unload the heavy shuttles of their materials, and establish their temporary base quarters, Noah met with a select group of the more senior Harbingers, denoted by traceries of silver and gold on their helmets and torso armor, and began planning his survey routes, with the aid of Merlin, who projected a holographic diorama of how JIHAD had looked before the Archangel had blasted it to ruin. Noah had to admit, the Archangel had done a very good job of devastating the Blue Cosmos headquarters, in a rare display of all out warfare, considering the Archangel had never used its full complement of weapons in any of its terrestrial battles during the First Valentine War. The Lohengrin Positron cannons had all but eviscerated the upper levels of both the southern Factory mountain and the northern Facility mountain, while the eastern Storage mountain was slumped and bowed inwards like a drunkard that has been kicked in the gut by a horse. Molten rock had been splattered for over a kilometer by the ravening force of the weapons fire, and thousands of tons of rubble and rock had been dislodged from the peaks, almost fully burying the various entrances into the depths of the facility.

For all that, Noah remained confident that the deeper levels of JIHAD, the interconnecting tunnels that linked the sublevels of the three mountains, as well as the deepest reaches of each mountain, would still be intact, or at least intact enough to serve his ends. JIHAD had been designed to shrug off direct nuclear strikes after all, even a warship as powerful as the Archangel would be hard pressed to totally destroy it using only conventional weapons. Render it nigh uninhabitable and useless for the purposes of Blue Cosmos, certainly, but utterly destroy? Not possible. After discussing things with the senior Harbingers, Noah returned to his shuttle to contact the Great Endeavor, recording a message for Meyrin telling her that he'd arrived, and that he loved her, and he would be back before the end of the week, come hell or high water. He implored her to be careful, especially around Ashino and the other Apostles, even Shinn, whom he could not keep under his thumb when he was this far away. He told her he missed her and that he loved her again, and then signed off. He then changed his clothing, into a more rugged outfit suitable for exploring a mostly collapsed underground base, and ensured his personal protective devices, ranging from the extendable monomolecular sword to the plasma ejector pistol to the Phase Shift functionality of his clothing were all working properly.

Exiting the shuttle, trailed closely by Phlegethion, Noah collected Merlin and a bodyguard of three Harbingers, armed with a Beam Rifle and two Linear Rifles, plus assorted explosives and knives and other tools, including exploration necessities like polymer cord and prybars and survey gear and lights. Exploratory party assembled, Noah plotted his expected route on a map that had been drawn up, and told the Harbingers in the camp to expect him back in a few hours, and then set off to visit a place of... familial significance. The grave of his Uncle Franklin, or at least as close a thing to a grave as Uncle Franklin had ever had, given that he'd been killed in his own lab by his own greatest creation, a fate Noah definitely intended never to occur to himself. As he led his followers in the hike up the mountainside, with only Phlegethion ahead of him, her own Colloid cloaking engaged as she scouted for any threats to the front, while the Harbingers nominally watched the sides and back, Noah was glad to see that despite the steepness of the slope and the irregular path they were forced to take, his muscles did not burn and his breath did not come short, even though he was carrying nearly forty pounds of gear, despite the scandalized looks of the already burdened Harbingers. Never again would he feel inadequate in a physical sense, not after that embarassing trek from the mudhole in Africa with Meyrin in his arms!

* * *

Gaining entrance to the Facility Mountain, Peak One as it had once been unimaginetively called by the Blue Cosmos residents, wasn't as easy as he'd been expecting, and Noah's group was forced to journey up past even the Mirage Haze cloud cover before they found a nook that extended into the interior of the mountain-fortress-research facility, probably the remains of an observation post or other utility outlet, judging by its rough construction and limited access. All the other entrances they'd come across had been blocked or buried by hundreds of tons of rock, some of which had been the size of a tank, and would require heavy construction machinery, even Mobile Suits, in order to shift. Of course, Noah didn't really intend to shift them... where was the need, when proper application of Nanotechnology could not only remove the boulders, but generate building materials at the same time? Indeed, he was even going to have to set some rubble aside, to recover the entrances he did clear, so that there was no easy outward sign of the Brotherhood taking up residence in the JIHAD facility.

The access corridor they had discovered wound its way back and forth through the solid rock of the mountainside, following a previous natural fault which had allowed for ease of construction, if not efficiency of travel, with Phlegethion leading, followed by a Harbinger with a Linear Rifle, then Noah, then the other Linear Rifle, and finally the Beam Rifle bringing up the rear, his weapon carefully slung for the most part, as an accidental discharge from it could easily prove fatal to one or more of them, despite their Phase Shifted armor or clothing. All the same, Noah was glad he'd decided to bring along one Harbinger so armed, despite the dangers and difficulties, when the group encountered a locked and sealed hatchway at the end of the corridor that blocked their way into the true interior of the mountain. The entire system was depowered, and thus proof against technological hacking via Merlin or Phlegethion or Noah himself, and the hatch itself was armored against physical projectiles, but all of that mattered hardly at all when a triplet of bright green plasma blasts from the Beam Rifle had the hatch glowing and sagging, and then a fourth blast sent the entire hatch slumping to the ground, warped and twisted and stinking of burning metal, though that only bothered Noah, as he was the only one not in a sealed environment suit.

It was pitch dark inside the facility, the only illumination being the directional lamps on the Harbingers helmets and the flashlights held by Noah and projected by Merlin. The Harbingers helmets actually included infared heat vision capability, but a quick experimental toggle revealed the facility interior was still and cold and dead, thus rendering IR vision basically useless, so they stayed on light amplification mode. Phlegethion didn't need to see at all, her sensor package included such things as lorenzi sensors and a vibrational form of sonar, that allowed her to detect the feel of moving objects in the ground, and the electric fields given off by all living beings, as well as a sense of smell far keener than any bloodhound, and so the glow of her red eyes dimmed and died as she switched to nonvisual sensors. The black dragon, already well camouflaged by her natural coloration, shimmered and dissolved from view as she activated her cloaking system prior to prowling forward, metal claws eeriely silent on the dusty metal floor.

The devastation of the interior was near total, whole rooms collapsed and choked with debris and rubble, completely impassable without weeks of digging, and maybe not even then. Entire sections of the mountain had run molten and sloughed into the cavities that the rooms and halls of the facility represented, filling them entirely and then cooling, plugging the spaces with solid stone mixed with disfigured bits of metal and the charred ashes of the unfortunate occupants. Or not so unfortunate... given the nature of the organization that operated JIHAD, and the specific work done here, Noah doubted much of anyone missed or lamented the fallen here. Although, he forced himself to remember, the same thing could be said of himself and the Brotherhood, untruthfully of course, since there were many who would miss and mourn him should he pass. So too the people of JIHAD, who must have had families who cared for them, parents, children, relatives... no human had no past, whatever their sins in life, and only the most truly lost died alone, in both actuality and spirit.

It was also obvious, to his discerning senses, that some of the less destroyed rooms had been disturbed, and recently too... within the past few weeks, if not the past few days, and in ways that suggested frequent use or passage of an unknown number of entities. Wild animals perhaps, come inside to escape the ravages of weather or predation... but then again, there had been no wild animals outside, and most animals tended to avoid the works of man, even derelict ones, if given a choice, especially unstable ones steeped in the scent of violence and death. The evidence wasn't glaring, little more than trails in the dust, scuffmarks and evidence of rocks moved or stacked or shoved aside, but it was telling. Intelligent life had been at work, clearing paths through half destroyed rooms, widening passageways and picking through the detrius in search of food or other resources. The question was, who?

Well, actually Noah had a few strong suspicions, but he was keeping those close to the vest for the moment. He knew very well what Uncle Frank's near and dear project had been, the production of BCPU's, super-soldiers created in the image of Blue Cosmos, Anti-Coordinators that fit Uncle Frank's oddly twisted view of the world. Though he'd been a late generation Coordinator himself, of a proud and wealthy lineage no less, Uncle Frank had possessed little but loathing for Coordinators and the genetic science that had brought them about, and unlike most reasonable people who hated themselves, didn't kill himself off, but instead devoted his entire life to destroying his entire race. Uncle Frank applied his brilliant mind to creating living weapons out of young Naturals that were physically augmented with drugs and gross mechanical additions, mentally programmed for loyalty to Blue Cosmos and to hate Coordinators unconditionally, and trained to a level equalling or surpassing the toughest military instruction regimes. Each BCPU represented millions of dollars worth of time and money invested, all in a tool of destruction that was ultimately considered disposable. Noah shook his head, appalled at the wastefulness of it all.

Most of the BCPU's had either escaped or been killed during the fall of JIHAD and the destruction of the underground living and training facilities, and any late stage BCPU's, the ones that had already been exposed to the artificial combat stimulant and performance enhancing drug Gamma Gliphetim, had doubtless succumbed to the withdrawal symptoms years ago. While not fatal in and of itself, the side effects of GG additiction were incredibly painful and debilitating, to the point that while suffering from withdrawal a person, even a BCPU, was crippled with agony and barely able to even sit upright, much less walk or take care of themselves. If they hadn't starved to death, then they'd most likely been set upon by their less handicapped fellows and killed... either out of revenge, or mindless hatred... or perhaps most disturbingly, hunger. Noah did not know the exact number of BCPU canidates at JIHAD, but Uncle Frank had boasted, in some of their infrequent but mutually enjoyable conversations, that his program had several hundred recruits, spread out across the various levels of production, with the largest majority just beginning, many barely even augmented, and progressively fewer as the level of power and sophistication advanced. Many recruits did not survive the upgrade surgeries, and so Uncle Frank was always getting more, trawling through the orphanages and backstreet alleys of the world for children who would not be missed.

In any case, it was almost certain, especially given the evidence he'd just seen, that there were survivors of the BCPU program still residing somewhere in the area, whether within the facility itself or somewhere out in the surrounding wilds. Noah doubted that any of the guards or scientists had survived this long, even if they had survived the initial devastation of the base, they would have been the weaker links in the social hierarchy to come after, their merely human physiology markedly inferior to their augmented former slaves. Noah idly wondered how long it had taken, how many hungry nights it had been, before the first hand was raised against the BCPU's masters, and it was discovered that regular Naturals were almost utterly helpless against a determined attack by BCPU's, especially in numbers, despite the fact that the BCPU's were almost uniformly young children, not even into puberty in many cases. Maybe that was something better off unknown, he reflected with a shiver, his vivid imagination all too easily able to call up images of slaughter and mayhem from that time, however long ago it was. What goes around comes around... and sometimes it comes around a lot harder.

In some ways, he was actually impressed that any of them had survived this long, given the state of the base and their own physical condition, considering that BCPU's were not designed to live independently of their masters and creators, mentally or physically, and that only the most willful... or most insane... of their number could throw off the programmed shackles on their minds and spirits and muster independent thought and the will to survive for long periods of time without direction from their superiors. He wondered what their society was like, what Lord of the Flies-esque social hierarchy had established itself in the absence of any Natural adults or indeed anyone above the age of twelve! Noah shivered again, and thought of how deadly quiet the valley outside was... whatever their social hierarchy, their hunting and killing skills seemed to speak for themselves. He resolved to double the watches on the perimeter during the nights... unlike regular predators, he doubted the BCPU remnants would have the sense to avoid attacking a group of strangers in their territory, and he didn't want any disruptions in his construction timetable.

Noah could sense that his Harbingers were getting more and more tense and disturbed the deeper they forged into the depths of the facility, the darkness seeming to grow darker and the weight of the mountain overhead all the more oppresive with each subsequent step. It was getting markedly cooler with every level they descended, sometimes by rubble choked stair or lightless ramp, once even by rappeling down the remains of an elevator shaft, a yawning pit that dropped away beneath them for farther than a dropped light stick would illuminate. Noah thought about sending Merlin to investigate the shaft, but decided against it at the last. For one, Merlin's A-grav module, while powerful enough to lift him a dozen meters or more in the air and hover there comfortably, was not up to the task of ascending who knew how many scores or even hundreds of meters the shaft descended, and so retrieving him would be a major pain in the ass. And also, more pressingly, Noah was beginning to detect several painful blotches at the edges of his mental vision, shifting feelings like stubbed toes or jammed fingers, brief blurts of pain coming and going as the decidedly unbalanced minds danced at the edges of his perceptions. It would be just his luck to have Merlin get swatted with a club or hit with a stone or something, and that wouldn't do at all!

It wasn't long before he could hear them moving around his party as they entered the very lowest levels of the facility, passing by the remnants of the prison and processing cells, where those who were being punished, or just arrived from the outside world, were held while their fate with the program was determined. Noah closed off his mental senses even more than usual as they passed by the entrance to those dank corridors, shocked and unnerved that he was able to discern the accumulated misery and pain of hundreds, maybe even thousands of young, impressionable minds as they suffered in the cells. This place was, as few places truly were, very much evil and wrong, and it was detectable to those with the senses to see it, like a filthy, corrosive stain that permeated the entire world. Other places like this in the world were responsible for many of the myths and legends of haunted locales or homes possessed by ghosts, there was just an air of malignancy and dismay about them that was unnerving to feeling beings on an instinctual level, like the subliminal cries of a baby in pain.

Noah was actually surprised that they'd gotten as far as they had without being attacked, plainly he'd misjudged the BCPU's fear of strangers. Or maybe it was just that they thought to lure his party so deep that there would be no hope of retreat? In either case, he was less than worried. Though his party was quite significantly outnumbered, by more than ten to one, the armor of the Harbingers would render them proof against any sort of crude clubs or improvised weapons the BCPU's possessed, and their weapons were more than powerful to put even the augmented BCPU's down with a single shot, unlike the small arms of the guards and scientists. For that matter, Noah could probably account for many of them by himself, though it hurt to touch their prickly minds, like clusters of broken glass, he could also feel that, like Frost, they were almost totally open and vulnerable to his mental powers, lacking even the standard barriers of a regular human mind, insignificant as such things were to a Newtype of his ability. Years of dealing with Cray had helped him build up a tolerance for delving into the minds of the insane and the bloodthirsty, and compared to Cray these degenerate survivors were quite happy and well adjusted!

The Brotherhood party descended one more level, even the Harbingers able to hear the pack slowly circling in on them, barely a room or two away, sometimes seperated only by a single wall, their supposed hunters bold and confident in the midst of their lair, so much so that they made no real attempt at stealth. "Great Prophet..." The Harbinger with the beam rifle said nervously, head darting from side to side somewhat jerkily, the stubby barrel of his weapon following his gaze, knuckles creaking audibly on the grips. "I don't think we're alone down here."

"We aren't." Noah confirmed, calm and self assured. "They're all around us. They've been closing in for the past ten minutes or so. We're quite surrounded."

"What should we do?" The Harbinger did not sound nearly as collected as Noah, indeed he sounded like he was hanging onto his courage by the slimmest of margins, mostly because he didn't want to shame himself in front of the Great Prophet.

"Stay alert." Noah shrugged. "They'll make a try for us sooner or later, and we'll kill them until they've had enough, and they should leave us alone afterwards. They've got their whole predator-prey dynamic mixed up, as they will learn to their chagrin shortly."

"The strength of the Angel's is with us!" One of the other Harbingers said, perhaps a bit louder than strictly necessary, bolstering the courage of himself and his fellows. "With the Great Prophet leading us, we can walk safely into the very jaws of Hell itself, and not fear!"

"When they come, aim for the body... indirect hits, even from a beam rifle, won't be enough to stop them." Noah instructed, flicking his left wrist, the beam pistol sliding down the inside of his forearm and dropping into his palm from its holster in his sleeve. He reached behind him, to where the extendable mono-sword was attached to his belt, and took hold with his right hand. A snap of his right wrist and the segmented blade expanded from the hilt, reaching its full length of just under four feet and locking in place with a distinctive click in less than a second. He led his party into what had once been a surgical theatre of some sort, though which particular augmentation had been applied here was impossible to tell, all the display cases had long ago been vandalized and torn to pieces, and the surgical table itself crumpled and torn apart, though it was made of solid steel. Old stains, rusty colored and caked thickly, marred the otherwise surgically shiny surface of the twisted table, and large sections of the floor. One of the walls was cracked and cratered inwards slightly, in the rough shape of a large human torso, the crater was also stained heavily with old gore. Noah eyed the wall crater warily... what sort of monstrous strength it must have taken to throw someone hard enough into a reinforced wall to leave a dent like that! It seemed beyond belief, even for a BCPU.

Tearing his eyes away from the wall and the disturbing crater, Noah directed the Harbingers into a rough semicircle facing the door they had come in through. He'd chosen this room because it only had the one entrance that he could discern, though now that he was fully inside the room, he could see several large holes in the ceiling, and Noah kept a suspicious eye on them as he heard creaks and groans from somewhere overhead. Perhaps this room wasn't quite as sound a tactical choice as he'd thought. But still, it was better than being trapped in a narrow hall, with the enemy able to come at them from two directions at once. At least here there were choke points, and the ability to spread out to bring all their firepower to bear with less fear of hitting each other. The Harbingers assumed their positions, weapons held at the ready, and silence descended upon the room, broken only by the faint sounds of Noah's breathing.

More than a minute had passed before even Noah's keen ears were able to pick up the sounds of movement, as the gathered hunters, at last deciding to get serious, began the final phase of their stalk, creeping up in almost absolute silence from multiple directions, trying to get as close as possible to their prey before springing forward in an all out charge that would carry the day through sheer numbers and brute ferocity, no matter the armaments of their food. Wiry hands tightened on the hafts of crude stone and wood clubs and tomahawks, while others clutched jagged stumps of metal rebar and piping, wrapped with torn scraps of cloth or even leaves for a better grip. A few even held rusty and nicked old combat knives, trophies from the corpses of guards from long ago, the blades growing dull but still sharper than anything else in the tribe's arsenal. They gathered in the hall, just outside the doorway, illuminated dimly by the light leaking out from the prey inside, their skin pale, their eyes wide and unblinking, pupils dilated by half functioning adrenal implants and natural excitement. They were uniformly lean and most were hunched over, more used to shambling through the tight passageways under the ground than walking beneath the sky. Their teeth shone, wet with saliva, broken and sharp and rudely filed to points in many cases, for a better grip when tearing meat from the bone of struggling prey.

While the majority of the tribe waited out in the hallway, a pack of the bravest... and most hunger deranged... hunters crawled into the spaces between the ceiling of this level and the floor of the one above, and began crawling through the ducts and overheads, navigating without the need to see by long familiarity. In truth, the tribe as a whole spent so much more time underground in near pitch darkness that many of them were starting to lose function in their eyes anyway, losing the ability to discern color or even shape, everything appearing as a fuzzy blur. It was less a handicap than the beginnings of an adaptation or evolution, their other senses, especially their hearing and smell and touch, more than keen enough to make up for the difference so much that they didn't even notice the loss of sight. About three quarters of her way to one of the holes that had been long ago bashed in the roof of the room the prey had trapped themselves in, one of the tribe's senior hunters and oldest members paused, her eyes darting from side to side warily, even though they were largely useless, the muscle movements reflexive and instinctive as she trained all her formidable senses on whatever it was that was disturbing her. Behind her, the other members of the flush team also halted, something just beyond the edges of their ability to discern giving them pause.

Quite suddenly, the lead hunter let out a blood curdling shriek of agony, rapidly stifled, as her throat exploded outward in a fountain of gore, the edges ragged and chewed looking, though in the darkness of the crawl space, no one could see that. All the other hunters could discern was the death shriek, and the sound and smell of spraying arterial blood, which cause many of them to instinctively lick their lips, their stomachs growling. Cannabalism was a fact of life among the tribe... if there was not enough food to go around, the strong turned on the weak, just like they had always done. The most hunger deranged hunters clawed their way forward, drooling and moaning with need to sate the burning pain in their bellies, tugging at the flopping legs of their dying kin in voracious need, before they too were done in by a foe they never detected coming, one losing his entire face and the front half of his skull to a ravaging snap of metallic jaws, while his partner was slashed apart by a whirling invisible ball of fury that clung to his body and spilled his guts and organs all over the crawlspace before he even felt the first snag of pain.

By then the other members of the flush team had finally figured out, impossible as it seemed, that they, the ambushers, had in fact been ambushed, and that there was something brutal and fierce and wholly deadly loose in the crawlspace with them! Something small and fast and all but invisible, even to them, that possessed no fear and was equipped with a plethora of blades and the strength to put them to deadly use. Though long used to living and even fighting in tight spaces very much like this crawlspace, the BCPU's were still at a distinct disadvantage when compared to Phlegethion, unable to get much strength at all into their blows as they stabbed and prodded with jagged edged pipe-spears and made clumsy sweeps with rusted knives, more often than not missing altogether, though even when they did strike home, the dragon's Transphase Shift armor easily negated the blows. The BCPU's lacked such defensive invincibility, their flesh, though tougher than a normal person's, still parted like silk beneath her mono-molecularly sharp claws and fangs, their bodies convulsing frantically as the poisons smeared on the claws destroyed their nervous systems even when the wound itself was not fatal.

Hearing the commotion in the crawlspace, and faintly detecting the smell of fresh blood and dying meat, the crowd of BCPU's out in the hallway concluding that the flush team must have sprung the trap and were busy keeping their prey distracted, and so they pushed for the doorway as a single mass, howling and shrieking and slobbering fit to give a maniac nightmares, seeking to unnerve and confuse their prey even more than they already were, until they would freeze in place, utterly helpless to do anything but wait for the braining blow of club or axe an the inevitable feeding frenzy to follow. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out like that, because though the Harbingers and even Noah himself were quite distressed by the unholy racket the BCPU's were making, much less their shockingly sudden appearance in the doorway, albino pale bodies pressing through in a writhing, slobbering wave, they were still well in possesion of their wits, and they opened fire without hesitation, mowing down the first six BCPU's to dare the doorway in a hail of bright green plasma fire and streaking explosive linear bolts, which blew entire torsos apart, sending shrapnel of metal and bone flying wildly around the room, clattering off the walls and floor.

Unwilling and unable to stop, due to the weight of their fellows behind them, more of the desperate survivors of JIHAD's legacy poured into the room over the corpses of their brethren, some reaching down to grasp at gobbets of cooked or raw meat even as they stumbled and fell themselves, gaping holes charred through them by the beam rifles, or flying apart in messy splurts and splatters of gore as the linear bolts blew them apart. Despite the weight of fire, and the horendous damage potential of the Brotherhood's weapons, the raw energy and fierce eagerness of the BCPU's, along with their own greater than human capabilities and the near psychotic hunger-rage, allowed the BCPU's to not only keep coming, but to actually start spreading out into the room, leaping at their prey with blood freezing howls of delight, crude weapons raised or swinging back wide.

The Harbinger on Noah's left blasted a linear bolt almost entirely through the stomach of one BCPU, a girl who looked about twelve or thirteen, though extremely lean and wiry and foaming at the mouth crazy. The stabilizing fins caught in her spine and the bolt halted, the kinetic force of impact lifting her up and shoving her back a full meter, though she stayed on her feet and even raised her rusty knife menacingly as she started to come after him again, before the bolt detonate and ripped her spine and most of her back into a horror of splintered bone and blood, and she collapsed forward, her entire back a gory crater from neck to hips. Undeterred by this grisly fate, another BCPU angled in from the side and swung his length of rebar into the Harbingers wrist, with enough force to shatter his wrist even though the weapon could not penetrate the Phase Shifted exterior of the armor. The linear rifle clattered to the floor, followed shortly after by the Harbinger himself, the breath wheezing from his lungs as the rebar came around and jammed into his stomach with organ splitting force.

Unable to bite or claw the Harbinger open, the BCPU fell upon him in a frenzy of smashing blows with his rebar, the weapon unable to penetrate the armor, but the pure kinetic force of the clubbing impacts was sufficient to break bones, rupture flesh and damage orgams, and the Harbinger screamed in breathless agony as one particularly lucky or well aimed blow shattered his sternum and many of his ribs, sending jagged splinters of bone careening into his lungs, stomach, liver and heart. He died almost instantly, of massive internal bleeding and trauma, though much to the frustration of the BCPU, there was no hot blood or succulent meat to be had, just the unyielding cold surface of the armor. He crouched over the corpse of the Harbinger for a moment too long, and a snap shot from Noah's beam pistol immolated the BCPU's head, incinerating the flesh from the skull and setting the bone itself alight, the brain frying like it had been dipped in boiling oil before the entire skull exploded from the heat, raining smoking shards of bone in a three meter radius.

The Harbinger to Noah's far right had mounted his mono-knife on the end of his linear rifle like a bayonet, and he adroitly stabbed it into the throat of the first BCPU to charge within range, impaling the struggling near-child and lifting him up off the ground even as arterial gore sprayed all over the Harbinger's torso and arm armor. A single bolt slammed the fresh corpse off the end of the rifle, carrying it almost to the doorway before it exploded and detonated the skull and most of the upper torso of the unfortunate BCPU. The Harbinger blocked the swing of a wood and stone club with the bulk of his rifle, though he staggered from the force of the blow, even though he outweighed his opponent by more than double, and had a good foot and a half of height on him! He struck back with the butt of the rifle, smearing the child's nose across his face, but that barely deterred his assailant at all, and the Harbinger was forced to backpedal furiously in order to bring the other end of the rifle around and slash his foe across the chest with the bayonet blade, the impossibly fine edge carving through the upper arm bones and into the ribcage of the BCPU, severing his arm and hacking deep into his body cavity.

Direly wounded, the BCPU still struck back, smashing his homemade mace into the Harbinger's armored mask with all his remaining strength, twisting the head inside the helmet back and around painfully, splitting lips and ringing his skull soundly, dazing him. The BCPU collapsed off the end of the rifle, dragging it down even as he expired, and that, conspiring with the blow to the head, left the Harbinger open long enough for another BCPU to pounce upon him, taking his head squarely in both of her hands, and twisting violently backwards and to the side, seperating his skull from his spine with a very audible SNAP! The remaining Harbinger was desperately falling back, beam rifle blazing, the BCPU's scattering before its all consuming power as the bright green beams clipped off limbs or blasted smoking holes entirely through torsos or decapitated the truly unfortunate.

Noah on the other hand moved forward, knowing that if they let themselves get forced against a wall with no room to maneuver it was all over for them, the BCPU's still outnumbered them by far more than ten to one, they would win through sheer ferocity and numbers, though the toll would be great, unless Noah could find some way of either spooking them or limiting their ability to come at him. He fired twice more with his beam pistol, frowning as the handle started to thrum in his grasp, signalling that it was beginning to run low on power. There was no way he could spare the time to reload, not in this situation. Taking his eyes and his concentration of his foes for even a moment would be a death sentence, and he refused, absolutely refused, to be done in by the abandoned test subects of his crazy Uncle! Meyrin would never forgive him if he got bludgeoned to death and eaten by a bunch of psychotic children, for that matter! Noah took aim and fired once more with the pistol, his shot going a bit wide as his intended target ducked to the side, but it still struck the arm of the BCPU, cooking away the flesh and boiling the marrow inside the bone, shattering the limb like it was made of overheated glass.

Noah stabbed his mono-sword into the screaming face of the injured BCPU in the next instant, the cruelly keen edge of the blade sliding in and out of flesh, bone and organ without any resistance at all. His pistol only spluttered when next he tried to fire it, and in disgust he instead threw it into the face of his next assailant, who brandished a length of metal, though whether pipe or rebar or pole Noah could not discern, only that it looked heavy and dangerously solid. The BCPU flinched, ever so slightly, at the impact to his face, and Noah's sword swept across in the next moment, sliding clean through the frantically upraised metal rod with a whisper of noise and a few sparks, before continuing on uninterrupted to pare the BCPU's surprised head from his shoulders like a gardener clipping the bud off a rose. Two more came at him at once, pushing past the toppling body of their former fellow, splashed by the gouting blood jetting from his neck stump, licking it off their lips as their eyes blazed at him ferally. The last Harbinger had his back to the wall in a corner, his power pack expended, using the beam rifle like a club as a pack of six BCPU's worked to bring him down like hounds worrying at a bear, darting in and out, wearing him down, before finally leaping on him en mass and bearing him to the floor in a dogpile of thrashing limbs and stabbing implements.

Noah caught the swing of the crude club of one of his assailants with his now free left hand, the force of the blow stinging his palm and making his arm ache and shiver, but, much to the BCPU's surprise, Noah's arm did not buckle or break. Noah smirked at the poor, misguided unfortunate, and brought the mono-sword down in a diagonal slash, opening the feral child from shoulder to hip, spilling almost his entire intestinal system to the floor in a single purple-brown-red mass of steaming organs. However, even as he dispatched that one, the other one leapt upon him, using momentum to make up for lack of weight, abandoning her own club in order to throw her sinewy arms around him in a violent parody of a hug, her filed teeth trying in vain to bite down on his chest and shoulder, ragged toothtips sliding off his reinfroced clothing fibers without penetrating, though he could definitely feel it! His arms were trapped at awkward angles, his sword down by his legs, unable to move with her arms around him, her maniac strength equal to the task of holding him confined, at least for the moment. She was little enough threat... her teeth could not touch him, and if she moved her arms to hit him, his sword would slice her apart in an instant... but all she had to do was hold him long enough for her friends to jump on him too, and then it would be all over. Already, a pack of three were scrambling over, eager to begin the feasting.

His brilliant white Seed, pure as the driven snow except where it was veined with angelic gold, dropped through the infinite vastness of his mind before exploding with a soundless roar that nonetheless made every living, thinking being in a full on kilometer radius jerk and flinch in shock. Noah's eyes faded in color until they adopted the metallic sheen of the Seed rage, and the BCPU's seemed to slow down as if encased in resin or molasses. Noah turned his head down calmly, and met the gaze of the girl-child-BCPU trying to chew through his shoulder. Despite all the trauma's heaped upon her mind and body, the privations of hunger and the ravages of daily life as a scavanger and feral beast, there was more than enough little girl left in her to be terrified by what she saw in the metallic purple-gold eyes across from hers, and her entire body spasmed in panic as she desperately thrust herself away from the frightening monster she'd grabbed! It did her no good... even as she let him go, her heart and lungs went into a frenzy, pumping faster and faster and faster until they could bear it no more, and then faster still, until her heart exploded and her lungs ripped themselves to tatters in her chest and she expired, aspirating hot blood... all of this happening before she could even stumble a full foot back from Noah!

Noah turned from the three approaching him, slashing his sword abruptly through the air, splashing a slash of gore onto the wall and floor nearby, cleaning the blade off as he idly flicked his free hand in the direction of his would be assailants, stilling their hearts and lungs in their chests, dropping them in a group, bucking and twisting, clawing at their chests and throats in unthinking panic, eyes bugging and mouths working frantically, but to no avail. Setting his sights on the mob beating and stamping on the limp and soggy body of his last Harbinger, Noah pursed his lips and reached out with the full force of his mental will, paralyzing the hearts and lungs of some, overstimulating the brains of others until they began to seizure and convulse, and forcing yet others still to turn their weapons on themselves, tearing out their tongues with their bare hands, braining each other with clubs, or even throttling themselves with their own bunched fists. He ambled over to the knot of dead and dying BCPU's, slashing his sword idly at those that showed any slight chance of recovery from his psychic attack, splashing their blood over the still body of the Harbinger until it pooled like a small lake.

The remaining members of the feral tribe edged warily away from the lone surviving prey, disturbed and distraught by the inexpicable malaise affecting their brethren. All he did was turn his gaze upon someone and they would die, thrashing and gurgling in various horrifying ways! They could fight pretty much anything, bear any kind of pain and losses against mortal foes... but against a foe who did not bleed, who killed with a touch of his weapon or even just by LOOKING at you, well, that was a fish of a different color! Already they had suffered devastating losses, more than a third of the entire tribe lay dead or rapidly dying, and the fierce light began to fade from their eyes. There was plenty of meat on the ground, plenty to go around for some time to come. There was no need to risk dying anymore, no need to risk injury or pain fighting someone that could not be killed, and who killed with a glance! When the blood soaked dragon crashed down through the hole in the ceiling and incinerated a group of four with a literal cone of fire that left them dancing like human torches for terrible seconds before falling in smoking, charred heaps, the group decided that enough was enough, and they fled, howling once more, but this time in fear!

Noah stayed on his feet until he was sure the BCPU's were well and truly gone... and then he collapsed to his knees, eyes regaining their normal luster even as they filled with tears of relief, the mono-sword making a crisp noise as it dropped from his limp, drained hand and bit deeply into the floor. Noah stared at his hands and arms and body, which were splattered with dark red blood and pinkish bits of meat, unrecognizable for whatever they had once been, flesh or organ! He'd thought he was ready, that he would be able to deal with death, up close and personal... and he had, at least while fighting for his life, with no concern beyond surviving the next instant, on getting out alive no matter the cost! But now... now, all the fear and emotion he hadn't realized he'd been bottling back came rushing up, and overwhelmed him, making his body shiver like he was suffering from hypothermia, his vision blurred with tears, the rank taste of bile sour in his mouth! His body heaved and Noah retched, dry heaving at first but eventually full out vomiting his breakfast and lunch onto the charnel house floor, falling to his hands and knees as all the adrenaline and other chemicals in his body cleansed themselves out. He was alive. He was ALIVE!

* * *

Construction was proceeding at an acceptable pace, at this rate they might even be able to wrap things up a little early, which Noah wouldn't mind in the slightest! Ever since his exploratory trek into the Facility Mountain several days ago, he had been less than comfortable, both inside the JIHAD facility and the dead valley around it. They'd seen neither hide nor hair of the BCPU remnants, but Noah knew they were still out there, watching, licking their wounds. If he extended his senses he could sometimes feel them, thorny bristles on the mental landscape, but he tried to do that as little as possible. The more he dwelt on it, the more he wanted to forget the horror of the close combat in that deep underground surgical theatre, the stench of blood and bowels, the feel of hot gore on his hands, the messy disarray of the freshly slain, lying open and grossly intimate, displaying parts of themselves that should never greet the eyes of another person. Still, terrible and horrifying as that experience had been for him, it had been more harrowing still for the BCPU's, and they seemed more than content to keep their distance from him and the Harbingers as they worked, even when they ventured into the deepest parts of the facility.

Part of that was no doubt due to full bellies and the lethargy coming from a sated appetite... by the time he'd recovered himself from the battle's aftermath, returned to the surface, mustered a strong force and come back to the surgical theatre, it had been entirely stripped of anything and everything edible by the BCPU's. There was not a single corpse left, nor scrap of flesh or organ, or splinter of bone, even most of the blood had been sopped up and taken away. The bodies of the Harbingers were likewise missing, taken perhaps on principle, though it would be a while before the BCPUs were able to worry open the armor to get at the flesh inside. The weapons of the Harbinger's had been taken as well, but that did not overly concern Noah... the ammunition was either exhausted or very limited, the weapons would see little better use than the clubs the BCPU's already had, and though the knives would never lose their edge, they were more useless than a club or bare fist against the Phase Shifted armor of the Brotherhood.

The Harbingers and Noah had mapped as much of the remaining interior of the JIHAD facility as they could, sealing off areas that were useless or exterraneous to Noah's needs by collapsing the mountain down atop them or filling them with rubble, and clearing other rooms that he deemed of useful location or purpose, using brute labor and the application of Red EDEN and other nanotech to rapidly clear and convert the rock into useful building materials. However, as far as they searched, they never found the actual lair and living quarters of the BCPU remnants. What they did find was a hole in the bottom of the crawlspace on Sub-Level 6, the very lowest level of JIHAD. That hole opened up into what looked like a very old natural cave system that extended for an unknown distance deeper into the roots of the mountain. Noah didn't bother exploring the caves very far, the passage was very narrow and confining, not to mention it looked quite well used, and he wanted to avoid any accidental encounters with the indiginents. For that matter, he found he really didn't WANT to know how deep the caves went, or how many BCPU's were in them, or where. That there was another way out of the cave system was apparent, because he often sensed BCPU's in the valley, but they never detected them leaving through the facility side.

So he had the tunnel collapsed, and then, to be extra sure, sealed over with metal plates, a veritable armored wall that entirley blocked off the hole in the bottom of Sub-Level 6. Not only would it keep the BCPU's out of his base, it would also prevent anyone else from using the caves as a sort of back door, while still leaving the possibility as an ultimate last resort escape route for him. Once the required number of rooms were cleared, it was simply a matter of setting up the fundamental systems, like the Fusion Pulse Reactor, the factory systems and the controlling computer, into which Noah copied all of the knowledge and programming from Merlin, plus adding a few new things as well. If all went well, he would never have to use this base, but that didn't mean he wanted it to just sit idle. That would be wasteful, and ultimately unhelpful. If he did have to retreat to this base, he wanted it to contain plenty of nasty surprises for anyone who might be pursuing him. For that matter, though he had vowed to Meyrin that he himself would not continue using many of the technologies he was sequestering within this base, this Holdout, as he was now calling it, it would be a criminal waste to just leave them as they were, unused. Maybe not the most creative or prepossing of names, but it suited the function of the base. A last resort.

In keeping with that, Noah had thought about how he would employ his ultimate last resort, his trump card, his ace in the hole. The means with which to unite humanity, assuming he himself was somehow unable to achieve that goal. The reincarnation of the greatest threat the modern world had ever known, the greatest child of his own Uncle Frank, one of the few people Noah could freely admit to be absolutely terrified of... Zacharis Quentin Frost, Biological Computer Processing Unit Level Six, designated #13Z. The ultimate frankenstein monster, the black sheep and pale rider of the BCPU race. Though just one man, Frost was a being possessed of the vision... the insane, diabolical vision... of destroying not just Coordinators or Naturals, but all of Humanity, and not just the vision but the willpower to carry out the vision! He set himself against the entire world, and gladly welcomed them to come stop him. He was, as far as Noah was concerned, chaos personified. He was also safely dead, for more than five years now, his body annihilated by the fury of an exploding star, consumed by the release of the Pulsar's FPR during the Battle of Denver at the end of the Second Valentine War.

His body was gone, nothing more than charred atoms scattered across the solar system. But the same, unfortunately, could not be said of his mind. Through means Noah himself had not entirely intentionally arranged, Frost had been connected to a Neural Interface Control system at the time of his death, which was in turn connected to Noah's own computer as he drew combat data from Frost's handling of the Pulsar, which he had later turned into the melee combat LAICEP of the Brotherhood Gundam. Through a process Noah still didn't fully understand, but he theorized as being similar to the way his Biological Intelligence Interface Chip system worked, the emotional and physical trauma of the moments leading up to Frost's physical death had resulted in an electronic copy of Frost's psyche being burned into the memory core of Noah's computer. He would have called it impossible, but he had already, by that point in time, converted a girl named Melanie, a victim of a permanent coma, into a control chip for his Haro spy in a somewhat similar manner, substituing psychic trauma for whatever happened to Frost.

He really probably should have destroyed the computer then and there. There was no love lost between him and Frost, none at all. Indeed, Frost seemed to regard him with a special degree of loathing, perhaps second only to his hatred of his polar opposites, or near as could be, Kira and Lacus. However, Noah had been too unsettled and frightened, not to mention intrigued by the strangeness of what had occured, and so he had kept the contained mind of Frost around for future study. And it wasn't like he could hurt anyone, he was just a bunch of saved data on a laptop, for crying out loud! Still, that hadn't prevented Noah from keeping said laptop in the most secure location he could devise, and frozen as close to the point of absolute zero as he could make! Frost was just the sort of person to inspire that level of dread in him, in anyone! Even just thinking his name was enough to make Noah shudder at times, and he had never actually encountered him in person!

However, just bringing Frost back from the dead wasn't enough. For one thing, he didn't have any samples of Frost's DNA, so he couldn't create a clone of his body. And while the thought of creating an artificial, robotic body, like Phlegethion or Aether, had occured to him, in the end he'd decided to go a different route. Part of it was a desire to get back at Kira and Lacus, for their pig headedness on the island outside of Orb. Another part was the desire to one up his Uncle, the one member of his family he'd ever even slightly liked and wanted to impress, even though Uncle Frank had regarded him as the worst sort of monster. Still another part was a desire to push the boundaries of science, to create something that had never been created before, do something never before done! Part of it was knowing just how capable Edenites were going to be... if he didn't go this route, Frost simply wouldn't pose enough of a threat to unite Humanity through fear once more. And the last part of it was the satisfaction of at last forcing Frost to be part of Noah's plans... even if it was just to let Frost's natural inclinations run wild!

Using the same sample of Kira's bone marrow that he'd used to design the failed special toxin he'd put in his dartgun, Noah reverse engineered Kira's complete genome. It actually wasn't that hard... it was ninety nine point nine nine four percent the same as Noah's own, after all. However, Noah did take the opportunity to substitue his own Active genes for Kira's Latent ones. Whatever the powers of Latents would turn out to be, Noah felt confident they would never really match up to those of an Active, and he wanted Frost to be the ultimate threat. With the modified genome of Kira now ready, he set about cloning the base body, which would happen over the course of several years, no need to rush and risk including a defect, after all. Given that the DNA in question was from not only an Ultimate Coordinator, but one who had already ascended through their second puberty, the resulting body would have physical characteristics exceeding all but those of a Neo-Human, and none of them would be far out of diapers by the time Kira-Frost woke up, and hardly in a position to threaten. Quite how the mental side of things would work out, Noah had no idea. Would Frost's Newtype abilities be the same as Noah's, because of Noah's gene? Or was it the mind and personality of a person that determined their powers, not their phsyical makeup? It was an interesting question, but he was almost afraid to learn the answer... because it would mean Frost had returned.

However, just returning Frost to life in Kira's body, or a clone of it anyway, simply wasn't enough. Kira was soon to be not particularly special, in a few decades anyway, at least in regard to his baseline abilities. To make Frost a lasting threat, more would have to be done. So Noah included programming to mechanically and nanologically augment the growing body, much like dear old Uncle Frank had mechanically and chemically modified and upgraded Frost's original body, just using much more powerful technology. The full list of augmentations was quite long, some of which he hadn't even fully finished developing yet, the true bleeding edge of his nano-tech resources, stuff even he counted only as prototypes and near unique. As Noah finished all the programming and set up for Frost, he smiled a grim smile, almost afraid that he'd made Frost too big a threat, assuming everything worked out and he didn't just expire during the process of having his mind reformatted to a biological brain. Somehow though, he doubted that would happen. Evil finds a way, as Frost himself had said once. And he would need to be enough of a threat to frighten an entire world of Edenites... was there too great a threat, in that case?

Frost's physical form accounted for, Noah then turned his attention to creating a suitable steed for his pale rider. After all, as threatening as Frost was in person, he was still limited in his ability to inflict harm to those weapons and means available to a human sized being. And while he didn't doubt Frost's ability to steal and pilot pretty much any sort of war machine he got his hands on, what was the point of creating the ultimate killer if you did not give him the ultimate tools to express himself with? Frost's first Gundam, the Fury, had been designed and built by Blue Cosmos with him specifically in mind, and in it he had fought the entire Clyne Faction to a standstill at times. He had then piloted the gigantic Judgement, upon which the Revenant had been based, to somewhat lesser success, and had then eventually wormed his way into the Pulsar, the most advanced Gundam of the Isolation era, incidentally Noah's own brainchild and the prototype for the Vengeance and Brotherhood. In the Pulsar Frost had been nigh unstoppable, a juggernaut of death and destruction that had bestrode the world and nearly managed to single handedly bring about the destruction of the entire Clyne Faction and hundreds more all at the same time, before being defeated by Kira using his Ascended Seed mode, in conjunction with aid from Lacus.

Truth be told, Noah didn't have that much more he could add to a Gundam, that he hadn't already put into his own Brotherhood. Still, that didn't mean he was berefit of ideas entirely, and he could think of several technologies to adapt and modify from his current Gundams, and then combine to add to Frost's Gundam, which would be of at least the same class as the Brotherhood in terms of pure power and base specs. If anything, Frost, should he ever awaken, would be surely able to get far more out of the machine than Noah would likely ever be able to get from the Brotherhood. Like Kira, Frost just had a knack for Mobile Suit combat, it came instinctively to him. Noah decided that he would call this ultimate Gundam the Kratos, after a fallen angel that became a lord of war and destruction in Hell. It seemed fitting. Inputting the basic design for that took up most of the remainder of his time.

Almost as an afterthought, Noah thought about what he was going to do with Cray's memory-engram. Once he'd known the phenomenon was possible after seeing it happen to frost, hed' purposefully recreated the effect with Cray when the Revenant was destroyed during the Battle of the Moon. He'd initially intended to use Cray's stored intelligence for another BIIC lifeform, like the Zam Clan or perhaps a third dragon, but in the end he'd opted against it. Cray was just too psychotic, too unbalanced... making him a guardian companion would have too great a chance of backfire, and now especially that Meyrin was around, he did not want to risk even the slightest of problems. Noah's musings returned to his initial temptation to put Frost's brain into a mechanical body. Maybe he WOULD put Cray into a BIIC lifeform after all. But not as a guardian for him and Meyrin, oh no, he had a much crueller fate in mind for the often annoying and willful Cray. Noah wasn't quite sure how Cray and Frost had gotten along in their previous lives, but he was willing to bet the relationship was quite... antagonistic... if Ashino and Cray's little spat was anything to go by. Cray would never be able to become the same kind of threat Frost was, he simply thought too small... but he would be a good lackey, a good distraction, if nothing else.

Setting up the systems to create Cray's mechanical body... bodies actually, since there was no reason he couldn't copy the stored intelligence into multiple forms, like he'd done with the Zam clan, though this time he would do it much slower, so there was less loss of personality in the process, took up all of his remaining allotted time and then some. It turned out that he wasn't going to get back to Meyrin early, but he just got so invloved in his work... even if a part of him was hoping this particular work never saw the light of day. After setting up the three main projects, and connecting the main computer so that it could not only work on its own to upgrade various technologies, but also draw constant downloads from the Great Endeavor's mainframe, so that his work there would transfer without him needing to constantly return to the Holdout, it was simply a matter of setting up the security systems and sealing off the remaining access points to the interior of the facility and disguising the outer parts of the mountain so it was nigh impossible to tell there were entrances at all left! As his shuttle flew away, Noah could not help but shiver, like the cold hand of death had touched the back of his neck. _Lord, if you do exist... forgive me for what I've done. He is Humanity's abyss... and he is staring back at us..._


	61. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 5

Author Note: Sorry I've been so long in getting this out, combination of a wavering muse and the Holiday season. But here it is, at last, another step on The Road. Not much action, but I think its a very solid chapter, exploring the feelings and situations of several of my most popular OC's. The direction they end up going in their situations may surprise some of you, but I wager it will also make sense. Also some good, if not entirely surprising, in some cases, forshadowing for events to come in RW, or in the setup for it anyway. So yeah, I guess its another "talking chapter", but I can say that it is going to be the last soley "talk" chapter for a goodly while to come... not until the end of the next Arc really, and even then its more of an eye of the storm sort of deal.

* * *

"Well, you're certainly dressed and loaded for bear. Where's the infantry war all of a sudden?" Stormhound Private First Class Melissa Raven joked, seeing her favorite Sergeant-Major walk out of the Orb National Palace security force armory draped with enough implements of destruction to overthrow a third world nation. She was still feeling out the whole "lovers at home, but don't bring it to work" idea, never quite sure when she was being more familiar than was militarily proper. So far she seemed to have avoided stepping on Thom's toes, or more importantly, overstepping the invisible bounds of the Lt's unsaid rules, but she found herself frequently biting back a compliment or even a question because she wasn't sure if it was too personal for work or not. It was pretty damned frustrating, and it only made it worse that Thom was handling the whole thing with a air of phlegmatic weariness, like it was nothing new to him, Then again, he was the senior enlisted Stormhound, and the second longest serving member, so he had leeway that was far above hers when it came to the Lt, so little wonder he was more comfortable than her.

Glory grunted noncommittally, shouldering almost a hundred pounds of weapons and other gear. The Lt had asked him to scour up armaments for a special mission, and not knowing the particulars of the mission yet, he'd just taken more or less one of everything. They could always send back the stuff the Lt didn't think they would need to use. Mel was cheerful today, but then again ever since they'd started their little flings at night her mood had seemed more friendly. Truth be told it made him uncomfortable... not the fact that she was obviously enjoying the two of them together, but the fact that HE was too, and it was starting to put all sorts of strange thoughts into his head. Thoughts about a life beyond the Stormhounds, and that was something that had never occured to him before. The Hellhounds, and then the Stormhounds... they WERE his life, they were what he did, where he fit in, how he knew who he was! All his life practically, ever since his early teens, he'd been fighting and training to be the best soldier possible, alongside his taciturn friend, and the thought of trying to do something else... was unsettling.

Raven wanted to make a comment about how a certain someone seemed to need at least a half gallon of coffee in the morning before he remembered how to speak human, but she felt that might be crossing the line, especially if Thom really was in a touchy mood. Not that she could think of any reason why he would be, considering how happy he'd been last night, but men were strange, fickle creatures... they never stayed happy. So instead she just fell in at his side and reached out an arm towards the heavy pile of gear he was hefting. Without a word, he shifted a few of the lighter pieces of gear, some twenty pounds worth, off to her. She frowned at him, knowing she was more than strong enough to carry twice that, even if they were going to be walking for miles, but a PFC just didn't argue with a Sergeant-Major over something as frivolous as weight distribution, especially in public, no matter their personal relationship. Thom was moody for some reason, best just stay quiet and available at an instants notice if he did decide he wanted something.

They walked in silence for about five minutes, their route taking them towards the Palace heliport, before Raven finally couldn't stand it anymore. "Do we have a deployment order, Sergeant-Major? A mission? Something against the Brotherhood? Or is it something secret?"

"It's got nothing to do with the Stormhounds." Glory said shortly. He looked down and aside at her, his brows furrowed, his eyes dark and somewhat troubled. "The Lt said this was Hellhound business."

"But the Stormhounds are the..." Raven trailed off, quailing slightly under the intensity of Thom's stare. "Aren't they?" She asked, in a small voice.

"The Stormhounds are the spirtual successors of the Hellhounds. But to call a Hellhound a Stormhound is... not fully accurate. It's complex, Mel." Glory replied softly. More complex than he was willing to say. Simply put, the Stormhounds unit was an Orb creation, and owed primary loyalty to Orb and its Government. As for the Hellhounds, the few remaining... the same was not fully be true. Sure, Orb was a swell place, and the government was pretty grand, as far as governments go, but it wasn't the number one priority, at least to the Hellhounds... that being the Lt, Glory, Ramierez and one or two others, holdovers from the Isolation era. Their primary loyalty, at least as long as the Lt led them, and no one could imagine anything else, was going to be to one particular person that had made a significant impression upon the Lt and the rest of them. No matter that the person in question had spent the last half decade in a coma, his body mostly paralyzed, the Hellhound's personal loyalty still lay with President Sai Argyle first and foremost. However, that wouldn't be a good thing to publicly disseminate, might cause some hard questions and hurt feelings, to say the least, not to mention friction within the unit itself.

"It must be." Raven said, startled by him, the one always warning her about being too familiar at work, suddenly using the familiar form of her name when they were both in uniform. "I guess that means I'm not invited then, huh?"

"Probably for the best. And you should probably forget I said anything about Hellhounds." Glory allowed. "I get the feeling the Lt wants to play this one real close to the vest for the time being, whatever it is. Nothing against you, Raven. He hasn't even told me what we're doing just yet."

"No offense taken, Sarge-major. I'm just a lowly PFC after all, far be it from me to protest the whys and wherefors of the leadership." Raven replied breezily, though to say her interest and curiosity hadn't been piqued would be a lie. Still, she knew better that to attempt to pump Thom for information, especially at work. He'd been in this business a good bit longer than her, and he knew all the tricks... he wouldn't appreciate her trying to wheedle extra information out of him. Maybe she might be able to coax something from him at home, as long as she was discreet and careful, but even then she would have to be careful not to go too far. Thom had told her, simply put, that there were things he knew that he was never going to tell her no matter how close they got, things that were not healthy for her to know. Such as information about the Lt's past, for one, despite how intrigued every Stormhound was about the past life of their mysterious leader.

They reached the heliport at last, and Glory collected the gear he'd let Raven carry, shooting her a significant glance that told her it might be a good idea to be elsewhere, quickly, before the Lt happened to see her. Not that he wasn't fairly sure the Lt didn't already know she was around, his boss and best friend sometimes seemed to have peternatural senses when it came to knowing when other people were nearby, and who they were. Still, there was a difference between knowing she was there and being forced to admit he knew she was there, and that was quite an important difference. As important as the difference between a peaceful day and a nasty punishment detail. Especially if this really was a Hellhounds only matter, bringing a Stormhound, even one as likable as Raven, into things would not make the Lt at all pleased. And when the Lt was not pleased, even the strongest and deadlist people walked quietly.

Glory passed through a security checkpoint that was, for some reason, not currently manned and the automated detection and survelliance systems turned off as soon as he got close. Normally that would be a cause for some concern, even calling an alert, but given the nature of the Lt's instructions, Glory figured that discretion was the order of the day. He just hoped they weren't going to be doing anything too... questionable. They had a good thing going here in Orb, him especially, and it would really suck to mess that up under less than totally demanding circumstances. Not saying he wasn't behind the Lt one hundred percent, even if it meant doing something that would piss off all of Orb, just that he hoped it wasn't something that nasty. A guy could always hope, wasn't that what Ms. Clyne and Mr. Yamato always said? He found his way to the agreed upon private landing pad, and found the rest of the mission team, consisting of Ramierez and the Lt, waiting for him there, already armored up. Glory's eyes hardened when he saw that the battle helmets hanging on his comrade's belts were the dark-red and black colors of the Hellhounds, not the grey-blue colors of the Stormhounds, the same for their camouflage, which was urban black, grey and white, with orange spots instead of the blue spots of Stormhounds. Oh yeah, this was an off the books mission all right.

"Well, gee, Sagre-major, I guess we are ready to go assassinate the Secretary of Defense after all, judging by that load." Ramierez said with a straight face. It was only by long acquaintance, and the fact that a quick glance at the Lt got only a blank stare, that allowed Glory to know Ramierez was pulling his leg. It wasn't like the thought of such a mission hadn't crossed his mind once or twice, and if even he'd thought of it, he was pretty sure Cyprus already had multiple different scenarios planned out, just in case.

"I've always been a big believer in "have and not need, rather than need and not have"." Glory replied, deadpan. "So what are we really doing?" He cut straight to the point, not really feeling jovial at the moment. Maybe it was bumping into Mel on the way over here, but he was getting an unpleasant clenching sensation in his gut. He really, really didn't want to jeapordize everything he'd managed to build and find here in Orb over the past four years and change, unless there was a majorly overriding reason. If they got caught, going off by themselves, without orders, especially in the colors of their old, loyal to Blue Cosmos and the Isolation unit, that was going to get them some pretty hard looks by people he'd really rather not be looking at him. "I figured I should just take a selection, we can always ditch what we don't need."

"You did well." Cyprus said, looking over the collection of pistols, rifles, shotguns, grenades and one or two heavier weapons, including an RPG launcher. "We'll take it all with us. The situation at the mission area is... unstable. Never know what we might need." He caught a shifting in Thomas eyes. "You needn't worry too much, Sergeant-Major. We're not doing anything illegal or unsanctioned. In fact I have permission from the Chief Representative, privately of course, for a mission of... personal importance."

"Your armor and helmet are in the 'copter. You can get changed on the way to the airport." Ramierez said, rummaging around in the pile of armaments before withdrawing a sleek and wicked looking automatic shotgun, and a few boxes of shells.

"Uh, sorry sir, I've had a bit of a long night..." Glory trailed off to shoot a hard glance at Ramierez, who had snorted with amusement to hear that, no doubt making all sorts of filthy and not entirely inaccurate assumptions about Glory's last night. "Where are we going? And what are we doing when we get there? And why do we need to be in Hellhound garb for it?"

"What else would servants wear when returning to their master's side?" Cyprus replied steadily. "Other than the colors of his honor guard? We have a duty to fufill, a promise to keep, to a very special young man, whom we all swore to keep safe, no matter what happened. We can't leave him out there, for the Green EDEN... not in his condition. Is that a problem, Thomas?"

"Not even slightly, sir." Glory replied smartly, relief washing through him. Escort and retrieval duty was it? Nothing to freak out about, no matter how unruly the citizens in Hawaii were likely to be as they prepared to evacuate to the refugee centers. "I'm actually quite excited all of a sudden."

"Join the club, Sergeant-major." Cyprus replied wolfishly, almost grinning for a moment, as he helped Ramierez and Glory load the weapons into the helicopter, and then began piloting it towards the military airport, where a long range shuttle was waiting. "It's past time for the Houndmaster to come home to his hounds."

* * *

Getting to Orb had been the easy part, Ashino reflected. Getting ashore from where he'd left the Retribution, Mirage Colloid cloaked and submerged in a protected cove on a small island, more like a large spur of rock, about a mile and a half from the main island's shoreline, was a little more taxing, requiring as it did a swim through heavy surf in relatively cold water, but it was also no big deal for him, almost refreshing really, though a bad memory of the time when he'd been swept out into the Pacific Ocean after his near death at the hands of Cagalli and Athrun at Panama did make him shiver a bit when he was nearly out of sight of shore. Only divine providence had been enough to save him then, bringing him to the Hawaiian islands rather than just keeping him swirling out at sea until even he could stay afloat no longer, or some aquatic lifeform decided to have him for a snack.

No, the hard part was going to come now, after he'd reached the shore of Orb's main island. Ashino made his way warily up the wet sand beach, every sense keenly alert for signs of any watchers, overt or covert. He'd chosen the most easily accessible stretch of barren coastline that he could, but given how many extra refugees and other immigrants Orb had been hosting since the Great Endeavor made planetfall, there was no garuantee that he'd be able to come ashore unobserved. Of course, he was planning to just say he was an unlucky swimmer that got dragged out by undertow, but he'd really prefer not to generate any attention at all, no matter how slight. Cyprus and the other Hellhounds were in residence here after all, and they would be watching the news for even the slightest irregularity, no matter how random or otherwise unconnected it might be, and there was always the chance they might recognize him, even though he'd adopted a disguise, changing his hair color to brown and his eye color to blue. There wasn't much he could do to conceal his body form though.

Sighing in relief, not detecting anyone watching him, Ashino ducked into a nook of rocks and opened the watertight bag he'd dragged behind him, which contained the civilian clothes and other accoutrements he'd brought for his infiltration mission. He smirked to himself as he got dressed, he guessed that you just couldn't teach an old BCPU new tricks. Despite the fact that the world at large still didn't know he'd more or less joined the Brotherhood, and many people thought he was dead or missing, and that of all the places he could go, Orb probably had the most people that were friendly and sympathetic to him, including some of his best friends, and he was still treating his clandestine visit like he was infiltrating hostile enemy territory. He just didn't know how else to treat it. Though he supposed it mainly stemmed from his desire not to confront those selfsame friends... he didn't think he'd be able to conceal what he was doing from Cyprus and the others if they met, especially in the wake of the Brotherhood's attempt to retrieve Jean from Cyprus's house. Cyprus would be able to put two and two together in less time than it took to blink, probably already had.

And while Cyprus and Glory and Ramierez of all people could probably understand his reasons for doing what he was, allying himself with a person generally considered the worst terrorist to ever live, all in the name of returning Jean to the way she was before Durandel's clumsy assassination attempt, that didn't mean they wouldn't also see the value in denying the Brotherhood of one of their best, if not their best, Gundam Pilot and his Gundam, especially if it meant that they could retrieve and reverse engineer the Retribution! There wouldn't be any rancour in their actions, if anything they would be very sympathetic, they would merely put the safety of the world, the greater good, before Ashino's own personal good and desires, which is what they were sworn to do. Just as there wouldn't be any rancour in his fighting back, even to the point of hurting them, if it came down to it, but all the same he'd prefer to avoid that if at all possible.

After getting dressed in comfortable clothing consisting of sturdy cargo pants, walking boots, polo shirt and windbreaker, plus a ballcap to pull down to shade his eyes from casual observers, Ashino checked the play of the concealed holster built into one of the mid-thigh pockets of the pants, in which he had deposited the weapon Meyrin Hawke had provided for him, an exceedingly odd looking compact pistol of a design he was utterly unfamiliar with, something of a rarity for him considering his upbringing and training in guerilla and covert actions, he'd thought he would at least be able to recognize the basic type of any weapon he laid his eyes on. The fibers of the pant pocket were laced with sensor defraying threads, some sort of Brotherhood technology that apparently warped the magnetic and X-ray image of whatever was in the pocket to a near invisible state, so that the weapon was almost undetectable to anything but a detailed hands on search. Not that he anticipated a need for a weapon, but it was one of those things that was just instinctual for him, along with the long bladed combat knife sheathed between his shoulderblades, hanging down along his spine, the sheath likewise impregnated with the sensor warping threads.

It was a several mile walk to the nearest town, and almost thirty miles drive from there to Nara-Attha City, where Cyprus's house and Jean would be, but Ashino didn't mind the distance, given that he had a few days to make it there, find Jean, and come back. It would be something of a liability in the case of a need for a hasty escape, but he was going to try to avoid needing one of those if at all possible. Initially he'd planned to take her back with him, so that Noah could begin his treatment of her as soon as possible, but as time had passed, that resolution had gradually soured. Despite the kind words and obvious good intentions of his paramour, Meyrin Hawke, Ashino simply didn't trust Noah, not even half as far as he could throw him, which was actually a not inconsiderable distance. He'd been mollified for the moment, accepting Meyrin's promise that Jean would get the treatment she needed, but the more he thought about it, the less he wanted Jean to be in the power of Noah and the Brotherhood, any more than absolutely necessary. Once Noah had completed Jean's treatment, returned her to her usual self, the terms of their deal would be up... and Ashino had the sneaking feeling that Noah still had plans for him, and wouldn't take kindly to him trying to skip out.

He wouldn't put it past Noah to take Jean hostage, either before or after he treated her, to force Ashino to keep piloting the Retribution for the Brotherhood. For that matter, he almost hoped, if it came down to it, that taking her hostage was ALL the bastard would do... as he definitely seen in the case of poor Mr. Asuka, if Noah really decided that he needed a convert to his organization, he definitely had the ability to MAKE ONE, regardless of the wishes of the person in question. Regenerating her hands and healing her brain damage wouldn't do Jean a bit of good if she then became a mindless Brotherhood fanatic, and he knew that he could not bear to see her turned into something so pathetic! If Noah poisoned her mind, turned her into one of his goons, and then held her new condition over him, being the only person that could cure her personality change, there was simply nothing Ashino could do against that, and he knew, despite how much he would loathe it, that he would do anything to save Jean from a fate like that, even if it meant serving the Brotherhood to the death!

Such was it that he'd decided that returning with Jean at this time was probably not the best plan, despite how much heartache leaving her in her damaged state for even a second longer than absolutely necessary caused him. Better a sore heart than a broken one! She was almost certainly still safer in Cyprus's care than in his own, and he knew his grey haired friend would care for Jean like she was his own little sister. It was enough to get him a bit choked up at times, and that was a deeply unfamiliar and disconcerting condition for him to be in. Sadness caused by happiness, guilt caused by friendship... human emotions were so damned confusing! Worth it though. Definitely worth it. He was just going to see her. Touch her if he could, but he knew that would almost be impossible, because of the very security precautions he was counting on Cyprus to provide. But just seeing her in the flesh, even for a little while... that would be enough to calm his troubled heart, he was sure.

* * *

"Goddamn, would you look at this place?" Glory said with a low whistle, as Ramierez guided their car in herks and jerks through the traffic and pedestrian clogged streets of Pearl Harbor, towards the Pearl Harbor Memorial Hospital that served as the hospice for the comatose former World President, now considered more a interesting historical footnote than the visionary he had been! Every which way they looked, the city was filled to the bursting point and beyond with people, residents and evacuees both, wandering around in aimless crowds, packed in cheek to jowl in some cases, as they waited for clearance to pack up their limited personal belongings and head to either the harbor or the airport to embark on a one way journey to either Kaoshung Spaceport and Mass Driver in China, or Onogoro Island Mass Driver in Orb, for the eventual trip into space. Vehicle traffic was at a near standstill, traffic patterns congested and backed up to ten sorts of hell, and what should have been a twenty minute drive from the airport had already taken well over three hours.

Not even the intimidation factor of three large, heavily armed men in very scary uniforms had been able to speed their progress along, in many cases the traffic was already moving as fast as it could, even though it was at a snail's pace. They were forced to just sit and wait it out, though thankfully the Hospital was now in view, only a few blocks away. Glory was almost tempted to get out and walk, trusting to the menace of his weapons and bulk to clear a path through even the heaviest congestion, but the hard part was going to be getting out of the car in the first place, with pedestrians and other vehicles packed in so close opening the door was going to be nearly impossible. He was about to give it a try anyway when he felt Cyprus lay a calming hand on his shoulder, urging him to have patience. "The last thing we want is to start a panic and a stampede." Cyprus said quietly. "Remember Purgatory Day."

"I don't think I'll ever be able to forget." Glory replied grimly. That was definitely the time, for him at least, that any and all loyalty to Cervantes Zunnichi and the Puritan Blue Cosmos junta had been erased from him, body, mind and soul. Thomas Glory had done a lot of evil, despicable and downright horrible things in his life... but unleashing a thirty meter tall engine of mass death on crowds on peaceful, unarmed civilians in the middle of a crowded city was far beyond anything he could countenance. He could still see the people being blown apart and turned to bloody steam in their hundreds as the Merciless's weapon fire touched down in the crowds, throwing out bow waves of liquified flesh and charred gore, thousands of screaming people fighting and trampling each other to get away, in some of his worst nightmares.

"I think it might be faster to just call for heli-evac to the airport, rather than try and fight our way through this mess again." Ramierez opined, as their car, borrowed from the Orb branch consulate, rolled forward another few feet before being forced to stop again. "We could practically crowd surf from here to there without touching pavement once." He marveled softly to himself. "How did it get so bad here? I mean, wasn't this city just rebuilt a couple of years ago? Orb's taking in more than its share of evacuee's, and the streets there aren't anything like this bad!"

"Urban planning in the FNE has never been the fine art it is in Orb." Cyrpus said with a shrug. "I suppose we should give them some credit, two tactical nuclear warheads did come down only a mile or two away only five years ago, and you can hardly tell, but their city layout and traffic planning... leave much to be desired. A consequence of leaving matters in the hands of second string politicians, more concerned with appeasing their voters in order to garauntee re-election than actually improving their city."

"Ain't it always the way." Glory agreed. "Well, with a few noticable exceptions." He amended, looking up at the Hospital. "Ain't no fucking justice in the world." Glory commented bitterly, a few seconds later, looking away from the Hospital. "The entire deck was stacked in our favor, and it still all went down the drain. I can't hardly believe it at times, makes me want to cry."

"Ain't that the truth." Ramierez muttered, for once not feeling like making a jab, even in fun, at Glory's admission. It was nothing less than the way he himself felt, after all. The Isolation had had everything going in its favor. The war had been over, for all intents and purposes, and they had been the victors! A bright future lay open and waiting before them! Even the last gasp of the PLANTS, the so called Operation Overload and the Angry Sky bombs, were something he felt confident they would have been able to surmount with minimal damage. They'd known a last ditch attack was coming, it had to have been. They had been prepared. They had been waiting and ready, eager even, like a fighter that knows his opponent is already on the verge of going down for the count! Just too bad they hadn't known there was a second fighter, a rabid beast, about to jump in the ring and maul them from behind!

"We still haven't been defeated." Cyprus told them both, causing them to twist slightly to look at him in some surprise. "Though our coalition has dissipated, our leader been cast down by unfortunate fate, as long as there are those of us who believe in him, and his vision of a peaceful future, the Isolation, or at least its ideals of seperate but equal nations, kept apart for their own good, is never going to be gone." He snorted in grim amusement, something which shocked his subordinates almost as much as if he'd started weeping. "If anything, Noah Borander is accomplishing something of a version of the Isolation right now, wouldn't you say? It won't be too much longer before we'll be seeing lines of demarkation drawn between those who make it into space... and those who survive on Earth, changed by Noah's nanotechnology."

"And Orb, sticking out like a sore thumb, as usual." Glory added with a snort of grim amusement of his own. "And us, stuck protecting the next best thing because what else is there for us to do?"

"That's assuming that Noah doesn't just walk that Great Endeavor of his over to Orb and knock down our little Glass House." Ramierez said darkly. "I don't think he's gonna be too happy at Orb for figuring a way around his little mandatory change. Strikes me as a sore loser, for some reason."

"I've no doubt he'll try." Cyprus agreed. "Whether he will suceed though... well, his odds are still good, actually, given what I've seen. He has already surmounted challenges I calculated would be more than sufficient to bring him down, at this point in time I find myself thinking the safer bet is probably with him rather than against him. Of course, betting on the underdog does tend to have a better return on investment, assuming the underdog wins."

"All this talk of betting makes me want to go to a casino. I can't play cards against Mel anymore, I'll end up losing my ass, literally. She has the luck of a devil." Glory said morosely, not wanting to dwell on the chances of defeating Noah or being defeated by him any more than necessary, especially since there wasn't much the Stormhounds themselves were going to be able to do to affect the situation, unless they were planning to emulate Asmodeus's last mission, and try and board the Great Endeavor while in flight. And while there was a certain cupidity to that idea, that was much more of a one way trip than Glory was currently comfortable with.

"I suppose I could always cut in and lend you some "expertise", if you catch my drift." Ramierez said with a wide grin, as they finally were able to pull into the parking lot of the Hospital.

"Don't bother, Mel would squash you like a grape, Rich." Glory replied, not without some degree of relish at the thought. "She's quite a lady."

"Ooooh, is the Sarge-major in love?" Ramierez taunted in a singsong voice. He wasn't quite prepared for Glory to simply turn in his seat a little and look at him steadily. "Wait... YOU ARE IN LOVE!? You're fucking kidding me!"

"You got a problem with me being in love, Staff Sergeant?" Glory said menacingly, stressing the rank, hand stroking the stubby barrel of the automatic grenade launcher he'd taken for this mission as his primary weapon, seeing that a missile launcher or minigun was a bit bulky to lug around a hospital, plus a trifle ridiculous for a simple escort mission.

"No, no, no, never, perish the thought, Sarge-major... just a little surprised, ya know!" Ramierez back pedalled. "And kinda pissed off that both the Lt AND you manage to find a woman to settle down with before me..." He added, in a much quieter voice.

"I don't recall mentioning anything about settling down." Glory said, settling his helmet down on his head and locking it in place, as Ramierez and Cyprus did the same thing, hefting their weapons and doing a brief once over to ensure everything was in place before Ramierez stopped the car in the middle of the lot, not able to find a parking space, and not really giving a fuck. He left the keys in the ignition and the doors unlocked... if the car was still there when they got back, so much the better, if not, they'd just jack a different one, it would be good practice. Besides, anyone who wanted to steal their car, given the state of traffic on the roads, was a retard, in his opinion. The only reason they needed one was because the President was comatose, and they couldn't carry him all the way to the airport. "Just that I think I love her. Hell, I don't even know if she loves me back, or if its just sex-affection."

"Pretty sure its more than that. I mean, she does a good job, trying to keep it private, but its plain to see she's always hanging around you these days, even when she doesn't need to be. It can't be just sex-affection... you're well hung, Sarge-major, well hung for a pony even, but not THAT well hung. I think you may have caught one this time, Sarge-major." Ramierez said, now without rancour, actually happy for his big friend. None of them let their topic of conversation detract from their situational awareness as they headed into the building, weapons lowered and safed, but close at hand, within a second of being ready to unleash death should the Lt or they themselves deem it necessary. "You think so too, sir?"

"You want my opinion now?" Cyprus replied with a hint of humor. "I can recall a time when it was you two trying to give me advice, amid comments about how I was a pupae in a land of social butterflies, and that I just didn't make an effort to get to know women."

"And then you comprehensively trumped us by revealing that you were dating the goth-industrial sensation of the century, Wrenn Nostaliviche, yes, sir, I remember." Ramierez rolled his eyes, checking his peripheral vision at the same time. They were getting a lot of odd, wary looks from the Hospital staff and visitors, but they weren't threatening anyone, and they looked like they belonged and knew what they were doing, and so far no one had the balls to come up and question them. "I remember very clearly, in fact. I still get indigestion sometimes, thinking about it. Be that as it is though, I would say that your opinion might actually be highly valuable to the Sarge-major right now."

"My opinion is, you picked a bad time to fall in love, Thomas." Cyprus said, pausing. "Although, for people like us, there is no such thing as a good time. Perhaps its Wrenn's influence, but I can't find it in me to be less than pleased to hear of this news. After all, the Major's make it work, why not you?"

"Ah, well, the Lt approves. You're as good as married now, big guy." Ramierez said cheerfully, grinning even wider under his helmet when he saw that Glory seemed less than infatuated with that pronouncement. One thing to be in love with a woman, even mutually in love, but marriage... marriage did strange things to women, made them go a bit crazier than normal. It was not a thing to contemplate lightly. "Though the Major is fucking nuts."

"Which Major?" Glory growled. "The one that used a shotgun in place of a surgical team, or the one who's in love with the one that used a shotgun instead of a surgical team?"

"Doesn't matter, applies equally." Ramierez replied with a shrug. The three of them crowded into an elevator, along with two VERY uncomfortable looking young orderlies, who both had expressions on their faces wondering if they'd just stepped into some sort of first person shooter video game while they weren't looking, standing next to the three armored and heavily armed Hellhounds in their battle masks. The Hellhounds ignored the orderlies, after scanning them for signs of weapons or threat and finding none, as the orderlies tried not to visibly cower in the back corners of the elevator. "I wonder what they would do if I snarled at them?" Ramierez wondered, the communication private to the Hellhounds through their helmet radios.

"They already look like they need to change their underwear, you'd probably send them into cardiac arrest." Glory opined, eyeing one of them, who quailed and shivered, teeth clenched to keep from chattering as the gigantic man carrying the largest gun he'd ever seen turned to glare at him.

"Well, that wouldn't be so bad. We are in a hospital after all." Ramierez chuckled. "Though I'm kind of surprised security hasn't at least tried to talk to us yet."

"That would probably have something to do with the impression that we're a special unit of the USN here to check the building for any signs of terrorist plots." Cyprus said neutrally. "I made a few calls, talked to a few old acquaintances in the area. Unless we start shooting, nobody is going to give us any hassle. And if we start shooting, then we won't care." The elevator dinged at the floor they needed to get off at, the long term intensive care ward, and Cyprus led the way out of the elevator. Just before the elevator doors could close, Ramierez craned his head back to stare at the two recovering orderlies, and growled "BOO!" in his most menacing voice. The door closed on the somewhat high pitched screams of the two young men, and Ramierez was chuckling as he quickened his steps to catch up with the other two. "That was extremely unprofessional, Corporal." Cyprus noted.

"Perhaps so, but man was it FUNNY!" Ramierez chuckled a few more times before regaining his composed bearing. "I'll do punishment laps for it when we get back. The looks on their faces were worth at least fifteen to twenty laps in full gear." He was going to say more, but then the Lt paused in front of a certain door, and all levity died in Ramierez's throat, his body stiffening to respectful attention in identical motions with those of his two friends, without a word having to be spoken. There was a feeling, localized to just the three of them, of being about to enter a sacred or holy place. Even the Lt seemed to be a little nervous or hesitant as he reached out a gloved hand and slowly turned the knob on the door that was all that was seperating them and one of the most influential figures of their lives, and indeed of recent history!

* * *

Ashino was shocked to see how well Orb was handling the worldwide crisis caused by the Brotherhood and the spread of Noah's Green EDEN, at least compared to many of the places he had flown over on his way here. There were no sprawling, disorganized and refuse strewn refugee camps, no lines of hollow eyed, sunken cheeked men and women waiting for hours for crusts of bread and cups of water from dwindling emergency supplies, despite the fact that Orb was handling its share of evacuees and more, to be truthful. The streets of Nara-Attha city were clear of anything exceeding what he assumed was normal traffic patterns, the only busy spots occured when regular construction or military convoys rumbled down the streets in mile long trains, en route to any one of a half dozen major new construction sites around the city and its near limits. Ashino couldn't quite figure out what the Orbites were in such a hellbent rush to construct, considering that they were going to be abandoning it all when they went into space anyway, but whatever it was, they were pouring their all and more into it!

Several times he passed recruiting stations, the only places he saw lines of refugees, waiting to be picked for work gangs, ranging from specialist engineering groups down to just plain manual labor. He almost got roped into such work gangs a couple times in fact, the recruiters noticing his heavy build. The things they called him when he shrugged off their offers of employment weren't generally what he would expect to hear in polite society, or even impolite society... unpatriotic was the very least of them. Which in itself made him think... if these construction projects were a national effort, then that was certainly interesting. Why would Orb waste resources on building whatever it was they were building when they really needed to be focusing their efforts on evacuating their people? But then again, the more he looked, the more he realized he could see no signs of a pending evacuation, no boarded up or closed stores, no peope driving by with packed cars, no flashing announcements on the public TV displays. Was Orb not planning on evacuating? How bizarre. They had to be aware that even if they somehow managed to stop the Great Endeavor, there was no way to stop the spread of Green EDEN.

Then it hit him... impossible as it seemed, someone in Orb seemed to have discovered some way to counteract or at the very least keep Green EDEN away from Orb, and it must have something to do with the huge, radio-booster-esque towers he could see them building, many on top of already tall buildings and even out in the harbor and the near off shore waters! He smirked in a combination of bitterness and amazement... truly, Orb was a singular nation... where the entire rest of the world, including nations with far more power, wealth and resources, at least on paper, ran like frightened mice, they were buckling down and preparing to resist the coming wave of change, refusing to abandon their cherished and oft abused home and ideals. It was so... Orb. They'd been the last terrestrial nation to succumb to the Isolation for exactly the same reason, and if it hadn't been for a strange but in the end fortunate turn of events involving the terrorist group Tiamat, Ashino knew the battle to convert Orb to the Isolation would have been far bloodier for all sides concerned.

While thinking these, and other thoughts, Ashino was ever making his way closer towards Cyprus's address, taking roundabout ways and back alleys, trying to avoid the work groups and public attention as much as possible, plus whatever observation system, even if it was only traffic cameras, that the Orb government used to keep a watchful eye on the actions of its unusually well behaved populace. Not many governments, especially ones like Orb, liked to admit they were keeping a quiet eye on their citizens public actions, but they all did it anyway. It was only common sense... personal privacy was one thing, but law enforcement needed a way to watch for crime and other threats to public safety that was discreet. However, Ashino was well trained in avoiding that kind of scrutiny, had been trained to eventually infiltrate even the PLANTS, which had security systems in advance even of what Orb displayed, and he felt confident that no one knew he was in Orb.

He was planning on using most of the first day to blend in to the surroundings, get used to the way pedestrians acted in Orb, get his bearings on as many nuances of culture as he could so that it would be that much harder for anyone to pick him out of a crowd. In pursuit of that goal he was first acting like a tourist, visiting a few famous sites around the city, mostly memorial parks and monuments, of which Nara-Attha City seemed to have more than its fair share. He was faintly surprised to see as many memorials for soldiers not belonging to Orb as there were for purely Orb units and heroes, apparently Orb did not discriminate in its desire to remember the sacrifices of those who had fought, regardless of which side they had fought for. It was... admirable. Touching even. And of course, there were plenty of statues of people he knew, perhaps not personally, but in some ways he knew their true selves as well as anyone ever could, having faced off against them in battle on multiple occasions.

The centerpiece of the memorial's of Nara-Attha City was the Orb National Museum, and the centerpiece of that establishment was the Lord Uzumi Nara Attha Gardens, containing statues of not only Lord Uzumi, but of plentiful other people of reverence, including Lord Uzumi's daughter Cagalli, now Queen of Orb, and a recent addition of her husband Athrun Zala, standing side by side, hand chastely in hand, both marble edifices looking off into where the sunrise would always be, anticipating a new, brighter dawn each day. Privately, Ashino believed the look on Athrun's face when they had fought outside of JIHAD, when he had put his all on the line and only pulled through because of his love for the girl standing next to him, was better suited to capturing the true essence of Athrun Zala, but there was no way the sculptor could have been able to recreate that expression of determination and held back pain and love and ambition. The other members of the Clyne faction had their own statues as well, ranging from ones dedicated to the heroes of Purgatory Day, Ysak Joule, Dearka Elsman and Miriallia Haww to the inevitable statues of the Savior of Orb during the First Valentine War, Kira Yamato, and the even more inevitable statues of the Angel of Purgatory Day, Lacus Clyne.

However, the thing that caught his interest the most wasn't a statue at all, it was the central monument in the Gardens, and it was a Gundam. The original Strike Gundam, to be exact, with its three different striker packs, Sword, Launcher and Aile, on display flanking it. Its power systems had been removed, and its armor painted in the colors its Phase Shift would assume were it to be powered. Unlike most of the other memorials, there was no lengthy plaque giving a detailed description of the meaning of this memorial or describing the actions of the people being honored. There was just a single word on the small metal card stand planted on the grass between the Gundam's legs, and that read "Hope". Ashino didn't know how long he stood there, gazing up at one of the very first Gundams, and probably the most famous, at least initially. BCPU's and Gundams had a special connection... they were both designed for each other and though this Gundam had not been designed with him or any other BCPU in mind, Ashino fancied he could still connect with the soul, the personality of the machine in a way that was unique to BCPU's. He decided that Hope was actually a fairly accurate representation of this particular machine, and the thought oddly cheered him.

He finally managed to pull himself away from the Gundam when his stomach began growling at him and he realized he'd been standing there well past lunch time. His slight smile turned to a scowl at having spent so much time lost in a fond half dream of ephermal things when there was so many more important things for him to be doing. He would have plenty of time to daydream after he'd assured himself that Jean was safe, and even better yet, managed to restore her to her old self. Perhaps he would even be able to come back here without a disguise, and have Cyprus and the others show him around... he'd heard that there was a memorial to the leaders of the Isolation somewhere in the city, but hadn't been able to find it. He would have liked to be able to see a sculptor try and capture Sai in stone or metal, or for that matter Cyprus and himself. As long as there weren't any statues of Frost around... but then again, he doubted anyone was that crazy. Some things were best left forgotten.

Ashino caught lunch in a small, hole in the wall establishment he'd heard Glory and Ramierez mention in passing a year or so ago, and found it just as good as they had insinuated. He was just finishing up his meal when he happened to overhear a conversational snippet from two people sitting in a booth a few feet away from him. His back was to them, and they were speaking in the sort of quiet tones that were better even than whispering for keeping a conversation private, if it weren't for Ashino's decidedly keener than normal hearing, they would have been inaudible to anyone but each other. He slowly looked over his shoulder at them, trying to keep the motion casual, like he was just stretching his neck muscles. And well he did too, because the two people conversing were both professional soldiers, trained in all sorts of situational awareness and counter-survelliance tactics, members of the Hellhound successor unit, the Stormhounds, distinctive in their black and white and dark blue urban camouflage uniforms.

It was a taller man and a shorter woman, Ashino didn't let his gaze rest on them for more than an instant less they wonder why he was staring. They were both slowly eating some sort of appetizer while they talked, likely on a break from a patrol or between duty sections, but no less dangerous for all their slight state of relaxation. He didn't recognize either of them, and so hoped they wouldn't be familiar with him either, as he did his best to tune into their conversation. "I'm telling you, it just plain gives me the willies, Raven. I mean, yeah, maybe she has been rehabilitated somewhat, maybe she is due some sort of reward for coopertion... standard carrot and stick methodology, I realize. But I still can't shake the feeling that she's just biding her time. Whatever that bastard did to her, it runs deep and wide. Its not going to be a matter of days or weeks to get her back to normal... I'm betting at least a year before she's any sort of measurably deprogrammed." The tall man said in a hushed voice to his companion.

"The Lt and the Sarge-Major seem to think they'll have positive results in a matter of a month or two though, Conrad, and you have to admit, they're right WAY more often than they're wrong." The short, dark haired woman replied, after taking a bite of her cheesy appetizer. "Maybe it has something to do with that crippled girl the Lt is hosting at his place, she seems to have formed a really strong bond with Mary. I dunno, I'm a shooty grunt, I don't pretend to be an expert on these mindfuck details."

"Wouldn't let the Lt or the Sarge-Major hear you say that... that sort of talk is "regular military"." The man addressed as Conrad replied with a hint of humor. "We're supposed to be better than that... if not a jack of all trades, then at least able to pretend."

"I'm not very good at pretending." The woman addressed as Raven answered, somewht testily. "That's part of the reason I'm always afraid I'm gonna slip up around the Sarge-Major and say something too familiarly that we'll both end up getting hauled over the coals for! Goddamn military relationships are the fucking worst!"

"No arguement there." Conrad replied, somewhat soothingly. "I don't think I could keep as cool as you and the Sarge-Major do though, if you want my opinion. I mean, its crazy that you're both even allowed this kind of situation... goes against everything I learned in the past. But if you can make it work, apparently the Lt is cool with it. I guess its just another form of training... if you can keep frosty during everyday work, then you'll be that much harder to crack during combat, right?"

"That's bullshit and you know it." Raven replied glumly. "The reverse might be true, but thats it. And another thing..." Ashino tuned out, seeing that they were moving on with their conversation, and he had no wish to eavesdrop on personal details and problems if he had any choice in the manner. He paid his bill and left, even nodding slightly at the pair of Stormhounds as he brushed by them, just as any polite stranger would. neither paid him the slightest hint of attention after the momentary nod, as far as he could tell, and while he still wasn't nearly the judge of human expression that some were, he felt confident that they had paid him no especial heed, nor noticed his interest in parts of their conversation.

And interested he was, to say the very least! If anything that was an understatement, his mind was suddenly afire with thought as he considered the mere snippets of overheard information and extrapolated his own picture of what was going on. And it wasn't a picture he was particularly pleased with, indeed the more he brought the idea into focus the less happy he was. He'd sent Jean to be with Cyprus in Orb because he simply could not think of a safer place for her to be while in her incapacitated state, other than one of the most powerful... and stringently neutral... nations of the USN, at the household of someone who was almost certainly the most deadly Natural currently alive in Earth or Space! At Cyprus's house she should have been far beyond the reach of anyone, namely the USN and Gilbert Durandel, that either sought her life as a witness of what had happened at ABE station, or sought to use her as leverage against him! In as far as it went, his assumption had proved correct in that regard... the USN and Durandel had not made any further attempts on Jean's life, or even those of her family members, nor did the USN seem to be actively searching for her... she was safe from them.

What she was NOT safe from was whatever pet project Cyprus had apparently decided to involve her in, which, at least if the tidbits he'd overheard from Raven and Conrad were any hint, dealt with the deprogramming of some mentally unstable or influenced person that Orb had in captivity. With his experience around Shinn, and many of the Harbingers for that matter, it didn't take much effort for Ashino to make the connection between "whatever that bastard did to her runs wide and deep" and how Noah used his uncanny mental abilities to manipulate the loyalties of his subordinates. The name Mary would have been generic, had he also not known that Orb had recently captured the pilot of the Tormented Gundam, along with the Gundam itself, and that the Apostle of the Tormented was named Mary O'Brien. So they were trying to "deprogram" her, for intelligence purposes no doubt, but what help Jean could be, especially in her crippled state, Ashino could not fathom!

He knew Cyprus could be an eccentric genius with things like this sometimes, but that didn't make the butterflies in his stomach go away in the slightest! The bare bones of the situation was that Mary was in regular contact with a high ranked member of the Brotherhood, one who clearly still felt much loyalty to Noah, if her lack of deprogramming was still a concern! And while there was no way for this Mary to know of Jean's indirect import to the Brotherhood through the person of Ashino, there was still the fact that she was a captured terrorist and was almost certainly either planning a breakout, or was planning some for of protest against her captors... maybe even a violent one! And in her current state, Jean was just about the perfect hostage... mobile, but largely helpless to defend herself, trusting to those around her to take care of her! And Cyprus had her associating with a terrorist, after Ashino had expressly asked him to keep her safe since he himself could not!? There would be words when next they met. If anything happened to Jean because of Cyprus's experiment, whatever it was, there would be more than words... trust was everything to Ashino when it came to friendship, given how often his trust had been violated by his creators in his past, and he had... was... trusting Cyprus to keep Jean safe!

Not only all of that, but if Jean was part of the rehabilitation effort, she would likely be nearby the terrorist, Mary, for much of the time, at least if they had any intention at all of her being an effective influence. And that meant Jean would be in a maximum security installation much of the time, even more secure from outside threats than even Cyprus's booby-trapped house could hope to be! Which was well and good in some ways, but not when he was trying to see her! Ashino did not doubt his ability to eventually infiltrate all but the most secure and secret locations in Orb or any other nation, save for perhaps the PLANTS... but the key part of that statement was "eventually"! Even if Jean was only being kept in a regular military prison facility, it would take at least a week of preparation time for Ashino to scout the place out, learn the habits of the guards and buy or steal the secrets of its technological defenses, much less actually plan and accomplish his entry and exit! He didn't have a week, he barely had two days, and rushing would do both of them less than no good at all!

Ashino scowled darkly as he walked along, still avoiding large open public areas and the inevitable crime watching cameras that would also be there, even as he stalked along in a foul mood, sunk in his bitter and angry thoughts. His entire plan for coming to Orb was falling apart at the seams, and he hadn't even been here a full day yet! The only ray of light in the whole fiasco was also the cause of his disgruntlement... if he hadn't overheard the two Stormhounds talking, he'd have wasted all his time trying to observe Jean at Cyprus's house, obviously futiley since she wasn't there anymore! On the other hand, at least he'd still be secure in his assumptions that Cyprus was keeping Jean very, very safe indeed, even though or even because of Ashino's inability to see her! Not so now... no, now he was filled with even more gnawing worry than the ravenous beast of guilt and fear and loving concern currently eating away at his every thought had previously inflicted upon him, because at any time... literally any time... Mary could turn on Jean in an attempt at breakout or protest, and Jean would be caught in the crossfire, helpless and reliant only on the actions of others... others who might not have her best interests at heart!

Still, Ashino resolved himself not to give up hope, remembering with a crooked smile the Gundam monument of that same name he'd seen earlier. His scowl almost turned into a smirk for a moment, as a brief fantasy of stealing another Mobile Suit, perhaps even the original Strike, assuming it wasn't inert as it was, and using it to rescue Jean, thus keeping any connection with the Brotherhood out of the news and thus avoiding Noah's wrath, or at least petulance, neither of which Ashino particularly cared to experience, much as he didn't particularly care to experience extremes of heat and cold... he could tolerate them just fine, but he didn't have to like it! Of course, thats all it was... a fantasy. Even assuming he could steal an Orb Mobile Suit, which he probably could, and maybe even escape the country with it, he couldn't also rescue Jean at the same time, and would likely cause collateral damage such that would actually threaten her more than help in the process! Besides the fact that he had already resolved to just see her, as returning with her at this time was not safe!

But he wasn't going to turn on his heel and slink back to the Great Endeavor before time either, oh most certainly not! He'd use every wile, every trick and subtle maneuver he knew, plus whatever he could make up, in order to finagle a way to glimpse Jean for even the barest instant, even catch her scent or hear the sound of her voice... something, anything, to assure him she was still fine, to balm his troubled soul with! He still had two full days... make that one and a half, to account for flying time back to the Great Endeavor... and he would make the most of them and more! After all, endurance in the face of adversity was as close to Ashino's personal motto as he as had!

* * *

The room that housed Sai was not particularly more or less special than any one of a hundred other long term intensive care ward rooms scattered throughout this entire wing of the Hospital complex, or thousands of other such rooms in hospitals throughout the world and space. The room was about the size of a bedroom in a small apartment, or roughly the size of a college dorm room, except with only a single bed, which dominated the meticulously cleaned and sterile room. A ceiling mounted curtain that hung almost to the floor was bunched together at the end of its runners, currently leaving the bed open and exposed to anyone who might walk into the room, though in recent months the only people that had entered were the nurses and housekeeping staff that monitored the patient and kept the room maintained. The room featured a large window that let in the bright Hawaiin sunlight, if not the high heat and humidity of most days, plus the aforementioned central bed, surrounded by several complex looking medical monitoring and life sustaining devices, a spare sink and cabinent for basic and common medical supplies like needles and sticky tape, and a few bland peach colored chairs for visitors to sit in by the door, which could be pulled closer to the bed if need be.

Of course, central to the entire vista was the person in the bed, none other than the creator of the Isolationist political party, the Isolation policy itself and the former President of the World, Sai Argyle. Not only the first... and only... person to hold that august office, Sai was also the second youngest non-figuredhead national leader of modern history, only Cagalli Zala-Attha was younger. A case could be made, a good case at that, declaring Sai to be one of the most influential and widely loved, at least briefly, people of his generation... and when that same generation included people like Cagalli, or Kira Yamato, or Athrun Zala or even Lacus Clyne, that was no small achievment! Indeed, were it not for the horrible twists of cruel fate, Sai might very well have eclipsed all of his peers in historic fame and impact, not only bringing lasting peace to a fractured solar system, but forever abolishing war between the PLANTS and Earth. Or at least gotten a good start on it... such a task as preventing jealousy and hatred and war for all of time was probably beyond mortal ability, but if anyone had been able to get as close as humanly possible, Cyprus's money had been on Sai, who had created and implemented the only realistic attainable scenario, imperfect as it had been!

Sadly, fate had intervened, and struck down Sai at practically the very hour of his ultimate victory, forever consigning the future, the bright future in Cyprus's estimation, represented by the Isolation Plan to the pages of "what might have been" speculation stories and alternate history fiction. Fate in the form of a raging madman, a living conglomeration of everything bad about humanity known as Zacharis Quentin Frost, or BCPU number 13z, depending on how deeply you knew his past. Most just called him Frost... and shivered with remembered dread, even now, more than five years after his death! He was the sort of man... the sort of monster... to elicit just that sort of reverential fear and horror, even in the bravest of hearts. Cyprus himself could honestly say he was glad he'd only had to confront Frost as an enemy once in person, and even that case had almost been the death of him and almost everything he cared about, despite his quite literal best efforts! Frost, piloting the Pulsar, the most advanced Gundam of the Isolation era, had attacked Denver, then the capital of the World, and demolished the city... and in the process causing grievous harm to Sai and his family, among many others!

Vanai Zunnichi, Sai's wife and partner, daughter of the infamous Cervantes Zunnichi, once Lord of Blue Cosmos, or the man who brought about the Second Valentine War through deception and trickery, had been murdered by Frost on that black day. There was simply no other way to describe using a Mobile Suit, much less a frighteningly advanced Gundam, to kill a single unarmored human, other than murder. She was sliced almost in half and crushed by a blow from the Pulsar's hand... the same blow had nearly killed Sai himself, and the injuries he suffered from that nightmare Gundam would certainly have killed him if it weren't for the exemplarly actions of none other than Glory and Ramierez, assisted by Lacus Clyne and the other non-Gundam combatant members of the Clyne Faction. Against the odds they had managed to somewhat stabilize Sai, despite massive blood loss, and got him evacuated to a trauma center in time to preserve his life, though in a manner of speaking, his life had already fled... with Vanai dead, and their twin infant children, Matthias and Jessi, missing in the chaos, the heart had been ripped out of Sai's world even if he awoke.

In some ways thankfully, he never had awakened since that day, the trauma of his initial injury, not to mention the subsequent blood loss and more than ten desperate surgeries required to patch together his internal organs to a stable state, had sent his mind to a faraway void, there to rest peacefully while his body reclined and waited for him to regain his strength. There had been pressure at time, first from doctors, and then even from Sai's own remaining family, to pull the plug and let him die, but Cyprus had been given power of attorney for Sai and his family in case of a situation like this, and he refused to believe in anything other than Sai's eventual recovery and return to the stage of the world. Even if current modern medical science declared such a thing impossible, there was simply no telling what the future would bring in terms of medical advances, and while no new treatements had yet been successful, Cyprus was simply never going to give up until one worked, or until he died, whichever came first. And even then he had plans for ensuring treatments for Sai continued after Cyprus's own passing, if need be.

Of course, even if Sai could be awakened from his coma, there were other issues, most pressingly the fact that his body was completely paralyzed from the waist down, where one of the Pulsar's monomolecular claws had neatly severed Sai's lower spine, and subsequent damage during his unavoidable movement and jarring getting him from the ground, into the medevac helicopter, and then into the operating room had further complicated the issue, again past the point of modern medicine to repair. And over the course of the subsequent five years, Sai's body had healed to the point where even if a new procedure became feasible, it was far more likely more extensive damage would be done to his central nervous system in repairing the problem than was already there! However, Cyprus knew something as minor as not being able to move his legs wouldn't slow Sai down hardly at all, it certainly wouldn't impede his ability to use his superlative talents as a leader and politician, if anything the appearance of real disability would often be a boon, politically speaking.

Sai's legs exhibited some of the muscle atrophy common to paralytics, but the effect was hardly noticable against the rest of his figure, as his formerly athletic build was going somewhat to seed, not so much flab or fat but rather just gauntness as muscle withered away from disuse, as he'd hardly twitched more than a facial muscle or two in more than half a decade. Sai was provided with intravenous sustenance through an IV, and Cyprus knew from experience that while such a nutrient supply could and would keep you alive, it would never fill your belly or really assuage your hunger, nor do much to help you build or retain muscle mass. Sai was lying in his bed, which was canted slightly upwards underneath his torso so that he was more reclining than lying, a bid to at least force his heart to stay somewhat in shape, as it took more effort to pump blood when reclining than lying down, in pretty much the same position he'd been in the last time Cyprus had come to visit, to stand his vigil symbolically if nothing else, since he could not afford to be here every day.

Both Glory and Ramierez hesitated in the doorway, just for a moment. Both of them had come to visit Sai and pay their respects in the time since the fall of the Isolation as well, but not nearly as often as Cyprus, who tried to visit for at least a day every few months, while they barely managed as much every year or so. Not that their connection to Sai was any less intense than Cyprus's... though never imbued with as much political and military power and trust as Cyprus had been, they had instead been given responsibility for Sai's family, which was something even closer to his heart and soul if possible, and in the process of safeguarding the first family, they had started to be assimilated into it as well. Still, there was something different about this visit, coming not just as themselves, but as Hellhounds, and not just Hellhounds, but Hellhound Platoon Alpha, the elite of the elite, the first true adherents of Sai's Isolation, the old guard, praetorians of their self selected emperor. For that matter, the circumstances under which they came, with the inevitable threat of Green EDEN, if not totally imminent, at least lurking close on the horizon, were certainly enough to give even hardened warriors like them a slight pause.

The three Hellhounds stood in silence for several minutes, each grappling with their own thoughts and emotions as they once more assembled in the presence of the only person they'd ever truly acknowledged as their "master", in quite a literal sense. Some might say it was demeaning to call another man, much less one roughly a decade younger than you, your "master", but none of them saw it that way. It was as much a term of endearment as it was of respect, a way of indicating that because of their faith and belief in Sai, they were willing to subordinate everything, from their pride to their lives to even their immortal souls, in oder to see his goals achieve fruition. Because they believed what he was trying to do was right. Maybe not perfect... but right. Not only were his goals admirable, but his methods were too, unlike their previous employers. And while some, many even, might not regard holding an unconscious former friend hostage with a gun to his head in order to coerce a surrender from his allies to be admirable, the Hellhounds knew better. When it came down to a judgement of one life or millions, maybe even tens of millions of lives... when it came down to a judgement of one life or the future of humanity... there was no choice there. Saying there was a choice was to make an abomination of duty and morality!

At length Cyprus carefully removed his helmet, the red glow of the camera lenses that acted as the demonic hound's eyes dimming as he braced the helm against his hip, followed shortly after by Ramierez and Glory, though the silence remained heavy, though not uncomfortable or stifling. In this place, at this time, silence was like a comfort, a balm upon the soul, a focus that helped keep the sharp, in the here and now, as men who suspect the eyes of history might one day look back at them in this moment of time... and it was up to them to determine what sort of looks they would be. Sai's heart monitor "beep... beep... beep"ed steadily, his heart rate hovering just below fifty beats per minute, strong and steady and constant despite all his time asleep. Some comatose people just sort of deteriorated away, their mind completely disconnected from their body, resulting in the heart and lungs failing to keep up with their life sustaining tasks, requiring extensive life support machinery or even implanted devices to help sustain life past the breaking point. Sai on the other hand had not reached any breaking point, nor was he deteriorating, and save for the heart and brain monitor, plus the IV catheter, most of the life support equipment around him stood inert and unused.

"He looks... so peaceful." Ramierez said, softly, as if afraid to disrupt the silence, as the fifteen minute mark approached from their entry into the room. "Like he's just decided to take a load off for the afternoon, like we were always trying to get him to do. He'd never listen though. He'd pretend, sure, but the moment the door closed he'd be up and working on something else important."

"He took too much responsibility onto himself." Glory agreed in a whisper. "Not because he didn't trust other people to do it... but because he knew he could do it better, and he needed it done to his standards... not just "good enough"."

"There was no one else to give it to. Not the kind of responsibilities he was assuming." Cyprus disagreed, no louder than either of his two subordinates. "No one he could not be assured was uncorrupt, or unequal to the task in the face of the crushing pressure of history. Not even us." Cyprus let that last statement sink in for a moment. "For all our capability, none of us... NONE of us... could have done the thing's Sai needed to do. Not like he did. All of us lacked something, whether it was desire, aptitude, creative vision or even pure stubborn devotion, past the point of all reason, political or otherwise. He took what we all believed, in essence if not in literal form... and he made it real. He made it not just a dream, not just a hope, not just a maybe someday... he made it real, right before us, and made us an integral part of it! For that one reason, disregarding ANY others, and there are many others, we all have a debt to the young master we will be our lives in repaying."

"Well, I suppose today's payment involves getting him the..." Ramierez bit back his curse in mild consternation. Not that Sai had ever minded swearing, except around his children of course, but still, it felt wrong to bring foul language to this place. "Getting him out of this place and back to Orb, where he'll be safe under the Glass House? Assuming we complete it in time, that is. And that it works. And that the Brotherhood doesn't come body slam us all into oblivion shortly afterward."

"I'm not worried about them completing the Glass House in time, or in it working... that Dr. Simmons woman is a straight up miracle worker, she'll get the job done and right." Glory replied confidently. His smile turned to a scowl shortly thereafter though. "The last thing though, that I'm really worried about. Though I hate to draw the comparison, Noah and the Brotherhood are a lot like us and the Isolation, at least when it comes to Orb. We both demand a totality of acceptance... whether it be of our political ideals or of this fundamantal biological change of Noah's. It's not a question of if he'll come to Orb... it's a question of when. And my guess is shortly after he realizes we've figured out how to keep his wonder product out of our lives. I sincerely doubt he'll take that as anything other than a direct snub, and he definitely seems to have some anger management issues when snubbed."

"A concern we will address at the proper time and place." Cyprus assured them both. "Current projections indicate that Orb will be one of the last geographical areas to fall under the Green Zone, and, barring any sudden changes in its path, the Great Endeavor won't be particularly nearby when Orb is covered, so Noah won't be able to instantly react. The Great Endeavor will be coming back towards Orb from near the southern tip of Africa, on its second time around the globe, crossing over much of the Indian Ocean and portions of Australia before reaching Orb. By that time I strongly suspect the USN will have assembled whatever terrestrial counterstroke they will use as the ultimate deterrent to the Brotherhood, and only if that deterrent fails will the safety of Orb truly come into peril. Of course, if it does, our military will likely already be broken and most of us will be dead anyway, quite a bleak picture." Cyprus said the last bit calmly, almost fatalistically. Though far from a fatalist, he did have to admit that if anything was to put him in such a grim mood, it would be an all or nothing battle with the fate of everyone he cared for on the line. Especially one that was not, in almost any way, an infantry battle, his forte.

"Well, it shouldn't be too hard to scare up a gurney and a few bags of nutrient solution to keep him stable during the flight back. Getting him to the airport is going to be a massive headache, but its nothing we can't handle." Ramierez said with a shrug at the future. "I'll be back shortly with what we need. And I promise not to scare anyone too badly in the process. Not any more than necessary anyway." Ramierez added over his shoulder as he left the room.

"I'll see what I can do about arranging a helicopter or some sort of alternative transportation... an ambulance if nothing else. Anything to help speed along or bypass that traffic hell." Glory decided, picking up on a nearly indiscernable vibe from his commander and friend, a vibe that said he wanted to be alone, or nearly so anyway, either to think or to make some sort of major decision or who knew what really! All Glory knew was that the Lt seemed to want some time without either of his suboridinates around, with just him and Sai, and he was glad to give him that time. "I'd make the same promise as the Corporal, but I'm not nearly as cuddly as him... some shouting may be inevitable." All he recieved was a nearly distracted nod in reply, but that was certainly enough for him!

Cyprus spent the time while his subordinates were about their self appointed tasks by pacing and looking introspectively around the room, focusing for a long time on Sai, and then spent nearly an equal amount of time looking out the window at the mess of people out in the city. He looked over his shoulder at Sai once, eyes narrowed, ear cocked as if straining to hear some near whisper of dire important, though there wasn't even the slightest hint of vocal noise in the room. Cyprus then returned his gaze to the refugees packed into the city around the hospital thoughtfully. Shortly before the door opened once more, to admit first Glory with a scowl on his face, and then Ramierez wheeling a gurney-bed with which to transport Sai, Cyrpus nodded once, as if agreeing with or deciding something, and he stiffened and gave a sharp salute towards the bed, before turning his gaze on his two friends and comrades as they entered them room. Glory started to step forward to disengage Sai from his monitoring equipment so he could lift him and place him on the gurney, but he stopped short when Cyprus held up a hand and shook his head emphatically.

"Uhm, what?" Ramierez asked, confusion in his eyes and on his face, plain even for an untrained eye to discern. "Its a clean gurney, I made sure of it!" He said defensively.

"We won't be needing a gurney." Cyprus told him seriously. "Nor will we need a helicopter or ambulance." He added, forestalling Glory's opened mouth.

"What do you mean?" Glory asked, as close to irritated with his friend as he ever usually got. "Aren't we here to save the President? Don't we need to remove him from the hospital to do that? I could have sworn we just agreed on that!"

"We did." Cyrpus nodded. "But upon further reflection I've come to the realization that while whisking Sai away to safety fits very well within OUR desires and wants... it would not conform to Sai's desires and wants, were he able to voice them. Sai is not the sort of man who would demand or want a special escort out of a dangerous situation, not when other people... his people... were left behind."

"But that negates our entire purpose for being here!" Ramierez protested. "Besides, isn't it our job to protect him even if he doesn't WANT to be protected!?"

"Are we protecting him, or protecting ourselves?" Cyprus answered. "Take a moment, think about it. From everything we've heard about what Green EDEN does, both from the Brotherhood's propoganda and Noah's own words to Kira and Lacus, given the young master's current situation he is actually in a better position to survive Green EDEN than any of the three of us, not to mention ninety eight percent of humanity in general. As he is, right here, Sai is in less danger than he would be if we moved him to Orb, sure to be the focus of the Brotherhood's full wrath soon enough. Moving him would make us all feel better, me included... but it would be a false safety we moved him to."

"Regardless of his chances of surviving Green EDEN, what about the inevitable breakdown in social order that comes next!? Not to mention what might happen if the USN decides to get a little nuke happy again!" Glory half shouted, not caring that the last bit was more a top secret speculation than any confirmed fact. "Orb may be at the focus of the Brotherhood's next major attack, but its still going to be the safest place on Earth nonetheless!"

"Will it be? For Sai, in specific?" Cyprus asked intently. "It is very likely that the next battle against the Brotherhood will claim our lives, and rightly so, if necessary to bring them down. But with us gone, there will be no one else truly loyal to Sai remaining. No one to watch out for him. No one to protect him. From threats external to Orb... or internal."

"Wait a minute now, sir... you're not suggesting that..." Ramierez started to argue.

"They would never do that!" Glory said vehemently. "My god, there may have been a lot of bad blood between him and the Clyne Faction, not to mention the Queen and the Ambassador, but they would never stoop to assassination, its just not in their repetoire of options! They are constitutionally incapable of it, all of them! Even the Majors would have trouble with assassinating a comatose man who was harmless! And Lacus would never allow it, NEVER!"

"I agree she would never allow them to assassinate Sai, or almost anyone else." Cyprus replied. "However, I do believe Ms. Clyne would raise much fewer objections to "allowing Sai peace", and by that I mean disconnecting him from all life support. Not assassinating him... allowing him to die, because they will see his condition as basically equivalent to death. They would do it out of mercy. To "end his suffering". Their intetions would be noble and good... and he would still die. It might be months... it might be years... but it would happen. That is unacceptable."

"We have to have some sort of contingency plan for this situation, assuming our deaths or inability to protect him." Glory refused to just let it go, not something this heartfelt. "Some way to pass power of attorney on, some way to make our will known, even beyond the grave!"

"We do." Cyprus admitted. "However, I am less than sanguine about the ability of such legal documentation to... completely protect Sai within Orb's borders. Here in Hawaii, anywhere else but Orb really, certainly, I would rest assured. But Orb will always be Cagalli's territory. And Cagalli has never forgiven Sai for the unfortunate series of events perpetuated upon her by Cervantes, using Sai's personal knowledge of her, much less his conquest of Orb. Especially given the trauma the Queen has recently suffered, I find myself troubled by the thought of leaving Sai in a country with her as monarch, even if she is no longer the chief political power. She would not be malicious. But she would not act with his best interests in mind either... she would advocate "mercy", and would not lose sleep over it. Tell me that Cagalli could not get an Orb doctor to pull the plug on Sai, regardless of legal documents... and I will call either of you a liar."

"Lacus would still..." Ramierez started to say.

"I would not overly count on Lacus's beneficial influences on Orb." Cyprus cut him off curtly. "Even assuming she ever recovers from her current illness even partially, to the point where she can once again exercise her political will and personal charm, we all know that she and Cagalli have had something of a falling out recently. Oh, neither will admit it, but the evidence is there, plain to see. A rift has formed between Orb and the Clyne Faction, with Athrun and Cagalli on one side, and Kira and Lacus on the other, even if they themselves refuse to acknowledge it. I do not personally know what occured between them, but I'd guess it has something to do with Cagalli's... miraculously sudden turnaround... in regards to her disassociative depression. You yourself were guarding her room at the time, Richard... you felt her unleash her mental abilities, even if your report didn't say as much in words."

"They're both reasonable people, and they're all sorts of close friends. They'll work the problem out." Glory argued.

"They'll try. However, I get the feeling this latest rift may have passed a point of no return... precisely because of how close they are. There is such a thing as too close. And it is my suspicion that Lacus has crossed that line in regards to Cagalli. To have someone be privy to your innermost thoughts, desires and dirty secrets... it would be harrowing to say the least. Perhaps most so if that person was someone you already knew well, and saw everyday. That is not something I would forgive lightly, if ever, especially if it was done to me against my will. Can either of you say different?" Cyprus challenged. Neither Glory nor Ramierez could reply to that one, and their uncomfortable glances aside was all the answer Cyprus needed.

"I can't make this an order." Cyprus surprised both of his subordinates with those words. "Because, though I have put a lot of thought into this, I may be wrong. I might be lying to myself, saying I am acting in Sai's best interest even though it flies in the face of all logic. But I just... I just have this unassaible feeling that if we do bring Sai to Orb, it will be basically the same thing as allowing him to die. Added on to that, I know Sai would never want us to give him special treatment, if he was aware of his situation and that of the world at large. He would tell us to leave him, and come back later if we could. No matter what we decide, his fate is thrown into question. But I give him better odds here. Who knows... perhaps Green EDEN will be the miracle treatment that restores his mind? The possibility exists, however slight."

"I've always felt like we failed him, even though we got him into that medical chopper and away to surgery in time to save his life." Ramierez admitted hoarsely. "Because though we saved his life, or at least as much of it as we could... in so doing we abandoned his ideals and his own personal desires. We left his children behind. Maybe dead, hopefully alive... but we LEFT THEM BEHIND. Vanai was obviously dead, and that was bad enough... but no one, especially not Sai, would have had us abandon his children, not even if it cost him his life a million times over!" Ramierez looked at Sai again now, and then pushed the gurney away, against the wall. "Well, I'm not going to fail him again. Regardless of whether he's safer here or in Orb, as long as there's a single non-terminally ill or wounded civilian here, Sai would not want us to evacuate him at their cost. Its stupid, its foolish, and its damned fucking annoying... but that's how he is. And I'm not going to disrespect him again. No way, no how."

"It seems I'm outvoted." Glory mumbled.

"No." Cyprus shook his head again. "This must be unanimous. We three are the ones Sai entrusted with his life. Not just me. Not just Ramierez. Not just you. All of us. We are his honor guard. We are his brothers, at least in spirit. We are the torchbearers of his legacy, at least until that happy day comes when he can accept the torch back from us. In this decision, we must all be walking in the same direction. Not because we were voted down... but because we believe it is right."

"You really believe that they would allow him to die?" Glory asked, looking Cyprus hard in the eyes. "Not just think, not just suspect... you believe that it is a fact that they would let him die?"

"It wouldn't come about in a snap decision. They might not even realize they were headed towards that conclusion. There would be resistance. It might take years. Even a decade or more." Cyprus answered soberly. "But they would allow him to die. I am certain of it. They would regard it as the right and proper decision... none of them would be able to stand seeing him "live in pain" as a vegetable. Perhaps even especially Kira would not be able to handle it. And to preserve Kira's well being, they would sacrifice Sai. There is no question of that."

"Then I am convinced." Glory said simply. "So then do we return home empty handed?"

"No. There are obviously far too many civilians for us to evacuate ourselves... we could not handle even a millionth of the people in Hawaii, even if we were loaded to overcapacity. Furthermore, while I know Sai would frown upon it and want us to consider every evacuee equally, I cannot bring myself to assist in the evacuation of those who will be either useless or an active burden upon the people of the future."

"What do you mean, sir? No criminals, that sort of thing?" Ramierez asked, puzzled.

"Their legal history doesn't matter to me. What I mean is that these people will be evacuating to very dire and stressful environments up in space. Living space, food, water, even air will be at a premium. Everyone will need to work as hard as they can, perhaps harder, in order to ensure not only their own survival but the survival of the greater population, since the Earth's resources will be unavaible for an indefinite but not likely short period of time. In such an environment the infirm, the elderly, the weak, the sick, the mentally incapable, the passive, the indolent, the unskilled, the very young... these sorts of people will be nothing but a drain on precious resources. And one of them might very well end up being the straw that broke the camel's back, resulting in an entire habitat collpasing or failing, costing untold thousands or millions of people their lives." Cyprus explained. "It is harsh, I know, but humanity needs to be harsh with itself right now, cut away dead flesh premptively, lighten the load... compassion and mercy, if allowed to run rampant, will doom use even more surely than the Brotherhood's plans."

"So, we're looking for active, skilled, healthy and hopefully bright young or mature adults, without children?" Glory clarified. "Say, everyone ages 16 to 40 or so, maybe a bit younger or older if they're a Coordinator?"

"We should be able to find plenty of suitable canidates right here in the hospital. Trained doctors and medical experts will be in high demand for the forseeable future. Assuming we remove all the seats and excess equipment, our jet should be able to accomodate almost eighty people. Start with the doctors, work your way down to the surgical assistants and specialized nurses, then on to the medical students. Have them gather in the lobby, no personal possessions allowed besides their civilian clothes if they have any. If anyone gives you trouble, handle it, but try to avoid killing if possible." Cyprus directed.

"Yes, sir!" Glory and Ramierez replied smartly, stiffening and saluting, both sounding relieved to be back on familiar ground with their boss, so to speak. None of this unanimous decision bullshit, they liked definite orders! Cyprus lifted his helmet from his side and slowly fitted it over his head once more, prompting Glory and Ramierez to do the same.

"Historically Hellhounds were dispatched to drag unwilling souls back down to Hell." Cyprus said, once they were all on helmet radios. "Today it's our job to drag them out of it. Loose the hounds!"

"Let there be Hell to pay!" Glory and Ramierez chorused the Hellhound ritual answer, before spinning on their heels to do their duties.

* * *

Author Note" Next time on Gundam SEED: The Eden Disaster, long lost lovers are reunited on opposite sides of a battlefield. Can the sleeper awaken in time to prevent heartbreak? Will he even be allowed to atone? And what about Lacus? You'll just have to wait and see. But not too long a wait.


	62. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 6

"So did you have a successful trip then?' Meyrin asked lightly, greeting Noah with a close hug as he stepped onto the bridge of the Great Endeavor, Ashino trailing, most likely unnoticed, behind him. She was speaking to Noah of course, but a twitch of her eyes in Ashino's direction included him in the question as well, though Noah was too busy hugging her back to see it. Before Ashino more or less slipped into the shadows against the bulkhead, he did at least give Meyrin a respectful nod in return. He hadn't been able to see Jean, but he'd tried his best, and the mere fact that he'd been able to try, been able to go to Orb and attempt to do something, anything, had helped him calm down considerably. Truly, he was in her debt... she'd given him a chance, when he most needed it. He would not forget that.

"It went brilliantly." Noah answered with a glad smile. He'd actually gotten back late last night, but had been too exhausted from the journey and the work before it in preparing the Hideout that he'd barely even hugged her before falling into bed and falling asleep. Now, today, refreshed and ready once more, he was glad to see her so full of energy and interest. Though he had decided it was perhaps not best to mention the run ins with the feral BCPU's, no need to worry her over something that was over and done with, right? Besides... Noah cautiously cast his gaze around the bridge, eventually picking up a deeper shadow against one wall, a shadow that corresponded in height and width to Ashino, and Noah patted himself on the back for remembering not to trust to only his mental senses when the bastard was around. While Ashino was far from a typical BCPU, there was no telling what he might do if he knew some of his brethren, younger siblings in a sense, still lived. It was a distraction he could not afford to have Ashino suffering, not now. Especially not now.

Upon waking up that morning, finding Meyrin already gone, and for quite a while judging by the coolness of her side of the bed, Noah had made a liesurely breakfast and done some warmup exercises while perusing a collated intelligence report from the Great Endeavor's mainframe, detailing the progress of spreading Green EDEN, which was good, well within the schedule. What was not so good were the figures representing the evacuation efforts of the USN for the Earth's populace, which, while still tortuously slow were evacuating hundreds of thousands of people every day from each of the Mass Drivers currently in operation: Porta Panama in Latin America, Kaoshung Spaceport in Asia, Victoria Spaceport in Africa and Kaguya Mass Driver in Orb. Added on to that were several tens of thousands more from regular surface to orbit shuttles and various other makeshift efforts. Of course, compared to the overall population of billions, it was still just a small stream, but Noah was displeased at the thought of even a single prospective Edenite being denied their chance at paradise.

Another displeasing thing had been the status reports from the Moon. Frustratingly, Durandel had somehow contrived to keep the slowly spreading Blue EDEN infestation an open secret. Many people were aware that there was some sort of disaster brewing on the Moon, but no one had any details, besides the steady and solid reports that the "USN was devoting all reasonable resources to combating the problem, has it under control, and it is not a threat to the evacuation proceedings". Of course, that was a bald faced lie, the USN was doing all it could and was just barely managing to slow the rate of expansion of the Blue EEN field, but with everyone so caught up in the drama of the evacuation, no one paid any mind to just one more suspicious story. There was no doubt that the Blue EDEN was fufilling the purpose he was hoping for, it was dividing the USN's efforts, even if only a little... but Noah wanted more. He wanted people to know the Moon was no safe haven at all, and that the PLANTS were filled up, and there was nowhere else to go. Perhaps then they would be more receptive to his well intentioned advice.

Finally, there had come the clincher... Durandel, still only partially recovered from his injuries that he had suffered during his little confrontation with Noah in the press conference, had decided to leave the false security of the Galileo Lunar Base in order to travel to Earth, to speak to various political leaders as well as those of the general population he could reach, to reassure them that everything was being done as quickly and efficiently as possible, that the Brotherhood would be stopped, and that their lives would be saved. Rubbish, most of it, but people would want to hear it nonetheless, sheeple that would bury their heads in the sand even with a ticking time bomb sitting on their own toes! Gil would be stopping at each of the Mass Drivers in order to reach the maximum number of refugees with his speechifying, but his first visit would be to Victoria Mass Driver, and more accurately, to the Solar Knights base located a few dozen kilometers away, where he would likely be discussing with Rey and his other military advisors some sort of strategy for confronting and destroying the Great Endeavor.

The opportunity was simply too good to pass up. And while the thought that it was likely a trap, at least in some ways, did occur to Noah, he didn't particularly care. The USN and Gil had been springing traps on him ever since he'd launched the Great Endeavor, and he'd just been springing them and overwhelming them with only a modicrum of effort. No, this time it was Gil who had trapped himself. Especially in light of the nuclear devastation he had unleashed upon the East Coast of North America. Noah was still more than furious about that monstrousity! Thankfully, for reasons beyond his immediate comprehension, Gil had not managed to get Europe nuked, though it was well and truly inside the Green Zone now. It almost certainly wasn't Gil having second thoughts, there must be some other failure somewhere in the chain of command... it was natural for people to balk at nuking their own cities and territory, even if it was supposedly filled with poison gas.

The Great Endeavor was just passing over the Caspian Sea, on its way to spread Green EDEN to most of continental Asia, and so was in a good position for the operations Noah had in mind. He reluctantly released Meyrin from his arms, pecking her on the cheek as they stepped back and then stood side by side, hands not quite held, but definitely brushing each other every so often, sending an electric tingle up both their arms each time flesh touched flesh. "I see you've kept everything in pristine shape while I was gone." Noah commented, activating the main bridge holographic display and rapidly paging through reams of more mundane status reports detailing the operations of the Great Endeavor in the days since he'd left. "I hope you weren't too bored."

"I managed to find a few ways to amuse myself." Meyrin replied with a enigmatic grin, but she did not elaborate when Noah looked at her, so he just shrugged. It probably wasn't important, or else Meyrin would have mentioned it already. She had very little sense of guile after all... one of the things he liked so much about her. "But yes, it's been dull and quiet around here, and I don't mind in the least. If everything was this dull and quiet until the moment our plan was successful, I would be greatly pleased. Greatly surprised, but also greatly pleased." Meyrin reached out and manipulated some of the data herself, not really looking at it, just swirling it like ribbons of light around her fingers. "You're planning something though, aren't you?"

"Yes." Noah confirmed, and confided in her his thoughts about what he'd looked at earlier in the morning. Meyrin hemmed and hawwed for a moment over the data, before agreeing with his assessment that Durandel's actions were probably either a provocation or a trap, in addition to anything else he was trying to accomplish.

"But it's not like it really matters, right?" Meyrin said slowly. "I mean, I want the transition to be as peaceful as possible of course, and it would be very nice if a lot more people would listen to us, but we don't need them to listen. I think we can safely ignore Durandel's actions, at least on the civilian side of things. I am more concerned about what he might be planning militarily, but I am also confident in our ability to see off any attack now that we have our full force once more."

"You're probably right about that. No, almost certainly right about that, Meyrin." Noah acknowledged, swirling some data around aimlessly himself. "But this opportunity, trap or not, is simply too good to pass up, especially in light of Durandel's recent atrocity. We don't need people to listen... but we do need people to be present, and I'm tired of entire cities worth of potential brothers and sisters slipping through our fingers every hour. Its time for the Mass Drivers to be shut down. And it's time for Gil to understand he can't throw his power around like he used to. New Eden will not suffer the hand of fire upon its flesh once more, if I have anything to say about it!"

"The Mass Drivers will be heavily defended. The one in Orb especially. Ever since Zaft used the Gugnirs to disable Porta Panama in the First Valentine War, security and defense installations around all Mass Drivers have been substantially beefed up. They're some of the most hardened installations in those entire member-states." Meyrin said musingly, calling up picture displays of the four Mass Drivers and Spaceports in question. "Victoria will also be a tough nut to crack, with the Solar Knights so close by."

"You don't object to the plan though?" Noah asked, with an arced eyebrow. He'd been afraid she would object, and he didn't think he could go against her will if she did, despite how much he wanted to kill Gil.

"I don't object to the idea of a plan to disable the Mass Drivers and eliminate our chief enemy, no." Meyrin replied thoughtfully. "I'll wait to give my judgement on your actual plan once you explain it to me."

"It's fairly simple. I'll send a task force of Martyrs and Zealots under the command of Randolf and Dylan to attack Panama and Kaoshung, Randolf will handle Panama and Dylan will handle Kaoshung. Each will command roughly a third of the Mobile Suits we currently have operational. At the same time, I will take the Brotherhood and the Vengeance, plus half of the remaining Zealots and all of Martyrs we have left, to attack Victoria and the Solar Knights. The rest of the Zealots, as well as the Retribution, will remain behind to ensure the security of the Great Endeavor."

"More enforced idleness?" Ashino spoke up caustically from the shadows, as if he'd never been allowed to go on his trip. "Its almost like you don't trust me, Noah..."

"I don'..." Noah was about to snap back, before Meyrin stopped him with a hand on his upper arm and a quick shake of her head.

"It's not that, Ashino." Meyrin said gently. "You are our strongest pilot, it only makes sense to keep you in reserve for a bigger battle or in case you are needed as reinforcements. It may seem like Noah doesn't trust you, but he is relying on you, to protect that which is nearest and dearest to his heart... the Great Endeavor and me. I for one will sleep much easier knowing that you are around to protect me even while Noah is busy. Does that make sense?"

"Too much sense." Ashino grumbled, but he subsided back into the shadows again as he did it.

_Did your tongue turn silver to go with your eyes!?_ Noah exclaimed in the back of her thoughts, stunned by the ease at which she'd defused the situation between him and Ashino... and even gotten Ashino to agree peacefully! _How the hell did you do that!? I can't say two words to him without feeling like I want to shoot him!_

_Don't worry about it... men failing to communicate with other men is nothing new to us women. Shinn and Lain are... were... the same way. Always at each other's throats, over the simplest, most innocent little things. Its cute at times, but not at times like this. Besides, I don't think you're jealous of Ashino, nor do you have reason to be._

_Jealous!? Of HIM!? Hardly!_ Noah sniffed haughtily. _He does get under my skin though. Perhaps it would be for the best if you handle communication with him in the future. I fear sooner rather than later he and I will have a physical reckoning he won't survive, if it is left to me to converse with him._

_I wouldn't want to see you two fighting._ Meyrin shuddered at the mere thought... not least because she could not help but have some misgivings about Noah's ability to triumph. Noah was a great many things, and extremely capable. But Ashino... he was made to be a killing machine, and of Coordinators no less! Sure, he was a very nice and mannered killing machine, but there was still the killing machine part just under the surface, waiting to be unleashed. She did not want it unleashed upon Noah. _I will gladly take on the task of liasion with your more... dissatisfied subordinates. I seem to have a touch for soothing ruffled feathers._

_You do at that._ Noah acknowledged. "I'm sorry to leave again so soon after I just got back, but I will be heading to Victoria in person this time."

"Why?" Meyrin asked, somewhat puzzled. "You can control the Brotherhood just fine from here, without worrying about personal danger. You are the most important member of the Brotherhood after all... without you, we would be lost. And me more than most."

"I realize that." Noah said, gently turning her so he could place a kiss upon her lips. "But past events have caused me to realize a flaw in my mental conditioning of certain subjects. I was once hasty and lost my best pilot by ordering him to attack a target containing remnants of his past life, and the shock and trauma of his old personality warring with the new caused him to not only fail in his assignment, but resulted in his capture and even reversion to his original self, resulting in untold amounts of intelligence for our foes. If I had but been there I could have prevented that from happening, but I was too far away. But for a stroke of exceptional luck, the Vengeance might very well have been captured that day, along with Michael. I can't risk that sort of thing happening again... especially since the Victoria force will be the smallest in number."

"You mean fighting Luna might cause Shinn to revert to his original self!?" Meyrin asked, stunned. She couldn't make up her mind whether the thought pleased or frightened her. "That's uh... uhm... that is a... err..."

"It would be unfortunate for us, let's leave it at that." Noah finished for her. "It is unlikely to occur... according to my best intelligence, your sister still believes that Shinn is dead, and Shinn no longer remembers your sister, at least in any sort of warlike capacity. But then again I thought similarly of Michael, and look at how that turned out. I promise I won't go anywhere near the fighting, I'll be miles away, in a Mirage Colloid cloaked shuttle. They'll never find me, even if they knew to look. And if they start getting close, I'll stop them with the Brotherhood. I'll be fine."

"You should take me with you. I'm a trained Combat Information Controller, I can be of great use in organizing your forces against a larger enemy force." Meyrin said suddenly.

"No, you are staying here." Noah said firmly.

"I don't need to be coddled, Noah!" Meyrin said tartly, eyes flaring. "If your cloaked shuttle is safe enough for you, it will be more than safe enough for me!"

"Its not your physical health I'm worried about." Noah replied stonily. "These are the Solar Knights I'll be fighting. And probably wiping out, to the last member. Including all of your friends and your sister. I will not let you fight against your sister or be the cause of her death. That is my sin to bear, not yours, and I will not be swayed on the matter!"

"Noah...!"

"No. Simply no. If you want to act as CIC from the bridge of the Great Endeavor for Randolf and Dylan, that is more than acceptable. But I will not subject you to the trauma of a civil war in your family, much less allow you to contribute in any way to the pain or death of your elder sister. I love you far too much to ever want you to hurt like that, Meyrin."

"Even if my participation as CIC could mean the difference between victory and defeat?" Meyrin sniped.

"Don't try to what if this, Meyrin. I cannot see the future, or know which actions from whom will have the most telling effect upon this battle, or any other. I can only act as I see fit at this time. Besides, what if you ARE the difference between victory and defeat... on the side of defeat? This is your sister and friends, I would not blame you for putting less than your all into defeating them."

"I will never betray you, Noah!"

"I would not see it as a betrayal! How could I ask you to simply abandon how you feel about them? That would be almost like coercing you!" Noah ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "Do it for me, though I hate to say it that way. Do it for my peace of mind. Stay away from the Victoria battle. Don't even watch, if you can manage it."

"I will stay away from Victoria." Meyrin said woodenly. Her eyes narrowed and she clenched her hands hard on Noah's shoulders, pulling him up close and personal. "But I WILL watch, and you will not stop me, nor edit the feeds, nor do anything to worry about what I am seeing, is THAT understood? This is my friends and sister we are talking about... if they are to die, by your hands or will, it is the VERY least I can do to stand witness and grieve for them, rather than let them die anonymously."

Noah heaved a long and heavy sigh. "Very well, you win. I just hope you don't end up regretting it. The last thing I want to do..."

"... is cause me pain, yes, I realize that. But this time, I don't think you have a choice, and I accept that. I believe in you Noah. I believe in whatever you need to do. So don't worry about me... in some ways, I've already come to terms with never seeing my friends and family again, now that I've become an Edenite. You are my family now, Noah." Meyrin said softly. "So be careful. I could not stand to be alone, not now."

"Meyrin..." Noah enfolded her in his arms protectively, holding her tight and close. "I will be careful. I could not stand to leave you alone, not now."

* * *

Luna stirred sleepily, and rolled over in bed. Unfortunately, since it was Rey's bed, and not altogether much bigger than a cot, this resulted in her falling out of it and landing on the decidedly solid and not very warm floor. The lack of warmth was excaberated by the fact that she was currently unclothed. She never would have slept naked before, not even in the privacy of her own room, but somehow it didn't bother her to do so when she was with Rey, and not just because it made it much easier to have sex without worrying about torn or wrinkled clothing. There was just something so calming and peaceful about falling asleep in his arms, hot skin on hot skin, warmth spreading out to fill her entire body. It was almost strange, given how relatively little sleeping they actually did in this bed, that Luna always felt much more chipper and energetic after a night at Rey's quater's than she did when sleeping alone. Maybe it was the emotional succor of being around someone you knew cared, which lifted the weight of her problems from her shoulders.

True to form, Rey was already long gone by the time she awoke, even though it wasn't too much past dawn... certainly quite a while before the first morning muster. Quite why Rey never hung around to enjoy a little morning pick me up with her she could not fathom, but then again, as the Commander of the Solar Knights, and also head of the anti-Brotherhood Taskforce, Rey did have a lot of duties to attend to, and not much time to do them in. Even less after the hours they spent fooling around in bed, though he never seemed to mind during the act. Still, while Rey himself might not be present, Luna could still almost feel him in her arms, or lying atop her, or her atop him, or plenty of other ways that brought a flush to her cheeks. They'd only been seeing each other for a few days, almost a week, and she didn't know whether this level of physical intimacy was normal for that sort of relationship time. Probably not... but it was a wonderful mutual destressor, and that was no small thing at the moment!

Luna picked herself up from the floor, holding the sheets bunched around her body, as she began to search for her uniform and underthings, only to find that Rey had managed to have them cleaned and pressed and all folded up and ready to go on one of the chairs, a nice touch that never failed to bring a smile to her lips and a shine in her eyes. Luna wasn't sure if she was in love with Rey, but she did certainly like him a lot, especially for small considerate touches like these. Then again, she wasn't sure she was NOT in love with Rey... after all, Shinn was gone, so her belated dreams of romance had already been crushed once. Maybe it was too soon for her to fall in love again? It certainly didn't seem to be the most appropriate time for romance, with the world as they knew it on the very verge of ending! On the other hand, who was she to impose a time limit on her feelings, and certainly the physical intimacy with Rey made her heart pound and her blood rush in a way she'd never experienced before. Of course she'd never had sex before either, so maybe that wasn't the best yardstick to measure by.

Shaking her head at the frustrations of emotional relationships, Luna quickly showered and prepped herself for the day before getting dressed. She was always careful leaving Rey's quarters, though there was no official rules against relationships between officers and subordinates in the Solar Knights, she was still a relatively junior officer, if very well respected, and the last thing she wanted to hear was people whispering about how she was trying to sleep her way to promotion! Bad enough the ribbing she got from her friends, especially female friends, who were shamefully interested in how good Rey was in bed, and whose ribald questions made her feel like her face was the same color as her hair, she did not want to experience malicious teasing too! Anyway, she tried not to be seen, even though she knew that was likely a futile task, as she made her way back to her own quarters, having to take a circuitous route because of the enclosed plastic tunnels that had been set up for pedestrian traffic, a preventative measure against biological terrorism attack. Sometimes she passed other women, and plenty of men, all sleepy eyed but strangely chipper, as they headed back to their own quarters in the early light of dawn, before reveille, and that was enough to assuage her embarassment somewhat. She and Rey were far from alone in their methods of emotional succor. It was a very human thing to do in uncertain times after all.

As was her new custom, after spending an approproate amount of time in her own room, enough to pretend that she had started her morning there, though few would be fooled by the childish deception, Luna finished eating a few snacks to tide her over through breakfast and then headed out to find Rey, acting as nonchalant as she could. Like it or not, her intimacy with Rey had resulted in her being more exposed to higher levels of authority and knowledge than she would ordinarily be, and she often overhead him having conference calls with the Secretary of Defense, and it wasn't like she could just forget all the things they discussed! t wasn't quite a promotion, and it certainly wasn't anything official, but unofficially she was becoming very much Rey's aide or assistant, at least in those times when she was not busy with running the affairs of Gawain squadron, something that did not take up much time at all now that they were one of the most elite squadrons in the Solar Knights, with all of her pilots on the cusp of being ready to move out and command squadrons of their own once the Solar Knights expanded, if and when that time came!

Luna was due for a surprise though, when she finally did manage to track Rey down, not in the main administrative tower or even the command bunker beneath it, but in one of the secondary bunkers beneath some of the outlying buildings. Security was unusually heavy, plentiful soldiers in full body armor and heavy weapons, even snipers in sealed suits on the rooftops, but they all let her pass without comment or question. She stepped inside the heavily armored room, a light hearted question forming on her lips about what was Rey worried about that required so many guards, when she saw what, or rather who it was, that needed such protection. Luna swallowed her question and snapped a salute, stiffening to attention in constrenation at walking in on the Secretary of Defense without announcement! "Knight-Ensign Lunamaria Hawke reporting, sir!" she said, though she had not been asked to report. What else was there to say? "Hi, I'm Rey's lover and I just barged in on a secure meeting, oops, I'll leave"? Luna felt her cheeks flushing already.

"Ah, the renowned Lunamaria. Rey has told me much about your prowess on the battlefield." Gilbert Durandel said affably, completely at ease, though given that he was probably the most powerful man alive, she could imagine he would be calm, even at a time like this! "Though he's much more reluctant to talk about your prowess off it." Durandel added with a mischevious glint in his eyes, and a smile that only got wider as Luna flushed, realizing that the SecDef had just made a dig at her and Rey. For his part, Rey shifted uncomfortably in his seat a few times, and did not look directly at Luna. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, struggling to get words out to explain, before Durandel held up a hand and chuckled. "Forgive my fun at your expense, Lunamaria. Truth be told I could not be more glad, concerning your... attachment... to my son. It is a true sign of hope when young people such as yourselves, for all of your terrible responsibility, can still find the time to indulge romance. Truly, I am envious of you both."

"Uh... thank you, sir?" Luna hedged, not quite sure how she was supposed to respond to a jesting commander in chief. It was like having the Supreme Council Chairperson suddenly decided to stop by and tell a joke, she just could not be intellectually ready for it. Rey on the other hand, just seemed embarassed in the way any son would be when their father was poking lighthearted fun at him in front of someone he cared about.

"I would rise to shake your hand, Lunamaria, but my leg still unfortunately troubles me, especially in gravity, so I will have to abstain for the moment. I think I might have pushed myself a little too far... the doctors are saying something about a permanent limp." Gil shrugged his shoulders, as if that was of no particular concern to him, though Luna did not think she could be so at ease in his situation! "Alas it wasn't like there was any true choice in the matter. The world needs our help, it would be simply criminal not to step up when called upon, regardless of silly little concerns like a leg injury, isn't that so?"

"Uh, yes." Luna agreed, still wrongfooted by finding the SecDef here at all. Wasn't he supposed to be on the Moon? Why would he come to Earth, especially unannounced, doubly so with the threat of the Green Zone due to encroach upon them before the end of the week, which was why the base had gone into full chemical and biological warfare lockdown mode as much as possible, with all buildings sealed and connected by pressurized tunnels to keep any harmful agents out. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding, sir, I did not realize you were here."

"Oh, not at all. And please, call me Gil, at least while the door is closed. I get sirred so often, it really grates on the ears. I do have a name after all, for a reason." Gil smiled and gestured for her to pull up a chair to the informal discussion. "I came here in secret, or at least a public secret, though I imagine very little escapes the notice of our enemy. I'm here because the public needs to see senior leadership sharing their perils and witessing their suffering, so that they know that they are not forgotten, not just numbers on a page to us, their elected leadership. To do so I will be visiting each of the Mass Drivers and attendant refugee camps in turn, but first I came here, both to discuss with Rey our plans for the eventual defeat of the Brotherhood, and also to arrange for protection for me. I'm afraid a simple unit of bodyguards and even soldiers is just not sufficient, not in the current world situation. I was going to ask for a squadron of Solar Knights to be detailed to me, I know I can rest easy with them about." Gil said, noting how Lunamaria swelled at that offhanded compliment. "I think we might actually be very fortunate you happened by, Lunamaria... Gawain squadron is famous for their abilities, I think I would be very safe indeed were you to be watching over me, though it would mean time away from Rey, I am sorry to say."

"It's not a problem." Rey started to say, before being held up by a hand from Gil.

"Let her reply, Rey, let's not be hasty now. I'd hate for you to put your foot in your mouth any more than need be."

"It's not a problem." Luna assured Gil. "I enjoy your son's company, both on and off duty, si... Gil. But I have my duty as a Solar Knight. Just like you said, when the world calls upon us, we really don't have much a choice but to respond, regardless of personal issues. I would be honored to have my squadron serve as your escort."

"Well, then it's decided." Gil said with a pleased look on his face. "Never fear, Rey, I intend to visit Victoria Spaceport first, and not until tomorrow at the earliest, so you two still have at least one more night together. I'm sure you'll find a way to make it special."

"Gil, please..." Rey was blushing a bright pink, very noticable on his pale complexion. He was about to say more when the bunker's vidcomm system trilled urgently at them. Rey answered it, snapping his jaw shut with an irritated expression, keeping it on one way video only, so that Gil could not be seen. "What is it? I ordered no disruptions for this morning, except in the most dire of cases! This had better be good!"

"Brotherhood forces are attacking Porta Panama and Kaoshung Spaceports." The duty officer at the other end of the screen said simply, confident that his news, while not welcome, would certainly meet the criteria of "good enough to warrant violating orders". Seeing as the Knight-Commander did not immediately bite his head off, he continued with the report. "The Haunted Gundam has been observed leading the Brotherhood forces at Porta Panama, and it is suspected though not confirmed that the Traitor Gundam is at Kaoshung Spaceport. Both Gundams are accompanied by almost two dozen Zealots and a dozen Martyrs, a significant battle force! As yet there have been no signs of any of the other Brotherhood Gundams, and the Great Endeavor itself has not changed its course or speed."

Gil sighed angrily. "Attacking the Mass Drivers... truly, Noah knows no pity! And a two pronged assault... he means to divide any retaliation forces we have to send."

"It doesn't make sense." Rey muttered in reply. "Well, the attack on the Mass Drivers does, but not his force allocations. Why send mass produced models and his weakest Gundams to attack such vital targets? He has to know that we'll have the Solar Knights scrambled and dropping in on their flanks well before they manage to chew through enough of the defenses to actually threaten the Mass Drivers! Maybe the others are hiding in reserve, like what they did at L.A.S.?"

"Could be." Luna chipped in, forgetting command decorum in the face of crisis. "But that would be a long time to wait to spring a trap which might not even draw any victims, when instead he could just use his Gundams like a hammerblow and blitz through the defenses before any reaction could be effective. He has to know we would remember L.A.S., he's not stupid enough to think we'd fall for the same trick twice, unfortunately."

"So if its not a trap, then it must be..." Rey mused, before he and Luna whirled towards each other at the same time. "A distraction!" they shouted in unison. Luna gestured for Rey to continue, wanting to see if his thoughts truly did echo hers. "He wants us to be looking more at Panama or Kaoshung, rather than somewhere else. Somewhere much closer to home, so that by the time we realize something is wrong, it would be too late, or forces would already be allocated to different combat zones! He's coming here with his strength... and after he destroys Victoria Spaceport, he'll come after us, especially if we appear weak."

"And I would think it likely he knows I am here too." Gil added. "He would certainly not be unhappy to remove me from the stage, and there doesn't appear to be a way for me to easily escape, other than to rely upon the Solar Knights to defeat him. Which I do. I have complete..." Gil was interrupted by alarm sirens wailing all over the base. "That doesn't sound good."

"Those are the proximity alerts..." Luna said with a deep frown. "OH FUCK, THEY'RE COMING HERE FIRST!" Luna turned on her heel and sprinted for the bunker doorway, though just as she reached it a reverberating shockwave from somewhere on the base slammed through the bunker and knocked her staggering against the doorframe. "Why didn't we detect them earlier!? FUCK! They're already on top of us!" Luna shouted furiously, as the door slowly ground its way open and she ran for her squadron's hanger, with Rey right on her heels. She only prayed there would still be a hanger, or a squadron, to get to by the time she got there!

* * *

Shinn was grinning, feeling like a great weight of sorrow and grief was lifting off of his shoulders with every second he spent bringing fire and terror to the people that had tormented him, ruined his life and murdered his entire family... the USN, and most specifically, the Solar Knights, the repugnant champions of that corrupt order! Being able to take them on in open combat once more, and this time in the middle of their own home base... truly, the Prophet was generous to allow him this opportunity for cathartic release! Catching with the pants down in the early morning, before even morning muster was due to be called, was perhaps not as satisfying as confronting them and defeating them when they were fully ready, but he was willing to suborn his own personal desires to the needs of the Prophet's plan. The plan was actually quite simple... the Vengeance and the initial attack force of Martyrs would provoke the Solar Knight's base and take out as many of them as possible, while the Prophet took the Brotherhood and the Zealots against Victoria Spaceport, and then returned to completely crush the Solar Knights once the Mass Driver and Spaceport facilities were disabled.

Shinn's orders were only to cause as much confusion and chaos as possible, to tie up the Solar Knights to prevent them from taking the Prophet in the flank, but he was personally resolved to annihilating the lot of them if he had the chance... he had an entire lifetime, short as it sometimes felt, of anger and angst to work out against these people, and this time there was no damned Gundam to distract him! Shinn's right arm twinged a bit at the memory of the Scarfaced Gundam, but he shook the phantasm away, along with the painful memories it conjured up. He had been weak that time, he had let the anger control him, rather than him controlling the anger. Something had been done to him, some external influence had affected his mind during that fight... but not this fight! Not this time! This time it would be he who was victorious in the end!

For all that intent though, Shinn had yet to actually attack anything with the Vengeance, and he wasn't quite sure why he was holding back, since this was his long awaited battle of revenge after all. The base was laid out exactly as he remembered it, and he even knew exactly where to strike to cause the most damage and cripple the defenders the most effectively. Right at the moment the Martyrs were happily blasting away at all targets like they were on a practice range, but they were spreading their munitions out too much, causing light to moderate damage over a large area, where they would be better served by concentrating their fire at a few key spots, such as the residential barracks, the administrative tower or especially the hangers. It was basic strategy to destroy hangers first when attacking an enemy base, but the Harbingers seemed to have skipped that section of training, because they were treating them just like any other building, rather than deadly flowers scrambling to release deadly seedlings in the shape of Mobile Suits!

Still, despite the fact that he knew where to attack, and could recognize the Martyrs were wasting precious time and munitions on secondary and tertiary targets while the primary defenses were still online, Shinn found he could not force himself to do anything but float there above the base like an angel of death. He couldn't even manage the gumption to open a commline to the Martyrs and order them to change their targets before it was too late. And then it WAS too late, as the hangers opened their doors and discharged squadron after very pissed off squadron of Solar Knight Archons, straight into the midst of the dozen and a half Martyrs under his command! Almost immediately the battle intensified into a full out, no holds barred, no quarter granted or asked close quarters brawl between very heavily armed Mobile Suits. Sometimes even so close quarters that they resorted to grappling and kicking, being too close for even swords or knives! Of course the Martyrs, even lacking hands as they did, had the advantage in such extreme close quarters because of being NIC controlled units, but they were heavily outnumbered by the Archons, which kept the playing field even.

Shinn was still cursing his hesitancy when at last his mind was made up for him, in the persona of three Archons that powered up at him from the smoke and chaos below, blasting at him several times with their accelerated impulse sword-cannons before belatedly remembering that the Vengeance was proof against energy weaponry. So belatedly in fact, that two of them were dead, smashed and sliced apart by a pair of roundhouse zweihander swings, before their pilots realized the futility of their initial attacks. Glad to find himself galvanized and able to actually attack, rather than just brood about attacking, Shinn threw himself and the Vengeance at the last Archon, which was now attempting to flee since it's wingmates had succumbed to fiery deaths, seemingly in less time than it took to blink. The Archon held up its sword-cannon in a flimsy attempt at a parry, backed by its shield, but such was the force of Shinn's charge that the thrusting lance of his QC swordblade sheared through sword, shield and torso of the Archon with barely a shiver of resistance. Shinn shook the pierced remains of the Mobile Suit from his blade, letting it tumble to the ground below, before looking for new targets.

Though they had been regenerated along with the rest of his Gundam, Shinn had elected not to bring along either the 300mm QC spear driver or the 660mm Radiation Cannon for this mission. He was looking forward to a visceral, cleansing combat, where he used his best close combat skills to purge all his pent up emotions onto his hated foes, and even better, in pursuit of the Prophet's goals! Besides, what greater weapons did he need than his phenomenal speed and agility, coupled with the fractal edge of his sword and claws? Missiles and railgun fire from ground emplacements streaked up at him, and Shinn sideslipped the Vengeance, turning a half barrel rool and dropping down into the thermal bloom and smoke of the near ground to confuse the automated tracking systems of the emplacements. Anything that got too close was picked off by a wave from his palm positron reflector, or even deflected by the wide blade of his sword, which served perfectly well as a shield even against high explosives or beams.

Shinn crossed over the smouldering wreckage of a Martyr, destroyed before it could activate its tremendously powerful self destruct mechanism, judging by the lack of a gargantuan crater, and then found himself under attack from two sides at once, as a pair of Solar Knights rushed him from both front and back, waving their swords and firing off salvos of missiles indiscriminantly. Shinn delayed the two flanking him by scattering them backwards with shoves from his wingtip mounted positron reflectors, sending them stumbling and sprawling in ungainly heaps, even as he blocked... and subsequently disintegrated... the sword of one of his frontal attackers with one palm positron reflector and struck out at the other with his sword, landing a glancing blow against the shield that sparked off the Citadel barrier. Shifting his feet, Shinn uncoiled the heat whip from his free arm and sent it cracking into the face of the Archon he'd disarmed, crushing the head and sending it falling over backwards into a cluster of storage sheds, which promptly exploded, perhaps full of paint or other flammable materials.

The other frontal Archon pushed forward insistently behind its shield, trying to bull close enough to force him either to move or remain off balance, while its companions struggled to regroup themselves. The one covered in flames on the ground probably wouldn't be getting up again, and could hardly see with its primary sensors destroyed anyway, but the two to the rear were still hale and ready to fight as they picked themselves up and pounced at him on their hoverthrusters again. Shinn shook his head pityingly, since these must be newer or ill trained recruits... the hoverthrusters were a great system, but because they robbed your Archon of contact with the ground, you gave up all important leverage and steady balance, which was critical in melee combat, especially with physical versus beam blades. Shinn was still trying to figure out how he knew such specific details about the Archon, even though he'd never piloted one or really studied them, as he sidestepped the clumsy overhand slash of one opponent, and kicked the sword clean out of the hand of the other, the blade flipping upwards in a lazy arc.

Shinn reached up and snatched the blade out of the air, activating its beam edge in time to stab it through the chest of its former surprised owner, and triggered the accelerated impulse cannon built into the tip for extra measure, obliterating the back of the Archon in a wash of purple-blue plasma. He blocked the predictable, off balance swing of the other hovering Archon with the edge of his sword, slicing the lesser blade in half like it was hardly even there, before then smashing outward with his hilt and smacking the Archon resoundingly on the side of its head mockingly. If the Archon had been grounded, it would have been rocked but that was about it. Hovering as it was, the force of the blow sent the Archon spinning backwards into and through a hanger door to crash out through the far wall, bringing down most of the building. Shinn turned his attention back to the sole remaining, and much more skilled pilot, confident that the newbie would be several seconds at least in recovering.

Apparently realizing that he was no match for the Vengeance in a close quarter combat, especially alone, the grounded Archon was slowly retreating, keeping his shield between him and the Vengeance, and firing potshots with his sword-cannon, even though he knew they would be ineffective. Sometimes people still flinched, even when an attack couldn't hurt them. Shinn wasn't about to let the foe get away though, and her charged forward, slamming the edge of his sword into the shield with all his might, rocking the Archon backward, almost tipping it over, but the strike was held in an explosion of golden sparks. Undeterred, Shinn swiped his heat whip underneath the bottom edge of the shield, wrapping it around the ankles of the Archon and tying them together shortly before the white hot chains melted through the ankle joints and amputated the feet of the Mobile Suit. Flailing awkwardly, the Archon tipped over backwards, and Shinn let it fall, retracting his heat whip and putting both hands on his sword hilt as he spun around in a complete circle with the force of his swing at the newbie trying to once more stab him in the back.

Air, smoke, building, Phase Shift Armor, human flesh and bone... none of it impeded the stroke of the QC edge as it sliced through not only the hovering Archon, but the buildings on all sides of the Vengeance, dropping the roofs down into the interior and leaving walls with glassy smooth cut surfaces at their tops. The legs of the Archon continued to hover for several seconds before the last reserves of battery power ran out, and then the legs joined the bisected torso on the ground, dead and inert. Shinn smoothly pivoted his blade around as he lifted it over his head and then brought it spearing down, point first, impaling the last remaining, footless Archon, once more a strong piercing blow proving superior to a slash for penetrating the Citadel Shield, and pinned the Archon to the ground right through the cockpit like a bug! Shinn yanked the blade out of the corpse and shook it at the sky while shouting a wordless victory cry, a cry of release and of anger still to be assauged. Then he went looking for more targets to kill.

* * *

"Gawain squadron, form up on me! Don't let yourselves get seperated in this smoke! Remember what Shinn taught you, stay on hoverthrusters until the enemy gets close, then go grounded to finish them off! We've got Robin flight on overwatch at the moment, so if you see something, call it out so we can focus fire!" Luna ordered as she frantically strove to get her bearings and throw together some sort of reasonable plan of action. As far as an overall strategy, she wasn't sure there was one, other than "deny and throw back the invaders as quickly as possible", but Rey was working on the bigger picture, it was her job to clear her zone and kill as many enemies as she could in the process! The other four Archons of her squadron closed up on either side of her, overlapping their Citadel Shield effects as much as they could, and moving their sword-cannons practically in unison, and the sight made her heart swell with pride. They were a good unit, maybe the best still remaining in the Solar Knights. Not even an attack like this could throw them off their game, and woe betide to the other players if they thought Gawain to be easy meat!

"Target at ten o'clock, confirmed unfriendly!" Gawain two called out, and as one the entire squadron blasted the barely visible outline in the smoke with their accelerated impulse cannons, followed a bare second later by five more beams from Robin flight overhead. The Martyr was not so much destroyed as vaporised from head to toes, and certainly didn't get off its self destruct, much less a retaliatory shot. Gawain squadron continued to prowl, firing at distant targets, all Martyrs, several times, though never to quite the same effect as the first one. They took fire on many occasions, beam, railgun and missile fire raining down at them from wildingly firing Martyrs not even remotely nearby, but with their phase shift armor and interlocked Citadel Shields, they didn't even take a scratch! The situation had started out chaotic and confused, but with their help... and the help of other veteran squadrons... the battle was quickly shifting in their favor. The enemy was heavily outnumbered, almost five to one now, and seemed to consist entirely of Martyrs. Luna wondered where the more utilitarian Zealots were, and more importantly where the Gundam leading them, and there had to be one, was.

For that matter, she wanted to know which Gundam it was, though she liked none of the choices available, considering it could only be either the Vengeance, Retribution or Brotherhood, and none of those were pushovers. Just about the opposite in fact, especially the Brotherhood. Luna shook her head admantly. It didn't matter which Gundam it was, even the Brotherhood couldn't stand if surrounded by the entire unit! The Brotherhood had once more taken the Solar Knights too lightly, sending only a dozen or so Martyrs and a single Gundam to sneak attack their base. Yes, the damage was tremendous, but they were not down, not by a long way, and if she had her druthers, the Brotherhood would be short yet another Gundam by the end of the battle! It was while she was thinking this, that Luna at last caught sight of the enemy leader, and the breath caught in her throat. It was the Vengeance, in its bloody crimson color scheme, stalking arrogantly along a parade ground like it owned the place, sword held casually over one shoulder, almost swaggering, the bastard! Despite the ferocity of the battle, the Vengeance didn't even seem to be nicked, nor did its posture suggest overly much concern at the way the battle was going.

"FOR SHINN!" Luna shouted, and along with her, Gawain squadron opened fire with every weapon at their disposal, while also powering forward as fast as their hoverthrusters could carry them. Pretty much as Luna expected, the Vengeance blocked their ranged attacks with its antimatter shields in palm and wingtips, but at least the bastard was forced on the defensive, giving them time to maneuver closer so they could attack as a team. Lacking any ranged weapons of its own, the Vengeance was a monster in melee combat, but Luna was confident the five of them would be more than any mortal pilot could handle at once. Even Kira Yamato had never engaged five elite foes at once in melee combat!

Just before she entered melee range, Luna disengaged her hoverthrusters, landing with legs bent and pouncing forward to preserve her forward momentum as much as possible, leading with her shield, which slammed into a yielding surface several meters short of the Vengeance as the Citadel Shield butted against the positron reflectors, and the Vengeance was forced backwards a step or two, feet sliding on the concrete. Luna felt her shield surge forward as the positron reflectors were disengaged, but she had already braced herself by that point in time, and the smashing slash of the QC zweihander, while rough, barely did more than rattle her teeth. Before the Vengeance could recover, it was attacked from both right and left flanks at once, by two Archons apiece, one stabbing with sword while the other covered the attacker with their shield against ripostes. The Vengeance was forced to stumble backwards to avoid being gutted, swinging wildly to right and left with its huge sword, clearing some space for a moment.

Luna vowed not to give the bastard even an instant to recover his equilibrium, and she was darting forward even as the huge shimmering crystal sword sliced to either side, once more leading with her shield and this time striking home with a sensation somewhere between a "crunch" and a "squish" as the Vengeance's liquid crystal armor absorbed the force of her blow, deforming slightly around the front face of her shield as it pressed into the Vengeance's torso. Already off balance, the Vengeance's feet left the ground and it fell heavily to the concrete on its back, skidding up a sparking trench as it lay on its back. The Gundam was up again in an instant though, faster than Luna would have believed possible, even with the unfair control systems of the enemy, and instead of staying on the defensive, the Vengeance actually went on the attack against Gawain squadron, raining sword blows sufficiently powerful to slice any three of them in half should they get past the shields, but gawain squad closed ranks around Luna and presented a united Citadel front to the attacks, and the Vengeance was denied.

Undeterred, and plainly enraged by his embarassing fall, the pilot of the Vengeance poured on the steam, waterfalls of golden sparks shimmering in the air around him as he lashed furiously at the defending Archons with his sword, but no matter how hard he swung or stabbed, he could not penetrate overlapping Citadel Shields. Realizing this, the Vengeance suddenly let its sword slip out of its fingers and sail a few dozen meters away. Inevitably, the eyes of Gawain squadron were drawn, for just a moment, to the huge flying blade, and in that moment the Vengeance pounced, reaching its arms up and over the top edge of the Citadel barrier faster than the Archon's could change the angle of their shield, QC claws popping out of the fingertips of the Vengeance to stab and hook into the backsides of the shields of Gawain Three and Five, shorting out the Citadel Shield electronics and then physically ripping the shields into tattered shreds of armor plate. One of the Vengeance's knees plowed inward through the now unshielded side and knocked Gawain Three flat on his ass in the middle of the formation, his jarring fall disrupting the other four tightly packed Archons as they scrambled to react.

Unfortunately, by that time, the Vengeance had already forced its way into the middle of their formation, actually standing atop Gawain Three as he lashed about with claw tipped hands with wild abandon, slashing deep cuts in armor like it was paper, and completely decapitating Gawain Four. The Archons clubbed and shoved as much at each other as they did at the enemy Gundam as they tried to fight free of their tangled knot so as to be able to effectively defend themselves, but the Vengeance wasn't having it, throwing itself bodily upon Gawain Five and Two, bearing them to the ground, where in a few short, horrifying seconds the Vengeance had eviscerated both Archons, leaving their cockpits in slashed, blood dripping ruins. Gawain Three rose from the ground only to have its knees kicked sideways by the Vengeance as it leaped past on its way towards the staggering Gawain Four, and then a double smack from the wingtip mounted positron shields blew Gawain Three over like a sapling in a tornado. The Vengeance smashed its bloody claws right through the middle of Gawain Four's chest, choking off her death screams in mid yelp as her upper body was violently dismembered and then crushed by the Vengeance's hand.

The Vengeance was just turning to vent its wrath upon the crippled and disoriented Gawain Three when Luna hurled her shield like a discus, and struck the Vengeance just about where the throat would be on a human being. Such an attack on a human would have been deadly, and even on a Gundam the relatively delicate neck servos and connections were smashed inwards, momentarily shorting out the Vengeance's main cameras and other sensors, temporarily rendering the Gundam blind. And just like a blinded man, the Vengeance stumbled and brought its hands protectively up to its face, only just barely disengaging the claws in time to avoid gashing itself. Luna was not idle during this time, she snatched up Gawain Three's sword-cannon in her now empty left hand and stormed at the blinded Vengeance with a blade in either hand. Luna would never have counted herself a particularly exceptional melee fighter, but it was childs play to attack someone who could not see you coming! The Vengeance punched out wildly with one hand, claws extended again, but Luna knew better than to approach from directly in front, and the blow came nowhere near her as she raised both blades to stab, aiming right at the blazing heart of the Gundam's reactor.

"Capture it, Luna, capture it!" Rey's voice yelling over her comm system confused Luna for a moment and she hesitated in her thrusts. "Disable it! We need that Gundam, it could be the insight we need to defeat the Brotherhood once and for all!"

"But he killed..." Luna started to protest, before the logical and duty oriented part of her mind kicked in again. "Roger that, sir, attacking to disable." Luna replied with a heavy sigh. She only took her eyes away from her main screen for a moment, but it was a critical one. When she blinked back to her main screen and adjusted her trajectory of attack, she found her Archon's arms would not move. Pink light once more blazed behind the cracked eye lenses of the Vengeance, and its hands were wrapped around the forearms of Luna's Archon, holding them at bay. Luna just barely had time to see a blur of motion on the bottom of her screen as the Vengeance's wings flipped up from beneath its arms, and there was a bright pink flash, a huge jarr, and the sound of ripping metal, and then her Archon was rolling and sliding along the ground, both arms missing from the elbow down after being punted by a slam from the positron reflectors.

Rey groaned as he saw Luna's Archon go down, and he knew it was because of his order that she'd had to delay, and given the enemy time to recover. He himself was too far away from that part of the battle to do any good, he was currently coordinating a reinforcement unit to go to the aid of the belabored Victoria Spaceport defenses, but he still had one weapon at his disposal, even if it was a last resort. A very last resort, considering it was definitely a blade that would cut both ways, but if the only alternative was to have Luna be murdered, then there was no alternative at all! He watched the Vengeance pounce upon Luna's downed Archon, straddling it, pinning it down as the Vengeance raised one clawed hand high, fingers bunching together into a spearhead shape as Shinn prepared to drive his hand through Luna's cockpit. But of course Shinn didn't know that it was Luna he was about to kill. Depending on the degree of Noah's control over him, he might not even care, but Rey doubted that. Shinn was many things, but easily controlled was not one of them! "SHINN, NO! THAT'S LUNA! YOU'RE ABOUT TO KILL LUNAMARIA!" Rey shouted, broadcasting on all available channels in the Vengeance's direction.

Much to Rey's relief, the Vengeance froze like it had suddenly turned to solid stone, though it didn't let Luna up either. "Luna... maria?" Shinn's voice, hoarse and strangulated but definitely Shinn's voice, came back to Rey on the international open channel. Shinn was breathing heavily, as if he'd just run a twenty kilometer marathon without resting, and there was a odd, fluidy sound to his breathing, like his lungs were full of phlegm or blood... or, more likely, Rey realized, the aerated acceleration cushioning gel the Brotherhood used in its flight suits in place of restraining straps. "Luna..." Shinn half gargled again, and the Vengeance's right hand started to inch downwards. "No!" Shinn cried in aunguish. "I won't! I won't lie down and be quiet anymore! I... WILL... STOP... THIS!" Even as Shinn shouted, the Vengeance's clawed fist plummeted downwards... and gouged a huge divot out of the paving between the Archon's left arm and torso.

"S-S-Sh-Shinn...?" Luna's voice was very thready, so weak that Rey was afraid she'd been injured when her machine went down, but then he realized it was almost certainly just shock. Luna had been convinced Shinn was dead after all, had already gone through the process of grief, had started to move on with her life. She'd lived in a daze for weeks at a time, withdrawing from everyone, even her own family, and only hanging on through great strength of will and fanatical adherence to duty... and then there had been that fateful night in Rey's office, after hearing the message from Meyrin and Noah. The night she had freely given her virginity away, mostly on a whim, just because she was too damned tired to care about saving herself for someone she truly loved anymore. Someone she truly loved, like Shinn, but of course he was dead. But he wasn't dead, and as soon as the shock wore off, Rey was totally sure Luna would realize that for Rey to have known Shinn was piloting the Vengeance, then he would have known for a while that Shinn was not, in fact, dead. But hadn't told her. "Shinn, is that you?" Rey winced, this time because of how raw and pained her voice was.

"Luna... you're... not dead? She was... she was right!" Shinn crowed triumphantly, though neither Rey nor Luna had any idea what he was talking about. "Oh, Luna..."

* * *

Noah chuckled to himself, almost awed at his own destructive capabilities as the Brotherhood practically single handedly mowed a path through the fixed and mobile defenses of Victoria Spaceport. What would have almost certainly been a nigh impregnable fortress of interlocking fire grids, heavily fortified bunkers, and more than a hundred ALU Mobile Suits of various makes and models to any other attacker, even any other Gundam, was to the Brotherhood only a mild impediment. The 5mm AMP rifle was of course stowed, no sense causing that much environmental damage unless there was absolutely no other choice, but that freed up two entire arms for shield duty, while he used the rapidfire FRALA, the 550mm mortar and the 20mm QC Spike Driver, plus the Thermal Exciters on his four wingtips to dice, blast, shred and melt anything in a fifty meter wide swath surrounding him. Even the addition of a few units of USN Champions wasn't enough to upgrade the encounter to more than "sort of exciting" and only that because of the variety of different things to kill was so large!

In truth he could have easily left the entire battle to the control of the LAICEPs and probably done just as well, if not better, but Noah was well aware that he needed as much raw experience and fight time in the Brotherhood as he could eke out, if he wanted to have any chance of staying ahead of Cousin Kira. And while the raw experience gained from steamrolling a bunch of pathetically inferior Mobile Suits and pilots was perhaps not worth as much as experience in fighting ace pilots in moderately advanced Gundams, there also wasn't the risk of losing here either! Noah walked the blue-white beam of the FRALA through a cluster of three ALU Lupus's, cheap Ginn knockoffs, more than a decade out of date by now, that had no place on a battlefield with him! The three outdated machines dropped in a pile of slagged limbs and sparking battery connections, and the Brotherhood took another lordly step further, flanked by an entourage of almost twenty Zealots, who were mostly just watching and taking potshots at this juncture. Just a few more minutes and he would easily be in range to inflict terminal damage upon the Mass Driver!

Noah was so intent on his fun that he did not initially feel Shinn's unravelling of his programming, because of the stress of fighting and killing his own former comrades in the middle of his own former base, trying to reconcile his intimate knowledge of the Solar Knights, insider only sort of knowledge, with Noah's inserted memories that had the Solar Knights as his most hated foes and personal tormenters. He could not possibly have been a Solar Knight, according to Noah's memories, yet here he was, with the memories of one? A logical fallacy that helped his original personality regain in a matter of minutes what would have otherwise taken days or weeks of effort! However, there was no way for Noah to miss the explosion of rage and relief that signalled Shinn throwing off the last remnants of Noah's control, his original personality surging to the for in a nigh disabling rush of conflicting memories and emotions. Noah didn't hesitate, spinning the Brotherhood around and ordering the Zealots to follow him as best they were able, he headed for the Solar Knight's base as fast as his thrusters would carry him, covering the almost thirty kilometers in less than a minute, arriving at the Vengeance's location just as it was clambering off the torso of the Archon it had been straddling and about to kill.

"YOU!" Shinn shouted, the Vengeance looking up at the hovering Brotherhood. "YOU MOTHERFUCKER! YOU MADE ME... YOU MADE ME... YOU... YOU...!!!" Shinn trailed off, obviously lost for words of sufficient venom to convey just how he felt about being mentally dominated and used as a tool. "I'LL KILL YOU!" Shinn shouted, snatching up the QC zweihander and pointing it threateningly at the Brotherhood, and the distantly approaching mob of Zealots. "I'll kill all of you!" Shinn promised, and then he charged at the Brotherhood as fast as he could, screaming his fury, bringing his sword back for an almighty cut.

* * *

"I thought I told you I never wanted to see either of you two in a Mobile Suit again?" Rey said coldly, looking at his commscreen, which as divided into two parts. One with the dark haired, mismatch eyed face of Lain Debora, the other with the blond haired, blue eyed face of Eric Kellson. Two of the people who were at the very top of his shit list, barring only active terrorists and other lowlifes! "In fact I could have sworn I made it a direct order that you two were to take up training and quartermaster duties, as reward for your excellent service during the second battle of Galileo?" Rey put extra heavy sarcastic weight on "reward" and "service".

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Lain said venomously. "I don't know what came over me, to posses me and make me think that we're ALL IN DEEP SHIT HERE, and that you could USE ALL THE HELP YOU CAN GET!? I wonder what gave me that impression!? Maybe it was the surprise attack by the Brotherhood? Maybe its the scary fucking Gundams they brought, that singlehandedly killed hundreds of people during the battle at the Moon? I dunno, I might be reaching here, after all."

"Very subtle, Lain, very "ninja"." Eric groaned on his own screen. "Look, sir, regardless of what's happened in the past, the crux of the matter is, we're under attack now, and they mean to kill us all. Me, you, Lain, Luna, every last fucking one of us. And they very well might have the means to do it. So you'll pardon us if we choose to fight back, instead of just rolling over and waiting to die? Just tell us where the danger is the greatest, we'll go take care of it, and if we go down, well, I guess that's a happy ending for you, right?"

"I'm going to have you both court martialed and imprisoned for violating direct orders in a time of war, once this is over." Rey promised darkly. "Just like I should have done after Galileo! You don't have the media limelight anymore, I'm going to filet the both of you and mount you on my door as a warning to everyone about the price of disloyalty!" Rey was about to say more in that vein when the situation with Shinn and Luna had distracted him. There was a long pause on the commlines as the Vengeance punched downward and only came up with a handfull of pavement, and then all hell seemed to break loose. Everyone was shouting at once, from the people back at CIC, to Gil, to the commander of the Victoria Spaceport defenses, to most especially Lain, Eric and Luna. Even though Rey knew it might very well end up being a fatal distraction, he still let the sound was over him, most particularly the sound of Luna crying. Crying, in mingled joy and soul wrenching guilt and self reproach. Soon enough, he was pretty sure that would turn to anger. Anger directed at him. And she would not be wrong to feel that way, not at all.

"Shinn is alive!?" Lain yelled, so loudly his voice almost cracked.

"Oh thank fucking god." Eric muttered under his breath. "What a fucking miracle." Eric added, and then turned his gaze on the machine Shinn was piloting... had been piloting, for who knew how long. "What a fucking nightmare!"

"Knight-Commander Ze Burrel, the Brotherhood forces are breaking off from their attack against Victoria Spaceport and are headed in your direction at top speed! They'll be all over you in a matter of minutes!" The commanding general of the ALU forces guarding the spaceport commed urgently. "We're in pretty rough shape here, but we'll try and send what reinforcements we can, just let us know where we can be useful!"

"You've opened a hell of a can of worms, Rey." Gil said severely. "I do hope you know what you're doing. I know its hard to lose a lover, but you should have kept your mouth shut, because you've lost one anyway now!"

For her part, Luna was still mostly incoherent, as was Shinn himself, recovering from the immense effort of willpower it had taken to dredge his original personality back up. That changed though, with a gargantuan rumble of thunder as the Brotherhood appeared over the base trailing a wake of sundered sonic booms, hovering a few hundred feet above where the Vengeance was just unstraddling Luna's Archon. Of course, it didn't take Shinn very long at all to locate his oppressor, and after a brief sputtering of half crazed threats, the Vengeance leapt to attack the Brotherhood with all of Shinn's fury propelling it. The Brotherhood did not hang around to be tackled or impaled, in fact it almost seemed to be running away from the Vengeance, even though Shinn was leaving himself wide open at times, as he relentlessly pursued the gleaming golden Gundam with all the tenacity of a rabid badger! Lain and Eric, as well as a goodly few other Solar Knights, took off after the two Gundams, yelling and cheering and firing mostly wild potshots as the Solar Knights reacted joyously to the return of their star pilot, most deciding to leave the problem of what he was doing in a Brotherhood Gundam on the sidelines for the moment.

For his part, Rey remained back on the ground, slowly making his way over towards where Luna's Archon was limping its way to its feet, along with the only remaining member of her squadron, Gawain Three. Luna's Archon turned to face him mutely, and then just as suddenly turned away, without a single word or even sound being spoken, but Rey's intent to lay his Archon's gauntlet on Luna's shulder in at least a small gesture of comfort died stillborn in his mind. Ever a glutton for punishment though, Rey forced open a comm channel to Luna. "Luna, listen... I'm really sorry that it had to be this way but..."

"LIAR!" Luna's voice was raw and scalding, like molten lava thrown into his face.

"I know it seems that way, but it was for the greater..." Rey tried to explain.

"RAPIST! YOU TOOK ADVANTAGE OF ME!" Luna screamed, whipping her Archon back around to stand nearly chest to chest to Rey. "YOU LET ME... YOU DIDN'T TELL ME... WE SLEPT... I GAVE YOU MY... ON A LIE! A LIE! IT WAS ALL A LIE, JUST SO YOU COULD GET YOUR FUCKING ROCKS OFF! YOU KNEW... YOU BASTARD, YOU KNEW ALL ALONG! YOU KNEW AND YOU STILL... you still... you... oh god, Shinn, forgive me! FORGIVE ME, SHINN!" Luna wailed.

"That isn't how I meant it to happen." Rey finally managed to complete a sentence.

"How you MEANT it to happen!? You didn't mean for me to find out that you knew Shinn was still alive!? Because you knew you'd never be able to have me for yourself otherwise!? I trusted you, Rey! I trusted you more than I ever trusted anyone else in my life! I gave you something I can NEVER, EVER get back, on the premise that you were there for me! But you weren't! You were there for YOU, and I was just a means to your own sick pleasure! I hate you! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU MORE THAN I EVEN HATE NOAH!"

"You don't mean that." Rey said softly.

"Like hell I don't!" Luna's Archon wobbled as she awkwardly tried to kick at Rey, but without arms it was difficult for her machine to stay balanced, and Rey easily evaded the clumsy attack. "Just you wait until you get out of that machine! I'll beat you into a bloody pulp and flush you down the filthiest toliet I can find, so you can be with all the other stinking pieces of shit! And then I'm going to throw myself at Shinn's feet and beg his forgiveness for betraying a real man, who actually loves me and cares for me, even though I don't deserve it after being a willing sextoy to you for a week!"

"That's not what you are to me, Luna!" Rey protested, shifting to avoid another attempted kick. "You're my friend, my valued friend! I didn't intend for intimacy to come into it, but it did, and there's no way to make that unhappen! We both needed each other then, Luna, and we gave each other what we needed! You haven't betrayed Shinn... if anyone has, I HAVE!"

"Yes, you have! You WORTHLESS... SCUMMY... MOLESTING... LYING... BASTARD!" Luna punctuated each word with a stomping kick, all of which Rey continued to avoid, which just pissed her off that much more.

"This isn't the time for this, Luna." Rey said, well aware that all the rest of the Solar Knights and base staff had to be wondering what was going on, and the more astute among them making the connections between the rumored romance between Luna and Rey, and then the sudden reappearance of Shinn, and then Rey's unfortunately openly broadcasted plea to Shinn.

"Isn't the time!? Just like it wasn't the time to tell me that Shinn was still alive!? Just like it wasn't the time to tell me that he'd been brainwashed by Noah, just like Meyrin!? JUST LIKE IT WASN'T THE TIME TO TELL ME I WAS TRYING MY DAMNDEST TO KILL THE MAN I LOVE!?" Luna shrieked, her voice shrill and thin. "It isn't the time? I'll tell you what time it isn't... it isn't the time for me to be hanging around listening to you trying to justify yourself for playing me for a fool and using me like a blow up doll! This Archon may be half disabled, but I can still fight, and I'm going to fight. I'm going to fight alongside Shinn, where I should be. And you'd just better hope I don't come back somehow, because otherwise I will hurt you in ways I don't even have words for, Rey ze Burrel! You'd better have bodyguards ready when I land, cause you're gonna need them! Especially after I explain to Shinn what you've done to us both!" Luna did not wait for a reply, instead she immediately took off in the direction of the fracas involving the Vengeance and the Brotherhood, which was slowly making its way out into the savanna, towards the mountains bordering the distant horizon.

Rey held his silence for several long moments, fighting to regain his own sense of calm and composure. He was fairly sure he'd just had his first messy breakup, and it was a doozy. He considered a few things, and then winced once more, before opening up a line to Gil. Luna had recommended he get himself some bodyguards, but he didn't think she realized how prophetic her words would turn out to be. Although, the guards would not be for Rey, but rather for Shinn. Who was, at least until they could be totally sure he'd thrown off Noah's mental shackles and wouldn't suffer from a relapse, still a terrorist suspect. He would need to be taken into custody and kept secure, assuming he returned. By force, if need be. And Rey had the sneaking suspicion, for some reason, that Luna and probably quite a number of other people, loyal Solar Knights all, would not be pleased by that. Not one little bit.

* * *

Noah was forced to admit, reapplying his mental hold over Shinn was much harder in the middle of combat than it had been when first establishing said hold with Shinn delirious and strapped to a hospital bed. Now, not only was Shinn neither delirious nor strapped down, but he was volcanically mad and in possession of a very advanced Gundam extremely weel suited for his style of combat, and he had a lot of backup on the way, definitely imposing a time limit before the Brotherhood forces were too overwhelmed even for Noah to compensate for! Luring Shinn close enough to the concealed shuttle for Noah's Newtype abilities to even affect him, even with Seed boosting, had been a trial all of its own. It wasn't like he could just make a beeline for the shuttle and then stop short and wait for Shinn to catch up, that would be just like pointing a big sign and saying "NOAH IS HERE" when Shinn reverted back to Brotherhood control. So instead he had to lead him back and forth, doing his best to avoid damage while also not damaging the Vengeance, until their paths gradually crossed into Noah's zone of influence, as if by chance, so that Shinn's relapse would appear to be just that, a natural relapse.

Except that now he'd lured Shinn within range, and he couldn't, for the life of him, get a solid grip on Shinn's mind! That was what he got for always practicing his deep holds on already sedated and weakened minds, he was simply unprepared for the complexity of corralling and bending a fully active, very unhappy mind to his needs, even if the groundwork for the prison was already laid! Ir was like trying to tie a complex knot in a greasy rope while wearing mittens! No matter how much he held down, pieces were sliding free of his grasp whenever he shifted his hold even slightly! At least he was keeping Shinn distracted, limiting his ability to really take a swing at the Brotherhood while Noah's attention was likewise divided. It was only when the Vengeance quite deliberately missed a swing at the Brotherhood and then spun and reoriented in midair that Noah realized, with a definite gulp, that Shinn, or at least brainwashed Shinn, had known Noah was coming along in person on this mission, and that he was somewhere nearby right now. Shinn had used Noah's attempts to control him as a sort of homing beacon!

Realizing that the clock had just dropped into the red zone, it likely being only a matter of a minute or so at most before the Vengeance discovered and subsequently destroyed the cloaked shuttle, Noah redoubled his efforts to regain control of his pawn, letting the LAICEPs have full control over the Brotherhood, holding it in a waiting pattern until Noah issued other commands. Noah knew it was a choice between using the Brotherhood to actually fight the Vengeance, risking damage or destruction of one of his truly precious Gundams, or relying on his own powers to come through despite the hardships and handicaps. But if there was one thing Noah had always had faith in, it was his own ability to surmount a challenge, especially a mental one! All the same, he ordered the Zealots who had been watching worriedly from the edges of the fight to disable the Vengeance, knowing they had no chance, but Shinn would have to waste precious seconds defending himself and destroying them before resuming his hunt.

Noah tuned out the shaking of his shuttle as explosions from the suicidal Zealots rocked the sky, focusing his all, his full and total attention, on the simple task of finding one corner of Shinn's mind that wasn't ruled by unassailable rage. It took more searching than he was comfortable with, and the destruction of more than half of his Zealots, but at last Noah found his corner, the part of Shinn's mind that was worrying about what his friends would think of him now that he'd killed so many of them. Guilt, some fear, and plenty of trepidation. Not the barest bones he'd ever stimulated loyalty from, but close. Still, it was enough for him to get started, and in a matter of moments Noah had fanned Shinn's doubts and guilt and trepidation into full on paranoia, until the mere thought of returning to the Solar Knights now totally unmanned him with terror. They would never forgive him, they would shoot him on sight, they would spit on his corpse, they would erase his name, deny ever knowing him, the biggest traitor of the entire USN! They were'nt backing him up, they were pursuing him while he was distracted!

It was only in the Brotherhood, only in the arms of the people who had tainted him irrecoverably, that he was now safe from persecution. Maybe they had tampered with his mind. Maybe they had modified his memories. But they'd done it for a good cause! They'd done it for the greater good, his was a noble sacrifice! People would respect him... people would love him, because of his sacrifice, so that they themselves did not have to feel such pain as he did now! His girlfriend had probably been cheating on him anyway, the slut, so it wasn't like he had anyone else to go back to, was it? Noah almost lost Shinn at that point, where he tried to twist Shinn's conception of Luna into that of a slutty golddigger, but a quick correction to the mental weave instead recast her as a secret ally, a sleeper agent, who would eventually be recruited to the great cause, where they could be happy together once more, and Shinn's mind dampened down once more.

Noah had cause to be thankful for the trepidation of his Harbinger pilots then, because the Vengeance had almost stopped moving, they were afraid to attack it or attempt to disable it, even though Noah was far too busy in his mental struggle with Shinn to correct their orders. Perhaps it also had something to do with the soon to be arrival of the Solar Knights who had followed the Vengeance, of course unable to keep up completely, but still pursuing doggedly. Superimposing the faces and names of various Harbingers Shinn had come to know over the forms of the remaining Zealots, and showing them under attack by the Solar Knights, was the final twist of the key in the lock, or at least Noah hoped, considering how crude his mental surgery had been, but at least now Shinn was back on his side once more! It probably wouldn't last more than an hour, but by then they should be well on their way away from the area, and he could take the time to do a more complete job.

"Great... Prophet?" Shinn's worn and ragged voice said nervously.

"My faithful servant." Noah replied, forcing himself to sound as gentle and understanding as possible. "You have had a vigorous test of your faith, and emerged unscathed, pure as the driven snow! Rejoice, for you are truly exalted amongst my Apostles now!"

"I am... faithful?" Shinn said slowly, as if tasting the word for truth.

"Very faithful. More faithful than you realize. And you will be rewarded for your faith, with whatever your heart desires."

"Luna! I want Luna! She needs me. I need her!" Shinn said, his grammar deteriorating in his mental and emotional weariness.

"Then you will have her, and she you." Noah said grandly. "But she is being held hostage by the Solar Knights, and if we don't destroy all of them, we'll never be able to rescue her!" _And once you kill her, I'll be able to use her death "at their hands" as motivation to bind you so deeply to my cause that you'll never break free!_

"They will not keep me from her." Shinn promised darkly, a hint of his wonderfully and frightfully volatile anger surfacing once more. It was the key to his power... and his best defense against Noah's mental hold, which was based on reason, which didn't hold up so well against extremes of emotion. "Not even if I have to tear them apart with my own two hands!" Shinn unlimbered the zweihander once more, and oriented himself upon the closing Solar Knights, who obviously still considered the Vengeance a friendly, judging by their lack of caution. Noah smirked, wiping sweat from his chin and once more sent his mind back to the Brotherhood. It was time for the lambs to come to slaughter!

* * *

"Well, this certainly a much better day than I thought!" Lain said, almost cheerfully, as they raced to catch up with Shinn and the Vengeance, though by the look of things, Shinn didn't need much backup, he was doing just fine on his own, whirling through the Zealots like a laser through runny butter. Plainly, the Zealots were less than enthused with the idea of fighting one of their own Gundams, and it showed in their even more dismal than usual piloting. The Zealots were all hanging back, like a bunch of schoolyard bullies waiting for someone, anyone, to push forward and confront the upstart new kid, but none of them having the balls to do it themselves. The Brotherhood just kept on floating, way up high overhead, like it was just watching and waiting to see how things would turn out. Lain hoped the damned thing stayed up there too. Though he hadn't ever fought against it before, he'd seen videos of what it could do, and those made him feel very small and scared.

"Yeesh, look at him go! Poor bastards messed with the wrong dude!" Eric answered by way of agreement, looking at the scattered wreckage of more than a dozen Zealots strewn about the hilly region below them. "Its been what, like two minutes, maybe three, and he's already killed more than half of them? Shinn was always a genius when it came to combat, but he has surpassed himself today!"

"Its not THAT special." Lain hedged, unwilling to heap quite so much praise on his longtime rival. "I mean, you put me into a Gundam like that, I'd probably make him look like a teenage dropout gamer!"

"It puts even the Pulsar to shame." Eric agreed, still shuddering at the dread memories that name conjured up. "I'm just glad it's Shinn they put in there... I can think of a few people that would make even Shinn look like a green recruit if they got into that machine!"

"Yer always yapping about those damn BCPU-whatevers. Yeah, yeah, I get it, they're fucking good. But they're all like dead and shit, right? Except for your friend, and he's probably hiding out in the asteroid belt somewhere, until this whole fucked up mess blows over and he can get another shot at the SecDef." Lain retorted. "You're such a broken record when it comes to them. Nobody makes the grade against that one dude, Ice or Cold or Frieza or whatever, at least according to you!"

"That's because nobody DID make the grade against him!" Eric retorted hotly. "And his name is Frost. And it took the entire Clyne Faction to beat him... and even then it was only because of a mechanical fault that he died!"

"Sure, whatever. He's still dead, so someone must have kicked his chilly ass off the ice rink, right?" Lain answered. "Would you look at that damned showoff? He's taking the time to salute us with his sword. Drama-queen!"

Eric did look, and the Vengeance did indeed eem to be waving its huge crystalline sword at them in a friendly greeting type of manner. But then the sword cocked back over the Vengeance's shoulder, and ithe Gundam began cruising toward the approaching Solar Knights. "Look at him! Hasn't got a care in the fucking world! He knows whose da man right now, they're too scared to even shoot at his back!" Lain crowed, but Eric wasn't so sure. Sure, Shinn could be an arrogant S.O.B. sometimes, and he didn't really give a damn about orders he didn't like, but showboating during the middle of combat? That wasn't like Shinn at all.

"I don't know about this... something is wrong here. Why is he coming this way? You couldn't have pulled him off their butts if you tied a neutron star to each ankle before, but now he's coming at us?" Eric said with a frown of misgiving. He started to bring up his shield, as the Solar Knights and Shinn rapidly converged. As such, he was perhaps the only Solar Knight even slightly prepared when Shinn didn't join the formation, but instead attacked them head on, with just as much ferocity as he'd displayed against the Zealot's just a few moments before, if not even more! With one slice of his great blade, three Archons exploded into tiny pieces, and the entire rest of the formation was thrown into disarray, as the Solar Knights struggled to reconcile another sudden switch of allegiance, this time in the enemy's favor! Had Shinn just been playing them all along? It seemed a heavy price to pay for a deception, the Brotherhood forces were just a shadow of what they had been before his rampage.

Lain was about to express his surprise and constrention with this latest turn of events in a very colorful manner when the time for having breath to spare on words was past, because now the Vengeance and Shinn were coming right at the two of them! Whether Shinn recognized their IFF codes and decided to take out the best pilots first, or some random whim of chance put them in his sights, it didn't really matter! Lain had always considered himself Shinn's equal, at least in terms of pure ballsiness. Perhaps not quite as good in melee, but a damned sight better at range, and if they were in two equal Mobile Suits, Lain would rate his chances of beating Shinn at a dead even fifty-fifty. Problem being, they weren't in two equal Mobile Suits. The Archon was a great machine, and Lain had grown to love it. But it did not in any way, shape or form stack up well against one of the top end Brotherhood monster-Gundams, mano-y-mano! Even Orb's own Gundams, the true Gundams, didn't completely match up to the sheer potential capabilities of the Vengeance! Even with Eric there to back him up, Lain was suddenly feeling a bit queasy.

Of course, that didn't stop either him or Eric from actually going onto the attack in turn, not waiting for Shinn to come to them. You didn't get to be a veteran pilot or an ace without some ability to ignore your own fear, after all! The trick was going to be not only beating the Vengeance, and thus Shinn, but beating him without killing him! After all, he'd just come back from the dead, there was no way they could just kill him now! Luna would use them like firewood if they killed or hurt Shinn now! Lain met Shinn's swinging sword with his shield, and though the force of the blow altered his trajectory and put him into a spin, it was nothing he couldn't recover from. Meanwhile, Eric had thrust for one of Shinn's arms, hoping to disable a limb, eventually working towards getting rid of the sword, but Shinn wasn't having it, and he sideslipped the thrust like Eric was standing still. Lain came up from behind and below Shinn, aiming a slash at his legs, but the Vengeance was gone from his swing arc long before his blade got close. The thing was just too damned fast and maneuverable!

The remaining Solar Knights had steered clear of the two vs one duel, and instead gone to attack the remaining Zealots. So far, no one seemed to be in a rush to confront the Brotherhood circling above, and in turn the Brotherhood seemed strangely content to merely watch from above, as if its pilot was resting or clearing his head or something. Eric and Lain split up, trying to come at the Vengeance from front and back, or from either side, but they just lacked the agility, even with HiMat wings fully deployed, to equal the gravity defying stunts and supersonic maneuvering speed of the Vengeance, especially in a three dimensional combat zone like midair! Slowly at first, but then more and more often, both pilots were forced back onto the defensive, as Shinn seemed to grow faster and more sure with every passing moment. They were both familiar with the phenomenon from Shinn... like certain comic book characters of yore, the angrier he got, the stronger he got, at least in terms of piloting ability, up to a point anyway. Sometimes, under certain stimuli they didn't understand, Shinn could exceed even that limit, and thats when he left them and pretty much everyone else totally in the dust, though neither liked to admit it.

"Come on guys, stop playing with the retard kids and come help us fight off the bully!" Lain groused under his breath, as the other Solar Knights continued to wear down the Zealots. "Why do we always get stuck with the shit jobs!?"

"Yeah, no kidding!" Eric agreed, grinding his teeth as he rode out another smashing impact from the Vengeance's sword against his shield. "No matter what we do now, we're screwed! If we don't beat Shinn, we die. If we beat him but kill him, Luna kills us. If we beat him and don't kill him... Rey kills us. Talk about no win scenario!"

"Speaking of our fearless leader, where the hell is he!? I may hate his guts, but at least he's a fair hand in a Mobile Suit, we could use the help!" Lain grumped.

"Are you kidding me? Golden boy is tied by the balls to big daddy Durandel's apron strings, he won't be coming anywhere near this fracas!" Eric replied sourly. "You can bet a million bucks he's in no especial hurry to back us up right now. Me and my big mouth, practically volunteering for a suicide mission just to get him to shut up!" Eric frantically reversed thrust even as he spoke, but it was barely enough to get him out of the way of a neat little sword pivot stroke that Shinn apparently made up on the spot, and Eric lost his left HiMat wing before he even realized he'd been a tad too slow. "OH FOR FUCK'S SAKE!"

"Hang on, buddy, I got yer back!" Lain shouted, dive bombing towards Shinn from behind and to the right. Shinn seemed to know he was coming, probably literally had eyes in the back of his head while in that Gundam, and he was more than ready for Lain, spinning around, swiping with his sword, first slashing apart Lain's sword and then striking the very edge of his shield and splitting that too, carving the shield right in half like a slab of pork on a cutting board! Disarmed and disarmored with loss of sword and shield, Lain nonetheless did his damndest to just RAM the Vengeance, but Shinn eluded even that desperate tactic, and furthermore followed up with a wrenching kick to Lain's back that destroyed his primary thruster system, resulting in the loss of ability to fly, which, because he was several thousand feet into the sky, was something of a concern. Lain trailed away on a ballistic and rapidly accelerating trajectory, swearing a blue streak as he fought for altitude and control.

Shinn turned on Eric's limping Archon like a barracuda headed for a bleeding fish, taking full advantage of Eric's compromised mobility to swing in from his sword side, not the shield side. Eric did his best to turn, but it was all he could do to merely stay airborne and mostly level at the time. He shoved his sword into the path of the blade, though he knew it would do no good, and it didn't, the QC blade slipped right through his sword like it was hardly even there. Desperate, Eric cut all of his thrusters, managing to drop himself just enough that the shearing cut did not take him in the cockpit, but rather just above it, and then all of his screens went dead and the world went nuts as his Archon was sent spinning through the sky, completely out of control, all control systems locked out, all screens blank. The three dimensional spinning was too much even for a trained pilot like Eric, and it was a matter of seconds before he too blanked out.

* * *

Shinn watched the latest hapless fool spiral helplessly towards the ground, missing most of his Mobile Suit from shoulders on up, in what many veteran pilots would recognize as a Death Spiral, or Flameout, where a pilot completely lost control of his vehicle, including engines and power systems, basically turning whatever it was into an expensive and surprisingly delicate rock which then did what rocks in midair do best, and plummeted. Because of the tumbling and spinning motion of the vehicle, the pilot was often subject to extreme battering as well as high G forces from centrifugal force, usually resulting in blackout or even strokes, though of course few pilots lived to die of heart or blood complications from excessive spinning... the ground usually took care of them long before then. The other Archon, the other annoying one that had tried to ram him, of all things, was also on a downward course, but had finally managed to get his auxilarly thruster systems aligned properly, and it was more of a glide than a fall now. No doubt the other pilot would be looking on in helpless constrenation as his buddy plummeted past him like a meteorite, and the thought brought a momentary cruel smile to Shinn's lips.

Shinn saw that the Zealots were hard pressed by the remaining Solar Knights, and though the need to go and rescue Luna was strong, stronger still was the knowledge that he could search for her as much as needed after the Solar Knights were all dead! Shinn wasn't sure what the Great Prophet was doing, in his holding pattern overhead, but he was content to remain ignorant. It was not his place to know the mind of the Great Prophet after all, no matter how worthy an Apostle he might be! It was strange though, because despite the Great Prophet's encouraging words of earlier, Shinn didn't feel particularly faithful or deserving of reward. Just about the opposite really, he had this unassailable feeling that he had done great wrong recently, and might even still be doing it, but quite what his sin was, he could not fathom! He thrust such thoughts aside with the power of his righteous anger, and his love of Lunamaria. He burned for her now, he'd never realized how much he missed her! But... hadn't he always known she was a captive of the Solar Knights? Why was the sensation of worry so new then? Something was not right here.

Shinn puzzled over the very disturbing gaps in his memories as he leisurely went to the aid of the belaboured Zealots, in most cases striking down the attacking Solar Knights from the side or behind before they even knew they were in danger! It was hardly a challenge, not even slightly fun like the two that had at least made him work for the kills or near kills! Still, fun wasn't the main point... he had a duty to the Great Prophet to discharge after all, his pleasures came second and distant to that holy charge! The few remaining Solar Knights, tables once again turned fully against them, began to fall back, belatedly attempting to flee now that it was already far too late! Shinn began his pursuit of them, selecting out the strongest and least damaged ones to strike down first. He was still making his selections when an anomaly surprised him. One Archon, a recent arrival to the area, wasn't fleeing at all. No, this one, despite the fact that it had no arms from the elbows down, and all its weapon tracking systems seemed disabled or even powered down, was in fact hading directly for him! But only at cruising speed, it wasn't an attack dive at all.

Shinn slowed down cautiously, wondering if it might be a suicide attack, though he didn't remember that sort of thing being in the playbook for the Solar Knights. Quite how he knew what the Solar Knights would and would not do escaped him at the moment, but he did indeed feel sure that this was probably not a bomb or other trap. Maybe the guidance systems were broken as well, and the pilot simply had no idea where they were flying? Maybe the pilot was confused, and thought Shinn was an ally? There was simply no way to tell for sure, and he didn't really care. They were an enemy, and thus deserved only death at his hands. Still, there was something about this particular Mobile Suit that gave him pause, made a certain, only faintly heard part of him stir and shout incoherently. Above him, the Brotherhood had also noticed this newest and strangest arrival, and finally seemed to take interest. The great gold Gundam pointed its left side at the armless Archon, and opened fire with the rapidfire 20mm QC Spike Driver mounted on the left shoulder, sending a hail of sharper than sharp crystalline slivers at the crippled machine's cockpit.

Quite without realizing it, Shinn moved the flat of his QC zweihander into the path of fire just as the Brotherhood shot, and the stream of shining splinters ricocheted away, unable to penetrate another, denser QC structure. Almost immediately afterwards he felt something like an immense pressure inside his skull, like someone had shoved an invisible hand through the top of his head and was trying to compress his brain down into his toes! It didn't precisely hurt, but it was very uncomfortable, all the more so because it was lasting, even worse than a migraine headache! The pressure eased at long last, and the Brotherhood once more fired its spike driver at the Archon. Once more, without conscious thought, Shinn interposed his sword, and negated the attack, protecting the crippled Archon instinctively. Shinn stared at his traitorous arms in shocked amazement, unable to fathom why they were acting of their own volition!

"Shinn... Shinn, are you there?" An achingly familiar voice broadcast over the international channel. "Shinn, I know you're in there. Can you hear me? Its me, Luna."

"Lu...na...?" Shinn said slowly. The voice did sound like Lunamaria... but she was supposed to be a captive of the Solar Knights, not one of their pilots! Could she have been brainwashed!? No, no, not Luna, she was far too strongwilled for that sort of thing! They'd have to completely destroy her personality and memories to do that. This pilot must be an imposter! They must realize he cared for her, and would never willingly harm her... and were seeking to take advantage of that fact! "Imposter!" Shinn cried, raising his sword to slice the Archon in two from crown to crotch. His arms trembled, but the blow would not start!

"I'm not an imposter. Its me, Shinn. Its Luna. You remember me, don't you Shinn? You remember that time I fell asleep in your chair, and everyone thought we were sleeping together?" Luna's voice said, her tone cracking with sudden misery for some reason. It was enough to wrench his heart... she just sounded exactly like Luna... and a Luna that was in pain, that needed him!

"Luna... Luna is a captive of the Solar Knights! I won't be decieved by you!" Shinn shifted his sword to a horizontal swing, but once more, could not complete the blow, and once more, angle his sword into the path of an attack from the Brotherhood, foiling it's own attempts to destroy the helpless Archon. "I'm going to rescue her!"

"You have rescued me, Shinn." Luna said, tears in her eyes, though since it was a voice only comm, only she could see them. "Rescued me from the grip of false friends and abandonment by my family! Just by coming back alive, you have saved me in ways I can't even begin to describe! Oh, Shinn, I know you're in there somewhere. You were there a little while ago... remember Shinn... REMEMBER! Your mind has been messed with by Noah, but you can break free! You've done it before! You can do it again! Please Shinn!"

"I... don't..." Shinn stammered, suddenly assaulted by blinding pain as a powerful force seemed to push UP from his toes, counteracting the pressure from above, and forcing it into a teetering equilibrium, as two wildly different views of reality tried to assert dominance in his mind. "I... uh..."

"Shinn, remember when you fought that Mobile Suit you are currently in? Outside of Los Angelos Sprawl? When you saved the Warmaster, and violated direct orders? Remember how I punched you in the face afterwards?" Luna said hopefully. "I'm so sorry now that I did that. I'm so sorry now that I've done a lot of things, Shinn. You were so good to me, and I... I barely gave you anything in return, but you still stayed true to me nonetheless! You were there for me when I needed it, always, and its only now that I realize what a precious thing that is. Please Shinn, I need you to come back to me, to us all. I need you Shinn."

"I... Luna... this... isn't..."

"Fight it, Shinn! Fight him! You've beat him before! You can do it again! I know you can! You can do anything you set your mind to, Shinn! You've proved that to me! Please, Shinn... I..." Luna trailed off, before mustering her gumption. "I love you, Shinn. I'm ready for that relationship you said you wanted. I am yours, Shinn, I am yours. I love you. Please... come back to me!"

"Luna..." Shinn shuddered, the Vengeance shivering as its sword dropped out of attack posture, almost falling out of his hands, as the pain built to a nearly unbearable level inside him, before everything went dark, and he felt like he was floating in an infinite void that was trying to drag him down to death and oblivion. The void was pitch dark, but even as he thought he was going to be smothered by the blackness, a light appeared. A red light, in the shape of a ball. Of a Seed actually. It shuddered and pulsed, resonating with the sound of Luna's voice, dropping down to him faster than the void could pull him away, until at last he could reach out and touch it. And when he did, the Seed burst, flooding the void with a universe of searing light, washing away all the illusions, all the lies and false memories and revealing the painful, painful truth once more! "Luna... I love you too!" Shinn shouted, whirling the Vengeance around to face the Brotherhood. "You will NEVER CONTROL ME AGAIN!" He swore, eyes washed out in a seed rage. "It is time for you to pay for your sins against us, Noah!"

"It is time for me to leave, actually." Noah's very tired voice came back to him. "You had such promise too, Shinn Asuka. Go then, be with that whore named Lunamaria Hawke. Enjoy the futile happiness you have left, because I swear to you in turn, neither of you will live to see the new year!" The Brotherhood reached down with its right hand and unclipped the rifle clipped to the outside of its thigh. but it didn't point the weapon at the Vengeance or Luna's Archon. No, instead it pointed it at the distant cluster of smoke and buildings that was the Victoria Spaceport. "You may have won the small fight, Shinn, but you have lost where it counts most." Noah told them direly, and then fired the 5mm AMP rifle, disgorging a searing blip of anti-matter brighter than a thousand suns, which streaked through the air at several hundred times the speed of sound before slamming into the middle of the sprawling spaceport.

The explosion was beyond bright, the lightshow could actually be seen not only from orbit, but from around the entire hemisphere, a huge flash like the largest camera flashbulb imaginable, followed by a dull roaring sound like a boulder rolling across a wooden floor, that could be heard for a thousand kilometers in every direction. Though the actual blast crater was only about three hundred meters in diameter, and a quarter of that deep, the shockwave, both groundborne and airborne, plus the radiation burst, scoured all life and buildings from an area close to three kilometers in diameter, and caused fires and severe collateral damage out to several times even that distance! By the time the sound and lightshow slowed down enough for people to regain their bearings, the Brotherhood and the few remaining Zealots were long gone... and Victoria Spaceport was nothing more than a large, radioactive canyon in the savanna!

* * *

Author Note: Next time on Gundam SEED: The Eden Disaster: Its the scenes you've all been waiting for. Will Lacus awaken from her illness or will she sleep the long sleep? Will she be the only one to awaken from this nightmare? Stay tuned, for the next, VERY EXCITING episode of The Eden Disaster.


	63. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 7

Author Note: When my reviewers see that a Gundam has been captured, and begin to hope and hint that they would like to see upgrades to the protagonist Gundams, I do understand where you are coming from. Everyone likes to see new powers, new sparkly technology in the hands of the good guys. But if you think about it, it is just not realistically possible so soon. Its not like the Brotherhood Gundams drop "Power Up" chests that instantly add upgrades to other Gundams. As Dr. Simmons has already said, much of the Brotherhood's tech is actually just parallel to that of Orb anyway, only a few, relatively, systems are way more advanced. And in some cases, so much so advanced that Orb doesn't have even the crudest version of a prototype for that technology! It's like sending a modern laptop back to the 1940's, when a computer filled up an entire building just to do the same things as a calculator, and expecting them to start churning out laptops in a month or two... its just not going to happen. The concept may be there, but there's so many iterations of technology that need to come between the two ideas!

For that matter, consider this example. Obviously the NIC (Neural interface Control) and GRS (Gravitic Reduction System) cockpit control system is a big upgrade everyone is looking forward to. But all the Orb Gundams are designed with the standard "fighter jet" control scheme, using joysticks and foot pedals and other hands on controls. You couldn't just swap and set with a NIC system in that sort of cockpit, you'd have to totally redesign the entire cockpit space, as well as pretty much the entire electrical and motivational systems of the Gundam, in order to accomodate a NIC system. You might as well redesign the entire internal workings of the Gundam, because you would basically need to! A refit like that would take months at least, assuming Orb could devote its full resources to the problem! and it is sort of busy at the moment. And yes, I understand the creative use of "because I say so" as a fiction writer, but have I really exhausted the remit of the current Gundams? Are they already so old and staid? I don't think so. There will be upgrades, The NIC system for sure, eventually. But I would not overly count on seeing substantially improved Gundams in ED, there just isn't the time to make such improvements. Tweaks, modifications, countermeasures to already encountered tactics, sure, but NIC systems, FPR reactors, LCR armor, QC blades, Nano-repair systems... no. Too much gap. They'll do their best, make a good start, but a start is it.

* * *

"Connecting the generators now. All field stabilizers are green. Projector tower stability is within tolerances. We are aligned with the support towers throught the country, Ma'am, just waiting on your go ahead." The technician in charge of the primary Glasshouse projector control panel said, unable to hide the nervousness in his voice. Orb had managed to complete the array of projector towers that would blanket the airspace of Orb and its near territorial waters with ionized fields that would repel and filter out Green EDEN, even from within biological beings or droplets of water, but the true acid test of the system was still up in the air. Small scale experiments in labs and computer models were one thing, turning on the entire system all at once, and then waiting for the incoming Green EDEN to hit, was as close to a pass-fail exam as could be... and the penalty for failing was a lot worse than a bad grade!

"National Power Grid wishes to inform us that they are ready for the tower loads, plenty of extra room on their boards in case of surges or the need for tuning. Sure glad I'm not paying THIS electric bill!" Another technician attempted to crack a joke, but few people could spare the energy for laughter. Considering that each support tower used up several hundred kilowatts of energy an hour, roughly the equivalent energy of a medium sized town, and the main tower, here on the upper slopes of the extinct volcano, Mt. Hameya, used considerably more energy than that! The power requirements were so heavy because of both the size of the field and the height at which it was projected, a nearly uniform 1000 meters from ground level across the ENTIRE NATION. It was a little like trying to cover your entire kitchen floor with tight stretched saran wrap, keeping the plastic film a foot from the floor, using only chopsticks as supports, without piercing the film.

"Well, we've only got about five hours before the Green Zone covers us anyway, if its going to go shitty, it might as well go now!" Erica Simmons muttered to herself, still very, very much manic from the effort of the last few months, just like she felt after designing new Gundams and living on coffee and energy bars for weeks at a time. "That way we still have time to pray and run around like chickens with our heads cut off, screaming about how we're all going to die. Even though statistically speaking only half of us will." She added, making sure no one else could hear that grim humor. Ryuta, her son, was still young, in prime energy efficient state, he would almost certainly survive. Her husband and herself... it could go either way. And fifty-fifty odds were ones Erica never bet on if she had a choice. "Start the bastard up!" She ordered, and technicians began flipping switches, adjusting dials and monitoring readouts carefully.

The hum of electronic circuits grew louder and louder, until it was an aching buzz that played along your teeth and jawbone, like a billion invisible bees flitting around your head. Other than the annoying noise however, there were no pyrotechnics, no multicolored sparks, no jagged bolts of lightning... such things would be the signs of things going critically wrong, so Erica was glad to not see them in evidence. She peered up into the early afternoon sky, trying to spot where the field was being created, but it was still only the thickness of a single atom as it spread out to interact with the fields being projected by the various support towers. Once the entire field had been generated and synchronized, then they would start pumping more power into it, thickening the field until it was several feet deep, thousands of layers of ionized particles serving as a air and biological lifeform permeable but nano-machine opaque shell. As the shell grew thicker, the ionization effect would start filtering out some wavelengths of sunlight, resulting in the sun seeming to turn a bit more orangey than bright yellow-white, and Orb would soon spend its days locked in a mixture of dawn and dusk mood lighting, and its nights with largely dark, starless skies. But that was far better than watching people drop dead in the street and in their homes!

"Well, that's about as much as we can do here." Erica commented, watching the computer generated display of a translucent orange film spreading out like a orange juice stain across Orb. "As soon as we get fully synched up, take it to full power. No reason to hold back, and if the bastards can't hold up under the strain, well, then we're screwed. No second chances or alternate strategies here. But better to know beforehand if its all fucked up, rather than hold false hopes." Despite her pessimistic words, Erica was fairly sure her half jury rigged system would work just as intended. The theory was sound after all. And it wasn't like it was a complex principle... magnetic and ionized containment fields had been built for plenty of other things, not least of which was fusion power research, modern energy weapons, or her own BGCS system. All this was, was increasing the scale by about ten orders of magnitude.

"Nothing to do but wait and hope now, Ma'am?" one of the technicians asked.

"Yep. Wait, and hope, and pray. We got the easy job though." Erica reminded them. As time had passed, especially after the Brotherhood attacks on the three non-Orb Mass Drivers, destroying Victoria Spaceport and Kaoshung Spaceport, and heavily damaging Porta Panama, the USN had switched away from their peacekeeping and public support roles, and were now earnestly and angrily planning the takedown of the Great Endeavor, which was crossing the African continent now, on its second time around the world. Green Zones covered almost the entire face of Earth, ranging from the north pole, down across almost the entire northen hemisphere and blotchily down into the southern hemisphere. The only truly green free continents were Australia and Antarctica, and the islands around them, such as Orb, but that was rapidly coming to a close, as an unseasonal storm front was blowing down from the sea of Japan and the northern pacific, stirred up by the way the Green Zones were messing with the Earth's atmospheric temperature, a veritable small hurricane of Green EDEN bearing down on the northeastern coast of Australia, with Orb right in its path!

Almost the full terrestrial might of the FNE, ALU and USN was gathered in Australia, while the Indian Ocean teemed with gathering fleets of surface and submarine warships. ZAFT was taking charge of the orbital forces, both shock drop troops of Mobile Suits and several combined fleets of warships that would provide low orbital support fire. This was going to be it, the last stand, the ultimate resort. Nothing would be held back, this was already assumed by every member-state. The PLANTS, since Australia was part of their territory, ever since the end of the Isolation, gave permission for weapons of mass destruction to be used on or over its land, if required to stop the Brotherhood and the Great Endeavor. For perhaps the first time in history, the entire political and popular structure of the world was both willing and even eager to use the most powerful weapons humanity could devise in a a battle. "Fuck the Brotherhood" was a common chant among the young and the angry.

Of course Orb was not standing out of the proceedings either. It didn't matter if the Glasshouse worked or not, as long as the Great Endeavor remained operational, Orb would never be safe. The projection towers were hardened and reinforced, but only against extremes of weather... military grade weapons would chop them down like toothpicks, bringing down the field and exposing the populace to the cosmic roll of the dice that was Green EDEN. Orb's surface fleets had left to join the USN muster a few days ago, as had the majority of Orb's limited land and air forces, and most of the Mobile Suit units as well, even including many mothballed Strike Crusaders and Strike Daggers that had been captured after Purgatory Day, when the Earth Alliance was once more thrown out of Orb. There was still a single Izumi class warship, the last one remaining to Orb, newly renamed _Hameya's Resolve_, and it was onto this final battleship-carrier that Orb's elite units were being loaded for transport to the battle zone.

The elite units included not only almost two dozen M-7 Dawndrakes, but the majority of Orb's Gundam force as well. The Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess had both been rebuilt from spare parts, though now there was a definite paucity of spare parts for both machines, which could be problematic in a prolonged engagement, which hopefully would not be what the fight would turn into. All of the Gundams had been treated with a paint on substance that made their surfaces "electrically slippery", which would cause most of the Brotherhood nano-machines, which were electrically charged, to slide off without gaining a grip. Erica wanted no more horrifying stories of her precious Gundams being turned into sandstone! If someone wanted to sculpt statues of them, fine... but to turn the actual machines into statues!? It was sacrilege! A personal affront! Bad enough that she had been forced to shred her original blueprint documents and bake the pieces into a large cake, to hold herself to the promise to eat her blueprints with a fork if anyone could produce a more advanced Gundam than her, she wasn't going to stand for her creations to be turned into garden decorations too!

The Warmaster was not shipping out with the Dawn Goddess, Phoenix King and Vorpal aboard the _Hameya's Resolve_ though. No, Cagalli and Athrun and the others had come up with another plan, a hopefully more effective plan for the use of their heaviest Gundam firepower, again with a little bit of help from Dr. Simmon's nigh magical mind. A few interesting, single use modifications to the Spear of Ares, and they very well might have a trump card of their own to play, given that Orb totally lacked actual weapons of mass destruction. So while the other three Gundams were being locked into place aboard the warship, the Warmaster was being enclosed in a streamlined shell and place on the Kaguya Mass Driver, to be shot into space and join up with the orbital forces, though Dearka and Miriallia would be operating basically under their own direction, not under the command of the USN.

Rounding out Orb's compliment of deploying Gundams was the refurbished Tormented, its holoshroud reprogrammed to project the image of a square jawed, blond haired, blue eyed armored knight, in the flower of chivalry, rather than the wracked and ruined nude female banshee skin that Mary had utilized. Putting the captured Brotherhood Gundam back together hadn't been too hard, all it really took was assembling the various pieces and turning the nano-repair system back on to remake the internal connections. Of course, the microscopic repair bots had also been reprogrammed, so that they would not rebuild the remote self detonation device. While Orb still couldn't produce nano-machines of their own, programming existing ones wasn't particularly difficult, just a matter of interfacing. After much debate and arguement, it was eventually decided that Mu la Flaga, despite his suspect mind, was still the best candidate to fly the Tormented, given its NIC system, which nobody else was trained to use. Vice versa, Mu had not been in a machine controlled by regular instruments for years and years, and he didn't have time to regain his old proficiency, especially when the NIC system allowed higher maneuverability anyway. Besides, it would be a waste not to use everything at their disposal, and there was poetic justice in turning Noah's own Gundam against him.

The USN was being very tight lipped about their intentions regarding the Brotherhood Gundam that they had captured at the Battle of Victoria Spaceport, and hadn't even released any information on the pilot or any explanation for the odd behavior of the captured Gundam during the battle, where it had seemed to switch sides on more than one occassion. As a gesture of goodwill, and hungry for even the merest scrap of technical detail from the Vengeance, Orb had shared with the USN the codes for reprogramming the Gundam's nano-repair system, ensuring that the self destruct and remote operation systems, naturally disabled as soon as possible, would not be regenerated. As yet that gesture had borne no fruit, but everyone had a lot on their plates at the moment... and Orb had hardly been the most sharing with the secrets they gleaned from the Tormented, so perhaps it was a bit much to expect openess in return.

Conspicously absent from Orb's battle order was the one person and Gundam combo that people most wanted to have on their side in this upcoming battle, the only one who had not only fought the Brotherhood Gundam to a standstill, but had almost destroyed it to boot. But alas, the Seraph Gundam and more importantly, Kira Yamato, was nowhere to be found aboard the _Hameya's Resolve_, and none of the other Gundam pilots, even Cagalli or Athrun, would comment upon or even acknowledge the fact that they were operating a pilot short. The plans they laid didn't even involve Kira or the Seraph. Most of them hadn't even talked to Kira in days, if not weeks, much less seen him. Cagalli and Athrun had both tried to reason with him, to convince him that they needed his help, which they did, but Kira would simply not hear of leaving the near proximity of Lacus and his unborn son, not even if the entire world was burning down around his ears. For a usually unselfish and self sacrificing man, Kira was currently being the epitome of selfish and other-sacrificing, at least in the opinions of his friends and family, but nothing they could say or do would snap him out of it, and Lacus was of course unconscious and unable to bludgeon her lover back to reality like she'd done to Cagalli.

Eventually they had just stopped trying, there was too much else to worry about to waste energy banging their heads against a solid steel wall, which was basically what Kira had constructed around himself and Lacus, blocking everything out, in a display very like his twin sister's recent problem, though Kira certainly didn't like to hear that comparison. Which didn't stop Cagalli and Athrun from making it, in the shouting match that had cleared out almost an entire floor of doctors and nurses and even ambulatory patients, as the royal family of Orb went at it like they were already fighting the war in miniature. Athrun even went so far as to try and put his hands on Kira's shoulders and shake him, and nearly had both wrists broken for his trouble. It was at that point in time that Athrun had thrown up his hands in disgust and walked out, shaking his head and muttering to himself. Cagalli stayed a while longer, trying to take the sympathetic route, but while Kira would acknowledge that yes, what Cagalli and Athrun had been through was similar to what he and Lacus were going through, it was still very different, because it wasn't only Lacus's life at stake, and Lacus wasn't doing this to herself, it wasn't her fault!

Which Cagalli, perhaps predictably, took to mean that Kira thought what she had been going through WAS her fault, that she'd been doing it to herself! And while that was in some ways uncomfortably true, it wasn't exactly polite to mention it! She stormed out, leaving the imprint of her palm on Kira's cheek, bright and red, and neither of them had spoken to Kira since, would merely snort and shake their heads when anyone even tried to speak about him. For his part, Kira almost seemed grateful for the fact that no one else was intruding on his vigil with Lacus, though he would have stringently disagreed with the way his friends explained his absence from meetings, saying that he was in "Lacus Withdrawal", since this was the longest time he'd gone without hearing her voice since the last bit of the First Valentine War. And not just her physical voice either, their emotional link was murky and incoherent, not exactly silent but insensible, no matter how hard Kira listened.

* * *

So it was that the _Hameya's Resolve_ pulled out of part, loaded to the gills with advanced Mobile Suits and Gundams, and the Warmaster launched itself into orbit to begin getting into position for their part of Orb's grand strategy, but the Serpah remained cold, lonely and dark, locked in its hanger, its pilot kilometers away and not even thinking about it. No, Kira's gaze and thoughts were drawn, as if by irresistable gravity, to the bed in the middle of the room, surrounded by a crinkly airtight plastic sheathe that isolated Lacus from the rest of the hospital, with integral sterile gloved arm sheathes so Kira could at least pretend to hold her. Or more specifically, from Kira, since nobody else was at risk from the poison infecting her, other than him. That was some of the worst torture, that in her time of need Kira couldn't even hold her hand, unless it was through the rubbery surface of a sterile glove, where he couldn't feel the texture or warmth of her skin, none of the things that reminded him of Lacus's hand! It was like touching the hand of a corpse, and the mere thought made Kira want to expel what little food he'd remembered to eat.

It didn't help that Lacus's complexion, always fair and pale, had become a positively clammy fish belly white color, like life and energy had been leeched from her entire body, even her skin. Her eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark spots that made her look like she had huge black eyes, her lips were a purple-blue color of a aphixia victim as the poison stole all the nutrients from her blood to fuel itself, and her circulatory system stood out in lines of pale red and vivid blue across her arms and legs and neck. Her hair had grown out some, it was almost down to her shoulders now, but it had lost its usual healthy sheen, and seemed both limp and wiry, aged and drained, the color fading and the hair itself becoming brittle and fragile. Kira was afraid to touch it, lest it actually break off in his gloved hand. He spent his time either hovering by her bedside, listening to the beep of the heart monitor and the steady "whoosh-hiss" of the breathing tube expanding and contracting her lungs, or else pacing around in the room fit to wear a path in the tile, his thoughts confused and dark.

At first, after the initial collapse, Lacus's condition had seemed to stabilize, and had remained the same for weeks at a time, leaving her caught in a deep sleep, but still relatively healthy, as her body concentrated its effort at fighting off the infection spreading outwards from her womb. Her heartbeat and breathing had been vigorous and steady, and the doctors had been discussing taking her off most of the life support. But then her condition had taken a turn for the worse, and the doctors couldn't figure out why, since her immune system had not suddenly failed, and indeed she seemed biologically identical to what she had been before, but her condtion continued to worsen over time and was in fact still worsening right now, her heart rate slowing down by a beat or two every day, and her lungs required constant mechanical help to keep inflating. If it weren't for the machines, Lacus would already be dead, and despite their aid she still seemed on a sure path for eventual death, if her heart rate kept decreasing! There was nothing an artificial lung could do if her heart refused to pump blood.

As for their unborn son, his condition had wildly diverged from his mothers, and even as her condition worsened his began improving, at a steady rate at first and then faster and faster as his still only half formed immune system kicked into high gear. The doctors had never seen anything like it, everything their medical data and experience told them had indicated that the baby would be more susecptible to the poison and to the worsening state of Lacus's body, which was drained of nutrients and had none left to spare to nuture the baby. By all accounts, Akira... for that was to be his name, Akira Andrew Yamato, should he be born, should have been dead at the end of the first week. Not only had he survived the first week, but as time went on he seemed to grow stronger and stronger. The doctors began to hypothesize that the baby was somehow cannibalizing from his mother, even though she didn't have nutrients to give him, he was taking them anyway, resulting in her own worsening condition. Since something like this was practically unheard of, especially in such a young, unformed embryonic baby, the doctors weren't exactly sure what to do.

It was supposed that by aborting the baby, he would stop draining Lacus's strength, thus restoring her conditon to equilibrium at least, but Kira would not hear of that solution. Even if Lacus were to die because of it, he knew she would never abort their precious child, and nor would Kira want her to. If by killing his mother, Akira survived, well then Kira would accept that, if not desire it, and he knew, even without communication, that Lacus was behind him one hundred percent on that. No other ready solution presented itself, and Kira and the doctors were forced to merely watch and hope for some sort of miracle as Akira conquered the poison and his mother slipped further and further into the clutches of death in the process.

Most recently had come what might end up being the final nail in Lacus's coffin... the doctors had determined that something was wrong with her internal brain chemistry, something they'd never seen before, a buildup of certain chemicals that stimulated parts of the brain that humans just didn't use, but seemed abnormally well developed in Lacus all the same. These chemicals were rapidly building up to toxic levels, and spilling out into the rest of the brain and central nervous system, beginning to cause deterioration of the more delicate nerves, such as the ocular ones that controlled the brain's link to the eyes. If Lacus was conscious, the doctors said, she would probably be experiencing vivid and likely painful hallucinations right now. Even the most prominent and accomplished neuro-scienists could do nothing but scratch their heads and frown as they looked at Lacus's medical data... this was an entirely new and unobserved phenomenon, involving previously unexplored parts of the human brain, and a chemical compound that had never been seen before in nature.

While the doctors were clueless, Kira was less so... but still unsure all the same. If what he suspected was correct, then Lacus was going through a very similar process to what he himself had endured after Frost tried to poison him with his blood during the fall of Orb to the Isolation. And while Kira had not been sick nearly as long or as bad as Lacus was now, that could be chalked down to the differences between BCPU blood and this nano-engineered death-poison. Lacus was experiencing her second puberty, on her way to awakening her Seed. But that was where Kira got worried and confused. He well remembered what it was like, his Seed trying to germinate by itself, causing him horrible headaches and the dancing visions of silvery roots in the corners of his eyes and spreading throughout his body, which had only gotten worse and worse over time as his Seed stimulated his brain, probably producing this chemical that Lacus was, building up to toxic levels and beginning to eat away at his nervous system.

The problem was, Kira had only been able to halt the spread of the roots and accomplish the germination and awakening of his Seed with Lacus's help! He could not provide himself with whatever it was the brain chemical was looking for, or maybe it was that because the puberty happened before its natural biological time, whatever was supposed to be in his brain to fuel the transformation hadn't had enough time to build, and thus he needed to jump start that process with Lacus's help. However, Lacus was the Active, not him... he couldn't venture into her mind without her help, couldn't trance without her, couldn't do anything really... without her! And since she was unconscious, there was no way for her to help him help her! It didn't seem like there was anything he could do but watch and wait as one of two things happened. Either her body and heart would give out to Noah's poison, or her mind and centrl nervous system would be degraded and destroyed by the buildup of this exotic chemical. Either way, Lacus was doomed. Akira seemed to be doing just fine, perversely, beter than fine even, he actually seemed to be accelerating his progress through the womb, and the doctors assured him that if and when the time came, they would be able to remove Akira from Lacus's womb without killing him, and finish the pregnancy in an artifical womb. At his current rate, Akira would be born in a little under five months, usually meaning a stillbirth, but not in his case, he was shockingly healthy.

Kira put his arm into one of the sleeves and laid his gloved hand on Lacus's stomach, which was bulging a bit, giving her a slightly potbellied look that might have been amusing if the rest of her body wasn't so wasted and thin. As it was she looked like she was a victim of starvation, which was pretty close to the truth actually, with both Noah's poison and Akira ravaging her body of almost all the nutrients it was receiving. Akira probably wasn't going to stop, not now that whatever had happened to kick his growth into high gear had occured, but if they could somehow get rid of the poison, Kira was sure Lacus would be able to recover. It was the combination of the drains that was killing her, not one or the other. And if modern medicine didn't have a cure for the poison, then they were going to have to rely on Lacus to win that battle. But she could only do that with the immune system granted to her by an awakened Seed, which should hopefully be enough to overwhelm the mutated version of the poison. Kira smiled bleakly as he felt Akira kick inside Lacus's belly, his son was so energetic and active and strong already!

So it was plain to Kira that unless he could figure out some way to help Lacus awaken her Seed, she was going to die, and soon. Now he regretted his angry depression, that had cause him to brush off comfort and offers of whatever help they could provide from his friends, especially Yzak and Katie. As the only other Active he knew, besides Noah of course, whom he was going to strangle with his bare hands next time they met, Katie could probably help Lacus do whatever it was she needed to do with her brain, but of course now Katie was gone, deployed off to fight the Brotherhood in the last ditch resistance effort by the USN, and there would be no way she could come back, if she even wanted to, which, considering how much of a prick he'd been to his friends in recent weeks, Kira wasn't sure she would want to. She'd offered help, and he'd told her to fuck off, in those exact words. She'd offered again anyway, and he had physically pushed her out of the room and nearly gotten into a fist fight with Yzak that would have only ended in someone else being admitted to the hospital. Mad with grief and rage, that was what he had been. Temporarily insane with worry, but that was no excuse! If Lacus died, it was now going to be his own fault!

Kira removed his arm from the sleeve and looked at his hand speculatively, and then looked up at the ceiling searchingly, and then eventually turned his gaze upon the door and took a deep breath. He didn't know what else to do, but he had to do something, and this was the only thing he could think of! Lacus's power had always been boosted by an intimate connection between them, whether it was physical touch or the ideaological and spiritual intimacy they had used against Frost. Currently he wasn't able to communicate with her because her mind was exhausted and turned inward, fighting for survival against itself. But if he touched her, he would boost her powers, give her strength, hopefully enough strength to communicate with him, and help him help her awaken her Seed. But if he touched her, he would almost certainly expose himself to the very poison that was ravaging her body, the one designed to kill him. He would probably only have minutes at most before his body rebelled against itself and his heart stopped, but that should be long enough to save Lacus, if he remember right, his own Awakening had hardly taken any time at all!

Quickly tearing apart a few of the visitor chairs, forcing himself to keep moving, to not dwell on the basically suicidal course of action he was about to embark upon, Kira made sure the reinforced door allowing access to the room was well and truly jammed shut. What he was about to do would break the quaratine and set off all sorts of alarms, causing doctors and guards and pretty much everyone else to come running to try and help, even though there was nothing they could do. He didn't want any unnessecary interruptions, especially people trying to seperate him and Lacus, which would probably be deadly to them both. Room secure, Kira took one last final deep breath and stood by the side of the bed, looking down at Lacus fiercely, trying to burn every last moment of her into his eyes. If everything went according to plan, this might very well be the last time he would ever be able to see her.

Steeling himself, Kira removed his shirt, closed his eyes, and reached out and tore apart the thin plastic sheeting that cocconed Lacus's bed and kept her in and him out. Immediately alarms started to warble, but Kira paid them no mind as he carfully clambered onto the bed with her, making sure not to lie atop her belly or chest to avoid compressing Akira or making it hard for her to breathe, and sunggled up against her, pressing as much of her bare skin against his as he could, burying his face against her neck and inhaling deeply of her scent, and willing himself to contact her as loudly as his mental voice could go. To his immense surprise, the sensation immediately following was not one of Lacus reaching out to him, as their communications usually went, but instead HIM reaching out to HER, in a way he had never realized was even possible! It was like her power was a physical object, and he had picked it up, taken it from her grasp and used it himself just like she would, even though she was unconscious! Hell, Kira was shocked at how EASY it was to reach out to her, even easier than Lacus said it was, it wasn't just like reaching out a hand, it was like it was natural for them to be connected, like they were ALWAYS connected, so sure was his touch upen her mind. The physical world spun away, and the Trance world materialized around him.

* * *

Kira found himself standing in a forest, or at least a mental conceptualizaton of one. He remembered something similar happening to him when Lacus had helped him awaken his Seed, so he took the similarity in the location as a good sign. What he did not take as a good sign was the condition of the forest... his had been lush and vibrant, green and wet and filled with rich life. Lacus's was dry and sickly, the tree trunks more grey than brown, the soil dry and sandy versus loamy, and even the air was stifling and stagnant, with nary a breeze to ruffle the branches. This forest was very close to dead, and the sight galvanized Kira yet further. If the forest was any indication of Lacus's condition, he had even less time than he'd thought, maybe only hours. Maybe only minutes! Not only was the forest in bad shape, but the sky was dark, and he could see neither stars nor moon. An inky blackness, like sticky ashes, seemed to be sifting down from above, questing tendrils of darkness writhing like tentacles or roots from the sky, all gravitating towards one particular spot in the forest.

Kir followed the grim aerial show, and true to expectations, found Lacus at the heart of where the tentacles or roots were heading. His heart fluttered and clenched with pain as he caught sight of her, trapped as she was between two sagging and decaying trees, caught up in their spidery branches, which gripped her body tightly, cutting into her flesh and diving beneath her skin, pumping hungrily as they drained vitality from her in thristy gulps. Kira felt pretty sure that this was a mental representation of the poison, given how the ground was littered with torn branches and the trunks of both rotting trees were scarred with scratch marks from Lacus's fingernails... plainly, at some point in time, she had been fighting quite fiercely, though now she merely hung limp and vapid, an exhausted captive, like a fly in a spider's web.

Kira became aware that the tendrils reaching down from the sky weren't black at all, but rather a purple color slightly deeper than Lacus's eye color that only seemed black because of the grim forest surroundings. The tendrils swarmed around Lacus's head, overlaying the vampiric branches of the poison while remaining seperate, slowly sifting up Lacus's nose and down her throat like a suffocating fog, while jagged rootlings of the same purplish hue hung from the corners of her eyes like lacy coral fronds, almost webbing her eyes shut with their profusion and obscuring her face from view. In the ground below where Lacus hung from the grip of the deadly trees, there was a depression in the soil, an area of dirt that was still fresh and vital, deep rich brown in color, moist with water and nutrients. This patch of healthy ground remained vital even though branches from the vampiric trees would reach down every so often and try and drain from it, only to practically burst into flames as soon as they touched the soil surface. At the very center of the healthy ground was a pinkish-purplish pulsing ball, with maybe a suggestion of head and limbs, lying peacefully beneath Lacus's dangling feet, connected to her toes by pulsing red and gold veins.

_Lacus... LACUS!_ Kira shouted trying to run to her, but as soon as he got close he was caught up in a storm of reaching, entangling branches from the rotting trees, and despite his strength, for every one that he pulled away, two more took its place, and though they had all the strength and resilience of a cold, wet noodle, enough cold and wet noodles could entomb even a raging tiger! Kira felt the sharp pricks of pain as the fanglike tips of the branches started to burrow into his skin and suckle at his own life force, and he knew that he'd been infected by the poison. He didn't care, he'd know that was almost certain to happen. He forced himself to keep wading further, until he was just barely out of arms reach of Lacus, straining one hand towards her, fingers inches short of her face, before he could move no further. _LACUS!!!_

_Ki... ra...?_ Lacus's body twitched once or twice before subsiding. Her head lolled loosely on her neck, and fractionally inclined towards him, even as the branches mummifying her tightened their hold and sucked with even greater hunger, greedy for every last scrap of energy she had to expend. _I... can't... see you... I'm so... tired... I can't... feel anything... anymore..._

_Lacus! Oh god, stay with me, Lacus! I think I know what's happening to you! I think I know how to save you!_ Kira strained as hard as he could, knowing that if he could but brush her face with his fingers, he could give her the strength she would need, could give her what her Seed needed to germinate, which would get rid of the roots in her eyes and clear the sky, and cleanse the forest!

_It's... too late... Ki... ra..._ Lacus's voice was almost inaudible. _I can't... go on... anymore. I can't... see. Can't... feel... smell... taste... can barely hear... I... I don't have the strength anymore!_

_Use the Seed! Show me your Seed, Lacus!_ Kira demanded in a panic. _Just like I showed it to you, against Frost! Your Seed, your Seed is trying to germinate, but it can't do it alone! It can't get it from you! Not like this! Its needs water that you can't provide. But I can, I know I can, Lacus! Show me your Seed!_ Kira concentrated for a moment and his own Seed, swollen and purple and covered in pulsating veins of silver, appeared in the palm of his hand. _I need you to give me your hand... give me your Seed, Lacus! I need you to do this right now!_

_I can't... Kira... my Seed... is... gone..._ Lacus's head dippd even further towards the ground. _I used it up... against... the poison. I can't... get it... to come... back..._

_The Seed doens't go away! It's not a physical thing! It can't be used up! Lacus, stay with me! Stay with us! Akira and I need you!_

_I'm sorry, Kira... I can't do it. I want to, but I can't. I'm just glad... I got to... hear your voice... once more..._

_Lacus! Lacus!? LACUS!?_ Kira shouted desperately, the sudden stillness and silence of the forest causing his eyes to go wide as saucers. The vampiric tree branches were no longer sucking at Lacus's body. Dimly, Kira was aware of something his fleshy ears could hear... a flat, dull electronic "eeeeeeeeeeeeee" noise coming from some of the life support equipment. _AHHHHG!? LACUS! LACUS!! NOOO, LACUS, DON'T... LAAACUUUSSS!_

Kira's Seed rippled and pulsed with the strength of his emotions, threatening to break apart all on its own, silvery rootlings questing desperately towards Lacus's face and the purplish rootlings covering her eyes, but the purple rootlings did not reach back. Kira strained with all his might, feeling muscles rip, tendons tear and bones creak as he fought harder than he had ever fought anything before to close the final gap between him and Lacus. Her heart may have stopped but she wasn't dead yet! A heart could be restarted, but only if the mind and soul remained to animate the body. He wasn't going to just let her die! Not Lacus... never Lacus, not if there remained a single iota of life in his own body! He could feel the numbing, burning sensation of the poison eating his own life, but he pushed it away. He didn't care about his life, not while Lacus needed him. He... just... needed... to push... a little... further!

Still, even after his ultimate effort, where he pushed and stretched to the point where he could simply do no more, Kira still couldn't reach Lacus. He just didn't have the strength, or the knowledge or whatever it was he needed... he didn't have it. He couldn't save her. This crushing realization hit him harder than any Gundam had ever struck him. In the end, when Lacus needed him most, he was inadequate to the task of protecting her. He had failed her. Everything he'd done, everything he'd striven for, sacrificed for... it didn't matter, because when he needed to be there for her, when he needed to save her... he couldn't do it! Ultimate Coordinator... Newtype... USELESS! ALL OF IT WAS USELESS! In the end he was just as helpless as everyone else... more so even, because he had power but it wsn't any good! What use was power or skill or longevity if he couldn't even save the person he loved most!? Kira sagged in the grip of his own vampiric branches, which sucked eagerly on his life force as he hung his head and sobbed, feeling the will to live diminish inside him. She was dead... the light of his life was dead. Lacus was dead! His Seed rolled from the palm of his hand and fell into the loamy dirt beneath Lacus's body, rolling up against the pulsing ball of pink and purple nestled there.

There was a brief silence, broken only by Kira's sobs of grief. And then the entire forest shook like a volcano had erupted beneath it. Kira swayed so violently he almost tore free from his branches, and hot blood spilled from puncture wounds to drip against the thirsty forest floor as it continued to rock and sway and jump as the mother of all earthquakes ripped through it. Kira could feel, with his flesh senses, Lacus's belly jump and twitch in time with the earthquake, as Akira struggled and kicked in a frenzy. Hazily, eyes blurred with tears, Kira looked at the mental representation of Akira... and had to close his eyes, lest they be melted out of their sockets by the incandesence of his son's mental activity. Starbursts of golden and pinkish energy exploded spontaneously from the air around Kira, Lacus and Akira, and Kira's seed slowly levitated back up into the air, to hang midway between the three of them. A stabbing branch tried to impale it, only to disintegrate into flaming splinters as it got close, vaporized by the second Seed that floated up to hang next to Kira's. This Seed was bright pink, and veined with gold rootlings that entangled and gripped with Kira's silver ones, forming an unbreakable network.

A tidal wave of golden-pinkish energy slammed through all three of them, and Kira felt the vampiric poison branches shudder and convulse in unison, and then, before his disbelieving eyes, the branches holding Lacus began changing color, from a leprous green-black hue, to a sunny, warm golden-pink hue... and the transformed branches started to pump and pulse... but they weren't sucking nutrients out of Lacus, but rather injecting them back into her, as something with Lacus's... no, with Akira's... immune system not only overwhelmed the poison but actually converted it into food, which was then fed into Lacus's body, refreshing her reserves. Kira's ears perked up as he heard "eep... eep... eep... eep..." suddenly start up from the life support equipment, slowly at first but gaining speed and volume as more and more poison branches were consumed and converted by Akira. Gradually, a withered periwinkle Seed levitated away from Lacus's body, the rootlings starting out dark purple, but then that covering flaked away like rust from stainless steel, revealing bright gold beneath. At the same time, the rootlings around Lacus's eyes began receeding into her head, and the farther they retreated, the healthier her Seed became.

The three Seeds hung together for a timeless instant, gold roots intertwining with gold and silver roots, forming a triumvirate of nourshing energy and emotional flows, and then the rootlings began to simultaneously contract, pulling all three Seeds towards each other. Soon they were touching... and in the picosecond after that, they MERGED, forming a single seed that rippled with purple, periwinkle and pink highlights, gold and silver veins breaking out across its surface. Even as it was happening in miniature on the Seeds, the very forest floor was turning pink and purple and periwinkle blue, ravines and canyons of glowing silver and gold opening up, dead soil and diseased trees falling away and vanishing in puffs of sweet smelling smoke. Once more Kira's viewpoint expanded, until he felt like he was straddling the entire world, and looking down at its surface as it took the form of the combined Seed. He was aware of a sudden presence at his side, and was not at all surprised to find his arm protectively around Lacus's waist, while hers was around his. _Lacus..._

_Kira... it's beautiful... but how...?_ Lacus murmured, still struggling to adjust to the feeling of life flowing through her body again. _How did you...?_

_That..._ Kira replied, slowly reaching out with one continent sized hand; Lacus's own free hand following after. _Is a question you'll have to pose to your son._ Kira looked down at her body, finding it free of poison branches. The same could not be said of his own body, but something seemed wrong with his branches. They were having trouble draining life from him, and couldn't dig any deeper into his skin. Indeed, it looked and felt like the tips of the branches were actually being pushed OUT of his body, faster than they could push in. Kira realized in a flash of insight that the poison had mutated, had diluted after passing first through Lacus's body, then into Akira's, and then back to Lacus's before him. It was no longer a poison genetically tailored to just him. And because of that weakness, his own immune system was carrying the day! Furthermore, something Akira had prompted within Lacus's immune system was synthesizing a countermeasure to the poison and spreading it throughout her body fluids, including her sweat, which then rubbed off on him and transferred into his body! Contagious immunity, at least among those with related genetics!

The Seed planet shuddered and shivered, and just as Kira and Lacus's fingers were brushing the surface, it burst apart in another explosion of prismatic light! For all the fury of the blast though, neither Lacus nor Kira were buffeted in the slightest, the shockwave echoing away from them in all directions into the vastness of mental space, as they stood, arm in arm, beneath the shade of an absolutely gigantic tree, with branches spreading far and wide above them, its height towering above the landscape and making even their previously enormous forms seem insignificant. The tree bark slowly changed hues from purple to periwinkle blue to hot pink, the color of Lacus's hair, and the broad, healthy leaves on the branches were gold with silver veins. It was quite simply the most breathtaking sight either of them had ever seen, could ever imagine seeing! All the more so, because nestled at the heart of the tree trunk, right by the heartwood at roughly eye level, a half formed but instantly recognizable face snoozed quietly, tuckered out by his exertions. Quite why Akira should appear as part of the tree rather than a distinct form beneath it, neither of them knew or really cared.

_You saved me, Kira..._

_No... we saved you. Just like you saved us._ Kira tore his gaze away from Lacus and sleeping Akira only with the greatest effort. _But we're not the only ones that need saving._

_I was wondering why you were with me._ Lacus said with a raised eyebrow. _Not that I'm complaining of course, but really, you should have gone with everyone else, wherever they went. They need you, Kira. Just like Akira and I do, if in slightly different ways._

_You needed me more. I needed you more. But now... now..._

_Get going then, you big idiot!_ Lacus said fondly, leaning close to land a kiss on his lips, her naked body pressing against his in a very pleasant manner. _I'm not going anywhere. With what Akira seems to have done, I imagine I will recovery pretty swiftly. I already feel light years better than I did a few moments ago._

_That's how it was for me too... once I was over the hump, it wasn't just downhill from there, it was a vertical dropoff to "holy shit I feel awesome"._

_You know what would make me feel even more awesome than this?_ Lacus asked softly. She smirked at him and shifted slightly away from him. _Besides THAT, obviously, you simple man! My mind may be healthy now, but my body is going to take days to recover, if memory serves me right for how you were! But I definitely welcome the thought. Oh dear... I just realized... my hormones are going to do just the same things yours did!_

_I'm strangely comfortable with that thought._ Kira replied with a goofy smile.

_You would be._ Lacus rolled her eyes. _But as I as saying... what would make me feel even better is you coming back, along with everyone else, and telling me that peace has been attained and that Noah has been taken into custody for trial._

_Let the worms try him, I'm not going out of my way to make sure he survives. Not after what he did to you... and might have done to Akira!_

_Revenge doesn't suit you, Kira._ Lacus admonished. _It's a dark road, and I forbid you to travel it. Anger has its uses, but don't let it rule you, it will only lead to regrets later. Stop him, Kira. Stop him cold. But do it because its the right thing to do, not because of your anger. You are never more beautiful... never more powerful... than when you are fighting for what is right, regardless of how you personally feel. When you are like that, Kira, no one can stand in your way. Now go already... I'll be watching from the back of your mind, don't worry. And I think Akira might be as well... our son has had his chance to show off... now its time for daddy to strut his stuff._

_I love you Lacus._ Kira gave her a kiss, but he was already returning to his physical body. _I love you, son._

_I love you, Kira._ Lacus replied with happy tears in her eyes.

_**Love...**_ It wasn't exactly a voice, was more like a feeling that could not be denied... but it came from neither of them. All the same, they didn't exactly need a sign to realize from whence it came.

Kira's eyes snapped open, the hospital room snapping into focus faster than any camera could resolve an image, every color, every texture, every sensation brighter and fuller and more real than he could ever recall, his already abnormally sharp senses on overdrive. Kira felt like he could count the oxygen molecules in the air if he tried, though that was probably impossible. Lacus was breathing deeply and evenly, the breathing tube spat from her mouth, her heartbeat strong and regular. Her body was still wasted, her complexion still deathly pale, but Kira knew that time and plenty of calories were the only cure for that, and he didn't let her withered state bother him anymore. Kira sniffed and cleared his throat roughly, but otherwise didn't feel even slightly under the weather from the poison in his body, and he took that to mean it was almost certainly under control. Even if it wasn't, now wasn't the time to worry about it.

Kira was just getting off the bed and looking for his shirt when a muffled gunshot came from the door, and the entire lock and bar assembly was blown inwards in a hail of plastic shards, followed shortly thereafter by the door being practically kicked off its hinges. Alkire stomped loudly into the room, his mechanical foot slamming into the tile with near piledriver force, a shotgun loaded with rubber breaching slugs held warily in his hands. Quite what he expected to find in the room, Kira could not guess, but whatever it was, it wasn't what Alkire was seeing now. Kira met the Stormhound's gaze evenly, and watched Alkire's mouth drop wide open, his eyes blinking in shock. Raine followed Alkire into the room a moment later, a grim look on her face that likewise blanked into a look of shock as she saw Kira standing there and met his eyes. What Kira could of course not see, at least without a mirror, was that his eyes, usually royal purple, where no a shimmery mixture of purple and periwinkle blue, with flecks and starbursts of bright pink, while the very edges of his cornea seemed inlaid with gold or silver threads, chemicals from his brain soaking into his optical nerves and altering the chemical makeup of his optical jelly to produce the startling effect.

"Are... you okay... kid?" Alkire asked numbly, rooted to the spot by the unearthly look of Kira's eyes, and the way the very air seemed to crackle with invisible power around him, like a second skin.

"Never better." Kira answered easily, and Alkire and Raine both flinched, because they could hear bits of Lacus's intonation in Kira's voice. "We're doing just fine, all three of us."

"What happened to you?" Raine blurted out.

"I don't know." Kira admitted. "Lacus died for a while, but then Akira did something and our Seeds awakened. This is only the second time this has ever happened to me, and the first time for Lacus and Akira."

"Seed's awakened? That doesn't mean a fucking thing to me." Alkire grumbled.

"Just know that you do not want to be in my way right now." Kira advised, Lacus's voice still blending in and out of his.

"Lacus died!?" Raine inhaled sharply.

"For a little while, yes. She came back." Kira said the last lightly, though he certainly didn't feel less than giddy with thanks for that miracle. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the Seraph and I have to be somewhere. I've got something I need to do, and my family is watching, so I'd best give it my all, don't you agree?"

"Uh huh, uh huh... get your spooky ass out of here!" Alkire recommended, sweating freely. "And don't fucking talk to anyone, it fucking creeps me out, and I have at least a general idea of what you and the pink princess can do... others aren't so cursed!"

Raine watched Kira walk out of the room, and then actually sagged to her knees where she stood, bracing both hands against the floor. A few seconds later, Alkire slumped down next to her, shotgun clattering on the tile. "Holy fucking shit, Robert." Raine breathed. "Did that just happen?"

"Oh god... I hope so!" Alkire replied fervently. "Because I think Kira's finally got Noah's number now... and when he comes a callin'... all Hell's gonna break loose!"

* * *

Kira sat down in the control chair of the Seraph, feeling like the Gundam was quite literally coming to life around him, enfolding him in its protective grip, responding to his inner fire. He knew it was just an illusion, synthesia left over from the mental communion with Lacus and Akira, but he didn't mind. He rather felt that kinship with his Gundam could only serve him better right now. "Noah..." Kira breathed, his left hand, the one with shortened fingers, closing around the modified control yoke on that side. "Can you feel us, Noah? Do you know what beast you have unchained? Did you mistake Lacus and mine pacifism for passivity, despite our warning? You told us that there was a difference between being prepared and being ready... well, now, Noah... I hope you are both prepared and ready, because if you aren't, not all the angels of heaven and all the devils of hell will be able to save you from my wrath. For Lacus. For Akira. For everyone. I will stop you! I WILL STOP YOU!"

Kira made sure his restraints were tight and buckled, and he took a deep, calming breath, letting his anger flow away from him, drained by Lacus's balmy touch upon the back of his mind. What remained was pure, diamond hard resolute determination. The hanger door rumbled upwards, and Kira stepped the Seraph forward into the ruddy light of Orb's new day. His blue traced wings spread wide, the blackness of his metal skin only showcasing the nebulae and starbursts of gold and silver that decorated his somber aspect. Civilian vehicles on the highway nearby slowed and stopped, traffic in both directions halting as their attentions were inexorably drawn towards the frightening and beautiful Gundam. Kira switched to external speakers and the international broadcast channel. "This is Kira Yamato." He announced. "In the Serpah. I am taking off!"

And then the Serpah leapt into the sky, and headed out on a course to change destinies.

* * *

Author Note: Next time on Gundam SEED: The Eden Disaster: Prelude to the climactic fight. Strategies and tactics, and first blood is drawn, fiery and destructive. Can anything stop the Brotherhood?


	64. The Road to Heaven Leads Through Hell 8

"The Great Endeavor has been confirmed Knight-Commander ze Burrel, sir! It's following the projected course perfectly, its like he doesn't even care that we're there waiting for him!" One of the bridge communication officers reported stridently, taking information from forward observation posts, relayed to the flag ship for several dozen kilometers away. The old AFNS _Victorious_, veteran of the Second Valentine War, during which it had served as the flagship of the naval elements of the Isolation's First Combined Armed Division, had been taken out of mothball, along with the greater majority of the old Earth Alliance naval fleets, decommissioned by order of the USN early on in the political reorganization process. Hurriedly refitted in the weeks since the destructive attacks on the Mass Drivers, the FNE and ALU fleets were aging, but only inasmuch as they hadn't been substantially upgraded since the Isolation. However, they made up for relative lack of quality with plenty of quantity, and the ocean north and east of Australia was positively swarming with ships of all sizes, ranging from small coastal defense frigates to mainline cruises and destroyers, submarines of all stripes, all the way up to the super-carriers like the _Victorious_ and even ancient battleships, practically museum pieces with their huge shell lobbing turrets.

"Knight-Commander ze Burrel?" The comm officer prompted, twisting around in his seat to fix the Solar Knight's commander with a look, since he had not responded to or acknowledged the report.

"Acknowledged, comms." Rey said brusquely, shaking himself slightly, castigating himself for the lack of discipline that had allowed him to dwell on personal problems even before the most critical battle in human history to date! He'd never had problems like this before... but then again, as Rey was forced to remember... he'd never had a relationship like the one he'd had with Luna before either, so perhaps that was to be expected? "If there is one thing Noah never lacked, it is self confidence on a colossal scale. He did the exact same thing against the Armada at the Moon. But this time is going to be different, because our backs are against the wall, and there is nowhere left to retreat." Now if only he could get Lunamaria out of his thoughts, things would be going just grand! But that was far easier said than done, especially with the Shinn Situation, which definitely deserved capital letters.

After the Battle of Victoria Spaceport, in which the Solar Knights had been almost as badly mauled as after the fight at Galileo against the Revenant, largely due to the actions of Shinn in the Vengeance, there had been something of a... disagreement... about how they were to handle Shinn's return. Obviously the capture of one of the Brotherhood's most advanced Gundams was nothing less than a cause for jubilation, especially with the unexpected cooperation from Orb that allowed them to not only quickly find the self destruct and automatic recall devices, but to keep them permanently disabled by reprogramming the self-repair systems. And while it hardly made up for Orb holding out on sharing all the technology they had gleaned from the Tormented and the captured Zealot frames, at least it was a step in the right direction. Besides, who cared about the Tormented or a simple Zealot now anyway... the Vengeance was an entirely different animal, a lion versus housecats!

However the return of the pilot, Shinn Asuka, was rather less easy to be joyous about, at least for some of them. Luna of course was beyond ecstatic, as were a goodly majority of the Solar Knights, especially those that had not encountered the Vengeance on the battlefield. Even among those that had been shot down by the Vengeance, those few that survived, though warier than the others, seemed ready and willing to accept Shinn back, acknowledging that his actions had not been his own fault. Such forgiveness would never have existed prior to Noah's televised demonstration of his psychic abilities, but in the aftermath of that infamous event, people's tolerances for weird shit had been greatly expanded, and the idea of a captured soldier being mind controlled and forced to fight against his former comrades didn't seem nearly as ludicrous as before!

All the same, while the rank and file and junior officers were ready and willing to accept Shinn back into the fold with open arms, especially given the gift of the Gundam, the senior officers, all the way to the top of the chain of command at Gil's level, were less sanguine about Shinn's triumphant return. There was no denying that he had always been an exceptional pilot, except for a few discipline problems he had been one of the most exemplary Solar Knights, a hero that had become an indisputable part of the Solar Knight's public face. And he had been mentally coerced, Gil could not doubt that, after personally experiencing the phenomenon. But Shinn's coercion had been different from Gil's, long term versus short term, memory modification versus suspension of muscle control, and Gil and many other senior officers were suspicious of the... validity... of Shinn's relapse to the Solar Knights. People pointed out how Shinn had switched sides not just once, but three times during the fight, from the Brotherhood to the Solar Knights, back to the Brotherhood and finally back to the Solar Knights! There was no telling when he might switch again, might have been sent to do just that sort of triple agent ploy!

Of course, Rey did have to lend credence to Luna's rebuttal of that argument, that without his Gundam, which had of course been confiscated, and placed in confinement as he was, Shinn could hardly expect to double cross anyone, and would have known such treatement was likely, so why would he plan to do something he couldn't do? Still, Rey could not deny the heat of Gil's incandescent anger at the public spectacle that one of the greatest Solar Knights was shown to have been a traitor to the USN, even if temporarily. If Rey had just let Shinn kill Luna, none of this would have ever occured, Gil was definitely not afraid to say. The Solar Knights would have lost a good veteran pilot, but their incorruptible image would be intact, and that image was worth more to Gil than Luna's life, by far. Rey's desires were usually in line with Gil's, but not on that. He just couldn't get the thoughts of the last time they had spent the night in each other's arms, laughing and enjoying each other. Maybe he was love-addled, as Gil had been unkind enough to say once, but what could he do about it if he was? Even if Luna hated him right now, which she certainly professed to, that didn't change what had occured in the past, didn't make it any less of a golden memory!

The only ray of light in the whole fiasco, as far as Rey himself was personally concerned, was that one of the two true traitors to the Solar Knights, Eric Kellson, who had deserted his post when Gil's life was threatened by the madman Markov Ashino during the battle at Galileo against the Revenant, had been shot down by the Vengeance and had not returned from the battle. Lain Debora, the other traitor, had also been shot down, but had managed to safely crash land his Archon and had, regrettably, been recovered from the field by rescue crews. The remains of Kellson's Archon had not been located, even after two days of aerial searching, and eventually Rey was forced... allowed, more like it... to declare him missing in action, presumed dead, and since there were other, bigger concerns and needs for manpower, he'd called off the search. Who knew where in the maze of ravines and arroyos of the foothill region north of Lake Victoria Kellson had come down in, but since the last time anyone saw him he was in a Death Spiral, Rey doubted they'd find anything but a crater anyway! Good riddance to bad rubbish, in his mind!

The Vengeance had been extensively studied by the brightest minds the USN could acquire for the job, outside of anyone from Orb, and while the greater majority of its technology was so far advanced as to be practically arcane, a few tidbits were emerging here and there. Nothing like any sort of complete technology for them to use against the Brotherhood, but at least an understanding of how some Brotherhood technology worked, why the capabilities of their machines were what they were, and tenative strategies for dealing with it. One such strategy had been training a cadre of soldiers, at least aboard the naval vessels, in the long defunct art of semaphore signalling, using combinations of colored flags raised into various positions and orders, to convey complex messages in a visual manner, to get around th expected regular communication jamming the Brotherhood was sure to employ. Temporary underwater cable connections had been established from the fleet to the ground forces, though how long they would be able to stay connected was a concern.

As far as they had been able to discover, the Brotherhood used some sort of Quantum Comm system in addition to regular comms, utilizing the principle of Quantum pairing, that said that if particle A changed state, all other Particles that were the same as Particle A would also change state identically, no matter where they were, allowing for effectively unlimited ranged communctions, instantly, by changing particles in a certain pattern to convey the message, which would appear instantly in all reciever units no matter where they were. And because it was instant, there was no way to jam it... at least not with technology the USN had. Rey thought he remember something about an ECM unit mounted on one of the Orb Gundams that had interfered with the Brotherhood comm and wireless control systems, but how he did not know. Quite how quantum particles that were seperated by miles, even hundreds or thousands of miles or more, could change state instantaneously with one another, Rey could not fathom, but it was an observed Quantum phenomenon... it just had never been controllable before*! It wasn't the wierdest thing to come out of quantum physics, not by a long shot.

The scientists and engineers had protested mightily when it came time for the Solar Knights to head to the USN muster, because Rey had ordered that the Vengeance be put back together, which largely consisted of leaving it alone for half a day, and brought along with the task force. Shinn, still being held in military confinement, was also brought along. After much argument with Gil, they had eventually both acknowledged that regardless of the state of Shinn's mental fortitude, given the dire nature of the situation, not utilizing simply every resource at their disposal was practically criminal. They had removed Noah's remote detonation device, and inserted one of their own, a self contained, timed version that would explode and shred the Vengeance's reactor cooling systems if its rearming code was not input every hour, which could only done by landing the Gundam and powering down so the device could be externally accessed. Though the device would not actually destroy the Vengeance, since they still wanted to plunder its technology, without the coolant system the reactor would shut down and disable the machine. It limited the Gundam's combat time to about fifty minutes out of every hour, but better that than losing it!

Also Shinn had been told, in no uncertain terms, that any failure on his part to follow or acknowledge orders would be seen as a sign that he had turned traitor once more, willingly or not, and that he would be treated as an enemy from then on. He had accepted that with more grace than Rey would have given him credit for, at least the old Shinn, the one that always chafed under authority... the pre-Galileo Shinn. However, Shinn had been changed by his experience... god knows, how could he not have been... but he was a lot more serious and calm and... reasonable, for lack of a better word, now. Perhaps it was still a case of shock, from the effort of breaking his mental conditioning, but Shinn was quiet and solitary, almost withdrawn. The only person he would really talk to outside of official business was Luna, perhaps not surprisingly. Rey felt his lips curl in distaste, as he thought about Luna staying the nights in Shinn's brig cell, as he knew she was doing, but he knew that him and Luna were well over by now, and it was his fault, even though he also knew he couldn't have told her, not given the state she was in at the time. Catch 22, right in the balls. Shinn turned to the distractions of command to keep his head straight.

The Great Endeavor was approaching the northwestern coast of Australia after passing over Africa, its path would take it across both "horns" of Australia, traveling through the Bay of Carpentaria in the process, and then off the northeastern coast on its way to Orb. The USN, FNE and ALU ground forces, plus all of the remaining ZAFT land battleships, as many as could be gathered, were situated on the northwestern horn, in three huge defensive lines, dug in and fortified as best they could do in a few weeks time. All of the defensive lines were set well back from the beaches, several kilometers actually, and all of the ground forces, consisting of almost three thousand Mobile Suits of various makes, plus tens of thousands more infantry and regular armor and artillery emplacements, were hunkered down to weather the opening salvoes of the engagement. In the pacific ocean, north of the ground forces, were the heaviest cruisers, destroyers and battleships, ready to use thier long ranged weapons to directly support the ground forces. Assuming the Great Endeavor got past all of that, the second tier defenses were waiting.

The second tier defenses were located in the Bay of Carpentaria, and consisted of the lightest and fastest surface ships, which had been outfitted as suicide-bomb ships, crewed only by volunteers of course, as well as all of the attack submarines of the FNE and ALU, plus several hundred submersible Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors. The sky above the Bay swarmed with attack and bomber aircraft, including even ancient super-heavy bombers, some of which would assist the first tier ground forces, and others would hang back and strafe and bomb the Great Endeavor if it made it into the Bay. The last line of terrestrial defense, the third tier, was built on the northeastern horn of Australia, and consisted of the heaviest, longest range ballistic and missile artillery units, which would engage the Great Endeavor if it made it past the middle of the Bay, plus the elite Mobile Suit squadrons of the USN, ALU and FNE, ready to engage the Brotherhood after they were tired and already damaged from getting this far, if they did. Beyond the third tier waited the command, supply, strategic and carrier vessels.

The fourth tier of defenses were overhead, and consisted primarily of ZAFT and FNE space warships hanging in low geosynch orbit over the battlefield, ready to offer pinpoint heavy firepower from above, harassing and attacking the Great Endeavor from the moment it hit the first beach, the transition moment where it would be initially most vulnerable. Some Drake class escort vessels had also been fitted out as bomb ships, unmanned this time, which were filled with explosives and would soar down from the heavens like deadly meteors, using mass as well as explosive power to damage the enemy. Also, hundreds of ZAFT and FNE Mobile Suits waited in drop pods, to be delivered to the battleground to reinforce gaps or pressure any weak points discovered or created. Finally, the late arriving Orb contingent was also assigned to send their ships to the Bay of Carpentaria, and sent their Mobile Suits and Gundams to support the third tier. Orb, as usual, was playing some game of its own, with their own plan, splitting their Gundam forces apart, sending the Warmaster, with all its valuable heavy firepower, into space for some reason beyond his comprehension, and they didn't seem to have brought the Seraph at all! What, was Yamato above this fight or something?

As soon as the orbital bombardment began, the gathered Coalition forces were going to strike their hardest blow, as all the land and sea based strategic missile launchers would fire a concerted salvo of nuclear tipped warheads at the Great Endeavor, saturating the area with hundreds of warheads ranging in power from tactical ten to fifty kiloton bombs, all the way up to five hundred plus kiloton city-busters. In addition, Zaft would be dropping waves of Gugnirs from orbit, hoping to use the specialized EMP bombs to disrupt the Great Endeavor's defenses, and the last line of the first tier defenses was equipped with nearly all the FRALA units available, and they would also engage during the WMD pummeling. With luck, the Great Endeavor's defenses would be overwhelmed by the sheer power of the combined attacks, and if only one or two nukes slipped through, they had basically won, without any Coalition forces needing to engage hardly at all! Of course, the environmental damage was sure to be extreme, but compared to the damage Green EDEN was already causing, a bunch of nukes was not going to make that much of a difference, except locally.

All in all, it was the largest gathering of military force in history, and Rey felt the heavy burden of responsibility. Though he was not by any means in command of anything but the third tier, and only nominally that, he had helped plan this entire defensive battle, and he was supposed to be the USN's anti-Brotherhood expert after all. Gil was up in orbit, with the ZAFT forces, and he was relying on Rey to make up for his fiasco at Victoria by being his eyes and ears and, if need be, smashing fist, to ensure the Great Endeavor and Noah were destroyed once and for all! "Knight-Commander, the Great Endeavor will be reaching the beach in less than fifteen minutes. Do you have any orders, sir?" The comm operator asked, obviously getting nervous reports from the front lines.

"Tell them to stand firm, and keep their eyes closed and mouths open." Rey recommended drily. "And remind them that we are the last line of defense here today. If we cannot do this thing, if we cannot stop the Brotherhood... no one else is left. Everyone is counting on us to save the world, to save our way of life, to save our future... and we will not let them down."

* * *

"I know I've said similar things in the past... but HOLY FUCK, THAT'S A LOT OF SHIPS!" Dearka exclaimed, looking down at the Earth. "I thought the fleet they brought against Orb in the Isolation was big, but you could LOSE it in that mess if you turned your eyes away for an moment!" For that matter, Dearka reflected, the orbital fleets were no joke either, though only a pale shadow of the Armada that had gathered around the Moon, but there were still dozens and dozens of them, and hundreds of Mobile Suits. All of which were busy flitting back and forth as the circular shape of the Great Endeavor moved towards the shoreline of Australia, looking like the head of a pin from this high up, but all the more frightening in the fact that it was still visible from orbit via the naked eye. The blue of the oceans around Australia were churned almost hurricane white by the wakes of all the ships moving around down there, which was what had prompted Dearka's initial comments.

"Lets hope numbers are enough." Miriallia replied doubtfully. Maybe if she hadn't seen what had happened the last time the USN confronted the Brotherhood with overwhelming numbers, she would have been more confident. She didn't think Noah would unleash that horrible Blue Stuff, not while on Earth, but there was that patch on the Moon to think about, though it had never been officially acknowledged as existing by the USN.

"It will be." Dearka assured her with a cocky smile. "It is my professional opinion that the Brotherhood is totally boned, I promise. I bet they don't even get past the first defense lines!" He said confidently.

"I would like to take that bet, but if they do get past the first defense lines, we're going to be the only ones who stand a real chance of stopping them, and our system is untried... at least in doing what we're trying to do." Miriallia replied, the act of worrying and arguing with Dearka's insane confidence was always calming to her before a battle. At least he wasn't pawing all over her anymore, he'd finally bypassed the super-horny pre battle stage sometime after that unfortunate incident when he'd tried to get frisky during the launch procedure. What an unfortunate time for the launch to start... he'd had a personal place get rather painfully slammed against his armrest, and his ardour had practically vanished right afterwards.

"It'll be fine." Dearka shrugged. "Have you ever known anything Erica Simmons whipped up not to work? Besides the Pandemonium ECM, and that DOES work, it just works too well. And if something has to fail, I'd prefer it to fail like that!"

"One of these times you're going to say something like that, and you'll be left flapping in the breeze." Miriallia commented darkly.

"One day, almost certainly." Dearka agreed. "But not today. Today, I just got this feeling. It's gonna be a... well, not a good day, but its not going to be a bad day. Things are gonna work out, somehow, just you wait and see! Hell, this is our big chance to save the world and shove Kira's face in it, assuming he ever leaves that hospital room!"

"There's a goodly few things I'd like to shove in Kira's face, that's for sure." Miriallia answered with a frown. "Starting with my fist, and becoming less pleasant from there."

"Ah, maybe we should cut the guy a break, I mean, I shudder to think how I would be if you were in Lacus's shape." Dearka admitted.

"I'd like to think you wouldn't be a moping cripple who shuts out all his friends, and even violently removes them from his presence, even though Lacus is just as dear to us as she is to him, if in a different way." Miriallia sniffed. "I'd forgotten how damned childish he could be when he feels he has to protect someone and he can't do it. I don't care how good a Mobile Suit pilot he is, or what sort of genetics he has, he's still just a guy. He can't protect everyone all the time, its simply not possible. Its one thing to hold yourself to high standards... its another to let failure to meet those standards turn you into a wreck, especially at a time of great universal need!"

"He could have chosen a better time." Dearka allowed. "But he didn't really choose it. And there are no good times for something like this to happen. I mean, she's dying, Mir. She might not be there when we get back. How could we ask him to not be by her side in what might be her last moments alive? Plus there's the baby to consider!"

"Believe me, I appreciate that more than you can imagine." Miriallia assured him. "And I know it would be cruel to ask him to go fight while Lacus is on her deathbed, and their baby's life is in peril. But if I have to choose between being cruel to Kira, and cruel to the entire rest of the world, by denying us one of our strongest, if not the strongest Gundam pilot alive in our last ditch hour of need, then I'm going to be cruel to Kira, hands down, every time. This is bigger than Lacus, bigger than any one person, bigger than even any one entire Nation! This is the entire world we're talking about, and while we might not be able to turn it all back to what it was before, we can at least prevent all of the old world from being destroyed and rebuilt according to the whims of one terrorist!"

"Yeah, well, we did ask him..." Dearka pointed out. "And he turned us down. God, I've never seen him so angry. I was scared of him, Mir. Not joking, but really truly frightened he was about to hurt me and Yzak and Athrun when we broached that topic. He picked Athrun up and almost shoved him through the closed door, and they've been best friends since they were little kids! Hell, if anyone could be completely sympathetic to how he's feeling, it would be Athrun! But he's just not in his right, reasonable mind." Dearka pounded one fist lightly on his armrest. "Oh well, we'll just have to do without. Its not like I want to rely on him to save the day if I don't have to anyway, right? Talk about a bummer of a responsibility, everyone always expecting you to save them... no thanks, I'll bear that burden this time."

"We'll bear that burden this time." Miriallia corrected him. "And so will the others, because if they don't take down the dorsal Positron shields, then ours will be the flashiest failed assualt of all time."

Miriallia was referring, of course, to the fact that the Spear of Ares, their special weapon, was totally useless against something warded by positron anti-matter fields, which would disintegrate their projectile in a harmless flash of light about as threatening as a lamplight burning out. Anything else was, fine, including Citadel shields... as long as it was a solid, resisting surface, the Spear would be able to unleash its power. And since this time there were using all 128 accelerators at once, for a single shot, that was going to be one HELL of a lot of power, even if the warhead was only about the size of her pinky nail. Size and mass hardly mattered when you were dealing with speeds at significant fractions of the speed of light, forty percent in this particular case, which would imbue the little hunk of metal with enough kinetic force to leave a very, very BIG hole in whatever it struck. Miriallia wasn't sure of the exact kilotonnage, or was it megatonnage, of the prospective explosion, but she knew it was big. Big enough to ruin anyone's day, even something the size of the Great Endeavor.

The major modification to the system that Miriallia had alluded to before was the key to the whole operation. Because the Great Endeavor was on Earth, that meant it was surrounded by miles and miles of gases that made up the atmosphere, thin at the top and gradually getting denser the closer you got to sea level. Anything passing through these gases would generate friction as it bulled the gas particles out of the way, and that friction would generate heat. A lot of heat, at high speeds. Enough heat to not just melt but entirely vaporize their little warhead before it even got a quarter of the way through the atmosphere towards its target. Which was obviously a problem, and not a simple one to solve. Making the projectile big enough to have enough mass to burn while still retaining enough to deal damage was impractical, because the energy requirements to launch something of that size would occupy an entire battleship full of nuclear reactors, and was thus unfeasible. Reducing the speed of the projectile so that less friction would be generated would emasculate the shot and in essence just turn the spear into an exotic railgun, nothing special. The warhead was already made of Ice-gold, about as frictionless a metal as was currently available.

Just about the only possible solution was to eliminate the source of the friction, as much as possible. And that meant moving the atmosphere. Fortunately, the technology and methods already existed to do just that, though they'd never been used for the purpose of something entering the atmosphere, only exiting it. Though only rarely used, Orb had pioneered a method of using positron beams fired from weapons like the Lohengrin of the Archangel, which would quite literally blow the air away from a certain path, reducing air friction on a large object, usually a capital space warship, as it used its boosters to accelerate to escape velocity. In essence, the positron beam created a temporary tube of vacuum, through which the warships could accelerate more rapidly than otherwise would be possible. Of course, jury rigging a Lohengrin type weapon was no easy task, especially considering that such systems drank power like a thirsty man did water, and the Warmaster's reactors were not up to the task, even if they could somehow connect to the weapon, which would be almost 13 kilometers away when the Spear was fully deployed.

They were only going to get one shot, after which both the Lohengrin unit and the Spear of Ares would be out of power. Not only that, but they were only going to be able to make the shot work at certain steep angles... too much of a shallow angle would put too much atmosphere between them and the target, too much for the Lohengrin blast to dissipate, which limited their ability to target to an uncomfortably small slice of area, just above the third tier of the defenses, a box about twenty kilometers on a side. If the Great Endeavor wasn't in that box, they might as well not even fire at all, because the projectile wouldn't reach the ground. Finally, as if it wasn't tricky enough, the timing between the Lohengrin blast and the Spear shot was going to be EXTREMELY close cut. Because of how fast the projectile would be moving, if they fired too early it would actually catch up with the destructive energy blast before it reached the ground, which would result in the positrons destroying the projectile. However, the vacuum tube would only stay open for so long before air rushed in to fill the void, and if they waited too long it would be like they'd never fired the Lohengrin at all.

This was all assuming that the Great Endeavor's top mounted positron shields could be disengaged or disabled, of course, hopefully before it was lured into the target box, if it even got that far, which Dearka was forced to admit, he wouldn't mind at all if it didn't. Not that he couldn't bear up under pressure, not that he didn't relish the thought of dropping the mother of all hail mary hammers down onto the Great Endeavor, like the very fist of god, but all the same, if he never had to find out if he could do it or not, that was fine with him. Of course, it wasn't just him doing this, this was definitely a task that one person, even if they were a Corodinator, could not do alone, and even with two smart people like him and Miriallia, it was still mostly in the realm of the onboard computers doing the heavy duty calculations. Mir was going to trigger the Lohengrin when the opportunity arose, if it did, and then Dearka would have to wait an agonizing second and two thirds before he could fire the Spear. But if he waited for two full seconds, the window would be closed. Fun times. He had a green light set up to show when it was time to shoot, but it was only going to be lit for a third of a second!

Flashes in the corner of his vision brought Dearka's head up, and a moment after him, Miriallia's as well. The first orbit to surface salvoes were being fired, the Great Endeavor must already be wading through the surf towards the first tier defense lines. Knowing what was to come next, Dearka made sure that the opacity of his external cameras was turned up all the way, even though they were in orbit, the visual flash from the strategic bombardment was sure to be intense. Dearka could barely imagine what it would be like for the poor bastards on the front lines... exposed to not only the light show by the shockwaves and sound of such poweful explosions... the entire world would feel like it was coming apart at the seams! Large grapefruit looking objects started dropping from some of the ZAFT ships, joining the strobing blasts of yellow and green and red-blue on their way to the surface. Gugnirs, set to airburst just above the Great Endeavor's shields, hopefully ruining any delicate electronics on the Great Endeavor, especially shields and weapons

"Come on guys... get em good!" Dearka said under his breath.

* * *

"Great Prophet, we've..." one of the Harbingers started to report.

"Come under fire from the enemy fleets in orbit, yes, I think I realized that." Noah cut the man off, not even needing to pluck the thoughts from his mind. Any fool could tell from the way the Great Endeavor was shuddering, not to mention the lightshow outside and the steady "meeping" of the shield systems adjusting their power output that they'd come under attack, pretty much where and when he'd expected to be. During the process of extending the legs, switching from water based sailing to ground based walking, the Great Endeavor was even more sluggish to maneuver than usual, and most of its ventral mounted weapons, those on the underside, were still underwater and unable to fire back. He sensed Rey and Gil behind this one, not that they weren't always at the other end of the tactical and strategic chessboard from him. However, it wasn't a two vs one game anymore, no, he had Meyrin now, one of the most talented CIC operators to ever graduate from ZAFT's military academy, only prevented from graduating as a redcoat because of her merely average physical aptitude.

And with her in depth knowledge of ZAFT, USN and the Solar Knights military systems, as well as experience in plenty of practice scenarios against the militaries of other member-states, coupled with his raw intelligence, they made a more than formidable command team, especially with the Great Endeavor's fully holographic bridge display system, which let them lay out the entire enemy forces, at least those visible, and walk around them, looking at them from multiple angles, seeing exactly where the Great Endeavor was in relative position, and what was going on to all sides. Geysers of boiled water were now exploding from the surf on all sides of the Great Endeavor as heavy warships and land based artillery systems added their firepower to that coming down from the fleets in orbit, but for all their destructive power, it was barely even a spring rain to the might Great Endeavor, those beams or shells or missiles that did strike only exploded or dissipated harmlessly against the green-blue curtains of Citadel Shields that wrapped around the Great Endeavor in a tight coccoon. Higher up, the dorsal regions of the Great Endeavor were hazed with the pinkish glow of positron reflectors, sucking up everything thrown at them in bright flashes of light.

Noah felt the Great Endeavor sway slightly udner his feet, as the legs finally found solid purchase in the sand off shore, and the great Endeavor began to rise, monolithically, from the waves, sloughing the ocean away like a curtain waterfall, making the very ground quiver and shake under its colossal weight. A different tone of beeping, more urgent, filled the bridge, and the holographic display updated to show beads of bloody red falling from the upper atmosphere, in a diamond dispersal pattern around the Great Endeavor, while at the same time, bushels of red arrows started curving in on their position from off screen along three edges of the display. "Gugnirs from above, nuclear missiles from the front arc." Noah grunted. "They're quite determined. How irritating."

"Their backs are against the wall." Meyrin replied, squeezing his hand reassuringly. "We knew this was likely to happen. Better they direct their nukes against us than our helpless new brothers ad sisters spread throughout the world." Though she sounded calm, she could barely believe she was just standing here, while more missiles than she could quickly count, each bearing on or more nuclear warheads, converged upon her position.

"I think they've come just about far enough." Noah decided. "We wait too much longer and they'll start deploying warheads, and it will be too late by then."

"May I?" Meyrin asked with an impish smile.

"By all means, this first dance is all yours, my love." Noah replied, smiling back. Meyrin reached out her hand, hidden sensors in the bulkheads tracking her movement and projecting a command screen at her fingertips, through which she entered a series of commands, and then she flicked her hand, closing the window. Nothing particularly climactic, but the effects were dramatic. A small hole opened in the Great Endeavor's top and forward shields, only for a second or two, but it was enough time for a single missile to speed through each gap, one headed for the stratosphere and the gugnirs, the other headed towards the heaviest concentration of incoming ballistic missiles. Perhaps if the USN forces had been situated closer, they might have been able to try and interdict the missiles, but since they were all set well back from the beach to avoid collateral damage from their own strategic weaponry, they were also out of range to do anything but watch the Brotherhood countermeasure.

Which was actually fairly simple in execution. While under the shields, the Great Endeavor was basically immune to conventional weaponry, such as the orbital, naval and artillery bombardment. But at the same time, it could not fire its own weapons through its shields, and so it lacked any ability to aggressively interdict the incoming strategic weapons, and the shields would eventually give way before weapons of such magnitude. Gil and Rey were probably hoping for one of two outcomes... them keeping the shields up and having them be overloaded by the nukes... or them dropping the shields to shoot down the nukes with CIWS fire, and exposing themselves to conventional weapon fire. Noah was giving them outcome number three, firing two small nuclear missiles of his own, while keeping his shields up. It wouldn't work if there was even a slight amount of anti-aircraft or anti-missile defenses nearby, but none were. And so Noah's missiles converged with the strategic weapons closing in from the front and above, and detonated in their midst.

The nuclear explosion itself was enough to knock many of the missiles and gugnirs out, or off course at least, buffeting them with air pressure waves. But the real killer was the EMP waves emitted by each blast, which played merry hell with the sensitive electronics of the missile guidance and propulsion systems, and the arming systems of the Gugnirs, turning well over eighty percent of them into so many falling rocks. Some missiles were outside the effective radius of the tactical EMP pulse, others had EMP shielding, or were by luck or chance still aimed at the Great Endeavor even though the guidance systems were shot, and those missiles continued their plunge, swooping down upon the Great Endeavor bare seconds after the cluster of Gugnirs struck and ricocheted off the Citadel Shields like a handful of pebbles dropped on a motorcycle helmet. Briefly, the sun disappeared from the sky, as blinding light expanded outward in roiling globes from the exploding warheads, so bright and hot as to melt the face off anyone within a mile or two, and releasing explosive shockwaves that made the ground ripple, throwing men and machines into the air and off their feet as far away as the first defense line, almost five kilometers away!

The Great Endeavor was totally obscured by clouds of smoke and steam, half vaporized sand and rock raining down for miles, stormclouds forming as radiation ionized the air, sheet lightning crackling ass the charged air rubbed against the outer edges of the Great Endeavor's shields, which had compressed, shivered, fluctuated... and then calmed, repelling the direct hits like they'd never happened. The combined concussive force of the nuclear blasts made the Great Endeavor pause for a second, still half submerged, but it was only a momentary pause, and then another huge leg lifted out of the surf and slammed onto the beach, the Great Endeavor finally reaching land once more! Arcing shells from battleships far off the coast joined railgun tracers from ZAFT land battleships and downpours of missiles, rockets and shells from artillery units and ground emplacements, to churn the entire beach, for a mile in either direction, into molten sand and flame and smoke, but though impressive, the fury of conventional weapons was barely a shadow of the nukes, and even those hadn't slowed the Brotherhood much!

As soon as the Great Endeavor was well and truly clear of the water, standing on firm ground, or at least firmer ground, Noah allowed the frontal shields to thin, knowing that he was going to have to trust to his armor some, he couldn't spend the whole battle behind his shields, or else eventually the enemy would concentrate their firepower and force a gap through, or else get underneath the bottom lip and attack his underside. Besides, he was still fuming at Gil's atrocity, and more than fed up with this pointless defiance. If they really wanted to fight him, well then by god he'd give them more fight than they could handle! The Great Endeavor's weapon systesm deployed all across its dorsal and ventral hull, while at the same time Noah set the drive systems to slowly spin the Great Endeavor in place as he ordered the engagement of the USN lines at maximum direct fire range. The Great Endeavor was being hit, armor was cracking and melting, but the individual hits were so small they couldn't even be felt, despite how many there were.

The reverse was true for the USN, on the receiving end of the Great Endeavor's staggering firepower. Thousands of 220cm Gottfried bolts, each green plasma blast thicker than a man was tall, converged upon the thickest concentrations of troops, turning square acres of land to glassy ruin with every bolt, and miniature mushroom clouds plumed upwards from where explosive shells launched from the 800cm linear cannons touched down, men, tanks and Mobile Suits tossed like toys from the concussive force of the blasts. Blazing pink cones of thermal energy swept stretches of the sky clear of incoming missiles and sheels, melting and detonating explosives with the furnace like microwave heat, and the 57mm beam CIWS turrets filled the air with a reverse rain of bright emerald energy beams. Even with all their earthworks and fortifications, the ground forces were taking a horrible mauling, hundreds of soldiers and dozens of vehicles, including Mobile Suits, being slagged and blown apart with every passing second, as the Great Endeavor slowly revovled to minimize the ability of the USN to focus fire on any one point, a stately spinning wheel of death!

Noah noticed Meyrin had sad eyes, and he squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Its necessary." He reminded her. "They chose to stand in our way."

"I know." Meyrin answered. "But that doesn't mean I can't feel sorry for them. They're just misguided, its no reason to hate them." She was silent for a moment longer, and then she reached out her free hands and began designating targeting priority on the ships to the north, sending flights of anti-ship cruise missiles after each target in turn. "Of course, its no reason to spare them either." She added resolutely. she was going to say more, but then piercingly bright blue-white beams, dozens of them, though each was no wide than a piece of pencil lead, converged on the Great Endeavor from one of the further back defense lines, playing across its skin like scapels of fire, leaving glowing, bubbling trenches in the outer surface, slicing through weapon emplacements and even carving entire sections of armor free, the laser beams penetrated almost thirty meters inside the Great Endeavor before tapering off. "Well now, we can't have that!" Meyrin said with a stern shake of her ehad, as minor damage alarms began to wail.

"I'm going to deploy the Mobile Suits." Noah told her. "We can't let them just sit back and snipe at us with FRALA's while their front line keeps us busy."

"There's no need." Meyrin answered, slipping her hand from his and calling up a new menu with her now freed hand. Immediately, power began shunting from all five of the Great Endeavor's fusion pulse reactors, gathering in the AMP cannons containment coils.

"The AMP? Are you sure?" Noah asked in mild wonderment. He'd given her command authority over his most powerful weapons precisely because he was afraid, in the heat of emotion, that he would abuse their power. The engagement was barely starting, their damage was minor, and they were making good progress, and yet Meyrin wanted to bring down the full wrath of the Great Endeavor?

"Completely." Meyrin assured him. "Once again, this isn't a fight we necessarily picked, but if there is to be a fight, then we will not hold back. This area is desolate, that's why we chose this path, so that if there was a battle, we would not need to feel restrained in our choice of weapons. And they have already used weapons of mass destruction upon us. No, they are asking for it, and we're going to give it to them. They know you love the environment, Noah, to a silly degree, and that if it was up to you, you probably wouldn't use the AMP cannon unless we started taking major damage."

"That is true. I was saving it for a last resort." Noah admitted.

"Then I guess its a good thing its not up to you anymore?" Meyrin observed with a decidedly wicked smirk. "It will be the last thing they're expecting. Look at how bunched up their forces are. All it will take is one shot, and we'll be past the lot of them."

"Well, it is your choice, my love." Noah acknowledged.

"The choice has already been made." Meyrin assured him. "Besides, now that Shinn has... relapsed... we need to preserve as much of our Mobile strength as we can. I did not detect the Solar Knights or any other elite units in the formations we've engaged. They're waiting for their regular forces to try and weaken us, then come in with the heavy hitters. Also, from what I've seen, Durandel prefers to keep Rey and the Solar Knights in reserve until he's sure of a victory, he doesn't like risking his adopted son and his private army unless he has no other choice. I've also seen no sign of any Orb units, which is troubling. I know where ZAFT is, but Orb has a history of tripping otherwise sure victories up, and the more of them we get out of the way early, the better. Especially if we could take out a Gundam or two."

"In some ways I am glad he relapse." Noah mumbled. "He would have been more trouble than he was worth in the long run. And they'd be idiots to use the Vengeance against us now, even if they have disabled the autopilot and self destruct."

"Which is why I'm expecting them to do it." Meyrin reminded him. "They keep on trying to outsmart you, but they forget about me. Their loss. Literally. I hardly even consider this, right now, the real battle. This is just the warmup. They showed us their hand early, tried to bring us down in one fell swoop, and now that we slipped past that, they are fully on the defensive. Which is good for us. They should never have tried to make this a defensive battle, that plays to our strengths, not theirs. They should have attempted to swamp us with their superior numbers, come in from all sides while we were crossing the Indian Ocean. We would have only been able to use half our weapons, or else resort to flight, but that would have drained so much power our shields would be weak and we'd never be able to fire the AMP. They put too much stock in their strategic attack. Amateurs." Meyrin shook her head disdainfully.

"You have a much better head for this than I do." Noah complimented her. "I just try and smash through things, I don't really pay attention to these details."

"Well, it was... is... my job after all. You can't be the best at everything, ya know!" Meyrin chucked him playfully under his chin. "And this is just the basic stuff, just you wait until we do start the real battle... they'll never know what hit em, with your Gundams and me as CIC!" Meyrin let Noah enfold her in his arms, and they hugged happily, their light mood both bolstering and slightly unnerving the bridge crew.

"Great Prophet... Lady Angel..." One of the Harbingers said nervously, after several minutes of trying to tune out the sounds of their leaders making out in the middle of a battlefield.

"Fire the AMP cannon." Meyrin managed to pull her lips away from Noah for long enough to order. She didn't quite know what had come over her, or over Noah, but she was enjoying it immensely. It felt so good to be bad sometimes, making out with her boyfriend when everyone else she knew would be white knuckled and stressing out. She much preferred what they were doing now, irreverant as it might be. Maybe it was Noah's excitement at the end of his plan so close bleeding over to her. Maybe it was her excitement at the end of his plan so close bleeding over to him. Maybe it was both. Whatever the reason, the mood was already celebratory on the bridge of the Great Endeavor, even before the entire world outside turned white for an instant and then darkness cascaded over the bridge as the polarizing filters blocked out the glare of the AMP cannon's impact. "Noah... I love you..."

"I love you too, Meyrin..."

* * *

"They've been WIPED OUT!? What the hell do you mean they've been wiped out!?" Gil shouted, his face a mixture of purple rage and bloodless white shock. He'd been so confident in the plan that he and Rey had worked out, along with the assistance of the top military minds of the USN, FNE, ALU and ZAFT, at least those that were left after the Armada Disaster, that he hadn't even been watching the course of the battle, but had instead been working on his press releases for the aftermath. "How did WE get wiped out!? He's the one that was supposed to be obliterated in a nuclear fireball! You're not trying to tell me he intercepted ALL of those missiles, are you, Rey!?"

"Not all of them, Gil, but he took out most with an EMP weapon of his own, and those that remained lacked the necessary power to crack his shields." Rey replied, fighting to be calm, though as always, Gil's anger was deeply unsettling to him. "He then moved to attack our ground forces, just as we expected, and while casualties were heavy, they were within the projected estimates. We were inflicting damage upon the Great Endeavor, a bit slower than hoped for, but the FRALA's were producing good results. But then... well..." Rey trailed off and shuddered.

"And then!?" Gil prompted furiously. "How did we go from basically a stalemate, as projected, to having the entire first tier wiped out in less than a MINUTE!?"

"This happened." Rey replied simply, feeding Gil a video shot from about a half minute before. It was a long distance shot, from a high angle, perhaps from orbit or a high flying recon plane, and it showed a view of the battleground, obscured by smoke and bright flashes of explosions, lines of green and red-blue delineating energy weapon discharges. Gil was not a trained military anaylst, but it was still plain to see that there was a major fight occuring, and his side was taking a beating, but still managing to stay together, overlapping Citadel defenses, orienting their fire in groups for greater effect, etc. Then the entire picture flashed so brightly he had to look away, blinking purple and blue glowing spots out of his vision. "Damn, couldn't you have warned me, Rey!?"

Rey could have, but he was not above a little vindictiveness directed at his father, not after all the recrimination and abuse he'd had heaped on him regarding Shinn and Luna and that whole debacle. "Sorry, Gil, its raw stuff, we're a little too busy to edit it right now. This is a live feed now." Rey dragged and dropped another video clip onto Gil's data link. There wasn't much to see, just a huge, still expanding cloud of brown and grey and black dust. There was no mushroom cloud, the anti-matter explosion didn't propogate the same was a nuclear or conventional explosion, it expanded outward in all directions with equal speed and destructive power, rather than rebounding away from the ground. "We're geeting status updates from a few units, but over ninety five percent of the first tier has... been annihilated by the Great Endeavor's main cannon."

"But you said he wouldn't use it unless he had no other choice or he was about to go down!" Gil protested, fighting the urge to tear at his hair. That was nearly a hundred thousand men and women that had just been turned into stray particles in front of his eyes! He hadn't really expected them to defeat the Great Endeavor, not if the strategic punch failed, but he had expected them to deal significant damage before the Great Endeavor passed them by, leaving them hurt but at still whole enough to sweep in from behind if need be! Not this... not this!

"I appear to have been wrong." Rey said blandly, the enormity of his wrong assumption staggering to him. He'd been absolutely sure Noah would avoid firing the AMP cannon, because of the dire impact it would have upon the environment, and the long lasting radioactive wasteland that would remain in the crater was some serious environmental damage... assuming you didn't even count a kilometer and a half deep, eight kilometer in diameter hole in the fucking Earth as environmental damage too! The shockwave had spread out across almost the entire northwestern horn, traveling like a pyroclastic flow from the mother of all volcano's, a solid wall of near sun hot radiation and air shoved outwards in all directions, sweeping all life and structures before it like a bulldozer blade across a child's sandbox! "It's a heavy blow, Gil, but we're not out of the fight yet." Rey tried to reassure his father. "The fourth tier will be commencing orbital drop, including the bomb ships, just before the second tier engages after the Great Endeavor crosses the horn. Wer're having to realign our lines somewhat because the Great Endeavor has to go around the gigantic hole it just made, but its nothing major."

"I do hope we're not wrong about anything else." Gil commented darkly.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Rey replied. "Military axiom. Though this particular plan seems to have gone a bit more wrong than usual. Perhaps we should have gone with that surround and swarm plan, in retrospect."

"The one where we were expecting him to eviscerate us with that selfsame cannon, since he was far enough away from land to risk using it!?" Gil said caustically.

"Well... yes." Rey knew it sounded a bit lame, but what else was there to say? "But its still no reason to despair. He's played his trump card, and now we'll be ready for it in the future. We never expected the first tier to do more than slow him down anyway. We'll adapt. Instead of waiting for him to burst through the second tier, we'll send the third tier to rush in as soon as the second tier engages, and swarm him from all sides. Get in close, force him to send out his Mobile Suits, and then crush them. He's down to only four Gundams after all."

"Yes. Yes, he is. Thanks to you." Gil said slowly. "Maybe your little tryst will prove useful after all."

Rey leaned in close to his screen, making sure his voice was pitched so as to be inaudible to those around him. "Gil, that was unfair. You were nothing but smiles before about me and Luna, but it didn't work out, and your pride got damaged in the process, I understand that. But you're being childish, and that isn't you."

Gil sat back in his chair and rubbed his temples for a few moments. "You're right, you're right, Rey, I'm sorry. I'm so on edge about everything going on, and I'm taking it out on you. Not just you, I'm snapping at everyone right now. I'll be glad when this is over and done with, and we can concentrate on solving any of the other two or three dozen major crisises that are waiting on the back burner. Do the merely difficult today, save the impossible for tomorrow, that sort of thing."

"Don't worry about it, Gil. Everyone gets stressed out sometimes, you're no different. Its reassuring actually... seeing what perfection, or at least the perception of perfection does to people... how it warps their mind, makes them arrogant, its good to see a fault every now and then from you." Rey answered, unable to stay angry with his foster father for long. Especially with so much else on his mind. "Now if you'll excuse me though, I have some delicate problem solving of my own to deal with right now, if we're going to adapt our plans in mid-battle. I'll report back when I have more news, hopefully good news."

"I look forward to it." Gil replied seriously. "Stay safe Rey. This is not the time for reckless risks, we're too close to the end."

"We are near the end." Rey repeated, once the comm channel had closed. "We are very close to the end of our rope. It is precisely the time for reckless risks. Gil, I'm really sorry if I don't make it back from this, but if i give anything less than my all... if any of us give anything less than our all, our fraying rope will break, and all will be lost. A dark age of technology and psychics will overtake the world, and I greatly fear that us regular humans will become, at best, second class citizens. Sacrifices must be made. Compromises of ideals and personal codes are required. Forgiving those who wrong us in the interest of the greater good. Trusting the untrustworthy. Heh, at this rate I'm gonna start sounding like damned Lacus Clyne!" Rey shook his head, and then went to go do something he'd been dreading for weeks. Meet Shinn and Luna together. And then, assuming he somehow survived that, he got the reward of liasing directly with the Orb forces, which meant talking with Cagalli Zala-Attha. It was enough to make him want to whimper. Fighting the Brotherhood had nothing on making peace with his own side!

* * *

* the stuff about Quantum physics is no bullshit, they actually are theorizing that communication over interstellar distances could be accomplished in such a way, assuming we can ever figure out how to control the quantum changes. For that matter, a variation of the same sort of theory could lead to things like teleportation. Quantum science will blow your mind with the possibilities. Plus it sounds cool... quantum is just a very meaty, meaningful word.

Author Note: Well, things are heating up now, aren't they? Next arc, we get all the nice Gundam battles, the big Warmaster scene... will they be successful, or is it a bluff? And what about Kira, approaching with an Ascended Seed? That's gonna be bad news for someone. But can even all that really match up to the Brotherhood Gundam and the Great Endeavor, especially with Meyrin in control of the top end weapons? Lots of excitement ahead, as we head into the penultimate battle of The Eden Disaster. Will it be enough? Or will we see a repeat of the Lunar Armada fiasco? And even if the good guys can prove victorious against the Brotherhood, can they survive the conflicts inherent to their own ranks? You're all just gonna have to stay tuned to find out, in the next arc... New Eden.


	65. New Eden part 1

Luna looked up when the door to the cell that Shinn was being held in clicked, and quickly did her best to compose her face to a more neutral, less vulnerable expression. It would be just a mask, a flimsy covering over the emotional turmoil within, but sometimes masks were necessary, and more and more often these days! She'd been from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other, sometimes within minutes of each other, and the ride had been rough no matter which way she'd gone, leaving her bruised and bloody and emotionally flayed at the very best, and on the edge of self destruction at the far end of the scale! It had all started with Meyrin, of course, and that damnable, taunting message Noah had forced her to participate in! Then, immediately following that attack, had come the relief of her fling with Rey, something she, in calmer moments now could not help but acknowledge had been probably the only thing that kept her even marginally sane through that period of time.

Of course that in no way excused or softened the blow of discovering Rey's treachery, at the very worst possible moment, when her life hung in the balance, but she could at least intellectually admit that what she and Rey had done together had been necessary for her survival and well being. Unfortunately, emotions and intellect rarely saw eye to eye, and she still could not help but feel absolutely terrible about betraying Shinn with Rey, even to the point of sleeping with him and giving away her virginity, all on a lie! It didn't matter that she and Shinn had never been an official couple, had never gone on a date, had never even kissed! The feelings had been there on both sides, though she'd only belated realized how she felt after she thought he'd died, and that guilt had been bad enough! She'd thought to herself so many times after the time of his "death" that if she ever could see him again, the first thing she would do would kiss him and say "I'm ready now", as quickly as possible. And then maybe land a good sucker punch to the pit of his gut, for daring to do something as stupid as sacrificing his life for her!

Shinn wasn't making things any easier now that he was back from the dead, but then again, that was standard Shinn for you. He never made anything easy, and that seemed to be double the case now. Most of the time he was lucid and had all his memories, and the personality of the Shinn she knew and loved, and loved her in return. Other times though, he would have flashbacks, or perhaps even an attempt by his other persona, the one Noah had created, to seize control, and during times like that he would look at her like she was a perfect stranger... or worst of all, a hated enemy! Luna was nursing quite a shiner on her right eye from where an unexpected persona shift had resulted in her taking a rather solid punch to the face, knocking her back across the room in a heap. It was a good thing Shinn had never tried to hurt her before, her own punches, while the stuff of legend among her friends, were barely more than a tap compared to when Shinn clobbered her. Of course, that mere act itself seemed to cause him to wake up again, and he agonized over the incident, but in truth, Luna didn't mind. If a black eye or two was all the cost it would take for her to be with Shinn now, that was fine with her.

How long it would take for the real Shinn, her Shinn, to regain complete and total control over his mind and memories, Luna did not know, but given that it had been weeks already, she was guessing it wasn't going to be the quickest of processes! And the worst part about it all was that conventional doctors and medics and therapists were all but useless for the trauma that Shinn had suffered! They could dope him up to the gills, put him in a stupor to stop him from thrashing around if he had a flashback, but that didn't stop the flashbacks themselves, if anything, the state of being deeply sedated seemed very upsetting to Shinn, probably because that was how he'd been when Noah had sunk his hooks into him in the first place. And what exactly were you supposed to say to a therapist, when your memories and personality had been subsumed and perverted by an extremely powerful psychic in order to turn you into a willing slave? What effect could any reasoned conversation have on a nightmare like that? The nearest equivalent was probably having your willpower broken through sexual slavery, but even that involved the memories holding you prisoner, rather than a change in the memories and basic personality! There were quite literally two different Shinn's inside Shinn's head now, and the only question was which was in control!

Beyond even her other reasons for hoping Shinn could recover from his mental trauma was Luna's fervent hope that if Shinn could throw off Noah's mental shackles, then so too could Meyrin, if and when they ever managed to rescue her from her enslavement! And hopefully, Shinn would be able to help Meyrin along in the process, as a fellow trauma victim, a resource which he himself did not have. It was thoughts like these that helped sustain her courage and her deeply banked dreams when she lay by his side during the nights and held him as he shuddered and sobbed, holding down his hands at times to stop him from trying to claw at himself or otherwise do himself harm, a heartbreaking chore she'd had to perform more than once, as he lashed out in the middle of the night when consumed with horrid dreams or memories. Thankfully such episodes were becoming less frequent as time wore on, another good sign, hopefully, of a pending full recovery.

Though she'd been spending her nights, and most of her days for that matter, in Shinn's company in one holding cell or locked and secure room after another, Luna had still been keeping her clothes on, no matter how close she held Shinn at night. If he had asked her to share herself with him, she would have gladly obliged, but the recent wound caused by Rey was far from closing over in her mind and soul, and no matter how often the words danced on the tip of her tongue, Luna could not bring herself to make the first move, despite how good she was sure it would be for both Shinn and herself. Every time she thought she had the problem beat, she'd have a flashback of her own, either of that first night on the floor of Rey's office, or any one of a dozen subsequent times they'd had sex, usually at her instigation, dragging Rey away from whatever official business he'd been working on. Luna just plain didn't trust herself anymore, not when it came to sex, and though she knew it was silly, she still couldn't help but be afraid she was going to jinx things somehow, if she was the one who instigated things with Shinn. So she bided her time, and hoped for him to recover faster, for both their sakes... now that that particular dam had been broken, there was no easy way to hold back certain new needs she'd discovered, at least not reliably.

Her thoughts took a turn for the darker when she saw who had come to open the door of the tiny cell on board the super carrier. She'd thought it might be one of the scientists or doctors who were doing their best to study Shinn's condition, for future reference, or maybe one of the engineers or technicians trying to puzzle out the systems of the Vengeance and was seeking Shinn's help. Unfortunately, though he'd piloted the thing several times, he was basically clueless as to how it actually worked, apparently Noah didn't like sharing his technical information with anyone, not even his own pilots. Not exactly surprising from someone who also rigged his own side's Gundams with remote self destruction devices, not exactly the biggest gesture of trust ever made. However, it was neither scientist nor engineer who stood looking serious in the doorway, but rather the one person she was hoping she would never have to see at close range again, none other than Rey ze Burrel, her own commanding officer! Not for much longer, if she had any say in the matter... she wasn't long for the Solar Knights now, not with Meyrin gone, all of her friends betraying her trust in one way or other, and Shinn being treated as a prisoner, she had no good memories of the unit to hold her back anymore!

"Go away." Luna said coldly, refusing to meet Rey's gaze, not wanting to dwell on the hints of pain she could discern there. So what if he was hurting, so what if he had only had her best interests in mind, he'd still betrayed her trust in the most fundamental way she could imagine, and profited by her ignorance to boot! If he'd really cared about her, he would have found some other excuse not to take things all the way... a kiss she could forgive, even a night or nights spent in his bed, as long as both of them were chaste. But to take advantage of her sexually, not just once, but repeatedly, all the while knowing that the man she did love was still alive and a prisoner, willing or otherwise, of the enemy, was absolutely unforgivable! If times were less desperate, or Rey's position less important to humanity as a whole, Luna would not have hesitated to take him to court martial for unwilling fraternization, using his position and knowledge as her commanding officer to take advantage of her! Whether or not she'd be able to make a conviction stick, considering the kind of political backup Rey had, was another story altogether, but she would have still made the effort, to make a point if nothing else!

"I'm afraid that's not an option, Knight-Ensign." Rey used her rank, finding himself unable to call Luna by name, and suspecting that it was a good thing. The last thing she wanted right now was for him to act in any way familiar to her, to in any way stir up the slightest hint of the previous situation between them. "Things aren't going very well with the battle, and we'll be needing to deploy sooner than expected if we're to have any chance of stopping Noah."

"How bad is it?" Luna asked, her tone switching from restrained outraged to professional concern over the span of a short sentence. Regardless of her personal feelings and the wrongs done to her, there was a much bigger picture to consider, and like it or not, she was still a Solar Knight right now, and that meant she had a job to do. Still, she didn't yet rise from the bed, where she'd been sitting side by side with Shinn in companionable silence for the past while. Some would have found sitting next to someone they cared about so deeply in silence to be uncomfortable or unnerving, but neither Shinn or Luna were the sort of person that needed talk to fill a pleasant silence. All that mattered to them was the fact of the person next to them, hand gently laid upon hand, and knowing that the thoughts of the other were frequently touching upon the person sitting nearby. Just because she had to go didn't mean she wanted to do so, not even for the safety of the world!

"The first tier is gone." Rey answered tersely. "The second tier will be engaging in less than eighty minutes, and the fourth tier will begin orbital drop and suicide bombing operations shortly afterwards. We of the third tier will try to hit from the near flank in a spearhead formation, try and punch through the defenses and inflict critical damage as quickly as possible, hopefully knock out the main cannon before joining the effort to wear the Great Endeavor down."

"That's going to get you shot to pieces." Shinn spoke up, lifting his eyes from the floor for the first time in a long while, though he had been listening intently from the moment the door lock clicked. "I tried to do something similar against the Revenant, and I nearly got blasted to bits in the process, and the Great Endeavor's CIWS network is a thousand times as intense as the Revenant's. You'll be lucky if three in ten make it through the barrage, and that's too few to cause damage quickly enough."

"We don't have much choice." Rey answered sourly. "The Brotherhood annihilated over ninety three percent of the first tier in one shot from its main cannon, and though we've rearranged the second and fourth tiers to spread them out more, we can't spread them out too far or else the weight of their fire will be diminished to the point of ineffectiveness. We'd still be losing appreciable chunks of our forces with every shot, unless we can disable that anti-matter cannon!"

"He used the AMP already?" Shinn cocked his head to the side curiously. "That seems... oh wait... yeah... he gave her operational control. Still seem's kind of strange. I wonder what she's thinking...?" Shinn trailed off speculatively, casting his eyes searchingly at the ceiling, and the heavens far beyond it.

"You have insight into their operational command process?" Rey asked sharpely, trying to curb his own excitement. He hadn't thought of Shinn's condition in that respect before, but if Shinn still had access to all his memories as an Apostle of the Brotherhood, he could be absolutely invaluable in terms of a tactical advantage. Of course, any smart commander would have changed their tactics to compensate for any intelligence Shinn might have been able to give, it had been weeks after all, but maybe Noah's arrogance had blinded him yet again?

"Not really." Shinn shook his head. "When I was... with them... I didn't really stop to think about stuff like that. I guess it was part of my conditioning to not ask questions or really wonder about why things were being done a certain way. I was just content to play follow the leader, and do what the Great Pro... what Noah wanted me to do. Though that doesn't mean I went deaf, I could still hear people talking about stuff, I just didn't much care unless it concerned me directly. But I do remember hearing that Noah had given up his own access to the most powerful of the weapon systems aboard the Great Endeavor, including the AMP cannon, and put them under the Lady Angel's control instead, because he trusted her moral judgement over his own. Something which seemed preposterous to me at the time, since then I trusted his judgement in all matters, but now I can kinda see his point. He's not the best at impulse control, for damned sure!"

"That's too bad." Rey said with mild dejection. "I was hoping you'd be able to give me some more insight into Noah's thought processes. It's so frustrating, fighting against someone who's plans you can't understand. Just charging directly at us is so... so STUPID and yet he does it time and time again! What's he trying to do!? What's his hidden game? I can't detect anything, no matter how much I study his past movements!"

"I don't know if he has a hidden game." Shinn said slowly. "His strategy doesn't make sense to you because you're a trained military commander, and you know that relying on brute force charges is stupid on any modern battlefield, that's what they taught us at the Academy after all. It had been proven time and again throughout the Valentine Wars, when small numbers of more mobile and advanced ZAFT forces consistently beat off huge brute force attacks from the Alliance. But Noah never went to the Academy, never had any military training at all, despite how good he is on the battlefield. And though he is undoubtedly one of the most devious bastards to ever live, I just think he's so confident in his own power that he doesn't care to plan anything more complicated than brute force attacks. He's not so much charging at us as he's charging THROUGH us. We're just in the way of wherever he is going."

"Who's the "Lady Angel"?" Luna asked, a sinking feeling spreading throughout her body as she watched Shinn visibly hesitate before answering.

"The Lady Angel is... is Meyrin, Luna." Shinn said softly, wincing as he saw the confirmation of her suspicions pierce her like a splinter through her heart. "She was infected with Green EDEN and survived the ascension process, becoming an Edenite, just like Noah, at least on a genetic level. They're practically inseperable, the two of them, day in and day out."

"He's keeping her close, so that she doesn't have any chance of breaking free like you did!" Luna spat direly. "Well, we'll see how long he can keep that up... it's going to be damned hard for him to control anyone after I tear his head off and bowl it through a sewer!"

"Uh..." Shinn trailed off, at a loss at how to say what he was thinking. He shared a glance with Rey, and saw reflected in his friend's, or was it former friend's, eyes that they were both thinking the same thing. Maybe Meyrin had been at one point in time influenced into liking Noah, but so much time had passed, so much had happened that she had been privy too, that regardless of her original feelings or intentions, she was a part of the Brotherhood now, in a way far deeper than the brute force mind hold Shinn had been under. Indeed, given the way she was treated, the way she was given powers Noah himself did not have, was trusted by Noah to hold her moral judgement over his own... well, Shinn was finding it really hard to believe that she was being controlled at all. It was sounding more and more like she was doing things of her own free will. Certainly, Shinn had been controlled, and he had not been given any responsibilities other than piloting the Vengeance, and he was watched closely at all times, practically kept in isolation. The very opposite was true of Meyrin. But how to tell that to Luna?

"I know what he's up to! He's making her his scapegoat!" Luna declared heatedly, unmindful of the looks Shinn and Rey had exchanged. "When it's all over and done with, if there are any of us left seeking revenge, he'll turn her over to us along with proof showing that she was the one firing the AMP cannon all along, and let her take the fall in his place! That fiend, framing my sister for his atrocities, as if what he'd already done wasn't enough!"

"I don't think..." Shinn started to say, before the unpleasant look on Rey's face stopped him dead cold. Whatever the truth was, Luna was convinced of her own version of events, and given all that she'd been through, forcing her to see things as they really were, especially if they were different from her assumptions, could be the final nail in her coffin, emotionally speaking. There would be a time and a place to confront the truth about Meyrin with her, but this was not the time nor the place, not with a battle for the very future of the human race already in progress! Neither of them wanted to see Luna in any pain, and such a confrontation could not fail to be anything but painful. Shinn realized that, despite what had happened between them, Rey still did care for Luna very much, at least enough to want to spare her any more heartbreak if he could avoid it. And while sometimes hearts needed to be broken before they could fully heal, Shinn could agree with Rey's unspoken wish to save that time for later, so he kept his mouth shut on the subject of Meyrin.

"Well, in any case, because Meyrin is in control of the AMP cannon and who knows what other weapon systems, we're going to have to adjust our plans to compensate. I really wasn't expecting them to use such a powerful weapon on the Earth, the environmental damage is completely off the charts... that crater is going to be too radioactive to support life for thousands of years to come!" Rey shook his head at the thought. Of course, given that Green EDEN was spreading throughout the Earth, it might be at least that long before humans could survive unprotected on the planet of their birth, but he refused to think about such depressing thoughts if he didn't have to. Though he'd been born in space, and his homeland was the PLANTS, Rey had found that he'd become quite attached to the Earth, and he knew it had a deep spiritual significance to all of humanity, whether they would admit it or recognize it or not.

"Well, thanks for letting me know." Luna said, returning her attention to Rey suddenly. "I'll be ready to launch when you give the signal. Now if you please, I'd like some privacy with my boyfriend!" Luna did not phrase it as a request, and the bitter anger in her voice was enough to make both men flinch. "Since I might not ever see him again after this." Luna added in a near whisper that both Rey and Shinn could not help but overhear, though Luna seemed unaware that she'd spoken out loud. Rey shifted uncomfortably in the doorway, but he didn't turn around or leave, and Luna's eyes narrowed. "Won't even grant us that decency, huh? I should have expected that, from a grasping worm like you." She spat, the verbal claws coming out of their thinly veiled sheathes.

"That's not..." Rey started to protest.

"I don't care what you think, or what your oh so high and mighty adopted father the SecDef thinks, or what anyone thinks, I KNOW that Shinn is not a traitor. He was taken advantage of by Noah, even worse than you took advantage of me, and punishing him for that is both humiliating and wrong!" Luna said furiously, standing up from the bed and squaring her shoulders to confront Rey directly. "It may not be comfortable, politically or personally, for either of you to accept that Shinn is alive and that he was under the influence of Noah, and during that time he killed a lot of people, including Solar Knights, but sticking your head in the sand doesn't make the past go away, and treating an innocent man like a condemned criminal doesn't do anything besides give Noah that much more of an advantage over us! If you'd just get over yourself, and stuff your pride back into wherever the fuck a raping bastard like you keeps it when he's not wearing it like a cloak, you'd see that!"

"Luna..." Rey was fumbling for words when he made that verbal misstep.

"DON'T YOU SAY MY NAME, YOU BASTARD!" Luna roared, getting right up in Rey's face, so loud and violent that he actually half lifted his hands to hold her back, before forcing them to remain at his sides. "You don't ever get to say my name again, not around me! Not after what you did to me! You're lucky I don't just tear your balls off here and now, to prevent any other emotionally vulnerable girls from falling under your perverted sway! But as satisfying as that would be, I can at least recognize that whatever your personal flaws, you serve an important purpose to the Solar Knights, and through them, to the rest of everybody, so I'm going to restrain myself, despite how good it would make me feel! An attitude you should have considered more thoroughly that night in your office!"

"That's not fair." Rey said simply, refusing to back down before her anger any more. Indeed, more than a little bit of his own anger was surging to the fore, and he actually leaned towards her, getting in her face as well. "I don't deny what I did was wrong, that I did take advantage of you when you were vulnerable, and that I should have done something else besides welcome you into my bed on that night, Luna! But though my actions were wrong, my feelings are not! I've never had anyone in my life I really cared about, besides Gil, and distantly, Talia. I had a friend who turned out to be false, that being Noah, and then I had acquiantances like Shinn, and everyone else was a stranger! And I don't know when or how it came about, but I started to care about you too, Luna, especially after Shinn "died" and Meyrin was kidnapped again and I could see that you were floundering! I found myself going far out of my way to be around you, and taking actions and risks to help you that I never would have considered for anyone but Gil before!"

"If you try and tell me that you love me, I don't care if you're my commanding officer, or the son of the SecDef, or that you have thousands of soldiers waiting on your beck and call... I'll tear your throat open with my bare hands." Luna told him viciously. "Loving someone involves more than just sheltering them from all possible hurts. Sometimes you have to trust them to take care of themselves, to stand on their own. Sometimes you have to trust them to protect you, instead of the other way around! Sometimes you have to trust them, Rey. And you didn't trust me, not when it counted. Not with the most important thing. You may have been there for me when I needed someone, Rey, I can't deny that, but you took things too far. Allowed things to go too far. You were in the position of responsibility, and you chose to indulge your own desires."

"And I'm sorry for that." Rey interrupted. "I've said that before."

"Sorry doesn't cut it. Not for things like this." Luna retorted. "Sorry can salve a missed date, can balm a lot of minor problems and little hurts. Contrition is important in a relationship, because if you don't regret it when you mess up, what's to stop you from messing up the same way again and again? But sorry is nowhere near a big enough bandaid to cover "I led you to believe I was your only living friend so that we would sleep together and become lovers". Nowhere near." Luna said, her voice losing volume but not feeling. "Sorry is just a cop out at times like this."

"Well then what WOULD you have me do?" Rey snapped. "If I try to apologize, you jump down my throat and get in my face. If I don't try to apologize, you accuse me of not regretting what happened and call me names! I made a mistake, Luna, and the reprecussions are going to be around for a while. But I don't intend to make this past mistake the focus of my life, and neither should you! It's beneath both of us to act like this around each other, can't we just admit that though there may have been something in the past, there is nothing now, and that we'd both prefer to move on!?"

"I just want you to go away, so that I can spend these last few minutes with the man I love." Luna replied, tears in her eyes as she turned her face down and away from Rey, refusing to let him see her vulnerable again. "I just want to be alone with Shinn right now, is that so much to ask?"

"It's not much to ask, but it is beyond my power to grant." Rey answered, with a wince at the way her head snapped up, eyes blazing even as they dripped with tears. He rushed on, before she could launch into another tirade, or else just launch herself at him! "Because of the desperate nature of the situation, I am going to let Shinn pilot the Vengeance in support of the Solar Knights!" Rey blurted out, causing Luna to stop and blink in mid yell of outrage.

"W-what!? But..." Luna trailed off, chewing her lip. In one sense, the news was absolutely stupendous, both because it meant they weren't going to keep Shinn like a lab animal for the rest of his life and because the Vengeance, in all its awesome power, would be directed against the Brotherhood now! In another, now Shinn was going to be exposed to even more danger than she'd previously expected, and might even run the risk of falling under Noah's control again!

"As we discussed then?" Shinn said cooly, unpreturbed by the announcement, the possibility of which he and Rey had hammered out during one of Luna's few absences. "I recognize the danger, Luna, but the benefit is worth the risk." Shinn said, to forestall her protest. "You were just saying something about trusting people to take care of themselves, and trusting them to take care of you? Well, that's the situation we are in. Without the Vengeance, we don't have anything or anyone capable of going up against the Brotherhood Gundam. Well, maybe the Orb Gundams, but they aren't really part of the plan, as usual."

"I can understand the physical danger." Luna protested. "But what about the chance of Noah putting you back under his control again!? Then we'd be fighting the Brotherhood AND you!"

"That is definitely a risk." Rey admitted. "We've added a few extra control measures to the Vengeance, a self disabling system that is on a timer, for instance, but we can't be sure such measures would be enough to thwart Noah if push comes to shove."

"I'll be relying on you, Luna." Shinn said quietly, standing up to take hold of her hand and squeezing tight. "To keep me grounded. To keep me, well, me. Just like outside LAS that one time, I need you to be the choke on me if things start getting out of control. Can you do that for me?"

"I can do anything if its for you, Shinn." Luna answered, equally quietly. She felt and responded to the slight tug on her hand that brought her a step back towards Shinn, putting her right up against him as his other hand came around to clasp her around the waist in a gloriously tight hug, her own free hand wasting no time in finding a resting spot on his upper back and pressing him into her as well. They stayed like that for a moment or two, but then her head tilted up just as his was tilting down, and they looked into each other's eyes and got lost in unison as their lips met. It was only after a series of discreet... and then not so discreet... coughs and throat clearings from Rey that they finally parted from each other, though they kept their hands clasped. "We'll start up at that point when we get back." Luna muttered, just barely loud enough for Shinn to hear her, and his face flushed almost as red as his eyes.

For his part, Rey did his best to keep his clenched fists behind his back, and tried to adopt a neutral expression. Or at least one that didn't contain any hints of outright anger or jealousy. He knew such emotions were beneath him, and that Luna was now out of his reach, probably forever more. But that didn't do anything to stop the memories of when she had held HIM like that from flashing before his minds eye, or dim the thoughts of those times when she had whispered things to HIM that had made him flush red, just like Shinn was now. He'd never understood the whole-girls and guys thing before Luna, and he was starting to think that ignorance was bliss, compared to the roiling mixture of dark urges and nasty daydreams that were assailing him right now. It was going to be a dangerous fight after all. If Shinn didn't make it back, for real this time, then... no, Rey shook his head and banished the dream. He and Luna were over and done, no matter what happened to Shinn now. Golden memories were just that, memories, and he had to be looking to the present and future now! "Well, let's go start getting ready. We've a bit of work ahead of us." Rey prompted, leading the way towards the hanger decks.

* * *

The early afternoon sun beat down on Lain's head, neck and shoulders like the caress of a semi-molten iron, making him wince and think grateful thoughts for the high collar and nearly full body coverage of his flight suit, which at least prevented him from getting sunburn, even as he felt like he was being broiled alive in his own sweat. If this wasn't possibly going to be his last chance to do this particular thing, he'd never have left the climate control of the hanger bay, much less piloted his Archon all the way to shore, set down and then walked at least a mile inland, though it felt like more than a mile of hiking, given the twists and turns he was forced to take around strands of trees and rocks, and the steepness of the path he was following. As an elite soldier Lain was in pretty good physical shape, though as a Mobile Suit pilot he'd never be as physically robust as a dedicated infantryman, something he was actually grateful for. Modern warfare was no place to be a dedicated infantryman, not anymore, not since Mobile Suits were discovered! Bad enough dealing with heavy tracked and wheeled vehicles, at least a foot soldier had the advantage of manueverability over such vehicles! Not the case when it came to Mobile Suits, not nearly so anyway.

Being a native of Orb, itself a nation on the very cusp of the tropic zone, subject to plenty of clear and hot days during the summer, Lain had thought himself largely immune to the depredations of that big thermonuclear bomb up in the heavens, certainly the climate in Africa hadn't been very onerous for him, but there was something about the sun today that was just plain brutal. It was like the sun had realized that it might not be able to shine its light directly upon the Earth for a while yet, what with all the storm activity being conjured up by the spread of Green EDEN across more than eighty percent of the globe, and so it was concentrating all its efforts on the still clear zones! Finally, just when he had decided he was going to take a break as soon as he reached the next rise, his destination came into view. There wasn't much special about it, it was just a high cliff facing out towards the western pacific ocean, out towards where the fleet of transports and carriers were riding at anchor and preparing to launch the sortie against the Great Endeavor. Just about the only distinction the place had was that it was the highest spot of ground for several miles in any direction.

However, that was the most important type of distinction for a certain person, and since this was the very person he had come all this way to see, Lain was glad to see that the advice he'd been given by that one guy, Sting something or other, aboard the _AFNS Victorious_, hadn't just been a wild goose chase. Quite why Stella always sought out the absolute highest buildings or pieces of ground she could find, usually ones with sheer slopes, whenever she got the chance during downtime, especially since she had something of a fear of heights, was not a question Sting had been able to answer. Indeed, from what he'd mumbled, it seemed even Stella herself didn't really understand her compulsion to go to such places, merely that she liked the views she could get from being at the highest point in any particular area. Lain could appreciate a good view as much as the next man, though he preferred his views to have lots of skimpily clad young women in them, rather than just bare landscape, but to each their own, right?

And while it was true that Stella was just about the opposite of scantily clad, considering she was wearing a full body, pink and grey reinforced flight suit of similar style to Lain's black and white and gold one, Lain could not help but be struck by how well the flight suit conformed to her curves and her limbs. Maybe he was becoming deranged from serious lack of sex, since it had been months since the last time he'd been with a girl, maybe it was the depth of feeling he found he had for this girl in particular, but Lain found himself stopping almost dead in his tracks, fumbling through his thoughts for the reason why he'd come here at all, as he stood transfixed by the sight of Stella just standing there, looking out at the ocean, apparently oblivious to his presence! She just looked so... wistful... so peaceful! She looked like a girl, not an extremely dangerous, highly trained Mobile Suit pilot. Just a girl, the sort you'd find in some sort of motel painting of the sea shore, stark in her ability to contrast and blend with the surroundings at the same time! Even the flight suit wasn't enough to dispel the illusion of that thought.

At length, Lain managed to reorder his scattered thoughts, and did something he hadn't had to do since middle school, namely work up his courage to approach a girl, and finally moved over to stand beside Stella, looking out at the ocean from beside her. Lain was not the tallest of men, and he idly noted that Stella was practically of a height with him, given the extra inch or so from her armored boots, as he cast about for a way to begin the conversation. He had a lot to say, actually, but wasn't sure how to say it. It wasn't like he'd never been in love before, he'd had plenty of girlfriends and lovers and even a fiancee or two in his past. Girls and him had always seemed to mix well, and the ability to charm and woo them seemed to be a natural talent of his. It was a talent that had deserted him the moment Stella had showed up in his life, and he was left floundering, on frustratingly even footing with his best buddy, Eric, who couldn't find a girl with a full color map and a hundred page long guide book!

Lain was still trying to think of something to say, when he jolted as if suddenly electrified, because Stella's hand had reached out and taken hold of his own, firmly and confidently, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She hadn't even taken her eyes away from the ocean view, hadn't acknowledged his presence in the slightest, but she definitely knew he was there, and if the firmness of her grasp was any indication, she was glad for his presence as well. Lain had just calmed down enough to start thinking about opening his mouth in a logical manner, when Stella beat him to the punch. "I wonder if this is the last time I'll ever be able to see a view like this?" Stella commented, still keeping her gaze mostly straight ahead, eyes tracking small movements in the distance, whether they be birds, or waves or even activity aboard the ships. "Or breathe such clean, natural air? Or enjoy the heat of the sun on my face? I fear I may have been taking something very precious for granted my whole life, and only now that it is slipping away do I realize how much I'm going to miss being able to live on Earth."

"We can still live on Earth." Lain answered. "Beneath Orb's Glass House, if nowhere else. And I think we've all come to realize, by this point in time, that Green EDEN is not a poison gas after all. It's not ending life, it's just changing its form. Forcing us to adapt or perish. It's just evolution, distilled and concentrated. And I have confidence that once we defeat the Brotherhood, and have some time to take a breather, we'll find a way to clean out all this Green muck, you mark my words."

"I am frightened." Stella announced. "Many people have already lost their lives. Many more might yet still lose their lives, and I'm not sure if my actions can or have made a difference. It's like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, just like this one, except I can't see anything around me, and I don't know whether I should step forward or back, because I don't remember where the edge is. I'm afraid to fall... and just as afraid to stand still."

"Everyone is scared." Lain responded sympathetically. "To one degree or another. If we weren't scared, do you think we'd be seeing this view right now?" He gestured with his other hand at the huge fleet of warships, barely a fifth of the total force drawn up against the Brotherhood. "We're all fucking scared out of our minds, and nobody knows what to do about it. Even this fight, what we're about to do... its not a solution at all. It's just buying time, for us to figure out what we should be doing!"

"And what should we be doing?" Stella asked, finally turning her head to look over at him.

"I can't speak for the rest of the human race." Lain answered, meeting her magenta hued eyes with his own mismatched blue and green ones. He tightened his grip on her hand and gently tugged on her arm, at first feeling an absolutely unbelievable amount of resistance, like he was trying to tug a solid metal statue over to him, before the resistance crumbled away like it had never been, and Stella practically collapsed against him before regaining her balance. "But I know what I should be doing right now." Lain added with a roguish wink, which seemed to catch Stella off guard. Not so off guard that she did not respond when he kissed her of course, but enough so that despite that she was quite a bit stronger than him, she was forced to let him take control for the moment. After a while their lips parted, and Lain smirked widely. "Oh yeah. I think I should do that again..." He whispered, and he did. This time though, he was surprised to find himself being manhandled and held by Stella, more than he was holding her. Lain wasn't used to being the physically submissive member of a relationship, but he might as well have being trying to break out of steel manacles, rather than Stella's hands.

"If only we could keep doing this." Stella mumbled, after releasing him from her kiss.

"I see no reason to stop." Lain said, reeling with happiness. He tried to lean in for another round of kissing, only to have Stella move her head back out of reach, holding him at arm's length. "Stella?"

"I would like to spend more time with you like this, Lain." Stella said slowly, stumbling a bit over using his name. "But not right now. It is... interfering with my pre-battle meditation. I can already feel my tranquil mind starting to slip away from me. And I cannot afford for that to happen, not against this foe. It is my one advantage over Noah Borander, and it may very well end up being our secret weapon against the Brotherhood."

"I think I see what you mean." Lain said, somewhat raggedly, as he reigned in his raging hormones with a large effort of will. Damn the impracticality of it all, but he'd only been a few minutes from trying to shuck Stella out of her flight suit and do her in full view of the fleet and everybody, consequences be damned! And from the way she had been kissing him, he'd kinda gotten the feeling she wouldn't have minded overmuch! It wouldn't be like they were the only couple... or even just couple of acquiantances, that were seeking solace on the eve of this battle in the passions of sex. If popular action movies had taught Lain anything, it was that it was always a good idea to have hot raunchy sex with the girl you loved before any major climactic battles, because that usually meant you were going to survive afterwards, injured or healthy, so you could have kids together and live happily ever after. "I'm kinda finding it hard to concentrate right now too."

"It's more than that." Stella seemed on the verge of saying more, but then she just sighed and shook her head. She slowly lowered herself to a sitting position, dangling her legs over the edge of the cliff and leaned backward, bracing herself on one hand as she shaded her brow with the other. Lain flopped down next to her, and once more their hands sought each other out, just for the solace of human contact if nothing further. "Where is Eric? Is he busy with something?"

"Eric is..." Lain's voice broke down into silence, and Stella glanced across at him, and then squeezed his hand tightly, almost tight enough to hurt, when she saw the pained look on his face. "He was shot down during the attack on the Solar Knight's base, by the Vengeance. We weren't able to find where he crash landed after the battle, we got ordered to pack up search and rescue efforts after only a couple of days." Lain snarled quietly to himself at the unjustness of those orders! Not just Eric, there had been several other Solar Knights, people he'd known if not been exactly friends with, that had been abandoned on the battlefield, their status listed as MIA and then the book closed with nary a look back! "Now that whole area is covered with Green EDEN." Lain added softly, fighting to keep his voice level and steady. He would NOT mourn Eric. Not while there was still the possibility, no matter how slight, that he was still alive!

"You think he is alive?" Stella wondered, equally softly. Lain couldn't tell what she thought of his opinion, her expression was almost perfectly blank, but he forged ahead anyway. Maybe he was being an optimistic idiot, given the circumstances Eric had been in while going down, but if a man wasn't loyal to the point of stupidity when it came to his friends, then what sort of man was he? Not Lain, certainly.

"I refuse to believe he is dead until I have no other choice." Lain told her. For a moment there, her breathing and pulse speeded up exponentially, and her eyes went wide and her skin pale, like she was in the beginning stages of a panic attack, though he was stumped as to why she would be so suddenly set off by something like that. Her hand was like a vise around his, and he fought to keep from wincing as it felt like the bones in his fingers were beginning to get crushed. And then, with a brief all over convulsive shake, like a dog shedding water from its fur, Stella was back to her normal calm state... and seemingly surprised to find herself that way. "Are you okay?" Lain asked her, as she sat there blinking at him, color slowly returning to her face.

"I should not be. You spoke my control word." Stella whispered, stunned with her own lucidity in the face of that dreaded word. "I should be in a near catatonic state of panic right now."

"Uh, what?" Lain was stumped, not having the slightest clue what was going on.

"It's... I can't explain it." Stella said, and then tried anyway. "I'm an IBWS Extended... an Independent Biological Weapon System. It's a top secret project handed down to the FNE from the old Earth Alliance. It has its roots in Blue Cosmos, or so the rumor goes. My physical abilities and reflexes have been chemically enhanced, and my mental processes modifed so that I don't feel fear or regret or pity during combat. I think the term I heard the Doctor use once was, "Super-Soldier". But sometimes us Extended's go out of control, for one reason or another, and because we are enhanced, we can really hurt and even kill people if that happens. So we all have an individual control code word, that activates our fear centers if we hear it. It's a safety measure."

"That's horrible!" Lain exclaimed, shocked. "Did you volunteer for this program!?"

"I don't remember." Stella admitted. "I was very young at the time when I first met Doctor Roanoke. I don't recall ever not being an Extended."

"That's monsterous!" Lain half shouted. "I knew there was a reason I disliked that smarmy old prune when I first saw him!"

"Hush. Don't speak ill of Doctor Roanoke." Stella said sharply. "I don't understand the morality of what I am, nor do I really care. This is my life, and I would not have it changed, whether it was originally of my own will or not. There are parts, such as the control words, that I do not like. But there are also many things I do like, Lain... my friends, the ability to make a real difference in the world, my own specialness... even the opportunity to mee you and Eric, it would not have occured if I was not an Extended."

"But Stella..." Lain started to protest, before being silenced by a cool look. "I don't understand."

"I don't know if I do either." Stella admitted. "But I am happy with my life as it is right now. It is one small certainty in a world of uncertainty."

"What is your word then? So I can remember to never say it." Lain asked. He thought for a moment. "Um, assuming you can explain it to me without triggering the reaction of course."

"The concept signified by the word doesn't bother me, nor does the sight of it's physical manifestation. It is only the word and those words that are related to it or incorporate it that cause the fear reaction." Stella explained with a shrug. "In my case, its that word which describes the state of being that you refuse to believe Eric is in. The state which is the opposite of life."

"Ah, de... oh!" Lain caught himself before he could finish the word, like a total moron. "Well, I think it shouldn't be too hard to avoid that one. Its not like I enjoy talking or thinking about it myself after all."

"I think he is alive too." Stella added suddenly. "Eric that is. He does not seem the sort that would... go easily. And if you believe it, then I am not one to doubt you, Lain." She was silent for a moment or two longer, as if considering something. "You've done something to me, Lain."

"Uh... good thing or bad thing?" Lain asked tenatively.

"I do not know. Perhaps both." Stella replied seriously. "For whatever reason, your presence helped rapidly negate the fear reaction caused by my control word. You made me feel safe... and that is normally only something Sting or Doctor Roanoke can do. I don't enjoy the unreasoning fear that the control word brings, so that is a good thing. But I can also recognize that there are situations where I actually feel safer knowing that there is a word, a simple word, that can stop me, no matter how worked up or enraged I get, and the removal of that safety net is not a good thing at all."

"The training wheels have to come off sometime." Lain answered introspectively. He saw Stella's questioning look. "I'm just saying, most people don't have control words. We don't have a safety net to keep us in check when we start going out of control, so in turn we learn how to stay in control even when we don't want to be. Even when every fiber of our being wants to do something, we learn how to take a step back and consider whether we really should do it or not. At least, we aspire to that. There is plenty to be said for impulsive action at times too, but it's better to have control and not need it, than need control and not have it. Maybe you did need your control word at some point in time, Stella, but now that you're older and more mature, more experienced with controlling yourself, you're starting to outgrow the need for it? At least, that's what I'm hoping for."

"I had not thought of it in such terms, that the control word is a training implement rather than an emergency measure. I'll have to ask Doctor Roanoke next time I have a chance." Stella cocked her head consideringly. "I hope it is that way too though. Even if only for me, because of you and Eric." She continued, squeezing Lain's hand thankfully.

"You really care for Doctor Roanoke, don't you?" Lain asked with a sigh.

Stella nodded in acknowledgement. "He is like my father. He is my father, and my mother too, for most intents and purposes. He is the one that raised us, and taught us, and tends us when we are sick, and rewards us when we do well, and punishes us when we do not. He is the central authority figure in my life. And though he can be impersonal and harsh at times, judging and demanding in his desires of me and my fellow Extended's, I still love him because he is my father. Does that make sense to you, Lain?"

"I grew up wanting to impress my parents too." Lain admitted. "Most kids do, even those who pretend not to care. I probably struck out and left the home nest a bit earlier than most children, but that's never to say I didn't love my family with all my heart. Especially my little brother." Lain shook off the memories, fond and not so fond. There would be time to share life stories with Stella later, hopefully. "I know this is going to sound stupid... but you make sure you come back alive from this, Stella. I am very interested in making your part of my life, or at least making the attempt to do so. So don't go getting yourself hurt or killed or lost or anything!"

"I have a deep desire to make that attempt as well, Lain." Stella replied. "I can't promise it will work... there is much to my life that you can most likely never truly be a part of, no matter how much you and I wish otherwise. But I am not afraid to tread a hard road. Not with you beside me. I will not attempt anything any more reckless than I have seen you do, let us leave it at that."

"I've done some REALLY stupid things in front of you!" Lain protested worriedly. He was going to say more when Stella once more pressed her lips to his, and he quite lost his entire train of thought. And the tracks it had been on, for that matter. "Though I think the stupidest might have been not kissing you the moment I first saw you." He added in a half daze after Stella released him at last.

"A good thing you had control of yourself then." Stella mused, standing up and once more looking out to sea. "Because if you had, I would have either snapped your neck or eviscerated you without a second thought, at that point in time."

"Hah hah hah..." Lain chuckled, and then looked up at her. "That was a joke, right?" He waited a few moments, but got no response, not even a hint of a sarcastic smile. "Stella? You were joking? Stella? Stella!?"

* * *

"I still say, my arabian friend, that there is something wrong with your head, conducting an orbit to oceanic combat drop in a Mobile Suit that has no flight capability whatsoever in atmosphere.. Or naval capacity for that matter." Heine noted, half jokingly and half seriously, to Colonel Haman Al'Jib, who was leading the remaining ALU orbital Mobile Forces in their preparations for the attack on the Great Endeavor.

"We might not be able to fly, the Garou and I, but we can fall very well. And my beauty and I, we fall with style, through infinity and to the beyond!" Haman replied glibly, with an absolutely unconcerned shrug of his shoulder. "And falling, stylish or otherwise, is all that is required of an orbital DROP, yes? As for swimming, well, I'll address that problem should it arise, but I don't expect it to."

"Were we dropping over land I would agree with you completely." Heine argued. "ZAFT has been dropping GINN's from orbit over land battles since the beginning of the First Valentine War after all. But we are dropping over the Gulf of Carpentaria, where the nearest shoreline is miles away from the outer edges of the drop zone! The Gulf is almost two thousand feet deep where we will be entering the battle! I do not doubt your bravery or your commitment, my friend, but what use is it to go "kerplunk" into the ocean and be forced to abandon your Garou before you sink to crush depth? We have spare Elementals, I might even be able to arrange a Primal for you... anything besides just falling uselessly!"

"Ah, but I do not intend to hit the ocean." Haman answered confidently. "And while the shoreline is quite distant, I do not intend to hit it either. Not when there is a perfectly massive enemy fortress to alight upon anyway."

"Dropping directly onto the Great Endeavor is suicide, Haman." Heine said flatly.

"Only if I do not survive the attempt, Heine." Haman replied easily. "One might say conducting any sort of orbital drop operation in these sort of conditions is a sort of suicide. Even if we do survive the attempt, there is the very real chance we might be stuck on Earth forever more, along with that horrid Green stuff. And if I must choose between a slow death waiting in my cockpit for the life support systems to fail, and getting heroically and gloriously blasted into smithereens by our great enemy while trying to kill him, then I think I will take the latter, every time, hands down."

"You are crazy, my friend." Heine commented, shaking his head in exasperation.

"No, Heine, my friend, I am Haman Al'Jib."

"One of these days, I will figure out what you mean when you say that." Heine promised, throwing up his hands in defeat.

"One of these days, Heine, so will I." Haman replied, by way of the last word, at least on that particular topic. "Besides, how could I look the ghosts of our fallen comrades in the eyes should I meet them in the afterlife, if I did not strive to outdo their heroic sacrifices at every turn? No, my friend, it is not so much that I want to do this as it is that I MUST do this, or else I will never have peace in death, much less the promised hundred virgins. And what good are virgins without peace to enjoy them in?"

"At times like this I'm glad to remember I have no religious preconceptions pushing me to do damnably stupid things." Heine muttered, half turning away from Haman.

"So what is your excuse for doing something this damnably stupid then?" Haman jibed, waving an arm at the activity in the drop pod around them. "I have the safety net of religion, that in times of extreme duress can even be twisted to indicate that becoming a martyr is my holy duty. Thus I can be forgiven for doing something suidical, in the pursuit of a greater good. But you people who claim not to be bound by religion... what is your excuse for acting the way you do at times like this, counter to all logic, which should indicate you finding the nearest deep hole on the Moon and pulling it in after you? I should think you would be the ones that should be considered crazy, not I."

"It's my duty." Heine said simply, but Haman wasn't willing to let it go at that.

"Your duty? Yours? Forgive me for saying it like this, Heine my friend, but you are a citizen of the PLANTS, born and raised there, and a highly respected ranking officer of ZAFT, and that FAITH thing you gentlemen have. Where exactly in your "duty" to your nation and people does it require you to risk your life to save a world you have never lived upon?"

"In situations like this, duty to humanity as a whole takes precedence over my duties to ZAFT and the PLANTS." Heine replied firmly. "And it's not so much a duty as it is a willing obligation of honor. I have the means and skills to make a difference. I could not have peace with my life if I did not put them to use when I had the chance. There may not be a hundred virgins waiting for me in the afterlife, or even one, or even an afterlife at all, but I could never die satisifed while hiding and waiting for other people to save me when I have the power to make a difference."

"In the end we are not so different then, eh, Heine my friend?" Haman prompted with a smirk. "Whether we couch the idea in terms of religion or personal honor, we are both willing to make unreasonable sacrifices in the name of a righteous greater good. Though perhaps I could advise switching to Islam while you have the chance... it would be a waste of a hundred virgins if you did not get to come to the afterlife."

"By the time I plan to get to the afterlife, I don't think even one virgin would be of much use to my worn out body, much less a hundred." Heine answered with an equal smirk. "Coordinator or not, one doesn't tend to do much fooling around with pretty young girls when you're in your hundred and thirties."

"Intending to live long and prosper, yes? Admirable. You have an old soul in your young body there, Heine. I fear I am the opposite." Haman confessed, with a hint of sadness in his tone. "The youthful impetuousity of my soul is going to get me killed before my time. Enjoyably, almost certainly, but still before my time. Ah well, such is life."

"Such is life." Heine agreed with a smile. "But try not to enjoy today too much, eh, Haman? I would very much like to take you on a tour of the PLANTS after this is all said and done. I know a number of eligible young women that have this crazy fetish for older men with younger souls."

"With such incentive I would crawl barefoot and naked from Hell itself." Haman promised, holding out his hand to Heine. "And in return, I would fain invite you to my estates in Saudi Arabia, assuming they still exist at the point in time that we can reclaim the Earth. One has not experienced hospitality until one has experienced Arabian hospitality." Haman said with a heavy wink as they clasped hands in a comradely fashion.

"I shall look forward to it." Heine replied fervently, shaking Haman's hand. "And while I would enjoy continuing this banter and discussion, I haven't the time at the moment, Haman, so let me wish you the best of luck, and I will talk to you again just before the drop."

"Until then, Heine. Go with God."

"May he go with us all. We could use the backup."

* * *

For the second time that day, the Great Endeavor's excavator legs slammed down into surf, sending spumes of water geysering dozens of meters into the air as the support columns punched deep into the sand and rock of the shoreline, extendable claws deploying and scabbling for purchase to help distribute and support the weight of the SATMARS. A high pitched keening sound vibrated out from beneath the waves, whipping them into a white froth as a whirlpool began forming around each partially submerged leg as water sucked downward to fill the cavity in the sand and rock being formed by the CUSA sonic excavators pulverizing the sediment and sucking the dust up into the leg to be transferred to the Red EDEN vats for conversion to more raw materials. Even in the midst of battle, production operations aboard the Great Endeavor did not cease. If anything, because of the combat they were in overdrive, creating ammunition by the deca-ton, and providing huge streams of broken down molecules for the nano-repair systems to use as fuel for repairing armor and other systems. One system in particular need of constant repair was actually the drive systems of legs, which were being pushed well past normal operational tolerances, increasing the Great Endeavor's land speed dramatically, by almost two hundred and fifty percent.

Of course, even 45 kilometers an hour was still pretty slow by the standards of most vehicles, and even most oceangoing warships could boast much higher speeds, but none of them were but the smallest faction of the size and mass of the Great Endeavor either. Once the Great Endeavor was able to transition back to naval operations, Noah would be able to increase their speed by another two hundred percent or so, at least as long as they didn't have to funnel energy into the AMP cannon again. Indeed, if need be he could even activate the ventral landing thrusters that had slowed and directed the Great Endeavor's descent from orbit, and lift the Great Endeavor into the air, though such an expenditure of energy would require shutting down pretty much everything but minimal shields and the flight systems. One did not lightly lift over a million tons of machinery into the sky, not for very long anyway. For that matter, flight had its own series of problems, the most pressing being the vulnerability of the lift thrusters, and the exceedingly dire consequences should they be impaired or destroyed while keeping the Great Endeavor even minimally aloft... that was a LOT of mass to come crashing suddenly downward, and so Noah preferred to keep his fortress on the ground or in the water if possible.

The gargantuan crater that Meyrin's AMP shot had created was still visible in the distance behind them. Indeed, the wound in the landscape was large enough to be visible with the unaided eye from orbit, much like a mountain range or large canyon or other major geographical location, and the thought of the ecological damage, even to such a barren spot as this part of Australia, was enough to pain Noah's heart. Still, sometimes pain must be borne after all, as had often been the case during the execution of his grand plan, and though he hoped against it, Noah was now fully ready to have Meyrin use the AMP cannon again, should the need or opportunity arise. The faster this pointless battle was over, and his remaining enemies came to the inevitable logical conclusion that they were not and never had been a match for him, hopefully they could finish the plan in peace. He would like that.

The few survivors of the AMP blast were struggling to regroup and come after the Great Endeavor from the rear, but after a moment or two of critical appraisal, Noah tuned them out of his mind. A few scattered squadrons of damaged and distressed tanks, artillery and Mobile Suits were no threat to him, not compared to the forces arrayed ahead of and above him. Anyone that had been even nearby when the AMP hit was probably severely injured, blinded and rattled at the least, if not fatally irradiated by the burst of cataclysmic energy ionizing the atmosphere. Anyone unprotected by shielding the likes of which the Great Endeavor possessed within a dozen kilometers of the edges of the actual blast zone would not live out the week, no matter the sort of medical care they received, their cellular structure shot to pieces by the ravening radiation, similar in power if not in focus to the Revenant's right arm cannon or the thermal exciters of the Great Endeavor and Brotherhood Gundam CIWS emplacements.

Those that survived the radiation and other injuries would recieve the best reward Noah could devise... the chance to be reborn as Edenites, as Green EDEN, freshly produced by the Great Endeavor, was already sifting down like invisible green grains of sand, to coat and dust across the various vehicles and Mobile Suits in a thin grimy layer. If anything, all the extra energy released into the area by the AMP blast would be supercharging the reproductive rates of the Green EDEN, which would result in much faster infections, perhaps as short as minutes versus hours, and perhaps even reduce the severity of the infections themselves, after all, with more ambient energy to draw upon, that was less needed from the hosts. Of course, the dire nature of the environment would compensate, by making it that much more likely that a failure in immune system would prove deadly. Nature had its checks and balances all right.

Noah returned his attention to the activity of the orbital fleets and the naval defenders that were swarming about in the Gulf of Carpentaria, all of which were doing their best to keep their distance, at least for the moment, obviously waiting for the Great Endeavor to assuming a naval stance, submerging its lower hull and thus being forced to basically halve its available armaments, since the cannons and beam guns could not operate effectively from underwater. For that matter, the Citadel and Positron shields would not work very well underwater either, at least not without a significant drain upon his reactors and a large degree of drag upon his ability to accelerate and maintain speed. If the Great Endeavor could be said to have a weakness, it was probably its anti-submarine warfare systems. At least conventional ones that is, because Noah, true to form, actually had quite the fiendish system already in place for situations like this, all it took was a little improvisation of certain systems.

After defeating the first ranks of defenders, Noah had closeted the Great Endeavor's weapons and reactivated his shielding systems for the trek around the crater and to the opposite shoreline, giving his self repair systems a few precious hours to at least begin repairs on those few areas that had sustained real damage, while also rebuilding his supplies of expendable munitions and, of course, pumping out plenty of Green EDEN as well. The orbital fleets continued to bombard his upper shields, basically with impunity, as the Great Endeavor's dorsal mounted gatling gottfried turrets lacked the ability to reach into orbit from this close to the ground, at least with any degree of accuracy and killing power, and the only weapons with longer range, the 800cm linear artillery cannons mounted on the cardinal points of the Great Endeavor's dorsal surface, could not incline high enough to shoot into orbit.

Just about the only weapons they had that could reach into orbit successfully were the ICBM missiles, all of which had been converted to EDEN Well launching procedures and could not handle regular warheads, a slight oversight that he was working to rectify even then, but large ballistic missiles took a while to fabricate, and he would not have the first ones for at least another hour, and then of course the AMP cannon itself. However, he and Meyrin had discussed the ramifications of using the AMP against the orbital fleets and they had both agreed that it was simply not worth the collateral damage, against foes that were more irritating than threatening, their own weapons already firing beyond maximum range, reducing the damage they could deal to the Great Endeavor even without the shields. The collateral damage from the AMP had been devastating enough at ground level, where the thick air had been able to attenuate the spread of the most damaging radiation to only a dozen kilometers or so. A similar explosion in the upper atmosphere would shower half the hemisphere with doses of radiation at the very least detrimental to human health, if not completely fatal. And while Edenites were more resistant to the effects of radiation than other humans, that was not to say they were immune to it!

"The surface fleets have caught up to us." Meyrin announced, from where she had been keeping track of the larger surface warships that had been attacking them from the beginning of the battle. The bombardment fleets had retreated for a while after the AMP shot, rightly fearing that they would be the next targets of the apocalyptic weapon, given how temptingly grouped they were, but now they had returned, in a much more spread out formation, to support the lighter surface screening vessels and submarines of the second tier, once more staying at near maximum range and launching salvoes of shells and missiles at the Great Endeavor in high arcs.

"And it looks like the orbital fleets are about to commence a drop operation." Noah replied dryly, his tone ultimately unconcerned. "They must have a death wish. They'll never get enough troops through our interdiction barrage to make a difference."

"Never say never." Meyrin reprimanded him lightly, turning her attention to the orbital fleets. "The very first step on the path to getting your ass handed to you is to underestimate your foes, no matter how much you might seem to outclass them. You must remember, at the very least, Rey is somewhat familiar with our tactics, and Shinn is sure to be spilling his guts for all he's worth."

"He never knew anything important." Noah shrugged.

"You never expressly told him anything perhaps, but he didn't lose the use of his ears just because you scrambled his brains." Meyrin retorted, with a stronger hint of annoyance this time. "Complacancy could be our downfall, at the cusp of victory, Noah. It may not be as fun, but overall it is better to assume we are perpetually on the edge of defeat, rather than assume we have already won."

"You are the expert." Noah acknowledged, trying to force himself to be contrite, but it was so hard to be humble when he could already taste complete victory! There was a change in the motion of the Great Endeavor, as it finally reached the point where its legs could no longer touch bottom. "Converting to thruster locomation, all ventral weapon systems are locking down, watertight bulkheads deploying throughout the lower reaches of the Great Endeavor." Noah had, somewhat jokingly, fallen into the habit of pretending to be Meyrin's subordinate, giving her status reports much like the Harbingers would give them to him.

"Very well, XO." Meyrin replied with a tight smile, enjoying the game herself. "Unship the dorsal weapon systems. Prepare for anti-Mobile Suit and anti-warship naval combat. Load half the tactical missile tubes with guided torpedos, the other half should retain anti-ship warheads. Charge the gatling gottfrieds, dorsal mounts 2, 4, 6, and 8 will target orbital drop forces, dorsal mounts 1, 3, 5, and 7 shall interdict and destroy closing surface vessels. Hull mounted triple 80cm linear cannon turrets will commence counter bombardment fire against the warships to our north. Disengage the shields on my mark."

"Waiting on your mark, Captain." Noah said with a smirk, his hands flying through the holographic controls almost as fast as Meyrin could put thought to her orders.

"I always wondered what it would feel like to be the Captain." Meyrin admitted quietly. "It's both more and less fun than I thought it would be."

"Well, you're doing a great job so far. You can be my Captain anytime." Noah answered, throwing his arm around her waist and hugging her for a moment.

"Please... the correct term is now Admiral. I just promoted myself." Meyrin said teasingly. "Oh, and mark, by the way."

"Shields are disengaging, dorsal weapon systems charged and loaded, acquiring targets." One of the Harbingers replied. "We're beginning to take hits from the orbital and surface bombardments, Lady Angel."

"Lady Angel, we're getting some disturbing readings from some of the approaching naval vessels. They appear to be filled with explosive compounds of some sort or another, and they are heading directly for us at flank speeds!" Another Harbinger reported hastily. "Preliminary estimations of the explosive materials onboard suggest a non-nuclear explosion in the range of 10-30 kilotons!"

"Bomb ships? That's new." Meyrin commented, serious again, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully. "New priority targets, all gatling gottfrieds and 120mm gatling cannon turrets... intercept and destroy those suicide vessels! Don't let any of them get within a hundred meters!"

"We're taking hits from dozens of submarines and submersible Mobile Suits." Yet another Harbinger told them, his voice rising with the excitement of combat. "Minor flooding reported in the external factory layers, automated flooding containment barriers are deploying and holding."

"They're going to pick us apart from below at this rate." Meyrin grumbled, watching as a stream of emerald green energy bolts as thick as she was tall sped from the spinning triple barrels of one gatling gottfried mount, tracking across the ocean surface in a huge cloud of vaporized steam before walking into and through one of the bomb ships, detonating the explosives on board, causing the ship to simply disintegrate in a huge mushrooming ball of fire that punched a fifty meter deep and two hundred meter diameter hole in the ocean for a full second before the waves crashed in to fill the gap. "Maybe you should do something to stop them?" She suggested to Noah.

"Is that an order, my Admiral?" Noah asked snidely.

"I can make it one, XO." Meyrin replied sweetly. "But if I have to, someone is going to be swabbing the decks before the end of the day, and its not going to be me."

"Consider them stopped." Noah promised with a wide smile, cupping his hands and drawing up another submenu in the holographic display. Peering over his shoulder, Meyrin saw that he had accessed the controls for the excavator legs.

"What are you gonna do with those?" She could not help but ask. "I don't think even you can move them dexterously enough to grapple even something as large as a submarine."

"Grapple? What a quaint idea." Noah replied, as he input a long series of commands. "Psychologically effective perhaps, but none of the submarines are near close enough for that to happen. No, my solution is altogether of a different, more effective sort. Do you understand the principles of sonar, my Admiral?"

"Using concentrated bursts of sound and the reflections they make from solid objects to determine distance and speed of submerged or surface traveling objects?" Meyrin replied quickly. "That's how we're keeping track of the enemy submarines of course."

"Of course." Noah answered. "Thank you for reminding me." He added, as he turned off the Great Endeavor's sonar recievers, immediately blanking out the positions of the enemy submarines on the holographic map.

"What are you doing?" Meyrin asked, stumped.

"Minimizing collateral damage." Noah responded confidently. "The reason sonar is used instead of radar or other sensors, at least when tracking underwater targets, is that sound waves travel quicker, further and more clearly through water than they do through air, while at the same time, the thickness and density of water impairs other sensors. The water in essence acts like an amplifier for the sound waves, increasing the distance at which even small, quiet sounds can be heard."

"I still don't see what this has to do with getting rid of the enemy submarines." Meyrin said, trying to cut through the exposition to the meat of the matter.

"Even the sound of snapping your fingers can carry like a gunshot in your ear, at least underwater." Noah added, his smirk widening. "Even to the point where noise becomes painful when ordinarily it would not be. Even to the point where sound waves of sufficient strength can actually create pressure waves in the water, much like an explosion shockwave, to the detriment of any living creatures within the radius of the shockwave. Dolphins have been known to use concentrated bursts of sonar to stun fish when hunting, in exactly such a manner. And if a dolphin can stun fish, what do you imagine eight very large CUSA arrays powered by FPR reactors will do, my Admiral?" Noah's smile was positively vicious. "CUSA's can rip a man or even a Mobile Suit into gooey shreds even when used it atmosphere. Underwater, I almost shudder to think of the results. But not enough to stop." Noah activated the Compounded Ultra Sonic Amplifiers with a tap of his finger on the button hanging in midair.

Instantly, the entire hull of the Great Endeavor rang like the biggest bell imaginable, but this ringing didn't dissipate over time, it was just a constant subsonic knell, more a vibration that traveled through the bones than anything else, and that was just the backwash energy, as most of the sonic shockwaves were being directed outward and downward, away from the Great Endeavor! For the crews of the submersible Mobile Suits, Devilfish Mobile Armors, and various attack submarines, the effect was decidedly more horrific. Every man in every submarine for a hundred kilometers in every direction was rendered instantly deaf by the sonic onslaught, even as the ships themselves were slammed around as if struck by invisible tidal waves, some hurled flipping end over end, depending on how close they were to the Great Endeavor. The pilots of the Devilfish Mobile Armors and other submarine Mobile Suits that were attacking the Great Endeavor at close range were killed in moments, their vehicles crushed in like they were struck with godly sledgehammers, or else their bodies just plain vibrating to the point where their organs burst open and their bones shattered where they sat.

The constant high and low frequency vibrational waves worked like chainsaws against the hulls of the submarines, gnawing their way through the pressure hulls in less than a minute, cracks spreading with gunshot bangs that were lost in the cacophony, followed shortly by the dull booming roar of hundreds of tons of seawater flooding throughout the air filled passages of the submarines as their hulls shattered and ripped apart. The surface vessels were less affected, the parts of their hulls exposed to air freer to vibrate in ways that could work to dissipate the sonic energy with less overt harm, though many delicate elctronic systems could not handle the repeated shocks and shorted out or even blew up, and many a crewperson suffered injuries when they touched the bare hull and transmitted the humming shockwaves into their own fluid filled bodies, which proceeded to usually fail in very bloody and painful manners as the internal organs pulped themselves and ran out through various orifices.

The sea floor itself beneath the Great Endeavor began to ripple and crack from the strain, clouds of sediment dust spreading like underwater sandstorms, turning the sea black with mud for kilometers in every direction around the Great Endeavor. The sand on the nearby shore began to jump and dance like it was spread over the surface of a trampoline, and rockslides began falling from the sea cliffs, even as waves rose and hurled themselves furiously up the beach, washing further and further inland each time, flooding the surrounding areas with what was basically a man made storm surge of mini-tidal waves. The seismic energy of the sonic shockwaves could be detected around the world, and registered as a localized earthquake of over 8.4 magnitude on the richter scale at the National Seismic Insititute in Orb. Seen from orbit, half of the entire Gulf of Carpentaria could be seen to be dancing and swaying to the subsurface pulse of the CUSA's, massive whirlpools forming in over a dozen locations as cracks in the sea floor began sucking down thousands of tons of water into newly formed or revealed caverns.

As bad as the effects were upon the soldiers of the USN, and the environment of the area, they were nothing compared to the damage wrought upon the lifeforms living in the Gulf of Carpentaria. The lucky ones, those furthest away from the Great Endeavor, were merely deafned and bruised and ruptured severely. Those closer in were usually killed instantly, their organs turned to mush, their bones to powder. And those actually in the near vicinity of the Great Endeavor at the moment of the CUSA activation were actually and literally vaporized, their celluar structures vibrated so hard and so fast that they self immolated in bright firecracker bursts of biological plasma, leaving not even charred skeletons behind. The echoes of the sonic assault would be bouncing around the Pacific Ocean, ricocheting off the sea floor and the ocean surface, for weeks after the battle was over, all but drowning out the sonic capabilities of sea life throughout the ocean, forcing them to rely much more heavily on newer forms of locating prey, discovered only after spending much time in strangly green tinted water.

Noah left the CUSA's activated for a full two minutes, before stress buildup in the Great Endeavor's own hull prompted him to turn them off, less he become a victim of his own attack. Truth be told, he had been shocked and awed by the unbelievable amount of destruction he'd just unleashed, far beyond anything he'd intended. There was so much sonic backwash in the water that activating sonar for the next few hours would probably only result in his systems breaking, but there didn't seem to be any more submarine attacks being launched against the Great Endeavor either. "Um... oops." Noah commented, a bit weakly, as he realized the scale of the devastation that he'd wrought. "Perhaps full power on all eight was overkill."

"You think!?" Meyrin goggled at the half flooded shoreline, and the still swirling whirlpools, some large enough to drag in some of the smaller surface warships and keep them spinning helplessly in circles. "Let's not do that again, huh?"

"I didn't think it would do that much." Noah mumbled to himself. "The nearby shoreline must have acted as a reflector, bounced back more energy than I was expecting. The shallowness of the water around here probably did the same thing. Hmm."

"The enemy fleets are in disarray because of that attack." Meyrin reported, shaking her head and turning her mind back to the battle at hand. "And little wonder why!" She added under her breath. "They have ceased bombardment operations and are falling back to regroup once more. I see several ships that are dead in the water, their crews must have been disabled by the sonic shockwaves. The way forward is now clear." She was going to say more when movement from above her head, where the bridge display was projecting the actions of the orbital fleets, caught her eye. Several ships, escort class vessels and one or two destroyers, old, Alliance era ships, were diving down through the atmosphere, headed towards the Great Endeavor. Meyrin frowned, because ships of those classes were not designed to enter the atmosphere, such a course was suicide! "More bomb ships!?" She exclaimed in realization. "Damn, they're determined!"

"We're looking at explosions in the thirty to eighty kiloton range if those are just standard explosives. Potentially a lot more if they saved back any nukes." Noah informed her, focusing his mind just as rapidly as she had done, to counter this newest threat. "Combined with the kinetic force of the falling warship itself, we should probably do our best to ensure none land upon us. Even the Great Endeavor's shields and armor can only take so much punishment."

"All weapon systems, orient upon and destroy the diving warships above us!" Meyrin called out, perhaps a bit louder and more urgently than strictly necessary, given that the enemy bomb ships were still several minutes away from impact at the earliest, but there was nothing like the threat of death from above to galvinize a reaction. "We should probably begin evasive manuevers as well." She said, more quietly, to Noah.

Noah arched an eyebrow expressively at her. "Are we talking about the same Great Endeavor here?" He replied sardonically. "This SATMARS can do many things. Evasive maneuvers are not one of them though. We will have to trust to our defensive weapons, and if need be, to our shields to protect us."

"Lady Angel, the enemy is gathering drop pods behind the path of the diving warships!" one of the Harbingers called out. "We will have enemy orbital drop forces inbound on our position in a little under five minutes!"

"Ignore them. All priority is to be given to taking out those suicide ships!" Meyrin commanded firmly. "Not a bad move." She mused softly. She felt Noah's interest turn to her, and she expanded on her thoughts before he could ask. "By launching the suicide ships and the drop pods at basically the same time, they ensure most or all of our firepower will be directed upon the bomb ships, which are sacrificial anyway, allowing the greater majority of their drop forces to reach deployment altitude without being interdicted by our weaponry. It would have been even harder if our attention had still been split by the surface and submarine fleets. Then their original plan must have been to sweep in with reinforcements from the first line of defense, and their elite units, from either side, closing the jaws of the trap around us."

"I think we've done a pretty good job of dislocating those trap jaws." Noah said with a smile. "Their first line has ceased to exist, and the elites are nowhere in sight, while their naval forces are in route. I get the feeling this orbital drop is just a stopgap measure, to distract us while they try and come up with some sort of last minute miracle."

"I wouldn't start counting my eggs until all the chickens have come home to roost." Meyrin warned. "We've yet to see any direct Mobile Suit combat just yet, and like you say, their elites have not yet made an appearance. We haven't yet seen a single Orb unit, and that is troubling to me. Usually Orb likes to lead from the front, if they have to fight at all. They must be planning something very devious indeed, for their Gundams to be hanging back and staying out of sight."

"Well, if they're going to do something, they'd better do it quick." Noah answered with a shrug. "Because at this rate, they aren't going to have any allies to save, if they don't show up soon."

As if conjured by his words, one of the Harbingers turned to appraise them of new contacts, even as the bridge display updated to show a large horde of incoming Mobile Suits approaching from their frontal arc. Pulsing in the middle of the enemy formation was a bright thermal reading, distinctive in its power. "Great Prophet..." the Harbinger started to say, before being cut off by an imperiously raised hand.

"Open the launch bays. Send word to my Apostles." Noah said, grinning darkly. "Prepare the Brotherhood for takeoff. Its time to tie up a few last loose ends. Its time to show them all that this is no longer Earth that we are fighting for. This world is now my world, my New Eden!"

* * *

Author note: All right, I really should have asked this at the end of Road 8, but I forgot. And things are still in the heat up stage here, the preliminaries before the good stuff. So what do you, my beloved readers and reviewers, want to see in this penultimate battle of The Eden Disaster? Any particular matchups, that sort of thing? I can already promise that there will be a team up between certain characters that many people would like to see teamed up, but I shan't go into specifics. For that matter, is there anything you people would not want to see? I mean, not that its a garuantee it won't happen, but at least there's the chance I'll like your idea better. In any case, hope you enjoyed the beginning of the second to last arc (Can't believe I'm here already, less than a year after I started!), and I'll be getting more out as soon as I can.


	66. New Eden part 2

"Is it usually this ROUGH during an orbital drop!?" Haman had to choose between shouting to be heard and clamping his teeth together to keep from biting the inside of his mouth, and his choice to communicate earned him a coppery taste on his tongue as his teeth gashed the tender side of his cheek. Though securely strapped into the command chair of his beloved, beautiful Garou, which was in turn heavily secured to stanchions and cradles inside the quad capacity orbital drop pod, Haman was still being shaken about like a pebble in a can being kicked by children in the streets of his hometown. Every Mobile Suit pilot was used to turbulence to some degree, but this was more than just turbulence, it felt like the entire drop pod was coming apart at the seams, and him with it! His cockpit was vibrating so violently it hurt to look at his screens, and he could barely make sense of the distorted and fuzzy shapes upon them.

"No!" Heine replied shortly, his image on the comm screen likewise being battered and bumped about as he rode in his Primal Inferno just across the pod from Haman. Perhaps it would have made more tactical sense to seperate the major officers of the drop force, but since Haman had never conducted an orbital drop before, Heine wanted to be nearby to lend the help of his own personal experience to his friend. Besides, the extent of their orders basically ran to "stop the Great Endeavor by any means you see fit, and try not to die in the process", so it wasn't like much command finesse was needed. He and Haman were just extra fighters today. "We're in the atmospheric wake of the suicide vessels! This is far worse than usual!"

"Good! Because I was really starting to think I'd been wrong all these years!" Haman shouted back, a wry tone just barely audible in his voice.

"Wrong about what!?" Heine asked curiously

"That you ZAFT bastards were a bunch of preening cockadoos that couldn't handle a little bouncing around!" Haman replied with a wide grin, more a baring of teeth than anything else. "I would have been disappointed to discover that you put up with something like this every time you came down to attack us! Because this really sucks!"

"Oh, don't worry." Heine chuckled grimly. "This IS the soft part! This is just air turbulence right now! We'll be reaching the upper envelope of the Great Endeavor's weapon systems in a minute or so! Then things will get very, VERY rough!"

"I want out of this thing!" Haman said after a short pause to consider what Heine had said. "How can you stand to just sit here and wait for something to happen to us!? Doesn't it bother you!?"

"Weren't you the one talking about how the afterlife isn't so bad?" Heine replied with a smirk. Truth be told, he liked waiting around in a very vulnerable drop pod just as little as Haman did, but there was little option. At this altitude, especially with the turbulence caused by the wakes of the explosive filled warships beneath them, individual Mobile Suits would be scattered like leaves in a gale, spotted out over hundred of square kilometers of landing area, rather than the tight five or six square kilometers around the vicinity of the Great Endeavor. If they didn't want to be shot to pieces in piecemeal lots, their only choice was to ride the pods down to near minimum altitude before deploying, so that those of their forces that reached that point would be able to concentrate their firepower in an effective manner. In their favor was the number of pods being deployed, along with some that contained only countermeasures, but the Great Endeavor's firepower was so immense Heine was still having stomach cramps at the thought of what was waiting below, approaching at faster than terminal velocity.

"There is almost nothing glorious about being immolated while falling inside a giant steel bubble!" Haman shouted back with a frown. "The only glorious thing about that would be the explosion we make that lights up the sky! And that is not the kind of glory I want!"

"Most of the enemy firepower will be directed at the bomb ships. And the countermeasure pods will take care of the rest!" Heine promised, though they both knew it was a hollow one. It would be nothing short of divine intervention if all of the pods made it to the deployment zone whole and undamaged. Just as an off the cuff estimate, Heine had privately estimated that they would be taking anywhere from fifteen to twenty percent losses before they even deployed! Maybe the countermeasure pods, with their wide band ECM, chaff launchers, anti-beam depth charges, and Citadel Shields, would cut that number down a bit, but they had been designed to handle standard anti-aircraft and anti-orbital type weapons, against standard bases, which had defenses that were much more spread out, not to mention less powerful, than those the Great Endeavor boasted! Just about the only thing that made the whole turkey shoot even marginally survivable was the presence of the bomb ships, which would take high priority of any interdiction efforts, as it would only take a few of those on target to cause even the Great Endeavor a great deal of trouble.

"And the more time they spend shooting at the likes of us, the less time they spend shooting at the rest of our forces, closing in from the front." Haman mused, mostly to himself. He had few illusions about the ability of the ALU forces, at the very least, to do much to affect the course of the battle, other than tying up time and energy as beam stoppers, while the other, more powerful Mobile Suits did the real damage. The majority of the ALU forces were piloting Lupus's, with a loaned Elemental here and there, as much as Heine had been able to arrange anyway. And unfortunately, Lupus's were just slightly modified versions of the original ZAFT Ginn, now almost a decade old, and sporting technology that was already basically ancient. The ALU forces had plenty of spirit, inspired by commanders like Haman, but spirit wasn't enough to win major battles like this one. For that matter, while Haman would ever bet at least even odds with his Garou against any other non-gundam Mobile Suit, his weapons were ill suited for attacking a massive hardened target like the Great Endeavor.

"I must say, that is a very... eye catching... paint scheme you have selected for your Garou." Heine commented, switching tacks, wanting to keep conversation going to keep their minds off the things they could not affect right now. As part of some personal, private ritual during the pre-planning stages of the whole operation, Haman and many other ALU pilots had their machines repainted in personal colors, for no real discernable reason that Heine had been able to discover, other than because they damned well wanted to. The practice was hardly unknown in ZAFT, indeed Heine usually preffered to have a majority of his own machines, whatever they happened to be, detailed in various shades of orange, but it was a privilege granted only to the highest performers, and the practice was officially discouraged, because it easily marked out for the enemy a priority target. Of course, on the flip side of that was the pscyhological advantage of letting the enemy know a particular soldier was on the field against them, allowing the reputation of the particular ace to demoralize and discomfit the enemy without a shot even being fired.

"You like?" Haman said with a broad smile, preening for a moment himself. "Abla'Asima needed a change of aspect, and since this may be the last time she and I go to battle together, I figured I should indulge her whim, yes? Like any good woman, she treats a man better after he provides her with suitable gifts, my Abla'Asima does. She was drab before, a true soldier woman, but today she dances freely, guided by her true spirit, wreathed in the colors of the desert sands at dusk." Haman said, referring to the splotches and slashing curves of the pinks, golds, creams and tans that the formerly dark brown and tan camouflage patterned Garou had become. There was no particular pattern or design, the paint seemed to have been applied more or less at random, and the overall effect did just as good a job of breaking up the outline of the Mobile Suit as any regular military camouflage would. Perhaps the coloring would have even helped the Garou blend into the desert rock and sand at dusk. However, they were nowhere near such a desert, and it wasn't dusk, so instead the Garou stood out like a neon sign.

"You named your Mobile Suit?" Heine asked with a grin, thinking that such a practice was definitely a Haman Al'Jib thing.

"Of course!" Haman seemed shocked that Heine was surprised. "I mean, its not something I tell to just everyone, there are many who are dull and backwards in their sensibilities about such things, but giving your battle partner, whether it be a sword, a horse, a favorite gun, a tank, a warship or especially a Mobile Suit a personal name is only right and proper! How else can you show proper affection and respect for that which allows you to survive a battle when others do not? Think about it... all the Gundams have names after all, and look how successful they are! Without Abla'Asima's favor, I would have been dead many times over, let me assure you!"

"I hadn't thought of it like that before." Heine admitted. He had always treated his tools with respect and care, whether they were a car or a bicycle or hammer and saw or whatever Mobile Suit he was assigned, but he could not truly say he'd ever named such things or regarded them with true affection and love, ever considered that they had a spirit or character to them beyond their built purpose. It seemed odd on the surface, but then again, who was he to say one way or the other whether or not Mobile Suits, even though all manufactured to be the same as others of their type, could have a unique personality to them. Certainly he had noticed unique flaws and quirks in each individual machine he'd ever piloted, even if they were minute, infistesimal things. And there was something about certain Mobile Suits, especially Gundams, that hinted at more than just a pile of mechanical parts. Maybe such a sense was an outgrowth of the personality of the pilot of the particular machine, but that was getting into deeper philosophical matters, perception becoming reality and such. "What does her name mean?" Heine asked.

"Abla'Asima is the Perfectly Formed Protector." Haman translated proudly. "And while I am sure there are many that would challenge the supposed perfection of a Garou, it is not purely in power and mechanical characteristics that I judge her. Her soul and mine are in close accord, her purpose conforms to my instinctive desires. Just as not all men consider the same woman to be equally beautiful, but the man who loves her truly considers her the most beautiful of all women, because she is right for him, so too are Abla'Asima and Haman Al'Jib."

"I guess it was stupid of me to try and offer you a Primal then, huh?" Heine said with a shake of his head.

"The intent was appreciated, Heine. Few pilots truly believe as I do, and I would not expect many to understand the depth of this kind of connection. Furthermore, I never really spoke of it to you, I know how it appears, that I am just slightly oddball and quirky. It is an assumption I take care to have others cultivate from me, because it gives me an advantage over them if and when things do become more serious. But I would not abandon my dear Abla'Asima, not even if I was offered one of the captured Brotherhood Gundams! Sooner would I enter a battle chained hand and foot and weighted down with constricting bands than do something so foolish!" Haman answered, biting his lip as the drop pod suddenly began shuddering and shaking far more violently than before, rendering verbal communication basically impossible. The look on Heine's face was all the confirmaation Haman needed though... they'd entered the range of the Great Endeavor's weapons. Now there was nothing more to do but hold on and pray!

* * *

Luna knew that no matter what happened to her, or how long she lived, she would never be able to get the scene before her out of her memory, that it would be indelibly printed upon her in all its awesome scale and terrifying power, the sight of the Great Endeavor sailing through a sea of black water frothed with white, lighting up the sky in all directions as it unleashed unimaginable amounts of destructive energy at the orbital drop forces bearing down upon it from high above, cutting orange-red blazing trails through the sky, flashes of winking lights showing where automated gun systems were firing down at the Great Endeavor as well. It was a scene that seemed to big, too raw to appear on Earth, at least a modern one, where warfare was fought in multiple small engagements. It was like an army had gathered to slay some mythical dragon or kraken of the seas, only instead of swords and bows, they fought with huge warships and Mobile Suits! For the moment, as the suicide warships continued their death dives from on high, no firepower was being directed at Luna and the other members of the third tier as they raced just over the surface of the Gulf of Carpentaria towards the mountainous hulk of the Great Endeavor in the near distance.

The mere fact that they could distinctly see the bulk of the fortress, and even make out the ridges and ziggurats and other dorsal protrusions, and yet were still more than two minutes flight at flank speed away, communicated more to Luna about the true immensity of the object they were taking on better than any data report or computer simulation could. She was used to dealing with very large objects, even the smallest PLANT was ten times the size of the Great Endeavor, and the new E-PLANTS were hundreds of times more massive, but all such objects were seen and considered against the true vastness of space, which made all objects tiny no matter their size, making scale hard to truly concieve of. The Great Endeavor was on Earth, and everything seemed bigger than it was on Earth, because you had other large objects to compare it to, providing scale. The Great Endeavor was to her Mobile Suit what her Mobile Suit was to a beetle, and compared to she herself, she was barely a flea! It was very intimidating, no matter how she looked at it.

Of course, all she needed to restore and indeed even further ignite her spirits was to glance to either side, at the more than three hundred Mobile Suits, a mixture of USN Champions and Archons, FNE Panzerwulf's and Templars and one Brotherhood Gundam, the Vengeance. Especially the Vengeance, with her beloved Shinn at the controls, such as they were, with the oddly fluid outer armor of the Gundam having changed in color from the shades of crimson that it had been during Shinn's enslavement by the Brotherhood, to the proud and noble colors of the Solar Knights. Simply put, the Vengeance looked nothing short of amazing right now, with a snow white base color, mixed with darkest void black along the major plates of the limbs and body, and highlighed with gold edging along the head and wings and major protrusions. The colors looked even better on the Vengeance than they did upon the Archon's, but maybe it was just because the Vengeance was aesthetically more beautiful than other Mobile Suits anyway, with its knife like wings and sharply delineated surfaces, it seemed to cut the air even while standing still.

For that matter, the way it moved, so fluidly, so easily, with such an air of restrained power and potential grace, it was enough to make Luna feel positively clumsy and clunky, and her piloting skill was such that she'd been chosen to perform ceremonial maneuvers during her graduation from the Redcoat Academy, maneuvers that were as much synchronized aerial dancing as anything else! In contrast, the rest of the Archons, Champions and Templars seemed to uneasily lunge through the air, like gawky school kids next to a high level athlete! The Panzerwulf's weren't even worth mentioning, they flew with all the inherent grace of bricks even at the best of times. Very powerful bricks, but there was little that was graceful or aesthetic about them, unless you considered heavy weaponry to be visually pleasing. Since Luna definitely did, the Panzerwulf's had at least that saving grace, and she eyed their primary handheld weapon, the dual 350mm Hyper Impulse cannon and Mjolnir 3P (Penetrating Particle Projector) Cannon called the Cerberus with naked envy.

It was acutely distressing to Luna that, in actuality, the Archon's of the Solar Knights were among the lightest armed of the Mobile Suits of the third tier. Oh, of course their accelerated impulse sword-cannons had a great deal of punch and penetrating power, but Luna had always felt that one such weapon wasn't enough. And unfortunately the accelerated impulse weapons, as well as beam weapons in general, were completely useless against the armor sported by the Vengeance and Brotherhood Gundams. She wasn't sure if the Mjolnir 3P's were effective or not, however given how much power such weapons put out, and because the damage they did was both based on heat and kinetic energy, she would be very surprised if they were harmless. Mjolnir's were one of the few categories of weapons that could actually have some effect even through things like Positron shields, the only other "common" one being FRALA's.

And though the few Templar machines, basically renamed versions of the magnificent Freedom Gundam first designed by ZAFT in the latter stages of the First Valentine War, were several years out of date, they were still designed around the same principles as a machine that had once been the most powerful Mobile Suit of its day, and those principles stood them in good stead in battles like this. Especially the ability to switch between focusing all five of their standard weapons on a small area, or engaging multiple targets at the same time. When Kira Yamato had been in the original Freedom, he had been able to change the course of entire battles with rapid exchanges of intense firepower that were completely unprecedented at the time, wiping out entire teams in seconds... though he'd never killed anyone either. Which was actually more scary, considering that he'd been shooting to disable the entire time! Of course, the pilots of the Templars were not in Kira's league, god knew, few people were, but even moderate hands would be able to make a difference when they were at the helm of a Freedom.

The rank and file Mobile Suit's of the USN, the Champions, mostly had switched out their standard 57mm/80mm beam rifle/autocannon handheld weapon for one of the heavier weapons more suited to long range devastation of large targets, such as the 525mm hyper impulse cannon, 350mm gun launcher, 15mm FRALA unit, or 30 tube missile launcher. While such weapon choice would be of more limited use against the Brotherhood's own Mobile Forces, they would be of inestimable value against the hull and shields of the Great Endeavor itself. Theoretically the Archons, Templars and orbital drop forces, mostly ZAFT Elementals and Primals, would tie up and destroy the enemy Mobile Forces, while the Champions and Panzerwulf's would concentrate on attacking the enemy fortress, with each force division assisting the other as was possible or necessary, especially the Templars, which could easily switch between bombardment and assault roles.

As for Luna herself, she was being held back as part of a third task force, one with a very specific and special goal, namely the engagement and destruction of the enemy Gundam forces. The third task force consisted mostly of the senior remaining Solar Knights, such as Rey, Luna and Lain, as well as the commander of the Templar forces, three of the most experienced Panzerwulf's and of course, Shinn in the Vengeance. Presenting the Vengeance at the very front and heart of their formation, they were issuing a challenge directly to Noah and the Brotherhood, practically daring them to come out and take care of their captured machine. Hopefully their combined force would be enough to restrain the Brotherhood and Retribution at the very least, though Luna was also shivering somewhat at the thought of deliberately picking a fight with those two Gundams, even with the Vengeance on their side! The Brotherhood in particular was just stupidly powerful, beyond all belief, utilizing weapons and technology that made the Archons look like toys!

Because she was one of the best shots in the entire Solar Knights, if not the best shot, Luna had been given a new weapon system for her Archon, seeing as sniping at the Brotherhood with her sword-cannon was about as effective as shooting it with a garden hose. While the liquid crystal armor of the Vengeance and Brotherhood was proof against energy of almost all sorts, the armor itself was not actually all that physically strong, being as it was a fluid with the basic consistency of semi-molten rock, so it was actually somewhat vulnerable against physical weapons that relied on explosive power or kinetic force to deal damage. Of course, somewhat vulnerable was one thing, but another thing was the unnerving ability of the semi-liquid armor to regenerate and reform itself, so that even if damaged, exposed vulnerabilities only remained for a second or two, so it would take either a couple big hits in close succession, or bunches of little hits, in order to wear the armor out and start causing real damage.

Resoning that bunches of little hits was the easier to achieve, given the maneuverability of the Gundam's in question, the USN had developed and produced a new line of linear weaponry, the 45mm Linear Assault Weapon, which was a five barreled gatling type machinecannon system that could fire well over ten thousand rounds per minute at full spin rate. And since the caliber was so low, and it was linear shells instead of chemically powered bullets, which took up more space with bullet and propellant and shell versus just the metal warhead of the linear rounds, the attached back mounted ammo hoppers carried enough munitions for three full minutes of all out fire. The LAW system was definitely a limited use system, designed to throw out a wall of bullets, each with low individual power, which would negate the maneuvering advantages of the enemy Gundams while racking up hits against and rapidly wearing down the regenerative armor, kind of sandblasting the armor away. However, the low caliber rounds wouldn't be much use against regular armor, and were less than useless against any sort of Phase Shift, so Luna still carried her sword-cannon as well, though she'd been forced to give up on her shield in order to carry the LAW.

Rey and another of the Archons were supposed to hang back and protect her, but while Luna appreciated the thought, and definitely felt the loss of her primary defensive asset, she had already told Rey that she was expecting him to involve himself in the battle as much as possible, and let her worry about herself. Something which didn't seem to sit too well with him, but that was just too bad. They couldn't afford to have anyone hanging back and trying to be a bodyguard, not against the enemy Gundams. Besides, she was going to be doing her best to stick to Shinn like she was glued to him, both because he was sure to be at the center of the battle, and because they were both counting on the other to protect each other, Shinn protecting Luna against physical threats, and her being there to provide an anchor against any mental ones to Shinn. Although sticking to the Vengeance once the battle got started was not going to be easy, it's maneuverability eclipsed hers like a hummingbird did a hot air ballon! And speed... the Vengeance could get close to Mach 7 or 8 in a straight line, maybe faster if it was at high altitude. The Archon might be able to hit Mach .6 in a dive, by way of comparison.

On one hand, having Shinn use the Vengeance's massive speed and maneuverability to draw the Brotherhood away from the rest of its allies could be a sound tactic. On the other, at the same time as effecting that tactic, the Vengeance would basically end up fighting the Brotherhood alone, because none of his own allies could keep up with that particular game of tag, and that was not a sound tactic. Especially because they did not know the extent of Shinn's vulnerability to influence by Noah, or at what ranges such influence could be established... leaving Shinn to fight by himself was as good as abandoning him to become Noah's puppet again, at least in Luna's eyes! And of course Shinn himself was aching for some serious payback against Noah for what he'd done to him, but at the same time he was forced to be painfully conscious of the suspicion in which he was regarded by the leadership of his own side, and know that any violation of the orders he was under was as good as declaring himself a traitor for real, and those orders did not include taking on the Brotherhood by himself, despite how much he wanted to.

A huge bloom of light followed a second or so later by a massive concussion that rattled them all in their seats, except for Shinn who was warded against such small scale shocks by his Gravitic Reduction System, heralded the destruction of one of the orbital bomb ships, torn apart by unceasing barrages of capital class energy weapon fire from the Great Endeavor, the volatile explosives packed into its largely automated hull touching off with a blast that would not have shamed a small atomic warhead! Of course the orbital bomb ships were too complex to fully automate, at least in so short a time, and so the death of the ship also announced the martyrdom of fifteen brave volunteers manning the weapon controls, helm and engineering stations. It was one of the Drake class escorts that had detonated, leaving three other Drakes and two Nelson class destroyers still in free fall, but they were all becoming very battered the further they fell into range of the Great Endeavor's defensive weapon network. At this rate is was doubtful any would manage to get close enough to even dimple the Great endeavor's top mounted energy shields, should they be activated.

Which was regrettable, as the destructive potential of the huge bomb ships screaming down from low orbit could not be easily overstated, but in the end whether or not one of the suicide vessels actually managed to hit the target was just a bonus, the true purpose of the ships was to divert as much of the Great Endeavor's defensive firepower as possible away from the approaching drop forces and now the third tier forces as well, giving them time to deploy within optimal operating range of their individual weapons. And in pursuit of that mission, coupled with the efforts of the dedicated countermeasure and deterrent drop pods, chocked full of flares and chaff and sensor baffling systems and anti-beam depth charge launchers, they were proving very effective indeed, as only a couple of occupied drop pods had been blasted to flaming ruins, like small fireworks popping high in the dark blue sky, and the majority of the occupied pods were less than a minute from reaching deployment altitude!

As they approached closer, to the absolute outer envelope of the atmospheric ranges of their bombardment class weapons, the pilots of the third tier began to open fire at the Great Endeavor, hoping to land lucky shots among weapon emplacements or sensor packages, though at this range they were more or less shooting at random. A fraction of a second before anyone else reacted, Shinn dropped the Vengeance down in front of Luna's Archon, the massive quantum crystal two handed sword sliding smoothly off its back and into its hands, held flat side forward like a strangely shaped shield, and then an abridged version of the hell being directed into the sky began falling among them, as the Great Endeavor's other defensive weapons, those that lacked the range or position to be able to helpfully target the orbital forces, unleashed their wrath upon the third tier. The air was suddenly full of hot orange cannon shell tracers, and the lurid lime green slashes of beam blasts, cut through every now and again by the brutish dull yellow tracer-pellet of a heavy linear cannon turret, moving almost faster than the eye could even comprehend, visible more as a afterimage blur than anything else.

A Champion flying barely thirty meters off to Luna's right met one of those linear cannon pellets head on and practically disintegrated even before the explosive charge inside the pellet scattered the ruined pieces far and wide, the shock of flying into a projectile weighing several dozen pounds while traveling at a combined velocity of close to fifteen thousand miles per hour was enough to dismember the Mobile Suit before the pilot even knew what hit him. The machines equipped with Citadel Shields, that is to say almost everyone but Luna, set their shields forward and did their best to brave the onslaught set upon them. It was now that the Panzerwulf's, which had been trailing near the back edges of the formation until now, their engines straining to the max just to keep them airborne or so it seemed, moved to the fore, the blazing power of their Ignited Metallic Rod reactors channeled into their Citadel Shields to make them all but impenetrable. Luna even saw another 80cm linear cannon shell strike one of the Panzerwulf shields almost dead on, and though the Mobile suit was rattled, after the explosion cleared it was revealed to be unscathed and continued on its way with nary a hitch.

The Panzerwulf's spread out as much as feasible, trying to cover as much of the front of the attacking formation as they could with their powerful shields, while still elaving a few lanes open for return fire to stream out from the Champions and Archons. Meanwhile, the Templars had darted upwards, forming their own group overhead, dodging, ducking and weaving through the firepower directed their way as they unleashed ten sorts of hell upon the hull of the Great Endeavor with their multiple weapon systems. Luna fired beams from her shoulder cannons, and flights of armor piercing missiles from her other shoulder mount, but the shots seemed to disapear into the morass of projectiles and energy crisscrossing the rapidly closing space between them and the Great Endeavor, and she could not tell if her attacks were having any effect. It was like shooting against a giant wall, there was simply no way to tell what good, if any, her shots were doing! It was disheartening.

A significant portion of the enemy firepower was actually being directed at her, or rather at Shinn, but the Vengeance's wingtip mounted Positron reflectors were more than powerful enough to handle anything the CIWS systems of the Great Endeavor could pump out, and Shinn's movements weren't slowed in the slightest, though he still hung back cautiously in front of her, lending her the benefits of covering behind him. An urgent bleeping from her sensor displays brought her head searchingly around until at last, after almost a second of determined searching, Luna saw the launch ports opening up on the higher reaches of the Great Endeavor's upper hull, and her sensors registered the heat flares of multiple launching Mobile Suits, all in the Martyr and Zealot classes, spreading out like a dark smoke cloud and hovering in close patrol formation over their mothership, waiting for their full force to deploy. And where there was smoke, there was almost certainly to be found fire, though Luna's sensors had not yet detected any of the remaining enemy Gundams, she knew they had to be nearby.

A colossal string of detonations from above squished her down in her control chair and actually made her Archon dip towards the water a few hundred meters below as the consecutive concussive shockwaves of multiple detonating warships shook the sky, as the Great Endeavor, whether by accident or design, eliminated the other four falling bomb ships in the space of fractions of a second, sending a rippling, globular mass of fire and debris expanding out like a miniature sun for a moment or two from where the ships had just been breaching through the bottom layer of clouds. The chained detonations had not been good for the cohesion of the Mobile Forces, of either side, as shockwaves battered Mobile Suits and made them spin or flip out, some falling for hundreds of meters before righting themselves, a few even plunging all the way to crash painfully against the Great Endeavor's hull or splash into the ocean. The falling drop pods, still riding in the wake of the suicide ships, were even more affected, and many began to tumble uncontrollably, guidance and thruster systems damaged or knocked out by the shockwaves, forcing the occupants to eject before whirling G forces forced them into unconsciousness.

Freed of the need to destroy the bomb ships, the 220cm gatling gottfried emplacements began to sweep their volcanic streams of plasma energy around like gargantuan hoses of destruction, the beams had enough power to destroy a Mobile suit with even a glancing hit, and could even batter through Citadel Shields with a few seconds of concentrated fire. A few stray bolts ricocheted from the Vengeance's proud skin, the bolts clawing fruitlessly for purchase against the tens of thousands of reflective facets that made up the surface of the liquid crystal armor, but for the most part the Brotherhood kept their energy weapons away from the Vengeance, knowing that they were useless against it. Luna chafed against the fact that she and the rest of her task force were hanging back, waiting, while others around them were fighting with all their might, and frequently dying too. But she knew they couldn't afford to get caught up in the attack, couldn't let the enemy Gundams catch them by surprise!

Despite that determination, when the enemy Gundams did first make their presence known upon the battlefield, it did come as a surprise to Luna and the others, as one of the Templars overhead recoiled suddenly backward, its rifle arm flying off at the shoulder in a mess of exploding metal shards, the entire machine twisting slightly to the side from the force of the hit... which should not have happened! A beam blast could penetrate the Phase Shift armor of a Templar, but beam blasts had almost no mass, even the gottfried beams, and they imparted almost no kinetic force unless they struck some sort of impenetrable energy barrier, like a Citadel Shield. But Phase Shift made a machine immune to physical attacks, or most of them anyway! A half second later, as the disoriented Templar pilot was still trying to figure out what hit him, a human head sized hole was punched in the front of his torso armor, and the explosive charge inside the beam tipped shell blasted the cockpit and reactor of the Templar into flaming pieces, and the smoking carcass of the Mobile Suit spiralled into the ocean below, disappearing with a hissing splash.

Luna didn't see anything new in the area, but apparently Shinn did, apparently the Vengeance had ways of detecting its former allies, or maybe he just knew how they fought and what they were likely to do, because Shinn pointed with his sword at a certain part of the Great Endeavor's hull, which appeared empty to Luna's eyes. "There! The Traitor and Haunted!" Shinn called, angling his pointing sword suddenly in a parrying maneuever so that a pair of beam tipped sniper shells deflected from its nigh invulnerable glassy surface. Luna still couldn't see either enemy Gundam, but she did know one thing... Phase Shift and Mirage Colloid didn't mix, and she swung the LAW around and had the trigger depressed even before she zeroed her aim in on where Shinn had been pointing. The sound the LAW made when firing was somewhere between a hiss and a purr, though Luna did not doubt that without the sound dampening of her cockpit, it would be a deafening buzzsaw shriek, as the spinning barrels unloaded thousands of 45mm hypervelocity magnetized slugs at that patch of hull. For a moment, when Luna saw the bright yellow tracers bouncing and deflecting from the hull, she thought she'd missed, that the enemy had moved, but then the two Gundams flickered into view, Mirage Colloid hastily disengaged in favor of protection against the rain of bullets.

A bare instant later, and suddenly there were four Haunteds down there, all moving in seperate directions, and then there were five, as the Traitor took on the visual appearance of the other Brotherhood Gundam, adding yet another confusing image to shoot at. Luna did her best to chase all five of them with short, quarter second bursts from the LAW, but there was simply no way she could keep all five cornered by herself. She was forced to stop firing as the Vengeance flashed in front of her, and she was about to call out and berate Shinn for getting in her line of fire, when she saw the pinkish oval of a Positron shield flash in front of her, as several speeding objects struck it and annihilated, sniper shots from the Haunted that would have taken her in the face and torso. Luna crinkled her nose and squinted in a mixture of gratefulness and annoyance at Shinn saving her, and resolved not to let it happen too often, as she began ducking and dodging through the sky, suffering a slight drop to her accuracy, but it was far preferrable to being a sitting target. Luna checked to see what the rest of her allies were doing, cutting back on the LAW now that the enemy had Phase Shift up.

True to expectations, Rey was hanging back, firing judiciously with his sword-cannon at targets of opportunity, while most of his attention was on the larger battle. More surprisingly, Lain was also hanging back, near the Panzerwulfs, rather than diving down to engage the enemy Gundams in melee combat like the other Solar Knights and the Templar commander were. Usually Lain was the first or second person to get to close grips with an enemy, even the most daunting ones like the Vengeance or the Revenant, but today something seemed to be making him extra cautious, almost wary, and he stuck close to the Panzerwulf's, whether for their protection or for some other unknowable reason, Luna didn't have time to worry about it too much, because Shinn was descending furiously open the two weaker Brotherhood Gundams, sword up and back and ready to cleave at least one of them in two. One of the Haunted images froze, like a mouse with a hawk diving upon it, as the Vengeance rocketed down from on high. Shinn put the full force of his dive, plus the twisting motion of his hips and torso behind the swing... and then jarred painfully hard when the blade bit into, but not through, a glowing aqua-green energy shield that had shimmered into existence above the Traitor.

Snarling, Shinn yanked his sword out of the Obdurate shield in a shower of golden sparks and lightning, bringing the sword up to a guard position as his wings swept down and then up beneath his arms, tips glowing, ready to spin his own Positron shields into existence at a thought, as he twisted his head from side to side as he searched for the Retribution, the Venegance touching down upon the slightly sloping hull of the Great Endeavor for the first time. Shinn well remembered the series of beatings that he had suffered at Ashino's hands during the chaos of the second battle of Galileo, and though the dimunitive BCPU had saved his life, in so doing he had set him up to be mentally broken and rebuilt as Noah's slave, so Shinn wasn't sure if grateful was the proper thing to feel for Ashino's intervention. And then there was the matter of the fact that Ashino had tried to and almost killed Luna in that same battle, and in the process made her think he was dead, and from there it wasn't too much of a leap to put the blame for pretty much everything bad that had happened to him recently at Ashino's feet. It was definitely time for some payback!

As if taunting him, the Retribution deactivated its own Mirage Colloid cloak, by discarding some sort of attached disposable system contained in a pod clamped to its lower torso, just below the shield emitter, and stood in full view of Shinn and everyone, barely fifty meters away. Shinn didn't really stop to think about why his enemy, who's machine was protected by Citadel Scales that did not become deactivated while under the effects of Mirage Colloid, would discard the advantage of invisibility so easily, he just wanted to cut the bastard down and be done with it, and he crossed the distance between them in an eyeblink, the Vengeance becoming a literal blur of motion as he charged. A pilot in a regular machine would have been hard pressed to react in time, even if they could have seen him coming, but the Retribution was also NIC piloted, like all Brotherhood machines, and Shinn's speed was nothing new to Ashino. Indeed, his dodge was almost casual, barely a tap on his thrusters and a twist of his body and he used Shinn's own charge speed against him, as the Vengeance jetted past, moving too fast to correct his swing in time.

Shinn stopped the Vengeance dead in place, a maneuever that would have splattered anyone without a GRS system across the front of his own cockpit in a pulped mass, and swung a wide, looping backhand at the Retribution, this time leaving no room for a sidestep dodge. For whatever reason, perhaps just because of haste of manufacture, the Retribution was not equipped with any QC melee weaponry, and it lacked any weapons capable of standing up to Shinn's zweihander in close combat, and its one defensive measure, the Obdurate Shield, prevented it from attacking Shinn back in turn! All the same, Shinn was forced to clumsily abort his attack, as the shimmering red-pink field of a Positron shield flickered into existance in the path of his swing. Quite what would happen if the QC sword struck a wall of antimatter particles, Shinn did not know, but if there was one thing quantum crystals were weak against, it would probably be antimatter, and he didn't want to chance his primary weapon disappearing in a flash of light.

Instead, Shinn took a hand from his sword hilt and shoved his palm forcefully at the Positron shield, his own palm shield slamming out to butt against the Obdurate shield. Which had been a much better move in his mind than it turned out to b in reality, because the Obdurate shield had dozens of times the power that the palm shield did, and all Shinn earned for his trouble was a jarred wrist as his shield energy slammed into Ashino's and was soundly rejected. Instead of falling back to medium range to use his plethora of ranged weapons, as Shinn was familiar with Ashino doing during their battle as allies, the Retribution practically tackled the Vengeance, leading with a probing stab from its mono-halbered, and when Shinn ducked beneath that, he ran into a sucker punch from the Retribution's other hand which jolted him and rocked him a half step backwards. The Retribution was a few meters taller and more than fifty percent as massive than the Vengeance, and in hand to hand combat, those kind of numbers mattered.

Shinn tried to swing his sword, but that was another mistake, as he was off balance from the Retribution's punch and the bigger Gundam was inside the reach of his arms anyway, and Ashino blocked the weak swing with his arm against Shinn's well before it could gather any momentum. In one blinding series of motions, the Retribution sidled forwards, hooking its leg around Shinn's right leg and slamming with its right shoulder, spilling the Vengeance over onto its back with a loud crash, leaving a dent in the surface of the Great Endeavor's hull. A desultory kick from the Retribution's foot against the pommel of Shinn's sword launched it skittering across the hull, slicing a shallow gash along its path as it tumbled for almost a hundred meters before digging in enough to halt its slide. That same kicking foot came stomping down on Shinn's chest, cratering the LCR armor with a sticky splash and conveying enough impact to knock the breath from Shinn in the cockpit cavity. _Damn it, he beat me again!?_ Shinn swore inside his own mind, dumbfounded that he had let it turn into another fist fight, and a losing one at that! Ever since he'd broken free from Noah, he'd been so off, it wasn't even funny!

The Retribution lifted its halberd, ready to drive the spiked tip down into Shinn's cockpit and body, when golden sparks and electric blue arcs exploded across half of the Retribution's body and Ashino staggered slightly to the side, quickly swinging his side out of the blistering stream of rapidfire impacts, several Citadel scales shorting ut or even being knocked entirely loose, like flakes of dead skin falling from his remaining armor. Damage was light, but the burst had only lasted a half second or so, and already his protection on the left side and flank was badly reduced. Ashino swiveled his attention to a Solar Knight's Archon nearby, one holding a gatling type weapon of unknown origin in its hands, berating himself for getting so caught up in one foe, even if he had been on the verge of taking the Vengeance down for good. It was no reason to let his guard drop... against Yamato or Zala, he'd have paid for that mistake with his life, or at least his defeat.

It was curious that he'd seen no sign of any of the Clyne Faction pilots, or indeed, of Orb forces in general. All of the attacking forces hailed from the USN or the other major member-states, but where was Orb? Surely they didn't think they could sit this one out, not with the Great Endeavor on a collision course for their homeland? No, that didn't make any sense at all... the Clyne Faction and Orb had been persistent and determined foes of the Brotherhood almost from the very beginning, they would not back out of the fight now. That they weren't here now just meant that they were pursuing some other strategy beyond simple direct assault, and Ashino knew he would have to plan accordingly himself, avoid overcommiting before the full extent of the enemy forces were known. Even as he thought these thoughts, Ashino braced himself as a wash of pink energy slammed into him, courtesy of the Vengeance's wingtip shield emitters, and the Retribution skidded back a few meters as Shinn regained his feet.

Another torrent of bright yellow tracers spat from the whirring barrels of the gatling gun the Archon held, and Ashino flitted backwards, avoiding the stream of bullets like a child would avoid a spray of water from a toy gun. He twisted in mid dodge and hurled his halberd like a spear at the recovering Vengeance, only to see it deflected away in shreds as the Vengeance snapped out its fingertip claws and batted the weapon from the air with a flick of its wrists. Still, Ashino bought himself a moment of time and further maneuvering space, and he whirled and pounced upon the Archon in almost the same motion, three white hot edged claws sliding out from the backs of his own hands as he came down upon the enemy, tucking his legs up high to avoid the stream of bullets, which ceased suddenly, the enemy pilot not even trying to swing its firestream up into him, which was puzzling to ashino, until the Retribution jarred to a halt in midair and then went flying backwards, courtesy of the Vengeance snagging hold of his foot, fingerclaws retracted, and physically hurling him away, using its thrusters to make up for the difference in mass.

It was the work of a moment to regain control, and Ashino retracted his forearm claws as the Vengeance took up a protective position in front of the gunner-Archon, heat whips descending from forearm sheathes, wings canted up beneath his armpits, tips glowing pink with potential shield energies. Meanwhile, the gunner-Archon was sidling to the side, trying to edge around its protector to clear its line of fire at Ashino. The manner in which the Archon moved was familiar to Ashino, as was the way it resolutely stayed near Shinn and supported him so fervently. This was the sniper-girl he'd faced at Galileo, the one that the Independence had been destroyed fighting with. Lunamaria Hawke, the older sister of Meyrin Hawke. And while he did owe Meyrin quite a debt, and had no desire to sadden her by killing her sister, right now this was a battlefield, and those who strode a battlefield courted death with their every movement, and that was simply that. Ashino twitched a mental muscle, and the twinned 150mm Rapidfire FRALA rifles eased off his back armatures and snugged themselves into his grips. It was time to end this.

* * *

Stella rotated her Citadel Shield to take some of the strain off of Sting's defenses, since he'd been bearing the brunt of the defensive firepower being directed their way for the past half minute or so. The IMR reactors did not run out of power, not like the battery equipped Champions, so no matter how much of a beating their shields took, they did not weaken over time because of lack of power. However, incessant barrages of high powered weaponry could and would destabilize the energy emitters that formed the shield, eventually warping them out of phase, in essence negating the shield for a few moments while the emitters realigned. Of course, even an instant without a shield in that kind of situation was generally fatal, so the Extendeds had been taught how to interpose their shielding layers to give one shield time to realign and recover when under these kind of defensive situations.

This combat, this battlefield, this was the sort of thing that the Extendeds had been designed for, and for all its chaos and brutality, Stella felt more at home here, fighting for her life, and fighting to end the lives of others, than she did just about anywhere else. Here, she was at peace, thoughts of the future and the past vanished from her mind, her only consideration on the present, and the second or two beyond it. Living perpetually in the moment... it was how Extended's lived their lives, ideally. Obviously no one could really live entirely in the moment, innocent and free, with no thoughts or concerns for future or past, at least not anyone with a shred of maturity or memory, but they got as close as they could. It was part of being Tranquil, that elusive but fundamental state of body and mind that they had been created to cultivate, attain and then maintain.

Contrary to what some might believe from the name, achieving Tranquility, at least as Doctor Roanoke defined it, didn't have anything to do with being calm. Some of the most Tranquil Extended were those possessed by the greatest anger and rage during battle, like Stella herself sometimes. Tranquility was a singular focus of mind and purpose, a feeling of belonging, of peace with what you were doing. It was not being concerned with whys or how comes, but merely doing as seemed right at the time, which tied in with the living in the moment. Most of humanity was, at least in their deeper mentality, a train wreck of contradicting feelings and emotions and memories and plans and fears and hatreds and uncertainties, no matter how singular of purpose or commited they might seem on the surface. People doubted, and doubt was the true mind killer. Doubt was the primary portal by which the psychic could gain access to a mind unwillingly. Doubt was the crack in the mental fortress walls, and through the causation and manipulation of doubt, a person's mind and memories and even fundamental personality could be shaped like clay, by those with the talent and will. To be Tranquil was to first become full of doubt, and then learn to strip yourself entirely of it. It was that simple, and that complex.

Which was one of the primary reasons her relationship with Eric and Lain, and now just Lain, was so bothersome and upsetting to her. Not on a personal level, not Stella the Girl, she couldn't be happier there. But stella the Extended, Stella the Tranquil, could feel more and more doubts trying to slip in and crack her walls the more time she spent around them, thinking about them, feeling with them. It was just like Doctor Roanoke had warned her it would be at the beginning... getting involved with people outside the program could not help but lessen your ability to conform to the program! Stella was half sure that the only reason Doctor Roanoke was allowing her to associate with Lain was because he wanted to see how long it would take for her Tranquility to tarnish and wear away, and she hated that she was only half certain, because that was already a doubt that had slipped into her mind and was eating away at her! The two sides of Stella were at arms over the issue, and once more, she found hateful doubt in which side would prevail... which side she even wanted to prevail!

Stella didn't let her internal debate interfere with her actions or her ability to multitask in battle, the state of an Extended's Tranquility didn't correlate to their battle or combat skills directly, though those who were most Tranquil did usually seem to be the most capable pilots and fighters as well, because of their total lack of doubt and hesitations. However, Stella knew it hardly mattered how well she fought if she couldn't keep her Tranquility, not against the foe they were up against, the Mind-Devil Doctor Roanoke had schooled them about ever since they were little children. To be Tranquil was to be invisible to the extrasensory perceptions of the Mind-Devils, and even, in some ways, intangible to their unnatural touch. However, those who were Tranquil did suffer the weakness of having a hard shell and a soft interior... should their Tranquility ever collapse, they would be left even more raw and open to the perverse attacks of the Mind-Devils than even regular humans. It was because of the process, where they were first broken down to less than human levels, and then trained up to more than human levels!

Stella had heard Doctor Roanoke talking once with another man, a Doctor who's name she did not remember, who had a very nondescripte and unremarkable appearance, except for his lab coat, which was smeared with rusty scabs of blood and clotted bits of gore, a horrible mess compared to the obsessive cleanliness in which Doctor Roanoke kept his garmets and person. Apparently this other Doctor was the head of a project similar to the IBWS Extended project that Doctor Roanoke was heading, and they were comparing notes. Stella had been much younger at the time, and had lacked much of the cognitive training she'd had since then, most of the terms went way over her head, but she had gotten a few impressions. One, that the two Doctors really hated each other, though they were very polite when they talked, there was something in their posture and eyes that suggested they loathed each other, personally and professionally, while at the same time respecting each others accomplishments and expertise, which was why they were talking at all.

Another thing was that the strange Doctor was very interested in the "Tranquility Phenomenon" that Doctor Roanoke had cultivated, and wanted to copy it for his own BCPU project. Apparently BCPU's and IBWS Extendeds were cousin projects, both intended for similar but slightly different things, both relating to the extermination of certain segments of undesirables in the human population. In the end Doctor Roanoke had ended up declining to share his secrets with the stranger, and Stella was forced to wonder, if these BCPU people were made just like she had been, with the same sort of process, or even a more extreme one, as some of the stuff she'd overheard had been true, but they lacked Tranquility, that was quite a serious flaw indeed, to be so open mentally! She was glad she was an Extended, not a BCPU, even if they were supposed to be better "super-soldiers" than Extended's, which she privately refused to believe.

Auel sliding in from the side to relieve her own shield pressure brought Stella once more back to the present and the situation at hand, and she used the slight respite to once more reacquiant herself with the battlefield, cursing herself for allowing a noncombat daydream to interfere with her focus! If things kept going at this rate, Tranquility wasn't going to be an issue, cause she was just going to be dead, killed by her own inattention! She flicked her eyes at Auel's screen on her comm network to convey her thanks, but he didn't seem to notice, intent as he was on the fight at hand. Auel almost never had focus issues, except when he got mad, which was actually fairly easy to achieve, but today he was really staying on the ball. The injuries from being half broiled alive by his own damaged IMR reactor after the battle against the Revenant had changed him, and not just with a lot of painful looking burn scars. Auel was more serious, more intense these days. Like he had a personal grudge inside him he had to work out, something to prove to himself. He was also a goodly bit more surly and pricly than before, and for Auel that was saying something!

"He's fucking useless!" Auel declared suddenly, tilting his pale blue helmet more or less in the direction of Lain's Archon, as it hovered to the side and behind their formation a little bit, taking pot shots at Zealots and Martyrs and the hull of the Great Endeavor with his sword cannon, spending most of his time dodging incoming weapons fire or sheltering behind the formation of Panzerwulf's. "If it weren't for us, he'd already be dead! What a mooch!"

"That's not it." Sting intervened, before Stella could leap to her boyfriend's defense. At least thats what she guessed the term for what she and Lain were now was, she wasn't sure what else to call him. More than a friend certainly. Special person? Boyfriend just sounded better, more comfortable. "Remember what our mission is, Auel. We're not here to just engage the enemy blindly. We have a very specific goal in mind. Destroy the enemy Gundams."

"Yeah, I know that!" Auel retorted petulantly. He pointed with his Cerberus weapon and unleashed the twinned 350mm hyper-impulse cannons, aiming for the Retribution, but he missed by a goodly margin and the shot bored a deep glowing hole in the hull of the Great Endeavor instead, secondary explosions flitting outward from where a interior ammunition feed had been cooked off. "There's Gundams down there already! We should be killing em, not hanging around up here with pansy ass and acting like sitting targets!"

"Those Gundams don't matter. We're after the big one, the head honcho himself." Sting said with a confident grin inside his lime green helmet. "Take him out, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. He's gonna have to show his face sooner rather than later, or else our numbers are going to wipe out his forces, just like all the other times we've fought engagements like this one with him. But if we're down there, in the close range mess with the other Gundams, we're the ones who are gonna be reacting to him, not the other way around! Have patience, we'll get our chance for glory soon enough." Sting switched to a comm channel that was between him and Stella only. "He's a perfectly capable pilot in his own right, Stella. Just bear that in mind. He chose to be here, and you can't have your attention on him. Not during this battle."

"I am aware." Stella replied shortly, hoping she didn't sound annoyed. Sting was always the overprotective one, and usually she enjoyed that, but she couldn't help but bristle a little at his tone today. To take her mind off things a bit, she launched a full volley one hundred 90mm unguided rockets from her shoulder launchers, spreading the speeding high explosive darts out in a wide swath that sent rippling balls of fire spreading along the hull beneath her position like red hot pimples on the hide of a whale. The rockets were mostly a bombardment and anti-vehicle or anti-infantry weapon, not well suited for attacks against fortified and heavily armored targets, but every little bit helped, and there were a couple more defense turrets that had fallen silent after Stella's attack was done. It wasn't quick, but they were chipping away at the weapon emplacements and armor faster than they were being repaired!

An increase in the amount of firepower being directed at them heralded the arrival of enemy Mobile Forces, a group of four Zealots led by a Martyr swooping in at the collection of Panzerwulfs and Archon, abviously thinking them an easy, sitting target. The missile launchers on the backs and arms of the approaching enemies machines chuffed and expelled huge clouds of white and grey smoke as they disgorged a torrential rain of missiles at the Panzerwulfs, trying to keep them covering behind their shields for a little bit longer. It would have worked too, against almost any foe except for the Extendeds, because even when armored with Phase Shift, most people had a strong aversion to being hit by anything, and they would flinch under such assault. Stella, Auel and Sting let their shields drop and brought up their Cerberus guns, letting the missiles slam into their Phase Shift armor, relying on the stoutness and mass of the Panzerwulf to keep the impacts to a minimum, and they blasted back at the incoming machines with the hyper-impulse cannons, causing the enemy formation to scatter and dodge wildly.

Into the confused and disoriented Brotherhood formation dived Lain, right on the heels of the Extended's attack, and his sword-cannon licked out to take the head and shoulders off one of the Zealots before the controller even knew he was under attack. A flaring burst of purple-blue light from the tip of Lain's sword-cannon carved a two meter wide glowing hole through the chest of another Zealot as it tried to bring its own weapons to bear on the Archon. Both remaining Zealots dropped their linear rifles and ripped out their beam sabers, coming at Lain from two different directions, while the Martyr backed off and turned the muzzles of both hyper-impulse cannons that made up its hands at the offending USN machine. Stella the Girl ached to break formation and go to Lain's aid, but Stella the Tranquil was still in command, and she stayed in formation with Auel and Sting, holding her fire for fear of hitting Lain in the mix, yet another unpleasant frissure of doubt in her mind!

If Lain was troubled by being surrounded and outnumbered three to one by quasi-Gundams with far superior control systems, he didn't act it. He blocked the beam saber swing of one Zealot with his shield, parried the saber of the other with his sword and knocked the one he'd parried back with a sound kick to the midsection, then spinning his Archon while adjusting its position in the air from vertical to horizontal, letting the hyper-impulse blasts from the Martyr scorch by barely a meter from his back, close enough to light his paint on fire for a moment. Lain's reaching sword swung up and struck the Zealot he hadn't kicked away right between the legs, sliving through the groin and lower belly of the Mobile Suit, destroying the reactor and thruster systems, sending the now inert hunk of metal and plastics hurtling earthward, to clang and tumble as it rolled down the gently sloping hull of the Great Endeavor, crushing several weapon emplacements in the process.

Keeping the staggered Zealot off balance with constant fire from his shoulder mounted dual 80mm beam cannons, along with snap shots from the accelerated impulse cannon on his sword tip, Lain blocked several exchanges of fire from the Martyr with his Citadel Shield, gradually working himself closer against the tide of beams and cannon shells and missiles, until, in a lightning quick maneuver, Lain's shield hand dipped to his Archon's waist and came up with a mag-clamp Mobile Suit grenade, which he lofted at the Martyr during a brief pause in its onslaught, as it tried to maneuver to where his shield didn't cover. The grenade exploded right in the Martyrs face, several meters short of actual impact, and the blast buffeted the large machine, though only a little bit. It was enough though, to cause the Martyr controller to lift his arms protectively in front of his face and flinch away, a purely human reaction that ended with the Martyr impaled on Lain's sword.

Now one on one, the remaining Zealot tried to flee when Lain's Archon turned towards it, letting the corpse of the Martyr fall from his blade, but before the Zealot could get more than a hundred meters or so, a precise blast from Stella's Cerberus took the fleeing enemy in the back and blew most of its torso and arms into stray molecules. Lain's Archon turned back towards the three Panzerwulfs and made a saluting motion with his sword, acting completely unconcerned with the volume of defensive weapon fire still streaking through the air around them. "Stupid show off..." Stella heard Auel mutter darkly, and was both surprised and not surprised at all to hear a definite tone of jealousy in Auel's words. "I could have done the same thing, and faster, but we have a mission to accomplish!" Auel proclaimed heatedly, through the remark drew only silence from the other two Extendeds, which he chose to take as agreement.

"Are you always so reckless?" Stella commed to Lain. "Didn't you warn me about being reckless?" She added a moment later, trying to figure out whether it was relief, concern or annoyance that was making her trip over her words a bit.

"That wasn't reckless. Five on one with those pansies is just mildly challenging." Lain said with a wide, winning smirk. "Trust me, Stella, you'll know when I do something reckless, because a lot of people's lives will just have been saved. There's a trick to fighting these Brotherhood guys... you have to treat em like they're in a bar fight, not a Mobile Suit battle... they react just like humans would, not like Mobile Suits. Mobile Suits, like you and the others proved during the missile attack, don't flinch. It can be real telling at times." Lain was going to say more, when Stella's Panzerwulf pointed the huge gun it carried at him and sent a eye searingly bright purple-white bolt of lightning streaking right by him, so close his sensors fritzed out from the electromagnetic interference, and Lain could feel static electricity momentarily build up on his flight suit. The explosion from behind him buffeted him and sent him spinning through the sky for an embarassing moment or two before he regained control. Whatever Stella had hit, she'd hit it with the Mjolnir 3P cannon, and there wasn't much more than molten drops of half vaproized metal left.

"You're right. They do flinch. Huh." Stella said in a bored tone.

"Do you want to cut the next one a little closer perhaps?" Lain asked weakly. "You know, saying "Lain, there's an enemy behind you" sometimes works just as well as blasting them to smithereens without warning! That was kinda reckle..."

"You'll know when I do something reckless, Lain." Stella said softly. "Because a lot of people's lives will just have ended."

Lain was still fumbling for an answer to that when the situation changed, from a joking, albeit slightly amusing matter, to one of utmost deadly seriousness. not much had changed about the battlefield. Just about the only major thing of note was one more enemy on the field. The problem being which enemy that was. And when the enemy in question was the quad winged, golden skinned masterpiece Gundam known as the the Brotherhood, then that was a very big problem indeed, for those who opposed it. The Brotherhood announced its presence with a raking shot from its left arm rifle, the one that was a 50mm FRALA, the blue-white beam scorched through the sky and bisected a pair of Archons that had been flying more or less side by side while pouring heavy gunfire down at the Great Endeavor. The upper torsos and arms of each Mobile Suit toppled forward off the lower torso, a orange-white line in their armor delineating where the laser beam had swept through them like a very, very hot knife through butter. A half breath later, the Brotherhood cut loose with the weapon in its right hand, the 5mm AMP rifle, and completely obliterated a trio of Panzerwulf's in a enormous detonation of brain searing white light.

The radiation sensors in Lain's Archon, the ones that were there to monitor the output of the Archon's power reactor and detect any leaks of coolant fluid or outright fissile material, suddenly started going nuts, as his Archon was heavily buffeted by the blastwave of the near distance antimatter explosion. Carried along with that wave, in fact just ahead of it, was a potent torrent of radiation, invisible but just as deadly as the concussion wave, if not more so, just not as quickly. Lain grimaced as he righted the Archon, his instruments slowly calming down as the majority of the radiation died away, its half lives reeling away to nothingness in less than a second. Bad enough that the AMP rifle could destroy more than four hundred tons of Mobile Suits with a single trigger pull, but even the aftereffects and secondary effects of the weapon were deadly and nearly unblockable... even through all his armor, Lain had just recieved a dose of radiation that would require medical treatmeant after the battle if he wanted to avoid long term ill effects!

In the aftermath of the AMP rifle shot, the battlefield, or at least the local area around the Brotherhood, went momentarily quiet as all attention, both ally and enemy, focused upon the Gundam, a calm like the eye of a storm descending upon them. And then, as quickly as it had come, the silence was banished, as all hell broke loose as the battle escalated to a whole new level now that the entirety of the Great Endeavor's Mobile Forces had at last deigned to engage, in an effort to crush the heart of the resistance in one quick, terrible blow. In the cockpit of Stella's Panzerwulf, a new comm screen blinked into being, just for a second or two. Just long enough for Doctor Roanoke to convey a simple message, more of a code phrase than anything else. "Stella, he's come to kill us all. He's come to make us all dead. You won't let him make us dead will you?" Roanoke said in a silky soft voice, and then the comm terminated. He didn't need to watch what effect his words had upon Stella. He knew very well what was to come next. He'd conditioned her that way after all. It was time for the Brotherhood to meet the Tranquil Berserker of F.E.A.R!

* * *

Shinn's heart leapt into his throat at the sight of the Brotherhood, and he found himself half expecting to immediately revert to his brainwashed fanatic state, and he steeled himself for the effort of willpower and anger that would need to go into wresting control of himself back, with or without Luna's comforting presence and help. But nothing of the sort happened, he remained Shinn of the Solar Knights, and didn't feel even the slightest external tug on his thoughts or emotions. Other than the nearly all consuming hatred and rage of course, but those had been building for a while, ever since he first managed to reawaken as himself actually. He'd tried to take it out on Noah and the Brotherhood then, but Noah had run away, and Shinn had been left desolate and pent up, and that had been one reason he'd been so withdrawn and discommunicative all this time... he was so afraid he was going to burst out in an undirected murderous rage that he had basically turned in on himself to the exclusion of basically anyone and everything but Luna and maybe Rey.

Of course Shinn was intellectually aware, dimly, through memories of his time as a Apostle, that Noah didn't actually pilot the Brotherhood, not like the other Gundams of his creation, no, instead the Brotherwood was controlled by a more advanced version of the systems that controlled the Martyrs and Zealots, allowing Noah to remain perfectly safe, or as close as could be, inside the Great Endeavor while still controlling his masterpiece Gundam like he was wearing it as a second skin. Shinn desperately wanted to remember where the bridge of the Great Endeavor was located, the location was at the tip of his mind, but fuzy and indistinct for some reason... not all of his memories of being an Apostle were clear. Indeed, the greater majority were fuzzy and impersonal, probably because of the numbing effect of the conditioning clamping down on his inquistiveness and independent thoughts. Either that or Noah had inflicted some sort of hopefully temporary amnesia on him with the trauma of the mental hold, but Shinn hoped that wasn't the case... his memories were precious to him, even the painful ones.

Perhaps especially the painful ones, the memories of his mom and dad and Mayu, and the tragedy of their faith in Orb, and of his experiences in the First Valentine War, and then the more personal tragedy of his time in the Solar Knights, the never quite getting things right with Luna until it was too late, and the coming back from the dead to find the tangled situation with her and Rey, certainly no fairy tale happily ever after! All of these things made him angry, and as always, his anger was the key to unlocking more and more of his innate instinctual talents. At least as long as he could remain even marginally in control of himself that is, and if there was anything Shinn desired to do more than anything else after his experience with Noah, it was remaining in control of himself! Fortunately he had a talisman that could bring him back from the brink of mindless fury, or even beyond, and her name was Lunamaria, and she had his back, figuratively if not fully literally. Warm feelings of fondness and trust and an aching mixture between delirious need and soothing satisfaction welled up inside him as he fixed her image in a corner of his mind, and began surrendering the rest of him to the rage instinct.

Of course, before he brought any of his righteous fury down upon the Brotherhood, and Noah by extension, Shinn knew he was first going to have to get by the Retribution and Markov Ashino, who had been as distracted by the Brotherhood's dramatic entrance as anyone... it was hard not to have the eye drawn, however briefly, to a blindingly bright white flare of anti-matter obliterating three heavy Mobile Suits and leaving not even dust behind! The AMP rifle was so ridiculously powerful, even Noah's allies were wary of it, just in case of possible friendly fire... Noah wasn't exactly known for his regard for his own property, including his other Gundams, since he could always rebuild them in a few days if they got destroyed. Just about the only ones he seemed to even slightly value as more than tools were the Vengeance and the Brotherhood. However, Shinn wasn't relying on Noah's sentimentality to protect him when they fought... if Noah was anything, pragmatic was it, especially with Meyrin around to chide him out of his arrogance!

Shinn still didn't know much about Ashino as a person, he'd never made any effort to get to know him while they were Apostles together, indeed, if anything he had mistrusted and disliked Ashino a lot while they were allies, because of Ashino's lack of commitment to the Brotherhood cause and disloyalty and disrespect to Noah himself. Quite how Ashino managed to retain his own free will so blatantly despite having been captured at the same time Shinn was, if in better health, Shinn could not figure out. Was Ashino's willpower really so much stronger than his? It didn't seem possible, not against a monster like Noah, who could control entire groups of people like puppets on strings, even make them commit suicide! There must be some sort of trick to it, or some quality inherent to Ashino that made him immune to Noah's psychic slavery. But whatever the case was, what Shinn did know was that Ashino was probably one of the most dangerous opponents he'd ever gone up against, hands down. He was good enough that Shinn could admit, deep down, privately, that he was perhaps a little scared of the man, given how their last encounters had turned out.

Or for that matter, their most recent tussle hadn't exactly gone Shinn's way either, with him disarmed and at Ashino's mercy until Luna intervened and saved him, and almost got killed herself in the process. Part of that was still Shinn's sluggishness of mind and reflex from recovering from Noah's enslavement, or so Shinn hoped, because if not then he had the very unpleasant feeling that he might actually be outclassed by Ashino. Still, he was proceeding on the assumption that it was his own temporary deficiencies that were weighing him down, not Ashino's superiorities, and harnessing his anger was step one in eliminating those deficiencies. Shinn retracted his heat whips back into the forearm sheathes, and snapped the glittering QC finger claws back onto the tips of his fingers. The glasslike crystals could carve through just about anything physical with just a casual sweep, the only problem would be getting past the energized Citadel Scales. Even then, enough force behind the blow would suffice to tear through the resilient energy fields like a pen through thick rubber.

Shinn faked a lunge towards Ashino with clawed fingers extended, causing the Retribution to drop back on its heels, leg and torso and dorsal fin-wing mounted thrusters thrumming with constrained power as Ashino gathered himself to either dodge or meet the charge depending on how Shinn came at him. However, Shinn didn't come after the Retribution at all, using his own thrusters to spin himself around and skim along the hull towards where his zweihander was embedded a hundred meters or so away. Briefly off balance, expecting Shinn to close the distance versus expanding it, the Retribution stayed crouched down until Shinn had almost reached the sword, and by then Luna had also figured out what Shinn was up to, and she forced the Retribution to dodge backward several times with hosing streams from the LAW. Shinn snatched free the zweihander, tearing a wide gash in the hull as the blade cleaved its way almost effortlessly free of the armor plating, and whirled once more upon the Retribution, now fully rearmed.

It was now Luna's turn to desperately dodge, as the Retribution turned the blue-white sun heat of its twinned 150mm FRALA rifles upon her, again and again and again, until the barrels of the rifles were glowing almost as hot as the lasers they were emitting. From his position at range Shinn had been able to see a pattern to the shots, each one edging closer and closer to Luna, hemming her in a bit more each time, until she was at the very point of overbalancing, trapped for just a second in a position that did not allow her to maneuever or dodge effectively, and it was of course then that the Retribution fired again, zeroing in on her like a simple target on a range. Of course, Shinn wasn't about to let anyone just take out his sweetheart, not while he was even marginally alive, and the shimmering crystal length of his zweihander interposed itself into the path of the laser beams, soaking them up like a sponge would pinstreams of water. Any regular material would have been melted through, but the melting temperature of quantum crystal was almost incalculably high, it would take a lot more than a simple laser to melt through his sword.

Undaunted at the failure of his attack and the switch of opponents, Ashino immediately retreated, buying time to swap out the FRALA's for the Edged Munition Catapults he had used so effectively against the Dawn Goddess and Phoenix King up in space. Starting to get a feel for Ashino's attack patterns, or so he hoped, Shinn did his best to close the distance as quickly as possible, not wanting to give the Retribution time to showcase its ranged arsenal. The Retribution and Ashino were dangerous no matter what distance you fought them at, but they were least dangerous at melee range or very long range, and most dangerous when just out of reach of your sword, when they had room to maneuver while chipping away at your defenses until the moment you became disoriented or vulnerable, just like Ashino had almost just done to Luna! Shinn held his sword up in front of him at an angle, and felt the blade shudder several times as invisible, razor sharp explosive discs from the EMC's slammed into the sword blade and detonated. As soon as he felt the first impacts, Shinn juked as hard as he could, practically turning ninety degrees with no reduction in momentum, a pure NIC and GRS system move.

Ashino's aim was thrown off by the sudden maneuver, but plainly this was not the first time Ashino had fought someone in a machine with the capabilites of the Vengeance, and he corrected almost instantly, juking the Retribution himself almost presciently to avoid a long burst of tracers from Luna and the LAW. The duel quickly became a game of maneuver and countermaneuver, as both pilots twisted their surrogate bodies across the sky in a blurring exchange of aero and acrobatics that would have left most pilots unconscious or coughing up blood and organ paste! Shinn could never manage to get closer than absolute sword point's length from the Retribution, and Ashino never managed to get enough space to properly anticipate and blow apart the Vengeance, while Luna did her best to track the two Gundams, flitting about like epileptic mosquito's on Waft, letting off cautious bursts from the LAW that mostly went far and wide, until she eventually just stopped trying, since her head was starting to hurt from all the frantic looking back and forth she was doing, and she was only wasting ammo anyway!

* * *

The Vengeance and Retribution probably could have kept the game up until one of them weakened from pure physical or mental exhaustion, but they weren't the only people playing the game. Above and beside them, the other members of the third tiers special taskgroup, at least those not engaged with the Haunted and Traitor, were doing their absolute damndest to get close to the Brotherhood, close enough that it couldn't easily use the FRALA or the AMP rifles, without dying to any of the other weapon systems. It was harder than it sounded, and casualties were building with shocking speed, as the 20mm QC spike driver, 550mm mortar and wing mounted Thermal Exciters reaped a bloody toll amongst anyone who tried to approach the blurry, golden, purple eyed Gundam. A certain group of three Panzerwulfs and one Archon had been holding back the entire fight, and just as the Brotherhood had appeared, one of the Panzerwulf pilots seemed to have suffered some form of seizure or panic attack.

However, as time wore on, and the Brotherhood continued to indiscriminately and arrogantly wreak havoc on anything and everything it desired to, the panic attack seemed to subside, transitioning between instants from numbing, disabling fear to an explosion of volcanic temper that was stunning in its rawness. The Panzerwulf hurled itself at the Brotherhood, heedless of anything and everything else but the golden hued destroyer, firing indiscriminate blasts with the twinned 350mm hyper-impulse cannons of its Cerberus rifle, impacting several times upon the reflective skin of the Brotherhood, to exactly zero effect, though the Panzerwulf pilot didn't seem to care that her attacks were having no effect. For the Brotherhood's part, it seemed somewhat hesitant or perplexed, as if Noah was surprised at something about this Panzerwulf, above and beyond its insane, reckless, ineffectual charge.

And that was actually the case as it turned out, because Noah had focused his attention on the spazzing out Panzerwulf piloted by Stella and found, much to his surprise and a little bit of dismay, that he could sense no mind within the cockpit of the advancing Mobile Suit! That there was a pilot inside was undeniable, judging from the erratic and impulsive nature of the attack, not to mention the innaccuracy of the shots and the repition of an ineffective strategy... all hallmarks of a pilot that has let emotion, whether it be fear or anger or whatever, overwhelm their better judgement. But such a person should be a seething emotional flare on the mental landscape, easy to pick out from the swirling clutter of individual minds that raced like a hurricane of countless equations through his personal mental landscape. But there was no such flare, no attention grabbing complex equation or string of variables onto which he could focus his attention, to glean why the pilot was reacting so, and if need be, nudge them into a more convenient course of action! It was not the first time Noah had encountered the phenomenon, but he had hoped it was unique, a genetic fluke... and now that did not appear to be the case!

Indeed, the quality, whatever it was, actually seemed to be frighteningly common, to one degree or another, amongst all of the pilots of the Panzerwulf machines! Not all of the pilots were invisible to Noah's mental senses, but they were all disguised or hazed or blurry in some degree or another, and it took real work to get a sense of what any one of them was feeling or thinking, much less a group of them, or attempting anything more complex than mere listening! While pondering this disturbing turn of events, Noah had turned most of the controls of the Brotherhood over to the LAICEP's, mostly Kira and Jeremiah, as he wanted to stay out of melee combat as much as possible for the moment, having the feeling he'd be getting more than he wished for when Cousin Kira finally decided to show his face again, and so the Brotherhood actually began retreating in the face of the Panzerwulf's charge.

Heartened by this small reversal of the way things had been going, or perhaps just not wanting their comrade to charge alone, the other two Panzerwulf's and the Archon that had been part of the Berserker's original formation sped after their friend and the Brotherhood, also launching plenty of visually striking but ultimately ineffectual attacks with their hyper and accelerated impulse weaponry, all of which deflected off the Brotherhood's LCR armor like snowballs hurled against a plate glass window. They covered themselves well with their Citadel Shields as they advanced, eliciting showers of golden sparks from the aqua-teal shimmering surfaces of their energy shields as hails of forearm length, 20mm thick QC slivers ricocheted from their defenses. With the Berserker Panzerwulf already within the minimum safe engagement range for the FRALA and AMP rifles, prompting the LAICEPs to stow them and ready the Positron shields for defensive use, and its friends close on its heels, Noah was forced to reach into another bag of tricks to buy some room.

Fortunately, while the pilots of the Panzerwulf's were either invisible or at least indistinct to his psychic talents, the pilot of the Archon with them was only too vulnerable, as a regular Stump, and with a twitch of his brow and a brief frown of concentration, Noah had kicked down what mental defenses the man, a Solar Knight named Lain Debora, had managed to muster in the instant he realized he was under assault from a strange quarter, and was rooting around inside his thoughts with callous efficiency. The man was vaguely familiar to him, another one of that supreme bitch, Lunamaria, friends, though apparently somewhat of an estranged one currently! Apparently he'd managed to do something which pissed her off, and she was being a whiney, judgemental bitch about it, not that that was very strange, from Noah's experiences with her! Moment of identifying with the man's relationship woes passing, Noah ruthlessly seized control of his muscles and swung the Archon's sword-cannon around to point at the back of one of the two calm Panzerwulf's. Lain was doing his damndest to fight him, but there was little a non-Newtype could hope to accomplish on his own, not with Noah's near full attention upon him and such a simple task as muscle control!

Lain managed to surprise him though, giving up on resisting the movements of his arms and legs and fingers, and throwing all his efforts into giving a strangulated gasp of warning to his allies before Noah forced his jaw to clamp together like he had lockjaw, so hard he bit the tip of his tongue off and cracked several teeth when they clacked together. Still, it had been enough to give the Panzerwulf a instant to evade, and Noah's shot blasted the Panzerwulf's left leg off at mid thigh, rather than taking the machine squarely in the back. Sniffing with disgruntlement, but smirking as he saw the two Panzerwulf's round on the Archon with guns raised menacingly, Noah clamped down and paralyzed Lain's voluntary muscle control and then left with a vicious twist that would keep the lockdown active for a few minutes. Maybe not enough to kill him outright, but his allies looked like they were going to handle that part, and besides, even a few seconds of being unable to move or react could be deadly on this battlefield!

Noah had been hoping the Berserk Panzerwulf would at least hesitate when one of its squadronmates attacked and damaged one of the other squadronmates, but instead of cease and desisting, the Panzerwulf pilot, who Noah now knew was named Stella, from his ransacking of Lain's memories, instead seemed even more bound and determined to shove her fist right through the Brotherhood's face or chest and rip out its beating heart. Frankly, the raw hostility of her movements were somewhat chilling, bringing up half forgotten, mostly repressed memories of a certain other person who was subject to frothing fits of berserker rage like this in certain situations. Despite the fact that he could not see or feel her mind, Noah was forced to admit that this Stella girl did, in some ways, remind him of Zacharis Frost! At least in the way she attacked so heedlessly of rational strategy or tactics, or even regard for life and limb! Maybe it was because he'd caused the death, or basically so anyway, of her boyfriend Lain? But it was strange... all of Lain's memories of Stella had her as a sweet, even tempered, almost sedate girl, nothing like this raving lunatic trying to rip him apart with her bare hands.

Displeased by the comparison to Frost, Noah decided it was time to stop retreating. If Stella wanted to act like a raving lunatic, well then he would oblige her death wish, by allowing her to see what a true maniac was like! Or at least as close to true as he was comfortable recreating in any proximity to him... the Frost LAICEPs was hardly the full essence of Frost, or anything even close... it had no independent personality or thoughts, it was just a highly advanced predictive computer program that had a huge catalogue of his combat information and the ability to mix and match moves and tactics to fit the situation, faster than most humans could even blink! God willing, the LAICEPs would be as close as the world ever need come to seeing Frost again, and he would be able to pull the plug on his little doomsday program once everything was all said and done. With both rifles already stowed, it was the work of moments for the secondary arms on each side to split from the primaries, LCR armor stretching like cold taffy before snapping and reforming around the now thinner arms, as each deployed their QC forearm blade in preparation for close combat.

At the same time, four hot pink beam blades sprang from the tips of the Brotherhood's four wings, and the wings themselves canted forward like extra angular, blade tipped limbs, their outlines, like the outlines of the Gundam as a whole, still blurred by the overlapping holoshroud images. Undaunted by the transformation of the Brotherhood, Stella and her Panzerwulf pressed forward, still firing wildly with her Cerberus weapon, and it wasn't until almost too late that Noah realized the danger and slammed up his palm mounted Positron reflector shields, all four of them, just in time to absorb a near point blank shot from the Mjolnir 3P cannon slung beneath the 350mm hyper-impulse cannons on the Cerberus rifle. Nothing more or less than a supercharged bolt of man made lightning, the purple-white surge of crackling energy slammed into Noah's shields with a sensation like pressing his hands against a very warm surface, as feedback surged into his NIC system from the effort it took to hold back the attack. Consisting of electrically charged particles moving at near light speed, the Mjolnir blast was both an energy and a kinetic weapon, and it was one of the few weapon systems that could actually tax a Positron reflector, or even penetrate one under certain circumstances!

However, those circumstances did not include when four different Positron shields were overlapped, all drawing power from a Fusion Pulse Reactor of staggering output, and while the warm sensation in his hands was not comfortable, neither was it painful. What was more painful was when the entire charging bulk of Stella's Panzerwulf slammed into his shields, shoulder first, causing the Brotherhood's arms to jarr violently backwards as they absorbed the feedback from the blow, since the Panzerwulf was too big and slow to break through the outer magnetic wrapper of the Positron shield and thus be annihilated. The force of impact was great enough that the Brotherhood, despite outweighing the Panzerwulf by a good twenty tons, was still knocked backwards in a slight wobble. Either unaffected by the impact, or more likely just uncaring of her own hurts in her enraged state of mind, Stella continued to push forward, swapping her gun for her sword, with which she flailed at him wildly, leaving wide holes in her defenses.

The Frost LAICEPs was not about to let such gaps go unexploited, and the Brotherhood switched from defense to offense in a heartbeat, four QC and four beam blades converging on Stella from different angles, most of them beyond her ability to block, even if she had thought to try, which she plainly didn't even seem to consider an option, her sword making another slash at him even as his attacks descended upon her, one of the wing-blades diverting its course to parry and deflect her arm wide, while one of the QC blades neatly snipped her right arm from the shoulder in a whisper of white and orange sparks. Noah was already moving on to the next target, mentally speaking, when that target slammed into the Brotherhood's side moving well over the speed of sound, tossing the golden Gundam reeling across the sky, bladed arms and wings scrabbling like the legs of a half smashed spider as the LAICEPs clawed at the sky trying to regain control. Noah frowned deeply as several alarm indications lit up on the insides of his eyelids, showing interior structural and electronic damage, minor to be sure, but damage was damage! His LCR armor was warped around the point of impact, but already sluggishly reforming to its pristine state.

Noah sent the Brotherhood back towards where Stella was recovering and still apparently full of the desire to attack him, judging from the way she was trying to head after him, even though the Brotherhood had been body slammed almost a half kilometer by the impact of the Vengeance, which had come screaming in unannounced from the side, abandoning its duel with the Retribution in a gamble to take out or damage the Brotherhood while Noah was distracted. It was a sentiment Noah could understand, if not appreciate... with the Brotherhood down or damaged, many Brotherhood forces would lose heart, and much of the sting of his Mobile Forces would be drawn. But he had suffered this particular mayfly for long enough, and the knowledge that by taking Shinn out of the picture would not only earn him back his precious Venegance, but actually enact some vengeance upon the hated Lunamaria in the process, well, that was enough to turn Noah's frown upside down all right! The Brotherhood skirted well wide of the recovering Vengeance, its own LCR armor flowing around the wound it had suffered during its bullish charge.

as for Noah, he closed his eyes and let out a relaxing, centering sigh, watching the pure white, gold veined Seed fall through the infinite vastness of his mind, falling, falling and finally striking against some invisible but infinitely hard surface, shattering the Seed in a release of energy so profound, so visceral, that the very fundamental nature of the universe seemed to become mutable for a moment, if he should but will it! Noah fought the tendency for his mental perceptions to expand, fought the urge to try his hand against Stella and her disturbing friends on the mental plane once more, fought the urge to peer into the thoughts of all of the hundreds of enemies he could sense flitting about his fortress like moths to a fire... and instead he focused his power on just one mind, on just a few tasks! Namely, on Shinn's mind... and on the tasks of crushing his mind once and for all, ripping it apart at both the conscious and subconscious levels, like he was sinking the Vengeance's own clawed hands directly into Shinn's memories and personality and ripping and tearing and obliterating everything he could reach!

Noah could have locked Shinn's jaws together to stifle the screams he was emitting from the unparalleled agony of having his entire lifetime of memories and emotions torn into ragged, bloody shreds by Noah's merciless mental grasp, but that would eliminate part of the whole point of the exercise! This wasn't just about destroying Shinn, not even half of it was about that! He wanted Luna to hear her precious boyfriend call out in indescribable pain and loss, and know that she was completely helpless to do anything about it! It was time she learned that she'd chosen to stand on the wrong side of the fence, despite all the opportunities Meyrin had cajoled him into giving her! Noah gritted his teeth in furious concentration as he bore down with almost all of his might, reaching deeper and deeper and deeper still into the corners of Shinn's psyche, determined to leave him nothing more than a drooling vegetable, assuming cardiac arrest or nervous system failure from traumatic overload didn't claim him first!

On the bridge of the Great Endeavor, Noah's right hand twisted itself into a claw of spread fingers, which slowly closed as he sunk his mental grip into Shinn and squeezed... and twisted... and bent... and tore his anger into the mental landscape of the pitiful fool. And outside, aboard the Vengeance, Shinn's screams echoed like those of a soul being dragged down to hell, and his world seemed to collapse until nothing existed but him and the pain, the Vengeance reeling and shuddering in midair like a man afflicted with a grand mal seizure!

* * *

Author Note: Whew! This took longer for me to write than I expected. Still not quite the level of action I know you are all hoping for, but theres lots more yet to come, six more chapters worth of New Eden, so there will be plenty of time for everything you're expecting (hopefully), and plenty of stuff you aren't. I wanted to put this out on the 21st, since that would put it at exactly one year since I first started writing and posting The Eden Disaster, and would have pushed the total to more than 900k words for that year! That has to be some sort of record, right? Oh well, only a few days off, close enough. A couple people have said they were kinda surprised that things are coming to the close "so soon", but remember people, while it may not seem like it, its been a long road to this point in time, and we're still looking at another 150-200k words for the climax to be all said and done, and of course there's the Reclaimation War beyond that. Plenty more story to come, and thank you all for the support and reviews to date and in the future. You guys help make it all worth it!

And on the next Episode of Gundam Seed: The Eden Disaster: Looks like things are turning grim for the USN, Stella is damaged, Lain is paralyzed and Shinn is having his brain turned to mush... not a good day! Still, there's still Haman and Heine to consider, and maybe eventually the Orb gundams will make their long awaited entrance? And what about Kira? The field may be getting a lot more even... or uneven... coming up. Stay tuned.


	67. New Eden part 3

"Shinn! Shinn, oh my god, Shinn, what's wrong!? What's wrong, what's he doing to you!? Shinn, stay with me!" Luna's frightened cries cut like a knife through the front of Rey's brain, and for a moment he felt like he was going to vomit from the mixture of anger and fear he could practically taste in her tone. If Shinn heard Luna's disquiet, he made no overt indication of it, or at least no reaction strong enough to break through the painful midair gyrating the Vengeance was currently engaged in, staggering about like a drunkard with a head full of razor sharp glass shards, loosing incoherent, animal sobs and snarls of traumatic agony across the comm lines in never ending growls! The Vengeance had been on an attack vector for the returning Brotherhood, which it had blindsided only scant moments before, and sent hurtling across the sky like a struck ball, but now Shinn and the Vengeance were headed for the churning ocean below in a ballistic arc as the Vengeance's thrusters fluttered and misfired, deranged by the excrutiation of the pilot.

With its most recent foe now screaming helplessly as he fell towards the ocean below, the Brotherhood turned its attention on the other nearby USN and coalition forces and leapt after them like a hungry spider, all four arms and four wings sprouting blades from their tips that flickered and sliced frantically at the air with a twitchy need for close quarters combat. In a matter of seconds, as Luna's Archon dived for the tumbling, writhing Vengeance, Shinn's plummeting form was joined by over a half dozen wrecked and mutilated Archons and Templars, as the Brotherhood appeared in the midst of squadron after squadron, blades both physical and energy licking out in all directions, often skewering or slicing two or three targets at once before the golden Gundam flickered and reappeared elsewhere, like a razor edged mirage! Already jittery and spooked by the animalistic howls of pain coming from Shinn, and the sudden and inexplicable disabling of the Vengeance with no outside injury, the pilots of the third tier wavered on the edge of panic and rout, threatening to lose all sense of cohesion in the face of this terrible enemy! Even Rey found his heart hammering in his throat as the desire to put as much distance between himself and the Brotherhood, not to mention Noah himself, rose like an unforgiving tide in his soul and threated to quench all vestiges of courage he possessed. What could regular people hope to do against someone with powers like that anyway!?

And then the Templar Commander was pushing forward, one of the FNE's most elite non-augmented pilots, though for the life of him Rey couldn't recall the man's name at that particular moment, and the USN forces rallied and began rolling forward once more as well, heartened by the noble sight of the blue and white and red Freedom class Gundam moving forward into the maelstrom, blasting furiously with the beam rifle in one hand, sword out and blazing with hope in the other. Fire patterns started to consolidate once more, and squadrons began redressing their formations to realign Citadel Shields and other defensive armaments, and Rey actually felt the beginnings of a confident smirk starting to spread across his face, the dark fears of a moment before all but banished as the fickle tide of battle seemed to switch back into their favor once more! So what if Noah was a monster, and so what if the Brotherhood was ungodly powerful, as long as they had courage and determination, they could find a wa... Rey was still completing that thought when the Templar Commander came apart like a plastic model dropped into a wood chipper, shards and pieces flying far and wide as the Brotherhood, flying through green plasma beams like they weren't even there, stabbed all eight blades into the Templar and ripped in opposite directions. Rey watched the smoking, half shattered head of the Templar spin lazily through the air, and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach once more, but even worse this time!

The Brotherhood loomed in the near distance, flourishing its blades menacingly at the nearby USN forces, and Rey could not help but feel that whatever portion of his mind that Noah was devoting to piloting his Gundam while he was also doing whatever it was to Shinn, either trying to corrupt him once more or just plain kill him, was taking a definitely sick enjoyment in the constrenation he was causing to the USN forces, taunting them, playing with them like a particularly vicious cat with a mouse. The Solar Knights had been founded to deal with situations involving rogue Gundams, but never had Rey thought they'd be going up against something like the Brotherhood, nor would have he ever imagined Noah was such a capable pilot, since his former friend had always struck him as much more a thinker or a maker than a fighter. But his talent with the Gundam's eight blades could not be understated, Rey had never seen anyone move like that, not even in his worst nightmares! Even Kira Yamato or Athrun Zala, considered by most pilots to be the premier Mobile Suit pilots alive, weren't as accomplished with melee combat as Noah and the Brotherhood!

As if aware that Rey was thinking about him, the Brotherhood's royal purple gaze fell upon Rey's Archon, and the Brotherhood once more shifted its bladed arms and wings hungrily, the edges of its arms and wings blurring and wavering as the dozens of holoprojected images overlapped and overlaid themselves in a constant high frequency pattern, occasionally splitting outward so that instead of eight limbs the Brotherhood seemed to have eighty, just for a tear inducing moment, and then it was back to the normal already excessive amount. Rey realized that he was seconds away from death, and that there was simply nothing he could do about it, that all his years of training, all his hours of simulator practice against the data of the toughest foes he could acquire, all of it was nothing more than wasted time, because Noah and the Brotherhood simply outclassed him in every relevant way. He could neither run nor fight, and his thoughts turned, forlornly, to Gil and the other people in his life he was never going to see again. There were depressingly few of them actually. Rey's knuckles turned white upon his controls as the Brotherhood's heat image began spiking, as it prepared to thrust itself upon him faster than he could probably even blink, but before the fatal moment could arrive, unexpected, beautiful salvation arrived, in the form of a sun hot, blue-white beam of light that scorched across the empty sky between Rey and the Brotherhood, carving a bright purple-blue afterimage across Rey's eyes from the nearness of the shot.

The Brotherhood stopped short, its arms and wings already drawn back for the multitude of piercing jabs that would have impaled Rey's Archon and torn it apart in a similar manner to the Templar Commander before him, and instead dodged downwards and to one side, dipping gracefully underneath the FRALA beam as it sliced towards the Brotherhood's original position, cutting across a wide arc of sky before petering out, having missed its intended target but still managing to carve a hot red-orange line across the surface of the Great Endeavor, bisecting several CIWS turrets and maiming an unwary Zealot in the middle distance by slicing off both legs from the knees down, the sudden shift in mass causing the Zealot to flip backwards in midair, and fall into the outbound path of a gatling gottfried blast, with predictably pyrotechnic results. All eyes however, were riveted on the approaching source of the FRALA beam, resplendent in blue and white and silver, incogorous blue cloak flaring out wide behind it as it sped through the sky, and the two red and orange and gold machines accompanying it, one riding upon the bird like form of the other. The Vorpal, the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess had arrived at last, and not far behind them flew the bat winged, dragon-esque Mobile Armor forms of Orb M-7 Dawndrakes, and the more classic fighter jet shapes of M-4 Guardians in flight mode.

In the midst of the formations of M-7's and M-4's was an unexpected fourth Gundam, what had to be the captured Tormented, though its outer holoshroud had obviously been programmed to display something other than the gothic horror of its banshee skin, as the Gundam was clad in shining armor that wouldn't have looked out of place on a medieval knight, with a white cloak mock snapping in wind that didn't touch it, and a visored helm over a generic square chinned male face with fair golden hair and piercing blue eyes. The Tormented still carred its regular weapons, trident in left hand, rocket launcher in right, with the addition of a heavy beam sword across its back, and several beam sabers at its waist, and it flew through the air with a sort of truculent, determined confidence that was unexpectedly familiar to Rey for reasons he could not quite fathom. Obviously it wasn't Mary O'Brien at the controls, she'd never had such a... swagger, for lack of a better term... when piloting her Gundam, but whoever it was seemed quite at home behind the controls of a NIC operated Gundam, and Rey once more found himself frowning in concentration at why the way the Gundam moved seemed so damned familiar to him.

Rey was still trying to place the pilot of the Tormented when his Archon was buffeted violently and he had to struggle for control, as the Phoenix King, Dawn Goddess and Vorpal blew by him practically close enough to reach out and touch, not slowing down in the slightest as they hurled themselves squarely at the Brotherhood without the least sign of fear or trepidation. Shinn's cries suddenly cut off, replaced by a raggedy, whispery voice coughing and gasping through a raw throat, and Rey glanced downward to see Luna's Archon supporting the Vengeance a few dozen meters above the ocean surface, her thrusters close to overload as she fought to keep both Mobile Suits aloft while she pleaded with Shinn to respond to her and alternitively promised vengeance against Noah in a voice that mixed tears and snarls. Apparently Noah had decided that the Orb Gundams demanded his full attention, perhaps remembering how close they'd come to destroying the Brotherhood during the battle up in space, and so Shinn had earned a new lease on life, assuming he wasn't permanently damaged by whatever Noah had been doing to him!

Formations of Zealots and Martyrs began gathering in the near distance as the Brotherhood retreated before the advancing Orb Gundams for the moment, consolidating its forces, as the Retribution, Haunted and Traitor assembled among the rank and file Brotherhood forces to back up their leader in the face of this new threat, trusting to the defensive weapons of the Great Endeavor to continue holding the second and third USN tiers at bay. Half forgotten in the chaos, those of the orbital drop forces of the fourth tier that had survived the destructive shockwaves of the exploding bomb ships descended upon the Great Endeavor in widely scattered groups, struggling to get as close as possible to the Great Endeavor, to minimize the time they spent in the firing arcs of the heavy weapons like the gatling gottfrieds or triple linear artillery cannon turrets, which could destroy a Mobile Suit with even a glancing hit if the pilot was unlucky. The pace of battle slowed for a few moments, as both sides coiled backwards, gathering themselves to slam forwards with even greater fury, now that the USN had been reinforced and the Orb Gundams were on the scene, and the Brotherhood Gundams were gathered to meet them. And then the brief calm was shattered, as the Gundam battle began in earnest!

* * *

"Don't give them any time to recover!" Athrun shouted, his determined, icy calm voice a clarion call of energy that sped directly into the hearts and minds of the Orb pilots that could hear him. "A Wing, follow me and the Queen, B Wing, spread out to the right flank, follow the Vorpal. C wing, stay with Commander's La Flaga and Waltfeld. Stay alert and mind the heavy artillery from the Great Endeavor, try and get as close to the enemy as possible so they can't fire at us freely! Don't let yourselves get seperated from your groups, especially against a Gundam!" Even as Athrun shouted last minute directions, streaming arcs of plasma energy from the Phoenix King's BGCS projectors was coalascing in front of the Dawn Goddess, astride his back, and as soon as the plasma sphere reached a sufficient mass, Cagalli fired her Hameya's Arbalest, sending a fat green beam followed by a plasma trailing armor piercing rocket at the heart of the densest Brotherhood formation, around where the Retribution, Traitor and Haunted had gathered. Both beam blast and missile stopped several dozen meters short of the enemy, as the Retribution shoved forward and blocked the preemptive attack with its chest mounted shield generator, but the attack at least served to keep the brotherhood forces on the defensive for a few seconds longer.

"Preaching to the choir, as usual Zala." Yzak muttered grumpily, turning down the volume on his comm system to tune out Athrun's extremely superfulous pep talk. "Who put him in charge anyway?"

_If memory serves, Cagalli and Chief Representative Kurenai did._ Katie replied sardonically in his head, while simultaneously straining out with her mental senses, searching through the clutter of allied minds for the few intellects within her reach that represented the pilots of the Brotherhood Gundams. She frowned in displeasure when she realized that no matter how hard she looked, how fine she tuned her perceptions, she could only detect two enemy minds within range, those within the Traitor and Haunted, Jean Dylan and Aireg Randolf. On one hand it was good that Noah for instance, was as far away as possible, but on the other, her own contributions to the battle were going to be necessarily limited, especially if Yzak didn't end up fighting either of those two, which was looking pretty likely, since he was angling the Vorpal towards the Retribution, while Athrun and Cagalli charged towards the Brotherhood, and Mu and Waltfeld spearheaded the attack upon the Traitor and Haunted. _One might accuse them of favoritism, but all joking aside, who else would you have chosen? Besides yourself._

_Given the ideal situation?_ Yzak replied archly, sideslipping the first few incoming blasts and shots from the Brotherhood Mobile Suits in the near distance, the Vorpal standing tall, flying in the upright position, almost like it was surfing through the air, an image all the more reinforced by the Ghuul like platform of the Minion pods, in flight assist form, that he stood upon. _Kira, actually. Surprising as it may seem, I don't particularly WANT to be in charge of a clusterfuck operation like this one, but this last ditch effort to save the world bullshit is right up his alley._

_The same Kira that physically shoved me out of a room when I humbly offered my help and almost put you in a hospital bed moments later?_ Katie answered, her tone still more than a little offended and pissed off at the recent memory. _Ungrateful fuckhead. It must be a family thing, Cagalli was the exact same fucking way._

_I did say "ideal situation"._ Yzak repeated. _And my ideal situation would obviously not have Lacus on her deathbed, because we could REALLY use her on overwatch right now, given the evidence of what happened to that poor bastard in the Vengeance just recently, Noah is obviously not above using his psychic might to even the odds. Or tip them even more into his favor, whichever the case may be. But you're right, he is an ungrateful fuckhead, and he never ever gets his priorities straight until the last moment or beyond, and his definition of mercy is so cocked up it makes me want to choke and a thousand things besides... but he's also the cocked up, ungrateful fuckhead that has the best chance of actually being able to defeat Noah and the Brotherhood... and he's not here to do it._

_I have confidence in you, Yzak-y. Anything Kira can do, you can do too, I know you can._ Katie said with assurance.

_That makes one of us at least._ Yzak noted with a mixture of relief and sourness. _But that's in the future, right now, we have this so called Retribution to take out. And damn him, if he isn't good! He gave Athrun and Cagalli the run around up at the Moon, and also managed to deal extensive damage to the Revenant at the same time. This one isn't like the other deluded fools._ Even as he thought thus, Yzak fired a burst of shotcannon shells at the hovering Retribution, which had waved its own supporting Zealots and Martyrs aside, on intercept courses with the squadrons of Dawndrakes and Guardians that accompanied Yzak, while a cleared space was slowly forming, an informal arena in midair for the two Gundams to face off in. Again, the Retribution's chest mounted positron shield deflected the attack to no effect, other than keeping the Retribution from firing its own weapons back, which was all Yzak really needed, as he swapped the shotcannon for a Sigfried and started up the chainsaw edges and beam blades upon his shield. "Block this, you son of a bitch!" Yzak challenged, leading with the beam spiked shield face, Sigfried drawn up and back, ready to slice forward the moment any resistance was encountered.

It was only at the very last moment, when Yzak realized that he should have encountered some sort of defensive maneuver or strategem by now, and that the only reason the enemy was just hovering there, waiting to be hit, given the by all accounts superior speed and agility of the Retribution, was because he wasn't trying to dodge the Vorpal at all, that he even wanted the Orb Gundam to get within extreme close range! Katie let out a moan of protest as Yzak changed course more than a trifle more sharply than even his Gundam had been designed for, G forces gathering on their sides and backs like a entire classroom of students doggy piling atop them, their hearts fighting to pump, lungs struggling to inflate against the momentary extra weight as Yzak dodged with all his might, just as the Retribution brought up both palms and cut loose with the CUSA-D's contained therein, blasting out twin, overlapping cones of pure disruptive sonic energy. The last second dodge got most of the Vorpal out of the way, though the left shoulder armor, along with the twinned 75mm linear cannon mounted thereon, was shattered like glass as the vibrational pulses passed over it.

Even as the Vorpal sped past beneath the Retribution's feet, Yzak made an attempt to swipe at his enemy with the Sigfried, but he was moving too fast, at too much of an awkward angle, and the monopole blade cut only air, several meters below the Retribution's left foot. For its part, the Retribution was already spinning to take up the chase, as Yzak tried to maneuever around for another attack run, only to be hounded closely by dozens of crackling blue-red hyper impulse blasts, as the Retribution cut loose with the two gatling 525mm hyper impulse cannons it carried as part of its swap in-swap out arsenal. Bracketed on both sides, with the Photon cloak catching more than just an occasional shot that would have otherwise burned a sparking hole right through his back, Yzak gritted his teeth furiously as he pulled out every trick in the book trying to get out of his enemy's sights. The problem being that the Retribution matched his every turn and juke with ease, staying back a hundred meters or so, out of easy charge range, but close enough that Yzak barely had any time to react to its fire patterns. The enemy pilot's positioning strategem was familiar to Yzak for some reason, but he couldn't spare the time or energy to think about it now!

More and more hyper impulse blasts were being absorbed by the Photon Cloak as every moment passed, the formerly blue garment now glowing a rosy pinkish orange as it endeavored to dump heat back into the surrounding air. Yzak knew the cloak's melting temperature was phenominally high, tens of thousands of degrees, but under a long enough sustained barrage, eventually the cloth would fail, and probably do quite a number on his rear armor in the process, assuming that he wasn't just immediately gutted and blown to shreds the moment the protection faltered. For a brief instant he actually contemplated calling for help, before ruthlessly quashing the thought. Anything but that... the prospect of being rescued in combat, especially by Athrun, was simply too sickening to bear. Of course, it had happened in the past, there was no denying that, and there were plenty of times when they'd backed each other up, in dozens of different battles, but that was different! This was a fight he'd picked himself, and he would NOT have Zala interfering! Besides, everyone else was busy with their own fights! _Hang on, this is going to be rough._ Yzak warned Katie, feeling her limbs reflexivly clamp around him, even as he took desperate action.

Yzak cut his main thrusters even as he tapped his shin mounted maneuevering jets once or twice, bringing the Vorpal's legs up and off the Minion pods, scattering the three multipurpose DRAGOON pods in three different directions even as the Vorpal made a forward flip-somersault, ending up with the Vorpal upside down in the air and facing back towards the pursing Retribution, even as the Gundam, no longer supperted by the Minion flight assist, and no longer propelled by anything but its own momentum, dropped headlong towards the ocean in a plummeting ballistic arc. Yzak opened up with the head mounted 15mm beam CIWS and the 20mm FRALA on the right shoulder, at last making the Retribution do some evasive maneuvering of his own, and momentarily quelling the onrush of hyper impulse blasts. To add to the distraction, the seperated Minion pods each opened up with the dual 57mm beam turret each was equipped with, catching the Retribution in a storm of green energy blasts coming from four directions at once, punctuated by the blue-white searchlight beam of the FRALA slicing through the fray.

Trying to be gentle but not daring to feather things too much, Yzak began pouring on his main thrusters again, slowing and guiding the Vorpal's fall in fractional amounts as the cold blue-grey sea hurtled towards him like a falling sky, G forces once more stacking themselves onto his chest and face, his apparent weight doubling, and then doubling again and again, as his thrusters, never designed to keep the Vorpal airborne alone, fought to constrain his forward and downward velocity, and turn the plummet into something survivable when they hit the water in another few seconds! Katie, encased in acceleration dampening gel, was less affected by the strain of fighting physics and gravity, but even she could feel a sensation like a giant hand pushing on her belly and chest, trying to pull her away from Yzak and send the breathe flooding out of her lungs. In response, she clung to him all the tighter, like a barnacle on a boat hull, until she couldn't even feel her arms and legs for the strain, her eyes closed as she burrowed her head into the back of his shoulders, hanging on for dear life and trying not to tense up her back in anticipation of the massive impact that was coming!

The Vorpal struck the water, leading with its head and the backs of its shoulders, going in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty miles per hour. There was enough armor surface area hitting the water, at the right, or wrong angle, so that the Gundam actually rebounded like a skipping stone even as it whiplashed head over heels from the sudden impact, head and torso jarring upwards even as the legs slammed downwards and smacked into the water a good fifty meters from the initial point of impact, this time digging in and once more whiplashing the Gundam downward, this time face first, into the hard, cold water, throwing out a tower of spray that reached almost a hundred feet into the air, and turning the ocean for a dozen meters in every direction into a froth as the Gundam continued to roll and somersault as it ploughed its way into the depths, apparently completely out of control. It was an image Ashino could almost have believed in, since that had been one HELL of a crash landing, if not for the sudden, coordinated disengagement of the three Minion pods, which followed their parent unit into the water a few seconds after the Vorpal was lost to visual detection. He hovered the Retribution over the impact point, even as the waters began to calm, and waited for Yzak's inevitable counter attack, as the battle continued to rage around them.

* * *

Mu hurled his monomolecular trident at a Martyr that was attempting to draw a bead on Andrew's Dawndrake while his friend was keeping the Traitor and Haunted distracted with an apparently wild frontal assault, freeing up the Tormented's... he still had yet to rename the Gundam he'd been given... left hand and the positron shield contained within in order to guard both himself and Andrew against a volley of linear cannon shells lofted their way from the Great Endeavor's defense systems. The heavy shells, each powerful enough to destroy a medium sized apartment complex in a singe blast,s truck the wall of pinkish energy projected in an oval from his palm emitter and vanished in firecracker bursts of colored light, with no other effect whatsoever. Truly, the Positron reflector shield was a thing of beauty... now if only it wasn't so awkwardly placed... putting them in the palms made it almost impossible to use the hand for offense if he wanted to have any sort of defense as well! The trident struck true, and sliced cleanly and neatly through the Martyr's heavy, but not Phase Shifted armor, skewering the power plant and sending the disabled machine sea-ward in an inert mass.

"Thanks, I'm a little busy here!" Waltfeld commented with a narrowed eye, his biological hand tightly clenched on his controls, his mechanical limb notable in its calmness compared to the rest of him. He tilted his shield, sending two beam tipped sniper cannon shells from the Haunted winging away into the sky in twin flashes of golden sparks, ignoring a trio of green beam blasts from the Traitor that slipped over and under his shield edges, splattering against his Dawndrake's head and legs with no discernable effect, the heat of the energy weapons consumed by the Heat Absorbing Conductive armor and partially added to his battery reserves. He returned some of the energy he'd just been struck with by firing a shot from the 225mm hyper impulse cannon that was the overslung barrel on his combination rifle that was the Dawndrake's primary handheld weapon. As yet he hadn't had much cause to use the udnerslung 150mm linear cannon, because both foes were Phase Shift armored, but its time would come if he survived to add to the battle against the Brotherhood itself!

"I hear you." Mu answered, sending a pair of rockets from the Tormented's heavy bazooka screaming into the back and sides of a Zealot that was dueling with a pair of Guardians. Though the high explosive missiles couldn't directly penetrate the Zealot's armor, they struck with enough force, especially from an unexpected angle, to throw the pilot off balance, making him easy prey for the Guardian's beam rifles. Mu continually swept the pinkish oval of his Positron shield around, intercepting a wide swath of random attacks from the Brotherhood forces and the Great Endeavor, as well as a few from his own side, trying to keep the airspace around him and Andrew as clear as possible so they could focus on the enemy Gundams. Speaking of... Mu stowed the bazooka for the moment and drew the heavy beam sword he'd chosen to equip himself with in addition to the Tormented's standard armaments, and he disengaged the positron shield so he could take the large sword in both hands. It was no QC zweihander, and the Tormented was no Vengeance, but it was a close as he was ever likely to come again.

With a tap on his thrusters, all but subconscious reflex by now, Mu flipped himself forward, easily closing the range to the enemy and slashed heavily at the Haunted, forcing Randolf to fall back or else have most of his head and torso cleanly bisected by the combination of beam edged and physical sword. The Haunted's sniper cannons retracted into its palms as Randolf was forced to defend himself against close range attack, one hand scrabbling for the heavy anti-ship axe it carried on its back, while the other yanked out the quad barreled 155mm shotcannon and let loose all four barrels into Mu's chest from nearly point blank range. The sensation was akin to being kicked in the ribs by a donkey, something which had actually happened to Mu before, when he was much younger and still in school, the difference being that this time he didn't break any ribs, and wasn't even knocked backwards. It still hurt like a son of a bitch though, that hadn't changed. He backed off a slight bit, but it was enough for Randolf to clear his axe, and then suddenly there were five Haunted's staring him down from near proximity, as Randolf activated his holoprojectors once more to confuse the issue.

Having been anticipating this tactic since before he made his own attack... you really couldn't teach old Coordinators new tricks it seemed... Mu was quite ready for it, and instead of backing off or even attacking blindly, he simply lowered his sword, almost like a knight conceding a duel, before throwing his body back and letting out the loudest yell he could manage. It wasn't a patch on what Mary could do, that girl could shatter glass with her keening even before amplification, but it was still good enough to provide base material for the CUSA in the Tormented's chest and head to work with, and a sphere of pure sonic energy expanded outward from the Tormented in all directions, making the air shiver and shake, and disrupting the holographic projections of the Haunted, dissolving them like the mirage's they were, leaving only one Haunted scrambling madly backwards through the air, frontal armor cracked and crumbling from the sonic onslaught it had briefly endured.

"I think you might need to work on your singing voice a little bit there, Mu." Waltfeld commented dryly. "According to design specs on that thing, you should have been able to turn him into dust at that range."

"And thus you see why I never got higher than a "C" in band class." Mu retorted, taking comfort in a bit of banter, especially between him and Andrew. He knew the whole situation with Murrue had hit Andrew about as hard as could be expected, but the Desert Tiger seemed willing to bury the hatchet, and for that Mu was extremely grateful. Regardless of who she chose or why, Andrew was still extremely special to Murrue, and that was not going to change. Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention and Mu winced and sucked in a groan through his teeth as he caught the tail end of the Vorpal's rather spectacular backplant into the ocean. The only thing that mitigated his concern was the IFF signal for the Vorpal still showed strong and steady, hopefully meaning that Yzak had actually done that one purpose, though for what reason Mu could hardly fathom. Crashing into the ocean at a hundred and fifty miles per hour, on your HEAD, was so far down on the list of possible evasive maneuvers that he wasn't even sure it was on his list at all!

"Sonofa...!" Andrew shouted angrily, as the Traitor blinked out of view just as he was closing into melee range, and obviously vacated the area because Waltfeld's beam saber swing just a moment later cut only air. It was only the work of a second to switch on the Vari-camera's to strip away the Mirage Colloid, but by then the Traitor was already phasing back into view, its beam rifle raised and aimed. However, it was not a green beam that the weapon fired, but rather the bulbous protrusion mounted below the beam emitter, which leapt from the rifle on the plume of a rocket engine and sped into the Dawndrake's right shoulder before the rocket propelled grenade detonated, shredding the 120mm gatling cannon mounted there and blasting a big crater in the Dawndrake's right upper torso, all but severing the right arm and spinning the Dawndrake around like a drunkard.

Mu was too busy to immediately help his friend, as the Haunted had catapulted itself right back at him, desperate either to regain the initiative or at least force Mu on the defensive, and he gritted his teeth as he met the Haunted's axe with his sword, listening in a dim corner of his mind to the whine of the servos and hydraulics as the Tormented matched strengths against its former companion. They were just about evenly matched, but the Haunted's axe was heavier and better weighted for brute force maneuvers, and Mu felt himself slowly being pushed back, especially without solid ground to brace himself upon. Knowing that unless he gave Andrew support some time in the next few seconds he was as good as dead at the Traitors hands, Mu conceded the clinch to the Haunted, reversing his thrusters and doing his best to hurl himself away from his foe, and in the most part succeeding, though the Haunted's axe did manage to lick out and cleave off the Tormented's left foot before Mu could sweep it out of range. He gritted his teeth... in the Vengeance, the blow would have come nowhere near him, but the Tormented, emphatically, was not the Vengeance.

Employing a tactic from the Vengeance, Mu let the Traitor have it right in the face with a full on slam from the Tormented's positron shield, a little bit like being run into by a large truck with heavy pillows strapped all over it... the impact was more jarring that truly painful, but it certainly stood the Traitor up straight and knocked him away from the wounded Dawndrake, enough to give Andrew a few more seconds to regain control and once more cover himself with his shield, and even returned the favor by hammering the pursuing Haunted with a volley of 120mm gatling cannon shells, the repeated impacts making already crumpled armor spall and flake away, and even causing the Gundam to falter in its path, momentarily disoriented by the jolts. "Tell me everyone else is having an easier time of things than we are!" Andrew groused, as he and Mu formed up more or less back to back, with the Traitor and Haunted circling warily around them.

"I think we're getting off lightly actually, sorry to say." Mu answered grimly, remembering the splashdown of the Vorpal just moments ago. He craned his head, figuratively if not quite literally, and the Tormented responded by sweeping the area with its sensors, scanning for the Phoenix King or Dawn Goddess, or even the sun bright energy signature of the Brotherhood, but the area was so cluttered with Mobile Suits in all states of being, from pristine to dead and plummeting, not to mention all the weapons fire, including the super heavy weapons of the Great Endeavor, that he couldn't get a clear picture. Which was in some sense reassuring... if the Brotherhood had won, it would be doing its best to be as visible as possible, to let everyone know how invincible it was. Unfortunately, Mu had the sick feeling that it was only a matter of time before he did see the Brotherhood again... and when he did, he didn't think the Phoenix King or Dawn Goddess would be with it. If only Kira had come along... but that... that was... well, too late to worry about now.

* * *

"Do you get the feeling that perhaps charging after the Brotherhood wasn't the most intelligent move we could have made?" Cagalli asked, panting for breath, her skin breaking out in a sweat that had nothing to do with the rising temperature in her cockpit from all the waste heat being generated by her HAC armor as it absorbed shot after shot after shot from the Brotherhood's rapidfire FRALA rifle. She fired yet another armor piercing missile at the enemy Gundam, only to have it cleanly skewered by yet another blue-white laser beam, which just barely missed her Arbalest before arrowing into the Dawn Goddess's chest right above the cockpit, where it tracked about like a laser pointer for a second before sputtering away. The armor held, but she was definitely getting alarms blinking and buzzing on her displays, telling her that her armor badly needed time to cool off, or else the entire plating would melt off.

"It may have been a bit spur of the moment" Athrun agreed tightly, throwing the Phoenix King into another rolling dive as the Brotherhood stitched the air around them with dozens of needlelike crystal shards, which could and would penetrate armor like it was made of mist. Already both Orb Gundams were pockmaked with knife edged holes where Athrun hadn't been able to twist the Phoenix King and its rider away from the stuttering shots fast enough, though they'd yet to lose any vital systems to the shots, which though super penetrating, didn't actually make very big holes, roughly an inch in diameter, so unless they struck someplace like the cockpit or a joint, they couldn't do very much damage. "It certainly seemed a better idea about three minutes ago than it does right now."

Cagalli clenched her hands on her joysticks, popping the concealment covers off the Dawn Goddess's chest mounted 80mm gatling cannons, cutting loose with a prolonged volley from all four mounts to discourage the Brotherhood from trying to close the distance with them too much. A twitch of her thumbs sent flights of missiles from her back mounted disposal launchers also arrowing at the golden, blurry Gundam, though they were melted into scrap by thermal exciter sweeps before they could get too close, bringing her down to just one more volley from them before they ran empty. It was frustrating only being able to use half of her armaments, because the Brotherhood was completely immune to beam and energy based weaponry, but she still had it better than Athrun, who only had a borrowed linear rifle from a Dawndrake, plus a freshly made two handed beam sword, to use to any real effect against Noah's Gundam. In retrospect, perhaps sending Katie and Yzak after the Brotherhood would have been a better matchup, but in the heat of the moment, in the rush to reinforce the USN troops before they broke completely, there hadn't been time to do more than charge in, guns blazing.

The thought that Cagalli was desperately trying to avoid thinking was that, when all was said and done, the person most suited to fighting off the Brotherhood was undoubtedly the person who had already almost destroyed it before, namely, Kira and the Seraph. Unfortunately that was a resource that was not available to them right now, and the difference was telling. Just about the only thing keeping the matchup at all fair between the two of them and the Brotherhood was the fact that the combat zone was so crowded with machines and munitions flying every which way in completely random and near impossible to predict patterns, and so the Brotherhood was actually constrained to near the maneuver speed and ability of a regular Gundam, less it run into shots fired by any one of a hundred machines, or even into the machines themselves! Also, Athrun was doing his level best to keep their backs to the Great Endeavor, which had so far prevented the Brotherhood from taking a potshot at them with its AMP rifle, for fear of damaging his own fortress.

There was a bright side though, because as dire as their personal situation was, at least they were keeping the Brotherhood from exercising its tide turning abilities against the greater part of their forces, which were experiencing significant gains against the rank and file enemy machines, and even able to strike more directly at the Great Endeavor itself. Reinforcements were pouring in from the scattered orbital drop teams with every passing minute, and Orb's own regular military forces were pushing forward hard into the Great Endeavor's final lines of defense, looking to overwhelm the closest in weapon systems so they could begin targeted attacks against more vital targets, such as shield projectors, sensor arrays and the outer hull spaces of the Great Endeavor itself. The various Gundam battles were slowly becoming a rear echelon show, the various struggling machines locked into do or die combat against each other while the Great Endeavor and the larger battle moved on without them.

Of course, all it would take would be for one side or the other to either defeat their opponents or break free, and the greater balance of the entire battle would shift, so it could easily be said the entire fight hinged on which side's Gundams proved victorious. Noah seemed to get tired of the fruitless dance he'd been in with Cagalli and Athrun, and the Brotherhood abruptly stowed both of its rifles and began the twisting, shuddering transition to melee combat mode. The process only took about a second, as the secondary arms pulled away from the primary bones and the new hands reformed themselves, but it was an opening Athrun had been waiting for, and the moment he saw the Brotherhood start to change, he blitzed right at the enemy Gundam with all the speed and power he could throw into the Phoenix King's powerful afterburners. Though the transition from dogfight to blitz was sudden and jarring, Cagalli had discussed just such a tactic as this with Athrun on the flight to the battle, and she was ready, or mostly so, reaching down and yanking free the beam sword from the Phoenix King's back and holding it out to the side as Athrun angled to pass within cutting distance of the transforming Brotherhood.

Cagalli shouted in fierce triumph as she felt the sword jarr so hard it almost tore out of her Gundam's hands, the shock making the entire machine shiver for a moment before momentum slammed them past the Brotherhood, and she craned her sensors around as fast as she could, even as Athrun banked and slowed, to get a look at the damage she'd caused. Moving at that speed, with that solid of an impact, she must have almost cut the bastard in ha...lf... Cagalli stared in disbelief as the Brotherhood slowly, arrogantly turned to face them, perfectly unharmed as far as she could see. It wasn't until she looked closer, and saw that the LCR armor along the forearm of the right primary arm was gashed all the way down to the bone that she realized that she hadn't been imagining the hit at all. However, the structural bones of the enemy Gundam shouldn't have been able to stay her strike either, not with that solid of an impact!

"Well, so much for that sword." Athrun commented in a subdued voice, as he circled around to try and put the Great Endeavor at his back again. For a moment there, when Cagalli had cheered, he'd felt like the entire world had just lifted from his shoulders. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

"What do you mea... AGGH!" Cagalli looked down at the sword in her hands and saw the blade was fractured and shattered and snapped off about a third of the way up the blade, with the upper two thirds completely missing. "How the hell did that happen!?"

"If I had to venture a guess..." Athrun replied grimly. "I would say he managed to interpose that arm, with the QC blade still sheathed, and that is what we hit, and since the sword couldn't penetrate the QC material, it shattered. The Brotherhood was shaking the arm in question vigorously, even as the LCR armor flowed closed around the wound site like thick syrup. Though no real major harm had been suffered by their enemy, the jarring impact at least seemed to have messed with the deployment mechanisms of the arm blade, because it remained sheathed, at least for a few moments more, before it slammed out in a spray of LCR material, bursting out through the Brotherhood's armor, slightly off track from the usual place but by no means disabled.

"Damn his luck!" Cagalli snarled, dropping the now useless sword stump and drawing out her lance instead. She kicked off from the Phoenix King's back, allowing Athrun to transform to Mobile Suit mode, which the Brotherhood allowed them to do unmolested, quite clearly stating that despite the recent attack, Noah still didn't consider them much of a threat. The arrogance of the man made Cagalli grit her teeth quite audibly, if there was one thing she did hate on the battlefield, it was being treated like she didn't matter. Yeah, maybe she wasn't some super duper ace like some people of her intimate acquaintance, but that didn't mean she was inconsequential either! She was a Gundam pilot too! "Plan B?"

"More like Plan... GETOUTOFTHEWAY!" Athrun went from talking to action without pause, slamming the Phoenix King into the Dawn Goddess and shoving the other Gundam aside, as the Brotherhood charged at them, covering the distance between them so quickly it was barely even a blur to even Athrun's eyes. Light shimmered and danced as the four QC arm blades sliced and diced, hacking curls and slivers of HAC plating from the sides of both the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess before they managed to slip out of range. The four wing tip mounted beam blades also did their share of slicing and stabbing, but the Gundams were immune to those so Athrun did his best to tune them out.

Cagalli cut loose with her chest mounted gatling cannons again, but despite the near point blank range, the Brotherhood managed to dodge with ease, dissolving away like a Mirage before appearing on an attack vector from the side, moving so quickly Cagalli couldn't even follow it with her eyes. She realized that the main battle had drifted far enough away that Noah obviously felt like he could risk using the full maneuvering capabilities of his Gundam, which was something they could not afford to let happen. And since they couldn't out run the blasted thing, not a chance in hell, especially now that they were both in Mobile Suit form, there was really only one option... take the fight to him. So Cagalli countercharged the bastard, igniting the Citadel shield projectors on her forearms and leading with the lance charged and sparking with electrical current. She was dimly aware of the Phoenix King moving along with her, Athrun's thought processes completely in tune with hers, or was it vice versa? It didn't really matter, all that did was that they moved like they were one body, Cagalli distracting from the front and Athrun heading in from the side, armor schneider combat blades popping out of hip holsters to gleam in either fist.

The Brotherhood got so close Cagalli was almost certain the bastard was going to just impale himself on her lance and make the whole thing terribly anticlimactic, but at the last possible moment a blurring sweep of one of the secondary arm blades sliced across her vision and sent the top third of her lance flipping away, the reinforced metal shaft cut like it was made of soft cheese. Golden sparks exploded all around her an instant later as the two primary arm blades slammed point first into her forearm Citadel shields, the shock of impact with the heavier Gundam completely killing her forward momentum and jerking her hard against her chair straps, hard enough to leave welts even through the padded flight suit. More alarm sirens wailed in her cockpit as the last arm blade glanced off the bottom edge of her shields and sliced cleanly and deeply into the groin area of her Gundam, the glittering QC blade shearing through armor and internal mechanics with ridiculous ease.

But then Athrun was there from the side, armor schneider knives, basic but still deadly melee weapons, reaching for the Brotherhood's back and head, and Noah had to turn his attention to dealing with the greater threat, the four arms whipping away from Cagalli without inflicting any more damage than the one serious stab. Now Athrun was the one surrounded by storms of golden sparks, as he used his own forearm Citadel shields to fend off the worst of the incoming barrage of blade tipped limbs from the Brotherhood, though by no means could he block all of them, not at such speed and close range, and rents and tears and slices began opening up all across the Phoenix King's upper arms, thighs, sides and shoulders as the Brotherhood did its level best to puree him in midair. Athrun felt his face twisting up into a rictus of concentration as he desperately defended himself, the thrashing, flailing attack strongly and unpleasantly reminding him of the past times he'd fought against someone in close quarters combat like this, which he had done several times against Zacharis Frost in the Fury Gundam, attacks seeming to come from all directions at once in a continuous hail that was almost impossible to defend against for long.

Athrun wasn't quite as overwhelmed as he was making it appear though, and though it was difficult he was actually quite carefully watching for something specific to occur. And then he saw it! A shimmering golden line was drawn all the way across his right Citadel shield by a scraping cut from the left primary blade arm, and then the line was crossed by a similar slash from the right primary blade arm. While the shield was still slightly weakened from deflecting those two attacks, the right secondary arm blade stabbed forward like a striking snake, its unimaginably sharp tip impacting squarely on the point where the two lines of sparks had crossed, and the QC blade punched through the weakened area of the shield like a knife through corkboard. All of this happened so quickly Athrun might have missed it during a blink, but he'd actually been waiting for it, and a minute adjustment of his shield projectors altered the angle of his shields, trapping the otherwise nigh untouchable blade between sandwiching barriers of pure energy, jerking it to a stop and holding it fast, momentarily throwing the Brotherhood off balance as it tried to move its arm.

"I have you now!" Cagalli shouted, having discarded the useless pole her lance had become and taken up the armor schneider blades attached in temporary holsters on the Dawn Goddess's hips, just like for all the Orb Gundams. She stabbed for the area on the Brotherhood's left side between where the primary and secondary arms joined, with the armor piercing tip of her knife angled downward, headed for the vital mechanics and electronics that had to be contained inside the chest area of the golden Gundam. She was already inside the reach of the Brotherhood's left arm blades, there was no way they could parry her attack, because Noah had dismissed her as no threat after Athrun had engaged him. "The female of the species is always the most dangerous, you stupid motherfucker!" Cagalli snarled triumphantly.

A tad bit too soon yet again, because the Brotherhood was, as ever, full of surprises, and while it was true that she was inside the reach of the blades, that in no way prevented the primary and secondary left arms from simply melding back together into one arm, with the Dawn Goddess's arm trapped between the two melding limbs, stopping her thrust mere inches short of the armor on the Brotherhood's side. With a whistle of sundered air, the right primary blade came slicing up and around, and took the Dawn Goddess's left arm off at the elbow with a spray of orange and blue sparks. Hydraulic oil spurted like black blood and the armor schneider knife tumbled from suddenly unpowered fingers, the weight of the severed forearm pulling it out from between the Brotherhood's partially melded arms with a sticky plop. Cagalli was slammed forward by a heavy hit from behind, as the two left wings of the Brotherhood crashed into the back of the Dawn Goddess, clubbing her forward into a smashing double elbow from the half conjoined left arms, and Cagalli was rattled around her cockpit like a pebble in a can, the only thing saving her from serious broken bones being the harness straps of her flight chair.

Reeling from the combination of blows, Cagalli was barely able to get her shields up in front of her in time to take a pistoning kick from the Brotherhood's left leg that propelled her down and away from the enemy Gundam in a free falling tumble. Shaking her head, trying frantically to stop the ringing in her ears and clean the blurs out of her vision, Cagalli watched the Brotherhood savagely twist its trapped right arm back and forth once... twice... and then ripped the arm blade free from Athrun's entrapping shields and sent the Phoenix King rocking backwards with a kick that was nearly identical to the one it had just placed on the Dawn Goddess. "That's it..." Athrun's voice came to her ears tinny and distorted, and Cagalli realized her comm system must have had something shaken loose during the battering, because his voice was the only thing that sounded funny. "You're no longer allowed to make victorious exclamations until AFTER he blows up, okay? Clearly God is pissed at you, and is trying to tell you something here... that's twice now!"

"Sorry..." Cagalli said contritely. "I get excited easily..."

Athrun muttered something that might have been "You don't need to tell me that" but his voice was so distorted by her damaged comm system she couldn't tell. "Are you hurt?"

"Shaken, but not broken." Cagalli replied resolutely. She inspected the stump of her left arm, marvelling at how cleanly cut the damage was... some of the sheared off armor plates looked sharp enough to shave with, and she had the momentary fanciful vision of picking up the severed arm and plunking it against the stump and having the arm meld back together again like it had never been cut, so clean was the slice. And then there was no more time for talking, because the Brotherhood was on the attack again, and a moment's wasted effort was the difference between life and death!

* * *

Meyrin frowned as she watched columns of data scroll across the holographic display surrounding her, translucent towers of damage reports and force destruction level estimates slowly stacking higher and higher around her as the minutes wore on. Several of the columns were turning from a safe, comforting green to yellow or even flashing orange, and Meyrin knew they couldn't let things go on like this for too much longer. Their Mobile Forces were getting picked apart by superior numbers, and it was already snowballing faster and faster as each additional Zealot or Martyr went down, freeing up two or three USN, ZAFT, FNE, ALU or Orb machines to further gang up on the already beleagured remaining forces. For the moment their Gundam forces seemed to be at stalemates, and while Meyrin was well aware that such battles were subject to being resolved one way or another at an instants notice, evey instant that they weren't resolved was one more instant where the Brotherhood's true strength, at least in regards to its deployable assets, wasn't being used in an optimal manner. Of course the enemy Gundams did have to be countered, as leaving them free to wreak havoc was even worse than getting tied up fighting them, but all the same, they could really use the superior firepower of the Retribution and Brotherhood against the swarms of rank and file enemies assaulting the Great Endeavor from all sides.

Especially because some of the columns that were the darkest yellow or even flashing orange were the ones concerning the state of the Great Endeavor's outer hull armor and defensive weapon emplacements, which were taking a pounding from the sustained attacks by Mobile Suits that had closed to within the efficient range of many weapon emplacements, especially the heavier ones such as the gatling gottfrieds and heavy triple linear cannon turrets. Ammunition levels were doing just fine, as a Mobile Factory, the Great Endeavor could produce new armaments almost infinitely, and its armored storehouses were well supplied with more ammunition than they could shoot off in an entire day of continous firing. Which was in itself a concern, because the deeper the enemy attacks penetrated into the hull of the Great Endeavor, the more likely the chance an unlucky shot would strike such an ammo bunker, or worse yet an ammo producing factory, and the secondary damage from such a hit would be devastating even to something the size of the Great Endeavor, or at the very least that section of the fortress.

"I don't want to nag, but..." Meyrin whispered, manipulating the data she'd been perusing and flashing it in front of Noah's eyes, her hand resting comfortably and securely in his as they stood side by side, calm and focused now that the battle had truly got underway, versus the nigh celebratory jubilation of earlier. _We need to do something about this before it gets much worse, Noah._

_I realize that._ Noah answered, chewing on his lip in frustration as the Dawn Goddess and Phoenix King once more managed to combine their defenses and tactics to repel the attacks of the Brotherhood, which Noah was being forced to take more and more direct control over to adapt to their frustratingly innovative tactics. The husband-wife team worked together so well that if Noah didn't personally know better, he'd have wondered if they were Newtypes themselves. The Frost LAICEPs was all well and good in attacking, but it was no help at all on defense, and Noah had noticed after extended activation that the system was slightly flawed, in that it attacked a bit too much like Frost, in that it had a tendency to focus on one target to the exclusion of others if that target was adept at fending off its attacks. Which had almost gotten the Brotherhood damaged by Cagalli, of all people, on more than one occassion, and Noah would have been absolutely mortified if such an embarassing thing were to occur. _What about that damn Ashino?_

_He's having a bit of trouble with the Vorpal._ Meyrin replied, as neutrally as she could, well able to sense Noah's frustration, both with himself and with Ashino. He knew just as well as her that the Brotherhood and Retribution were needed to tip the balance of the battle elsewhere, but neither he nor Ashino could manage to defeat their opponents. _As for Dylan and Randolf..._

_They're completely useless, as usual._ Noah snorted in disdain, watching for a moment as his two bumbling Apostles struggled to defeat the repurposed Tormented and a regular Dawndrake, for crying out loud! It was simply shameful!

_Small cogs still play their part, and at the very least they haven't been defeated yet either._ Meyrin answered diplomatically. She winced as she saw one of the gatling gottfried emplacements go off line, its status box turning blinking red before fading to black. That was one they wouldn't be getting back for a while. It marked the fifth such heavy emplacement they'd lost, and the rate at which they were losing them was speeding up in direct relation to how many were destroyed. _We're in the situation of a great white shark versus a school of pirhana. They're bleeding us to death through a million little papercuts._

_I realize that._ Noah repeated, biting his lip harder, until he realized with a slight start that he'd actually drawn blood. He fought the urge to spit, since he was still wearing the NIC IV interface helmet, that would do nothing besides get blood and spittle on his faceplate. As they stood there, his mind racing through a hundred different plans of action, even while a large part of his attention was still in the Brotherhood trying to kill athrun and Cagalli, the entire holographic display turned blood red for a moment before returning to the usual display, which rapidly changed to show a large green line display of the Great Endeavor's upper hull surface, where a company of mixed ZAFT Primal's and ALU Garou's, many painted in individual color schemes, had broken down the last of the defenses in that area and actually landed upon the outer hull, and were currently doing their damndest to burrow into the structure of the SATMARS itself.

_Noah..._

_I KNOW!_ Noah replied, quite a bit more forcefully than he'd intended, and he felt Meyrin wince as his psychic voice echoed around her skull. _Sorry._

_Don't apologize, just do something about this! We don't have any forces left to stop them! They'll be through the outer hull sections and into the upper factories in less than two minutes at this rate! They could gut an entire fourth of the Great Endeavor if we don't stop them!_ Meyrin stressed intently. She paused a moment and then squeezed his hand lightly. _Come on, Noah... you've held back long enough, don't you think?_

_I was afraid you wouldn't approve..._ Noah said slowly, turning his head to look at her, even though his helmet was totally opaque.

_Well, I approve of dying even less, as you might imagine._ Meyrin cocked her head at him and smiled slightly. _And besides, we'll be doing this together, its not just you._

_That is true._ Noah nodded his head, allowing most of his attention to slip away from the Brotherhood, which went into a more defensive stance, no doubt to Athrun and Cagalli's relief. Noah smirked wolfishly... oh, but they would be wishing for something as simple as a fight with the Brotherhood here soon. _You know what to do then. Skin to skin contact is important_. Noah freed his hand from Meyrin's grasp for a moment and ran his fingers up the front of his shirt, unsealing the nigh microscopic connections that held it closed. He shrugged his shoulders and the shirt dropped to the ground, followed shortly thereafter by his pants and then his undergarments. Noah was aware of Meyrin likewise stripping down nearby, but he had his eyes closed and could not spare even a moment to admire her perfected form, despite the brief urge to do exactly that. Doing his best to block out every last sensation from the physical world he could, Noah stood stock still and prepared to bring the full force of his mental powers to bear on the problem. He dimly heard the scuff of small, bare feet on metal deck, and there was a slight change in the air flow around him as Meyrin stood before him, as naked as a babe, just like him.

_If my mother could see me now..._ Meyrin half jibed, trying to hide her nervousness at what was about to happen, doing her best to keep her eyes closed and tuning out the surrounding world as well. A part of her was embarassed to be naked around Noah, and a larger part embarassed to be naked around the crew on the bridge, but she knew such things were barely trifles, and should be beneath her notice, especially in the current situation. Still, that didn't stop her from gasping lightly as Noah's arms encircled her waist, his hands spreading out firm and strong against her lower back, but she did not resist in the slightest as he pulled her towards him and held her against him, doing his best to maximize skin to skin contact between them. She wrapped her arms around him as well, and leaned her cheek against his chest, taking comfort in the calm steadiness of his breathing.

_I'm sure she would be proud of the person her daughter has become. I know I certainly am. _Noah told her affectionately as he leaned his chin lightly against the top of her head. At any other time, in any other circumstances, his body would probably be rigid as a corpse in rigor mortis if he were to hold Meyrin like this, and not in all bad ways either, but at the moment he was barely aware of her physical presence at all. _It's time, my love. Show me your seed._

_I'm scared, Noah..._ Meyrin admitted, as she pictured a violet-lilac nut or seed, faintly lined with silver rootlings, drop through a vast gulf of space inside her. She smiled as she saw her seed joined by one that gleamed a brilliant white with golden traceries upon its surface, the two seeds whirling around and around each other like a couple dancing, or leaves caught in the same gust of wind, their surfaces kissing and rubbing in affectionate play, before in unison they struck an impassible, invisible barrier, and detonated with a mutal explosion of light, color and energy that was by far the most breathtaking thing Meyrin had ever seen or experienced, her mind whirling up and up and away from her body as Noah used her Latent abilities to massively magnify his own psychic powers, until she felt like a titan staring down at the world, the Great Endeavor, for all its vastness, barely reaching the level of her knees, the swarming machines and the minds within them like sparks swirling around a campfire. Sparks that began to flicker and tremble in unison as Noah and Meyrin looked in upon them from the psychic plane.

_There is nothing to fear but fear itself._ Noah's voice echoed throughout the mindscape like a chorus of thunderbolts, followed shortly therafter by a downpour of psychic energy that began to drown the sparks in a deluge of uncontrollable emotions. _And we are their greatest FEAR!_

* * *

Ashino dodged the latest swing of that damnable sword the Vorpal was equipped with, the one he'd already lost both of his Rapidfire FRALA rifles to in a single unlucky moment a few minutes back, shortly after the Vorpal's inevitable counter attack from beneath the surface of the water where it had crash landed, or perhaps it was dived, since the pilot must have landed like that intentionally, if Ashino remembered anything at all of the way Yzak Joule fought. He could still recall the first time they had squared off in battle, what felt like centuries ago in the African deserts outside Gibraltar. They'd been pretty evenly matched back then, and unfortunately, despite five years passing, they still seemed pretty deadlocked, despite the technical superiority of Ashino's Gundam. Which had, for most of the fight, actually been of relatively little use, as flitting about at maximum combat velocity would have just seen him flying into another Mobile Suit or energy blast in a very pyrotechnic and very painful physics demonstration.

Not that the Vorpal had gotten off scot free either, and in fact with one shoulder torn to shreds and its back mounted Photon Cloak all but in rags, Ashino was still counting himself slightly ahead on damage dealt versus damage taken. The Retribution's self repair systems were constantly replenishing his array of Citadel Scales, and though the loss of the heavy FRALA rifles was a keenly felt diminishment in his long range firepower, he still had the awesome rapid firepower of the gatling hyper impulse cannons, and the punishing, hard to counter Edged Munition Catapults. The problem being the Vorpal had a shield, and unlike the other Orb Gundams it wasn't just a forearm projection model, but a large, wide and very strong physical bulwark in the mode of the Gundam shields of old, with the ability to sheathe its surface in Citadel or Geischmedig-Panzer fields that made it all but impenetrable. Not only that, but it was a weapon in and of itself, with whirring chainsaw teeth along the edges and a multitude of beam dagger blades on its face.

Yzak kept on trying to close the distance to melee combat, where he could put that damn shield and the thrice damned sword to best use, and in the crowded battlefield, Ashino hadn't been able to pull away from the Vorpal except to keep him just out of melee range, which was still too close for comfort. Of late things had started clearing up around him, and he'd been going on the offense more and more often, while the Vorpal had been sheltering behind its shield more and more, but a stalemate was still a stalemate, even if he was doing most of the shooting. And Ashino was far from oblivious of the state of the battle as a whole, and in fact he was growing quite troubled over the state of "his" side, as the Brotherhood rank and file were swept aside like pawns in chess, and the volume of fire from the Great Endeavor slackened with every passsing minute. However, he could hardly just abandon the fight with the Vorpal, because to free up an enemy Gundam would be to doom the efforts of his own allied Gundams, because the Vorpal would quickly tip the balance against the Traitor and Haunted, and then all three of the Orb machines freed up would be able to mob the Brotherhood.

Thank the fates for small mercies, but Ashino had seen no sign of either the Warmaster or the Seraph on the battlefield as yet, and while he was deeply curious and concerned about where the heavy support and star ace of the Orb Gundam forces were hiding out during this most important of all battles, he was also just glad that they weren't HERE. Ashino forced the Vorpal back behind its heavy shield with a concentrated stream of hyper impulse blasts, but he twitched his lips in frustration as the crackling red-blue beams just fizzled and bent away from the shield surface without touching it, comprehensively blocked by the GP fields. He wasn't going anywhere fast at this rate. Perhaps it was time to bite the bullet and introduce an element of risk to the battle, something he would ordinarily have done long ago were this a battle for a force or principle he truly believed in. Given that wasn't the case with the Brotherhood, he'd still been playing things safe as possible.

Ashino cocked his wrists, letting the triple claws on either forearm slide out and lock in place as the began channeling waste heat from his FPR, the grey metal blades soon glowing white hot with contained heat. A quick twitch of his mental focus loosed a chuffing storm of missiles from the Variable Tactical Payload missile pods mounted on his hips and shoulders, a plethora of different missile types speeding from their launchers and homing in on the Vorpal. As soon as the last missile breached its launcher, Ashino accelerated up and over the Vorpal in a tight arc before reversing direction and coming at the Orb Gundam from behind, claws poised to strike, sandwiching the Vorpal between the Retribution's claws and its previously fired missile volley. Standard thinking would have the Gundam turning to face the melee attack, trusting to its Phase Shift armor to weather the missiles, but several of the missiles Ashino had fired contained QC and Beam type warheads that would tear through PS armor like soft cloth, and Yzak was sure to realize that. Other missiles projected Citadel and Positron barrier shields in front of them, protecting themselves and the missiles behind them as they rushed at the Vorpal at well over the speed of sound.

Reacting with admirable speed, Yzak jumped away from his Minion pods, which rapidly reassembled into their Citadel shield barrier mode and presented themselves as a barrier against the Retribution, while Yzak turned his primary shield towards the oncoming missile barrage. Ashino did not stop his charge, trusting to the Retribution's fantastically efficient gravity compensation systems and his own endurance to see him through the flank speed to hover mode decceleration he pulled off just shy of the Minion shield, upon which he almost gently placed his palms. Ashino could faintly see the Vorpal shudder and shake as it absorbed missile strikes with its physical shield just a few meters away on the other side of the barrier, puffy clouds of Red EDEN released from some of the missiles slithering off its treated armor without gaining purchase. Oh well, it wasn't like he'd expected the same sort of attack to work in two different battles, not against this caliber of foe. Ashino sighed and activated his CUSA-D's, channeling a gargantuan sonic shockwave directly into the Citadel Shield.

And the Citadel Shield blocked the shockwave, which was quite in line with his expectations, given it had three seperate power sources fueling it. However, because the Citadel barrier was made of, essentially, solid energy, that made it have some of the characteristics of a solid object, versus an energy field. Characteristics such as the ability to flex and transmit vibrations, much like the stretched skin laid atop a drum. And so, while the full force of the CUSA-D's was blocked by the Citadel shield, enough vibrational stress was put on the Citadel shield so that when the shield began vibration, it created powerful sonic waves on the OTHER side of the shield, with an effect somewhat similar to a thunderclap, only about three hundred times louder. Maybe not enough to split metal or rend flesh, but certainly enough to daze and disorient a human being, especially when coming as a surprise.

Powering up his thrusters, Ashino front flipped over the top edge of the Minion shield and came down at the Vorpal, which was just hanging there in midair, its movements loose and uncoordinated, sword drooping in one hand. _Finally..._ Ashino thought with a hint of smugness. _A clean kill on a Coordinator. No hard feelings, Yzak..._

Of course, he should have known better, because the Vorpal moved just a bit faster than he'd expected, and managed to interpose its physical shield just barely in the nick of tine, Ashino's heated claws ripping molten furrows through the outer surface of the thick armor plate, but not quite penetrating the entire thing. Chainsaw teeth snapped and fragmented away as they struck his claws and were derailed from their track, and the Retribution suffered a melted furrow of its own as a beam spike blade carved a trench in his lower forearm as he dragged his hand past it. Ashino let the full force of the Retribution's not inconsiderable mass slam into the shield, recognizing a desperate maneuver when he saw one, and knowing he had to keep the pressure up and not let Yzak recover. _A clean kill is a myth on the battleground._ Ashino berated himself. _Clean or dirty, a kill is a kill, that's all that matters..._

The Vorpal was propelled backwards by the body slam, and Ashino managed to hook his claws into the gouges he'd previously ripped in the shield, and with a convulsive heave of both hands, he tore the Vorpal's shield from its grasp and hurled it away like a frisbee. The Vorpal instantly dropped its empty hand to its waist and pulled a dagger from the sheathe recently welded there, while at the same time trying to angle the brilliant blue sliver-blade of its sword at Ashino from the other side. However, this close in Ashino was able to call upon his martial arts knowledge in conjunction with the NIC system, and he used his forearm to block Yzak's sword arm before it could more than a meter or so, and he followed up the block by slamming the palm of his other hand into the bottom of the sword's hilt, popping the entire weapon free from the Vorpal's grasp and sending it spinning up into the air.

Yzak attempted a breakway kick, but Ashino blocked with his own leg and then hooked the same leg around the Vorpal's attacking limb, keeping Yzak clinched close, even as he stabbed his right arm claws up into the Vorpal's left armpit, white hot blades punching orange rimmed holes out through the already crumpled shoulder armor on that side, disabling the limb before it could even attack with its dagger and further locking the Vorpal into an embrace only death would release it from. "You fought well, Yzak. I hope the next life ends more happily for you." Ashino muttered, snatching out with his free hand towards the spinning Siegfried blade, which was now descending back within his reach. He wanted to study that sword, and there was a certain poetry in killing a man with his own weapon. With such thoughts in his mind, the one thing Ashino was totally unprepared for was a sudden rush of ball shriveling terror. In fact, he didn't even think he was even capable of suffering such an emotional infliction, though he'd had a similar feeling when Jean was critically injured and dying and he had nowhere safe to go.

Certainly there was no reason for him to be feeling such a primal sensation right NOW of all times, but despite that, he was still gripped by an unutterably fierce fear, a frissure of purest terror the likes of which he had never consciously experienced before in his life! The shock was so intense he could actually feel wetness spreading through the crotch of his flight suit, and that only scared him even more, because what stimulus could be so horrifying as to actually cause him, a BCPU 4, to soil himself!? Even Zacharis Frost had never been able to accomplish that through fear alone! The emotion was so strong, so overwhelming, that Ashino bobbled his grab for the Siegfried as momentary paralysis ran up and down his limbs, and instead of grabbing the sword neatly by the hilt, the blade plunged straight down into his left plam, slicing through the CUSA-D and everything else in its path with the barest whisper of resistance, until the hilt banged up against his palm, and the blade tip stood a full two meters out from his elbow. Ashino stared at his impaled arm and felt his eyes trying to bug out of his skull as his breathe started coming in panting gasps as the fear, the damned, uncontrollable fear continued to build inside him, until he could hardly even think straight, feeling like he was slowly being sucked down into a dank, slimy bog of pure horror, while a gigantic, pitiless eye stared down from the heavens and laughed at his plight. He was faintly aware that he was crying and screaming.

Nor was Ashino alone in this sudden, nigh inexplicable infliction. In fact, every thinking being within a ten kilometer radius of the Great Endeavor was experiencing the exact same sensation... an uncontrollable, ttally unmanning terror that only got worse as time went on, until it grew so overwhelming that all other rational thought was pushed away in the need to find an escape from the terror, which had no identifiable source, and was all the more frightening for that fact! More than one pilot, already hyped up by the stress of combat, died of sudden cardiac arrest and shock when their bodies, reacting to the fight or flight chemicals their brains were producing, couldn't keep up with the strain. The comm lines were choked with screaming men and women, all babbling incoherently in panic as they tried and uniformly failed to come to grips with what was happening, but no matter what people did, no matter how many wild shots they fired, no matter how far or how high or low they fled, the fear was in them, and it continued to grow and grow and grow, almost like it was a physical weight being pressed down inexorably upon them all.

Just about the only people even marginally able to avoid the effects of the sudden affliction were Yzak and Katie, and that only because Katie instantly recognized what was happening as a mental attack, though of a scale she could barely even comprehend, and it took quite literally every last bit of her power, even Resonating with Yzak, to keep their minds under their own control. And even then, they could both feel it, the fear, in the backs of their minds, just waiting for a tiny crack in her defenses to come spilling through in a blood hot rush to drown them both. It was also true that the Extendeds, and Ashino, suffered less than those that did not share their mental resilience, though the difference was merely between pants wetting, disabling fear and insanity inducing terror. No one could fight. No one could run. Now one could do much more than cringe and howl and shit themselves, or claw helplessly at their skin in a vain attempt to tear the fear physically from themselves. The remaining weapons on the Great Endeavor began to reap a terrible toll amongst the Mobile Suits whose pilots were too terrified to defend themselves, dozens dropping, their fear extinguished at the last by a bright burst of pure pain.

_WE CAN'T FIGHT THIS! HE'S TOO STRONG!_ Katie blared into Yzak's mind, her hands cramped into claws against his chest, nails biting into his skin, her entire body shaking and shivering with the strain of keeping Noah's crushing fear away. _HE'S BEING AMPLIFIED BY SOMEONE! I CAN'T KEEP THEM BOTH OUT MUCH LONGER! IT'S BREAKING MY... MIND...!_ Katie felt like she was trapped in a bubble of air that was remorselessly collapsing around her and Yzak, and knew that it was only a matter of time... a short matter of time... before the bubble collapsed so much that it would start to crush them, and when that happened, she was down to the choice of letting the fear take them, or else risking permanent brain damage to them both, perhaps even brain hemorraging of the sort that had spelled her sister Chanel's death sentence back in JIHAD.

Fear was everywhere, like a dark, blood drenched fog that had sprung up from nowhere, and no one was safe from its touch. Even the Great Endeavor itself was not spared the pure, unadulterated fury of the mental onslaught, which because it was a thing of such staggering power, could not be aimed or directed except in the most basic of fashions. It was a psychic weapon of mass destruction, and it was only a matter of time before it spelled doom for everything the USN and its allies had ever hoped for. Minds snapped, flesh tore, gore spurted, breath froze in lungs, uniforms were soaked with bodily waste as the terror reached self destructive, even suicidal heights, many soldiers taking out their sidearms and choosing the peace of a bullet through the brain rather than suffering an instant more of the uncontrollable fear, or else battering their skulls open against hatches and screens, trying to bash the terror out of their minds, though even those who achieved unconsciousness still kept screaming as they fell into nightmares and were devoured by the monsters of their subconscious.

Things probably would have continued along that path until every last member of the USN and allied forces were dead, either by being helplessly gunned down or from a variety of psychic influenced courses of action, and with them probably the greater majority of the Brotherhood members, whimpering in fetal balls through the passageways of the Great Endeavor, though in the end, it still would have been the brotherhood that was victorious by default. But things were not fated to follow that full path, and a light appeared in the darkness, whole and fully formed and sudden, small at first, but incandescant and prismatic in its brilliance, and it pushed back the miasma of terror wherever its light fell. There was a sensation of gathering pressure, of unknown forces on a plane just beyond the physical building and compressing as the bright light and the suffocating dark warred with each other for a moment. And then the light flashed and exploded like a supernova, and the dark clouds of fear were swept away as if by hurricane winds, a psychic shockwave of an altogether different sort resonating throughout not only that battle area, but for a thousand kilometers in every direction, a single word, a single concept shouted at the top of a pure voice.

_HOPE._

* * *

"I'm sorry I'm late." Kira broadcast across every channel the Seraph could access. "But we're here now, and there is nothing to fear!"

* * *

Author Note: Sorry this has taken so long to put out, many real life entanglements, related to me seperating from the Navy for medical reasons. And, I won't deny it, I did get sucked into World of Warcraft again for a while there, but Gundam just wouldn't let go of me entirely either. Can't promise rapidfire updates, but I'll try. Simply so many cool things I need to write, need to share, need you all to experience. Hopefully the combat in this chapter is up to expectations, though I'm sure everyone will eagerly be anticipating what's next too. And I've heard what some people are asking for, about a technical page for referencing my Gundams and machines during battle, and I'll try and put one of those together, certainly for the next story, and maybe for this one too. Tides turning once more, next chapter of New Eden, but things are far from finished.


	68. New Eden part 4

Luna slowly blinked her eyes open and groaned as a sensation like the worst hangover she could ever imagine began pulsing inside her head. Her entire body felt like it had been compressed through a toothpaste tube that had been stepped on by a Mobile Suit. It hurt to even exist, much less try and think coherently or move. As more and more of her senses returned, Luna became unpleasantly acquainted with the noxious smells of piss and vomit, and even the quickest visual inspection was able to discern that whatever it was that had happened to her, it had caused her to lose control of some of her bodily functions, because the whole front of her flight suit was slimy with chunks of the last meal she'd eaten mixed with plenty of bile, and there was an unpleasant, unfortunately familiar warm squishiness in the crotch of her flight suit. It wasn't like Luna had never puked on herself or pissed herself before... almost every Mobile Suit pilot, every soldier in general, tended to have a few experiences with their body purging itself violently, especially after high stress combat, and almost inevitably after the first taste of real combat, especially if you actually killed people. Although usually she didn't suffer the reaction while still in the cockpit, it usually came upon her later, after she'd had time to calm down a bit.

Luna was just glad she hadn't had her helmet on, and that she wasn't in microgravity, because as bad as throwing up all over yourself was in gravity, throwing up inside a sealed helmet, or throwing up in microgravity was not only at least five or six times as disgusting, but could be actively harmful. There had been pilots that had drowned in their own ejecta because they started choking after throwing up with a sealed helmet and didn't want to risk taking time to unseal it, and others had had their controls suffer damage when projectile vomit floating around had managed to short out some systems. She groaned again, wishing she could take her head off her shoulders and pitch it away into a dark room to recover, as she started to wonder what the hell had happened, as memories of the recent past started to reassert themselves. Luna hauled herself back into a fully upright position, easing some of the tension in her control chair straps that had been digging into her chest as she hung forward slightly. She put a hand to the side of her head and flinched away from the lukewarm, slimy wet sensation she recieved, and stared in disgust at her vomit slimed fingers, which she'd just slapped into her hair. "Motherfucker..." Luna muttered, more angry than embarassed.

Luna hawked and spat, trying to clear her mouth of the rank taste of bile and half digested food, finding her throat sore and raw, as if she'd either been screaming or dry heaving, even after her stomach had purged itself. She didn't remember doing either, but then again she didn't remember vomiting, removing her helmet, or pissing herself either, and plainly all of those had happened too. For that matter, everything in the last five or ten minutes was just a blur of random sensations she couldn't make any sense of, besides an overpowering urge to scream and hide from some sort of threat, which was definitely a foreign thing to her. Lunamaria was far from fearless, indeed she was afraid FOR a lot of people and things... but she wasn't afraid OF much, and she almost never backed down from something, even if it was tougher and stronger than her. Running and hiding from scary things was what Meyrin did, whereas Luna was the one that confronted them head on and laughed in their faces.

The more the taste of bile receeded, the more it was replaced by another taste, one that wasn't familiar to her. Something artificial, something metallic, but not like blood, not coppery. As a consequence of her "don't bow to fear" attitude, Luna had plenty of experience with the taste of blood in her mouth, almost always her own. Luna gently probed around the interior of her mouth with her tongue, searching for gashes or cuts, but though she found a lot of raw and sore spots, and her teeth were aching like she just tried to bite through a steel bar, Luna couldn't find any ready source for the weird taste in her mouth. At least until she chanced to look down at her lap, in the process of wondering where her helmet had got off too, and wondering why her Archon was slowly rocking back and forth without really moving, like it was being battered by waves or something. All thought processes lurched to a halt, and Luna felt her eyes go wide and her skin even paler than usual, as clammy sweat broke out across her brow.

Lying there in her lap was her service pistol, normally holstered on her side, securely fastened into a padded rig so that it wouldn't dig into her side or fly around during maneuvers. In the extremely unlikely event that it did manage to work its way free from the holster, the safety was of course on, and the weapon itself was unloaded, because there was nothing a pilot wanted less than a loaded firearm flying around their cockpit during combat, even though ZAFT handguns were not supposed to accidentally fire when dropped, there had been stories... and nobody wanted that story to be them. However, at the moment, not only was Luna's pistol out of its holster, but the clip was locked in and the safety fully removed. Which in and of itself wasn't the most disquieting thing, because she sometimes loaded the weapon before leaving the cockpit, and might have taken the safety off as well if she was leaving in the middle of a combat zone. The disquieting thing, the thing that made her stop short and stare and feel like throwing up again, was that the muzzle and first few inches of barrel were slimed with saliva and vomitus, while the rest of the handgun was scrupulously clean, lying atop the mess in her lap.

If she'd had her gun out in her lap, for whatever reason, and then had started vomiting and pissing and reacting to whatever it was that had happened, judging by how her entire thighs were soaked with vomit, the entire weapon should have been coated with gunk, not just the muzzle and barrel. And there shouldn't have been a metallic, artificial taste in her mouth. Slowly, horrifically, the only reasonable explanation came leaking into Luna's mind. The gun had been in her mouth. Loaded. Unsafed. Just a few ounces of finger pressure away from turning the back of her head into a ravioli stew of ruined bloody organs and skull fragments. Luna had seen a few soldiers commit suicide with guns, one had even been in her training class, and the images of the damage extreme close range gunshouts could deal on the human body was one of the few things that could make her reliably queasy. Just as it did now, but of course she didn't have anything left inside to throw up, not that it stopped her from shuddering and shaking and dry retching all the same.

Luna found herself entirely derailed by the gun in her lap, her mind both blank with shock and relief, and racing frantically to try and figure out how it could have come to pass. Certainly, she knew that she was in a relatively brittle state of mind, given the events of the last few weeks and the major shocks she'd recieved from Rey and Shinn, but the possibility of attempted suicide had never occured to her, not even once! Things were on the upswing for her actually, now that Shinn was back, and at least mostly whole, she was much more in control of herself and her emotions. She couldn't die yet, she hadn't done a whole bunch of things she really wanted... even needed to do. Help Shinn recover. Sleep with Shinn. Rescue Meyrin. Kill Noah. Kick Rey squarely in the balls. And many more things besides! Intentionally killing herself, especially with Shinn relying on her for support, was the very last thing she would ever do! Yet the indisputable evidence of her attempting just that lay there in her lap like an anchor dragging at her mind. What could have driven her to it? What could have been so horrible that she could not bear to live any more!?

One possibility did occur to her, even though she wanted to deny that it was possible, that the fate of someone else could have so much meaning to her as to deny her life meaning if they weren't around, but given the evidence of the past few weeks, she could not help but admit that was how she did feel about him. If Shinn was dead, had died right in front of her while he was relying on her to help support him, worse had died protecting her, AGAIN, then Luna could perhaps see herself going a bit insane, and from there eating her own gun wasn't out of the realm of possibility. The sudden need to know Shinn's fate, for good or ill, drove every other thought from her mind, even her concerns about her apparent attempted suicide, and pausing only a moment to wipe a few stray splatters of breakfast from her controls and screens, Luna began scanning the surrounding area and taking stock of the greater situation beyond just her cockpit.

One of the first things she noticed was the Vengeance, which given that it was quite literally within arms reach of her Archon shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it was, because she had no idea why the Vengeance was there, especially in the position it was, lying as limp as a Gundam could upon the surface of the water, thrusters just barely idling enough to keep it afloat, much as her Archon's scale system was working in standby mode upon becoming submerged, returning her Archon to the surface and putting it into a holding position while she went through... whatever it was that had happened, which had precluded her from controlling her machine. The Vengeance was still operational, didn't even look damaged, its awesomely powerful Fusion Pulse Reactor still dumping waste heat into its wings, which then dissipated it into the surrounding atmosphere or water, and even though the Vengeance was at barely five percent power right now, it was still generating enough heat to warm the surrounding ocean by three or four degrees. Luna tenatively opened a comm channel to the Gundam, finding it on her first preset as she expected. "Shinn... are you there?"

Luna didn't immediately hear a response, which definitely put her heart even more into her throat, and she kept the channel keyed open with one hand, even while her other hand continued to operate other controls, her eyes and attention flicking back and forth unconsciously as she processed information about a wider and wider sphere around her. The battle as a whole seemed to have moved on from where she and Shinn were floating, the Great Endeavor of course still visible, but it was a good five kilometers away and still moving, headed towards a distant smudge that was the far shoreline of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Things seemed, well, suspiciously quiet, all things considered. The Great Endeavor's weapon systems were still operating, though the overall volume of fire was significantly reduced from what Luna hazily remembered from the start of the battle, and when she zoomed in on the Great Endeavor she saw large portions of its hull were ripped and torn open, weapon emplacements charred husks, plumes of smoke and steam escaping like geysers from certain sections where damage went particularly deep.

But where Luna could dimly recall a sky filled with battling Gundams and Mobile Suits, she could see almost none of that right now. At first she was elated, because as her IFF scanner worked, she kept on coming up with more and more friendly icons, and the unfriendly icons stayed almost constant at below ten units. Apparently, the USN forces had managed to sweep away the Brotherhood Mobile Force, which certainly accounted for the battered state of the Great Endeavor! Whether or not they'd managed to similarly defeat the enemy Gundams was another matter, and at the very least she could still quite clearly detect the distinctive thermal signatures of the Retribution and Brotherhood, way off in the distance, like bonfires among candles, but with an overwhelming numerical advantage, things were looking up for the USN forces! Especially because she was picking up new IFF signals indicating that Orb forces, including the Phoenix King, Dawn Goddess and Vorpal Gundams, were in the battle area!

But the longer she looked, the more she realized that despite the number of friendly IFF icons she was picking up, the number of active IFF icons was far, far fewer, as most of the allied force seemed to be in the process of recovering from some sort of significant shock, and the comm lines were jammed with people screaming, crying, shouting orders, and demanding explanations, a medly of chaotic noise that made her want to puke again. Whatever it was that had happened, it had shattered the chain of command like it was made of spun glass and while order was slowly being restored, it didn't look like the greater majority of the USN forces were in any shape to continue fighting for the moment, despite the numerical advantage. "Shinn! Shinn!? Are you there, Shinn!? Answer me!" Luna demanded over their private link, hating the way her voice was cracking, making her sound so lost, so needy, so desperate. Who'd have thought a guy, a simple guy like Shinn, could make her, the fearsome Lunamaria Hawke, into a scared, dependent little girl like this!? And then that self deprecating thought was scattered to the four winds as she heard a distinct masculine groan over her comm channel.

"L-Lu... Luna..." Shin mumbled, feeling like his mouth was filled with bloody cotten wads, and his skull had been scrubbed out with steel wool. "What... what happened... to me... I feel... like shit..." Every word seemed like a boulder he had to roll uphill, forming a complete sentence was just too much effort, as was speaking above a rasping whisper. His throat hurt, in a way that was unfortunately familiar to him, and Shinn realized he'd been having a screaming fit of some sort in the recent past. He blearily recalled fighting with the Retribution, and seeing the Brotherhood, and launching an attack against Noah's most hated Gundam, but everything after that was an undifferentiated mass of incohate sensory impressions and pain. Plainly he'd falled quite a distance, if the Vengeance was now floating in the ocean, and he'd obviously been out for a goodly while too, given how far away the Great Endeavor was, considering his last solid memories involved standing upon it and facing off with Ashino.

"Shinn! You're all right!" Luna was almost ashamed of how relieved she sounded, even to herself. It didn't help matters that Shinn actually chuckled in reply, painfully, brokenly perhaps, but he was still chuckling at her, and Luna felt her face heating and flushing in embarassment, glad at least that only Shinn could hear and, now that they were on two way comms, see her right now.

"All right might be stretching things a bit..." Shinn stopped and worked his lips and tongue a few times, still tasting blood, likely from bitten lips or cheeks, but spitting wasn't an option in a oxygenated fluid filled flight suit, and he did his best to ignore the coppery taste. He was faintly surprised at how quickly he was recovering from whatever had happened, but given what he suspected it was, a mental attack from Noah, he supposed that he was perhaps becoming, if not resistant, at least resilient to the attacks, able to recover and bounce back from them quicker than most people. He had been hit with an awful lot of mental trauma in relatively rapid succession, perhaps building up a tolerance for it, like any toxic substance, was to be expected. "But I don't appear to be dead, which is always a plus."

"I was so worried about you." Luna said softly, not that she really needed to vocalize that particular feeling. "I think Noah attacked you, tried to take control of you again. You were screaming in such pain, it broke my heart..."

"Well, I don't think he was trying to control me." Shinn answered, taking inventory of his limbs and finding the Vengeance as undamaged as could be expected after a multi-hundred foot fall into water, and his zweihander was still firmly gripped in one hand, so he was about as optimal as could be reasonably expected. "It really felt more like he was trying to destroy me. My mind, I mean." Shinn paused and shuddered all over, a formless impression of jagged spikes being used to pincushion his brain appearing and disappearing between blinks of his eyes. "There's... things missing now. I can feel them, like icy blocks of numbness, in my memories. I feel like I've forgotten things..." Shinn trailed off, trying, quite fruitlessly, to recall what he'd forgotten. He had the feeling it was incredibly important to him, but what was it!?

"Well, you didn't forget me." Luna said warmly, though she could not help the frissure of worry that filled her own mind. More damage to Shinn's memories and feelings... hadn't Noah done enough to him? Hadn't he suffered enough yet!?

"I don't think I could ever possibly forget you, Luna." Shinn said with feeling. "Even when I was originally brainwashed, I never forgot you. You are my anchor, my guardian angel." Indeed, if anything, Luna and the memories associated with and involving her shone like a beacon or spotlight in his mind, illuminating the memories around them, making them clearer, less hazy. It was only the memories where Luna wasn't involved, the ones before she'd entered his life, where the cold numbness was distressingly prevalent.

"Guardian angel might be taking things too far." Luna said, flushing with even more embarassment. "I'm certainly no saint, and I feel far from angelic right now. Much closer to the other end of the spectrum, actually!" Luna noticed that Shinn was staring at her, and suddenly she felt even more self conscious, realizing that her chin and cheeks were splattered with spittle and vomit, as was the whole front of her flight suit and even some in her hair from where she'd pressed her hand to the side of her head! She looked a total mess, probably more like a zombie than anything else! And while she was far less prissy about her appearance than most females, that didn't mean she wanted to appear like a total bum, especially in front of the guy she loved.

"You're so beautiful." Shinn commented, out of the blue, and Luna felt herself squirming in her seat under the heat of his gaze.

"Yeah, covered in spit and piss and vomit, I'm the picture of Aphrodite right now." Luna replied, hoping sarcasm would hide her embarassment. She'd never dealt well with compliments about her physical body, maybe because she tended to receive relatively few of them, at least to her face. The weight of the pistol in her lap, out of view of the comm screen being broadcast to Shinn, felt like a red hot coal burning into her legs. Of course, she wasn't going to mention what had almost happened to her to Shinn, certainly not right now, not while he was still recovering from a mental brutalizing from Noah. "But... thanks, I guess." She continued in a more subdued voice, a bit of silence stretching awkwardly for a moment. Luna forced herself to break it. "Well, as fun as just floating here with you is..."

"We have unfinished business with Noah to take care of." Shinn finished for her, the Vengeance rising into the air as he spoke, icy liquid crystal armor shedding water in glittering streams, the unimaginably sharp edge of the QC zweihander quite literally slicing individual water molecules in half as water dripped across its blade.

"Yeah." Luna agreed, moving her Archon up to hover alongside him. "And we can't let the Orb Gundams steal the show entirely, we are Solar Knights after all."

There was another long silence, and Shinn almost looked like he was going to ask her a question, but then the look of uncertainty faded, replaced with one of determination. "Let's go get our own back." Shinn said, and led the way back towards the battle glittering in the distance.

* * *

Heine's helmet clattered as he unclasped it with a convulsive jerk and practically tore it off his head, the sudden stench of regurgitated food filling the confines of his cockpit as the helmet unsealed from the neck binders. Heine sucked in deep, hoarse, grateful breathes of the hot, tinned oxygen of his cockpit, which still tasted pure and sweet to him after coming back to his senses in a helmet half filled with projectile vomit and not a little blood from what felt like a half bitten off tongue! Heine gagged and spat globs of spittle and blood several times, each time his mouth quickly refilling with more liquid coppery redness as his tongue continued to leak from where his teeth had gashed it repeatedly and deeply during whatever fit he'd just suffered. Of course, they'd known that the enemy leader possessed what were termed "neuropsychic abilities of unusual power", and everyone who'd seen the confrontation between Noah and Secretary of Defense Durandel knew firsthand what sorts of things Noah was capable of doing with just his genetic given powers! They'd been warned about a possibility of suffering psychic attack, but everything had assumed it would be weak or on a person to person level, because of the distance seperating them from Noah!

Nothing... nothing at all... could ever have prepared Heine or anyone else that wasn't also psychic for the scale and fury and invasiveness of the attack Noah had just unleashed upon not just one or two of them, but all sentient minds in a huge area, multiple cubic kilometers in size! The fit of pure panic, which would later be classified in documents and reports written by people who hadn't been there to experience it as "The Carpentaria Nightmare", had lasted for six minutes and eighteen seconds, the worse six and almost a third minutes of many people's lives, as they were made to face their greatest fears over and over and over again in a cycle that had never seemed to end, each instant of the torment seeming to last for entire years. More than a few people broke entirely under the strain, succumbing to permanent insanity or catatonia, others turned to suicide or pain through self mutilation as a means to escape the fear. Almost everyone who'd survived the Nightmare ended up needing counseling afterwards, and more than half ended up with permanent pscyhological disorders of various types, ranging from schizophrenia to trauamtic stress disorder to phobias of all flavors because of it.

Beyond even the purely psychological effects of the attack, there were physical side effects too, most notably exhaustion and the loss of control of bodily functions, leading to a lot of very nasty messes and more than a couple deaths as pilots quite literally choked or drowned in their helmets after puking and not being able to unseal their helmets in time. And even those that avoided such a horrible fate, due to exhaustion from their bodies reacting so strongly to fear for so long, had their reactions and reflexes impaired by shakes and tremors from coming down off the adrenaline high, resulting in quite a few more injuries and deaths due to enemy weapons fire than there otherwise might have been. Not only that, but the aftereffects of the attack left pretty much the entire USN and allied forces disabled for quite some time, as they fought to regain their mental equilibriums and tactical coordination, in the wake of the total disorder of the attack.

As for Heine and the mixed company of Primals and Garou's he'd been co-leading in an attempt to burrow through the Great Endeavor's outer hull in order to start damaging some of the more vital internal systems, well, their attack had certainly been derailed very effectively, to say the least. Some of the machines that had been near the outer edge of the section they were ripping into had fallen entirely off the Great Endeavor during the throes of the fit, quite a long fall or slide, considering they were a good two thirds of the way up the dorsal side of its hull, only to either be smashed or sunk by the monstrous bulk of the Great Endeavor sailing over them as they hit the water. Machines like Heine's and Haman's, deeper within the Great Endeavor's hull, had thrashed about and often become stuck or trapped in masses of debris that they knocked down around themselves. Some machines, such as Haman and Heine's were able to work their way free, others, were well and truly trapped. Some machines didn't respond at all, their pilots having been among the less fortunate sufferers of Noah's assault.

Seeing that their assault was in no shape to continue onwards, at least not for the moment, and not wanting to spend overmuch idle time within the very flesh of the enemy, so to speak, Haman and Heine extracted what pilots and machines they could and returned to the outer hull of the Great Endeavor, in the section they'd previously cleared of defensive weapon emplacements. Some of which had to be blasted again, as they were showing signs of self repairing to an operational extent, or at least heading down that path. The sky, which had been swarming with desperately battling Mobile Suits less than ten minutes before, was now almost clear again, except for clouds of steam and various colored smoke plumes extruding from the Great Endeavor, some dimly lit red from fires burning within craters blasted by weapon impacts, most however was tinged green with the noxious contaminant the Great Endeavor was still pumping out into the environment while the battle raged.

From their position near the middle of the "front" of the Great Endeavor, and most of the way up its sloped sides, Heine and Haman had a front row seat to the recommencing battle, as those who's wills or personal experiences allowed them to better or more easily recover from the effects of Noah's attack reformed and regrouped, even as the elite of the Brotherhood did the same. By and large, to little enough surprise, it was once again shaping up to be a battle of Gundam against Gundam, while the regular forces of both sides still reeled and struggled to regain their senses after the Nightmare. One on side, the Orb Gundams, newly reinforced by none other than the Seraph itself, doubtless under the control of the legendary Kira Yamato, who's arrival had somehow presaged the banishment of the Nightmare, seemed to be shaking themselves out like veteran fighters smirking after taking a strong blow to the face that got their blood up again, their confidence inspiring to see. On the other side towered the still flawlessly undamaged Brotherhood and the slightly battered but still unbowed Retribution, somewhat shakily backed up by the Haunted and Traitor, though both Apostles seemed far from at their best, and were doing their best to go unnoticed or so it appeared.

And then, as if an invisible shot visible only to them had been fired, the battle started up anew, even more furious than it had been before, as first the Retribution and then the Brotherhood opened up with their long range weapons upon the Orb machines, followed shortly thereafter by a deluge of attacks from the Great Endeavor. Energy bolts of a half dozen different colors and backgrounds filled the skies, from the pure grass green of regular Beam blasts, to the darker green of high energy Gottfried blasts, to the crackling red-blue streams of hyper-impulse blasts, to the searing blue-white pencil beam of FRALA, to a single blinding flare of purest white from the AMP rifle, all of them converging upon the formation of bright Gundams, who stood their ground with admirable resolution, the black armored Seraph moving to take up the point position, fully in the path of almost all the incoming firepower. Bursts of blue thruster flame flared from the Seraph's shoulders and wings as it deployed the DRAGOON pods docked thereon, and then the sky itself seemed to explode all at once.

Not a single incoming bolt of energy, from a single Brotherhood weapon, got past the Seraph's Wings of Light. The FRALA petered out against a Citadel shield projecting pod, blue-white beam spitting golden sparks in a deluge as it burrowed fruitlessly into a plane of harnessed energy, and for all its color, it was one of the least pyrotechnic displays visible, as the Seraph, through deft maneuverings of its wing feather-pods that perhaps only one pilot currently living could reliably execute not only managed to deflect all those dozens, even hundreds of incoming energy blasts, some of them powerful enough to reduce entire Gundams to ash with a hit, but actually reflected many of them back along the path they initially came from, often damaging or blowing up the emplacement that had fired them in the first place. The AMP blast didn't deflect as cleanly as some of the other shots, but it was only temporarily contained in a magnetic field, and was very unstable to boot, and instead of bouncing back at the Brotherhood, it corckscrewed away wildly, landing in the ocean a few kilometers away, exploding like a atomic bomb going off, excavating a crater in the ocean almost a kilometer across, the flash momentarily blanking out the sun from the sky, so bright was it.

Overall, the effect to those standing dazzled below was like watching a tidal wave sweep in and strike an outcropping of rock, spray exploding into froth as the water tried, and failed, to breach the obdurate stone, before the wave raced away, back the way it had come, its fury almost complety unabated, to strike home with devastating effect against the altogether less resilient rock face represented by the Great Endeavor, which crumbled and cracked under the strain, the entire outer hull shivering with the multitude of rapidfire impacts as hundreds of tons of armor and strucutral material were vaoprized and melted in a single instant. The steam from millions of gallons of water being flash heated beyond boiling point rose up like geysers, some almost high enough to drench the feet of the Mobile Suits standing awed near the hole they'd rent in the Great Endeavor's hull. The sight was, in a single word, awesome! Some might even term it Terrifying, as well, even those who were ostenisbly on the same side as the Seraph.

Speaking of that Gundam, it was now squaring off against the Brotherhood, both machines completely untouched, one shimmering gold, blurring like a mirage in midair, the other somber black, subtle highlights of silver and blue winking from its armor, reflecting from the blue thruster wash of its Wings of Light as the feather-pods restlessly circled over and around the Gundam in a pattern so complex it hurt the eye just trying to follow it. Before the two colossi could come to grips though, the Retribution cut in front of the Brotherhood, its shimmery, green scaled hide wet with condensation from the steam clouds, back mounted cooling fin radiating so much pent up heat that it practically glowed orange as the FPR within churned at maximum combat potency. Plainly the pilots of the Brotherhood and Retribution were exchanging words, and judging from the tension visible in their Gundam's postures, they weren't having a pleasant chat. At a few seconds length though, they seemed to come to terms, and now it was the Retribution squaring off with the Seraph, while the Brotherhood turned its attentions upon the other Orb Gundams.

The Seraph wasn't having any of it though, and though the Retribution had obviously been selected to be his opponent, Kira's attention did not waver from the Brotherhood for even an instant. Truth be told, his ears were still stinging from the not entirely friendly or appreciative verbal scathing he'd been getting, almost nonstop, from Katie from the moment he'd first appeared on the battlefield and used Lacus and Akira's power, flowing through him, to push back Noah and Meyrin's Nightmare. Part of that he dimly recognized as Katie venting her feelings after having pushed herself to the very brink protecting herself and Yzak against Noah and Meyrin's attack, but most of it he knew came from her not unfounded dislike of him after his admittedly ill treatement of her in the days and weeks prior to the battle. He hadn't offered any apologies on his arrival either, the battlefield was hardly the time and place for trying to convey to his friends just how terrible he felt and how sorry he was for acting as he had been. Truth be told, the amount of silence he was getting, especially from Athrun and Cagalli, was troubling Kira far more than the verbal battering from Katie. Yelling was venting, but silence communicated something a bit deeper, a resentment that might not be salved with a simple apology.

"I'm beginning to see why Durandel hates Gundams." Was all Athrun had said, after Kira had opened comm channels with his friends. Cagalli hadn't even said that much, but then again, she was barely even keeping the Dawn Goddess in the air, and her presence within the Gundam formation was more symbolic than combative. Simply put, Noah and Meyrin's psychic attack had hit her a whole lot harder than it had hit most, and she was still very fragile, mentally speaking, coming off her bouts of depression after the loss of Kisaka. The Nightmare had sent her to some very dark places in her pscyhe, and coming back from those places was harder and harder for her ever since the incident with the Spiffy, not to mention the other shocks afterwards. In truth, the primary reason Cagalli wasn't saying anything wasn't because she didn't have anything to say to her stupid little brother, quite the opposite really, she had even more to say to him, and more directly, than Katie did, but Cagalli was deathly frightened that if she opened her mouth she would start crying or screaming hysterically, and wouldn't be able to stop until she was admitted to a hospital, and so she kept her teeth clenched tightly, painfully tightly, together.

Kira turned a part of his attention towards the Retribution, which was firing at him with its dual Edged Munition Catapults now, the muzzles flickering and dancing as they spat mirage colloid cloaked explosive discs in looping trajectories. The effect was lessened in atmosphere compared to space, as the discs still displaced air, and especially in the condensation rich atmosphere that surrounded them now, Kira could quite easily see the paths the dics traced in the air as they came towards him from a variety of angles. The pilot of the Retribution was quite skilled, a cut above all but a few of the opponents Kira had faced throughout his unfortunately long time as a pilot, and perhaps, on a normal day, in a normal situation, Kira might have been concerned, might have been worried about how best to deal with the foe without being forced to kill him, might even have been slightly worried about a chance of being defeated himself. Today was not a normal day. This was not a normal situation. And the Retribution was not the foe he'd come here to face.

Kira didn't bother using the Wings of Light to protect himself from the incoming shots, because blocking most physical munitions tended to push the feather pods out of their carefully calculated and controlled flight paths, no matter how temporarily, and he didn't want to leave any openings for Noah to try and exploit with his FRALA or AMP rifle. The Great Endeavor had, after the initial burst attack, stopped firing anywhere near him, as Noah had obviously decided that it was quite counter productive to try and overwhelm the Seraph with volume firepower, especially utilizing energy weapons, which were currently the only weapons that really had the range to strike at Kira, at least on the relevant portions of the Great Endeavor, a positioning decision that was far from random on Kira's part. No, Kira didn't block the oncoming cloaked munitions. He sidestepped them, often by margins of less than a meter, using delicate taps on his manuevering thrusters to shift the Seraph at the absolute last moment. For some pilots, such dodges might have been a sign of desperation. For Kira, currently, they were just a sign of irritated boredom. Something which he did not hesitate to prove to the Retribution by actually reaching out with one hand and catching one disc as it hurtled through a gap in his feathers.

Kira held the disc up in front of him as its short lived mirage colloid cloak wavered and dissolved away, leaving him holding a shiny silver razor edged discus about a half meter in diameter between three of the Seraph's fingers. He flicked the Seraph's fingers, trickier to do in a non-NIC interface system than most people would believe, and flipped the disc like he would a coin in his flesh hand, caught it as it came down, and flipped it again. Normally Kira wasn't one for such arrogant posturing, but he wasn't feeling inclined towards getting into a fight with the Retribution with the outcome already so clear in his head. It would just be a waste of time, with Kira in the state he was currently in. And time wasn't something he currently had to waste... he wasn't feeling particularly tired yet, but he had no idea how long he'd be able to maintain this Seed meld with Lacus and Akira, certainly if the last time was any indication, he wouldn't have much more than an hour or so, much of which he'd already used up in transit to the battleground. For that matter, it was sure to be a strain upon them as well, and Lacus at least was still worn down to a nub by her near death experience!

The pilot of the Retribution had stopped shooting at him, recognizing a futile tactic when it was so obviously hammered into his face, and Kira discarded his captured discus-coin after the third nonchalant toss. Finding both its EMC's and gatling hyper impulse cannons ineffective and even counter-productive against the Seraph, and having lost or used up its rapidfire FRALA and missile tubes earlier in the battle, the Retribution was really left with two choices. Bring the fight up close and personal, with a pilot who had just demonstrated a reaction speed sufficient to basically catch not only a bullet, but an invisible bullet, in mid flight, without having access to a NIC cockpit scheme, or else retreat and pick another foe to fight. The Retribution once more took out its gatling hyper-impulse cannons and moved aside, angling itself towards the Vorpal, Dawn Goddess, Phoenix King and Tormented, which had been working on a strategy to mob and overwhelm the Brotherhood, which had been hanging back, perhaps while Noah and Meyrin tried to figure out exactly what had happened to their psychic attack. Kira relaxed a tad and nodded his head gratefully at the Retribution, for being wise enough to know not to tangle in a fight he couldn't win. Few enough had so much common sense, and Kira knew he himself usually wasn't so sensible.

The entire exchange, from first shot fired to the Retribution backing down and switching targets, had taken less than a minute. The Seraph had not fired or even drawn a single weapon. It was, in Kira's mind, how combat should always go, with the side that was outmatched being smart enough to realize it, and able to put pride and hubris aside enough that backing down, if not surrendering, was as viable an option as anything else. Unfortunately, he didn't think his combat with the Brotherhood would be nearly so pleasing to his sense of ethics. And in truth, a part of him, a part that was still boiling with white hot rage over what had almost happened to Lacus and Akira, because of Noah, was perfectly fine with the thought of a knock down, drag out fight to the finish with Noah's Gundam. Just about the only thing that little part of him regretted was that Noah wasn't piloting his Gundam directly, so the final confrontation with his "cousin" was going to have to wait for until Kira, or much more likely, Dearka and Miriallia, managed to crack the Great Endeavor open like a walnut beneath their heel.

Kira felt a sudden pressure building around him, like a sense of being watched but much more proactive, and he realized that Noah was focusing his attention upon him. Kira felt a smile grow on his face as he felt the pressure continue to grow, but even at its worst it wasn't more than an irritation, a buzzing in his ears and along his jawline, like the high frequency noise emitted by some light fixtures right before they burnt out. Were he by himself, Kira knew he might already be dead, his mind crushed by Noah's amplified rage. Even were he just amplifying with Lacus, he might be embroiled in a psychic cage fight that might make any physical combat all but a sideshow, no matter how impressive the Gundams involved. But with not only Lacus, but also Akira, almost certainly the first Neo-Human ever conceived, and a near total enigma in terms of potential, backing him up, Kira realized that he need fear no evil, at least as it pertained to psychic attacks from Noah. It only took Noah about three seconds to realize this as well, and the psychic pressure faded from around Kira almost at once.

A definite sign of Noah switching tacks was the Brotherhood becoming more proactive again, its motions changing from the automated rotes of its artificial intillegence programs to the more complex and unstable motions of a controlling human intellect. It wasn't something most people, even Kira himself, would normally notice, but in his current state the smallest of details were jumping out like neon signs. Putting up its FRALA and AMP rifles, having just seen how useless they were against the Seraph's Wings of Light right now, the Brotherhood's arms split apart and it activated its wingtip beam blades as it prepared to come after Kira in melee combat. Kira, like Athrun and Cagalli before him, saw no reason to wait for the brief transition to finish, and he was diving at the Brotherhood before its arms were even halfway split, the Wings of Light swirling around him in a dazzling protective web of overlapping energy fields. A beam sword appeared in either hand, pink plasma energy flaring into existence in front of each physical edge, and then it had begun, the duel of the Brotherhood and the Seraph!

* * *

_THAT'S Kira Yamato!?_ Meyrin's mental exclamation was underpinned with both awe and more than a little fear, as she stared at what felt like the mental equivalent of a second sun, hovering a few kilometers away, its radiance burning away the stormclouds she and Noah had mustered to defeat the USN forces around the Great Endeavor. A part of her had quailed at causing such suffering and terror to so many people, but when she sat back and really looked at it, it wasn't any different from unleashing Blue EDEN, or firing the AMP cannon. This was a battlefield. Everyone here had chosen to be here, had chosen to fight, knowing they might be injured or killed. You had to be prepared to strike the enemy down with all your might and every tool you had at your disposal, and be prepared for the enemy to try and do the same to you. She felt slightly more disquiet over Noah's attack upon Shinn, but it really fell under the same basic idea. Don't show up to a war if you can't stand the idea of getting hurt. _HO... LY... SH... IT, Noah!_

_I know..._ Noah's thoughts trailed off contemplatively. _This is not normal. Even Lacus herself was not at this level, I don't understand... _He peered closer, his brows furrowing in concentration and constrenation. _Do you see that? There's three of them, all linked together. But where did the third one come from, this doesn't make any sense!?_

_I don't see anything but a very frighteningly bright ball of light, Noah. I can't look directly at him without it hurting. I never thought I'd see someone more powerful than you..._

_He's NOT more powerful than me._ Noah said sternly, almost angrily. _Lacus MIGHT be stronger than me, if she put in years of effort like I have. He's managed to borrow a lot of power from her, and from someone else, and so he is temporarily beyond my skills and our power. Emphasis on temporarily... he won't be able to maintain that level of effort for too much longer. It's just a matter of waiting until he burns out. Or, preferably, killing him before then. Which the Brotherhood should be able to accomplish. Truth be told, I've been looking forward to this._ Noah let the smile spread across his face, hoping he sounded confident to Meyrin, without revealing the all too real butterflies in his stomach.

_I don't mean to call your abilities into question, no one has more faith in you than I do, Noah... but... _ Meyrin said slowly and cautiously, still averting her gaze from Kira as much as possible, her physical eyes wide as she watched the fruitless and one sided exchange of fire between Ashino and the Seraph. _Kira Yamato is a LEGEND when it comes to Mobile Suit combat. And he's living up to it, from what I can see. I'm just saying, confronting him with a Gundam really plays to his strengths, not ours..._

"Frustrating as it is to admit this, but I do not believe I have the current capabilities to engage the Seraph with any reasonable chance of success." Ashino's perpetually calm voice echoed for a moment on the bridge as everyone paused to consider the implications of a BCPU, not to mention one of their best pilots, admitting he couldn't take on a Coordinator. "Perhaps if the Retribution and I were fresh, but as things are, I lack the means to reliably inflict damage upon him, and any further combat actions on my part against him would probably result in my swift destruction and removal from the battlefield. Apparently I underestimated him, he has changed from the last time we were on a battlefield together. The only time I've ever seen him even remotely like this is when he defeated Frost."

"Frost defeated Frost, his arrogance and his madness were his true undoing, you and especially Kira just kept him distracted long enough for it to matter." Noah retorted with a sour grimace, not wanting the morale of the Harbingers to sink any lower than it was already becoming, at least for those few who weren't still mewling and crawling on the floor in the aftermath of his and Meyrin's regrettably uncontrollable mental attack. Once again, he'd unleashed an attack that succeeded beyond his intentions, with collateral damage far exceeding his projections. He was really going to have to work on bettering his predictive abilities, this would be embarassing if it wasn't also so frustrating. "But if you really think you're that outclassed by him, I guess I'll pick up the slack for you, Markov." Noah couldn't resist trying to get a dig in against the BCPU's pride, though as usual he had no idea whether the barb struck home or not, as Ashino was still completely invisible to him. If he hadn't been watching carefully, he might have thought his mental attack hadn't affected Ashino, but he had been glad to observe that that wasn't the case. Invisible, not invulnerable, something to definitely bear in mind.

"I will be glad to have you show me how its done, Noah." Ashino replied neutrally, taking out his gatling hyper-impulse cannons and moving to swap places with the Brotherhood once more. "I think witnessing a battle between two so called Ultimate Coordinators could be very instructive indeed."

"By all means, watch... assuming you can even keep up with us!" Noah smirked.

"Boys..." Meyrin said with a sigh, easing herself out of Noah's embrace now that they were letting the psychic attack fall away, though she kept her hand in his. Testosterone was rearing its ugly head again, how wonderful. She was going to say more, but then Noah's mind went all tight and super focused, and she could immediately see why, because the Seraph was charging the Brotherhood while it was still in midtransformation, moving so swiftly that if she weren't an Edenite, she probably wouldn't have been able to accurately follow what was going on. As things were, it took all of her experience in deconstructing and analyzing rapid data flow in order to keep up with what was going on, and Meyrin actually ended up blanking out the actual video images of the battle, because the blurring motions were too distracting, instead turning her attention to the pure numbers and data columns cataloging the performance parameters of the Brotherhood and the Seraph, which were easy for her to translate into a basic map of how the battle was progressing.

She could see that Noah was on the defensive, the Brotherhood having at last managed to finish the transition from ranged combat mode to melee combat mode, though Noah was being pressed hard by a barrage of sword slashes from the Seraph, which had a beam sword in either hand, and was wielding them with breathtaking skill and precision, while simultaneously using the weaving and whirling defensive feather-pods to hamper and interdict Noah's own attacks. Meyrin saw that Kira was being very careful not to let any one feather take too many blows in succession, and that no feather blocked a QC arm blade head on, instead letting the blades glance and graze along the Citadel shields, never striking directly enough to have the force to pierce straight through. She'd reviewed the data from the first time the Seraph and Brotherhood had fought, and remembered that the Seraph had lost many of its feathers to just such piercing attacks, but plainly Kira had adapted his strategy since then to avoid the same fate this time.

However, Noah had improved in leaps and bounds since that first combat as well, and was continuing to improve even while under direct assault, and as the seconds dragged on, the fight became progressively more and more even. It was obvious to Meyrin's experienced eyes that Kira was by far the more experienced and deadly pilot, but Noah had a Gundam that was faster and more manueverable than the Seraph, plus the advantage that half its weapons the Seraph could not parry directly without suffering damage. Were the two Gundams equal in terms of technical specs, Meyrin had the sinking feeling that the battle would already be over with, and not favorably for them. However, the technological superiority of his Gundam was as much an inherent strength of Noah's, since he'd designed and built every piece of it himself, as was Kira's sublime reaction speed and piloting adaptibility, and Noah was of course intimately familiar with every nuance of technology he'd incorporated into his Brotherhood, and how best to use them in battlefield situations, and was just as capable of planning a multilayered attack as Kira was.

And so it was that the two magnetic grapple cords on each of the Brotherhood's four wings suddenly lashed out, wending their way through the storm of orbiting feather-pods, some being deflected by Citadel shields or having their cords cut by beam sword slices, but at least one managed to snake all the way through the Seraph's defenses and tag against its leg for just a moment, data flow pulsing down its length like poison into a stinger. The grapple was severed an instant later by a graceful motion of one of the Seraph's beam swords, but the damage had already been done, a virus already partially downloaded into the Seraph's OS, and though incomplete, one of Noah's viruses was still more than capable of wreaking havoc upon just about any OS ever made. Meyrin watched expectantly for the Seraphs motions to start becomming erratic or sluggish as the control system began breaking down, but she was watching in vain, as several seconds passed and the Seraph continued to move and attack as responsively and swiftly as possible. Was it possible that Kira was accomplished enough at data work to counteract the virus midfight, or maybe his OS had firewalls that could defeat the incomplete virus? Meyrin didn't know, but she felt that nasty sinking feeling again.

If Noah was overly bothered by the failure of his surprise attack, he didn't show it in either his posture or the "flavor" of his mind, in fact, to Meyrin's carefully attuned senses, Noah actually seemed to be getting pretty excited by the whole situation. His hand was getting a bit sweaty, but it was the sweat of honest exertion, not panic or worry, and his breathing, while rapid, was still controlled. It really was looking like, despite the seriousness of the situation, Noah was actually having fun! And, after a moment or two of frowning consideration, Meyrin's disapproval of the perceived immaturity vanished. Noah was an Ultimate Coordinator. His skillset and natural talents were so overwhelming, that a real, true challenge, a contest of equals, was practically an unknown thing for him. He'd only really ever had himself to compete against, and after a certain point, beating yourself lost its allure. As crazy as it seemed, a life or death battle against Kira was giving Noah something he loved... a chance to exercise his abilities to the limit, without knowing in advance that he was going to win. She couldn't really blame him for wanting a rival to practice against in the name of self improvement. Though he could have chosen a better time, that was for sure!

_Up for getting in on this fight?_ Meyrin was shocked to hear Noah's voice in her head, but hear it she definitely did. A bit tight, a bit distracted, but still cool, still confident. _Wanna take another crack at tearing down those oh so "invincible" firewalls you used to complain about on the Orb servers?_

_You mean that was Kira's work!?_ Meyrin goggled at her own audacity, at thinking regular old her had any chance of breaking through Kira's work. No wonder nobody could get into Orb's computers... _And shouldn't you be keeping your mind on the fight!?_

_I am. As you no doubt witnessed, the partial virus was unable to penetrate his defenses. But if I can hit him with one of the Quantum Beacons, he won't be able to stop the download so easily. And while I expect he has data cleansing systems capable of handling any automated attack, a manually controlled attack could still win through. Or at least split his attention so I can skewer him!_ Noah explained, the Brotherhood once more being forced onto the defensive, from even a slight splitting of his attention. Meyrin winced as a stringy section of LCR armor was pared away from the Brotherhood's primary right arm, Kira's slash only barely missing the structural bone as Noah yanked it out of the way at the last instant.

_If you can hit him with a Beacon..._ Meyrin hedged.

_I calculate it at roughly a ninety two percent chance that I'll be able to hit him with at least one, so its pretty certain. Of course, after I hit him, its up to you to beat him. I don't really see any other reliable way to beat him at this point in time. He's somehow managed to surpass even the limitations of a Seed rage. Perhaps this is what the Seed rage becomes once the second puberty has begun. Its very exciting stuff..._ Noah sounded positively gleeful. As well he might, since there would be a point in time where he too would reach the level Kira had attained, assuming he lived that long.

_Hit him with a Beacon then, my love._ Meyrin decided all at once, gently releasing her hand from Noah's grip as she called a holographic keyboard into existance in front of her, and flexed her fingers a few times in a prepatory fashion. _Let me have some fun with your cousin too._

_Your wish is my command, my dear Meyrin..._

* * *

Things were very rapidly reaching that certain point, in Jean Dylan's perspective. That certain point where, despite his professed loyalty to a certain employer, despite all the past rewards and rewards that could stand to be in the future if all worked out well, the relative cost compared to relative risk came out as a negative. That certain point where it became just as lucrative, if not more lucrative to no longer be employed by his former bosses. The point in time where profit margin could be maximized, with the least effort on his part. In short, that certain time when it was most opportune to stab someone in the back. To turn traitor. His ability to accurately predict and recognize those certain points in time were what had led him to become such a wealthy man, even if it wasn't readily apparent. Of course, such talent had also led to him being employed by the Brotherhood of Humanity, and Noah Borander too, and that wasn't nearly as much of a positive thing as Dylan had originally expected it to be. Oh, Noah's money was just as good as anyone elses, better even in a lot of ways, considering he was willing to spend so much for such comparative little, but as time had worn on he'd found it wasn't a goose laying golden eggs as much as it was a dragon!

And of course by the time that particular unpleasant realization had come about, the dragon in question already had a damned firm grip on him with its talons, and there was no good out left to him. That situation was still more or less the same, but current events were conspiring to make even the messiest of employment changes seem not only plausible but downright attractive! Plainly put, Dylan was sick and fucking tired of being Noah's bitch, and though the overall situation could still probably be classified as a "stalemate", the way Dylan looked at things, once the USN got its ass back together again, things were gonna go downhill real quick. Especially with Noah all tied up against Kira Yamato, of all people. And a Kira Yamato with his A-game on, by the looks of the rather one sided fight the Brotherhood and Seraph were fighting. From the moment he'd first seen the Brotherhood Gundam, Dylan had been almost sure it was an invincible weapon, too powerful for any mortal being to battle. Apparently he'd been wrong. Either that, or Kira wasn't a mortal being... at this stage in time, he couldn't call it either way.

But as compelling to his instincts as the current battlefield situation was, in truth it was his bitterness towards Noah and the treatement he'd been receiving... suffering was more like it... ever since the Brotherhood's plans had passed a certain phase, and Dylan found himself more or less marginalized and sidetracked, reduced to barely better than any other crazy nutjob wacko servant of Noah in terms of responsibility. Which of course didn't stop Noah from still taking out his anger and frustration on him and the other Apostles, pretty much as he felt like it, and if they didn't like it, that was too fucking bad. Even worse than the blatant disrespect and condenscending attitudes were the outright abuse and assaults, especially the mental ones, that Noah handed out as punishments at the drop of a hat, apparently just to make examples of them to people who already feared Noah like a God!

Just about the only good thing about those punishments was the fact that they had desensitized him somewhat to mental trauma, so when Noah unleashed his super fear-nuke of doom, just recently, Dylan had been able to recover his wits in a minute or two, right after discovering he'd shat himself in terror during the attack, which was just plain mortifying! Not to mention disgusting, because he was in a fluid filled flight suit, and there was a chance he might even breathe his own shit before the day was done now! But when the only good thing about something you could think of was it made other things hurt slightly less because you were densensitized, well, that wasn't really a good thing at all in his opinion. "Yeah... fuck this shit. I'm fucking done with this bullshit." Dylan muttered, even as he watched the Seraph get perilously close to chopping one of the Brotherhood's arms off. "He can kiss my shit smeared ass if he thinks I'm gonna stick around and die for him now." Dylan continued, hitting his Mirage Colloid and turning the Traitor away from the battle.

"Where the hell do you think you're going, coward?" Randolf's voice crackled in his ears, rough and brittle with suppressed rage, as was usual these days, as the Haunted turned its head to watch the Traitor's movement.

"I ain't fucking sure exactly, but its far as fuck from here, I can tell you that." Dylan replied savagely. "I'm done playing bitch for that purple eyed bastard. It just ain't worth it anymore, buzzard, it ain't fucking been worth it since he left the canary to rot."

"You're just going to run away?" Randolf said scornfully. "He'll find you in an instant. Or just blow your Gundam up around you."

"That's only assuming he doesn't got other, bigger things to worry about. Like, um, say, GETTING HIS OWN ASS KICKED, which he seems to be doing a good job of right now." Dylan retorted. "No, you can say whatever you want, but my mind is made up. I'm ditching this shithole now, before it all goes up in flames, and though I know you won't listen to me, I'll give you my professional opinion and advise you to do the same, buzzard. Get out. Get out now, while the getting is good. Once the USN finds its ass again, its all over but for the crying, you mark my words."

"Gonna go try and rescue your cute little mute canary?" Randolf asked spitefully. "I'm sure she'll be so glad to see you, her white knight."

"Maybe I will go see what I can do for Mary, yeah, buzzard. And if she wants to spread her legs and put out for me after I broke her out of prison, well, I won't be unhappy. But she deserves better than just being abandoned. She was the only good part about this whole shitty deal, even if she did hate my guts." Dylan answered with a shrug. "And if she don't wanna be rescued by me, well, that'll be shitty luck for me. But she saved my life a couple times, and I do pay my debts, on a personal level. Which is why I try not to make them in the first place, but oh well."

"Finding nobility at your age is only going to get you killed, Dylan." Randolf warned bitterly.

"Staying here and sticking my thumb up my ass is going to do the same thing, buzzard, so I might as well see what nobility feels like, dontcha think?" Dylan squared the Traitor's shoulders. "I guess you could probably shoot me in the back if you were of a mind to stop me, but why do Noah any favors, eh buzzard? I'd say, "I'll see you around", but really, honestly, if I ever see you again I'll fucking shiv you in the kidneys when you ain't looking, and call it a good day's work. Bye."

Randolf waited until the Traitor was a few hundred meters away, right at the edge of his detection range, before turning and firing a single shot from one of his palm mounted sniper cannons, aiming the beam tipped shell directly between the Traitor's shoulder blades, though it was hardly necessary, because with Mirage Colloid activated, Phase Shift was down. It was doubtful that Jean Dylan ever even knew he was under attack, shot down from behind by a former ally without remorse or warning. Betrayed, in a word. "I won't do Noah any favors, you bastard..." Randolf said as he watched the Traitor fold in on itself, most of its chest cavity reduced to a smoking ruin by the explosive shell detonating inside the cockpit. "But I had friends at JOSH-A, and their lives are as much on your hands as they are on the Alliance high command's. I've been wanting to do that for as long as I've known who you were. That was for me. Mary will just have to take care of herself. So sad, too bad... life sucks... and then you die..."

Randolf turned his attention once more to the duel being fought between the Brotherhood and the Seraph, between the man that had ruined his life, and the one that had ruined the life of the one person he'd sworn he would always protect. At the moment it seemed like Kira, damn his very name, was winning, ever so slowly. Just went to prove that technical sophistication was, in the end, of no especial use against true grit and experience. Age beats beauty, every time. A lesson Noah was unfortunately fated to learn too late. Not that Randolf had the slightest bit of pity for the bastard. Dylan had been right about that at least, Randolf's days of loyalty to the Brotherhood were over and done. However, he wasn't naive enough to think there was any chance he'd be able to escape with his life. He was in too deep, there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It was now a matter of selling his life the most dearly, to the greatest effect. It was time for him to make right what was wrong with the world, and at least go out having fufilled his promise to Lacus and Elaine.

He paid particular attention to how the Gundam battles as a whole were playing out, knowing that he was only going to get one chance, and any distraction, no matter how slight, at an untimely moment would spell the difference between victory and defeat. He had watched with narrowed eyes as the Seraph had humbled Ashino and the Retribution, and was under no illusions at all as to his personal ability to defeat the Seraph. It was impossible, Yamato's skills were simply off the chart. The only chance he had at all was to catch Yamato by surprise, and surprise wouldn't last long. His best chance was going to be at the moment when the Seraph defeated the Brotherhood, when Kira was still elated by his hard fought victory, just slightly distracted by the effort he'd expended. It was only natural to let your guard down just a little bit during a moment of sublime triumph after all. No one was perfect, no one could be on guard all the time.

The tricky part was going to be in not attracting any attention from the other Orb Gundams while he lined up the shot and waited for his moment, as it was certain that they would be more than happy to deny him his chance at making the world right. For all he knew, they were all accomplices to Yamato's devious plan to enslave Lacus, and he really wished he could have been able to make them pay for their transgressions against her as well, but as long as the arch-seducer got what he deserved, that would be enough for Randolf. Fortunately, the Vorpal, Phoenix King and converted Tormented seemed to have their hands full protecting the Dawn Goddess and themselves against attacks from the Retribution, and none of them seemed to have any time or attention for the Haunted, hanging so far back from the battle as it was. Not that they were out of range... he could have probably fired upon and destroyed the Dawn Goddess if he'd so chosen, since she was basically a sitting target at the moment, but doing that would render his whole plan useless, so he had to let her live.

"I'll protect her, Elaine. Just you wait and see. I'll set her free, as the very last thing I do..." Randolf muttered to himself, as he waited patiently for his time to come.

* * *

"Why is it, when things start getting really desperate, that I always find myself teaming up with you, of all people?" Yzak asked Athrun with a weary, disgruntled tone in his voice.

"Oh, well, if partnering up with me is really such a burden, feel free to take him on yourself, I'll go grab a coke and a donut, be right back." Athrun shot back, extending his arm and the BGCS field surrounding it in front of the Vorpal and catching a series of hyper impulse blasts fired by the Retribution, which he then sent back as a blue-red ball of plasma that exploded like a grenade just as it reached the Retribution's position, forcing the enemy Gundam to fall back quickly to avoid its own energy bolts.

"And when you get sarcastic, I really can't stand you even more, Zala." Yzak answered darkly, sweeping his shoulder mounted FRALA beam through the space where the Retribution had just been, clipping its hip and shearing off the empty missile launcher that had been mounted there. "But I do prefer sarcastic to self righteous. That makes me want to punch you."

"I'll bear that in mind in the future, Joule." Athrun said, a part of him glad for the familiar old banter between him and Yzak, even as it irritated him, as always. It helped him focus his mind on the here and now, rather than dwelling on any one of a number of concerns that would otherwise be dragging on his attention and degrading his battle performance. Such as his concern for Cagalli, who was still all but disabled by the aftereffects of Noah's mental attack. Athrun himself had suffered under it like pretty much everyone but Yzak and Katie had, and his flight suit was stinky and wet to prove it, but Cagalli was already, well, delicate for lack of a better word, and he greatly feared the trauma would be enough to push her back into another depressed fugue state. At the very least, it had put the kibosh on her contributing anything particularly fruitful to the combat anymore, even if the Dawn Goddess wasn't half scrapped anyway.

With Commander la Flaga there, in the repurposed Tormented, Athrun could at least rest assured that Cagalli had someone to watch over her while he fought. Not that he'd ever admit it to anyone but himself, and usually not even then, but he really couldn't fight to his full potential with Cagalli along. She just... well, if her political skills were equal to her piloting skills, there would be no problem, she'd probably be able to teach him a thing or two even... but they weren't like that at all. No one would ever be able to call Cagalli a pushover when it came to a fight, whether it be fists, knives, guns or Gundams, but she wasn't an ace, and never would be, not like Athrun was. Her talents lay elsewhere. Of course, try and tell her that and she'd get ten sorts of pissed off and contrary, so he usually didn't bring it up, directly or indirectly. Most of government didn't make any sense to him, but diplomacy... well, being Cagalli's husband was the best diplomatic training a guy could ever have.

Speaking of diplomacy... "This is Athrun Zala-Attha, in the Phoenix King, calling the pilot of the Retribution Gundam. Respond, Retribution."

"What the fuck are doing, Zala?" Yzak grunted disapprovingly.

"Trying to be efficient, Joule." Athrun answered grumpily. He was really getting tired of the whole "Zala" bit. It wasn't even correct anymore, since he was legally "Zala-Attha" now, never mind that the inflection Yzak always put on his last name made him want to grind his teeth and kick Yzak in the shins. "It's obvious that we're going to win this fight, he couldn't even beat you one versus one, so what chance does he have against both of us? He backed down when he saw he couldn't beat Kira, maybe we can get him to back down here too. I'd prefer to be doing damage to the Great Endeavor, or else helping Kira, rather than fighting a lackey. It's all about time management, you should look it up someday."

Yzak was still searching for a suitable retort that didn't cross the line into "picking a fight" territory when the Retribution responded, its pilot speaking in a dry voice that was oddly familiar to both of them. "I don't normally converse with my enemies, but I'm not really sure we are enemies, Athrun."

"I don't think I'd call us friends either, Markov." Athrun answered, somewhat nonplussed at finding himself once more facing off against the red headed BCPU. He could not help but have his mind flash back to that fist fight they'd had in the jungle just outside the JIHAD facility. That had been the roughest, toughest fight he'd ever had in his entire life. He'd won by only the very slimmest of margins, and he still felt the nagging doubt, even to this day, that Ashino had not been really putting his all into the battle. Especially since he'd gone out of his way to provide them with a map to a secret getaway vehicle stashed nearby, after Athrun had won. "How the hell did you end up working for the Brotherhood? I hate to say it, but you might have noticed that Noah Borander is a Coordinator."

"How I came to be here today is a long story, and not one I particularly feel like sharing with you or Yzak." Ashino replied, knowing that he had to be very careful on that score. If either of them learned Jean was in Orb, basically at their mercy... well, it wasn't like he expected them to bear her any ill feelings. But it would give them a hold over him that he frankly did not want them to have. "I realize the hypocrisy of a BCPU serving a Coordinator, but really, BCPU's were born hypocratic, since we were made by a Coordinator in the first place. The very uncle of our current problem child, actually, painfully ironic as that is to me at times."

"You can't beat us, you gotta know that." Yzak cut in, generating a snort and a smirk from Athrun as, despite his protests, Yzak was quick as always to adapt to Athrun's plans, the ones he found worthwhile anyway. "This battle only has one end for you, if you take it all the way."

"Don't you think it's a little early to say such a thing? I almost had you, if Noah hadn't interfered. And I've long wondered about a rematch with Athrun, now that I understand the secret to his success back then." Ashino answered calmly. "I backed down from one Coordinator today. Doing it again might be more than my residual conditioning can bear."

"Even if you do beat us, after Kira destroys the Brotherhood, he'll take you out in an instant." Athrun argued. "I don't think I could stand against him right now, not even if I were fresh. Even Frost might not be able to stand against him right now, and we both know that I know what I'm talking about on that score."

"Mr. Yamato does seem especially motivated at the moment." Ashino acknowledged. "I don't suppose you'd care to speculate as to what might have brought this on?"

"Oh, just a little incident of Noah poisoning Lacus and almost killing her and their unborn baby son." Katie chimed in with half hysterical matter of factness. She still was finding it tough to look away from Kira on the mental plane, much like a deer freezes up when looking into the headlights of an oncoming truck. "Minor things like that."

"I'm... familiar with that sort of feeling." Ashino said softly, shaking his head. Truly, Noah didn't understand anything about his opponents, not if he thought striking at their loved ones was anything but truly foolish. "Though I don't apply it nearly so well as Mr. Yamato, mores the pity."

"Yeah, he doesn't get mad often, but when he does..." Athrun trailed off with a shrug. "So can I assume you agree that its pointless for you to continue fighting? At this point in time, I think we could offer a cease fire, or at least a nonaggression pact. I've no desire to see more people die today, you included."

"I agree it is probably pointless for me to continue fighting." Ashino said slowly. "And I sympathize with your feelings. But despite that, I have overriding concerns of my own, and in the pursuit of those concerns, backing down is no longer an option. My chances of victory against you are slim, but I was designed with the purpose of beating the odds, and I too have people counting on me to win through for them. I appreciate your efforts, Athrun, Yzak... but if you want to stop me, you're going to have to kill me." And with those words, Ashino closed the comm channel again, and once more took up firing position.

"Well, that was a waste of breath." Yzak snarled.

"Not really. At least now we know who we're up against. And despite what he said, I think that if we can damage him enough or prove to him that he can't win, he'll retreat. He said he had people counting on him to survive, remember?"

"Yeah, well, you work on damaging him enough, I'll keep trying to kill his ass dead, how's that sound?" Yzak said sharply, this time moving to guard Athrun from a volley of EMC discs using his bulwark Citadel shield.

"It sounds..." Athrun cut off in mid transmission as he suddenly saw the Seraph reel desperately away from the Brotherhood, the course of that intense duel altering and reversing in less than an eyeblink, for reasons Athrun was entirely unable to discern. "KIRA!?"

"Busy..." Kira's strained voice came back to them, sounding ragged and hoarse, the Seraph's limbs moving with definite sluggishness compared to just moments before, all courtesy of a small black metal pod, about the size of a woman's purse, that had been shot out of a special launcher contained within the Brotherhood's mouth only a second or so earlier, and had adhered to the upper left torso of the Seraph, right near its armpit, in a place that was almost impossible to reach with a sword, at least not without leaving him totally open to a stab or slice from the Brotherhood, and one would be all it took! As soon as it had attached, his controls had started trying to shut down, and unlike the similar attack that had initiated after the grapple struck him, this one didn't get purged by his OS defense programs. He was able to halt the virus's attack, assuming it was a virus, since it really looked and felt more like an active manual hack, but in so doing he was distracted enough that now Noah had the complete tactical advantage against him, and now it was the Seraph that was desperately defending and back pedaling, only a single unlucky moment from defeat and death!

Almost at once, the Retribution, sensing the change in advantage, moved to position itself and its line of fire so that Athrun, Yzak and anyone else would have to fly right past him in order to assist Kira, and they all knew that all it would take would be one opening for Ashino to completely turn the tables on them. Of course, that didn't stop them from trying anyway, as, after watching his Seed drop and explode, Athrun formed a dual bladed beam sword in either hand and charged directly at the Retribution, remembering from past battles with Ashino that while he was capable in melee combat, he was less comfortable there than he was at medium range. Yzak followed along right behind Athrun, likewise activating his Seed in an flash of azure light, Siegfried once more held back and ready, though Yzak made sure to watch how the Retribution's arms were moving, well remembering how he'd almost been baited into a fatal barrage from the Retribution's sonic weapons earlier in the battle while charging in.

Mu, seeing that Kira was suddenly on the ropes, decided he had to take the risk and accept the lesser of two evils, and though he was still groggy and drained from the aftereffects of Noah's psychic brutalization, which had swamped his nascent mental "shields" like a tidal wave sweeping away a picket fence, he was at least passingly acquainted with pushing himself beyond what would ordinarily be his limits. Besides, ever since Kira had arrived, Mu had been feeling energized, like he was being subconsciously pumped up and reinforced by something, and though he could not put hs finger on what exactly it was, he figured any betting man would connect the feeling to Kira's arrival, and assumed that if the Kid went down, well, so would everyone else at this stage. Taking up his accessorized heavy beam sword in his right hand, Mu took the Tormented in on an attack run against the Retribution as well, utilizing his Gundam's superior maneuverability to come in from above the plane of Athrun and Yzak's attacks, his left hand held palm forward and shield ready in case of any intercepting fire.

Ashino blocked both Yzak and Athrun using his chest mounted Obdurate shield, a blue-green wall of Citadel energu springing into existance as they neared striking range and slammed them backwards like balls from a bat, though neither Gundam flew far or really lost control, as both of them had been hit by similar maneuvers plenty of times in the past, and had almost been expecting something of the sort. Letting his swords degenerate, Athrun channeled all available plasma energy in a constant stream against the face of Ashino's shield, fire running and roaring like a raging river, unable to penetrate the Obdurate shield, but forcing Ashino to keep the barrier in place lest the firestorm engulf him. Gritting his teeth, ignoring the blare of high temperature alarms, and the sweat running freely down both his and Katie's bodies, YZak worked the Vorpal around the edges of Athrun's attack, slicing and cutting at the Citadel shield with Siegfried, attempting to either weaken the shield to let Athrun's attack bleed through, or else slice an opening for the Vorpal to slip through and take the fight into close quarters.

Mu pounced down from above, his Positron shield flaring and flashing as it absorbed torrents of blue-red energy bolts from both of Ashino's gatling hyper impulse cannons, some parts of the pinkish shield flexing and warping under the constant rain of impacts as the Tormented' nuclear reactor strained to supply power to the battered shield while also powering weapons and maneuvering thrusters. Mu gritted his teeth in annoyance as shield failure alarms began ringing in his head. He once again wished he was back in the Vengeance... for one he wouldn't even need to shield energy blasts in that case, but even if he chose to, an assault of this magnitude would barely even make his reactor fluctuate a few percentile points, certainly not enough to come close to breaking through. Alas, such was the difference between a mere nuclear reactor, and the harnessed star that was a fusion pulse reactor. The alarms began blaring louder, as white and grey smoke began issuing from the Tormented's left hand and forearm as the shield began to overload and fuse up.

Mu felt a series of deadened pops and snaps, like phantom bones breaking in his left wrist, as the Positron shield finally overloaded and collapsed in on itself in a sputtering pink haze, but by that point in time his right arm was already swinging the sword around, aimed right at the Retribution's torso. Ashino managed to twist away and avoid being cut in half from left shoulder to right hip, but the Retribution suffered a deep cut along its torso, from shoulder to hip, scattering dozens of Citadel Scales like chaff, golden sparks exploding like the climax of a fireworks show. Perhaps most importantly, the strike ruined the projector for the Obdurate shield, and the energy barrier blinked out of existence like morning mist dissipating in noonday sun. Of course, such a well struck blow did not come free, and in the second or so between shield overload and Mu's strike landing, the Tormented was subject to a terrible pasting by the Retribution's gatling cannons, the shots of which blasted away pretty much the entire left side of the captured Gundam, sending it into a quick downward spiral before Ashino's twisting dodge pulled the Tormented out of his line of fire.

Off balance, Ashino still managed to lash out with one foot at the Vorpal as Yzak jetted forward, intent on finishing their duel up quickly. Yzak canted his shield slightly and deflected the kick with a minimum of absorbed energy, and then brought the whirring chainsaw edge of his shield up hard against the side of the kicking leg's knee, Citadel scales and armor shards spitting like wood chips before the structural bone snapped under the shuddering assault and the lower part of the leg spun away, leaving a jagged and sparking stump behind. Right beside Yzak, Athrun thrust both arms forward and unleashed another howling river of plasma flame, aimed at engulfing the Retribution and at the very least forcing him out of their path, or hopefully causing an overload of his cooling systems or just an outright destruction of the Gundam, best case! With his chest mounted shield freshly destroyed, and still off balance from his frantic dodge of Mu, Ashino was caught without a way to easily guard the onrushing jets of fire. So instead of guarding, Ashino met attack with attack, and trusted to luck and the greater power of his Gundam, as he turned his single functioning CUSA-D at Athrun's attack and blasted back with a cone of pure sonic devastation.

Flame met sound and splashed like a ball of slush thrown against a glass window, as the CUSA-D slammed shockwave after shockwave of focused sonic booms in a cone in front of it, pushing the very air and everything within it away from the origin point in the Retribution's palm. Flamethrower once again canceled out, Athrun immediately switched tactics and unleashed his Phoenix Feathers, even as he gathered energy in his palms once more and began forming swords again, utterly ignoring the Retribution and focusing on the flanks of the Brotherhood, since it was on the verge of overwhelming Kira's defenses. However, Ashino snatched out with his other hand, which had had its CUSA-D destroyed by the bobbled catch of the Siegfried just prior to Noah's mental attack, and snagged the Phoenix King by the ankle as Athrun tried to dart past. Easily countering the Phoenix King's forward thrust by diverting all available power to his own thrusters, Ashino forwent defending himself against the swarming Phoenix Feathers and instead yanked Athrun backwards and hurled the Phoenix King forcefully away from the Brotherhood and Seraph combat.

As a result, the Retribution was studded with red hot razor edged feather pods as they slammed into and through his already weakened armor like half molten hailstones, causing dozens of systems to shriek and warble as they began to fail, all remaining Citadel scales flickering like guttering candles as their power regulation systems were damaged. Ashino flailed his undamaged arm and the forearm blades upon it at the Vorpal, only to lose the limb from the elbow down to a deft slice of Siegfried, this time the stump was as clean and sharp as a QC cut, the sliced edges almost shiny they were so finely cut. Yzak drew back his sword and thrust forward, aiming directly for Ashino in his cockpit, only to have the thrust go awry as Ashino interposed his uncrippled leg in an contortional spasm. Siegfried punctured the leg like it was hardly there, but the motion of the leg still managed to alter the course of the attack by a meter or so, and so the Retribution suffered yet another deep stab wound, instead of an impaling thrust right through Ashino's body. Still, Ashino knew he could do no more... he'd given the Brotherhood and Noah all the time that was possible in the situation, it was up to Noah to turn the tables now!

And, as they watched, some horrified, some elated, some merely satisifed, the Brotherhood's wingblades managed to trap both of the Seraph's beam swords wide and to the sides, while its QC arm blades worked to bat away and slice apart several Wings of Light pods, opening a gap in Kira's defenses as the Seraph's thrusters sputtered and flickered, on the edge of abort shutdown procedures. The Seraph was helpless, open, exposed. No allies were within reach or range... Mu was only semiconscious and headed in for a crash landing, Yzak was still tied up with the Retribution, Cagalli couldn't get her limbs to stop shaking enough to line up a shot, not even to save Kira's life, and Athrun was simply out of range from the Retribution's throw. Sunlight glinted cruelly from the edge and tip of one QC arm blade as it swung up to begin the slice that would cleave the Seraph neatly in half from crown to crotch, scissoring apart metal, rubber, flesh, bone and blood with equal contemptuous ease. The QC blade seemed to stop and hesitate in midair, time becoming gluey as the fate of thousands hung in the balance.

Before the fatal blow could land or even fully start however, a blur of gold and black and white and shining edges hurtled down from above, and the Brotherhood had to abandon its triumphant slice in favor of interposing all four of its QC arm blades in a desperate parry, less it be cleft even while cleaving, struck down in its moment of victory by none other than the Vengeance itself! The sound of nigh unbreakable crystal striking more nigh unbreakable crsytal reverberated in a stinging vibration that made the jaw and eyeballs of everyone who could hear it ache, and the Brotherhood's four arms, crossed over its head, keeping the Vengeance's QC zweihander sword just a meter or so from the golden skin of the Brotherhood's right shoulder, strained and struggled to hold back the far weightier weapon, especially with all the force of the high speed diving charge behind it. Crystal slithered and ground against crystal, and the zweihander jerked a few inches inexorably downward... with its arms seperated, the Brotherhood didn't have the strength to fully parry a two handed blow from the Vengeance!

The Brotherhood's wingblades released their lock on the Seraph's arms and spun around, beam blades fading away as the Thermal Exciters warmed up again, and forced the Vengeance to abandon its clinch in favor of not having its pilot be roasted alive in his cockpit by a quadruple bombardment of hard radiation. Seizing advantage of the last minute change of advantage, Kira backed the Seraph convulsively away from the Brotherhood, turning almost his full attention towards defeating the hacker trying to disable his controls, while the Brotherhood was distracted by the Vengeance. For his part, Shinn didn't let up on his advantage of surprise, and even as he retreated from the Thermal Exciters, the Vengeance was already circling back around, sword cocked back for another tremendous blow, which sent shivers through both Gundams as the Brotherhood once more parried with all four arms at once, this time turning to face the Vengeance directly. The Brotherhood's wings raced the Vengeance's, and the Vengeance won, slamming the Brotherhood jarringly backward with a dual positron shield strike before the Brotherhood could bathe its foe in searing radiation.

"Hello, Noah!" Shinn declared with a rictus snarl, even as a crimson seed dropped through his mind and detonated with a nova like release of murderous energy. "Did you miss me?"


	69. New Eden part 5

"Damn it all!" Dearka let his cursing streak degenerate down into a mumble before it got really blasphemous, not to spare Mir's definitely inured ears, but just because he knew that she was just as on edge as he was, if not more, and he didn't want to provoke her into snapping at him over nothing. What was it that some soldiers had once said? That the worst part of any battle was the waiting just before engaging the enemy? Dearka normally wouldn't have lent such a theory much credence... he usually had a lot of fun during the pre battle waiting period, especially if there wasn't much maneuvering or travel to do, since that meant he and Mir were basically trapped together, in an intimately small space, with nothing but time on their hands, both already keyed up. He'd had some VERY enjoyable pre battle waiting periods, come to think of it. But today was definitely not one of them. Tension was too high today. Too much was riding on them performing their part, and absolutely perfectly at that. They were only going to get the one shot after all, and it might be the last hope of humanity!

Mir kept constantly going over and over the various calculations for various angles of shot, depending on where the Great Endeavor entered their target box, even though she knew it was pointless, that the computer had calculated things so finely that it would take a math genius to be able to proofread its equations with any chance of success, and she was far from one of those. But she couldn't help herself... she had to keep busy somehow! She supposed she could watch any one of a dozen live data feeds from other orbital vessels that were in direct geosynch over the Great Endeavor, or even relayed from down in the battle zone itself, from any of her friend's Gundams and most of the Orb forces Mobile Suits as well. But watching a battle, watching people she knew get hurt and maybe even killed, all while she was hanging way up in orbit, safe and secure and may god forgive her, BORED... no, she couldn't do that. The thought made her sick.

She could dimly hear Dearka fidgeting in his pilot's chair, behind and slightly above her, his hands tensing and gripping his armrests sporadically, his legs tapping and shifting every few minutes, pent up energy building and building and building inside him. She heard him muttering to himself, only one in every ten words audible to her, usually a hissed out curse of some sort. Waiting was not one of Dearka's strongest suits, at least not this sort of waiting. Truth be told it wasn't one of hers either, but with such a burden of responsibility upon them, there was little choice but to grin and bear it. Mirialla frowned, as she realized that for one of the very few times she could remember, she was really wishing that Dearka would make a move on her. Usually she tolerated his pre-battle horniness with varying degrees of patience, depending on her own modd, even if she did usually end up giving in to him at some point or in some way. She recognized it for what it was, a much needed destressor, but she herself could never really get into it, especially in the cramped cockpit. But right now, she just wanted some way to forget about the fate of the world hanging like the sword of Damocles above her head, and some distracting sex would be just the ticket! But they both knew they couldn't afford even a moment's distraction, more was the pity.

Miriallia checked her instruments for what had to be the three hundredth time since the start of the battle, the Warmaster's enhanced CIC suite of computers projecting a comprehensive view of the entire battleground on her screens, only a litle more constrained than a similar tactical display aboard the Archangel or other capital warship. She knew that ZAFT warships utilized "holographics" displays, that were actually more like several extremely complex 2D projectors working in concert, and that the next two Archangel classes, the Gabriel and Raphael, were supposed to come equipped with similar or even upgraded systems, but as lovely as such a system was, there was simply no practical way she could see to integrate it into a Mobile Suit, without causing all sorts of problems in blocking the pilot's view. The Great Endeavor was more than ninety percent of the way across the Gulf of Carpentaria, plodding like the turtle in that old children's story, slow and inexorable. Getting a direct view of the mobile fortress was becoming more and more difficult as high angle cameras were obscured by steam and mist and smoke from battle damage and near misses, at least some indication that a battle still fiercely waged around the enemy fortress.

However, even at current, near max speed, the Great Endeavor was still a good fifteen minutes from the outer edges of the Spear of Ares's calculated target box, which began a few hundred meters from the shoreline that the Great Endeavor was headed towards. The hundred or so meters difference in altitude between the Great Endeavor being on land and being in the water actually made a huge difference in the potential damage yield of their shot, as even a little more travel through the denser atmosphere at near sea level could substantially reduce the mass of the Spear projectile, which was why they'd set their target zone where they had. The trap was set, all they needed was for the monstrous war machine to stumble into it! Well, that and enough surviving friendly forces to take advantage of the shot in order to finish things. Even with the stupendous power of the Spear of Ares at one hundred percent capacity, Miriallia didn't think they could destroy the Great Endeavor by themselves. Cripple it, certainly, but destroy, unlikely.

However, even after it crossed into their target zone, they wouldn't be doing anything to it as long as the majority of its dorsal positron reflector shield arrays were operational, which they currently still were, since a hit of the Spear against a positron reflector would be about as effective as dropping a candle from an airplane, as the tiny projectile was zapped into nothingness by the antimatter field. She'd been hoping that Yzak or Athrun or somebody would have been able to take down the Great Endeavor's upper defenses by now, but apparently the Brotherhood Mobile Forces, and especially its Gundams, were giving a tougher battle than had been anticipated, not to mention several unexplained events she'd witnessed, like the entire USN task force around the Great Endeavor seeming to go crazy with fear all at the same time! Even with the fortiutous and unexpected arrival of Kira and the Seraph, the tide hadn't stayed turned for long, and from the data feeds she was getting that monitored the status of her friends Gundams, Miriallia could tell they were beginning to reach the ends of their ropes. One side had to give, and give soon... but it was looking more and more like that was going to be her side!

"Damn it..." Miriallia echoed Dearka, eyes glued to her screens. "Come on guys... just a little bit more. You can do it... you have to!"

* * *

Kira's fingers flew across the keyboards in his lap, small beads of sweat beginning to form and drip down his cheeks and forehead, as he fought against the person trying to subvert control over the Seraph's systems, a battle as intense in its own way as the recent melee with the Brotherhood. He knew the Seraph's OS inside and out, could probably write it and rewrite it in his sleep, with one arm behind his back, and he could already tell that his experience in data work, of both the combat and non-combat varieties, was greater than his opponent. However, whoever it was had a large portion of the might of the Great Endeavor's computer systems with them, and with hundreds of terahertz of processing power working behind them, not to mention what was damn near AI level assistance, even an amateur had the speed and power to give him a run for his money! Not only that, but whoever it was had reaction speed and learning capability that seemed pretty damned fucking close to his own, and Kira had the dismal feeling that the longer he let them stay in his system, the harder the battle was going to get, until it eventually became unwinnable!

So far he'd managed to keep the enemy mostly out of his more vital systems, such as the power plant, thrusters and life support systems, but he'd lost comms, and his display screens were beginning to blink in and out troublingly, making it very hard to keep reliable track of the external battle around him. The meld with Lacus and Akira helped balance that out somewhat, as he could dimly perceive the minds of his friends moving and flaring with emotion as they battled, but he simply wasn't experienced enough with "Active vision" to tell more than that his friends were still alive and fighting, and their general positions. And it didn't help at all with regards to the Brotherhood or Retribution, both of whom were totally invisible to Lacus's borrowed mental perceptions. Kira saw that the Vengeance, now respeldent in the colors of the Solar Knights, had the Brotherhood's undivided attention for the moment, but how long such a situation would last was not something Kira regarded with a great deal of joy. The pilot of the Vengeance was definitely skilled, probably right up there with the rest of them, but the element of surprise was now gone, and the Brotherhood was simply obscenely powerful!

Worst of all, Kira could tell that the meld was beginning to slip away from him. Lacus simply couldn't keep it up, not without probably killing herself, not in her already weakened condition. She'd made it over the hump, begun her second puberty, but that wasn't a magical fix or cure all... Kira could well remember that he himself had needed help even getting up or down stairs in the first few days after he'd begun his own second puberty, and he hadn't been dealing with the additional biological drain of a pregnancy at the time! A little more than an hour ago, Lacus had been at death's door, her reserves drained all but dry... she was giving all she had, but she couldn't do it much longer. Akira was beginning to flag too, he was still a baby after all, still in the WOMB, for fuck's sake, and despite his awesome strength, he simply didn't have the focus or stamina to keep providing psychic fuel to his parents indefinitely. If Kira didn't make the most of the next five to ten minutes, he was going to lose his best chance at being able to stand toe to toe with the Brotherhood on equal terms.

However, first things first, he had to throw back this data hacker, because it hardly mattered how keyed up he was if the Seraph wouldn't reliably respond to his controls! Seeing that straight up data work was getting him nowhere fast, Kira began siphoning away his attention in a way he could not quite explain, his fingers working with much the same precision and speed as before as he entered a holding defense pattern that blunted and slowed his opponent's attacks down to a crawl, while Kira began exploring other avenues of combat. Psychic avenues, to be precise. Kira still wasn't sure how he could be utilizing Lacus's powers, given that she was most of a thousand kilometers away, and semiconscious at best, but he wasn't arguing, as he felt his perceptions of the surrounding area expand and clarify dramatically as he focused his attention. He felt Katie and Yzak jerk in near concert as his perception bubble passed through them, but Kira was only tenuously in control of what he was doing, and he didn't have time to reassure them of what he was doing, not least because he wasn't entirely sure himself.

He felt his attention drawn away from his friends and the immediate area, drawn by two blazing figures standing in the middle distance, which, as he drew closer, resolved into representations of Noah and a red haired girl that Kira was not familiar with. Lacus, he knew and now saw, perceived people's minds as representations of themselves and what she saw as their defining characteristics, and so Noah was clothed in ostentatious and arrogant clothing reminiscent of a king complete with crown on head and scepter in hand, though cut more like a lab coat. The girl next to him wore light and comfortable casual clothing, like one might expect from someone going to the beach, but even as Kira watched her attire shifted and reformed as more severe business type clothing, rotating back and forth as her emotions played openly through her mind. The girl and Noah were hand in hand, and the area around them was illuminated with gold and silver sparkles like diamond dust in the air.

Kira's awareness butted up against both of them, and he saw Noah's eyes widen and then narrow angrily, and suddenly Noah's mental presence became blurry and indistinct as Noah exerted his own powers and began trying to push Kira away. However, it wasn't Noah that Kira was interested in, as he could tell that most of Noah's attention was caught up in the Brotherhood and its battle with someone named Shinn, in the Vengeance. Kira focused on the red head girl, diving into her mind like he would into a pool, feeling her become agitated and discomfited as she felt his presence break through her rudimentary mental shields before delving deep into her thoughts and memories. She was Meyrin Hawke, and she was an Ultimate Coordinator too, the first of all the new millions of Edenites that had been converted by Noah's nano-machines. She was also the one, as he'd suspected, that was working to hack the Seraph's OS, and doing a troublingly good job of it too!

Kira wanted to shy away from looking too deeply into her mind, uncomfortable with his actions even as he realized they were necessary, feeling ashamed of himself as he unconsciously glanced through many of her private memories, ones tinted with hurt or anger, or most predominantly, a familiar sort of rosy love that strongly echoed how he felt for Lacus, and how she felt in return. Whatever else she felt, this Meyrin Hawke was well and truly in love with Noah, in a way that perhaps only Newtypes would ever be able to fully understand. Icy currents of rage flowed around Kira, enveloping his mental presence like frozen claws, as Noah dived in after him and began frantically trying to tear him away from his true love, his fury so dire that it made the entire mental landscape around them tremble and shiver. _GET OUT! GET OUT NOW, YOU BASTARD! _Noah roared soundlessly, mental fists pounding relentlessly but largely fruitlessly on the juggernaut that was melded Kira. _How dare you attack Meyrin!_

_The shoe's on the other foot now, huh?_ Kira retorted bitterly, shrugging and brushing back Noah's tirade and grasp with a flex of Akira and Lacus's mental muscles. _You're one to talk of daring, after what you almost did to Lacus and Akira!_ Kira reached out and grabbed hold of certain portions of Meyrin's mind, even as he felt her trepidation bubble up inside her, and her fingers clench Noah's hand reflexively in distress, and he twisted his grip with the minimum of wasted effort and then got the hell out, feeling unaccountably dirty for what he'd done. In the real world, on the bridge of the Great Endeavor, Meyrin collapsed bonelessly, eyes rolled up in her head, drool dribbling from one corner of her mouth as Kira's mental attack sent her into a deep slumber. Noah caught her before she could fully hit the ground, cradling her in his arms as his eyes burned with furious tears of helpless shame, as he'd been entirely unable to do a thing to protect her from Kira's assault. The Brotherhood faltered, and almost got sliced in half by the Vengeance before Noah could refocus his attention.

Back in his own head now, or as much as he ever was anyway, Kira began working rapidly to purge the damage of Meyrin's hacks from his system, but he knew it was only a temporary fix. He'd knocked her out pretty good, but what one Newtype could do, another could undo, especially because he had only affected her mental state, not actually put her body processes into hibernation status, both because he didn't know how, and because he was afraid of not being able to control himself in that case, and inadvertantly stopping her heart or lungs or some other vital organs! Many people would of course say, "well, too bad, she was trying to kill him, indirectly, after all", but those people weren't Kira Yamato, and he had made a solemn promise, both to himself and to Lacus, never to kill unless there was absolutely no other choice at all. Inconvienent in a practical sense as it might be at times, the weight of guilt it took off his conscience was more than worth it in his eyes. However, right now, it was working towards the inconvenient side of things, because Noah was far more practiced and experienced than he was, not to mention much more intimately familiar with Meyrin's mind, and he would probably be able to wake her up in a minute or two.

And since the beacon that the Brotherhood had tagged the Seraph with was still connected, and in a spot he couldn't reach with any of his own weapons, on his shoulder between wing strut and head, once Meyrin woke up and recovered herself, she'd be able to start hacking him again, and he'd already seen that was a battle he couldn't win against her. Simply knocking her out again wasn't going to be an option either, because even such a relatively brief mental exertion had taxed Lacus and Akira greatly, and he could feel the meld beginning to slip faster and faster, beads of sweat now appearing all over his own face and neck as well, his breathing speeding up and becoming a bit ragged as the physical side effects of the meld, very much like those of a Seed rage but far more intense, began to manifest themselves. As ever, things seemed like they were all coming down to the wire, but Kira consoled himself with the knowledge that this time, he didn't have to save the world all by himself. All he had to do was stop the Brotherhood, and others would take care of the Great Endeavor.

The moment he regained his comm system from Meyrin's hacks, Kira called for help. Yzak, Katie and the Vorpal were already well on their way towards supporting the Vengeance, and Cagalli was still basically disabled, but Athrun was still recovering from being tossed by the Retribution, and though Kira could easily sense that Athrun was more than just fed up with Kira's conduct from earlier in the week, his best friend had never been the sort to let personal feelings get in the way of battle efficiency, at least most of the time. "There's a beacon of some sort on my left shoulder! They're hacking my OS through it, and its not something I can defeat." Kira updated his friend tersely. "I can't reach it by myself either..."

"You have a knack for getting yourself into trouble in unique ways." Athrun commented, with almost a trace of humor in his tone. Part of his mind was checking up on Cagalli, who at least had the sense to start backing the Dawn Goddess away from the fighting as much as possible, still too caught up in her internal struggle for control to be able to contribute anything to the fight. Another part of his attention was on the maimed Tormented, which had crash landed in the ocean below, though Mu had since managed to at least prevent his Gundam from sinking, though it seemed there would be little support from him for the rest of the forseeable battle as well. The Retribution and Ashino were currently in what looked strongly like an uncontrolled fall towards the ocean as well, but though the Brotherhood machine was all but dismembered, Athrun knew better than to count a BCPU out of the game until he was himself assured of their deaths.

"You know me, I never do things the easy way, always gotta keep things interesting." Kira said with a half smile.

"Too interesting at times." Athrun grumbled in reply, drawing one of the Phoenix King's twinned 57mm beam rifles and taking careful aim at the Seraph's shoulder, where he could see the squat black shape of the clamped on beacon, like a large zit or mole on the Gundam's skin. "I assume Lacus is alright then?"

"It was close..." Kira replied, swallowing hard, thinking about how Lacus had quite literally died in his arms for a few moments. "Too close. But Akira saved us."

"The unborn baby saved you?" Athrun's tone was incredulous, before he sighed. "No, don't even tell me about it, I don't wanna know the details." Athrun lined up the shot and squeezed the trigger, the hypen-like dual beam blast searing out and neatly clipping away the beacon transmitter with hardly a scorch mark on the Seraph's armor. "I'm glad she and the baby are okay. The world wouldn't be the same without her."

Kira didn't even need to agree to that statement, it was so obvious, but he was about to anyway, before both of their attentions were diverted to the brawl involving the Brotherhood, Vengeance and now the Vorpal as well. The Vengeance was pressing the Brotherhood hard, hammering relentlessly at the large, golden skinned Gundam with brutal sweeps of its two handed sword, forcing the Brotherhood to block and parry desperately, as each stroke was more than powerful enough to slice the Gundam entirely in half, and it took the strength of all four arms to absorb the force of the heavy sword. The grating and shrieking of crystal on crystal, a keening noise loud and high enough to make unprotected ears bleed, resounded again and again and again as the Vengeance kept the Brotherhood on near total defense, only flitting away whenever the Brotherhood tried to roast its foe with its wingtip Thermal Exciters, to return with the speed and agility only a NIC and FPR equipped Gundam could manage the instant the pink cones of radiation diminished.

The Vorpal streaked in from the side and flank, 20mm FRALA cutting a blue-white line through the space the Brotherhood's legs had occupied only a second before, the desperate dodge leading to the Brotherhood being smashed heavily backwards because it was unbraced for the next swing of the Vengeance. The Brotherhood's wingblades once more came out, the wings moving just as fluidly as the arms as they lashed and stabbed at the encroaching Vorpal, which warded away the attacks with its battered but still more than functional bulwark shield. Siegfried whipped around, into and entirely through one beam blade, the magnetic edge actually truncating the beam sword so it was half its intended length for several seconds after the glimmering blue sliver of the Siegfried passed through it. Confronted with weapons capable of slicing entirely through it on both sides, the Brotherhood tried to maneuever away from the deadlock, only to be mercilessly slammed by Positron shields projected from both of the Vengeance's wingtips and one of its palms, flattening the Brotherhood like a bug against a heel for a moment.

Yzak moved in for the kill, only to have to throw up his shield once more as the turret mounted weapon on the Brotherhood's right shoulder spun around in its mount and unleashed a whickering hail of glinting crystalline needles at the Vorpal from nearly point blank range. The bulwark shield exploded in a storm of golden sparks as 20mm QC spikes were deflected away from the Citadel shielding in their scores, while here and there sparks of crisp orange or lightning blue marked weakened spots in the shield, from damage inflicted by the Retirubtion, where QC spikes penetrated the energy barrier and pierced the armor of the shield itself like it was little more than mist. Those same spikes continued out the back of the shield and into the Vorpal proper, slicing through the entire Gundam before screaming away into the distance, eventually to fall to Earth when their momentum ran out. Yzak winced and gritted his teeth as sparks shot through his cockpit from overhead, as something moving far too fast to see punched a hole the size of two of his fingers put together through both the front and back of his cockpit, and he was forced to turn his advance into evasive maneuvers in the face of the deadly rapidfire spike driver.

With the pressure from behind temporarily relieved, the Brotherhood dodged backwards, avoiding the follow up blows from the Vengeance, and then the Brotherhood was simply gone, a golden blur leaving sonic booms in its wake as the Gundam arced back down towards the Great Endeavor. Shinn shrugged through the sonic booms, leaving more of them in his own wake as he immediately pursued the Brotherhood, resolved to putting the end to Noah's prized masterpiece once and for all, before going on to the bastard himself! Shinn was forced to make his path erratic however, as shining glints arrowing up at him clued him in to the QC spikes the Brotherhood had seeded its backtrail with as it fled, and moving as fast as he was, Shinn couldn't dodge them all, and he gritted his teeth as he heard some alarms start to beep as unimaginably sharp crystal slivers sliced through parts of his arms and legs and wings, mangling a few internal systems, but nothing too critical. What worried him more was the ever encroaching timer the USN had installed on his cooling systems, which was already down to less than ten minutes before the Vengeance got shut down, like it or not!

Yzak snarled a heartfelt curse as the Brotherhood disappeared like a mirage from his forward cameras, his sensors barely even able to track the bastard machine as it fled back towards the relative safety of its fortress, shortly before the buffeting sonic booms from the Brotherhood and Vengeance rocked and shook the Vorpal. Still, something as minor as displaced air wasn't going to slow down Yzak Joule, not when he was in the mood he was currently in! Katie's mind was quiet as she held onto him for dear life, knowing it was unwise to disturb him too much when he was in one of his wild, battle focused moods unless she had something absolutely relevant and important to say. Truth be told, at times like this, she could almost feel a tiny frissure of fear of Yzak, rather than for him. He could be quite frightening when he was worked up, if only because for all his rage, it was cold, directed, analytical rage, though of course he'd never direct that sort of animosity at her... but still, even being a witness to it was unsettling. Yzak-y didn't just get mad... he got even.

"If you two are done male bonding again, we've got something to do!" Yzak called, more or less over his shoulder at Athrun and Kira as he too turned the Vorpal in pursuit of the Brotherhood, pushing his battleworn Gundam to its limits once more. If the enemy was running, then that means Noah felt threatened. Obviously he didn't like his chances against both the Vengeance and the Vorpal, much less if anyone else finally got up off their butt and got involved! Neither Athrun nor Kira replied to his scathing remark, though Yzak did note with a grunt that they turned and began following him at flank speed as well. A lone Solar Knight Archon, who had finally arrived at their location from along the same path as the Vengeance had arrived from, fell into formation with the Orb Gundams without a second thought, once more homing in on the location of the Vengeance. The end game was now, and about time too!

* * *

Heine almost leapt out of his skin when two of his Primals, who had been guarding the right flank of his and Haman's combined team as they slowly marched their Mobile Suits down and across the Great Endeavor's hull, wiping out weapon emplacements and pretty much anything else that crossed their path in a bid to not only lessen the available firepower of the enemy, but to find the doors to the large launch bays the enemy deployed its Gundams from, which would be a quicker entrance than trying to dig through the entire outer hull, just plain fell apart, sliced into ribbons by a blur of motion that fell out of the sky onto the hull nearby. It would of course have been faster to search while flying, but a goodly number of the team were Garous, and thus unable to fly. Not to mention, while walking on the surface of the Great Endeavor, they were out of line of sight of most of the heavier defense weapons, such as the heavy linear cannon turrets and gatling gottfrieds. Heine had thought them relatively safe now that the enemy Mobile Forces were dead, and their Gundams pressed hard by the USN's own top end forces.

Saftey, or the illusion of it anyway, ended with the thundercrack noise of multiple sonic booms, as the Brotherhood Gundam all but magically appeared not forty meters away, in all it hideous glory, its golden feet touching down to the hull before the diced remnants of the two Primal Inferno's could fully collapse, sharp edged cuts showing where Phase Shift armor had been cut like thin plastic by the Brotherhood's QC arm blades, spatters of red sliding down across sundered armor from where the pilot's had been cleft and cloven like ragdolls fed into a meat processor. Heine reacted with all the speed of almost a decade of the best military training ZAFT could devise, the 125mm supercharged beam rifle in his right hand snapping on target and blasting a six round burst of dark red plasma bolts into the Brotherhood's golden armored chest and limbs. Even as he fired, Heine cursed his instinctual reaction, because it was by now a documented fact that the armor of the Brotherhood was totally impervious to energy based weapons, and indeed, Heine's volley struck cleanly and refracted into useless plasma spatters without the Brotherhood even attempting to dodge or block.

Heine brought up the weapon in his left hand, a 300mm anti-armor shotgun, as was standard for the Inferno aspect pack, but even as he squeezed the trigger and sent a half dozen armor piercing shaped sharges spraying at the enemy Gundam, it had shifted position, moving faster than his cameras could adequately track, and the bright yellow tracers of his shotgun screamed off into the distance fruitlessly, missing their target by almost a dozen meters. By now the other Inferno's and Garou's were reacting as well, the air beginning to fill with dark red and bright green beam blasts, as well as the orange and yellow tracers of cannon and shotgun fire. All of which seemed to float and skip around the eye watering spectacle of the Brotherhood like they were no more substantial than images on a screen, and then, with another bellow of displaced air, the Brotherhood was in amongst them, bright pink beam blades and shining crystal arm blades stabbing and slicing in all directions at once in a terrifying display of multiple target attacking.

Dropping his beam rifle, because it was useless, and his shotgun, because he couldn't fire it into the melee without also shooting friendlies, Heine spun his Inferno and jumped backwards, careful to keep himself as close to the hull as possible, something two of the Garou pilots forgot to do, and paid the price as nearby hull mounted weaponry oriented on nearly point blank targets and blew them to scraps of armor and expanding gases in an instant. Heine activated the dual supercharged beam blades on each forearm vambrace of his Inferno's arms and charged back into the melee, where the Brotherhood was making appalling quick work of his and Haman's combined squads. Even as he charged, he watched the Brotherhood parry four different attacks from Inferno blades and Garou claws with its wingblades, while two arms stabbed through the cockpit of one Inferno and impaled its pilot, and another blade sliced through a Garou from crown to crotch, bisecting both arms which had been held up to parry, cutting the machine into two neat, equal halves.

Heine saw a haze of desert camouflage armor plating move in from the side, as Haman cannoned into the Brotherhood in a full on tackle, using his Garou's afterburners to push himself to close to three hundred miles per hour before impact, allowing the Garou, even though it weighed less than half of what the Gundam did, to send the golden monster flyinging backwards, touching down hard on its wings and back and digging a sparking trench for almost twenty meters before friction brought the tangled machines to a halt. Any pilot would be stunned, if not actually injured by such a hit, and Heine could hear Haman groaning and muttering incohernetly over their commlink as his friend struggled to regain his senses after the violent collision. If the pilot of the Brotherhood was at all discomfited by the hit, it didn't show, much to Heine's dismay, as the Brotherhood kicked the battered form of Abla'Asima off and away and practically sprang back to its feet, leaving little splatters of syrupy golden armor on the hull, but otherwise seeming quite undamaged and more than a little displeased at the ignominous slide it had just taken.

Seeing as his friend was still quite vulnerable, Heine launched a volley of rockets from his shoulder launchers, the dozen 225mm unguided munitions screaming towards the Brotherhood, before detonating a few meters shy, just as the Brotherhood's beam CIWS guns were about to blow them apart, and spraying forth a huge wash of blazing napalm jelly which splashed and clung to the Brotherhood like a living blanket of fire. While almost certainly incapable of burning through the armor of even a regular Mobile Suit, the clinging flames would quickly overheat the cooling systems of a Mobile Suit, damaging delicate electronic systems, or else overwhelm the pilot with heat stroke. At least, that was the theory, though the Brotherhood didn't seem much more than annoyed by the whole situation. Lurid orange and red flames dripped down its armblades, like blood in reverse, but if the motions or operation of the enemy Gundam were at all impeded, it was not obvious.

"Wonderful... now he has flaming swords..." Haman commented weakly, Abla'Asima groaning up into a sitting position. "The intent is appreciated, Heine my friend, but the execution could use a little work." Haman forced his precious Mobile Suit to her feet once more, though the movement was jerky and slow, and he could hear various pieces and parts groaning and buckling beneath the strain. He hit the triggers for his shoulder mounted 120mm gatling cannons, but some aspect of his charge, or the kick afterwards, must had jammed the ammo feeds or warped the barrels, because neither weapon would fire. Scowling, Hama raised Abla'Asima's arms and fired the four 55mm machinecannons mounted there on full automatic, stiching dozens of orangy tracers into the Brotherhood's blazing form. Gobbets of liquid flame and smatterings of golden hued liquid crystal armor splattered and spun lazily away from the impact points, before the Brotherhood stepped right through the hail of relatively low caliber firepower and severed both of Abla'Asima's arms at the elbow with a contemptuous slice of one flaming armblade.

Heine leapt forward, spraying streams of liquid fire from the napalm flamethrowers in each of his palms in an effort to distract the Brotherhood from his friend, only to be forced into desperate parrying as two of the Brotherhood's wingblades chopped at him. He blocked their blows with his own supercharged armblades and tried to move closer, but only ended up attracting the other two wingblades. With beam blades coming at him from four directions at once, Heine felt himself getting pressed inexorably back, helplessly on the defense. Haman proved himself not quite out of the fight however, when he sent Abla'Asima rushing forward once more, with all the speed he could coax from his afterburners. "HAMAN, DON'T!" Heine shouted, as soon as he saw the intense blue thruster wash spear out from his friend's legs, but by then of course it was too late, and the Garou was already commited to its course. The Brotherhood's QC armblades stabbed forward, impaling Abla'Asima through both her shoulders, her head and her lower torso, as the ALU machine quite literally ran onto and up the blades.

The Brotherhood swayed backwards, adjusting its center of gravity and then twisted like a matador dodging a bull, its armblades sliding out of Abla'Asima like red hot wires out of soft cheese, barely even sparking as they dismembered Haman's Mobile Suit and sent its ragged remains tumbling uncontrollably along the Great Endeavor's hull, afterburner thrusters propelling the wreckage like a jet powered hockey puck. Seeing that the Brotherhood was off balance for a moment because of the motions required to avoid the charge from Haman, Heine charged forward, yelling incoherently in his rage at what the bastard had done to his friend, his hands going to his Inferno's waist and each withdrawing a Mobile Suit grenade from the satchels there. He thrust his grenade armed hands towards the Brotherhood's torso, planning to quite literally punch the bastard and then detonate the grenades. He was already inside the reach of the Brotherhood's arms.

However, Heine was not prepared for those selfsame arms to suddenly collapse towards each other, the elbows of each arm pair slamming together against the top and bottom of each of his Inferno's wrists and halting his dual punch in mid motion, arresting him several meters short of his goal. Surprised but not deterred, Heine was going to blow the grenades anyway, hoping to damage or disable at least one or two of the Brotherhood's arms. Before he could do even that however, motion from the Brotherhood's right shoulder drew his eyes, and Heine reflexively tried to jerk his Inferno backwards as he saw the turret mounted weapon there orient upon him. The Brotherhood held him tight through, and the 20mm QC spike driver blinked and flashed as it vomited a torrent of crystalline spikes into and through Heine's Inferno.

Heine grunted and blinked as the interior of his cockpit grew measurably brighter, from all the finger sized holes that had suddenly been punched through his front torso armor, allowing beams of light to filter in. His cockpit lighting flickered and dimmed as his battery and hydrogen fuel cells took hits and shut down to avoid an explosion. A sensation of hollow numbness spread through his body suddenly, followed by one of the shoulder to waist straps on his chair suddenly giving way, neatly severed by something impossibly sharp that had sliced through it moments ago. Heine stared straight ahead, not daring to look down at himself as he felt trickles of warm wetness slither down his chest and belly and back before pooling near his thighs and buttocks. Beams of light caressed his red flight suit across the upper chest and stomach areas, and his breath started to come more heavily and raggedly, the taste of blood strong in his mouth as he coughed, thin trails of bright red leaking from the corners of his lips, much to his dismay. It didn't feel like he'd been shot at all, the QC slivers had torn right through him with hardly any resistance at all, leaving perfectly circular holes through skin, muscle, organ and bone. Perfectly circular, profusely bleeding holes...

The Inferno collapsed first to its knees and then down onto its face as the Brotherhood released the now inert machine and stepped away. A half dozen 20mm holes were barely visible in the back armor of the Inferno, right around where the cockpit should be, and the Brotherhood dismissed the machine as a further threat. All the same, it stamped vindictively down on the back of the Inferno's head like it was curb stomping someone, shattering the back of the skull and smashing the head assembly flat, before a second contemptuous kick sent the disabled machine rolling noisily away down the slop of the Great Endeavor's hull, here and there leaving spots of liquid red as its torso armor kissed the hull plating. The Brotherhood didn't have too long to gloat in its victory however, as renewed activity from the remaining hull mounted weapons in the area only barely presaged the return of the Vengeance!

Shinn twisted and corckscrewed through the curtains of firepower the Great endeavor was directing at him in a belated attempt to slow him down, but he was moving too fast for the automated targeting systems to even hope to attempt to lock onto him, moving so fast that by the time a shell or beam fired, he was already fifty meters past the original point of aim, and they couldn't track fast enough to lead him properly. Just fractions of a moment before the Vengeance would have rammed itself into the Brotherhood for the second time that day, Shinn brought himself to a total halt and slammed downwards with his Zweihander, hoping but not really expecting to catch Noah off guard. The Brotherhood once more caught the descending heavy sword between all four of its own arm blades, but was still rocked backwards and downwards into a near crouch by the sheer momentum of the blow. Shinn shoved downward viciously, practically standing the Vengeance up on tiptoe, all thrusters humming, wings spread wide for maximum leverage, trying to crush the Brotherhood downward off its feet.

Unfortunately, for all his vicious speed and momentum, once the Vengeance and Brotherhood began squaring off on more or less equal terms, the greater size, mass and overall power of the Brotherhood began to make a difference, and the golden Gundam slowly forced itself back up to a fully standing position, and even began to bend the Vengeance backward with its superior strength and mass. True to Noah's expectations, Shinn brought his wings down and around under his arms, positron reflector shields glowing as they prepared to batter the Brotherhood away from the Vengeance, as had been done on multiple occasions so far. As soon as he saw the wings start to move, Noah thrust forward and upward with the Brotherhood's right knee, not into the Vengeance, but rather striking on the bottom of the QC zweihander's hilt, the force of the blow punching the sword up and out of Shinn's surprised grip, allowing Noah to twist his arms and toss the blade away with a flick of his wrists.

Shinn reacted quickly to being disarmed, continuing to bring his wings around while also thrusting forward with both palms, planning to hit the Brotherhood with all four positron reflectors and hopefully knock the larger Gundam onto its ass long enough for Shinn to regain his sword. As if reading Shinn's mind... which was a distinct possibility, Shinn realized... Noah sheathed the Brotherhood's armblades even as he was flipping Shinn's sword away, and the Brotherhood met the Vengeance with all four of its palm positron reflectors activated and ready. Almost simultaneously, both Gundams slammed each other with their full complement of shield, both machines suddering and shivering under the onslaught of conflicting magnetic forces as their shields vied and shoved against each other, pink disc against pink disc. Once more though, the greater power of the Brotherhood soon began to tell, and the Vengeance began sliding backwards, its legs slowly bending as the Brotherhood began to loom overhead, on the verge of battering the Vengeance into the hull.

Disengaging in a rush, Shinn tried to leap backwards out of range, but couldn't quite avoid all of the Brotherhood's shields, and the Vengeance staggered backwards drunkenly, shoved off balance before sitting down hard, incidentally crushing a beam cannon turret beneath it in a puff of flame and smoke. The Brotherhood made as if to pounce forward, but was forced to abort in mid motion as a laser-like stream of bright yellow tracers ripped along the hull between the two Gundams, courtesy of Lunamaria's LAW cannon. Return fire from the Great Endeavor's hull mounted weapons blitzed upwards, only for most of it to come raining back downward shortly thereafter after rebounding from the Seraph's Wings of Light as they formed a protective cocoon around Luna's Archon. Precision shooting from the Vorpal and Phoenix King, also sheltering within the near perfect defense of the Seraph, quickly took care of the other defensive emplacements within easy reach.

The Brotherhood assaulted the triplet of Gundams and Luna's Archon with volleys from his QC spike driver and 550mm mortar, which fired mirage colloid cloaked cluster munitions. However, not a single mortal shell managed to explode as intended, all were picked off by beam or hyper-impulse shots from the Seraph, which guided the projectiles through the otherwise impermeable shell of its Wings of Light by bouncing them five or six times in various directions to reach the proper angles, while still keeping Citadel shield pods in the path of all the incoming QC spikes, deflecting them away harmlessly in showers of golden sparks. Seeing Noah's attention momentarily taken, Shinn bounced forward, QC finger claws snapping to attack position on his hands, only to have to cartwheel frantically to the side as the Brotherhood's armblades returned and nearly decapitated the Vengeance. Shinn swatted two armblades aside with his finger claws, but then had to practically fall over to avoid being skewered by the other two. Shinn rolled heavily to the side, his wings hampering him as they scraped against the hull, just barely avoiding several downward stabbing attacks by the Brotherhood as it sought to pin him to the hull like a bug!

Immersed in keeping Shinn on the ropes, Noah only looked away from the others for an instant, but in that instant the Seraph suddenly burst out of the protective cocoon of its Wings of Light and darted forward at high speed, lashing out with a single foot that caught the Brotherhood right in the middle of its wing joins, the force of the blow sending the Gundam staggering forward off balance, wings and arms flailing for control, and also as a measure to discourage anyone from getting too close in the moment of vulnerability. However, Shinn was already "too close", and he jammed one arm upwards through a brief gap in the Brotherhood's contortions and rammed his finger claws into the Brotherhood's lower belly, crystalline edges reaching hungrily for vital systems, before Shinn was forced to yank his hand away or else lose the entire arm to a furious slash from an armblade. For a moment, dark fluids and small puffs of steam escaped through the hole the punch had made, before the LCR armor flowed and erased the gap in protection, but the damage had still been done!

The Serpah, Vorpal and Phoenix King spread out and then attacked the Brotherhood from three sides at once, all of them moving in with seeming disregard for their own health or defense, though it also became almost immediately apparent that with the Seraph's Wings of Light around, especially in the hands of an absolute master like Kira Yamato, there was little need for the Vorpal or Phoenix King to worry about protecting themselves, because the very air swarmed with shields guided by the hand of their friend. The Brotherhood attacked in a flurry of stabbing and slicing arm and wing blades, but they were always blunted or turned aside or blocked by the darting Wings of Light feathers, and Noah was soon forced on the defensive. The situation only grew more frantic as Shinn joined in as well, clawing and ripping with his finger blades, positron reflectors in palm and wingtip glowing with pent up energies just waiting to be released.

Surrounded and attacked from four sides at once by four of the best Mobile Suit pilots to ever live, equipped with four of the most advanced Gundams ever built, the Brotherhood fought the finest battle of its short life, and for all its terrifying nature, it was a thing of great majesty as well. Luna watched from nearby, helpless to interfere in such a conflict, afraid to fire in case she accidentally hit an ally, not trusting even her superlative aiming skills to fire into a melee that desperate and fast paced. Even if her LAW couldn't hurt two of the five combatants, even the slightest distraction could prove fatal in such circumstances! Besides, it was a fight with only one conclusion possible... no one, not even Kira Yamato himself, could bear up under such an assault for too much longer, surely? And Noah Borander was not Kira Yamato, not by a significant margin.

Noah parried both of Kira's beam swords with two wingblades, while holding Shinn's claws at bay with two armblades bent back up over his shoulders, poking at Yzak with his remaining two wingblades, only to have one shorn in half for a moment or two again from a lateral sweep of Siegfried, and scissoring the remaining two armblades at Athrun to keep the Phoenix King on a back foot for a moment. Noah swore tightly, sweat pouring down his face inside the NIC IV helmet as the Seraph lashed out with another kick and caught the Brotherhood squarely on one knee, sending vibrations throughout his Gundam and disrupting his balance. The Wings of Light curved around and impeded the arm blades hacking at Athrun, allowing the Phoenix King to duck foward with arms extended, BGCS fields snaking out to yank all four wingblades backwards into Athrun's grip, preventing Noah from attacking with half of his melee weapons for a few seconds.

Shinn closed his claws around the other two armblades and held them in place, preventing them from going after Yzak as the Vorpal lunged forward with Siegrief extended for a thrust that should have taken the Brotherhood right through the armpits, if Noah hadn't allowed the off balance Gundam to quite literally fall to its knees, sacrificing the 20mm QC spike driver on his shoulder instead of losing the whole machine. Disengaging his wingblades, Noah slammed the wings themselves into the Vengeance, pummeling Shinn backwards, forcing him to let go of the armblades he was hanging onto, allowing Noah to whip them around and catch Siegfried in a cross-parry before Yzak could slice downwards into the Brotherhood's right torso. Siegfried and QC blade skated against each other for a moment before Noah scissored the armblades and cut the Vorpal's sword in half like he was snipping a piece of straw. Noah's vision momentarily filled with pink fire as the Phoenix King hurled its captured wingblade plasma energy into the Brotherhood's face and eyes, and then he felt the Brotherhood rock again as the Phoenix King slammed a punch into his head, before dropping both hands down on the Brotherhood's shoulders and holding the Gundam in place on its knees with all its strength.

Kira deflected an armblade as it sliced around frantically trying to keep the space in front of the Brotherhood clear, using one of his own forearm Citadel shields, while at the same time stabbing forward with the beam sword in his other hand. He remembered where he'd stabbed the Brotherhood last time, using Siegfried, and recalled that the attack had disabled most of the Brotherhood's outside control systems, causing the machine to fall back on its AI systems. It seemed as good a place as any to strike his first blow, because the sooner he cut Noah out of the battleground, the better! In the midst of driving home his attack against the basically helpless Brotherhood, now that Athrun was holding it down on its knees, Kira recieved a sudden, irresistable realization. He was familiar with the sensation by now, it was the Latent side of his mind telling him something the rest of his body wasn't aware of yet... almost like precognition in a sense, but all taking place down in his subconscious. Kira didn't know what the future was going to be, but he could let himself react on instinct to things that hadn't happened yet.

So it was that instead of driving home his thrust, he spun the Seraph to the side so violently he almost sprawled down on his hands and knees, narrowly avoiding a beam tipped sniper shell that would have otherwise taken him squarely in the back, with likely unpleasant results! The beam tipped shell passed him by such a narrow margin he could have sworn he heard it scrape against his side, and indeed the flash glimpse he caught of it as it continued past him did indicate a slight wobble in its trajectory which could be accounted for that way. Having missed its intended target, the shell continued on its merry way... until it stopped. Stopped by striking the Brotherhood, more or less directly in the face. The beam tip splattered uselessly away from the LCR armored skull, but then the shell detonated, and peeled away the golden hued armor like it was skin from a rotten apple, gluey gobs of golden liquid crystal spraying away amid sparkling clouds of atomized purple crystal eye lenses, followed shortly thereafter by half molten structural bones and electronic parts. All in all, the entire front half of the Brotherhood's head just plain blew away... if it had had a brain, it would have been dripping down its chest in gobbets right then.

All eyes backtracked the source of the unexpected shot, though they didn't have to go too far before they found the Haunted, a kilometer or so away, its palm still raised, hints of propellant gas still leaking from the barrel of one palm mounted sniper cannon. Though the Brotherhood's primary sensor cluster was now little more than scrap, secondary and tertiary cameras came on line almost instantly, as well as augmented visual displays piped in of the whole area from the Great Endeavor itself. It was no hard task for the Great Endeavor's computers to backtrace the source of the shot either. Perhaps, in a better time, in a better mood, with less bothering him, Noah might have recognized the shot for what it was, a nearly unimaginable accident. Randolf had obviously been shooting at Kira, Kira had just moved and Noah ended up taking the hit instead. Right then though, was not a good time, and Noah was in just about the opposite of a good mood, especially since Meyrin was still lying more or less comatose at his feet, since he hadn't yet had time to spare to wake her from Kira's shameful attack! Noah couldn't see anything at that moment, besides the fact that his pride and joy had just been shot in the face by one of his own surly minions! It was the final straw.

The Brotherhood surged to its feet, a resounding shout of pure, uninhibited rage ringing through the space around it, a shot that didn't require air to travel, didn't require ears to hear. It was more like a psychic explosion than it was a true shout, and even with Katie and melded Kira there to block out the worst of it, it still sent them all, even Kira, staggering for a moment. The Brotherhood brushed off the Phoenix King's grip even as it sent the Orb Gundam clattering backwards with a shove from two wings and two arms, and then punted the Seraph and Vengeance away with a positron shield to the face and torso each while they were still disoriented from the psychic shriek. The Brotherhood's wings pointed outwards in four different directions and then simultaneously blasted out the ravening pink-red cones of the Thermal Exciters radiation fields, igniting the very air with all the energy being pumped out, and forcing the surrounding enemies to scramble madly backwards unless they wanted to have the very organs in their bodies boiled by exposure to incredibly high levels of hard radiation!

All enemies but one that is, because Yzak and Katie had seen the attack coming, and had set up their Minion pods in Citadel shield form between them and the Thermal Exciter pointed in their direction, and had then covered behid their bulkward shield and the tattered remains of the Photon cloak to boot. Even though the very hull beneath their feet was glowing orange and beginning to acquire the taffy like consistency of half molten metal, the Vorpal stood strong, temperature warnings blaring frantically, the cockpit temperature skyrocketing with every passing moment, to the point where Katie could actually feel the gel around her begin to burn her skin like she was pressing it against metal that had been left out in the sun all day. Sparks spat violently throughout the cockpit as systems began to melt and overload, and the sweat on Yzak's body was evaporating as soon as it touched his skin, with a sensation like being slowly broiled alive, but he fought through it, a terrifying snarl of determined hatred stamped on his face.

The Vorpal's free hand inched down to its belt, where a second Siegfried was sheathed, Yzak having brought two in case one was damaged or broken or otherwise lose to him, having learned his lesson from up in space. The temperature alarms blew out in explosions of heat warped glass, and Yzak could smell the stench of smouldering flight suit and burning rubber, but he forced himself to pay it no mind. It was harder tuning out Katie's growing pain, as the gel more readily absorbed the radiation that was leaking through to them than the air around Yzak, so it was heating up faster, but she didn't say a single word, her absolute faith in him anchoring him in place more surely than any physical barrier could do! The Vorpal itself was beginning to glow yellow-orange around the edges, armor running like thick slush away from the weakest parts of the dual shielding his was covering behind. The air hurt to breath, scorching his lungs and throat even through his closed helmet, and he couldn't even make a sound as he snatched up the second Siegfried, ignited it, and rammed it into and through the back of his own shield, then the Minion shield beyond, and finally out and into the Thermal Exciter in the Brotherhood's wing.

For a brief moment, as the shields integrities wavered because of the Siegfried thrust through them, Yzak and Katie were exposed to nearly the full force of the Thermal Exciter, and Yzak could have sworn he felt his blood start to boil and eyes start to liquefy, but before the sensation could get any worse, the Thermal Exciter blew out, shattering most of the top fourth of that particular wing and sending the Brotherhood reeling to the side. Hypercooled liquid spurted like blue-black blood from the stump at the end of the wing, freezing the air solid around it before self sealing systems cut off that branch of the Brotherhood's coolant system, even as the thermal signature of the FPR reactor powering the Brotherhood spiked upwards by twenty five percent, before almost instantly dimming downwards as internal controls limited the reactor to prevent an overload. Obviously startled, the Brotherhood still reacted with incredible speed, turning off the other Thermal Exciters now that they were only melting into the Great Endeavor, its two right arms snatching at its thighs and the weapons mounted thereon.

Yzak and Katie flinched, the air still being too hot to scream, as the tiny muzzle of the AMP rifle passed over their position, the Vorpal all but immobile as half molten bearings and joints cooled and solidified, requiring Yzak to shatter and break many vital internal connections to get the Vorpal moving again, and only clumsily at that! But the Vorpal was not the Brotherhood's target, certainly not for the AMP, because attacking such a close range target would get the Brotherhood caught in the blast as well. No, the Brotherhood cranked the AMP rifle around and sighted in on an entirely different foe, one much removed from the rest of the battle. A pulse of brilliant white light blinded everyone nearby for a few moments as the AMP rifle fired, sending its torus of pure anti-matter screaming across the sky... right into the middle of the chest of the Haunted, which had been obliviously trying to line up another shot against the Seraph. There was another blinding flash of light, followed by warbles from radiation alarms and a rumbling shockwave of air, but when the light cleared away, there was nary a sign of the Haunted... it had been completely annihilated, not even dust remained.

While the AMP rifle had been aimed at the "treacherous" Randolf, the 50mm rapidfire FRALA, which the other right hand had picked up, was indeed aimed at the tottering Vorpal, snaps and pops as overstressed internal mechanisms failed and broke echoing from beneath its arm as Yzak frantically worked unresponsive controls trying to get what had basically become a sixty foot Gundam statue moving again. At the last, instead of a dodge, Yzak managed a barely controlled fall, dropping the Vorpal mostly out of the way of the wrist thick, blue-white laser beam. Instead of being cut in half, the Vorpal lost its right arm at the shoulder, the Siegfried spining away, still grasped in the right hand. Being a FRALA beam though, once it cut through the Vorpal, it didn't stop there, and the Brotherhood swept the beam sideways. Sideways and into the side of Lunamaria's Archon, standing a few score meters away, still shaken by the psychic shriek from earlier.

For her part, Luna didn't scream, not when she saw the FRALA turn in her direction, not when the beam chewed into the side of her Archon like a white hot knife into butter, not even when the interior of her cockpit lit up with a blue-white flash brighter than the sun as the laser beam breached the innermost parts of the Archon. She did flinch when she felt a sensation like a supercooled popsicle pressed against her side, above her hip, below her ribs, a frozen, numb sensation that rippled throughout her entire lower left side. It wasn't until the blue-hite link conked out, the FRALA at last having run out of energy, almost exactly half way through her Archon, that Lunamaria blinked the spots from her eyes and looked down. Down at the glowing orange line carved through the side of her cockpit, through the armrest of her chair even. At the flames licking hungrily at the outer surface of her flight suit, at the black, melted edges of the wrist thick gouge chopped in the side of the flight suit, that extended all the way from her side almost over to her belly button. The smell of charred pork reached her nostrils, mixed with the scent of burnt copper and iron and whiffs of gory steam.

There was no pain, not initially at least. No blood either. The FRALA had cut right through most of her lower left torso, melted right through her flesh and muscle and fat and nerves like it wasn't even there. Luna's right hand fluttered limply down to her waist, and she stared in wide eyed shock as her fingers, quite of their own volition it seemed, crept into the gash charred through her flight suit. Her fingers went in... and in... and in, she couldn;t even feel the difference between melted uniform and melted flesh. Luna forced herself to stop when she had her fingers buried inside her flight suit to the bottom knuckle, and still hadn't felt resistance. Her fingers were inside her own body, and she couldn't even touch flesh! Or if she was, she couldn't feel it! Coldness spread throughout her body, so much that she shivered and goosebumps rose across the skin of her arms and back. THEN the pain hit, as secondary burns caused by skin and blood flashing to steam under the sun-hot caress of the FRALA made themselves known. THEN she screamed, though mercifully, shock rose up like a great dark wave and hammered consciousness away before she could really feel all of it.

The Brotherhood was just turning away from the disabled Vorpal, Luna's Archon beyond it crashing over onto its side, thin wisps of smoke pluming from the glowing orange line carved into its side and halfway through its torso, when Shinn and the Vengeance came down upon the Brotherhood like the very wrath of God itself. He'd ducked back during the purgation by Thermal Exciters to recover his sword, but he'd turned in more than enough time to see Luna take the FRALA shot. More than enough time to hear her scream of total agony. To see her Archon fall, limp and lifeless. The world... the solar system... the galazy itself... everything went red. Shinn wasn't even aware of himself moving, he could only replay the last three seconds over and over again in his mind. Shinn never saw himself swing, never saw his zweihander power through the two armblades that tried to parry, never saw his sword cleave away both right arms of the Brotherhood midway between elbow and shoulder, sending both of the Brotherhood's most powerful weapons clattering away. For that matter, Shinn never felt the Brotherhood's two remaining arm blades take the Vengeance in the wings and leg as he rushed past towards Luna, didn't hear the whispering slice of crystal through steel as his wings came apart, gouting more super-coolant fluid in icy streams, couldn't feel his right leg fall away at the mid thigh, sending the Vengeance stumbling forward on its next attempted step.

Kira moved instictively to stand between the fallen Vorpal and Vengeance and the Brotherhood, granting them the protection of his Wings of Light as one lay still and quiet, while the other scrambled desperately on hands and knees, reactor in the midst of emergency shutdown procedures, to get closer to the downed Archon. Kira winced, easily able to pick up on Shinn's distress while melded, and he wished he could offer some condolences or hope to the young pilot, but truth be told, he couldn't feel the mind of the girl in the Archon. Maybe she was just unconscious, and he wasn't used to sensing such minds, so she was invisible. Maybe she was dead. There was no way for him to tell. So instead, he focused his attention upon the Brotherhood, while Athrun moved to circle behind the enemy once more. A sudden shudder ran throughout the hul of the Great Endeavor beneath them, and for a moment Kira thought the enemy fortress had at last suffered some significant damage. But a moment later he realized it was merely that the Great Endeavor had at last reached the far shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and was once more deploying its monstrous legs.

Kira gritted his teeth. They were really running out of time. All of them. His meld was almost gone, he could barely feel Lacus anymore. The Vorpal was out of the fight, as was the Vengeance. Athrun lacked any reliable means of hurting the Brotherhood, and had to be getting pretty damned tired as well. They were almost in range of the Warmaster, but the Great Endeavor still sported most of its topside Positron shields, which made that option, at least, still moot. And with the Brotherhood in front of him, Kira couldn't afford to go take down the shields himelf, and nor could Athrun. Cagalli was retreating, already pushed beyond her limits, her signal over by where the majority of the USN forces still active were massing and reforming for another attack on the Great Endeavor. The last attack. There was nothing for it, Kira only had one option left. He forced himself to ignore the Brotherhood, still recovering from Shinn's enraged attacks. To ignore the shuddering and shaking beneath his feet, as the Great Endeavor took its first sluggish steps onto the beach. To ignore the pain and suffering he could feel like a mist rising all around him, mixed with the sharp stench of pending failure. To ignore anything and everything, except the confines of his own mind and the people within it.

Kira hoped no one would ever ask him to explain what he did next, because he really didn't know. It was something similar to what Lacus had done all those years ago during the final battle with Frost. Except this time he didn't have anything but the comm system of the Seraph to aid him, and that was a far cry from the worldwide broadcasting capabilities of the military facilities under NORAD mountain. Lacus wasn't exactly in top form this time either, hell she wasn't even physically present. But it would be enough. It had to be enough! "Take out the dorsal shields!" Kira broadcast, on every open channel he could, while at the same time projecting Lacus's power out with the same message, making it more than a suggestion, more than an order... it was practically a compulsion. Kira didn't know how many people it affected... certainly not everyone who heard it, and in no way close to Lacus's "Stop!" heard round the world, but, as the last dregs of the meld dissolved and Kira felt Lacus and Akira's presence retreat from his mind, his eyes returning to the normal metallic purple hue of a seed rage, he was sure it had reached enough!

* * *

Meyrin yawned with jaw cracking force and stretched, her eyes fluttering open before just as rapidly winking shut, bright light stabbing her retina's like daggers, as the remnants of a dream she couldn't quite remember faded into her subconscious. Her body felt a bit stiff for some reason, like she'd been lying on something a bit too hard and unyielding, and true to form, she felt cool metal and plastics pressing against her bare skin, rather than the silky softness of sheets and mattress. Come to think of it, she was feeling a little too much skin contact with the floor, or whatever it was. Yes, altogether too much contact, especially in places that really shouldn't feel it. Such as her upper back. Or her butt. Meyrin had the sudden awful premonition that she'd somehow dozed off without getting dressed in her sleepwear, completely in the buff! She'd had nightmares about going to school naked before, maybe this was a variation on that? But the sensation of waking up was so real... could this really be a dream? Meyrin blinked her eyes open again and looked upwards lazily. Someone was standing over her. Someone familiar, though in an unfamiliar fashion. Meyrin gently cocked her head to the side, trying to figure out what was different about this person this time.

"AHHHG!?" Meyrin sat bolt upright and almost fell over again, as she felt her cheeks heat to near flaming hot temperatures, her eyes desperately averted. She'd been looking up at Noah, lying pretty much at his feet. But Noah had been completely and totally naked... just like she herself was, actually! And her viewpoint had sufficed to give her, well, a very COMPREHENSIVE view of her lover, one she hadn't imagined she'd be, well, treated to, just yet. Meyrin scrambled away from Noah's legs, skidding across the floor before drawing herself up into a kneeling position, hands self consciously doing their best to cover her privacy, though given that she'd been sprawled out at his feet for who knew how long, there was precious little decency for her to preserve at this point in time! She was about to make a stammering accusation but before she did, her mind twigged to a number of other factors that her mind told her she'd really ought to consider first.

Things like the holographic display all around her, and the Harbingers working diligently, even a tad frantically, at their bridge control stations nearby. Or the fact that Noah's head was covered by the NIC IV helmet he used to control the Brotherhood in combat. Not to mention that his body was covered in sweat, and he was even shaking a bit from exertion of some sort or other, and his attention could hardly seem to be farther away from Meyrin or her current state of dress, despite how often he fantasized about seeing her in exactly her current amount of clothing. He was a guy, it was something she expected. Truth be told, it didn't even bother her... Noah was extremely, extremely beautiful, and if he was so enamoured of her body, well, then that was really a compliment in her eyes. Meyrin frowned, brushing away the exterraneous thoughts, as she tried to figure out why she'd woken up, naked or otherwise, on the bridge of the Great Endeavor during combat.

_Kira... that insufferable bastard... put you to sleep to stop you from helping me defeat him._ Noah's voice, grim and strained, almost breathless, slipped into her mind like a loving caress.

_I was just remembering that, thank you..._ Meyrin replied, somewhat huffily, though she forced herself to remember it was hardly Noah's fault, what had happened to her. She frowned, her mind suddenly raw with the sensations of Kira digging around and exploring her memories, rooting through her feelings and thoughts. It was... incredibly invasive... even worse than the deep sleep he'd forced her into. She felt like phantom hands had been groping her all over and she shivered angrily. _Remind me to slap your cousin, should we ever meet._

_At this point in time, I would almost regard such an occurance as "inevitable"._ Noah answered, his chest shuddering as he panted for breath. Meyrin looked at him with concern, before going up to him and taking his hand in hers once more. Almost instantly, a compressed summary of his memories, detailing what had happened while she'd been unconscious, appeared in her mind. It only took her a moment or two to sort through and analyze them, at which point in time a bit of sweat began showing on her skin as well, though hers was the cold sweat of worry. Noah had been giving it everything he had and more, and had fought a brilliant battle against overwhelming odds, fighting four masterfully skilled opponents to a standstill all at once! She was, at this moment, totally in awe of her lover... never would she have imagined him capable of such heroics on a physical battlefield.

A nagging memory kept brushing at her attention, one that highlighted the FRALA beam slicing into an Archon that absolutely had to be Luna's, given how desperately Shinn had tried to get over to it shortly afterwards, but even as concern for her sister billowed into her gut, it was overriden by greater concerns involving Noah and the Great Endeavor. For a moment, Meyrin felt horribly guilty that she placed concern for the life and wellbeing of her own elder sister under that of concern for Noah and his organization, but maybe there just wasn't any hiding from it anymore? Noah and the Brotherhood, the Great Endeavor... they were her world now. As much her family as Luna had ever been. Ever since she'd survived the Green EDEN transformation, a line in the sand had been drawn between her old life and her current life, and time had only widened that gap. She still loved Luna, she didn't think that would ever change, still loved her parents, still valued her friends in the Solar Knights. But that love came second to Noah and the Brotherhood now, it had to, for the good of all. Much as Noah's love for her herself had to come second to his love for accomplishing his goal of uplifting the Human Race!

Hopefully Luna would be all right, and Shinn too. But right now, they were going to have to take care of each other and themselves. Meyrin told herself not to worry... Shinn was a strong guy, he'd take the absolute best care of Luna, no matter what. Just like Noah would do for her. Or Meyrin for him. Realizing she needed a distraction, Meyrin focused her attention, not on the Gundam battle, because for all his panting, Noah seemed to have that mostly in hand, but on the larger battle as a whole. She frowned, though it kept on wanting to turn into a smirk. Most of the Great Endeavor's dorsal mounted weaponry had been scoured away in the hours long battle, but the top mounted shields were still holding strong against the low orbital bombardment from above, and now that they'd reached land again, the largely untouched ventral weapon systems could be brought into play against enemies approaching from low angles. Furthermore, while the Brotherhood was down to just one Mobile Suit, that being the Brotherhood Gundam itself, and it pretty severely damaged, the enemy forces were still organizing themselves in the aftermath from the joint psychic storm Meyrin and Noah had unleashed upon them prior to Kira's arrival.

Some of the enemy forces, those closest to the Great Endeavor, were still pushing forward in ragged groups, obviously trying to make the most of the much depeleted dorsal defense grid to inflict as much damage as possible, though most Mobile Suit weapons were basically paper cuts to something the size of the Great Endeavor. The greater majority of the enemy forces however, were grouping up off to one side, having retreated entirely over the ismuth of land seperating the Gulf of Carpentaria from the rest of the Pacific Ocean, where they had rendevouzed with support ships, including several oceangoing supercarriers from the FNE fleets, for rearming and resupplying. Though not really a student of military history, Meyrin was still familiar enough to remember a certain ancient naval battle called The Battle of Midway, where one side of a war had been lucky enough to catch its foes rearming and refueling their aircraft aboard their carriers, and had been able to practically obliterate the fleet in question because of that vulnerability, and the similarities to the current situation were enough to make her smirk.

"All available power to the AMP cannon!" Meyrin ordered imperiously, an almost predatory look crossing her face as she squeezed Noah's hand tight. "Target the enemy forces resupplying around those supercarriers off to the starboard side." Meyrin checked the targeting data herself, making sure the cannon was aimed right where it would do the most damage, vaporizing almost eighty percent of the remaining enemy Mobile Forces, not to mention the support fleet ships. "I'm sorry, but all is fair in war. Your sacrifices will be honored." Meyrin promised softly, as power funneled into the main cannon. This battle would be over in a minute or two. About time.

* * *

Athrun once again had lassoed the Brotherhood's wingblades with his BGCS fields and held them back from attacking Kira, reasoning that even though the Brotherhood was missing both arms on one side, even just two QC armblades were more than dangerous enough by themselves. The Brotherhood tried to blast him with its left shoulder mounted mortar, but Athrun fried the shell before it could get halfway to him by channeling the captured wingblade energy in a wide cone in front of him. An instant later and the mortar was shattered into a dozen pieces as one of Kira's beam swords punched through the Brotherhood's shoulder, only to be itself sliced apart by a reactive flutter of the remaining armblades. It was all coming down to the wire, both sides were too tired to really defend anymore, it was going to be a matter of which side could take more punishment, while still giving out enough to make the other guy fold. And though he tried to stifle it, Athrun could not help but get the strong feeling that they had won. The Brotherhood was still phenominally dangerous, but with both him and Kira there, not to mention Yzak and the slowly recovering Vorpal, they had more than enough stamina to outlast this last gasp of the Brotherhood!

Unfortunately, while such a prediction was most likely true, insofar as it went, it only applied to the battle most currently and directly at hand. The Brotherhood was going down... but it wasn't going down alone. Alarms started wailing in Athrun's cockpit, as his remaining sensors started picking up massive... and familiar... energy buildups and transfers inside the Great Endeavor. Power that was all being funneled to once place, from all five fusion pulse reactors. As if that wasn't enough of a connection, the massive cannon barrel at the very zenith of the Great Endeavor's hull, silent and still since long before the Orb Gundams had arrived on scene, began to move, the slender by comparsion barrel sliding to the right and elevating slightly, quite plainly receiving targeting information from the enemy bridge. Seeing that Kira still had the Brotherhood well in hand for the moment, Athrun diverted his attention and did a quick triangulation on where the enemy point of aim happened to be. As he looked at the results, the blood drained from his face and his throat tried to close up on him.

Perhaps predictably, the enemy had seen the large concentration of resupplying and rearming USN and allied forces Mobile Suits that had retreated after the psychic onslaught to reform and get their heads on straight, meeting up with a detachment from the support and carrier forces that had sailed in as close to shore as possible to minimize travel time for the battle weary pilots. However, the problem being that more than half of the Mobile Suits were still in the middle of resupply, and most of the rest were closely grouped in new formations, in preparation for starting up the assault on the Great Endeavor again. And the real problem being, that the IFF beacon for the Dawn Goddess was right in the middle of it all! No doubt Cagalli was being looked at or cared for in one of the ship's medical bays, and she'd never be able to get to her Gundam in time to get out of the way, even if she could pilot worth a damn in her current condition, which was far from assured. Hell, even if he'd called and warned her five minutes ago, she probably still wouldn't have been able to get away, along with most everyone else!

It didn't take Athrun any time at all to think, he set thinking aside and acted on instinct, launching the Phoenix King up and away from the Brotherhood and Seraph battle, wincing at having to leave Kira there by himself, but if anyone could beat the Brotherhood alone, Kira was that person! And he could not, simply could not abandon Cagalli to the fate of being blasted apart by the Great Endeavor's antimatter cannon, not to mention all the thousands of others that would die! If that many USN pilots and machines got destroyed now, the battle was over, simply over, and done, a loss for the USN and allies! "If this doesn't work like I'm hoping, please tell Cagalli I'm sorry. And that I love her so much I can't even express it." Athrun commed to Kira. He didn't wait for a reply, he just transformed the Phoenix King to Mobile Armor mode and hit the afterburners. And began to pray.

* * *

"The big gun is moving." Stella observed, her voice drained of almost all its strength and emotion. The hull of the Great Endeavor shuddered and crumpled slightly underneath her Panzerwulf, which after losing her arm and primary weapon systems to the Brotherhood, and recovering herself from the depths of her code word induced berserker rage, she'd transformed to tank mode. She had to be careful where she drove, because many sections of the Great Endeavor's hull were steep enough, and slick enough, that her armored treads couldn't keep traction, but she wasn't looking to go fast, she was just looking to go, and that it did just fine. Not to mention, having the tank-mode main gun, a dual 110cm high energy gottfried beam cannon at her command made her miss the lost Cerberus combi-weapon and right arm of her Mobile Suit less. She unfortunately couldn't depress the barrels enough to really fire at the hull of the Great Endeavor, at least nowhere nearby, but she'd made sure to use it as often as possible against whatever distant weapon emplacements or patches of hull she could target.

"Ignore it, we've gotta take out those shields." Lain replied thickly, still spitting semi-clotted blood from his badly bitten tongue with every couple words. His Archon walked a careful distance behind Stella's Panzerfwulf-tank, close enough to lend her support or to defend her with his shield, but far enough back that if she started to slide backwards because of lost traction, he wouldn't get crushed by the larger Mobile Suit. Quite why he'd suddenly become so focused on taking out the Great Endeavor's dorsal mounted shielding, Lain did not know. He could hardly even remember who had ordered it be done, in such an oddly compelling voice. Truth be told, after what Noah had done to him, his mind felt like it was made out of half melted steel wool, scrubbing around in his skull, and that was far from pleasant! Calming Stella down hadn't been a picnic lunch either, though eventually he had managed it, with only minimal damage to his Archon in the process. Mobile Suits were not made to subdue other Mobile Suits. Especially larger, heavier ones with pilots in a berserker frenzy. seriously, he was gonna kick Dr. Roanoke in the gnads next time he saw the bastard, for doing that to Stella in the middle of combat, effective strategy or not!

"If you say so." Stella shrugged, willing to trust in Lain's judgement right now. She could hardly keep herself awake, and only the very real fear that Lain would die if she wasn't here to protect him kept her in the game, fighting against her natural tendency to drift into a fugue after one of her induced berserker rages. Once more, he'd pulled her out of the throes of what should have been an uncontrollable frenzy, just using his voice, and Stella was as frightened by what that meant as she was by the thought of him not being around to do it anymore, which would happen if she didn't protect him now! She launched a volley from her two 50 tube rocket launchers, now mounted on either side of the tank, versus the shoulders of the Mobile Suit form, ripping up dozens of square meters of hull plating, up around where her sensors detected a lot of controlled energy flow, certainly a power node of some sort, or hopefully a shield energy modulator!

Lain saw where Stella was aiming, and lit into it with his accelerated impulse cannon and other weapons, joined a second later by the blinding flash and thundering roar of the gottfrieds light firing, blowing a ten meter wide molten hole through the midst of the destruction and completely annihilating the target point. The pink haze of the positron shields a hundred meters or so above them didn't even flicker, so Lain guessed that either it hadn't been a shield modulator, or it had been something minor. He saw the huge amounts of power being funneled to the Great Endeavor's main cannon, and had to really fight himself to avoid telling Stella to turn the fury of her heavy weapon upon the big enemy gun. Only the knowledge that the gun was protected by Citadel and positron shields of its own, even from low angle attacks like theirs, convinced him to keep trying to take out the enemy defense, rather than offense. Lain was about to point out another possible target point when they came under fire from some of the defensive emplacements right up near the AMP cannon, and Lain rushed to the front to take the worst of the barrage of beams and 120mm cannon shells on his shield.

Even as they fell under attack, Lain could see other scattered USN units of various models, from Champions to Panzerwulfs to Cavaliers, to ALU Lupus's and even one or two Dawndrakes, all also working their way towards the upper reaches of the Great Endeavor's hull, only pausing to blast at promising looking locations that might contain a critical power node or control circuit for the upper shields. A few fired potshots at the AMP cannon, but true to Lain's expectations, such attacks were blocked well short by overlapping screens of positron and Citadel shields. After a few seconds, the barrage of defensive firepower moved to suppress other units that were doing more active damage than Lain and Stella, allowing them to continue their slow upward trek. It was only a matter of time at this point, the defensive emplacements were too few to suppress more than one or two groups at a time, and there were far more than that working to follow that strange order!

"I FOUND IT!" One of the ALU Lupus's, also known as a converted and minimally upgraded GINN, announced suddenly, after using its beam saber to probe in the hull beneath its feet for a moment or two. He sliced away another section of deck plating, and found himself staring at a Citadel shield that resisted his attempts to stab or pierce with his beam saber. There was a LOT of power flowing into a point directly beneath the shield zone, and it all split up and went a bunch of different directions after entering. Furthermore, it was active, whereas a distribution point for energy weapons would be mostly dead at this point with all the weapons mostly destroyed. Its obvious importance was underlined by the fact that almost at once the remaining defensive weapons began concentrating fire on that location, obviously trying to protect it. The lucky Lupus pilot soon ran out of luck, as his sadly outdated Mobile Suit was quickly overwhelmed by the firepower raining down upon him, but the damage had been done, and the allied forces were already closing in on that spot, those that could.

Lain gritted his teeth, since the location of the vulnerable point was quite far from his and Stella's location. It wouldn't be too much trouble to get there by himself, but Stella, especially in tank mode, would never get there in any reasonable amount of time, and he knew he would never be able to leave her behind! For all her skills, she was actually very vulnerable in combat, if only to the whims of her own side and superior officers, and he would NOT leave her to be used as a suicide weapon! So if they couldn't be the heroic ones this time, then Lain guessed they'd just have to settle for making sure the heroic ones got their chance. "Change of plans, Stella. You see those nasty guns trying to kill those poor bastards?"

"I do see them." Stella acknowledged.

"Could you be a dear and destroy them with me?" Lain asked with a devilish smirk.

"I think... I'd like to do exactly that, Lain." Stella felt a similar grin grow across her face, her turret tracking around seemingly of its own accord to orient upon the guns in question. "I think I'd like that a lot."

* * *

"AMP Cannon will be ready to fire in fifteen seconds, Lady!" A Harbinger shouted. "Targeted enemies are beginning to disperse and attempt evasive maneuvers. Over seventy six percent of enemy forces projected to remain within assured destruction radius."

"Fire when ready." Meyrin ordered calmly. Even as she said it, something caught her eye on the medium range sensor screens. She frowned slightly and zoomed in on the image, which proved to be the Phoenix King, in Mobile Armor high speed travel form. "What is that fool doing?" Meyrin wondered out loud, even as she mentally calculated his path and saw that it clearly bisected that of the soon to come AMP blast. "Does he really think he's going to be able to make a difference?"

"Lady! The power regulator for the upper postiron shields has come under attack by the enemy! If they take that out, our entire dorsal shield grid will go down!"

"Get the backups charged! Prepare to switch over to emergency shield systems once the primaries go down!" Meyrin ordered. "Split power between emergency shields and AMP cannon reloading after the shot!"

"Shot in three... two... one... AMP CANNON FIRING!" The fire control Harbinger announced, even as the display screens momentarily almost blacked out as they filtered the immensely bright flash of the AMP projectile leaving the barrel, a glowing ring of pure destruction that streaked across the sky like a comet from hell.

* * *

Athrun winced as he heard the structural frames of the Phoenix King moan and creak as he transformed from Mobile Armor mode to Mobile Suit mode without braking to below the sound barrier. In Mobile Suit form, the Phoenix King had far more drag than it did in the approximately birdlike Mobile Armor form, and the accumulated air resistance was doings its best to rip off his arms and legs and wings as the Gundam rapidly slowed down from the nearly Mach 2 it had been going as he raced to get into position. However, even that slowdown had been something Athrun's hypertense mind had factored in to his plan, and as long as the Phoenix King held together for just a bit longer... Athrun winced as he heard a particularly loud creak, the sound of some sort of important strut or bone warping. If Murdoch was still alive, he'd have probably beaten the piss out of Athrun for abusing his Gundam so, figuratively if not literally.

Of course he had no idea if what he was planning would even work. In fact he put it at roughly even odds that it wouldn't work. At least, not like he planned it. However, even if his plan totally failed, at the very least he'd put the Phoenix King in the way of the AMP cannon's shot, so one way or another, it would have to take another shot if it wanted to actually hit the now panicking USN forces, and Cagalli. _Oh Cagalli, I hope you can forgive me if this turns out to not go right. Forgive me my stupidity, but I couldn't think of anything else to do. I'm sure you'll go on and on about how I'm not supposed to try and sacrifice myself, that you're there for me in spirit if not always in body. If I come back, you're going to beat the absolute shit out of me, I know it. And I'll enjoy it, like always. Because I know what it means. And if I don't come back, I know it'll feel like the world has ended. But you need to bear your own words in mind, my love... the hardest thing to do is to keep on living. I think those are the truest words you've ever spoken to me, and the best advice. I love you, Cagalli Zala-Attha, and you should never forget that, no matter what happens!_

Even as he thought that, and fixed in his mind all the happy images of him and Cagalli as he could, just in case they were the last things he ever got to think about, Athrun let a single bittersweet thought filter in. _Huh, who'd have guessed I might actually want to be a Newtype, just for a moment, right now. There's so much I need to tell her... so much I have to assume she knows... its... so hard..._ Athrun could feel the tracks of unashamed tears running down his cheeks, even though his eyes were still the hardened emeralds they became in a Seed rage. He was afraid to die. He was afraid that these were going to be his last moments. He was afraid he was never going to see Cagalli again. And this fear, this entirely rational and logical fear... it was worse, by far, than the psychic assault that Noah had forced upon him. But for all that, it was also a fear that empowered him. Energized him. Motivated him. "Bring... it... on..." Athrun muttered, staring down the muzzle of the AMP cannon from a few kilometers away. "Bring it on." He repeated coldly, putting the Phoenix King's hands out in front of it's body. "BRING IT ON!" Athrun challenged at the top of his voice, as the power inside the Great Endeavor peaked and flared. "I AM ATHRUN ZALA-ATTHA AND I... WILL... SURVIVE THIS!!"

The AMP cannon blast blanked out the sky for a moment, turning blue to shocking white, a phosphor bulb flash visible from high orbit to the dismay of many, piercing the clouds, the smoke, the steam, all with equal ease, blotting them out for a moment with its uncontained, energetic brilliance. Athrun was ready for that though, his eyes closed, controlling his machine solely through memory and complex mental calculations and feel, though even with his cameras mostly turned off and his eyes shut, spots of blue and purple dazzle strobed in his vision, couresty of a flash of light that had penetrated his eyelids even after it pierced his armor. His BGCS fields were all at maximum power, and overlapping each other in a sort of catcher's mitt layout, directly in the path of the oncoming anti-matter torus, which was expanding even as it left the barrel of its cannon, growing from a 100mm ring to several times that size by the time it reached the Phoenix King a fraction of a second later.

The anti-matter torus itself only weighed about a kilogram, but it was moving VERY quickly, and when it struck the resisting magnetic fields of the Phoenix King's Beam Generation and Containment System it had enough kinetic energy to shove the Gundam backwards through the sky like a man trying to catch a swinging wrecking ball with his bare hands. Smoke rose, thick and black, from the inner workings of the Phoenix King's gauntlets and arms as the BGCS was pushed beyond its operational limits in an effort to contain the pulsing mass of antimatter that was furiously trying to break free from its short term magnetic wrapper. All it would take would be a few molecules of atmospheric gas to penetrate the wrapper, and the whole load would go off, with results that really didn't need to be explained by now.

In Athrun's cockpit, pretty much every alarm that could go off, was going off, a ceaseless, almost incomprehensible blare of noise. However, the only ones Athrun was really paying attention to were the "reactor overpower" and "thruster instability" and "BGCS failure imminent" ones, all of which had been overidden manually to prevent automatic safety shutdown of those systems. If his reactor went out, he'd lose power and the AMP shot would blow. If he lost thrusters, he would fall to the ground and blow up. If he lost BGCS, the AMp shot would hit him, and blow. Death, death, death... and those were just the quick ones! His radiation alarms were going absolutely crazy, as the contained near ball of anti-matter threw off high energy radiation of all sorts, so much so that for most intents and purposes Athrun might as well be eating solid nuclear waste right at the moment! His cockpit temperature was skyrocketing as well, as with that much hard radiation flying around, he was also basically holding a Thermal Exciter in his hands. Pointed at his face.

Athrun ignored all that he could, as he took the momentum imparted to him by the AMP blast and added to it, gradually curvivng his course upwards, until the Phoenix King was rocketing up at maximum thrust, straight up towards the top of the atmosphere! He could have gone a lot faster, and probably higher, and certainly safer, in Mobile Armor mode, but he couldn't transform and also maintain control over the AMP shot, which was still doing its best to break out of his overworked BGCS, and slowly, ever so slowly succeeding! He was holding quite literally enough energy to destroy himself a billions times over in the palms of his hands, or basically so, and it wanted OUT. Display screens and alarm bulbs began blowing out, one after the other, his computers starting to go haywire as the radiation messed with their internal memory devices, even to the point where some parts were catching fire or just plain exploding! He glanced desperately at his altimeter... six thousand meters... seven thousand meters... eight thousand... nine thousand...the Phoenix King was shaking itself apart around him, vital circuits blowing out in puffs of acrid smoke, but it was almost like it felt his desperation, his need, and it stayed together, stayed operating past the point of endurance, streaking up and up and up and UP!

He could taste ash on his lips, even though his helmet and flight suit were sealed and airtight, and realized his skin was quite literally on the verge of combustion, and he knew he could go no farther. This would have to be high enough. He tore open his emergency survival kit and sorted through it frantically, feeling the blood pound and start to bubble in his veins, his skin blistering and turning red and raw, his lips turning black with heat, his sweat evaporating INSIDE his pores, blasting them open in welters of steamy blood. The pain was the worst thing he had EVER felt. Ever. But he didn't let it stop him. He pounded the emergency cokpit release button even as he tore open the survival blanket, made of shiny reflective foil like material that was supposed to trap thermal radiation exuded by the body and reflect it back, keeping you toasty warm even though the blanket was as thin as foil! However, he wasn't going to keep the heat in, but rather hoping it would keep some heat out, as he wrapped it around his head and chest as much as possible. He couldn't tell if it was doing any good, because it was at that time that his scalp and body hair caught fire.

The thump of the explosive bolts beneath his chair blowing out a panel of armor in the Phoenix King's groin echoed dimly through his head, followed by the sudden weightless feeling as his chair dropped out through the gap thus created, but by then the agony of his body semi-spontaneously combusting had largely driven his consciousness away. Even as his sight faded away into an ocean of dark, smoky pain, Athrun still winced at the brightness of the AMP ball contained within the Phoenix King's hands. As he fell through the atmosphere, he heard and felt the outer part of his flightsuit catch fire as well as oxygen molecules fed the heat saturated material. _Why is it I always end up on fire, falling from a high altitude?_ Athrun thought distantly. _I hope I'm far enough..._ The thought was never finished, because the AMP blast finally escaped its bonds and detonated with a flash like a second sun going nova, completely drowing out daylight across the entire southeastern hemisphere of Earth. The Phoenix King was no more, his ashes buffeted as they fell blazing towards the ground far below...

* * *

"Almost there... almost there...!" Lain shouted hectically, ignoring the protests of his systems as he fired again and again and again without pause, laying down a barrage of suppressive fire upon the Great Endeavor's defensive weapons, frantically trying to keep them from focusing their firepower on the group of Mobile Suits that were clustered around the shield router that was their primary target. He was still blinking spots out of his eyes from the aftereffects of the AMP cannon shot, though according to his sensors the shot had somehow been deflected from its intended path, because there should have been a major explosion by now. He didn't have the attention to spare for that right now though, because things were getting tight. Very tight. "Come on you bastards, hurry it up, we can't keep em off you forever!"

Beside him, Stella cut loose with her dual gottfried turret as fast as she could, the thick green beams carving deep molten trenches through long stretches of the Great Endeavor's hull, but most of the weapon emplacements were out of her direct line of sight, and she could do little to suppress them other than hope she was managing to shoot through the deck plating in the way! She heard Lain swear foully as one of the Dawndrakes that was serving as a firewall between the Panzerwulf and Champions working around the shield router took several direct hits from a 120mm gatling cannon and fragmented backwards in several messy pieces, its pilot's final cry cut off in a burst of static. "Faster... faster!" Stella found herself urging the Panzerwulf pilot, one of the newest Extendeds, who's name she could not recall in her fuzzy state, worked to wedge his Panzerwulf as firmly against the shield router as he could. A quicker way would have been using the Mjolnir Penetrating Particle Projector cannon portion of a cerberus combi-weapon, but like Stella, he'd apparently lost his somewhere along the way. And there was simply no way he'd be able to target the router with the tank forms gottfried turret.

So instead he was using the Panzerwulf's third most powerful weapon. Its self destruct device. Assuming he could get into optimum position without getting blasted away by the defensive systems, which was looking less and less likely by the second. Everyone winced as a lucky beam blast scored along the Panzerwulf's shoulder, blasting away the multi-tube rocket launcher mounted there, but fortunately that was the only damage suffered, and it even seemed to help the pilot wedge that shoulder into the gap in the Great Endeavor's hull, now that the boxy launcher was out of the way. Stella could see that the way the pilot was wedging themself in would prevent them from ejecting, but that would hardly weigh on an Extended's mind. The two USN Champions that were assisting the Panzerwulf had also linked their self destruct switches to that of the Panzerwulf, so that all three would go off at once, and it was that linking process that was taking the most time. Electronically, it was impossible they had discovered, and so they were going to have to do it manually.

"Self destructing in fifteen seconds..." The very scared yet resolute voice of one of the Champion pilots commed. He didn't sound much older than Lain or Stella, if even that old. "Get clear while you can!"

"SHIELDS ARE GOING DOWN IN 13 SECONDS! IF YOU GOT SOMETHING PLANNED, DO IT NOW!" Lain shouted, even as Stella transformed back to Mobile Suit form, and they both headed away from the Great Endeavor like it was suddenly about to explode, which, for all he knew, it might well be. "Goddamn those bastards for being such selfless sons of...!" Lain cried, thinking of the brave and unnamed pilots that were sitting in their cockpits watching the self destruct timers blink downwards. "EIGHT SECONDS! THIS BETTER BE FUCKING WORTH IT!"

* * *

"ATHRUN, NO!" Kira shouted in despair as he finally saw what Athrun had inexpicably rushed off to do. He was still blinking spots from the AP cannon's muzzle flare from his vision, but he could still more than easily enough pick up the red blur of the Phoenix King as Athrun parked himself directly in the path of the shot. At first Kira thought his best friend was planning on sacrificing himself as a shield, in the same vein as he'd tried to blow himself up to defeat the Genesis space laser at Jachin Due. But then he saw the Phoenix King actually **CATCH** the AMP shot, and he realized his friend was even crazier than he'd ever given him credit for. And far more brilliant too. "YOU STUPID, CRAZY FUCKER, YOU'D BETTER PULL THIS OFF!" Kira shouted, caught between joy and terror as he saw the Phoenix King hurled backwards by the impact of basically catching a cannonball with its bare hands, before its path curled up and away from the Earth as Athrun headed for orbit, or as close as he could get anyway.

"SHIELDS ARE GOING DOWN IN 13 SECONDS! IF YOU GOT SOMETHING PLANNED, DO IT NOW!" The voice of an unknown soldier broadcast suddenly over all available channels. Kira's head whipped around, seeing USN and allied forces Mobile Suits of all models suddenly fleeing the area around the Great Endeavor. None of them save perhaps one or two of the orb pilots knew about the Warmaster up in orbit, but they all seemed to get the sense that something big was coming. Something very big, and that it was advisable not to be nearby if possible. Something which Kira realized should pertain to himself as well. Instantly switching tactics, Kira bounded away from the Brotherhood, which let him go with obvious bemusement, Noah being just as tired, actually far more tired than Kira himself was right now.

The Vengeance was operating on minimal power, having barely managed to avert a reactor shutdown, though now it could barely even move, as it cradled the fallen Archon in one arm and the Brotherhood's AMP rifle in the other, its QC zweihander slung across its back. Still, even at minimal power, the FPR provided enough oomph for Shinn to be able to carry Luna's Archon away from the battlefield, which he'd begun doing almost as soon as he'd heard Kira order people to take down the shields. He couldn't put his finger on it, but from the very tone of Kira's voice, Shinn had figured the legendary pilot had some sort of ace up his sleeve, and he was in no position to argue. He was going to lose even what little power he had in another few minutes due to the USN control module, so he was doing his best to limp away as much as possible. "Hang on Luna... I've got you. I'm not going to let you die. Hang on. Hang on! Luna!"

Kira dropped his sword and got his arms around the Vorpal, his Wings of Light striking out to form a Citadel Cocoon around the still stationary Brotherhood, much like he'd once done back up in outer space, if a bit roomier this time. He knew it wouldn't hold the Brotherhood for long, a matter of seconds, but he just didn't want Noah trying to stab them in the back as he hauled the Vorpal to its feet and then took off, both Gundams pushing their thrusters for all they were worth. "EIGHT SECONDS! THIS BETTER BE FUCKING WORTH IT!" The unnamed USN pilot shouted again. _It will be._ Kira promised silently. _It has to be!_

"Miri, its coming up..." Kira started to say, on the channel that was being relayed up to the Warmaster in orbit.

"We're on it." Miriallia's extremely tense voice interrupted him. "Have faith."

"Always." Yzak's hoarse voice cut in. "Kill the motherfu..." Yzak was interrupted by the detonation of the AMP cannon shot, way up in the sky. "Christ, that fool better not have..."

"Three seconds." Kira added, unnessecarily. "Two seconds..."

"Shut up, we got this!"

* * *

"Large heat source in orbit, Lady!" A harbinger shouted. "It's a positron weapon coming down from low orbit!"

"AMP blast has been deflected by unknown source! Negative hit, negative hit!" Another was shouting.

"Enemy forces are pulling back, repeat, ENEMY FORCES ARE RETREATING!"

"Does he really think this will hold me?" Noah asked himself rhetorically under his breath. "He must be more exhausted than I thought..."

The entire Great Endeavor shuddered heavily, and warning klaxons sounded for the first time in the battle. "Dorsal positron shield regulator has been hit and disabled! Dorsal shields are falling now!"

"Positron impact in three seconds!"

"Secondary shields powering up, active in five seconds!"

"AMP cannon charging, ready to fire in two minutes!"

"Something isn't right here..." Meyrin muttered, as the deluge of reports washed around her like a tidal wave of frantic noise. Her eyes snapped to the positron beam falling upon them from low orbit, and she back traced it to its source. And then a little farther. A single positron beam was hardly a threat to something the size of the Great Endeavor, even without shields. There had to be something more. _Is that the Warmaster...? And those... oh...my.. fucking... G_

* * *

Miriallia watched the blue-red streak of the lohengrin blast streaking earthward, shoving all those annoying air molecules out of the way as it went, leaving a perfect tunnel of vaccuum behind, at least for a second or two. They'd fired before the shields actually went down, because of the travel distance involved. "N..." She started to say.

Dearka saw the green light flash bright, and his finger tightened on the button at the exact same motion, sweat pouring down his face, his eyes washed out purple from Seed rage, because there was simply no other way he'd be able to react fast enough. "...OW!" Miriallia's voice continued, but by then things had already begun. The specially shaped spearhead of Ice-Gold was spat out of its holding bin by puffs of inert gasses, and almost instantly sucked up by the magnetic fields of the first Spear accelerator, hovering a few meters in front of the Warmaster. The accelerator hurled the spearhead towards the next accelerator in line, brilliant red-gold light streaming from behind the projectile as it was slingshotted from one accelerator to the next, its speed increasing exponentially each time. The first time the Spear had been fired, it had used a standard array of 32 accelerators, a figurative barrel 3.2 kilometers long, allowing the projectile to reach 5 percent of the speed of light by the end.

This shot used the full array of 128 accelerators, making the barrel 12.8 kilometers long and the final speed, as the projectile sped out of the final accelerator a VERY small fraction of a second after it entered the first one, at a full **FORTY** percent of the speed of light. A little less than seventy five thousand miles per **SECOND**. If it weren't for the vacuum tunnel of the lohengrin blast, the projectile would have burned up in the top reaches of the atmosphere like a spark from a campfire, and just about as destructive. As things were though, the Ice-Gold spearhead, massing about an eighth of a pound initially, still massed about a tenth of a pound when it caught up to the lohengrin blastwave. Which was just after the moment that it stuck the upper hull of the Great Endeavor's soutwest quarter. The shot missed the barrel of the AMP cannon by less than ten meters. For all that it mattered, as the pure kinetic energy of a not at all small nuclear bomb struck the Great Endeavor focused on an area the diameter of a small woman's pinky finger.

The light from the explosion moved fastest, of course, illuminating the Earth for a thousand kilometers in every direction, almost as bright as the fading AMP blast from a few seconds earlier. Next came the kinetic blastwave itself, travelling at close to mach 10, not just pushing air out of the way, but quite literally shoving it ahead of it in a solid wall of gasesous particles that was VISIBLE as a sparkling glimmer, like a rainbow made tangible. A rainbow almost two miles tall, expanding outwards in a shockwave that would top out at close to five hundred miles across. Anything and everything that was struck by the rainbow wave was propelled along with it like water droplets hurled away from a child cannonballing into a pool. Even Mobile Suits. Even SHIPS. The noise was indescribable. Anyone who could see the light from the blast could not hear anything. It was just too loud. Loud enough that it was quite literally heard echoing around the world, for DAYS. It was, in almost every measureable way, about the same thing as a comet hitting the surface, though not quite as destructive.

As for what happened to the Great Endeavor... well, a full sixth of the entire mobile fortress just plain disappeared, converted to dust and less by the kinetic burst of initial impact. Hundreds of thousands of tons of metal and polymers and other materials, just plain vaporized, a hole more than two hundred meters across blasted entirely through the Great Endeavor, from top to bottom, like a hole punch through a sheet of cardboard. It didn't stop there though. Not by a long shot. Five of the Great Endeavor's eight legs, each roughly the size of the former Revenant Gundam, SHATTERED under the sudden impact and the other three, suddenly bearing the full weight of the remaining parts of the Great Endeavor, buckled less than a second later. The Great Endeavor slammed downwards like a plate hanging over the edge of a chair that has been jumped on by a child with both feet, the south half being forced down so hard that the north half actually rose up on a roughly seventy degree angle before mass and gravity hauled it too back into contact with the ground below, the Great Endeavor sliding forward on one edge like a frisbee rolling on the ground for a few hundred meters before it all came crashing down. Dust and debris rose like volcanic plumes into the sky, a bow wave of dirt close to fifty meters tall running ahead of the Great Endeavor as it ploughed into the ground.

That was still far from the end, as secondary explosions rippled through the SATMARS in firecracker strings, all four remaining FPR's going into instant emergency shutdown, the fifth one having been in the path of the Spear of Ares, and was now nothing but vapor and plasma. The AMP cannon, and over ninety percent of its supporting systems, also gone. If there had been a full or nearly full charge in the cannon at the time, the entire Great Endeavor might have just ceased to exist altogether. Massive cracks spitting fire and electric sparks the size of lightning bolts spread throughout the Great Endeavor, entire factory sections melting away or blowing up into shredded masses of twisted metal. As for the people inside, well, the lucky ones were killed by the blastwave before they even knew what hit them. Those fortunate, being farther away from the point of impact, were tossed about like beads in a marracca, some of them hard enough that they literally burst apart like water balloons when they hit a hard surface, their bones and organs pulped and jellified. Some people that had strapped into chairs were cut in half by their restraints, the protective belts holding firm while human flesh and bone did not.

In the space of a second, the entire course of the battle... probably the entire course of history... had been completely and totally changed. It was anyone's guess what was going to happen next. Who had survived? Who hadn't survived? Was the Great Endeavor finally stopped for good? Could the USN muster the forces to make a difference? The fate of humanity hung in the balance, and fate itself seemed to hold its breath nervously.

* * *

Author Note: Well, there you be. Think I packed enough action into this chapter? I can barely even recount it all, even now. Lot of people got fucked up though. Lotta people... Whelp, this ain't the end just yet folks, so hold onto your seats, and I'll try and get the next bit out soon! Looking forward to the reviews!


	70. A Brief Interruption

Some of my reviewers have been asking, not unreasonably so in my mind, for a page or list of the various Gundams and Mobile Suits and Warships I use in my many battles. Because it gets confusing, and its hard to remember what each model or Gundam is equipped with, besides the real signature stuff, such as the Seraph's Fractal Wings, Vorpal's Siegfried, Phoenix King's BGCS, or Warmaster's Earthshaker, for example. I have to look at reference documents myself at times when writing, so I can understand that it would be far harder for you the readers, since you actually have to page way back in order to find the chapters where info on the machines was first put out. I'll actually do you one better, and give you info on all the various technologies and weapon systems, as well as other pertinent info as I feel it becomes needed, including OC skills/stats, places, organization notes, events of note, etc. Because I understand my stories are long, and dense, and involved, and even I can't always keep track of everything that has happened in them with accuracy.

Note: This is now considered the official document, and it trumps anything currently in the story in terms of "correctness". If I didn't match it up right prior to this, then that's my bad, and I apologize. Also, you may well see examples of technology on here that aren't in use yet. Savor the implications.

**Technology and weapons**

The offensive, defensive and utility technologies utilized in Eden Disaster and eventually the Reclamation War are listed and briefly explained below.

**CIWS:** Stands for Close In Weapon System. Its primary use is the interception of missiles/rockets, though it can also be used as an anti-infantry and vehicle weapon, or, in a last resort, as an anti-Mobile Suit weapon. This is of course referring the weapons mounted on Mobile Suits themselves, the CIWS of warships, such as the Archangel, are much bigger and more powerful and are therefore probably better categorized under autocannon (Iegelstellungs) or beam (Valkyros) weapons instead. In my stories, unlike the canon Seed, CIWS is pretty standardized, with the 20mm CIWS being the staple of all sides. Its a gatling type weapon, meaning it has 6 barrels that rotate at high speed, firing rapid bursts of rounds, at around 10-20 shots per second, at close to medium range. Newer technology has resulted in 15mm Beam CIWS becoming more common, especially on Orb and ZAFT machines, which is more damaging and also doesn't run the risk of running out of ammo.

**Autocannon:** These were the workhorse weapons of the first Mobile Suits, scaled up versions of the automatic rifles infantry have been using for centuries. They're just really big guns, thats it. The use chemical explosives of some sort to propel either a solid slug or explosive round at the enemy at high speed (around 1000 mph), causing damage from impact or explosion. They are usually either semi-automatic (one shot per trigger pull) or fully automatic (multiple shots per trigger pull), and often come in a gatling (multiple rotating barrels) arrangement for even higher rapid firing ability. They run a gamut of sizes and shapes, from the 55mm Machinegun of the GINN to the 80mm Gatling cannons in the Dawn Goddess's chest, to the "standard" 120mm Gatling cannon used on machines like the Merciless, Independence, Dawndrake and plenty more. Usually speaking, above about 250mm or so, rapidfire goes away and above 300mm is generally an artillery cannon, not a direct fire weapon. They shoot in more or less straight lines, use orange tracers for a visual track of where they are aimed, and often require significant ammo reserves to be effective.

**Artillery Cannon/Shotcannon:** These are the big guns, at least as far as chemical propelled weapons go. They hurl large, explosive or armor piercing shells a long distance in a ballistic trajectory, allowing for indirect fire at targets out of the pilot's direct line of sight. They are generally comparatively slow firing, and often have a heavy recoil, requiring a pilot to be well braced if they want to have accurate fire. They commonly run out of ammunition quickly, and are best used judiciously against heavy targets or groups of lightly armored enemies. Though intended for long range, indirect fire, they can be used for direct fire with reasonable success as well. A variation on artillery cannon is the Shotcannon or anti-Armor shotgun, a smooth bore, large caliber weapon that fires multiple high explosive or armor penetrating shells in a cone like pattern, trading accuracy for area of effect damage. These are direct fire, short range only weapons in almost all cases.

**Earthshaker Magnus:** The famous Earthshaker, and now Earthshaker Magnus of the Grand Buster and Warmaster Gundams is just an artillery cannon taken to high extremes. With a bore diameter of 200 centimeters (that means the shells are two full meters in diameter), this is the definitive heavy support weapon, capable of blasting apart entire warships and eliminating entire squadrons of enemy Mobile Suits with a single well placed shell from practically over the horizon. The original Earthshaker was hand loaded, making it slow firing, but the Magnus is equipped with a three round clip, and can thus be fired multiple times quickly before needing to reload. Because the weapon is so massive, and the recoil so enormous, only specially designed and reinforced Gundams, such as the Warmaster, can use them without special supports or risking damage. Ammunition loads are generally small, because each shell is bigger than a good sized car, but then again, how many shots do you really need?

**Beam Weapons:** This weapon technology was actually first discovered by the Earth Alliance, surprisingly, and was the foundation around which many of the original Gundam's armaments were built, and because of its relatively cheap cost, with high damage potential and armor penetrating ability, Beam weapons are quickly becoming the most common type of weapon around. Basically speaking, they are plasma weapons, meaning they use power from whatever source to strip electrons from a compressed, heated gas, which is then contained in a brief lived magnetic field and projected at the enemy at high speeds (roughly the same as a bullet, around 1000 mph). They deal damage from heat, melting holes in pretty much anything they strike, the plasma itself is usually around eight to nine thousand degrees celsius when it leaves the barrel. The plasma is "dyed" a lime greeny color by included copper filaments in the beam compression chamber. They are usually semi-auto weapons, though some are rapidfire or gatling mounted, and range in caliber from the standard 57mm rifle to up around 125mm, beyond which is the realm of High Energy beam weapons. They are line of sight only weapons, they travel in perfectly straight lines.

**High Energy Beam Weapons and Ion Weapons:** High Energy beam weapons are just what regular beam weapons become once they starting getting above 125mm caliber or so, and continuing on up into the real monsters like the 110 or 220cm Gottfried cannons used by many warships as first tier weaponry. High energy beam weapons use more power and produce denser plasma than their lesser cousins, and the beams themselves are a darker green. They are sometimes also called Ion weapons, though in truth that name belongs to a less efficient class of outdated ZAFT weapons with similar damage capabilities that has since been replaced. They typically have a longer range and a longer time between shots than regular beam weapons, though gatling mounted weapons do exist upon the heaviest of warships and Gundams.

**Supercharged Beam Weapons:** A new compromise between high energy beam weapons and regular beam weapons developed by ZAFT for their new Primal class Variable Configuration Mobile Suits. They are slower firing than regular beam weapons, but cause more damage, and include a "splatter" effect when they strike a solid target, much like an exploding bullet, meaning the hole they make is about two to three times the actual size of the bolt or beam fired. They come in the standard 57-125mm calibers. They have a dark red-maroon color, because of copper filaments were insufficiently able to handle the higher temperature and pressure of the new compression chambers, so iron was used instead, lending the bolts a bloody hue.

**Hyper/Accelerated Impulse and Compressed Plasma Weapons:** The next step up in terms of power from a High Energy beam weapon, Hyper Impulse weapons, also known as Compressed Plasma weapons are the heaviest and strongest energy weapons most Mobile Suits will ever use. They function much like a Beam weapon, except that the plasma is refined and compressed, then recompressed and compressed some more, until it becomes unstable and "superheated", though in truth Plasma doesn't really have a limit to how hot it can get. Hyper Impulse plasma usually leaves the barrel at around 30-40 thousand degrees celsius, three to four times hotter than a regular beam blast. The instability of the plasma accounts for the shifting red-blue color of the beam, and the way it always spreads out a bit after leaving its projector, making the beam strike a wider area than its caliber strictly suggests. They require a lot of power and are generally slow firing, but can royally mess up anything they strike. They have very long range, and range in caliber from 150mm to 750mm and more. Accelerated Impulse weapons such as the Solar Knights have, use advanced technology to shoot the plasma faster, resulting in more kinetic impact and penetration power, while "blue shifting" the reddish parts of the plasma to purple.

**Railguns:** Railguns use two "rails" of electrically conducive metal, through which a high current is run, and between which a conductive projectile is placed to complete the circuit, to launch said projectile at extremely high speeds in a more or less straight line. In short, they are a gun that shoots using electricity, instead of chemical power. They fire solid, armor penetrating projectiles only, because the speeds at which the projectile is launched and which it strikes the target would see an explosive shell flattened before it could explode. They are a purely kinetic weapon, meaning they deal damage based on impact, like a baseball bat to the face. Except this baseball bat ranges in size from a human fingernail to the size of a human head or more, and is striking you at speeds of around 15 to 16 thousand miles per hour. Railguns have very long range and are generally very accurate, but are slow to reload after firing, and sometimes can be delicate. One little bend in a conducive rail matters a lot at fifteen thousand miles per hour. The projectiles are usually coated with a substance that burns yellow when it is ignited by air friction, allowing pilots to see a yellow "bolt" that follows where their shot went for aiming purposes.

**Spear of Ares:** This is the granddaddy of all railguns, though its really more a hybrid of linear cannons and railguns. It uses anywhere from 32 to 128 seperate linear accelerators, arranged in a perfectly straight line spaced 100 meters apart, to accelerate a solid projectile made of special friction resistant material (Ice-Gold, usually) to tremendous speeds. Anywhere from five to forty percent of the speed of light itself, depending on how many accelerators are used. The projectile itself is tiny, little more than a ball bearing, massing about an eighth of a pound at start, and usually less than that upon striking the target. But it hardly matters, because at the speed it travels is where all the energy comes from. The equation E=MC2, from Einstein's general theory of relativity, comes into play. It states that the Energy (E) of any material object is equal to its Mass (M) multiplied by the speed of light (C) squared. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per SECOND. Even forty percent of that, multiplied by itself (squared) then by the mass of an object... its a BIG DEAL. A nuke, and a big one too, though there is no radiation. Its downside is it takes a while to set up, can only be fired once every day or so, its terrible at hitting moving targets of less than massive size, and it only normally works in vacuum, as air resistance would melt the projectile before it got anywhere in an atmosphere.

**Linear Cannons:** Linear cannons are another "electric" gun that uses repelling magnetic fields to launch munitions at bullet-like speeds. It functions along the same principles as a mag-lev train, using supermagnets to create a mutually repelling field, into which the munition is sucked and then ejected from the far end of the barrel, eithout ever once touching the insides of the barrel. This dramatically reduces wear and tear on the weapon, and also allows for relatively rapid firing, though not usually to quite the same extent as a chemical gun, though there are some new weapons, like the Linear Assault Weapon or LAW, that uses a gatling type arrangement to allow for extreme rapidfire capabilities. Linear Weapons shoot faster than railguns, with less power requirements, and can use all types of ammo, but slower than guns, and with shorter range and accuracy than railguns, so they are definitely a compromise weapon, one that is a staple of many Mobile Suit armaments. They have yellow tracers, like Railguns.

**Rockets:** Unlike bullets, rockets are continually propelled by a chemical reaction, rather than just being "punted" by one. Thus they can carrier a heavier, more dangerous warhead in a variety of types, from regular high explosive to armor piercing to incendiary to fragmentation and more. Rockets are distinguished from the related missiles by the fact that they have no guidance systems, and fly in more or less straight lines in the direction they are first fired, and they tend to have shorter range and smaller payloads as well. To compensate, they are smaller and lighter, meaning more can be carrier, and are usually fired in volleys, of 5 to 50 or more rockets at a time to maximize damage and the chance to hit a fast moving target. Rockets are typically unarmored, and fall easy prey to most CIWS systems. Rockets are usually 50-750mm, which refers to the diameter of the warhead.

**Grenades:** A bundle of armored high explosives that is thrown by the power of a Mobile Suit's arm, or else used like a mine by clamping it magnetically to the side of a target, Mobile Suit grenades are uncommon but undoubtedly effective weapons when used properly, incorporating the explosive power of missiles into a compact, hard to damage package that isn't subject to most forms of CIWS or jamming. However, they are relatively slow to throw, and have a short range of only a hundred meters or so, though they can bounce around corners or through windows or doors, making them great for flushing foes out of dense cover.

**Hameya's Arbalest:** This is a large two handed combination weapon that forms the centerpiece of the Dawn Goddess's ranged arsenal. It is an over-under weapon, with a 125cm High Energy beam cannon forming the top barrel, underneath which is mounted a 120mm Rocket launcher. The rockets fired by the 120mm launcher feature improved warheads that strike for far more damage than the size of the rocket would initially suggest, making the rockets about as powerful as a 600-700mm weapon. They also have magnetic field projectors in their rear stabilizing fins, which function like a short term BGCS system to repel and drag along plasma such as that generated by the Phoenix King's Vulcan's Forge system, adding even more punch to an attack when the "plasma streamer" impacts shortly after the rocket.

**Missiles/Torpedoes:** These are the larger, longer ranged and more expensive cousins to Rockets. Torpedoes are simply missiles that work underwater. The chief difference between rockets and missiles is that missiles have a guidance system, either built in, or one borrowed from whatever craft fired them, which allows them to correct their flight path in mid shot to pursue a target, or even choose their own targets based on thermal or proximity sensors. They are generally fired in groups as well, to help defeat CIWS systems and to increase the damage done, and even a single missile can cause serious harm to a Mobile Suit, through shock and impact if nothing else. They come with all kinds of warheads, just like Rockets, but are generally more powerful, and might even contain multiple warheads. They fly very quickly, but are lightly armored, so a good CIWS barrage can quickly clear away a large portion of any missile volley. The most common types of guidance systems are thermal (heat seeking) or radar (radio wave guided), or sonar (sound wave guided) for Torpedoes.

**Anti-Ship/Cruise Missiles:** These are just much bigger missiles, usually reasonably well armored, with extremely long ranges (1000 miles plus) and very advanced guidance systems allowing for precision strikes and programmable flight paths at almost any distance. They fly faster than most fighter jets, often near mach 7 or 8, and are almost impossible to dodge, though well aimed CIWS fire, especially beam CIWS fire, can still bring them down. This class of missile usually contains multiple warheads or else really powerful warheads designed to take out heavily armored targets like capital warships, bunkers, or buildings. This is the smallest class of missile that can utilize nuclear warheads, usually of the tactical 10-50 kiloton (explosion equivalent to 10,000 to 50,000 tons of TNT) variety. They are usually carried seperately on pylons or in silos, rather than grouped in racks or launchers.

**Strategic Missiles:** These are the big boys of the missile world. Often as tall as a Mobile Suit, and weighing ten or more tons each, these weapons are designed to fly from their launcher into orbit before descending back to the target from high overhead. They can strike pretty much anywhere in the world from basically anywhere else in the world. They use the largest conventional type warheads, or more commonly, heavy nuclear warheads in the strategic (75 to 300 kiloton) range, and can carry up to 8 warheads, each individually targetable, per missile. Too large to be carried by most warships, they are usually launched from hardened underground bunkers or special submarines that are armed almost solely with the missiles, called Ballistic Missile Submarines. Though large, they are delicate, and can easily be shot down, though they fly very quickly (mach 10+) and are thus hard to target properly.

**Variable Tactical Payload Missiles:** These are the new wave in guided missile systems, first pioneered on the Retribution Gundam, fitting between regular missiles and cruise missiles. Seeing how CIWS systems were becoming so advanced and effective, regular rockets and missiles were just becoming outclassed and largely useless on the battlefield in anything but the largest numbers. Also, with improvements to Mobile Suit defense technology and armor, missiles that did get through the CIWS were less effective at damaging targets. VTP Missile pods generally have only 3-10 tubes, and only one missile per tube, but the missiles have extremely advanced guidance systems that let them dodge and weave to avoid enemy firepower, have the range to actively pursue most targets for ten minutes or more, are heavily or even Phase Shift or HAC armored, fly with lightning speed and have beam tipped warheads that can kill even the heaviest of Mobile Suits with a single direct hit. Even a Gundam is not above fearing VTP missiles. Besides regular missiles, a variety of special missiles, such as countermeasures, cloaking, shield projecting and nano-dispersing, plus many more, are also available at varying degrees of expense, allowing a pilot to customize their payload to their tastes and the projected needs of a future battle.

**FRALA:** FRALA, or Focused Repeatedly Amplified Light Arrays, are an invention of the Isolation from later on in Chaotic Cosmos. They are nothing more, or less, than a military grade laser. They function similar to a beam weapon, at least in that they both do damage through heat, but a FRALA beam is far hotter than even a Hyper Impulse blast, usually close 500,000 degrees celsius. They achieve this extreme heat by combining the beams of dozens of smaller, less powerful lasers in a special mirrored chamber that accounts for a large degree of the bulkiness and size of the weapon, before finally releasing the refined, combined laser in a beam that lasts for 1 to 1.5 seconds, allowing expert users to sweep the shot from side to side in a cutting action. Indeed, it is through this cutting action that most of the damage is done, because most FRALA only shoot a beam in the 20-50mm range, which while damaging as a single hole, is far from fatal or critical. FRALA can penetrate almost any known armor, save HAC armor, like it wasn't even there, and even Citadel shields have trouble stopping a direct FRALA strike in many cases. The weapon has very long range, but cannot generally be fired more than once every minute or so at best, though the Brotherhood of Humanity possesses cooling technology that allows for semi-automatic fire in some of its Gundams. The laser beams are blue-white or dark purple in color, and painful to look at directly.

**Mjolnir 3P Cannons:** Mjolnir 3P, or Penetrating Particle Projection, Cannons are specialty weapons first designed by the Earth Alliance and equipped on the Bane Gundam designed for BCPU 4 Markov Ashino at the start of Chaotic Cosmos. They are a Kinetic/High Energy Particle weapon, which means that their damage is both impact and heat based, as they use special capacitors to store and eventually project a stream of superexcited gas particles at extremely high speeds, close to twenty percent of the speed of light. The mass of the particles is miniscule, but at such speeds the shots, which look like searing bright purple-white lightning bolts, strike with a destructive power that is almost unequalled, easily capable of penetrating all forms of armor and most forms of energy shield. The weapons are short ranged, and not quick firing, and are also very unstable and delicate... they can often backfire if jarred even slightly, and god help you if your weapon gets shot while you're are holding it, especially if its charged!

**Cerberus Combi-Weapon:** This is the centerpiece armament of the Panzerwulf Heavy Assault Mobile Suit of the FNE's 5th Special Forces Company, also known as Fenris Company, that is owned and operated by F.E.A.R., or Fenris Enhanced Armaments Researchers, a former Blue Cosmos think tank, using biologically enhanced "Extended" super soldiers as pilots. It consists of two 350mm hyper impulse cannons, mounted side by side, with a Mjolnir 3P cannon beneath them, making for a bulky and sometimes awkward weapon that nonetheless possesses one shot kill capability against targets both near and far, as well as the extreme threat of the close range brutality of the Mjolnir cannon. The size and mass of the combi-weapon requires two hands to wield for any Mobile suit not especially designed or reinforced for heavy weapons, such as Panzerwulfs or the Warmaster.

**Sonic Weapons:** A very rare category of weapons currently seen only three times, in all cases on Brotherhood machines, Sonic Weapons, which include CUSA (Compounded Ultra Sonic Amplifier) and CUSA-D (Compounded, Ultra Sonic Amplifier Directional) are point blank weapons of extreme deadliness, though only situational utility. They function much like you'd expect, amplifying a base sound, such as a shriek or yell, over and over and voer again until the sonic vibration is so powerful it can shatter solid objects, quite literally shaking targets apart by high intensity vibrations. Physical armor is useless against sonic weapons, and in many cases the vibrations will pass through the sturdy armor and kill the pilot long before the Mobile Suit breaks down. Citadel and Positron shields will block the vibration waves, but even they are no sure proof, as the sound waves will transmit through the energy barrier, albeit at much reduced capacity. The only real difference between CUSA and CUSA-D's is that a CUSA hits a sphere around the point of emanation, while CUSA-D's are cone shaped effects extending outward from their origin point. Their max effective kill range is about 50 meters, or 200 meters underwater.

**Gugnir/EMP Weapons:** These weapons are similar to nuclear bombs, except instead of exploding, they implode, which is kind of like an explosion in reverse (not really). Instead of causing damage through heat and shockwaves, they send out an almost invisible pulse of electrogmagnetic radiation, which is death itself to most forms of electronic devices, especially anything that relies on magnetic tapes or drives for data storage, as all such devices become effectively blanked, ruining the complex operating systems of almost every piece of modern hardwarve that incorporates computer chips. Which is pretty much everything above the level of a bicycle. There might be some arcing and sparking from equipment shorting out, but by and large an EMP wave causes almost no physical damage, and is almost entirely harmless to living creatures, unless they have a lot of metal or circuits in their body for some reason. Initially only created as bombs, EMP weapons have since branched out into projected cone type weapons with a short range and a long charge time, a special "nonlethal" weapon employed on some Mobile Suits for taking enemies alive.

**Directed Neutron Disablers:** An outgrowth of the N-Jammer technology first created by the PLANTS, which blocked the movement of free neutrons across a wide area, preventing nuclear fission from occuring on a rapid scale and thus rendering nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons totally ineffective. N-Jammer cancelers were soon invented, also by the PLANTS, that negated the neutron supression field in a small radius, allowing for selected machines or weapons to function as they normally would. A DND is another short ranged, cone type special weapon, currently equipped though rarely used by the Seraph, which creates a much more concentrated N-Jammer field in its area of effect, instantly shutting down any nuclear fission activity within it, burning out N-Jammer Cancelers in a matter of seconds, and totally disabling nuclear weapons and power plants in the process. Though it does not shut down the nuclear fusion process, it still does limit it, allowing the DND to reduce the effectiveness of a FPR within its, admittedly, point blank range.

**AMP Weapons:** AMP, or Anti-Matter Pulse weapons are among the most devastating and powerful weapons ever invented by man. Positron weapons, like the Lohengrin of the Archangel, were developed in the relatively recent past by further progressing along the path of beam technology from Hyper-impulse weapons, further compressing and supercharging the plasma until it reaches the point where electronics spontaneously start converting to their anti-matter equivalents, positrons (thus the name of the weapon). The wildly unstable mixture of positrons and plasma is then ejected at high speed, as discussed in that entry. However, even such powerful weapons only used scattered atomic particles of anti-matter. AMP weapons use a solid mass of pure anti-lithium, isolated from regular matter through powerful though temporary magnetic wrappers as their projectile, in essence shooting a ring of pure destructive energy. When Anti-matter contacts regular matter, it mutually annihilates, leaving nothing remaining of either, and releasing a stupenduous amount of energy in the form of heat and radiation. A gram of pure anti-matter, if it hit the ground, could blow an entire office building into nothingness, and it scales exponentially up from there. In addition to its annihilation effect, which makes it equally viable against all targets, an AMP shot releases lots of blinding light and harmful radiation around its blast zone and shot path, enough to permanently blind people looking directly at the shot or blast. It is a relatively slow firing weapon, with a very long range, and is thankfully very rare, almost unique.

**Quantum Crystal Spike/Harpoon Drivers:** A varient on Linear Cannon technology pioneered by the Brotherhood, these weapons fire either large spears or many small slivers of edged Quantum Crystal, material which is aligned in a regular crytsalline pattern not only on the molecular level like a gemstone, but on the atomic and subatomic levels as well, making it practically unbreakable, if also totally rigid. Just about the only thing that can reliably damage Quantum Crystal is anti-matter or other Quantum Crystal, everything else is just too "obtuse" to affect the interlocked structure of the crystal, even things like plasma or laser beams. Because the edges on a sharp piece of Quantum Crystal also go down to the subatomic level, it allows them to slice through basically anything but Quantum Crystal like it was hardly even there, making armor completely ineffective against the QC spikes or harpoons, and even energy fields like Citadel Shields are hit and miss at times. Quantum Crystal is time consuming and expensive to make though, so such weapons are exceedingly rare, and often have limited ammunition available.

**Positron Weapons: **Positron weapons, like the Lohengrin of the Archangel, were developed in the relatively recent past by further progressing along the path of beam technology from Hyper-impulse weapons, further compressing and supercharging the plasma until it reaches the point where electronics spontaneously start converting to their anti-matter equivalents, positrons (thus the name of the weapon). The wildly unstable mixture of positrons and plasma is then ejected at high speed toward the target. When the blast strikes, the positrons annihilate with electrons in the target, blowing it apart on an atomic level, basically allowing the beam to disintegrate anything it hits, in addition to the damage from heat caused by the plasma. Poistron weapons are effective against pretty much everything, only very strong energy fields have a chance of stopping them. They have very long range, but are slow to recharge, and can be very volatile if damaged, especially while charging. They resemble hyper impulse beams, being blue-red in color, but they crackle with pent up energy, and are sometimes haloed with yellow or green lightning bolts as they discharge excess energy along their flight path.

**Monodisc/Edged Munition Catapults:** Somewhat of a compromise between the absolute penetration ability of a QC spike driver and the cost efficiency of a regular Linear Cannon, these weapons, which were first seen on the Retribution Gundam, fire mono-molecular edged explosive packed discs using Linear Cannons. The discs not only cut into whatever they strike because of their edge, but also explode like grenades shortly afterwards, causing greater damage because they are already embedded within the enemy armor, ideally. The Retribution's EMC's provide a Mirage Colloid cloaking effect for their discs, making its shots almost impossible to predict, but this is not true of all such weapons. The discs often fly on curving flight paths, making them hard for most pilots to figure out how to avoid before it is too late, and allowing for some tricky shots by experts. They fire rapidly but at only medium ranges, and are limited in their ability to penetrate Phase Shift armor, or most energy barrier type defenses.

**Thermal Exciters/Radiation Cannons:** First seen as the infamous Cyclops base self destruct system of the Earth Alliance, Thermal Exciters and their related weapons, Radiation Cannons (like GENESIS), function on more or less the same principles as the microwave you probably use to heat your food, just on phenominally bigger scales. They focus X-ray radiation and then release it in constant waves either in a pinkish short ranged cone (Exciter) or a huge multicolored long range blast (Cannon), superheating all matter in their area of effect to several thousand degrees Celsius. Not quite as hot as plasma beams, but over a MUCH larger area, and over a much longer duration. Their effect is often aptly described as a "Blast Furnace" that sets fire to the very air in a wide radius, melting steel, boiling flesh, and causing marrow to turn to steam, resulting in people popping like blood filled balloons. They are horrifying weapons that ignore armor, even heat immune armors such as LCR or HAC, radiation striking through the armor plate to broil the pilot alive. Just about the only things that can stop them are powerful Citadel or Positron shields, and even then, because of the wide area of effect, unless the shield is very large, its defensive utility is limited. As if it weren't all bad enough, they are toxic weapons, leaving patches of extreme radiation behind after they fire, which can be deadly in even moderate doses to what life wasn't already killed by the hellish heat! They are slow to recharge after firing, and take a huge amount of energy, limiting them to only the largest or most advanced of platforms.

**Ion Disintegrators:** Another Kinetic/High Energy Particle weapon, equipped on an as yet unknown Gundam, the Ion Disintegrators fire packets of supermassive particles that, upon striking solid matter, initiate a limited nuclear reaction amongst the molecules of the target's form. In essence, the weapons shoot micro-nukes. The limited nuclear reaction usually results in an explosion sufficient to blow a hole ten to fifteen times as wide as the caliber of the weapon would suggest in the target, usually in a cone type formation, with the narrow end of the cone where the shot hit, and the wide ends extending away from that point. Of course, the explosion itself is quite energetic, almost like a wide angle beam blast in a way, and it can and will cause damage to anything in its path, such as the torso of a Mobile Suit that thought itself safe behind its shield. Because it initiates an explosion within the molecular structure of the target, the weapons are effective against all armor types, and because of the density of the particles fired, they can actually "warp" the magnetic barriers containing most energy shields such that the projectile will pass through the shield without interacting with it. The shots appear as bright reddish pinpoint flares of light that trail visible distortions in the air behind them as air molecules are dragged along behind the projectile. They are semiautomatic, and medium ranged.

**Melee Weapons:** These are the first generation hand to hand weapons made for Mobile Suits, the most notable examples of which are the GINN sword and the Armor Schneider combat knife. Made of durable, high tensile steel and sharpened to a razors edge, these weapons, when swung with the weight of the Mobile Suit behind them, could cleave armor like it was thin wood. However, they were still little more than backup weapons in most cases, regulated to those inconvenient times when you ran out of bullets for your gun, or when the enemy got too close for accurate shooting, or else to underwater Mobile Suits, since beam weapons didn't work underwater.

**Beam Melee Weapons:** The staple melee weapons of Mobile Suits and Gundams alike since they were first made and on into modern times, these outgrowths of beam cannon technology use a field of magnetically contained plasma, usually pinkish red, though the coloring is easily adjustable, resulting in yellow, green, blue and odder colored beam blades of various sorts, to cut into the foe using heat to melt a trench through whatever was in the way. Effective against even the thickest of armors, and particularly, still useful against Phase Shift armor, beam melee weapons come in a huge variety of forms, from the "lightsaber" like Beam Sabres to the physical and beam edge combination Beam Swords of the Sword Strike and Impulse, to beam axes, spears, claws and daggers of all shapes and sizes. Its hard to find a Mobile Suit in modern times that doesn't have a beam melee weapon on it somewhere, though recent advances in armor technology threaten to challenge the supremacy of beam weapons as the melee weapons of choice in the future.

**Mono-edge Melee Weapons:** These weapons, first seen on the finger claws of the Pulsar and later in several other Brotherhood Gundams, are quickly becoming popular as a cheap replacement for beam melee weapons, and ones that don't drain battery while still being highly effective against anything BUT Phase Shift armor. Mono-edged weapons are just like regular weapons, except that they have been manufactured and sharpened so that their edges literally narrow down to a single molecule, allowing them to slice through most solid materials with contemptuous ease. Only the interlocking molecule chains of Phase Shift armor, or the resilient energy fields of Citadel Shields, pose any resistance to such weapons. They come in all forms of bladed weapons.

**Heat Melee Weapons:** An upgrade to Mono-edged weapons, take a standard mono-weapon and add a high temperature tolerance as well as a direct hookup to either the main power source of the Mobile Suit, or a special secondary power source, which pumps waste heat directly into the blade, heating it to just over a thousand degree's celsius, well into the glowing pink-white hot range. While the effect is only minimally important against regular armor and other targets that mono-weapons already work well against, it is a huge help against Phase Shift armor, and though it doesn't allow you to cut through it with nearly the ease of a beam melee weapon, it does allow you to cut through it all the same. Heat weapons are likely going to be very popular in the future, especially if anti-beam armors become more prevalent. They come in any shape a mono-weapon does.

**Electrified Melee Weapons:** Another varient on standard melee weapons, Electrified weapons most commonly come in the form of a lance or a chain, because they only really need to touch an enemy, not actually penetrate their armor, so reach weapons work well, because it keeps the enemy away from you while still allowing you to hurt them. Upon striking an enemy, either automatically or by pilot control, the weapon releases its electrical charge, much like a huge taser baton, into the enemy machine, overloading control circuits, and possibly even knocking the pilot out, or even killing them if the voltage is enough. Once discharged, it takes a few minutes to build up another charge again, so most designers err on the side of caution and go with big voltage that might kill, versus small voltage that might not disable. They are uncommon at best, only really seen in Orb's military, and not often at that.

**Quantum Crystal Melee Weapons:** The current pinnacle of melee weapon technology, these weapons are made from a solid edged piece of Quantum Crystal in a painstaking process that is more akin to growing a tree than it is to building a weapon. Using current methodology, it takes about a month to grow a single cubic meter of Quantum Crystal, which sounds like a lot of crystal, until you compare it to the 25 meters long by 3 meter wide by .25 meter thick zweihander of the Vengeance (18-19 months), or the four 8 meter long by .5 meter wide by .25 meter thick armblades of the Brotherhood (1 month each). And since its not shapeable, you can't really mass produce raw QC and then turn it into something else, you have to grow it from the beginning to be what you want it to be. Pain in the ass aside, once you're done you have a weapon that is basically indestructible by physical shock or heat damage, and can cut through any armor like it isn't there since it slices apart individual atomic particles (a nuclear bomb is BLUNT by comparison), can usually penetrate Citadel shields if you try hard enough, and is only reliably stopped by a Positron Shield (in which case you cry cause your sword broke) or another QC weapon. Qc can be grown in any color of the rainbow, like a gemstone, though most weapons are a shimmery semi-translucent color, like ice.

**Nanological Weapons:** This is a wide category referring mostly to combat specialized nanomachines, OTHER than EDEN, created and used by Noah Borander for his Gundams. Most famous being the Haunted Mist of the Haunted Gundam, which blocked all forms of sensors except sonar and could kill unprotected humans in minutes due to rapid hypothermia as it sucked heat from their bodies and made more of itself. The Haunted also had missiles that contained nano-payloads that worked to disassemble non-treated electronics within a wide area of dispersal around their impact point, kind of like acid or poison for Mobile Suits. Other examples of Nano-weapons will appear in the future, such as the "Dissolution Aura" of another certain unknown Gundam.

**Siegfried/Fafnir:** A near parallel to the dominance of the QC melee weaponry, created by Orb for the Vorpal Gundam, this high end experiment in the application of magnetic fields has proven to be wildly successful when used in the proper way. Which is any way that doesn't involve piercing a Positron Shield or parrying QC weapons. Classified an OMMB, an Opposed Monopole Magnetic Blade, the blade is formed from two monopoles (rare synthetic elements that projectic magnetic force in one way only, unlike everything found in nature) spaced less than a millimeter apart. The magnetic attraction between the two monopoles is so intense that any regular matter or energy that gets within a few inches of them gets forcfully sucked into the attraction zone between the two monopoles, in effect being "cut" as the blade passes by. The blade is 8 meters long and appears as a birhgt, vibrant blue color, though that is mostly a laser projection so the pilot can keep track of the blade. It can cut through anything but QC like it was hardly there at all, and that includes all forms of energy barriers. The blade itself is delicate, but it only rarely meets anything capable of damaging it. The Fafnir is a much improved version of Siegfried, more details on it to come.

**DRAGOON Systems:** First pioneered by the "Gun Barrel" wired detached pods of the Moebius Zero Mobile Armors, and then improved upon by the Providence Gundam of ZAFT, DRAGOON (I don't care what it stands for) systems are groupings of detachable, independently guidable weapon systems that a Gundam can use to increase its firepower while attacking foes from hard to foresee angles, often catching them off guard. Most are ranged weapons, usually beam cannons of one sort or another, but some few feature beam blades to be used as suicide weapons, like guided darts. Keeping track of the various pods while still piloting a Gundam normally takes extremely high powers of spatial perception, and even with modern improvements, efficiently utilizing such systems remains the province of only the most elite pilots.

**Fractal Wings/Wings of Light:** This defensive DRAGOON type system is the greatest strength of the Seraph Gundam. Composed of thirty six seperate feather pods, eighteen per wing, each capable of manifesting a Citadel or Geischmedig-Panzer shield, at Kira's choice, the Fractal Wings can be used to deflect and block attacks from practically all sides at once, and when working in conjunction with each other, the feath pods can bounce beams around and return the enemy's own firepower at themselves. The Seraph's true firepower is limited only by the powers of Kira's reflexes and concentration, and the number of beam weapons his foes confront him with. The term "Wings of Light" comes from how the Fractal Wings appear when filled with bouncing beam energy shortly before Kira returns it towards his foes in a deluge of energy that is as terrifying as it is beautiful. The pods can also be used to entrap enemy machines in cocoons of Citadel shields, and plenty of other crafty uses as well.

**Phoenix Feathers:** This offensive DRAGOON type system is an impressive part of the Phoenix King's arsenal, and one of the first weapon systems to use the "heated melee weapon" principle. It is comprised of 72 individually targetable feathers, each about a half a meter long, 36 per wing, which heat themselves up to just shy of a thousand degrees celsius while flinging themselves headlong at enemies with their razor sharp spearlike tips forward, impaling and sometimes entirely penetrating enemy machines in a hurricane of blazing razor blades. When not being used to attack, the wings can be used as an extra shield, or to boost the thrusters of the Phoenix King even more, or even as a somewhat clumsy but still effective melee bludgeon.

**Vulcan's Forge Beam Generation and Containment System:** Probably the coolest offensive/defensive system the Phoenix King is equipped with, the Vulcan's Forge BGCS allows Athrun to manipulate plasma energy like a sculptor would soft clay, with plasma provided by triple flamethrowers on each arm, or by thoughtless enemies and thoughtful friends shooting at him with beam weapons. He can shape the captured plasma in real time, creating any sort of melee weapon he can envision, or releasing it as streams, balls, jets, whips or pretty much any form he can think of to confound or destroy his enemies. It is the ultimate in free form melee combat.

**Lucifer's Grasp Gravitic Manipulation Field Generators:** An Edenite adaptation of the Vulcan's Forge BGCS, this system functions much the same way, if at significantly increased capacity, though it is additonally capable of affecting regular solid matter at close range (20 meters or less) of up to 20 tons at a time, in a manner very similar to that of telekinesis, though it is actually accomplished with advancements in gravity manipulation. The Lucifer's Grasp GMFG is equipped on a yet unknown Gundam, but it really shouldn't be hard to figure out which one.

**Minion Pods:** This is an Offensive/Defensive DRAGOON system utilized by the Vorpal Gundam. It consists of three pentagram shaped (five sided figures) pods about 3 meters across each, which can be utilized in three different ways. Individually, each pod is armed with a dual 57mm beam cannon turret and beam "wingblades", allowing for a not inconsiderable boost to the Vorpal's ranged firepower. Together, they can be used either as a Ghuul like flyer platform to allow atmospheric flight, or to create a large surface area, very strong, immobile Citadel Shield barrier. The pods cannot leave a 50 meter radius of the Vorpal, and must frequently be recharged, trading efficency for versatility.

**Citadel Lightwave Shields:** A revolutionary defensive technology first developed by the Isolationists in Chaotic Cosmos, this miniaturizing of the Artemis Umbrella Lightwave Barrier technology has probably saved more lives than any single other defensive mechanism of modern warfare. The Lightwave barrier, far from being comprised of light, is actually made of highly stable, low temperature, condensed plasma derived from Uranium, that when treated with several other more exotic synthetic elements retains almost all of its density while being easily contained within relatively low power magnetic fields, providing what essentially becomes a barrier of solid energy between a pilot and whatever is trying to kill them (no, its impossible, but it sounds cool). The energy field, when activated, is a green-turquoise color with a shimmery sheen like oil. The more power you pump into the shield, the easier it is to keep the plasma stable and dense, and the stronger the shield becomes, resisting attacks from almost all sources with equal fervor. Originally created as a bubble like enclosure, Citadel shields now appear in dozens of different forms, from a covering over more traditional armor shields, to projectors on forearms in a pure energy shield format, and even in "scale mail" armor that covers a Mobile Suit's body from head to toe! This is one technology that's here to stay.

**Geischmedig-Panzer Repulsion Shields:** Another Earth Alliance technology, this was first seen equipped on the Forbidden Gundam assigned to BCPU 4 Shani Andras at the end of Gundam Seed. based off the Mirage Colloid technology, it utilizes magnetically controlled dispersed particles to deflect and redirect incoming beam weaponry (which is sheathed in magnetic wrappers), effectively causing such beams to twist and curve violently away from the GP shield. However, while incredibly effective against beam weapons of all sorts, the GP shields do jack squat against physical weapons, and they use up a lot of power, so they aren't nearly as common these days, especially with the advent of Citadel shields that are much more versatile and efficient. A lesser known ability of GP shields is the ability to control the paths of one's own beam weapons, imparting a curving trajectory to your shots to make them harder to predict, but that is, sadly, an art few practice.

**Armor Shields:** These are the most basic defensive measure, besides the armor of a Mobile Suit itself. A big hunk of thick armor plating carried on one arm and used as a portable wall between you and whatever is trying to kill you. Armor shields were never big until the first Gundams came out, and even then they never caught on with ZAFT, who thought them clunky and inefficent, though the Earth Alliance embraced them wholeheartedly, as did Orb. Being as they are just more armor, shields were just fine against most regular weapons, but of limited use as more and more beam weapons started appearing on the battlefields, so they were often treated with anti-beam coating, described on its own, in order to toughen them up against such weapons. Still, it was at best a stopgap measure, though the pure cheapness of the protection offered still sees a lot of Armor shields in use in second hand and garrison quality Mobile Suits.

**Positron Reflector Shields:** Finally some defensive technology developed by ZAFT. Well, the Borander family more accurately, but whatever. In their own way, Positron Reflector shields are the ultimate in personal defense, save if you somehow had the time and money to grow a pure QC shield. The name of the technology is deceptive, because they don't really reflect much of anything. More absorb it. Or actually, annihilate it, because what Positron shields are, is a field of positrons sandwiched between magnetic barriers to keep the regular matter out. Except for the really fast moving stuff like bullets and shells and plasma beams, which break through the fields, encounter positrons and go BOOM, or more accurately "FLASH" as they disintegrate harmlessly. Positron shields can stop anything but pure energy, aka light and some very exotic types of radiation. So really, the only "common" weapon that can penetrate such a shield is a FRALA, which ignores it like it isn't there. Everything else is stopped cold, and usually disintegrated. Mjolnir 3P cannons can sometimes overload a Positron shield, by sheer energy imparted, but they can't penetrate it outright. They appear as pink-red energy fields, usually circular or ovalline. They can be used as crude melee weapons to "slam" large, slow moving objects (like Mobile Suits) by forcing them back away from the very strong magnetic fields used to contain the positrons, though to be fair, all projected energy shields can be used this way.

**Ablative Armor:** This rare and expensive armor isn't used on Mobile Suits because it is only cost effective to produce in mass quantities, so it is regulated to the hulls of major capital warships instead. In essence, the entire hull is forged out of a single piece of material that is sculpted and folded into the proper shape, rather than bolted or welded together. This makes it incredibly structurally strong, among other things. Also, because the entire hull is one piece, it transfers heat across the entire hull, so even if struck by repeated beam fire, even from capital warship weapons, a serious damaging strike is unlikely because the entire armor needs to overheat before shots start getting through. Durable armor of this sort was used to build the Archangel and Dominion, and is now the standard ship hull material of Orb's new ships, the Raphael, Gabriel, Dawnblade, Endymion Crater and Defender class.

**Phase Shift/Transphase Shift Armor:** The famous or infamous, depending which side of it you find yourself on, armor of the original Gundams, this fantastic advance in molecular manipulation has changed the face of warfare. By bonding networked chains of high tensile strength synthetic molecules across the entire surface of a vehicle or Mobile Suit, Phase Shift armor becomes literally impenetrable to physical weaponry, meaning that no matter how many rockets or bullets you fired at the Gundam, it wouldn't take damage, other than the jarring and jolting from kinetic impact of course. The armor requires a hefty amount of power to run, and so in battery powered machines the battery limits how truly "invincible" the machine is, or at least how long it is. This problem is not suffered by most modern Gundams, who have nuclear reactors for effectively unlimited power. Those who don't opt for nuclear power sometimes turn to Transphase Shift armor, which only activates at the moment of impact, saving big time on energy costs, while being more expensive to initially put together. Phase Shift armored machines change color, which is programmable, when the armor is activated, Transphase Shift armored machines do not.

**Heat Absorbing Conductive Armor:** New armor technology created by Orb in recent years to combat the prevalance of beam based weaponry on the modern battlefield, HAC armor and its associated cooling systems are in some ways similar to Ablative Armor, but much more geared towards dealing with heat. The melting temperature of the armor is incredibly high, over a million degrees celsius in short doses, or around 50,000 degrees over an extended period of more than 10 seconds, and it can dump that heat in a matter of minutes, faster in space. This has the effect of making machines armored with HAC completely invincible to beam and energy based weapons, even FRALA, though multiple continuous FRALA impacts can and will melt the armor eventually. On the flip side though, HAC armor is only a little better than regular armor at defeating physical attacks. However, because of complications with heat dissipation, a machine cannot have both HAC and Phase Shift armor, so developers and pilots have to choose which they think is the greater threat to guard against. Orb at least seems to have made its choice, as all its new lines of Mobile Suits are coming standard with HAC armor.

**Liquid Crystal Regenerative Armor:** Easily the most advanced armor around, and probably the most effective, though its still a matter of hot debate, LCR armor is incredibly rare and is currently only found on the Brotherhood's top two Gundams, the Vengeance and Brotherhood. It is very time consuming to make, combining as it does the properties of a crystal, a fluid and a nanocolony in various measures. LCR is not, quite, solid, though it feels solid if you touch it with your bare hand. It is really a very, very viscous liquid, much like partially molten lava, and it can bend and flow and adjust its dimensions to a surprisingly large degree, allowing a pilot to modify not only the color of his armor, but its exact shape in mostly real time. LCR's chief protective mark is its ability to completely negate any magnetically sheathed plasma based weapon that strikes it, reflecting the beam back on itself before it can even breach the top layer of armor. Even Positron weapons are useless against it. However, physical weapons work just fine, better than usual even because the armor isn't really solid. Even if damaged though, the armor can move to seal up holes, and will, as the name implies, regenerate lost bits of itself to make up for any battle damage suffered, over the course of a few hours depending on how much was lost.

**Regular/Heavy Armor:** The standard stuff all those poor bastards who don't get uber cool Mobile Suits and Gundams have to rely on for protection. Made from titanium-steel plates anywhere from 10-20 cm thick across most vital areas, and a bit thinner on the limbs, this sort of armor is adequate for what it is designed to do, which is fend off hopefully indirect strikes from the autocannon, rockets, missiles and other lower tech weapons of its day. Against anything more modern than a beam rifle though, well, you're better off praying. Heavy armor is fielded by some support or assault models, and has spent uranium smelted into the armor plates to make them both denser and heavier, and less likely to be penetrated by direct strikes.

**Borealite Armor:** This is a new type of armor that is fielded by the Edenite mass production models of Mobile Suits, the Dervish and Wraith. It is somewhat similar in characteristics to the "Gundamium" alloys of Gundam Wing, in that while it provides immunity against nothing, it provides very good protection against everything. The closest Gundam Seed analog would be the Ablative armor of the Archangel. Borealite armor is capable of taking multiple direct beam and physical munition strikes, providing protection just like that of regular armor, but every centimeter of Borealite is worth about 100 cm of Heavy Armor, for about a thousandth of the weight. Other important things to know: Borealite armor is not forged or smelted, it is grown. It is not bolted or welded together, it is carved. It is not metal, it is wood. How can wood possibly be a good armor material? There's already hardwood in real life that easily blunts steel saws and axes. Add Green EDEN to that mix, and you got wood that laughs at a diamond coated industrial saw, and flamethrowers. The wood used remains flexible even after it is removed from the tree it is grown from, which means the armor also reduces the mobility of the Mobile Suit less than "technological" armor of the same weight. The Edenites usually carve their armor into individual patterns, rather than resort to paint schemes, much of this carving is done by hand or by mind.

**Anti-Beam Coating:** A type of thick paint or post production tune up that can be applied to inert armor plating, such as regular armor, armor shields, or many forms of physical weapons, which makes them have a repellant effect against the magnetic wrappers that contain beam blasts, reducing the effects beam weapons have on the material so treated. It won't make you immune to beams by any means, but it will cut their power by a good 75 percent or so while the coating remains active, though it burns away after anywhere between 10 and 50 hits, depending on the type of hits taken. It's most often seen on the armor shields of the original Gundams like the Aile Strike, Duel and Aegis. It cannot be applied to Phase Shift armor, and applying it to HAC armor is stupid.

**Magnetic Sheathing:** Another armor treatment, like anti-beam coating, applied to the Orb Gundams and mass production models after the Battle of the Armada at the Moon versus the Great Endeavor. During said battle, VTP missiles fired from the Retribution coated the Phoenix King and Dawn Goddess with a Red EDEN variant that slowly began turning them into sandstone. Seeking to avoid such ignomity in the future, this coating was developed, which prevents nanites of most sorts from gaining purchase on armor so treated, so that they slide off without causing damage. It doesn't affect the properties of the armor it covers, and can be applied anywhere, though it does need to be reapplied after every battle.

**Mirage Colloid Cloaking:** An older but still revolutionary technology pioneered by the Earth Alliance and installed first on the Blitz Gundam, this outgrowth of beam weapon technology used dispersed particle clouds to quite literally obscure a Mobile Suit from not only all normal sensors, but from plain view as well, the first true "invisible" cloak system. There were downsides of course... the system drew lots of power and so couldn't be maintained for long, and it interfered with Phase Shift, so you could not also have PS armor while cloaked, but if you didn't mind those strictures, it was the be all and end all of stealth warfare. Modern sensor technology has produced sensor clusters capable of breaking through Mirage Colloid, at least at short ranges of a half kilometer or less, but such systems are only common on the very top end machines and Gundams, and Mirage Colloid still sees plenty of use on modern battlefields.

**Photo-Refraction Cloaking:** A much improved version of Mirage Colloid equipped on the Wraith Mobile Suits piloted by the Edenite Praetorian Order, this system uses advanced micor gravity controllers to quite literally bend light and all forms of radiation and even things like sound waves around the Wraith, making it completely and totally invisible, even to Vari-Camera's and other devices that would normally defeat Mirage Colloid, including sonar. This highly advanced system requires stupendous amounts of power to operate, and is so only really feasible upon FPR equipped Mobile Suits.

**Photon Cloak:** One of the most distinctive pieces of equipment on the Duelist Gundam, and now the Vorpal Gundam as well, this dark blue cloak of metallicy thread was the baseline technology used to create HAC armor. It is a synthetic metal fiber that has an incredibly high melting temperature, over 500,000 degrees, while also being relatively sturdy against physical attacks, and capable of radiating heat away at high speed, making it al but impenetrable to beam and energy based weapons, including FRALA and Mjolnir 3P cannons. Physical weapons, including missiles, autocannon and the like, penetrate it rather easily, so care has to be taken to only use it when the main threat is from beam weaponry. It normally protects the back and sides of the Gundam, but can be swung or draped over almost the entire body in an emergency.

**ECM Suite:** The Electronics CounterMeasures or ECM suite has been a staple of defensive technology ever since people first figured out how to jam radar and other targeting sensors. In essence it is a sort of "anti-sensor" that actively works to interfer with the ability of the enemy fire control systems that are trying to target and lock on to your machine. Some ECM is stronger than other ECM, and some targeting systems, especially those often found in Gundams, are quite proficient at brushing through most common ECM suites, but this is one defensive measure almost all Mobile Suits and warships have in common, and its presence is felt in the relatively large number of missed shots in warfare, given how good targeting systems otherwise should be.

**Pandemonium ECM Suite:** This new type of ECM suite is mounted upon the shoulders of the Warmaster Gundam. Not only does it provide extremely high quality ECM coverage over a wide area that is tunable to not affect the targeting systems of allies, but it also jams other types of delicate electronic systems, including things like the remote control NIC systems of Brotherhood mass production models, Phase Shift armor and more besides. The only downside is that the longer the system stays on, the greater the chance is that it will misalign and start affecting everyone in its radius, regardless of their status as foe or friend. Ten minute blocks are about the longest assured safe operating times.

**Stealth Suite:** These modifications and tweaks to a Mobile Suit or Gundam reduce the chance it will be spotted by most long range or passive enemy sensors, including things like thermal scans or long range radar. It doesn't conceal the Mobile Suit from visual scans, or most close range and active sensor sweeps, but it can help you hide if the enemy isn't particularly close by, or isn't actively looking for you and you have visual camouflage of some sort. These sorts of systems are common on Mobile Suits designed for sniping or scouting, or else special operations, and they work very well in conjunction with Mirage Colloid, Holoshroud and Holoprojector systems.

**Holoshroud/Holoprojector:** This Brotherhood technology really isn't that complex, other than in its programming and the scale of its application. A Holoshroud is basically a 3D hologram that completely covers the outside of a Gundam from head to toe, which can visually camouflage the Gundam so it looks like a tree, a rock, or even another type of Gundam (as so often displayed by the Traitor Gundam). It is a purely visual camouflage, any other type of sensor scan will show the Gundam for what it is, thus the need for a stealth suite and specialty ECM to back up the illusion. Holoprojectors display 3D holograms, usually identical copies of the Gundam projecting them, at a distance in an attempt to confuse, distract or disorient opponents, as displayed by the Haunted Gundam on many occasions. Another use is overlapping the holograms to "blur" the outline of a Gundam, like the Brotherhood does, making it hard to tell where it is really, precisely at. In both cases though, the holograms are again a purely visual illusion, and switching to other sensor types (thermal, sonar, radar even) will quickly reveal them for what they are.

**Vari-Camera's:** This advanced sensor cluster uses a variety of different tools, including high definition cameras, thermal scans, magnetic resonance scans, several types of radar, sonar and other sensors to create a multi-spectrum view of the surrunding area, extending out to about five hundred meters distance. Within that radius, Vari-Camera's can see through any sort of stealth system, even Mirage Colloid. That is, any system except Photo-Refraction Cloaks, which, at current time, do not exist yet. Though not in everyday use, Vari-Camera systems are standard on most elite Mobile Suits and Gundams. Their chief downside is that, while active, vision beyond that 500 meter clear zone is extremely limited, and its almost impossible to accurately target outside the 500 meter zone, so unless you suspect cloaked Mobile Suits are about, its usually better to leave the vari-camera's off.

**HiMat Wings:** Mobile Suits cannot naturally fly in atmosphere/gravity. They have all the aerodynamics of people, and people suck at unaided flight. They can jump pretty far using their thrusters, but its not flight. Thus, to give Mobile Suits and Gundams the ability to fly, which is a great advantage in maneuverability, the variable geometry wings and then HiMat Wings were invented by ZAFT and quickly copied by Orb and other nations. In essence all they do is provide a Mobile Suit with enough inherent lift that by use of its thrusters it can remain airborne, and in the case of HiMat Wings, even dramatically improve aerial agility by having the wings adjust themselves in real time to your flight patterns. The wings themselves are usually somewhat delicate, and vulnerable to well placed ranged fire. Not to mention, they look really cool.

**Scale System:** This system, created by ZAFT for their underwater Mobile Suits and Land Battleships, uses hundreds or even thousands of tiny "scales" all vibrating in synch to liquify soft ground like sand or dirt, and haul a vehicle through it like it was water. Or, in the case of a water environment, propel the vehicle like a thousand tiny little fins working in concert. Scale Systems allow for high degree of underwater mobility, much greater than that granted by the use of propellers or pump jets, because the scales can change their direction of vibration almost instantly, though the top end speed of a Scale System is lower than other means of propulsion.

**Hoverthrusters:** A modification to the thruster systems of Mobile Suits that is becoming more and more popular since it was pioneered by ZAFT in their Efreet scout mobile suits during Chaotic Cosmos. By channeling the thrusters directly downwards from the legs, a sort of ground effect hover, or air cushion, is created beneath the Mobile Suit, lifting it a few meters up off the ground and letting it hover there. It's like a vertical take off and landing system, but one that only allows flight up to about five meters from ground level. By tweaking the thrusters or using additional thrusters, the Mobile Suit can then skate quickly across the ground, much faster than its legs would normally be able to carry it, but without nearly as much drain on the battery or power systems as full on flight is. It is a very noisy method of travel, and it kicks up a lot of dust in sandy or dry environments, but that can work to your advantage by offering traveling visual concealment. It is almost impossible to fire weapons with any sort of recoil accurately on Hoverthrusters, and Melee combat too is very difficult, because you have no real leverage.

**Gravitic Reduction System:** This incredible system was first designed for the Pulsar Gundam of ZAFT in Chaotic Cosmos, and saying it was ahead of its time would be a massive understatement. By combining an aerated fluid filled cockpit space with powerful magnetic fields regulated by superconducting magnets surrounding the cockpit, a sort of quasi-gravitational control was achieved in a localized area. What that means is that while the system was properly activated, the pilot of the Pulsar was immune to the deleritous effects of gravity from rapid maneuvers, like changing direction without slowing down, or rapid acceleration or decceleration. Most normal cockpit restraint systems and flight suits will protect a pilot against around 5-8 Gravities of maneuver (where the pilot experiences gravity as if it were 5-8 times as intense as normal), the GRS protects against 5000 Gravities, with the pilot not feeling anything at all even during maneuvers that should have pulped their entire body. The system has been refined to version 2.0 for current Brotherhood Gundams, reducing the fluid filled cockpit to a fluid filled flight suit, and stronger magnets. A version 3.0 is equipped on certain unknown Gundams in the future, and it is a purely magnetic based system, no more aerated fluid needed.

**Neural Interface Control System:** At the end of the day, joysticks and foot pedals and buttons are just limited in their ability to transfer the desired ranges of motion from a human to a Mobile Suit. The solution to his problem, which is really only a problem for the most elite of pilots, is the NIC system, which in essence hijacks the user's nervous system and hooks it up through a complex computer program to the Mobile Suit, so that when the pilot trys to move their arm, instead the Mobile Suit's arm moves. The pilot's flesh body is dulled of sensation so that they are not distracted while focusing on fighting with their new mechanical body. With a Mobile Suit now able to move just like a human, things like hand to hand combat, crawling on hands and knees for stealth, and myriad other human only movements suddenly become possible, not to mention a general increase in agility and mobility. The system also works in reverse, making motions like thruster flight and weapons fire seem perfectly natural to a human, even though we have no normal nervous system equivalents. The original system required a full body wire interface, and dealt with unregulated voltages that could prove harmful or fatal to pilots in some cases. Version 2, seen in the Revenant, fixed the electrocution problem. Version 3, the Brotherhood standard, reduces the interface to a helmet/skull only wire interface. Version 4, seen on the Brotherhood Gundam, is a wireless helmet telepresence system. Version 5, yet to be seen, is an implanted computer chip inside the pilot's skull that allows wireless operation at long range as easily as it does from within the cockpit.

**Ablative Gel System:** These ports secrete a thick, heat absorbing semi-liquid over the hull of a warship or Mobile Suit in order to mitigate the friction and heat stress of the vehicle in question as it enters the atmosphere. They are useless against beam weapons, and are for non-combat use only.

**Battery:** This is the standard power source of many mass production Mobile Suits, with the only real variation being on the length of charge and how quickly it can be recharged, and by what means. Most batteries provide enough power for about 1 hour of full on combat operations, less with excessive use of power draining weapons such as beam weapons or energy shield defenses, or about ten hours of minimal power operations, such as space flight or ground movement. Most batteries are relatively volatile, and if punctured or blasted they can and will blow up with deadly results.

**Hydrogen Fuel Cell:** Featuring higher power production and longevity over standard batteries, at the cost of increased volativity, Hydrogen fuel cells are the primary fuel source for most civilian vehicles in the PLANTS, as well as the primary power source of ZAFT's new Primal class Variable Configuration Mobile Suits. Primals feature blow out panels that usually prevent an explosion of the fuel cell from destroying the rest of the machine. Usually.

**Nuclear Reactor:** This miniaturized water moderated (they are filled with purified water, which is heated to make steam to spin a turbine) nuclear reactor produces anywhere from 50 to 150 megawatts (mega being million) of power, with lower power reactors being found in the original nuclear Gundams, Freedom and Justice, and the higher power, Improved Nuclear Reactors at the other end of the scale in the modern era Gundams. The power generation is near continuous, and is almost always enough power to fuel flight, various powerful weapon systems and defensive systems with power left over. The reactors are carefully monitored for signs of overheating or radiation leaks, and feature emergency shutdown capability in case of severe damage, to prevent radiation or superheated liquid metal releases. They do not, and can not, blow up like nuclear bombs. Power plants do not work that way. I work on them for my job. I know.

**Ignited Metallic Rod Reactor:** After the Chaotic Cosmos era, nuclear power plants for Mobile Suits became heavily regulated by the USN, and so the FNE began to look elsewhere for a power plant for its new Panzerwulf Heavy Assault Mobile Suits. Never ones to be particularly worried about side effects, especially when it came to machines to be piloted by "sub human" super soldiers like the Extendeds, the designers focused on power output and cost efficiency rather than stability and safety, and came up with the IMR. It works the same basic way as a nuclear reactor, using heat to boil water into steam which spins a turbine which makes electricity. The difference is the heat source, for an IMR its a rod of magnesium or sodium that gets set on fire. Burning metals like Magnesium or Sodium produce their own oxygen supplies, so they can burn underwater just fine, and they burn hot, at around 4000 degrees celsius, which is actually hotter than the rods of a nuclear reactor get in most cases. The Panzerwulf IMR produces about 200 megawatts of power, but cannot be shut down once started until the fuel rod burns out 40 hours later. A breach in the reactor housing often results in superheated steam venting into the cockpit spaces, or worse, chips of burning metal, and they have a disturbing tendency to go supercritical and blow up when first ignited under anything but totally optimum conditions, making each activation something of a russian roulette.

**Fusion Pulse Reactor:** The current pinnacle of vehicle power plant systems, the FPR, first designed for the Pulsar and the standard power source of the first tier Brotherhood Gundams, and all Edenite Mobile Suits, is, in essence, a chained star. A steady state fusion reaction is still almost impossible to maintain, such temperatures (millions of degrees celsius) are simply too much for any man made material to handle for more than a second or two. So the FPR only sustains the reaction for about a hundreth of a second or so, before shutting down for the rest of that second before using residual power to start back up again, so forth and so on. Each power "pulse" produces several dozen gigawatts (giga being billion) of power, making FPR's orders of magnitude more powerful than nuclear reactors, allowing a pilot access to the most powerful and energy hungry of weapons, such as AMP rifles and rapidfire FRALA, not to mention flight speed that is quite literally faster than some eyes can see and easy surface to orbit self transition capability. The downsides being that FPR's produce a lot of heat, even in such short pulses, and so they require extensive and heavy duty cooling systems to operate continuously, resulting in wings and fins and flanges of all sorts sticking out the back of the Mobile Suit to allow for the coolant fluid to properly circulate and radiate away accumulated heat, damaging or destroying the cooling wings/fins can seriously reduce the power output of the FPR. Additonally, you pretty much throw stealth out the window when you power one up, they show up on thermal sensors from dozens of times farther away than any other power plant. They can and will blow up like a thermonuclear bomb if they overload, usually in the 300-400 kiloton range.

**Defensive Particle Inhibitor:** This advanced technology is an FNE variant on the Pandemonium ECM of the Warmaster, it uses high frequency ultrasonic and vibrational pulses to disrupt the operation of particle and molecular based defensive systems, such as Phase Shift, Mirage Colloid and Angel Halo, within a 150 meter radius of the Inhibitor, which is mounted on the next generation FNE Mobile Suit, the Panzerdragoon. It is usually tuned so not to affect the defensive systems of allied troops.

**Angel Halo:** Another outgrowth of Mirage Colloid technology, this defensive system uses diluted Colloid particles to blur the outlines of a Mobile Suit while also interfering with most standard targeting systems, making achieving a solid target lock by any means on the Mobile Suit so equipped almost impossible. It was first made for the Liberty and Righteous Gundams, and is also a feature of the Seraph Gundam. Angel Halo's are very difficult to manufacure, requiring dedicated computer circuits and specialty power supplies, so they are forced to run on seperate batteries from the rest of the Mobile Suit, limiting their up time in combat. Still, despite the expense, they are probably here to stay, at least as far as Orb's Gundams are concerned.

**Nano-Repair System:** A variant strain of Red EDEN created by Noah Borander for his top end Gundams, though first seen on the Pulsar in Chaotic Cosmos, this system draws power either from the ambient environment or the power plant of the Mobile Suit in order to fuel the conversion of matter in the surrounding environment into replacement materials to repair any damage suffered by the Mobile Suit. With enough time, almost the entire Mobile Suit can be rebuilt from scratch, one molecule at a time, as long as the cockpit and power plant are mostly intact. The original Nano-repair system worked very slowly, requiring days for any significant repairs, while newer versions have cut the time down to "ten hours for a hand", and even more advanced versions in the future might yet reduce the time further. Also a factor is how much ambient material there is to use... a repair system will work much faster in a water filled tank than it will in the depths of space.

**EDEN (Effect Distributed Eugenic/Elemental Nanomachines):** Noah Borander's pride and joy, these are his definitive nanomachines. All based upon the same basic design, the nanomachines of all colors feature a positive electrical charge, allowing them to be easily contained by most magnetic field systems. Red EDEN (which is elemental) is designed with the purpose of matter conversion, i.e. the transformation of matter from one state to another, like lead into gold, or more often for Noah, worthless sand and dust into high tensile structural metal for Mobile Suits. All it takes is power and source material, like sand or water and Red EDEN can quite happily pump out pretty much any raw resource, from glass to platinum to gemstones to pure Quantum Crystal, with the more involved the transitions taking longer than simple ones, like iron into steel. Green EDEN (which is eugenic) modifies a host's biological DNA to more closely match Noah's Ultimate Coordinator DNA in a traumatic process that roughly half survive, those that do become Edenites, Coordinators with active seeds and Newtype powers. Blue EDEN (elemental again) is like Red EDEN, except it voraciously converts all matter and energy encountered into more Blue EDEN, and can only be stopped by antimatter or solar core like temperatures. Black EDEN (technically elemental) will be explained in Reclamation War, but currently seems to act like Blue, except it is only one nanite, now a macro-nanite the size of a basketball that absorbs any matter or energy, even antimatter, it comes into contact with.

**DANI (Designed Artificial Networked Intelligence):** The end of the Eden Disaster will see the reordering of society on a solar system wide level, with the majority of the remaining "Earthling" population now living in space in new, hastily constructed mass population colonies. To govern the complex support systems of these new colonies, an experimental AI system, code named NAMARA for Neurologically Advanced Multitasking Artificial Responsibility Assistant, was created. Similarly, down in Orb, another experiment in AI support for military and civilian life support and administration tasks, LEXI, for LEarning Experimental Intelligence, was created. Both systems are still in the prototype stages, but they seem to be handling their responsibilities well, and are even seen to be developing hints of true, independent personalities, which has their designers either tearing out their hair or cheering in awe, depending on their opinions. Both were programmed to be "female", and have already developed something of a friendly rivalry for each other. Whether or not they achieve true independent thought and personality, is something that Reclamation War will explore.

**BIIC (Biological Intelligence Interface Chip):** Having personally given up on producing a true Aritifical Intelligence, Noah instead used his unique psychic gifts and admittedly twisted brilliance to come up with a different form of "artificial" intelligence. Using subjects, usually young women, who were in deep comas from injury or trauma, he first conditioned their loyalty using his mental powers to make them love him absolutely, and then forcibly and fatally stimulated their pscyhes to the point where he was able to burn a "copy" of the traits he wanted into an electronic circuit, in essence creating the first cyborgs, such as his personal protectors, the dragonforms Phlegethion and Aether. The creation of BIIC's has since been outlawed as a crime against humanity, and even Noah has admitted that perhaps he was wrong to use it in the way he has. Although that didn't stop him from using it one last time for a certain backup plan, just in case everything went wrong with the Eden plan at the end. The transfer can go both ways, you see, and with a certain artificially contained mind already on tap, plus genetic samples from a certain annoying Ultimate Coordinator relative of his, well, the opportunity was too tempting to pass up.

**LEMIM (Latence Encoded Mental Infused Material):** LEMIM is something you will only see Edenites using, and only rarely at that, because the process of making something LEMIM is very time consuming, physically and mentally taxing, and dangerous in more than a few ways. In many aspects, it is very similar to the creation of a BIIC, it just doesn't go nearly as far. Instead of copying the mind of an intelligent being into a computer chip, instead the "essence" of a Latent Newtype is "burnt" into the molecular structure of an item, usually a weapon of some sort, which in turn makes that LEMIM item much easier to manipulate and sense with Newtype powers, and even, in very rare cases, allow for a slight bit of Resonance Amplification with that item. Infusing an item takes weeks of near constant effort from a dedicated, intimate Latent-Latent-Active trio, and if not done properly can result in permanent psychic trauma to all concerned, even death, if too much of an "essence" is infused too quickly. Only the most important... and dangerous... of Edenites will have a LEMIM item to use.

**Glass House Electromagnetic Environment Bubble:** This large scale electromagnetic barrier functions much like a gigantic bug zapper field, except it is tuned to only exterminate nanomachines, such as Green EDEN in particular. Projected and upheld by dozens of towers scattered across Orb, this orangy-translucent barrier completely isolates Orb from the rest of what has become New Eden, leaving it the last remaining true "Earth" nation. The Glass House is roughly a half kilometer from the ground, though it varies by topography, and extends a dozen or so miles out to sea as well. Edenites and Eden animals can pass through the Glass House, but have the Green EDEN inside them purged in the process, which is very painful and debilitating in the short term, and can lead to long term health issues, much like an Earthling would suffer if they suddenly had all their internal bacteria cleaned out. As a result, most animals will avoid the barrier at first touch, and Edenites who have business in Orb for whatever reason either take specially shielded transports (for the important), or wait for the scheduled times when the Unity Harbor passage is open to take that "tunnel" through the outer bubbles to the Edenite sector of Nara-Attha City (for everyone esle).

**Ice-Gold:** This gold hued metal is almost entirely frictionless, making it ideal for use in the joints of Mobile Suits and other high performance machines. It also sees use as projectiles for the Spear of Ares.

**The "Red Pill":** In the aftermath of the Eden Disaster, Orb has become the world leader in nanological technology, outside of the Edenites of course. Wanting to explore outside the confines of the Glass House, but not wanting to always be confined to sealed environment suits, top scientists eventually managed to reverse engineer Noah Borander's "EDEN Vaccine", which is actually a specialty form of Red EDEN that is programmed to seek out Green EDEN inside a body and convert it to harmless salt. It can't "cure" an Edenite that has fully gone through the transformation, in fact it will make them very sick, and it will usually kill someone who has gone through all but the earliest stages of the transformation, leaving them with no Green EDEN and no immune system either, but if taken pre-emptively, it will prevent a Green EDEN infection from taking hold in the first place. One "Red Pill" will keep an Earthling's system clean of Green EDEN for 12 hours of environmental exposure. It is recommended to take a second pill before eating any Edenite food, because Green EDEN concentration is much higher than ambient in the animal and plant flesh of "native" creatures.

**MAIDEN:** A new type of nanomachine developed by the USN and FEAR after the Eden Disaster. Also sometimes known as White EDEN. What it stands for, and what it does, you will have to wait and see.

List subject to expansion

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**Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors**

Here's the list of Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors currently in use by all the major factions in the story. Details on some Mobile Suits and Gundams will be "pending soon", because they don't apply until Reclamation War, and I want to tantalize you people. And okay, I made a mistake here, putting out Speed/Maneueverability ratings with no quantifiable scale to compare them to. Correcting that now. Speed will change to two numbers, those being maximum flight (or sail for underwater machines) speed and then maximum ground or near ground (for those with hoverthrusters) speed, in miles per hour. Maneuverability will change to a rating of 1 thru 20, where 20 is the absolute top end and 1 is basically immobile, somewhere around 7-8 is average. Of course the pilot of a machine does have some bearing on this rating as well, so ratings will usually come in a range.

**FNE**

**Designation:** Cavalier

**Pilot:** FNE Mainline Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 85 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Standard

**Flight Speed:** 350 mph

**Ground Speed:** 45 mph

**Maneuverability:** 6-8

**Weapons (Location):**

Beam saber (R hand)

200mm Hyper impulse cannon (R hand, very long range)

120mm Railgun (R shoulder, long range)

Radar guided missile 12 launcher (L shoulder) (Alternating racks of Pilum Missiles, long range)

20mm CIWS x2 (head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (L hand)

**Notes:** A definitely aging design, but still better than the original Strike Daggers of the EA, and superior to anything not produced since the beginning of the Isolation, this MPMS is the mainstay of the FNE forces in ground and in space, along with the superior Moebius Flare Space Superiority Mobile Armor and the Devilfish Sea Superiority Mobile Armor

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**Designation:** Devilfish, Undersea Superiority Mobile Armor

**Pilot:** FNE Mainline Pilots

**Height:** 6 meters long by 3 wide by 3 tall

**Weight:** 15 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Standard

**Water Speed:** 120 mph

**Maneuverability:** 9-10

**Weapons (Location):**

330mm torpedo tube x6 (4 forward, 2 aft)

Dual 155mm railgun turret (dorsal surface)

3250mm rocket torpedo x3 (ventral surface)

Sharpened sword-fins x4 (nose)

**Equipment (Location):**

Sonar (nose)

Ejection system (cockpit)

**Notes:**

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**Designation:** Moebius Flare, Space Superiority Mobile Armor

**Pilot:** FNE Mainline Pilots, Pilot and Gunner

**Height:** 8 meters long by 3 meters wide by 3 meters tall

**Weight:** 20 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Standard

**Flight Speed:** 2400 mph (cannot fly in atmosphere)

**Maneuverability:** 8-10

**Weapons (Location):**

225mm Linear cannon (nose)

Twin 125mm cannon x4 (one per gun barrel pod)

Heat seeking missile x8 (two per gun barrel pod)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Blister (Body, single use)

Gesichmedig-Panzer Shield (nose)

Afterburners (Engines)

**Notes:** Gun barrel pods can be detached on 200 meter long control wires, to attack from almost any angle. The pods can also be used while attached to the main hull.

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**Designation:** Panzerwulf

**Pilot:** IBWS (Independent Biological Weapon System) "Extended". Stella, Sting, Auel.

**Height:** 23 meters

**Weight:** 130 tons

**Power Plant:** IMR

**Armor Type:** TransPhase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 150 mph (assisted flight only)

**Ground Speed:** 65 mph

**Maneuverability:** 5-8

**Weapons (Location):**

Mjolnir Cannon (R hand, short range, very high power, volatile, part of the Cerberus combi-weapon)

Dual 350mm Hyper-Impulse Cannon (R hand, long range, part of the Cerberus combi-weapon)

110cm Dual Gottfried high energy Beam Cannon turret (back mounted, can only be fired when the Panzerknight is on hands/knees and braced, long range)

50 tube 90mm unguided rocket launcher x2 (one per shoulder, medium range, high explosive/fragmentation warheads good at taking out lightly armored vehicles and buildings/infantry)

12 meter anti-ship physical/beam sword (R hand)

20mm CIWS x4 (Head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Reinforced Citadel Shield (L hand)

Geischmedig-Panzer armature shield x2 (R/L upper arm/shoulder)

Independent Heat Ablative Armor, detachable (all over, good for 20 hits from most mobile suit caliber beam weapons)

Heavy gauge armored tank treads (arms, legs)

**Notes:** Very direct and powerful, and strong defensively, but if they take damage to either the reactor or the Fenris combi-weapon, the result is often a very powerful explosion destroying the machine and damaging severely anything nearby.

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**Designation:** Cataphract

**Pilot:** FNE Support Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters (centauroid)

**Weight:** 200 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Trans Phase Shift

**Ground Speed:** 40 mph

**Maneuverability:** 3-5

**Weapons (Location):**

545mm hyper impulse cannon (R arm, very long range)

Quad 50mm gatling cannon (L shoulder, medium range)

375mm Artillery cannon (R shoulder, very long range)

20mm CIWS x8 (head, back)

Radar guided missile 20 launcher (back, long range)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (L hand, shield wall enabled)

Sensor/Comm jammers (head)

Smoke projectors (back)

Camera drone control system and 4 camouflaged drones (torso)

**Notes:** Always deployed alongside the Archmage mobile support platform in groups of four or more.

xxxx

**Designation:** Archmage mobile support platform

**Pilot:** Crew of 45

**Height:** 30 meters square, 25 meters tall

**Weight:** 4500 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear x2, battery capacitor x8

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift

**Ground Speed:** 20 mph

**Maneuverability:** 1

**Weapons (Location):**

Dual 400mm railgun turret x4 (one per upper deck corner, long range)

155mm high energy beam cannon x12 (three per side, long range)

Quad 25mm gatling beam cannon x12 (upper deck, even distribution, short range)

150cm positron cannon turret (upper deck center, very long range)

**Equipment (Location):**

150 meter Energy recharge cables x4 (compatible with Cataphracts and other FNE Mobile suits, one per side)

Field repair facility x2 (inside)

Spare parts, ammunition lockers for 6 cataphracts over 1 month (inside)

Food/water/medical supplies for 60 people for 1 month (inside)

Satellite linkage computers (inside)

LRR array (center turret)

CIC computers (inside)

**Notes:** Always deploy with at least 4 Cataphracts in support, the mainstay of any major FNE ground force.

xxxx

**Designation:** Panzerdragoon

**Pilot:** Stella Loussier, other Extendeds.

**Height:** 40 meters

**Weight:** 550 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Ablative, GP Scales

**Flight Speed: **600 mph

**Ground Speed:** 90 mph

**Maneuverability:** 8-12

**Weapons (Location):**

Turret mounted dual heavy flamethrower x2 (tank mode, front and back)

75 tube 120mm unguided rocket launcher x2 (R/L torso in mobile suit form, R/L side, at rear, pointing upwards/forwards in tank form)

VTP 16 tube pod x2 (R/L hip, R/L side in tank form, vertical launching)

20mm CIWS x6 (two in head (rear pointing in tank form), two on torso, two dorsal mounted in tank form)

"Ragnarok" Mjolnir 3P Mega-Cannon x2 (R/L shoulder, long range, colossal power, slow firing, requires Mobile suit to be braced to fire accurately, Mobile suit only)

40cm Gatling High Energy Beam cannon x6 (2 per shoulder, flanking Ragnaroks, 2 more appear as secondary turrets in tank form)

Dual 200mm gatling cannon (L arm, under shield, become forward facing weapons in tank mode)

220cm Positron Rifle "Lohengrin" (R hand, center turret in tank mode)

Large Heat sword (QC sliver impreganted)

**Equipment (Location):**

Large Citadel Shield (L arm)

NIC-III System

GRS-II

Tank Treads

Deployable stabilizers

Nano-repair system

Defensive Particle Inhibitor (interferes with/negates precision controlled molecule systems, such as Phase Shift Armor, Mirage Colloid Cloak, and Angel Halo, within a 150 meter radius)

Supply containers for transporting materials for supporting troops

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Omega-Panzer

**Pilot:** Mechael Smith, ICMS (Independent Cyber-Mechanical Soldier) Augmented

**Height:** 30 meters

**Weight:** 250 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Heavy with Citadel Scales

**Flight Speed: **4500 mph (atmosphere), 15000 mph (space)

**Ground Speed:** 180 mph

**Maneuverability:** 16

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**xxxx**

**ALU**

**Designation:** Felis

**Pilot:** ALU Scouts

**Height:** 10 meters (at the shoulder)

**Weight:** 70 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, Fossil Fuel Generator for emergency recharge

**Armor Type:** Light

**Ground Speed:** 90 mph

**Maneuverability:** 7-9

**Weapons (Location):**

Twin 55mm Machine cannon turret (Back, medium range)

Twin beamsaber (Head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Enhanced sensor suite (Head)

Tandem cockpit (Head)

**Notes:** These are former BuCue's, bought in bulk from the PLANTS now that they are largely obsolete

xxxx

**Designation:** Lupus

**Pilot:** FNE Mainline Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 80 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, Fossil Fuel generator backup

**Armor Type:** Medium

**Ground Speed:** 50 mph

**Flight Speed: **450 mph

**Maneuverability:** 7-9

**Weapons (Location):**

55mm Machinegun with 225mm RPG attachment (R hand, medium/long range)

5 extra RPGs (back)

Heat seeking missile 6 rack x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

Beam axe (R hand)

**Equipment (Location):**

Armor shield (L hand)

**Notes:** Modified Ginn's, bought at huge discount from the PLANTS to generate a quick military force for the ALU, quite outclassed in modern times, but easy to mass produce

xxxx

**Designation:** Ursus

**Pilot:** ALU Support Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended battery, fossil fuel generator backup

**Armor Type:** Heavy

**Ground Speed:** 40 mph

**Maneuverability:** 3-5

**Weapons (Location):**

Heat seeking missile 15 rack x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

57mm beam cannon x2 (L arm, medium range)

250mm anti armor shotgun (R arm, short range)

80mm rocket mortar x3 (Back, long range)

**Equipment (Location):**

Heavy armor shield (L arm)

Radar array (head)

**Notes:** Customized ZuOots bought from ZAFT. Not particularly effective, but better than nothing

xxxx

**Designation:** Garou

**Pilot:** ALU Elite Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 90 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, Solar rechargers

**Armor Type:** Heavy, Limited Phase Shift (10 shots)

**Ground Speed:** 90 mph (350 mph with afterburners)

**Maneuverability:** 8-10

**Weapons (Location):**

Beam claw x2 (hands)

120mm gatling cannon (R shoulder, medium range)

80mm beam cannon x2 (R/L palm, medium range)

Heat seeking missile 10 rack (L shoulder, long range)

55mm machine cannon x4 (two per arm, detachable, medium range)

20mm CIWS (Head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Forearm shield x2 (R/L arm)

Afterburner thrusters (back, allow for short bursts of extreme speed)

**Notes:** The only currently produced ALU mobile suit that isn't bought as surplus, this is the only mobile suit in the ALU military that is at all respected by other nations. A fast/close assault model that does best on land or in space. Famous for its sudden charges into melee combat. Usually deployed in packs of five or six, who usually try and stay close to each other for support purposes.

**xxxx**

**USN**

**Designation:** Independence

**Pilot:** Markov Ashino

**Height:** 25 meters

**Weight:** 160 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift dual layer

**Flight Speed:** 750 mph

**Ground Speed:** 75 mph

**Maneuverability:** 10-14

**Weapons (Location):**

Twin 120mm gatling cannon (R hand, medium range)

100mm Railgun x2 (shield, medium range)

200mm High energy beam cannon x4 (two per shoulder, long range)

580mm Hyper impulse cannon (center chest, very long range)

20mm CIWS x6 (head)

Radar guided missile 30 launcher x2 (back, long range)

Mjolnir cannon x2 (palms, short range)

Beam Glaive (R hand)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (L hand)

Power leeching gauntlet x2 (hands)

Death's Shroud smoke projecters (head)

Celerity System (Back)

**Notes:** The initial Gundam of the USN, discounting several squadrons of Templars (Freedoms). Prefers to do his fighting from just outside melee range, works well with others.

xxxx

**Designation:** Archon (Eden Disaster)

**Pilot:** Solar Knights, Shinn Asuka, Rey Za Burrel, Lunamaria Hawke, Eric Kellson, Lain Debora

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 95 tons

**Power Plant:** Superior Fast Recharge (SFR) battery (combat downtime to recharge, 10 minutes from 0 percent to 100 percent, 4 hours in direct sunlight with solar panels)

**Armor Type:** Transphase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 800 mph

**Ground Speed:** 120 mph (hoverthrusters)

**Maneuverability:** 10-13

**Weapons (Location):**

250mm Accelerated Impulse Cannon, "Blue Shift" (R hand, Long range, functions like a Hyper-Impulse cannon except it is modulated to be more piercing towards heavy armor and resistant field type effects, such as Gesichedig-Panzer shields or Citadel Shields, colors appear darker blue and purple, rather than red and blue. Integrated into the middle of the anti ship sword, fired from the tip of the blade.)

Dual 80mm Beam cannon (R shoulder, medium range)

Laser guided Pilum missile 12 rack (L shoulder, long range)

Mobile suit grenade x6 (Hips, short range)

15 meter anti-ship beam sword (R hand)

20mm CIWS x4 (Head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (L hand)

Ablative gel re-entry system (all over)

Mirage Colloid (all over)

Vari-Camera array (Head)

HiMat System (back)

Scale motor system/submergence seals rated to 1000 meters (all over)

Solar recharging panels (back)

500 meter extendable recharging cable (back)

Hoverthrusters (legs)

**Notes:** A definite upgrade over the Champion and the MPMS of member-state nations, Archons are in many ways Gundams, certainly as powerful as the original five Gundams. With the ability to operate in any environment equally well, and even perform atmospheric re-entry without problem, Archons bring new meaning to the word "Mobile". Pilots are actually trained to use the hoverthrusters for ground movement, rather than walking, making them seem to "skate" over the ground. Trained to fight as a unit, in groups from two to ten machines. Individual tactics varies by pilot.

xxxx

**Designation:** Champion

**Pilot:** USN Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 90 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, PS Battery seperate

**Armor Type:** Limited Phase Shift (25 strikes), Heavy

**Flight Speed:** 600 mph

**Ground Speed:** 60 mph

**Maneuverability:** 7-9

**Weapons (Location):**

57mm/80mm Beam/Machinegun Rifle (R hand, primary, medium range)

Anti-Mobile Suit/Light Anti-Ship missile system (R shoulder, 4 shots, long range)

580mm Hyper-Impulse Cannon (R hand, alternate, very long range)

350mm Gun Launcher (R hand, alternate, long range)

Laser guided missile 30 launcher (R hand, alternate, 3 reloads, long range)

20mm CIWS x2 (L shoulder, turret)

10 Meter Anti-Ship Physical/Beam sword (R hand)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Tower Shield (L arm)

**Notes:** The standard mobile suit of the USN, that maintains a solid defensive profile and can be equipped with various primary handheld weapons for various missions. Doesn't have the grace and adaptability of the ZAFT Elemental, or the true constant versatility of the Orb M-4, but it is hardier than both of them, and superior to any other regular MPMS. Generally fight in the trio system pioneered by the Isolation, especially against Gundams

xxxx

**Designation:** Excaliber (Reclamation War)

**Pilot:** Solar Knight Paladins, Lunamaria Hawke, Rey Ze Burrel

**Height:** 22 meters

**Weight:** 135 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift, Assault Shroud is Heavy Standard

**Flight Speed:** 1500 mph

**Ground Speed:** 180 mph (Hoverthrusters)

**Maneuverability:** 12-16

**Weapons (Location):**

500mm Accelerated Impulse Cannon (R shoulder)

Adjustable angle Thermal Exciter (L shoulder, ten to one hundred meter wide, up to three hundred meters long cone, turret mounted)

Variable Tactical Payload Missile 3 tube pod x4 (hips and upper back, double as torpedo launchers when underwater)

QC sword (R hand)

155mm Heavy automatic cannon with underslung 450mm anti-armor shotgun (R hand, fires beam tipped shells)

Heavy Flamethrower/300mm automatic Grenade launcher (L Hand, mostly used for launching specialty munitions, such as entaglement sap, gas, poison, ECM, incendiary or nanite warheads)

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

150mm Rapidfire FRALA rifle (Rey's machine, in place of the Flamethrower/Grenade launcher)

"Gram" 225mm Superpenetrating Launcher (sort of a rocket launcher, except the rockets are armored and tipped with QC crystal slivers, are self guided to an extent and contain extremely powerful experimental explosives that incorporate tiny scraps of antimatter. Definitely a one shot kill weapon for anything short of a major capital warship. Used by Lunamaria, still a highly experimental weapon. The launcher fires the projectile so quickly it ignites the air along the path it travels, making the shot look like an energy weapon discharge when it is in fact a munition based weapon. The projectile is swathed in magnetic fields, just like an AMP shot, that help protect it from small particles in its path, and also helps it penetrate things like energy shields, and deflect beam based interdiction weapons. Uses both hands, very long range.)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield projector x2 (forearms)

Ablative gel re-entry system (all over)

Mirage Colloid (all over)

Vari-Camera array (Head)

HiMat System (back)

Scale motor system/submergence seals rated to 1000 meters (all over)

Hoverthrusters (legs)

Gravitic Reduction System mkII (cockpit)

NIC-III system

Assault Shroud armor (mostly on torso and upper limbs, has a hood like protection around head)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Transendance (the renamed Vengeance)

**Pilot:** Shinn Asuka

**Height:** 21 meters

**Weight:** 80 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** LCR

**Flight Speed:** 6500 mph (maximum effective combat speed in atmosphere), 12500 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 18

**Weapons (Location):**

QC Zweihander

QC finger claws

Heat whip x2 (wrists)

5mm AMP rifle (optional/special gear, R hand)

100mm Dual Supercharged beam carbine x2 (fast fire rate, short-medium range, one per hand, token ranged punch, Reclamation War)

**Equipment (Location):**

Positron Reflector shields x4 (wingtips, palms)

NIC-III

GRS-II

Nano-repair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Vindicator (Reclamation War)

**Pilot:** Solar Knights, Lain Debora

**Height:** 21 meters

**Weight:** 120 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift, Heavy Armor Assault Shroud

**Flight Speed:** 650 mph

**Ground Speed: **75 mph

**Maneuverability:** 10-12

**Weapons (Location):**

100mm Supercharged Beam Rifle with 350mm rocket grenade (R hand, standard)

155mm Linear Sniper rifle (R hand, optional)

120mm Gatling cannon (R hand, optional)

350mm Accelerated Impulse Cannon (R hand, optional)

750mm Heavy Bazooka (R hand, optional)

45mm LAW x2 (R/L shoulder, linear assault weapon, superfast firing projectile weapon)

30mm FRALA (Both hands, optional)

Supercharged beam forearm blade x2 (wrists)

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (shoulders)

Cerberus Combi-weapon (dual 350mm hyper impulse cannon and Mjolnir 3P cannon, Lain only, in addition to standard rifle)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Tower Shield (L arm)

Assault Shroud breakaway armor

Vari-camera

HiMat wings

Hoverthrusters

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Fenris Wolf (First Generation Assault/Close Combat BALOR, Base Lifeform Cold Hunter)

**Pilot:** Codename "Lupine"

**Height:** 18 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Adaptive Scales, Phase Shift Mesh shroud armor

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Jormungandr (First Generation Fire Support BALOR, Base lifeform Basilisk)

**Pilot:** Codename "Serpentine"

**Height:** 70 meters long by 15 tall (sextipedal)

**Weight:** 200 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Extra thick adaptive hide, heavy Phase Shift plates, GP scales

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Gorgon (First Generation Special Tactics BALOR, base lifeform Ironhide)

**Pilot:** Codename "Aurochs"

**Height:** 25 meters (bi or quadrupedal, moves faster on four legs for distance travel or charges, prolonged fights on two legs)

**Weight:** 140 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Superdense/hard bio-diamond shell, adaptive hide, Citadel Scales

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Tarrasque (Second Generation Assault/Close Combat BALOR, base lifeform Fenris Wolf)

**Pilot:** Pending

**Height:** 26 meters

**Weight:** 180 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Reflective Adaptive hide (75% chance to reflect beam based attacks, like the Akatsuki), QC encrustations over 85% of body surface

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Tiamat (Second Generation Support BALOR, base lifeform Jormungandr)

**Pilot:** Pending

**Height:** 90 meters long by 20 tall (sextipedal)

**Weight:** 300 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Super dense adaptive hide, ablative mucus coating, Citadel scales

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Bahamut (Second Generation Special Tactics BALOR, base lifeform unknown/unique)

**Pilot:** Pending

**Height:** 32 meters

**Weight:** 110 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Adaptive hide, Citadel scales, wings/tail are QC encrusted

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Typhon (Experimental Third Generation BALOR, base lifeform unknown/unique)

**Pilot:** Pending

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 80 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR augmentation

**Armor Type:** Reflective Adaptive hide (reflects energy based attacks 75% of the time)

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

**xxxx**

**ZAFT**

**Designation:** Efreet

**Pilot:** ZAFT veteran and elite ground scouts

**Height:** 18 meters

**Weight:** 75 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Light

**Ground Speed:** 100 mph (hoverthrusters)

**Maneuverability:** 8-10

**Weapons (Location):**

Dual 57mm beam cannon turret (back/shoulders, medium range)

Radar guided missile 6 launcher (upper torso, long range)

Beam saber x2 (hands)

Plasma flame projector x2 (palms, short range)

**Equipment (Location):**

Stealth systems (body)

Mirage Colloid (body)

Low altitude downthrust jets (legs)

Solar recharging panels (back)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Grendel

**Pilot:** Various ZAFT elite ground pilots

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 105 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Assault

**Ground Speed:** 40 mph (60 mph if using arms as well)

**Maneuverability:** 4-6

**Weapons (Location):**

Laser guided missile 15 launcher x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

55mm rapid fire cannon x8 (two per arm, four on torso, medium range)

57mm beam cannon x4 (two per arm, medium range)

Beam claw x2 (hands)

250mm hyper impulse cannon x2 (back, very long range)

**Equipment (Location):**

Reinforced knuckles for walking

Beam deflecting shield x2 (arms)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Elemental

**Pilot:** ZAFT Mainline Pilots

**Height:** 18 meters

**Weight:** 75 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy

**Flight Speed:** 650 mph (950 mph for wind aspect)

**Ground/Water Speed:** 70 mph

**Maneuverability: **8-10 (9-12 for fire and wind aspects)

**Weapons (Location):**

15 meter anti-ship sword (hands, not equipped in Water/Earth aspects)

20mm CIWS x2 (head)

57mm beam rifle with 175mm rocket attachment (R hand, not equipped in Fire/Water aspects, medium range)

Second anti ship sword (Fire)

Plasma fire projector (head, Fire, short range)

Mobile suit grenade x12 (Fire, short range)

80mm gatling cannon (L arm, Earth, medium range)

350mm railgun x2 (R/L shoulder, Earth, long range)

55mm machine cannon (L arm, Air, medium range)

Laser guided missile x6 (wings, Air, long range)

Phonon maser x2 (palms, Water, short rage)

300mm torpedo launcher x4 (arms, Water, medium range)

Crushing claw x2 (hands, Water)

**Equipment (Location):**

Beam deflecting shield (not equipped with any aspect pack)

Scale system (Water)

Traction tires (Earth)

Jet wings (Air)

**Notes:** Shinn's Elemental was also armed with the triple 300mm sniper rifle and dual 57mm beam rifle he recovered from Carpentaria when he attacked Kira and the Liberty from behind. The primary mobile suit of ZAFT forces in Chaotic Cosmos, the adaptability of the Elemental makes it ideal for ZAFT's relatively limited numbers. Overall one of the better MPMS out there.

xxxx

**Designation:** Primal (Void (no aspect), Shockwave (Ground combat), Vortex (water combat), Inferno (Melee combat), Storm (Air combat))

**Pilot:** Various ZAFT elite pilots, Heine Westenfluess (Prefers Void or Inferno)

**Height:** 21 meters

**Weight:** 90 tons to 110 tons (varies by aspect pack, Storm and Shockwave being heaviest)

**Power Plant:** Hydrogen fuel cell, Shield bleed battery, Aspect pack battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy normal, Phase Shift powered by Aspect Pack

**Flight Speed:** 800 mph (1200 mph for Storm)

**Ground/Water Speed:** 80 mph

**Maneuverability:** 9-11 (11-14 for Inferno)

**Weapons (Location):**

(V, I, St) 125mm Supercharged beam rifle (R Hand, medium range, has its own external power packs stored in underside of Blast Shields that can be changed out, fires dark red beams of denser plasma that do much more damage than regular beam rifle blasts, kind of "explode" when they hit targets, kind of like a JHP bullet)

(A) 15mm Beam CIWS x2 (Head)

(A) 325mm Hyper-Impulse Cannon (Center chest, long range)

(V) Twin 55mm Machine Cannon x2 (L hand, medium range)

(V, St) 10 meter Physical/Beam Anti-Vehicle Sword (R hand, Supercharged blade, dark red)

(V) Option to use various other detached armaments from other Aspect packs (Hands/arms, as required)

(Sh) Upgrade to twinned 125mm Supercharged beam rifle, second twinned 125mm Supercharged beam rifle (R/L Hands, medium range)

(Sh) 255mm Direct/Indirect fire Howitzer x4 (Shoulders, very long range)

(Sh) Dual 400mm Beam Cannon Turret ("Leg" area, long range, green beams)

(Sh) Radar guided Seismic Missile x4 (Back, designed to penetrate reinforced bunkers and cause localized Earthquakes to destroy bases, not very effective against most vehicles/Mobile Suits)

(Vo) 110mm Linear Cannon x6 (three per arm, medium range underwater, long range on surface)

(Vo) 120mm Heavy Phonon Maser x2 (Palms, short range, only work underwater)

(Vo) Vibrational Claw x2 (Hands)

(Vo) 750mm Multiple Rocket Torpedo Launcher x2 (Back/shoulders, long range guided munitions, high speed, armored, powerful explosives, can be programmed to act as mines or traps)

(Vo) 20 meter Ramming Lance x2 (Back, fold into place, Phase shifted tips for extra penetrating power, often used in conjuction with Hydrothrusters)

(I) Twin Forearm Supercharged Beam Blade x2 (R/L arm, dark red beams)

(I) Napalm Flamethrower x2 (Palms, short range, fire sticks and burns)

(I) 225mm 6 tube Unguided Rocket Pod x2 (One per shoulder, medium range, napalm munitions, fire up to three times and detach)  
(I) 300mm Anti-Vehicle Shotcannon (L hand, short range)

(I) Mobile Suit Grenade x12 (Hips)

(St) 120mm Sniper varient Linear Cannon (L Hand, very long range, relatively slow firing)

(St) AMS-LAS 4 tube Missile System x8 (One per shoulder, two per wing, one per hip, similar system to that used by USN Champions, very long range, high power, armored)

(St) Self Guided Tactical Cruise Missile x4 (Two per wing, extremely long range, phase shift armored, extremely fast (Mach 15+), almost impossible to dodge, explosion capable of taking out large warships, bunkers or multiple Mobile Suits with one shot)

(St) Dual 20mm CIWS Turret x2 (Back)

**Equipment (Location):**

(A) Upper arm Armature mounted Blast Shield x2 (R/L arm, can be manipulated to block attacks from a variety of directions, covered with a mesh that bleeds beam/heat based attacks of energy and stores it to add to the Primal's internal supplies)

(V) Citadel Shield (L arm)

(Sh) Hoverthruster/turret base (Cannot use legs unless turret/hoverthruster platform is discarded, allows for fast and agile ground movement, usually turned off when providing fire support for additional stability)

(Sh) Extra power packs/ammunition hoppers (Back)

(Vo) Scale system and heavily reinforced body, rated to 1500 meters depth (All over)

(Vo) Hydrothrusters (Legs, allow for extremely high underwater speeds)

(Vo) Maneuvering Fins (Arms, legs, torso, allow for extreme underwater mobility, basically HiMat wings for underwater)

(I, St) HiMat Wings (Back)

(I) Assault Shroud Armor (All over, same sort of armor as the arm Blast Shields)

(I) Enhanced Stealth System (All over, makes Mobile Suit invisible to radar and other long range sensors... pretty much anything from over a kilometer away or out of LoS can't see them, though visual sensors work as good as ever)

(St) Long Range Sensor/Multi target designation system (Back, allows for "over the horizon" attacks against up to 8 seperate targets at a time)

(St) Afterburners/VTOL thrusters (Legs, allow up to Mach 1.5 speeds, also allow hovering flight and VTOL)

(St) Chaff and Flare Countermeasure launchers x4 (Legs and back, confuse most long range guided weapon systems)

**Notes:** Regulation color is dark grey/black. Shockwave PS is dark brown/tan. Vortex PS is dark/light blue. Inferno PS is dark red/bright orange. Storm PS is dark purple/white. Swapping out aspect packs requires a base or mobile base, and takes about 5-15 minutes depending on the sophistication of the base and the competency of the crews. Some aspect packs, such as Shockwave or Vortex, take longer than others.

**xxxx**

**ORB**

**Designation:** Vorpal

**Pilot:** Yzak Joule, Katie Belaruse

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Improved Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift, Magnetic Field Treated

**Flight Speed:** 550 mph

**Ground Speed:** 90 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (Head)

Plasma Flamethrower x2 (Shield, short range)

Dual 75mm Rapidfire Linear Cannon (Left Shoulder, medium-long range)

20mm FRALA (Right Shoulder, very long range)

120mm Auto Shotcannon, with "Hellgrape" FIHR Shells (Right Hand, Frictional Intensity Heated Rounds, can penetrate Phase shift armor at ranges of less than 75 meters, short range)

"Minion" Wireless ADMS (Attack/Defense/Maneuvering System, pronounced "Adams". Mounted on back, under cloak,when not in use or when charging)

"Siegfried" Opposed Monopole Magnetic Blade (Right hand)

**Equipment (Location):**

Bulwark Tactical Shield (L hand, Phase Shifted armor, Citadel Array and Gesichmedig Panzer Capailities, Multiple short beam blades, chainsaw edge)

Photon Cloak (back)

"Mind's Eye System" (An experimental system that capitalizes on the unique bonds of an intimate Active and Latent Newtype and the Resonace abilities they can manifest. First showcased, unintentionally, by Kira and Lacus during the climactic battle against Frost in the Pulsar, this unique system is the first step forward into the potential formal, intentional integration of Newtypes into combat roles. Unlike the tandem seating of Dearka and Miriallia's mobile suit, Katie doesn't actually have a "seat" of her own. Instead, Ysak's control chair is built into the front of a sort of holding tank, in which Katie sits/is suspended by aerated GRS type gel. The control chair seat restraints are far more bulky than usual, and actually "zip" onto Ysak's flight suit across his chest. The reason for this is that it allows Katie to physically touch Ysak with her arms inside the tubular restraints, thus allowing for a much easier time achieving the connection required to Resonate. Of course, physical touch isn't required for it, as Lacus and Kira demonstrated, but it does make it a lot easier and less stressful on both parties. Securely restrained and supplied with oxygen, sustenance and medical support by the holding tank, Katie is free to concentrate her attention on using her powers of Telepathy, Empathy, Obfuscation and Bodily System Control to the advantage of her allied forces. Normally only able to affect other Newtypes, while Resonating with Ysak, Katie has proven more than capable of penetrating multiple Stump barriers at the same time, providing Ysak with potent psychological warfare options. Resonating becomes easier and more powerful the closer and more intimately the Newtypes are connected, so Katie commonly strips naked before entering the tank, though that is more just a personal preference of hers than anything required. It always bothers Ysak greatly, at least in the pre and post launch stages.)

Vari-Camera Array

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Warmaster

**Pilot:** Dearka Elsman, Miriallia Haw (Co-Pilot)

**Height:** 25 meters

**Weight:** 180 tons

**Power Plant:** Improved Nuclear x2

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift double thick, Magnetic Field treated

**Flight Speed:** 300 mph

**Ground Speed:** 55 mph

**Maneuverability:** 7

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x4 (head)

Missile 20 rack x4 (2 per shoulder, long range)

375mm Direct/Indirect Fire Artillery Cannon x4 (2 per side of torso, very long range)

200cm "Earthshaker Magnus" Semi-Automatic Artillery Cannon (Right hand, can fire up to 3 times in a row before it needs to be reloaded. Reloading takes up to 30 minutes and usually requires return to base or carrier ship or a nearby supply convoy. very long range)

57mm Gatling Beam Cannon x2 (Left arm, under shield, medium range)

325mm Hyper Impulse Cannon (Left arm, under shield, very long range)

Anti-Ship Physical/Beam Axe (Right hand)

"Spear of Ares" Wireless Variable Construction Relativistic Mass Driver (WIVAC-REMAD)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (Left arm)

LRR Master Unit

Vari-Camera Array and wireless camera drones

CIC computers

Tandem seat

"Pandemonium" ECM emitters (shoulders, comprehensively jams most targeting systems, detection systems and communication system in up to a 5 mile radius. Can even affect munition and sensitive defensive electronics, preventing missiles from detonating or shells from arming, or affecting the operation of Citadel Shields, Geischmedig Panzer arrays, even Phase Shift armor control can be potentially disrupted)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Phoenix King

**Pilot:** Athrun Zala

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Improved Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive (About twice as effective as normal armor against ballistic/explosive weapons, and entirely immune to beam/heat based weapons. Sort of like Phase Shift, but opposite. An outgrowth of Ysak's Photon Cloak technology. Immunity even encompasses beam based melee weaponry, though physical edges are still a threat), Magnetic field treated

**Flight Speed:** 700 mph (Up to 2400 mph in Mobile Armor mode)

**Ground Speed:** 100 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14 (16 in Mobile Armor mode)

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (Head)

Dual 57mm Beam rifle x2 (R/L hand, medium range)

Plasma flamethrower x6 (three per forearm, short range)

"Phoenix Feathers" Multiple Detached Weapon System (MDWS)

"Vulcan's Forge" Freeform Beam Generation/Containment System (BGCS)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Projector x2 (R/L forearm)

"Flame Mirage" Passive Defense System (another take on the Angel Halo, renders all thermal/laser targeting systems ineffective, visually blurs the outline of the Gundam. When active it is impossible to be stealthy because of the amount of excess heat given off)

Polarized cameras, Vari-camera capability

**Notes:** Has a mobile armor-esque flight form that makes for easier and faster long range flight travel. Also allows another Gundam, usually Cagalli's Dawn Goddess but it can be pretty much anything besides Dearka and Miriallia's Warmaster, to ride on the top/back like a Guul platform. Much like the Raider and the Calamity in original Gundam SEED.

xxxx

**Designation:** Seraph

**Pilot:** Kira Yamato

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Improved Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift, Magnetic field treated

**Flight Speed:** 900 mph

**Ground Speed:** 90 mph

**Maneuverability:** 15

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

225mm/150mm Linear Cannon/Hyper-Impulse Rifle x2 (hands, long/medium range)

10 meter Beam Sword x2 (hands)

"Tranquility" DND (Directed Neutron Disabler) x2 (R/L palm) (Kind of like a very amped up N-Jammer projected in a pale purple beam about five meters wide and fifty meters long. Prevents the release of neutrons from fission reactions of all sorts for up to thirty minutes or longer, depending on the duration of exposure to the beams. Completely disables all nuclear fission based weapons and power systems, burns out N-Jammer cancelers. Doesn't disable Fusion based reactions, but it does limit their power output and function to an extent.)

"Fractal Wings" MDDS (Multiple Detached Defensive System) (Twelve sided polygon-balls, 36 of them. Can project either Citadel Lightwave Barriers or Geischmedig Panzer Shields around themselves. Can operate for up to five minutes at a time without recharging, at distances of up to 20 meters from the Knight Angel. Individual barriers and shields are linkable into larger, more complex and stronger shields or barriers.

400mm Hyper Impulse Cannon x4 (two per side of torso, very long range)

"Heaven's Light" Beam Redirection and Multiple Target Engagment Program (uses the Fractal Wings to bounce, redirect and even split the blasts from the chest mounted hyper impulse cannons or enemy beam weapons, allowing Kira to shoot in any direction no matter which way he is facing. By precision maneuvering of the Fractal Wings pods, a single hyper impulse beam can be split into four only slightly weaker beams, and each of those four beams can be directed at a different target. The automatic control system can handle as many as forty eight different beams at once... with manual control there is effectively no limit other than the pilots skill to the number of beams that can be caught, split, redirected and then released. The pods are rated to handle energy discharge of up to Lohengrin class weaponry.)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Projector x2 (R/L Forearm)

Angel halo (all over)

Vari-Camera (head)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Dawn Goddess

**Pilot:** Cagalli Zala-Attha

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 85 tons

**Power Plant:** Improved Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive, Magnetic field treated

**Flight Speed:** 350 mph

**Ground Speed: **75 mph

**Maneuverability:** 9

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

150mm Plasma cannon x2 (R/L shoulder, very long range)

80mm Gatling cannon x4 (2 per side of torso, medium range)

"Haymea's Arbalest" 125cm High Energy "Gottfried" Beam Cannon combined with 120mm Recoilless launcher (Hands) (Launcher fires EARP class missiles, but with a couple twists. For one, they're a lot more explosively powerful, each more than enough to take down a Cavalier or Elemental with one shot. For another, each has a powerful magnetic field emitter on the back end. When Cagalli and Athrun are working together, with the Dawn Goddess riding the Phoenix King, the missiles can draw upon the Vulcan's Forge plasma energy, pulling it in twisting streamers behind it, like a threaded needle, for added punch. Long/Medium range)

"Dawn's Lance" Physical Anti-Ship Lance. (12 meters long. Magnetically treated and electrically charged. Can also be used to direct the Vulcan's Forge plasma energy, both to sheath the lance itself or to project it like a beam, up to 30 meters in length.)

Detachable missile 40 rack x2 (back, contains two reloads, then detaches for extra maneuverability, radar guided long range munitions)

**Equipment (Location):**

Angel Halo

Vari-Camera Array

Citadel Shield Projector (R/L forearm)

"Married Life" Program (Its not what it's actually called, but that's what Athrun and Cagalli call it. It allows them to switch over various functions and controls of each others mobile suits to the other person when their mobile suits are operating together. Usually they use it to allow Cagalli to fly the Phoenix King in mobile armor mode, while Athrun fights at longer range using the Dawn Goddess's weaponry.)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** M-4 Guardian

**Pilot:** Orb Mainline Pilots

**Height:** 20 meters (mobile suit form)

**Weight:** 90 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Reinforced heavy standard

**Flight Speed:** 400 mph (up to 1200 mph in Jet form)

**Ground Speed:** 75 mph

**Maneuverability:** 7-10

**Weapons (Location):**

Dual 55mm rapid fire cannon (L arm, all forms, medium range)

57mm Beam rifle (R hand, mobile suit only, medium range)

150mm High energy beam cannon (tank form, long range)

Radar guided missile x8 (4 per wing, jet form only, long range)

20mm CIWS x4 (head, all forms)

Beam saber (R hand, mobile suit only)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel shield (L hand, mobile suit only)

Tank form

Jet form

LRR slave unit

Vari Camera array

Spotlights x4 (shoulders, all forms)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** M-7 Dawndrake

**Pilot:** Various Orb Elite Forces, Andrew Waltfeld

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 95 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, Solar Rechargers

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive

**Flight Speed:** 800 mph (1800 mph in flight form)

**Ground/Water Speed:** 80 mph

**Maneuverability:** 10-12

**Weapons (Location):**

225mm/150mm Linear Cannon/Hyper-Impulse Rifle (R hand, long/medium range)

120mm Gatling cannon x2 (R/L shoulder, medium range)

Gugnir Cannon (Chest, 75 meter cone)

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

15 meter electrified chain (shield)

Wingsabers (Wings)

Beam Sword (R hand)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (L hand)

Vari-Camera Array

Scale System

Solar Rechargers

HiMat Wings

**Notes:** Can transform into a mobile armor type ground form, sea form, flight form and mobile suit for optimum performance in any environment. The replacemnt to the M-4 is taking some time to be distributed because of high manufacturing costs, and the additional training pilots require for it, since they are very nearly Gundam-Lites. Fight in trios.

**xxxx**

**BOH (Brotherhood of Humanity)**

**Designation:** Haunted

**Pilot:** Aireg Randolf

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 95 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear (heat shielded)

**Armor Type:** Chameleonic Phase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 800 mph

**Ground Speed:** 140 mph

**Maneuverability:** 13

**Weapons (Location):**

100mm silenced/suppressed sniper cannon x2 (palms, equipped with beam tipped shells, long range)

Wire guided missile 8 launcher (back, long range, Harpoon missiles)

Quad 155mm shotcannon-carbine (R hand, short range, 4 tubes, manual reloading required)

57mm beam rifle (L hand, medium range)

20mm CIWS x4 (head)

Two handed anti-ship axe (hands)

**Equipment (Location):**

Nanofog emitters (back)

Sound dampeners (all over)

Holo-projector x4 (torso)

Stealth system (all over)

Sonar array (head)

Traction grips (hands/feet)

Comm-stealing/jamming gear (head)

NIC III control system (cockpit)

**Notes:** Projects four perfect images of itself up to 100 meters away with its holoprojectors

xxxx

**Designation:** Tormented

**Pilot:** Mary O'Brien

**Height:** 21 meters

**Weight:** 90 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 1000 mph

**Ground Speed:** 175 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14

**Weapons (Location):**

Monomolecular trident (R hand)

Monomolecular folding claw x5 (fingers of L hand)

Plasma flame projector x4 (L wrist, short range)

500mm Recoiless rocket launcher (R hand, long range)

"The Banshee's Scream" CUSA (Head, 50 meter sphere)

25 meter electro-whip (L arm)

**Equipment (Location):**

Positron Reflector Shield (L hand)

Holoshroud (all over)

Comm-stealing/jamming gear (head)

Sonic amplifiers (back)

Sonic shielding (cockpit)

Noise generators (torso)

Self repair nanomachine system (all over)

NIC III control system (cockpit)

**Notes:** Always appeared covered in images of grotesque horror due to its holoshroud

xxxx

**Designation:** Traitor

**Pilot:** Jean Dylan

**Height:** 18 meters

**Weight:** 75 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear (Shielded)

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 750 mph

**Ground Speed:** 140 mph

**Maneuverability:** 13

**Weapons (Location):**

155mm Semi-auto Shotgun Carbine (High explosive-incendiary rounds, R hand, short range, 9 rounds, pump action)

57mm Beam rifle with 300mm grenade attachment (R hand, medium range)

300mm Rocket Grenade x4 (hips)

Beam saber (R hand)

.50 caliber anti-personnel machine gun x10 (fingers, short range)

20mm CIWS x2 (head)

40mm automatic grenade launcher x2 (L arm, nerve gas grenades, medium range)

**Equipment (Location):**

Smoke projectors (hips, head)

Holoshroud (all over)

Citadel Shield (L hand)

Stealth system (all over)

IFF decoder/encoder (torso)

LRR array (head)

Comm-stealing/jamming gear (head)

Data hacking gear (torso)

Mirage Colloid

NIC III control system (cockpit)

**Notes:** Can change its holoshroud to make it look like almost any other mobile suit, at least visually. Works by setting opponents against each other, reasonably helpless in a straight up fight, especially against an actual war Gundam. Strong against non-mobile suit foes.

xxxx

**Designation:** Revenant

**Pilot:** Cray Thresher

**Height:** 100 meters

**Weight:** 6000 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR, Nuclear x2

**Armor Type:** Ultra-heavy assault octuple layer, Inner Citadel Shield, Outer Citadel Scale arrays cover 95% of surface armor

**Flight Speed:** 500 mph

**Ground Speed:** 150 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14

**Weapons (Location):**

550cm Radiation Cannon (R arm, very long range, very wide area of effect, a mini-Genesis laser)

220cm Gatling High Energy Beam Cannon (L arm, long range, three barrels, 3 shots per second)

Dual 80cm artillery cannon turret x2 (top of R/L foot, long range)

Triple 175cm Linear Cannon turret x4 (one per upper arm, one per hip, long range)

57mm gatling beam CIWS turret x16 (all over, short range)

Quad 120mm gatling cannon x16 (arms, legs, back and torso, short range)

Twelve tubed anti-ship missile launcher x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

"Rigor Mortis" computer controlled attack pod x1200 (never leave a 50 meter radius, attach to enemy Mobile Suits/Vehicles and emit scrambling pulses of data that "lock up" the movement ability)

80 meter Anti-ship Chain with beam blade spikes (R arm, can not be used at the same time as Radiation cannon)

30 meter Anti-ship Axe Blade (L forearm, front and back)

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC II control system (cockpit)

Fast working nano-repair system (center torso)

**Notes:** Self repair system can rebuild entire machine in two weeks time, unless cockpit destroyed. Fights just like Cray does, favoring overwhelming concentration of fire against single or small groups of foes, except when angered in which case he tends to attack entire arcs of fire. Surprisingly quick with the axe and chain, often enough to catch people off guard, who think that the Revenant is as slow as the Judgement.

xxxx

**Designation:** Vengeance

**Pilot:** Michael Genesis, Shinn Asuka

**Height:** 21 meters

**Weight:** 80 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Liquid Crystal Regenerative

**Flight Speed:** 6500 mph (max combat speed in atmosphere), up to 12500 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 18

**Weapons (Location):**

Quantum crystal blade Zweihander (hands, 25 meters long)

Quantum crystal blade finger claws x10 (fingers, retractable)

25 meter heat whips (L/R wrist)

300mm QC Spear Driver (Single shot, hands, very long range, very high penetrating power, manual reload, large slim rifle, strong club-like stock, relatively lengthy reload time)

660mm Radiation Cannon

15mm beam CIWS x2 (head)

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC III control system (cockpit)

Cooling wing x2 (back)

GRS mk II (cockpit)

Positron reflector shield x4 (palms and wing tips)

Ultra-fast working nano-repair system (center torso)

**Notes:** Self repair system can restore the entire unit to brand new specifications within 96 hours of taking damage, as long as the cockpit remains intact. With Mu at the controls it favors using the special ranged weapons to attack foes while using its agility to stay just out of reach, falling back onto the heat whips and then the sword and claws. With Shinn piloting the Vengeance concentrates more on sword and whip attacks, using the special ranged weapons only against enemies in attacks of opportunity or at the start of battles.

xxxx

**Designation:** Retribution

**Pilot:** Markov Ashino

**Height:** 23 meters

**Weight:** 120 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift, Citadel Scales

**Flight Speed:** 4500 mph (maximum combat speed in atmosphere), up to 12500 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 18

**Weapons (Location):**

"Fragarach" Gatling Hyper Impulse Cannon x2 (R/L hand/arm. Three rotating 525mm Hyper-Impulse Cannons, can be fired continuously (12 beams per second), long range, very damaging to grouped enemies. Medium-long range. Mounted on armatures, can be retracted to free up the use of the Retribution's arms for other weapons)

150mm Rapidfire FRALA x2 (R/L hand/arm, like all primary weapon systems, mounted on back armatures for ease of weapon swapping. Very long range, each can fire up to 60 times before needing a thirty minute cooldown period)

"Glaive Wurm" Edged Munition Catapult x2 (R/L hand/arm. Large caliber muzzle, flat and almost rectangular in shape, fires "saw blade" like discs with monomolecular sharp edges, packed with high explosives, can be set to impact or timed or density trigged fuses, blast power is high enough to disable a Mobile Suit or blow off a limb from a single hit. Curved flight path. High rate of fire, the discs are cloaked by a limited duration Mirage Colloid "wrapper" that conceals them from view while in flight, making them very hard to dodge or intercept, or even to tell when the weapon is firing at all! Mounted on standard armatures. Medium range)

Variable Tactical Payload Missile Pod x4 (R/L thigh, R/L shoulder, five tubed, detachable, fitted with a variety of special munitions, including electrified nets, anti-electronic Nanites (like the Haunted's), sensor blocking Nanites (like the Haunted Mist), Holoprojecter Decoys, Red EDEN converter missiles (convert matter they strike into sandstone or other weakened material, slow process), QC tipped missiles and shield emitter missiles)

Triple Heat Claw x2 (R/L back of hand, function like the Vengeance's heat whips, but closer range)

CUSA-D x2 (Directional Ultrasonic/Vibrational weapons, short ranged cones, point blank, very high damage, capable of shaking apart almost any physical matter within about 25 meters of origin point, sound like sonic booms but hundreds of times louder, do not work in vacuum except through direct physical contact. R/L palm)

Beam Resistant Monomolecular Halberd (Hands)

15mm Beam CIWS x3 (Head)

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC III control system (cockpit)

Cooling wing (back, extends straight out from the back, like a dorsal fin)

Obdurate Shield Emitter (Chest, projects a very large shield, capable of covering multiple Mobile Suits. Can choose between GP, Citadel or Positron shield types)

GRS mk II (cockpit)

Ultra-fast working nano-repair system (center torso)

**Notes:** Self repair system can restore the entire unit to brand new specifications within 96 hours of taking damage, as long as the cockpit remains intact. Utilized by Ashino in support of Shinn in the Vengeance

xxxx

**Designation:** Brotherhood

**Pilot:** Noah Borander (via telepresence)

**Height:** 25 meters

**Weight:** 150 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** LCR

**Flight Speed:** 6500 mph (maximum combat speed in atmosphere), up to 18000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 250 mph

**Maneuverability:** 19

**Weapons (Location):**

Thermal Exciter x4 (one per Wingtip, 100 meter cone, usually only used long enough to kill pilots (3ish seconds), blocked by Citadel Shields but nothing else)

Beacon Launcher (Head, fires magnetic beacons that allow Noah to hack into the OS of machines it hits, short range)

550mm Mortar (R shoulder, fires Mirage Colloid cloaked airbursting bombs with hundreds of plasma explosive submunitions, affects a 50 meter radius around detonation point, long range)

20mm QC Spike Driver, turreted (L Shoulder, fires foot long armor piercing serrated needles, become white hot when they penetrate armor, 3000 shots per minute, medium range. Ignore anything but Citadel or Positron shields)

50mm Rapidfire FRALA (L hand, 90 shots before requiring thirty minutes to cool/repair, very long range)

5mm Anti-Matter Pulse rifle (R hand, long range)

500 meter magnetic grapple x8 (two per wing, data link equipped)

Quantum crystal forearm blade x4 (Ll/Rl/Lu/Ru wrist)

Beam blade x4 (one per Wingtip)

15mm beam CIWS x4 (head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Positron Reflector Shield x4 (one per palm)

AI cockpit (cockpit)

Telepresence node, NIC IV (cockpit)

Data hacking/virus storing computers (torso, allow Noah to hack into and contol the OS of machines he has grappled)

Holo-projector x6 (torso, 100 meter range)

Holoshroud (all over)

Mirage Colloid

Cooling Wing x4

Ultra-fast working nano-repair system (center torso)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Zealot

**Pilot:** Telepresence control or AI programming

**Height:** 17 meters

**Weight:** 90 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 900 mph

**Ground Speed:** 150 mph

**Maneuverability:** 12-14

**Weapons (Location):**

Beam saber (R hand)

200mm railgun (R hand, long range)

150mm high energy beam cannon x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

Wire guided missile 24 launcher (back, long range)

55mm rapid fire cannon x2 (torso, medium range)

20mm CIWS x4 (head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Beam deflecting shield (L hand)

NIC III telepresence control node (cockpit)

AI control system (cockpit)

**Notes:** Quick to close to melee or short range, rarely stops firing its weapons, preferring to just slew its fire around until it is destroyed, all enemies are destroyed or it runs out of ammo. Will usually start battles by launching several missiles at foes, especially if there are enough Zealots and Martyrs to get a good volley attack going.

xxxx

**Designation:** Martyr

**Pilot:** Telepresence control or AI

**Height:** 22 meters

**Weight:** 140 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Assault

**Flight Speed:** 800 mph

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 12-14

**Weapons (Location):**

450mm railgun x4 (two per shoulder, long range)

150mm high energy beam cannon x2 (one per shoulder, long range)

Laser guided missile 30 launcher x6 (three per arm, long range)

300mm hyper impulse cannon x2 (R/L wrist in place of hand, very long range)

80mm gatling cannon x6 (torso, medium range)

20mm CIWS x4 (head)

**Equipment (Location):**

Extra ammunition hopper x4 (back)

High explosives (packed into body area, throughtout entire body)

Remote self detonation device (cockpit)

NIC III telepresence node (cockpit)

AI control system (cockpit)

**Notes:** Likes to get in close, despite its lack of melee weapons. Not at all slow or clumsy, they try and go through as much ammo as possible before leaping at enemies and trying to blow up on top of them.

xxxx

**Designation:** The Great Endeavor SATMARS (Space/Atmosphere/Terrestrial Mobile Assembly and Research Station)

**Crew Complement:** 800ish, mostly Harbinger Soldiers and technical assistants

**Dimensions:** 1500 meters circumference, 150 meters tall along outside edge, sloping up to around 550 meters tall at central ziggurat. Excavating/support legs add another 100 meters of height from ground.

**Weight:** Several million tons

**Power Plant:** Large Scale FPR x5

**Armor Type:** 5-15 meter thick Heavy Ablative Shell, Citadel Scales underneath Shell over vital locations

**Flight Speed:** 70 mph (atmosphere), up to 1000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 20 mph

**Maneuverability:** 0

**Weapons (Location):**

100mm AMP Cannon Turret (Center ziggurat, 360 degree arc of fire, extremely long range, extremely high power, basically a large thermonuclear explosion)

220cm Gatling Gottfried Turret x16 (spaced equidistant along major/minor compass points, 8 on dorsal surface, 8 on ventral surface)

800cm Linear Artillery Cannon x4 (one per major compass point, dorsal surface, 640 km range, usually contained in armored shutters, can be used to fire Green EDEN or EDEN Wells)

ICBM Launch Tube x12 (Upper surface, range 5000km, used for deploying Green EDEN or EDEN Wells)

Tactical Cruise Missile Launcher x48 (all over upper and lower surfaces, 800km range, longer in space, standard or Blue EDEN warheads)

57mm Beam CIWS turret x800 (Short ranged anti mobile suit/anti vehicle defense)

120mm Dual Gatling Cannon Turret x200 (Medium ranged anti mobile suit/anti vehicle defense)

80cm Triple Artillery Cannon Turret x30 (Long ranged anti mobile suit/anti vehicle defense)

CUSA-D x8 (One per bottom of Excavating/Support leg)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Projector x16 (Capable of protecting 98% of vessel, equidistant on top/bottom at cardinal points)

Positron Reflector Shield Projector x16 (Capable of protecting 98% of vessel, equidistant on top/bottom at cardinal points)

Nanological Self Repair System

Red EDEN Combat Logistics system

Excavating/Support leg x8

Green EDEN distrubution vents

Green EDEN Wells (Self sufficient, independent Green EDEN distributers, can be fielded via missile, artillery shell, Mobile Suit or deployed from Great Endeavor)

Hoverthrusters

Hangar with space for up to 60 Mobile Suits, including the Revenant and other Gundams.

Vertical Linear Catapult system x6

Self Contained Manufacturing Plants

Noah's Atrium and Vault

NIC Telepresence Control Nodes

**Notes:**

**xxxx**

**Edenites (In Reclamation War)**

**Designation:** Exemplar Gundam

**Pilot:** Kunai

**Height:** 25 meters

**Weight:** 150 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** LCR

**Flight Speed:** 7500 mph (max combat speed in atmosphere), up to 20000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 250 mph

**Maneuverability:** 19

**Weapons (Location):**

Details Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Details Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Dervish

**Pilot:** Custodians

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Borealite

**Flight Speed:** 4500 mph (in atmosphere), up to 15000 mph in space

**Ground Speed: **200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 17-19

**Weapons (Location):**

Quantum Crystal forearm triple claw x2 (one per arm)

225mm Linear Cannon x2 (one per hand)

57mm Beam Cannon x4 (two per side of torso)

Satchel of Mobile Suit Grenades

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC-IV Control System

GRS-II

Colloid Haze cloaking aura (partially obscures/blurs 20 meter radius)

Citadel Shield Projecter x2 (one per forearm)

Cooling fin (Back)

Nanorepair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Spectre

**Pilot:** Praetorians

**Height:** 22 meters

**Weight:** 120 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Borealite

**Flight Speed:** 4500 mph (atmosphere), up to 15000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 225 mph

**Maneuverability:** 19-20

**Weapons (Location):**

Quantum Crystal Glaive (Hands)

Thermal Exciter (150 meter cone effect, opposite of glaive blade in polearm)

20mm QC spike driver (R arm)

Gugnir Projector (L palm, 100 meter cone)

100cm Positron Cannon (center torso, can only be fired after set up and when braced)

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC-IV Control System

GRS-II

Photo-refractor array (Improved Mirage Colloid, proof even against vari-cameras, works by actually bending light around the mobile suit, not using particles as a disguise)

Citadel Shield Projecter x2 (one per forearm)

Cooling fin (Back)

Hoverthrusters (legs)

Nanorepair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Wraith

**Pilot:** Arboreal Praetorians (Lilia, Heine, Haman, a very few others)

**Height:** 22 meters

**Weight:** 130 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** Borealite

**Flight Speed:** 4500 mph (atmosphere), up to 15000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 225 mph

**Maneuverability:** 20

**Weapons (Location):**

Double bladed Quantum Crystal Glaive (Hands)

Thermal Exciter x2 (one per staff tip of the glaive, 150 meter cone effect)

50mm Ion Disintegrator (R Arm)

Dual 20mm QC spike driver (L arm)

Gugnir-blade EMP finger claws (invisible/intangible blades of electromagnetic energy that are harmless to living tissue and even most solids, but cause catastrophic damage to electronics and computer systems, destroying a machine's OS and internal systems while leaving the machine and pilot intact.

"Odin Hammer" Point Blank Ion Arc Storm Projectors (releases energy stolen by the Deathtouch gauntlets in a crackling storm of electric bolts that spread out to cover a 50 meter radius, a less powerful but more stable and wider area version of a Mjolnir 3P cannon)

**Equipment (Location):**

LEMIM Control Enhancements

NIC-IV Control System

GRS-II

Photo-refractor array (Improved Mirage Colloid, proof even against vari-cameras, works by actually bending light around the mobile suit, not using particles as a disguise)

Citadel Shield Projecter x2 (one per forearm)

"Deathtouch" Long Range Energy Leeching Gauntlets (hands, can drain power from power plants/energy weapon systems within a 100 meter radius, rendering up to 1 GW of power inoperable at a time)

Cooling fin (Back)

Hoverthrusters (legs)

Nanorepair system

Advanced Communication and Sensor Jamming systems (effectively blocks all technological communications and most sensors more advanced than cameras within a 3 kilometer radius)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Kratos Gundam

**Pilot:** Zacharis "Kira" Frost

**Height:** 28 meters

**Weight:** 250 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR (Larger/more powerful than the ones in the Pulsar/Vengeance/Brotherhood)

**Armor Type:** LCR

**Flight Speed:** 8500 mph (atmosphere), up to 24000 mph in space)

**Ground Speed:** 300 mph

**Maneuverability:** 22

**Weapons (Location):**

Details Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Details Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Lucifer

**Pilot:** Executor Kira Yamato

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 120 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR

**Armor Type:** LCR

**Flight Speed:** 7000 mph (atmosphere), up to 20000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 250 mph

**Maneuverability:** 21

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

50mm Ion Disintegrator "Holy Wrath" x2 (R/L hand)

"Lucifer's Grasp" GMFG (Hands, Gravitic Manipulation Field Generators)

Quantum Crystal longsword x2 (R/L hand)

"Fractal Wings" MDDS (Multiple Detached Defensive System) (36 feather pods. Can project either Citadel Lightwave Barriers or Geischmedig Panzer Shields around themselves. Can operate for up to five minutes at a time without recharging, at distances of up to 200 meters from the Lucifer. Individual barriers and shields are linkable into larger, more complex and stronger shields or barriers.)

100mm "Hellfury" FRALA x4 (two per side of torso, very long range, unlimited use, use ultraviolet light (easier to split) so the beams are purplish in color)

"Heaven's Light" Beam Redirection and Multiple Target Engagment Program (uses the Fractal Wings to bounce, redirect the blasts of enemy beam weapons, allowing Kira to shoot in any direction no matter which way he is facing. By precision maneuvering of the Fractal Wings, the pods can also be used to create "prisms" that refract the FRALA beams into multiple smaller beams in a wide spread of angles. A single FRALA beam can be split into up to twenty smaller beams. The pods are rated to handle energy discharge of up to Lohengrin class weaponry.)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Projector x2 (R/L Forearm)

Positron Reflector Shield x2 (R/L Palm)

Vari-Camera (head)

NIC V Control System

GRS 3

Holoshroud

Mirage Colloid

Ultra Fast Nanological reconstruction system

**Notes:**

**xxxx**

**Orb Gundams, Reclamation War **(Names subject to change, suggestions welcome)

**Designation:** Executioner (Melee domination and special weapons)

**Pilot:** Yzak Joule, Katie Belaruse

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heavy Standard, with Citadel Scale covering

**Speed:** 4500 mph (atmosphere), up to 15000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 225 mph**  
Maneuverability:** 19

**Weapons (Location):**

"Zeus Armor" Electromagnetic Protection Field (projects in a 25 meter radius, a constant pulsing EMP field that disables/detonates the guidance/arming circuits of missiles and shells that enter the area, basically renders the Balmung immune to guided or explosive weapons. Railguns still break through, as do other unguided, nonexplosive physical weapons, but anything with a power source or explosive warhead is toast. Can detonate ammo or munitions contained within enemy machines if they are insufficently shielded against EMP)

Dual 75mm Rapidfire Monodisc launcher (Left Shoulder, medium-long range, operates on the same principle as the Retribution's Glaive Wurm weapons, firing supersharp, explosive discs with curving flight paths)

40mm "Cutter" FRALA (Right Shoulder, short-medium range, tuned for much higher power with much shorter range, kind of like a blowtorch flame, lasts for up to ten seconds at a time, 30 second recharge. Has the power of a FRALA of 10x its caliber)

105mm Hyperthermal Radiation Cannon (a more focused version of a Thermal Exciter, kind of a cross between a Thermal Exciter and a FRALA, long range, very high potency beam, dark blue in color, single shot, breech loading. Basically the same sort of thing as the Wing Zero's buster rifle. The radiation penetrates any kind of armor easily, just like a Thermal Exciter, causing damage to everything in the path of the beam, rather than with the beam itself, though it is stopped by most energy type shields of sufficient strength)

"Minion" Wireless ADMS (with the additional option of Positron shields)

"Fafnir" Heavy Opposed Monopole Magnetic Blade x2 (Same technology as Siegfried, but larger and more durable, reinforced with QC slivers, can be wielded with one or two hands, blade length changes depending on the way its being used, the "blade" becomes longer and wider when used in two hands, practically the size of the Vengeance's Zweihander, and more like a regular Siegfried when used in one hand. The blades are protected with a secondary magnetic wrapper as well, which protects against damage from doing things like piercing Positron shields. The magnetic fields can be used like a sort of BGCS, to bend and redirect magnetically sheathed plasma energy that passes close by the blade edge. Stored on back.)

Supercharged Beam blade x4 (one per wrist and in the top of each foot, Aegis style)

**Equipment (Location):**

Bulwark Tactical Shield (L hand, Phase Shifted armor, Citadel Array, Positron Reflector and Gesichmedig Panzer Capailities, Multiple short beam blades, QC dusted chainsaw edge)

Photon Cloak (back)

Divine Eye System (Upgrade to Mind's Eye, Lets Katie's newtype senses work as a new type of sensor for the Balmung, translating her mental signals into physical pictures that can be transmitted elsewhere. Allows for penetration of all known cloaking technology, including that of the Praetorian Wraiths/Spectres. Also helps Katie use her powers to render a 75 meter area around the Balmung invisible to Newtype Senses)

Vari-Camera Array

Gravitic Reduction System, Mark II, with dual occupancy setting

Dual NIC-III system

Nano-repair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Imperious (Widespread destruction, area of effect attacks)

**Pilot:** Dearka Elsman, Miriallia Haw (Co-Pilot)

**Height:** 35 meters

**Weight:** 400 tons

**Power Plant:** Large Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Super heavy standard with two layers of Citadel Scales

**Flight Speed:** 3500 mph (atmosphere), 15000 mph (space)

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 15

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x4 (head)

VTP 20 tube launcher x2 (L/R torso)

220cm Rapidfire Positron Cannon "Baron Lohengrin" (L shoulder, 1 shot every 2 seconds)

250mm QC tipped Spear Driver (R shoulder, relatively slow firing, very long range, very high penetrating projectile launcher, modeled after the Harpoon launcher of the Vengeance)

200cm "Earthshaker Omega" Automatic Artillery Cannon (Replaces right arm/hand, can fire up to 30 times in a row before it needs to be reloaded, at a rate of two shells per second)

525mm Gatling Hyper Impulse Cannon x2 (Left arm, under shield, very long range)

Anti-ship Heat blades (dual blades, one on either side of the barrel of the Earthshaker Omega, circa the Revenant's axe arm)

"Spear of Ares" Wireless Variable Construction Relativistic Mass Driver (WIVAC-REMAD, cooldown time reduced to an hour or so, fine tuned so as few as 4 accelerators can be used, for improved tactical firepower)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield (Left arm)

LRR Master Unit

Vari-Camera Array and wireless camera drones

CIC computers

Pandemonium ECM emitters, MK III

GRS II

NIC-III

Nano-Repair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Majesty (Speed and the Control of Energy)

**Pilot:** Athrun Zala

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 120 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive

**Flight Speed:** 5000 mph (atmosphere, 7500 mph in Mobile Armor mode), up to 18000 mph space.

**Ground Speed:** 250 mph

**Maneuverability:** 19

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (Head)

50mm Rapidfire FRALA rifle x2 (R/L hand, Very Long range)

Plasma generator x6 (three per forearm, short range)

Thermal Exciter x2 (one per Palm, 100 meter cones)

VTP missile pods, 6 tubes x4 (available only in Mobile Armor form)

"Phoenix Feathers" Multiple Detached Weapon System

"Vulcan's Forge" Freeform Beam Generation/Containment System ver 2.5 (BGCS, Can be used at ranges of up to 500 meters, can be used just like a Mirrorblade shield across a 50 meter radius)

Mono-edge Heat blade x2 (R/L forearm, retractable)

"Pyroclasm" PBWS (Point Blank Weapon System, similar in many ways to a CUSA, except it works with heat instead of noise. 50 meter deadly radius gets hit with about 100k celsius heat for a second or so as the Aegis Phoenix vents heat directly from the FPR at maximum power level to the environment. Has a short build up time. Damage radius is about 150 meters. Can not be rapid fired, requires several minutes cooldown time between activations to avoid melting HAC armor. Turns the Aegis Phoenix white hot, any contact with its surface for next ten-twenty seconds is like touching a Heat Weapon.)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield Projector x2 (R/L forearm)

"Solar Flare" Photonic grenade launcher x2 (one per side of torso. Combination illumination device and countermeasure. Exactly mimic the heat signature of the mobile suit, brightly illuminate up to a one kilometer radius, and can cause visual damage to sensors and the naked eye if unshielded and exposed within 50 meters of the initial ignition)

Polarized cameras, Vari-camera capability

Extra thrusters and maneuvering jets (available only in Mobile Armor form)

NIC-III

GRS II

**Notes:** Has a mobile armor-esque flight form that makes for easier and faster long range flight travel. Also allows another Gundam, usually Cagalli's Dawn Goddess to ride on the top/back like a Guul platform. Much like the Raider and the Calamity in original Gundam SEED.

xxxx

**Designation:** Salvation (Prototype)

**Pilot:** Kira Yamato

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heavy Standard, with Citadel Scales

**Flight Speed:** 4500 mph (atmosphere), up to 15000 mph in space

**Ground Speed:** 200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 19

**Weapons (Location):**

Pending

**Equipment (Location):**

Pending

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Amaterasu (Sniping and team attacks)

**Pilot:** Cagalli Zala-Attha

**Height:** 20 meters

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive

**Flight Speed:** 5000 mph

**Ground Speed:** 180 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14

**Weapons (Location):**

15mm Beam CIWS x2 (head)

150mm Monodisc cannon x2 (R/L shoulder, long range)

57mm Gatling Beam cannon x4 (2 per side of torso, medium range)

"Haymea's Arbalest" Dual 125cm High Energy "Gottfried" Beam Cannon combined with 120mm Recoilless launcher (Hands)

Heat Lance (R hand, same principle as Heat whips, but a lance)

Heat Sword (L hand)

VTP pod, 8 tube x2 (sides, detachable)

**Equipment (Location):**

Angel Halo

Vari-Camera Array

Citadel Shield Projector (R/L forearm)

NIC-III

GRS-II

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Firebird Configurable Mobile Armor (Fighter/Interceptor Mode)

**Pilot:** Mu la Flaga

**Dimensions:** 10m long by 15 wide by 5 tall

**Weight:** 55 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heat Absorbing Conductive

**Flight Speed:** 6000 mph (afterburners up to 8800 mph)

**Maneuverability:** 16

**Weapons (Location):**

57mm gatling beam cannon x4 (two per wing, forward facing)

255mm Linear cannon x2 (under nose, pivot mounted, 270 degree arc of fire)

4 tube VTP missle pod x4 (two per wing)

Dual 15mm Beam CIWS (dorsal turret mounted)

Phoenix Feathers MDWS x2 (one per wing, 12 feathers per wing for 24 total)

Supercharged 15 meter beam wingblade x2 (wingtip mounted)

**Equipment (Location):**

Afterburners (tail/wings)

NIC-III

GRS-II

EMP Flare launcher

Holoprojector x2

Nano-repair system

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Flarehawk (Heavy Gunship Mode)

**Pilot:** Mu la Flaga

**Dimensions:** 20m long by 25 wide by 15 tall

**Weight:** 100 tons

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor

**Armor Type:** Heavy Regular with Citadel Scales

**Flight Speed:** 1750 mph

**Maneuverability:** 14

**Weapons (Location):**

All Firebird weapons

Additional dual 15mm beam CIWS turret x3 (two mounted on dorsal surface of wings, one belly mounted in the rear)

25 tube 85mm rocket launcher x4 (two per wing, downward/forward firing)

55cm High Intensity beam cannon turret x2 (one per wing, dorsal surface)

120mm gatling cannon turret x2 (one per ventral wing surface)

350mm Anti-armor shotcannon (belly mounted, beneath the nose)

**Equipment (Location):**

Hoverthruster VTOL system

All Firebird equipment (Afterburners disabled)

Extra EMP Flare launcher x2

Pandemonium ECM MkIII jammer

GP Shield Projector x2 (ventral surface)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Nova Condor (Tactical Bomber/Assault Transport Mode)

**Pilot:** Mu la Flaga

**Dimensions:** 40m long by 125 wide by 25 tall

**Weight:** 600 tons (unloaded)

**Power Plant:** Fusion Pulse Reactor x2

**Armor Type:** Single piece Ablative (like the Archangels)

**Flight Speed:** 3200 mph

**Maneuverability:** 12

**Weapons (Location):**

All Firebird weapons

Long range tactical anti-ship missile x6 (three per wing)

57mm Valkyros beam CIWS turret x4 (two dorsal mounted, two ventral mounted)

200cm Lohengrin Positron cannon x2 (one per wing)

Payload bays for up to 30000 pounds of bombs/dropped explosives

**Equipment (Location):**

All Firebird equipment (Afterburners disabled)

Extra EMP Flare launcher x4

Pandemonium ECM MkIII jammer

Positron Shield projector x2 (one upper, one lower)

Storage/Transport bays for up to 100 soldiers, 10 PUMA's/Light vehicles or 2 Mobile Suits

Ablative Gel dispensors for atmospheric re-entry

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** PUMA-1 Hellhound (Reclamation War, Personal Unilateral Mechanized Augmentation Suit)

**Pilot:** Stormhounds and elite Orb Special Forces

**Height:** 4 meters

**Weight:** 8 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery, with Solar Rechargers (3 Hours combat time, 15 hours normal operation, 45 hours minimal power operation, recharges .3/1 hour for every 3 in sunlight)

**Armor Type:** Hardened Composite with Anti-Beam Chameleon Coating

**Ground Speed:** 80 mph (can jump up to 1500 meters)

**Maneuverability:** 13-16

**Weapons (Location):**

50mm Machine Gun (High rate of fire, handheld, good against vehicles/light structures, medium range, optional)

Dual 30mm Gatling Cannon (Extremely high rate of fire, handheld, good against light vehicles/structures/people, optional)

45mm Beam Rifle (Single shot, medium range, high damage against vehicles/mobile suits/heavy structures, has own seperate power packs, handheld, optional)

55mm/80mm Linear Rifle/RPG launcher (single shot, long range, a balance between the Gatling Cannon and the Beam Rifle, versatile, handheld, standard)

75mm Linear Sniper Rifle (Single shot, very long range, very effective against vehicles/mobile suits, used with both hands, optional)

6 tube 125mm Missile Launcher (six shots, multiple types of warheads, can be good against pretty much anything, very long range, handheld, optional)

90mm Hyper-Impulse Cannon (single shot, long range, high damage, uses own power supply, ammunition limited, both hands, optional)

12.5mm CIWS x2 (Head/upper torso, standard)

VCE x8 (Variable Combat Explosive, plasma warhead, can be thrown like grenades or placed like bombs/mines, standard)

Armor Schnieder close combat blade (long knife/short sword, armor piercing point, silent, no energy usage, can be mounted as a bayonet on Beam/Linear/Machinegun rifle, standard)

Beam saber (yellow blade, on seperate power supply, great melee weapon, optional)

Macro-cable grapple launcher x2 (Forearms, 600 meter cable, standard)

**Equipment (Location):**

NIC-III control system (Cockpit/torso)

Armor Shield (One arm)

Scale System (Legs)

Solar Rechargers (Back)

Spotlight x2 (shoulders)

Specialized Sensor Package (Head, Vari-Camera's, Lorenzi Sensors, Radar, Sonar)

ECM (Torso, includes jamming and EW systems)

Flare/Chaff/Countermeasures launcher (Back)

Gear locker (lower back, contains personnel weapons/gear, medical supplies and food/water supplies)

Life Support System (Torso)

**xxxx**

**Designation:** Incarnate Class Dreadnought (Incarnate, Avatar, Primus, Solaris)

**Crew Size:** 10,000-12,000

**Dimensions:** 1150 meters long by 25-175 wide by 25-175 tall (elongated pyramid type shape)

**Mass:** 1,000,000 tons

**Power Plant:** Large scale FPR x3, Nuclear x2, Solar Powered Battery

**Armor Type:** Multilayer Ablative

**Flight Speed:** 3000 mph (space only, slow acceleration)

**Maneuverability:** 1

**Weapons (Location):**

125cm FRALA x4 (one per side, mounted near the back, limited rotational capacity in a small arc, long range, including orbit to surface, extremely high power, can fire once every few minutes. Main guns)

Triple 220cm Gottfried High Energy Beam Cannon turret x12 (3 per side, front, middle, back, long range, fire every 15-20 seconds, barrels are usually staggered in firing to ensure near constant fire on target, primary beam weapon system)

Dual 75cm Linear Cannon turret x16 (4 per side, 2 front, 2 rear. Long range, fire every 10-20 seconds, primary physical ranged punch, secondary weapon)

120mm gatling AMS/MA Turret x48 (12 per side, Anti-Mobile Suit/Mobile Armor cannon, primary close in weapon system)

125mm Beam Cannon AMS/MA turret x48 (12 per side, secondary CIWS)

Anti-Ship Torpedo system, 16 tubes (12 forward facing, 4 rear facing)

Strategic Missile Launcher x4

Fixed 600cm Artillery Cannon x2 (Nose, orbit to surface bombardment weapon, very long reload time)

BALOR Enclosure (single, retrofit)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield projectors (allowing for around 75% coverage with mobility, 98% with no mobility), shields are proof against non capital class weapons or special weapons.

Front or side arc Mirrorblade Projectors (can only protect front or one side at a time)

Vari-Cameras

Red EDEN supply and repair system

Telepresence Control Nodes for Aux Mobile Troops (up to 500)

**Notes:**

**Designation:** Myrmidon Class Heavy Cruiser (Myrmidon, Hoplite, Aegean, Achilles, Hector, Scythian, Trojan, Mongol, Crusader, plus others)

**Crew Size:** 3000-4000, plus 1200 flight crew/flight crew support

**Dimensions:** 400m long by 50 (150 in wings) wide by 50 tall (elongated cross)

**Mass:** 150,000 tons

**Power Plant:** Large scale FPR, Nuclear x2, Solar Batteries

**Armor Type:** Ablative

**Flight Speed:** 4000 mph (space only, medium acceleration)

**Maneuverability:** 3

**Weapons (Location):**

220cm Triple Gottfried Cannon turret x4 (dorsal/ventral, 2 front, 2 back)

350mm FRALA turret x2 (D/V, middle)

Anti-Ship Torpedo launcher x8 (front/nose)

Anti-vehicle Missile launcher, 25 tube x16 (spaced all around, volley fire)

Dual 120mm Gatling cannon turret x8 (2 per side, front and back)

57mm Valkyros Beam CIWS x8 (2 per side, front and back)

750mm Railgun "Valient" x2 (front, sides, forward facing, limited arc)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield projectors (allowing for around 75% coverage with mobility, 98% with no mobility), shields are proof against non capital class weapons or special weapons, won't hold up against constant barrage for more than a few minutes

Red EDEN Supply and repair system

Telepresence nodes for AMT's (up to 1000)

Hanger space for 144 Moebius Sigma's, 72 per "wing"

**Notes:**

**Designation:** Armstrong class Escort/Flak Frigate (Armstrong, Aldrin, Yaeger, Wright, Earheart, Rommel, Eisenhower, MacArthur, Patton, etc)

**Crew Size:** 500-700

**Dimensions:** 200m long by 25 wide by 25 tall (boxy)

**Mass:** 30000 tons

**Power Plant:** Nuclear x3, Solar Battery

**Armor Type:** Heavy Phase Shifted

**Flight Speed:** 4000 mph (space only, fast acceleration)

**Maneuverability:** 5

**Weapons (Location):**

220cm Dual Gottfried turret (dorsal, middle)

Triple 40cm Linear Cannon turret x3 (sides, ventral, middle)

150mm rapidfire shotcannon "flak" turret x12 (4 per side, short range, very good at interdicting missiles/maneuverable units)

57mm Beam CIWS x24 (8 per side)

20mm CIWS turret x48 (16 per side)

Anti-ship torpedo launcher x2 (front)

VTP missile launcher x24 (mostly back, sides)

**Equipment (Location):**

Citadel Shield projectors (allowing for around 75% coverage with mobility, 98% with no mobility), shields are proof against most regular Mobile Suit or Mobile Armor class weapons, less proof vs capital weapons

Mirrorblade projectors (front arc only, can affect up to a 10 kilometer line)

Anti-beam depth charge launchers

Chaff/decoy launchers

Telepresence Nodes for AMT's (up to 40)

Hanger space for 5 Moebius Sigma's

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Moebius Sigma

**Crew Size:** 3

**Dimensions:** 10m long by 4 wide by 4 tall

**Mass:** 25 tons

**Power Plant:** Extended Battery (average combat time 30 minutes)

**Armor Type:** Phase Shift

**Flight Speed:** 2500 mph

**Maneuverability:** 9-10

**Weapons (Location):**

Dual 57mm beam cannon x6 (one per gun barrel pod)

VTP 6 tube (ventral)

225mm Linear cannon (nose)

20mm CIWS x2 (nose)

**Equipment (Location):**

6 Gun barrel pods

Citadel Shield Blister (Body, 3 minute uptime, single use)

Gesichmedig-Panzer Shield (nose)

Afterburners (Engines)

**Notes:**

xxxx

**Designation:** Dawnblade class Battlecruiser (Orb)

**Crew Size:** 500-1500, plus 100 flight/suppot crew

**Dimensions:** 550m long by 50 wide by 50 tall (Looks like a water naval ship, and is)

**Mass:** 220,000 tons

**Power Plant:** FPR x2, Nuclear, Solar Batteries

**Armor Type:** HAC, Citadel Scales over vital areas

**Flight Speed:** 5000 mph (space, fast acceleration), 40 mph (air)

**Naval Speed:** 80 mph

**Maneuverability:** 5

**Weapons (Location):**

Dual 200cm "Earthshaker Omega" Automatic bombardment cannon turret (slightly forward of center, dorsal)

Dual 120cm Linear Cannon, 220cm rapidfire "Baron Lohengrin" turret x3 (two forward, one aft, dorsal)

500mm Monodisc launcher x2 (one per side, can rotate to shoot backwards)

Dual 57mm Valkyros Beam CIWS turret x10 (2 ventral, fore/aft, 8 dorsal, 4 per side)

Anti-ship missile/torpedo launcher x8 (6 front, 2 aft)

VTP 4 tube launcher x12 (two per linear turret, 4 in superstructure, 2 ventral)

735mm Hyperthermal Radiation Cannon (fixed, nose)

**Equipment (Location):**

Positron Shields (95% coverage, allows manueverability as normal)

"Diamond Dust" Nanite field (refracts/diffuses concentrated light immediately around the Dawnblade, greatly reducing the power of FRALA's, incoming and outgoing)

Red EDEN Supply/repair system

Hanger for up to 10 Dawndrake Mobile Suits or Gundams

"Hameya's Cunning" Magnetic Wrapper System (covers outgoing munitions in a brief magnetic field so they can pass through the positron shields without being disintegrated. Only works on physical weapons)

**Notes:**

xxxx

More pending, working on the ships still, and places, and people, and maybe my small arms, as in non-Mobile Suit weapons. This is more involved than I thought it would be.

**xxxx**

**Military Rank Structures of the Chaotic Cosmos, Eden Disaster and Reclamation War Stories**

(E1, E2, E3...): Enlisted Rank (higher number is higher rank, i.e. 1 is bottom, 2 higher than 1, 3 higher than 2, etc)

(O1, O2, O3...): Officer Rank (higher number is higher rank, i.e. 1 is bottom, 2 higher than 1, 3 higher than 2, etc)

**FNE, ALU, Orb and USN (Also holds true for the old Earth Alliance and the Isolation):**

**Army (Includes all terrestrial and airborne forces and Mobile Suit commands)**, _Navy (Includes both sea and space ship commands)_

(E1): **Private** _Crew Third Class_

(E2): **Private First Class **_Crew Second Class_ (Rank of Miriallia/Tolle/Sai/Flay/Kuzzey in GS)

(E3): **Corporal** (Ramierez's CC rank) _Crew First Class_

(E4): **Sergeant** _Petty Officer Third Class (All Petty Officer ranks addressed as "Petty Officer")_

(E5): **Staff Sergeant** (Ramierez's ED rank) _Petty Officer Second Class_

(E6): **Gunnery Sergeant** _Petty Officer First Class_

(E7): **First Sergeant** _Chief Petty Officer (Chief)_

(E8): **Master Sergeant**_ Senior Chief Petty Officer (Senior Chief)_

(E9): **Sergeant-Major** (Glory's rank) _Master Chief Petty Officer (Master Chief)_

(O1): **Second Lieutenant (Called Lieutenant)** ` _Ensign_ (Kira's rank in GS)

(O2): **First Lieutenant (Called Lieutenant**, Cyprus's rank**)** _Lieutenant Junior Grade (Called Lieutenant)_

(O3): **Captain** (Victor/Vladimir/James's rank) _Lieutenant_

(O4): **Major** (Alkire/Raine's rank) _Lieutenant Commander (Called Commander_, Mu's rank_)_

(O5): **Lieutenant Colonel** _Commander_ (Waltfeld's ED rank)

(O6): **Colonel** (Kisaka's rank) _Captain_ (Murrue's rank, all people commanding a ship are called "Captain" when on board, regardless of actual rank)

(O7): **Brigadier** _Rear Admiral (All flag/Admiral ranks called Admiral, there are two ranks of Rear Admiral, junior/senior)_

(O8): **Lieutenant-General (Called General, as are all flag/General ranks)** _Rear Admiral_

(O9): **Major-General** _Vice Admiral_

(O10): **General** _Admiral_ (Cagalli's equivalent rank)

(O11): **General of the Army** _Fleet Admiral_ (O11 does not exist in ALU or Orb Militaries, Icarus's rank in ED)

(O12): **Secretary of Defense** (In charge of the entire Military, Durandel's rank in ED)

**ZAFT:**

**All forces (Since ZAFT is a militia based organization, its rank structure is much looser, and the enlisted/officer distinction is more blurry, and time in service can mean more than actual rank)**

(E1): **Recruit** (Has just gone through basic training, hasn't chosen/been directed to a particular job yet)

(E2): **Specialist* Third Class** (Specialist is a generic term that should be substituted for by whatever job the soldier has, i.e. Pilot, Infantry "Trooper", Sensor Operater, Mechanic, Technician, etc)

(E3): **Specialist Second Class**

(E4): **Specialist First Class** (This was Shinn/Lunamaria's rank at the end of CC (Pilot First Class), and Meyrin's rank in ED (Combat Operator First Class))

(E5): **Junior Redcoat** (This was Lunamaria's rank in ED, prior to the Solar Knights, junior status can last for weeks, months or years even, depending on your experience/skills/drive for responsibility)

(O1): **Senior Redcoat** (This is Shinn/Rey's rank in ED, prior to the Solar Knights)

(O2): **Blackcoat** (This is the basic officer rank of ZAFT, representing people who went to an officer specific academy, rather than being meritoriously promoted. Ades, the captain of the Vesalius in GS, is this rank)

(O3): **Whitecoat** (The highest usual front line rank, people like Waltfeld, Talia Gladys, Ysak in CC and ED, in charge of a entire Team or Ship Command, often promoted from Senior Redcoats)

(O4): **Purplecoat/FAITH **(Senior staff officers who come up with overall strategy, while FAITH is a special designation that grants extra authority, stemming from the Supreme Council Chairperson)

(O5): **Senior Purplecoat** (The people in charge of running all of ZAFT, Patrick Zala's rank, the rank of any military people on the Supreme Council)

**Edenites:**

**All Forces**

**Custodian Minoris:** The rank of those Custodians who are still in training and aren't full soldiers yet (abbreviated CMN, White belt)

**Custodian Regulus:** The base rank of the Custodians, someone who is part of a Manifold but has no especial responsibility (CRG, Red)

**Custodian Magnus:** The Custodian in charge of a Manifold, who speaks for and relays orders to his or her Manifold, has this rank, which is basically team leader or sergeant (CMA, Blue)

**Tacticus Minoris:** Junior officers, people who are in charge of the actions of more than one Manifold, the lowest officer rank, usually have their own Manifold (TMN, Yellow)

**Tacticus Regulus:** Officers in charge of multiple Manifolds, responsible for basically company sized units of soldiers, usually the leader of a Tacticus Manifold (TRG, Green)

**Tacticus Magnus: **The most respected field commanders of the Custodians, just a more senior version of the Regulus rank, usually leading the most powerful or prestigious units (TMA, Purple)

**Strategos Minoris:** In charge of multiple Tacticus Manifolds, equivalent of Generals, the highest ranking officer that will usually also fight on the field (SMN, Orange)

**Strategos Regulus:** The highest echelon of officers, usually in charge of policy and in working with the Consol (SRG, Brown)

**Strategos Magnus:** The seniormost Strategos, the person in charge of the Custodians, who reports directly to the Consol, sometimes also is the Consol (SMA, Black)

**Consol:** Person who is responsible for the entire organization, interfaces with the rest of society on a high level (Consol, Black and White)

**Example unit (Manifold):**

The basic unit of the Custodians is a Manifold, which can have anywhere from three to twelve or so members who train and work together constantly, sharing lives and minds in such a way that they eventually develop mental links like those that couples develop, which allows for instantaneous communication of feelings and even full thoughts between members of a Manifold, practically regardless of distance. Manifolds are usually mixed sex, and there is often a complex series of physical and emotional attachments within a Manifold, though there are single sex Manifolds as well, with and without sexual connections between the members. It is even possible to switch Manifolds, or have one break apart into several distinct ones, or even be part of multiple different Manifolds, but such things usually take time, because of the process of tuning oneself so deeply into the feelings and thoughts of another person does not happen quickly. As a Manifold, psychic power can be quite high, though it is rare to find individual members with any exceptional talent, though they are all trained in combative uses for their particular abilities.

**Example unit (Legio):**

Strategos Minors (StraMin) leads a Manifold consisting of 3 Tacticus Reguli (TacReg) and one Tacticus Magnus (TacMag). Each TacReg leads a manifold of 3 Tacticus Minori (TacMin), the TacMag has 4 TacMins. Each TacMin leads a Manifold of 2 Custodian Magni (CusMag), with some cross Manifolding between the senior CusMag's and each TacMin as a backup measure against death in combat. Each CusMag leads a Manifold of 3-12 Custodian Reguli (CusReg), for a total force of around 210 Custodians, about 1/10th of which will be Mobile Suit pilots, while the rest are vehicle/infantry soldiers. With supply and logistics units, trainees, attached special units or militia, etc, the total comes up to closer to 500 soldiers, and is termed a "Legio". Each legio will take a totemic animal or plant to be used as its symbol, such as "Legio Cold Hunter", which specializes in guerilla warfare, or Legio Rhinobeast, which is best at heavy assault operations. Legio Deathstalker is the term for the Praetorian unit and its personal supporting forces, should a significant number of them ever take the field at any given time.

**Uniforms and notes:**

Praetorians are generally ranked at the Tacticus Magnus level, at a minimum, and many of them can even alter the orders of a Strategos Regulus, at least in certain circumstances, though they rarely if ever involve themselves with what the Custodians are doing, unless it actually interferes with what the Praetorians are up to. The uniform of the Custodians is dark green in color, though they have camouflaged unifroms for the field. The insignia of the Custodian order is a green shield with a copper tree on it, the shield itself is trimmed in either gold or silver depending on the type of Newtype the Edenite is. Rank is usually denoted by the color of a person's belt, kind of like seniority in a martial arts dojo. The insignia of the Praetorian order is a dark blue helmed skull over crossed blue swords on a black background, the skull would be either gold or silver depending on Active or Latent, the more senior or accomplished a Praetorian is, the more personal trophies, such as fangs or claws from dangerous Edenite animals they will have, usually in necklaces or bracelets, the more dangerous the animal, the higher the rank, though its really more the higher the prestige and skill level of the Praetorian in question. The Praetorian uniform is death black, with dark blue undershirt and belt, and sometimes includes tassels or other more ceremonial decorations. They also frequently wear trench/greatcoats or capes/cloaks/mantles made of exotic, personally harvested leathers or other materials, and usually bear pesonalized weapons.


	71. New Eden part 6

Author Note: Sorry for the false start last chapter, this is the one you've been waiting for. Or most recently waiting for anyway. And now to briefly answer a question or two for reviewers whom I can't PM. Orb's Glasshouse won't kill Edenites who pass through it. It will however, purge the Green EDEN built up in their systems, which is painful and mildly debilitating, since its a part, if no longer a functioning part, of all their cells. They'd be sick or dizzy or nauseous for a day or so after passing through such a field, each way. Kira will eventually be silver eyed, and Lacus golden, and their children golden eyed, because though not true Green EDEN, they have survived a variant of it, and such a cosmetic change wouldn't have been something Noah would have bothered to program out, not from something he was planning on using as an assassination tool anyway.

Uh, Caleb, a Gundam with thrusters in the wings, hyper impulse cannons on its shoulders and railguns at its hips. With a beam saber or two and a multitarget system. Don't you mean the Freedom? Since that's what that describes, almost exactly. I would agree it is a cool Gundam for Kira to have. He has, in fact, already had it. Technically the Lucifer could shape a sword out of energy, though it would have to be captured enemy energy, as it cannot provide its own. however, with two QC swords, it has no real need of beam sabers. I noticed something while posting this. My scene breaks aren't showing up, no matter what I do. There should be one right below this paragraph, but I've reposted the chapter like 6 times and it doesn't show. For that matter it doesn't show the scene breaks on any of my other chapters already posted. is this just me?

When Noah opened his eyes, he found he could not figure out where he was. Nothing around him looked at all familiar! To a person who was always, always almost supernaturally aware of his surroundings, waking up in an entirely unexpected place was disconcerting in the extreme. He tried to scan his recent memories for clues on how he could have come to be where he currently was, which was lying on his back on a hard but actually sorta warm and damp surface of either plastic or metal, but everything he could quickly recall was blurry and disjointed. Everything around him, wherever that was, was dark like a cave, lit by irregular incoherent flashes of color and pattern that were almost, ALMOST, discernable as some sort of holoprojection field, though what it was trying to depict, Noah could not tell, the picture was so intermittent and warped. Just that one sight however was calming to his nerves... such a holoprojection field would only be found aboard something he had designed and built, so that meant he was on friendly ground at least! Partially satisfied and reassured , Noah felt his eyes start to drift closed once more as he settled back in to finish his nap. Barely had his lids closed however when they snapped back open with startling swiftness, and Noah jerked up into a sitting position as his memories started coming back into focus.

"WHAT TH... AHHHHHG!?" Noah started to shout a question before the sudden jarring motion made his left arm move from where it had been lying more or less by his side. Which then caused the jagged shards of his upper and lower arm bones, which were protruding from the skin of his biceps and forearm, to grate loudly against their respective counterparts and tear the skin around them even further open, eliciting a new rush of hot blood onto the metallic casing of the overturned equipment bank he'd been lying on. Nor was that his only injury, as his mind snapped from delirium into shock without stopping for a break along the way, but still not fast enough for him to avoid being able to catalogue the full extent of his injuries. His twice compound fractured arm was probably the worst of his wounds, but his body was covered with scrapes and gouges and bruises and contusions of all sorts, and from the way his chest seemed to catch fire as he screamed, Noah figured he had some broken or cracked ribs as well, at the very least! The left side of his head was enormously tender, and his face was bloody and scratched from where, apparently, his NIC IV helmet had been forcibly torn from his head.

Just the mere thought of an event of enough magnitude to impart the force required to divest him of his control helmet while standing on the bridge of the Great Endeavor, which is where he belatedly realized he was at, was enough to make Noah shiver, and his balls try to crawl up into his belly. He frowned down at himself, not really feeling the pain except dully because of the shock, and found that he was naked as well. Had whatever it was that had occured ripped his clothes off as well? It didn't seem likely, and even if it had he should still be wearing ripped scraps of clothing, whereas he was completely nude, except for the wet clamminess of spilled blood. Noah touched his right arm... the unbroken one... to his head and winced as his vision blurred and he almost blacked out from the onrush of vertigo and pain. A fairly serious head injury of some sort, obviously. He forced himself to keep probing despite the awful sensation, and was relieved to feel no fractures or splits in his skull. That he was moving at all was indication that his neck and spine were still mostly okay.

On near autopilot, Noah's self training began taking over, and he mentally blocked out most of the nerve signals that were flooding his brain with pain, especially from his mangled left arm, deadening his perceptions of the injuries. It didn't actually make them hurt any less, but it did prevent that hurt from distracting him as he enacted further fine tuning of his muscle control, the same experience and knowledge that enabled him to puppeteer other people allowed him to carefully contract his muscles around major blood vessels, choking off the worst of the blood flowing from his major injuries, and also scout around his body for any signs of pressure or swelling that would indicate internal bleeding. He found a few, but nothing life threatening on an immediate level. Paralyzing many of the muscles across his chest helped "bind" his broken ribs so that they wouln't slip around inside him, though it did make it harder to get a good breath.

Left arm hanging limp as a wet noodle at his side, ragged bone edges digging lightly into his side as he swayed during the process of getting to his feet, Noah controlled a strong surge of dizziness and nausea, his vision blurring and doubling for a moment before he was able to blink his eyes clear. He needed medical attention, and soon, but there was something nagging at his unfocused, shocked thoughts. Something important, that wouldn't let him wander off and try to find the nearest intact medical suite. He peered vaguely around the ruins of the Great Endeavor's bridge, and a second sort of shock began stealing over him. What could POSSIBLY have done this much damage to his invincible fortress!? Banks of machinery and computer consoles had been ripped free of the floor and walls and tossed about the room like tinker toys kicked by an irate child, the ceiling and floor had collapsed in spots, pits of twisted metal and plastics that spat sparks in multicolored showers in time with the flickering of his holographic display, which was still resolutely trying... and mostly failing... to display the status report and tactical plot they had been using to control the battle.

They. Noah was brought up short by that thought. They implied more than one person. But who else would he trust to be with him on the bridge of the Great Endeavor while coordinating a battle? Who else had that kind of capability... except for... "MEYRIN!?" Noah shouted, ignoring the blurt of pain from his constricted chest as his heart rate suddenly doubled in frantic worry. Or at least he thought he did, the sound of his voice was little more than a whisper, and he belatedly realized that one reason for his dizziness was because his inner ears had been traumatized by some unfathomably loud noise, probably enough to permanently deafen most people, and temporarily disable even an Ultimate Coordinator. Now that he thought about it, he could feel blood dripping from his ears. "MEYRIN!?" Noah called again, listening intently for even the barest hint of a reply, even a groan or mumble, but if she made one, it was below the threshold for his damaged hearing to pick up.

Noah scanned around the spottily lit bridge again, desperately trying to locate where Meyrin was. She'd been standing right next to him before, practically in his arms, but judging by the devastated state of the ruined bridge, and the fact that he himself had woken up practically up against a wall, was indication of how violent the event had been. She could be anywhere, almost certainly hurt, maybe even worse than him. Maybe even dead, horrific as that thought was. But Noah didn't feel like she was dead... he was almost sure he would have felt an emptiness... something missing from him were she well and truly gone. It was then that he kicked himself, at least figurately speaking, even while realizing that he was even more out of it than he'd thought, that it had taken him this long to figure out what he should have done right off the bat. _Meyrin? Meyrin, are you all right? Where are you, Meyrin? Speak to me!_

_... uhg... No..._

_MEYRIN!_ Noah's head snapped around so quickly he actually vomited a little, but he didn't let that stop him from stumbling forward towards where he could now sense the flickering of her semi-conscious mind. It took him longer to get to her than it should have, because of his own injuries and the way the layout of the bridge had been changed by the catastrophic damage it had suffered, requiring him to detour in a meandering path to reach where her mental signal was kindling from. Noah staggered and almost fell several times while crossing uneven patches of floor, where debris had fallen and piled, sometimes with ominous wet stains dribbling out from beneath them, marking the graves of Harbingers who had not been lucky. As he poured more of his remaining strength into his mental senses, trying to lock on to Meyrin more firmly, Noah became dimly aware of other minds still living on the bridge, many dormant in deep unconsciousness, but a few awake and spiky with jagged pain of their own. He ignored them for the time being. Meyrin was more important. At this stage of the game, Meyrin was all!

Noah braced himself against a ragged bank of computers, only to have his hand slip off the side because of the pulped mass of flesh and gore that painted it from where a Harbinger had practically exploded after being hurled the length of the bridge. Off balance, head swimming, Noah tottered and tumbled over onto his side, jarring his twice fractured left arm hard against the floor as he fell. His scream, both physical and psychic, was enough to jarr awake everyone who could hear it. Noah himself passed out for a moment or two, but only lightly, before a persistent prodding at the center of his mind forced his fluttering, bleary eyes open again, and dragged him first to his knees, and then back up to his feet. He rested his back against the gore splattered wall of junk, not caring that he was covering himself in the remains of another human, as he sought to catch his breath and regain his senses.

That insistent pulling at the core of his being had him moving soon after, stumbling and weaving, tripping and slipping over wreckage as he forged onwards through the ruins of his bridge, until at last he came to a certain pile of debris from where the ceiling had caved in during the attack. In the darkness of the mostly unlit bridge it was impossible to tell the difference between this particular wreckage pile and another of the other half dozen or so that he'd stumbled across on the way here, but he could feel Meyrin's now awake and aware but still dazed mental presence practically at his feet. A brush of her mind didn't detect any extreme agony, for which Noah was prfoundly grateful, though he cautioned himself to remember that she could be in shock or still delirious and unaware of the full state of her injuries, as he himself had been upon first awakening. Kneeling... more like falling to his knees... Noah began sifting around with his right hand, trying to find Meyrin's body, praying she wasn't buried under debris that wouldn't show up on his mental landscape. He peered intently around as well, but with the inconstant lighting, he had a better chance of using tactile senses to find her rather than visual ones.

It took what felt like forever, but was probably only a few seconds, before his hand felt the sudden warm firmness of bare skin versus the slickness of plastic or coolness of metal. Noah gingerly trailed his hand around, trying to figure out where he'd touched her without pressing too hard and aggravating any injuries she might have, and it was only after his questing hand ascended slightly and then descended slightly shortly thereafter that Noah realized he'd put his hand just below her breast and had then felt upwards. A part of him was furiously embarassed at this, but it was a very distant part right now. There were MUCH bigger things to worry about. Noah moved his hand around her body slowly, immensely gratified to feel the slight rise and fall of her chest under his touch as he cleared off a few small pieces of debris that had been lying across her. At the same time, he did what he could to assess the extent of her injuries, wincing as he felt some broken or cracked ribs of her own, but though his touch wasn't particularly gentle, she didn't react at all.

_Meyrin... can you hear me?_ Noah asked, as tenderly and calmly as he could in the given situation. _I'm here now, its going to be okay._

_Noah...? What happened to us...?_ Meyrin's answer came back, bleary but still quite legible, and Noah breathed a small sigh of relief. He wasn't sure what effect major head trauma would have on Newtype abilities... it wasn't one of those things he'd ever really expected to occur to him... but he felt safe in surmising that any major damage would definitely interfere with the ability to communicate. But since Meyrin was able to coherently communicate, her head at least probably wasn't much worse off than his. His hand, guided by memory now that he had found her upper body, reached up and caressed her face and forehead lightly, reassuringly, or so he hoped.

_I do not know. The last thing I remember clearly is Kira trapping the Brotherhood with his Fractal Wings as he fled. They must have located the bridge somehow and launched an assassination attack on us!_ Noah answered, even while he probed her head and skull for any fractures or cracks, and was relieved to find only a lot of bruising and minor scalp wounds consistent with strongly battering your head against unyielding objects.

_I think its more widespread than that._ Meyrin's voice, cool, calm and far more collected than his, as her body kicked into recovery mode as well, answered. _Now that I think about it, I do remember detecting some sort of weird readings from orbit just before everything breaks apart into darkness. I think the Warmaster shot us just as our dorsal shields went down. They must have been waiting for half the battle to take that shot..._

_Shot us with what!? What could possibly..._ Noah trailed off, remembering the red-gold flashes of energy that had preceeded the destruction of the Revenant. _But those weren't that strong. Not strong enough to cause this much damage unless it impacted directly over us!_

_Maybe they improved it. Or had a different version._ Meyrin shrugged mentally. _In any case, we need to recover, and fast, before they capitalize on our weakness. You can run this place from the Atrium right? Let's go there and get things back on track._

_Before we go anywhere, I'm taking you to the nearest medical bay!_

_Noah... I thought we discussed this before. You can't place me first. I'm fine, it doesn't hurt at all. I just knocked my head around a bit. Give me a few minutes to catch my breath and I'll be right behind you._ Meyrin admonished him.

_I can't place you before the success of the Eden plan, yes. But that plan, Meyrin... that plan has basically succeeded! Only Orb is holding out, and their Glasshouse is just a stopgap measure. They can't live forever under that energy dome, they don't have enough agriculture to support themselves! So forgive me if I say, I AM placing you first right now. You deserve to live in the garden just as much as anyone else after all._ Noah replied vehemently, tears of mingled anger and relief in his eyes.

_I suppose. But you have to promise to take care of yourself too! You're no good to anyone, especially me who needs you most, if you pass out from blood loss or something else stupid! But we really need to get moving... every second we sit here is one less we'll have to get prepared for them to come after us. We need to assess the damage to the Great Endeavor, and tend to the injuries of the Harbingers. We need to find out what happened to the Brotherhood, and the status of the surrounding area. These things can't wait, Noah. The battle doesn't pause just because we got hurt._ Meyrin reminded, reciting from a similar lecture she'd recieve in basic training back when she was in ZAFT. There were no time outs in battle, so if something bad happened to you, you had to be able to suck it up until you were able to assess the safety of the immediate surroundings. More lives than just yours hung in the balance after all, in most cases. _Help me up will you? My legs feel a bit tingly for some reason._

Noah began to oblige, worming his one good arm beneath her shoulders to help lever her up to a sitting position, from where she could then get the rest of the way up by herself. Were it not for his broken arm, Noah would have simply picked her up and carried her, but of course, injured as he was, that was impossible. Injured or not though, Noah's mind had mostly cleared by this point in time, and though it was still hard to see, at this close range he didn't really need to see. Especially with with his arm right beneath her, so when he started to lift her upright, and felt only the top half of her torso move, leaving everything below the level of her armpits lying flat on the ground, that Noah belatedly realized with terror that the real reason Meyrin was being so calm about her wounds wasn't that she had better control than him, or was only lightly wounded. She just couldn't feel them. Her back was broken.

Noah froze in mid motion, and then, moving with as much or more care as he'd ever exhibited in any surgical operation or micro-engineering test procedure, lowered Meyrin back to what he hoped was her original position. The one thing you did NOT want to do with someone that had suffered a serious spine injury was twisting or contorting their body, especially around the injury itself. In the worst cases... cases like this one... where the spine itself was probably snapped into two discrete parts, rather than just suffering crushed or dislocated vertebrae, any motion at all could cause even more damage to already overstressed and imperiled nerves, including the all important ones that linked the unconscious parts of the brain and the autonomous life support functions, such as breathing or heartbeat. If those precious, fragile neural linkages were severed, Meyrin would die in a matter of minutes or less, far before any medical care, even that of the Brotherhood, could make any difference, especially in current conditions.

_What's wrong...?_ Meyrin asked, of course more than able to feel his sharply spiking worry and near panic with him in such close proximity. _We don't have time to waste, Noah._ She prompted him again, unable to see the ghastly look of horrified worry on his face. _Could you see what's lying on my legs? Its completely cut off the circulation, and the pins and needles are really getting annoying._

_Meyrin..._ Noah sent quietly, with a dreadful effort of will composing his mind and hopefully cutting off her ability to feel too much of his raw emotion. He brought up his good hand and gently caressed her lips. _Can you feel that?_

_Of course I can! Stop wasting time already!_ Meyrin scolded him, though the sensation of him suddenly throwing up the equivalent of a mental curtain between them definitely didn't escape her notice, and for the first time since she'd first been dragged back to consciousness by his strident calls, Meyrin really started to consider a few things about her situation. Not the big situation... HER situation.

_What about this?_ Noah's mental voice was all but drained of tone and inflection, like taste leached from ordinarily fine food, as he trailed his fingers down her jawline and neck to her collarbone. _Meyrin?_

_Ye-Yes... Noah... what are you..._ Noah's chest tightened with an all new pain, far from physical. Meyrin wasn't stupid, not by a long way. He could feel the dawning realization inside her own mind like a caustic geyser bubbling up out of its basin. He drew his hand down a bit more, mentally counting the vertebrae, until he reached more or less where he calculated the break to be. He pressed one finger down between her cleavage, harder than he'd touched her the previous times, more a poke or prod than a touch. She made no reaction, but he had to be sure.

_Did you...? _He started to ask.

_No._ Meyrin's answer came quick and stark and more than a little scared, those parts of her body that could still move, mostly just being her shoulders up, beginning to shiver and tremble in entirely natural panic. The rest of her body was free of involuntary twitches, the signals being interrupted befoe they could spread far from the source. _I can't feel my arms or legs or most of my body, Noah! Is... I am...?_

_Your back is broken._ Noah didn't know any gentle, easy way to say it, so he just blurted it out. _Right about the level of your armpits. A full compound fracture of the spine, with seperation of vertebrae. You're lucky to be alive. I'm lucky you're alive. A few more ounces of pressure during the impact and..._

_You aren't reassuring me, Noah! Give me something positive, damn it!_

_Sorry._ Noah managed a very weak grin. _Fortunately there doesn't seem to be any damage to your nervous system above the break, so that's good. And despite the location, none of the critical autonomous nerve pathways seem to have been damaged or severed, because you are still alive. We are very, VERY lucky there._

_Will I... be paralzyed...?_ Meyrin asked, her mental voice cracking a bit.

_You ARE paralyzed._ Noah reminded her with unthinking directness.

_I KNOW THAT, YOU LITERAL FUCK!_ Noah flinched from the panic fuelled mental shout. Almost at once though Meyrin calmed back down, the severity of the situation too great for anger to exist long. _I mean..._ She swallowed heavily, the motion jerky beneath the light touch of his fingers. _I mean, will I ever... walk again?_ Meyrin continued, very softly. _Am I... crippled?_

_Don't be stupid._ Noah almost laughed out loud, and did let her hear his mental amusement, wild and raucous from released tension. _I've cloned an entire human body. There is no one currently alive with a greater understanding of the human nervous system than me. This is barely even a trifle, my love._

_No lie? _Meyrin's tone was cautiously sceptical.

_I don't lie to you, Meyrin._ Noah admonished.

_Intentionally, no. You lie to yourself sometimes though, and through yourself, to me._ Meyrin reminded him, probably a bit sharper than she ordinarily would have. _I don't want a false hope, Noah. If I'm going to be permanently broken, tell me now!_

_You are going to be permanently FINE!_ Noah retorted with furious confidence. _A week or so in a Curaga bath and one or two easy surgeries and this will be nothing but a bad dream. Remember the kind of injuries I've fixed on Shinn! There is absolutely no cause for concern, my love._

_Promise?_ Meyrin asked, almost shyly. Noah went to squeeze her hand in reassurance, but belatedly realized she couldn't feel it. So he brought his hand up and caressed her cheek and brow gently, and then planted a firm and heartfelt kiss upon her lips.

_I promise. Now you just sit tight here, and don't move, and I'll be back soon with a stretcher and a few Harbingers, and we'll get you to a medical suite._

_Other people might need help more than I..._ Meyrin started to protest, before being noiselessly hushed by a blurt of mental static.

_Meyrin, my love, I hate to say it like this, but your spine is in multiple pieces. You avoided a certain death by the very slimmest of margins. Upper spinal compound fractures such as yours are nearly instantly fatal in over ninety five percent of cases. Face it... anyone hurt worse than you is already dead. I swear to you, I won't abandon anyone who is still alive. But you have priority, and not just because you're Meyrin. If it was someone else lying here with their back broken, there wouldn't even be an arguement, am I right? So why should it be different if its you?_

_I guess... but we have a responsibility to our people that we have to fufill! They trust us to lead them, Noah. They trust us to have the answers for them. They trust us to save them... especially right now. Call a medical team. But as soon as you can, you need to leave me and get to the atrium. We can't afford to lie here hurt. I may be paralyzed, but the Brotherhood can't be... or we're all dead._

_You really are so much more an angel than I am, Meyrin._ Noah commented with his throat clogged up with affection and awe. _You shine so brightly..._

_Angels come in all shapes and sizes, Noah. We all shine with different intensities at different times. I just hope the next time I get to shine, I'm not lying on a pile of wreckage with a broken back._ Meyrin managed a slim smile. _Besides, my shine is merely reflected light, like the moon from the sun. I'm nothing without my star to light the dark night for me. So go do that. Show them all that despite their best shot, our light has not been extinguished. Shine brighter, my love... and blind them all with your intensity!_

Cagalli was on her knees, her flight helmet lying discarded and forgotten a dozen feet away, where it had rolled after she'd dropped it after exiting the Dawn Goddess a few minutes ago. She'd weathered the initial storm of post-impact shockwaves inside her Gundam, having been in the midst of a fierce mental and spiritual battle to recover her flagging determination and focus in order to rejoin the battle. The damage to the Dawn Goddess was relatively minor after all, and it was more than plain that the battle was balanced on a knifepoint, exactly the sort of situation where the actions of a single soldier could spell the difference between victory and defeat. Or as it had turned out, the actions of three currently nameless but undeniably heroic soldiers that had colluded to use their self destruct system to bring down the Great Endeavor's upper Positron shields to give the Warmaster and its Spear of Ares the chance they needed. The public eye would almost certainly be drawn to the spectacle of the hail mary sniper shot from orbit, but for all its pyrotechnic glory, which was what currently had her on her knees gaping in terror and awe, Cagalli knew that the real heroes were those three who made the ultimate sacrifice for what they believed in. She made a mental note to ensure that an appropriate memorial was dedicated to them, something that would do them justice. And to personally visit their families to convey her gratitude and condolences.

She was sure that Lacus would probably want to do something similar, now that she was apparently past her recent brush with death. Of course, Cagalli had no real confirmation one way or another about Lacus's true state, but given that Kira had showed up, belated but still welcome, the battle too desperate at that point in time for recriminations, she felt fairly confident that Lacus, and her unborn son, had somehow managed to pull through, despite what all the doctors had said. The thought brought a decidedly feral smile to her face, almost more like a gritting of teeth, the baring of fangs of one predator confronting another. This damn drug, this horrible depression, this damage to her mind and spirit and life... it had preyed on her for far too long now. Sapping her will... poisoning her convictions... scarring her feelings. She had been all too weak, while maintaining an appearance of strength, decieving not only her friends, but most of all herself. She had been, in no uncertain terms, a stubborn, arrogant asshole to everyone she cared about. Something which seemed to run in her family, probably from her father's side. Her biological father that is.

There was something else which ran in her family as well though, probably from her mother's side. The ability to be humble. To admit, eventually, with sufficient prodding and experience, that they had been wrong all along. To take a stand against her own mistakes and sins and say "What I have done is not right. I'm sorry. I'm going to fix this. The right way." Even if it meant throwing herself at the probably not so tender mercy of people she'd wronged in the past with her actions. Especially her friends. Cagalli couldn't say exactly what had blinded her in the past, but now that the darkness had been torn away from her eyes, it was all too plain and easy for her to see, painfully so. The difference, that is, between a mental invasion... and an intervention. She thought, so naively and confidently, that she'd been suffering under what Lacus had done to her in order to shake her from her fugue. She'd thought that had hurt, had equated it in her mind to a sort of sexual violation of the worst sort, a manipulation of her will and personality for the selfish goals of another.

But like someone who shrugs off the concerned hand of a coworker as prying and harassment, only to be stripped and raped later by someone that was truly bad, Cagalli finally had, well, a sense of perspective that she hadn't had before. A sense of scale. Nothing could ever have prepared her for the psychic fear-storm that Noah had unleashed upon them all. Everything that was bad about her, all that was messed up and wrong with her soul, all of it had seemed to confront her at once, and that was an enemy she could never face alone. She'd thought she could, so she'd turned down all the offers of help from Katie and Lacus. But in that moment, that moment when all her fears came at her together, and she realized just how small and vulnerable she really was, all by herself, Cagalli knew that she'd been wrong. That in itself had nearly destroyed her... her hand had been searching for the flap of her sidearm holster. But then her brother had finally got off his whiny ass and showed up. And had brought all that was good and happy and bright about the world with him trailing in his wake, banishing the fear like mist in noonday sunlight.

By no means did his nick of time arrival excuse his lateness in the first place, a lateness which had cost hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives due to his own inability to get a proper perspective, but Cagalli did have to admit, in those moments right after Kira and Lacus pulled back the clammy touch of terror from her soul, she could belatedly see her brother's point too. He never would have been able to do what he had without Lacus. If she had died, which would have happened had Kira not been with her, then Kira never would have been able to fend off Noah's attack, and Cagalli herself... along with tens of thousands of others nearby, plus millions more in Orb, would have died as well. Sometimes one life was more important than a thousand... if that one life held the key to saving millions. She was still going to either punch him in the jaw or kick him in the groin when next she laid eyes on him, but perhaps she would pull some of the force of the blow. It was only fair to reward people when they made the right choice.

Speaking of, she made another mental note to do something very, VERY nice for Erica Simmons at the earliest possible opportunity. She'd been heckling the brilliant engineer for months now, ever since the unveiling of the new Gundams, about the Spear of Ares. The one weapon that had actually had enough power, when used at the right time, to save not only Cagalli's own life, but all of Orb and maybe the USN as well. The red-golden glow from the shed radiation caused by the acceleration of the Spear projectile still hung dimly in low orbit, a stabbing, pointing finger that led from the Warmaster's firing position down to the turbulent, roiling atmospheric chaos that had formed around the impact zone. It looked very much like a volcano had just gone off, and not one of the small eruptions either, no this was a full on "top third of the mountain blew apart" type spectacle, the cloud of dust and debris from the crash site of the Great Endeavor mushrooming all the way up to the fleets in geosynch orbit, a black and brown and grey tower that threatened to blot out the sun in a sky that had been purged of all clouds for a thousand mile radius by the howling winds and shockwaves.

Truth be told, more than half of the devastation was because of the Great Endeavor falling to the ground and suffering secondary and tertiary explosions of systems like one of its gargantuan Fusion Pulse Reactors, and the AMP cannon, and not a direct result of the Spear of Ares impact. The hulking mass of the crashed mobile fortress was still hazily visible through the plumes of slowly settling dust, its outline jagged and broken and oddly slumped in spots, where entire sections of the hull had broken away leaving gaping wounds like bite marks in an apple. Even from a distance of miles, Cagalli could feel the heat of fires raging out of control on the surface of Noah's monstrosity, and as the sunlight dimmed, she basked her cheeks in the sullen glow of the distant inferno and found it refreshing. She knelt there, happily worn out and disconnected, for several more seconds as she listened to the crew of the supercarrier rush around her as they guided in the straggling remnants of the allied attack forces, those that had survived the recent calamity anyway.

And then it all came back to her in a rush. The events that had transpired just prior to the impact of the Spear of Ares. "**ATHRUN!!**" Cagalli screamed, standing bolt upright, so fast that when the blood rushed to her head she actually fell back down to her hands and knees again, her legs trembling and weak and unable to support her weight as the terrifying memories replayed in bursts through her freshly disjointed mind. It had all happened so fast. And yet her memories were playing it so painfully slow. The energy moving inside the Great Endeavor, gathering beneath its main cannon. The whiter than white, brighter than bright flash of the AMP cannon firing. The red blur, practically indistinct but all too easy for her to identify, that threw itself squarely in the path of enough antimatter to wipe an entire city from existence. She hadn't even had time to cry out in denial as the AMP blast had caught the Phoenix King more or less directly in the chest.

But then hope and feeling had reignited, as the Phoenix King, instead of being turned into random bits of hard radiation, was instead hurled backwards by some sort of momentous impact, and Cagalli realized her husband, her crazed genius of a husband, had actually managed to CATCH the incoming AMP blast using his BGCS. Catch and then redirect, up and away from the resupplying fleet. Away from her. Up, up into the sky, higher and higher and higher, moving as fast or faster than she'd ever seen him fly, moving with the reckless grace that never failed to bring her heart into her throat, the indication that Athrun was truly giving something his all and more, dancing on the razors edge of life and death as he pushed himself to accomplish the impossible. Most people would have been content with merely stopping the shot, merely sacrificing their lives. Athrun wasn't most people. She didn't think she'd ever been prouder of him than she was right at that moment. Or more worried for him either

And then the Phoenix King had passed beyond the viewing range of the Dawn Goddess's cameras. Interminable seconds had passed, seconds that had clawed their way through her mind like red hot razorblades as she waited, in mingled hope and dread. Knowing that Athrun had a plan, had an out. Fearing that he might not be able to make it anyway. He was, for all his power and sublime ability, still human. Just catching the shot had been a near miracle, forcibly dragging it into the upper atmosphere where it couldn't even indirectly affect the course of the battle added entire new vistas of risk. And then had come the expected, dreaded bloom of light as the anti-matter finally breached its magnetic jail and annihilated everything within a kilometer radius in an instant, with shockwaves expanding a hundred times as far. And then had come the even greater shockwaves from the Spear of Ares, and she'd lost sight of Athrun's last location in all the confusion, as the entire supercarrier nearly capsized and sank when the wall of compressed wind struck it side on. Though the carrier had eventually righted itself, many nearby ships had not been so lucky, and more than a few men and vehicles, even entire Mobile Suits, had been blown overboard by the calamitous aftereffects.

"Athrun..." Cagalli repeated, her voice raw and soft, her abused throat hoarse from the aftermath of the fear-storm. "To go on living... is the hardest thing." Cagalli wasn't sure if she was admonishing him or reminding herself. Maybe both. She tried to stand again, but her legs refused to support her. Like it or not, she seemed to be stuck for the moment. She searched the sky with her bare eyes, squinting through billowing dust now sifting from the sky, desperate for the slightest hint of some kind of sign. Something to hope for. Something to cling to, to reassure herself. She couldn't see anything but drifting plumes of dust, and higher up, billowing reefs of dark smoke, tugged in various directions by the ravaged winds. Some of the smoke had a decidedly greenish tinge, as whatever resevoirs of Green EDEN still aboard the Great Endeavor continued to distribute their mutagenic product, but thankfully the winds seemed to be pushing the contaminated smoke away from the fleet, inland towards mainland Australia. Obviously they would need to retreat out of range sooner rather than later, but for the moment the only atmospheric hazard they needed to concern themselves with was dust and smoke inhalation.

"There!" A voice called out, as raw and scratchy as hers, but no less audible for that. "There they are! The Gundams! The Gundams are returning! They did it!"

Cagalli searched the sky again, and didn't see anything. It was only when her gaze dropped, almost to horizon level, that she saw the moving shapes that were growing closer, moving with all the speed of cripples, thrusters coughing and sputtering as the worn and battered machines... far more than just the Gundams... fought to make it the last few kilometers to the support fleet. Many of the Mobile Suits were actually flying in tandem, individual thrusters too weak to support the weight of a machine without overloading, but by supporting each other they were able to make limited headway, looking just like wounded soldiers leaning on each other for support. It took Cagalli a moment to recognize the Vorpal, which was lacking its signature cloak, not to mention its entire paint job. And its shield. And its minion pods. And it looked like it had been swimming face down in a pool of magma. She could actually see smoke and steam still rising from the charred surfaces of the Gundam, places where the Phase Shift armor had actually run like water and fused across joints. If it had any weapons left operational, Cagalli could not see them.

Slightly behind the Vorpal, which was being supported by a pair of Primal's, in a knot of Solar Knights was the Vengeance, missing its right leg from the thigh down, both of its wings completely gone, frozen purple coolant coating its armor like flash dried blood. Its thermal signature was near ambient, its might fusion pulse heart cold and dormant courtesy of the USN emergency shutdown mechanism, requiring that several Archons support the crippled machine and the burden of another Archon that the Vengeance had cradled to its chest like a parent comforting a child. The Vengeance's mighty sword was still slung across its shoulders, and the slim, sinister shape of the Brotherhood's AMP rifle was clamped to its remaining thigh. Behind them straggled a motley mixture of Garous, Primals, Champions, Dawndrakes, Archons and even a few gargantuan Panzerwulfs, each gigantic FNE machine requiring the aid of several other machines to maintain altitude, and even that only barely.

She looked long and hard, but there was no sign of the Seraph. Her heart tried to crawl back up her throat again, but she forced it down with a few difficult swallows. There was simply no way she could, even for a second, believe Kira was dead. Not now. Painful as it was to admit, she would believe Athrun was dead before she would Kira right now. There was just a sense of... continued hope. The merest echo of that brilliant moment when the fear-storm had been cast aside. But it was enough, enough to assure her that her brother was still alive, and as well as anyone could be in the aftermath of such a terrible battle. He was probably doing something like safeguarding them just in case the Brotherhood wasn't down for the count somehow. That would be like him. Certainly precious few others were in any fit state to do anything to protect themselves, or even, like her, stand on their own two feet!

Feet pounded past her as the Solar Knight contingent set down near the bow of the ship, as gently as possible lowering the shut down Vengeance and its Archon burden to the flight deck, though given their exhaustion it was still more a controlled drop than anything truly gentle. The deck rang beneath her feet, and continued to ring as more and more of the front line survivors began descending onto the supercarrier. Cagalli caught a view of someone in a stained Solar Knights uniform, with the white belts and rank tabs that signified high rank, or so she was pretty sure, go sprinting down the length of the flight deck towards the Vengeance, his longish blond hair whipping behind him, a scrambling medical team stumbling in his wake. The flight deck seemed to explode into sudden activity, medical teams and support crews appearing like blood from a wound to swamp around the landing troops, many of whom were in the same shape as their Mobile Suits, or even worse.

Still unable to stand, cursing her fallible lower limbs, Cagalli half crawled and half dragged herself along until she came to an empty maintenance cart. While far from the most perfect of conveyances, the low slung platform, which a mechanic could lie on while working on the underside of a jet, did allow her to make much quicker time as she pushed and rolled herself along towards the Vorpal, which had fallen to its hands and knees after it was set down at the rear of the ship, much like she herself had done after climbing from her cockpit. The outer surfaces of the Gundam still looked far too hot to touch, and this was proven to be true when damage control crews started hosing the Gundam down with seawater as a precaution against fires, only to have the water explode into hissing steam as soon as it touched the warped and half melted armor. Gunshot cracks and creaking groans sounded from the cooling armor as it fractured and splintered under the transition from hot to cold, shards dropping free like skin flakes from a bad sunburn.

By the time Cagalli got there, the cockpit hatch had been cracked open, having required the use of a few pneumatic drills and hammers to break away the fused armor that had been sealing it closed. The closer she got, the more horrendous the heat damage became, and though Cagalli would definitely admit that she was no expert in assessing combat damage, the Vorpal certainly seemed to be close to a write off. It looked like she imagined she would if she decided to shave her entire body. With a blowtorch. Pushing that unpleasant image aside, Cagalli was immensely heartened to see first Katie and then Yzak gingerly remove themselves from the cockpit, both moving with exaggerated care to avoid touching the still potentially burning hot armor surfaces. Katie was wrapped, toga like, in a opaque plastic sheet, though modesty was far from anyone's concern right now. Katie's legs seemed to have as much trouble as Cagalli's and she collapsed gracelessly to the deck as soon as she touched her feet down. Somewhat to Cagalli's surprise, Yzak followed his lover to the deck quickly, more falling than sitting down as he worked feebly to disengage his opaqued helmet.

Cagalli could not help but gasp as she finally got a good look at her two friends when Yzak got his helmet unclasped. They were both sunburned, their skin a deep, painful looking maroon color, Yzak's trademark facial scar showing up as a livid pale streak across his half cooked features. It was only belatedly that Cagalli corrected herself... not sunburns at all, but radiation burns, which were actually the same thing, just worse. For someone to have such surface marks from exposure to radiation... Cagalli swallowed heavily. Anti-radiation therapy had come a long way in the Cosmic Era, a necessity due to the relatively large doses received by many people living in space, but Cagalli had never seen anyone as badly burned as Yzak and Katie. They looked like they'd been snuggling up with some nuclear fuel rods... inside an active reactor! She ached to go to them, but instead held herself back a good few feet... their clothing was radioactive, and she herself could get burns if she approached too closely for too long. "You look terrible." Cagalli commented in an aching whisper.

"You should see the other guy." Yzak answered with a faint hint of his usual smug confidence. He paused a beat. "Actually, you can." He gestured limply at the pyre of the Great Endeavor. "Everyone can."

"Could you pass the aloe?" Katie added as she dragged herself up and then slumped down against Yzak. "I forgot to apply my sunscreen, I think. Its starting to itch."

Cagalli stared and shook her head mutely for a moment. "You people are insane. You look like a pair of broiled lobsters, and you're cracking jokes!?"

"Like my Yzak-y said... look at the other guy." Katie reminded her softly. "That sight's worth a bit of bravado, don't you think?"

"Speaking of bravado, you need to reign in your husband." Yzak commented, draping his arms around Katie securely. "He's getting way too good at this pulling off miracle last minute saves bullshit. He needs to share the load some."

"I'll be sure to speak to him." Cagalli could feel the tears on her face, though she wasn't sure if they were happy ones or sad ones. "If I see him again."

"You think that was enough to kill him?" Yzak said, in a semblance of a challenge. It rang false, even to his own ears. That had been enough to kill anyone. Ten times over. It had almost been enough to kill everyone. "Kira went to find him. Don't give up on him. He didn't give up on you." Yzak added, barely audible, but all the more firm for that.

"About that..." Cagalli started to say, and then paused, mustering her nerve. "I'm sorry. I was wrong to... be like I was. To you. To Lacus. To everyone. You offered your help and I slapped your hand away. I said things... that I can't unsay. But I am sorry."

"Sorry will do for the moment." Katie said, before Yzak could respond. "Though maybe for my next birthday you could see about giving us some sort of royal title? I always wanted to be an aristocat."

"Aristocrat." Yzak mumbled the correction.

"I meant what I said." Katie retorted.

"You want to be a noble of Orb?" Cagalli arched an eyebrow. "Now I know you're crazy. What possible upside is there to being a noble of Orb? Have you not been paying ANY attention to my life since the day you met me?"

"She has a point." Yzak smirked bitterly. "Her life sucks. I vote no. Besides, you already belong to an aristocratic family."

"Oh, which one is that?"

"MINE!" Yzak growled. "Before the Cosmic Era, the Joule family had extensive holdings in rural France."

"You never made any mention of this before..."

"It's ancient family history. Its completely meaningless these days, other than the basic fact of it." Yzak paused. "Now moreso than ever before. If you're really that interested, I'll go over our family tree with you, and I'm sure we can find someone to inherit some sort of title or nonexistant estate from if you're so hooked on the idea. Though God only knows where this came from, or where it's going!"

"I wanna leave a strong legacy for our children." Katie said, drawing Yzak up short. "One too many brushes with death in rapid succession has got me thinking that we really might not have as much time left as we'd like, Yzak."

"We have more than enough time." Yzak answered calmly. "But that's no reason not to start now." He added, which in turn made Katie stare at him in mild shock. _Your brushes with death point is well made, love._

_I do make sense every now and again. Its a nice change of pace._ Katie sighed with contentment, momentarily forgetting the heat of her burned body as she clutched to the altogether more pleasant heat radiating from the emotional epicenter that was Yzak. She was just about to drift off, worn beyond the point of exhaustion by the physical trials and mental exertions of the past day, when a pulsing beacon of bright emotions entered the strained limits of her perceptions from above. She pulled slightly away from Yzak and craned her head upwards, her motions followed shortly thereafter by him and Cagalli. The Seraph was descending upon them from on high, its back bare of its feathered wings, its armor notched and chipped, its weapons largely missing just like the Vorpal's. The Seraph's hands were cradled in front of its chest, like a man cupping a palmful of water. Kira set the Seraph down so gently the stressed flight deck hardly even vibrated, and crouched down to deposit the fragile burden he'd recovered with even more care.

Whatever the problem with her legs had been, Cagalli suddenly found it banished, as she was up and moving like a shot, practically shoving people, even those much bigger than her, out of her way as she raced across the short span of deck seperating the Seraph from the Vorpal. A part of her, the weak part, wanted to stop and close her eyes, to turn away and wait for someone else to be the first, for someone else to look and tell her what the Seraph had in its hands. She crushed that part and sent it spinning away like wreckage from her Gundam, the core of her being determined, no matter what the result was, to not be weak anymore. Not even if... Cagalli reached the Seraph's hands and looked down into the cupped palms, even as she heard Kira popping the cockpit seals and coming out to join her. Cagalli stared down at the huddled body lying on the shiny metal of the Seraph's hands, the paint worn away by how hard Kira had been gripping his weapons during the battle. She sagged against one upturned thumb and sighed in relief.

She didn't recognize the person, the flight suit was scorched to a blackened ruin, impossible to tell its original color. Smoke and the smell of cinders rose from parts of the body, a sickening stench that was more like wood ash than cooked meat, the person was so badly burned in spots that their skin had turned to a fine powder. At some point in time the person had lost their flight helmet, leaving their head bare, the skin a cracked horror of raw red blood and brown-black char marks from where open flames had licked out of their facial pores. All hair was gone, only scorch marks and a bad scent remained of whatever hair the pilot had once sported. His face was barely recognizable as a face, but miraculously his eyes, nose and mouth all seemed to be intact. She watched his chest rise and fall just ever so slightly, and had to admire the tenacity of the man, so badly burned yet clinging stubbornly to life all the same. His life was never going to be the same, even with the best of medical care, but with the strength of will he had displayed in just surviving his wounds, Cagalli felt sure he'd make it through.

She heard Kira come up beside her, as his arm draped itself cautiously and tenderly around her shoulders, and she sagged against him as well, her relief all but sending her to the ground like a limp noodle. She could hear a medical crew arriving behind them, to rush the poor burned man away to the critical treatment center several decks below. "That poor man." Cagalli commented softly. "Where did you find him?"

"About three kilometers straight up." Kira replied distractedly, his voice more weary and drained than she'd ever heard it before. And more worried as well. She turned to look at him questioningly, not quite grasping what he meant. Her eyes met his and she froze when she saw the sorrow and the pain in them, sorrow and pain that only grew more poignant as he realized something. "Cagalli..."

"No..." Cagalli saw what Kira was going to say before he could complete the sentence.

"That's Athrun..." Kira finished, but Cagalli wasn't listening. He only barely managed to keep her from slamming the back of her skull into the deck as she collapsed in a dead faint.

"So this is what dreams look like when they die." Ashino muttered to himself as the Retribution floated in the Gulf of Carpentaria, miles and miles away from the wreckage of the Great Endeavor, and being carried further away all the time by a strong current. Splayed out just like a human floating on their back, idling motions of his remaining thrusters kept his Gundam and himself just at the surface, low enough in the water that only a direct overflight would be likely to spot them. Ashino could taste the caked sweat on his body, the mingled salts and tangs of his chemically modified secretions bitter on his tongue. Or maybe that was just the taste of defeat. Because he knew that he had been defeated, even if he had survived. With the loss of the Great Endeavor, and the likely death of Noah Borander, his one last good hope for returning Jean to the way she had been before Durandel's treacherous attack was going up in flames. A part of him was unconsciably saddened by the thought, but another part was strangely uplifted, almost refreshed.

He'd given it everything he had, after all. This had been every bit the battle he'd been made for, and though it had not gone in his favor in the end, he had no regrets in the way he had fought. He had tried his best. It had not been enough. He had failed Jean... but he had not failed himself. He was still alive. And even though he couldn't help Jean now, not any more than he already had, there was one thing he could still do. One tiny thing that could at least begin to set things right in his life. A starting point. A goal. Gilbert Durandel would die. He could not die or move on until that was accomplished. Justice had to be served. Punishment had to be rendered. Retribution had to be meted out.

Ashino longed to be able to doff his helmet, to breathe deep of the ashes of his dream, mingled with the ashes of countless others as they swirled around him, but he was downwind of the Great Endeavor, and much of the smog that streamed by low overhead was the pulsing green color of those infernal nanomachines that Noah was using to change the world's biosphere. A part of him did want to risk it... with his augmented physiology, surviving the so called "ascension" to an Edenite shouldn't be too onerous. But there was a chance it would be. That the changes wrought by the nano-machines would conflict with his cruder chemical and mechanical augmentations. Ultimate Coordinators, or Edenites, or whatever, definitely did seem to possess far more powerful immune and bodily regulatory systems than regular humans. What if his new body tried to reject his chemically modified blood? No, it was too risky. He would play it safe, as he ever tried to do. The flight suit stayed sealed, the helmet stayed on.

The Retribution was badly damaged, but if Noah's technical specs could be relied upon, all Ashino needed to do was leave it be for a few days and it would fix itself. Though somewhat counterintuitive, by leaving it submerged or close to submerged, it would actually repair itself faster, because of the relative density of usable molecules around it was higher. Though he would have to do some personal repairs of his own... he might not be an engineer or technical designer, but if there was one part of a Gundam he was familiar with, through long experience, it was a remote destruction device. Though Noah was almost certainly dead, given the horrendous power of the shot from the heavens that had struck down the Great Endeavor a short time ago, Ashino saw no point in flying around with a bomb under his butt any longer than absolutely necessary.

Though the Retribution could take care of itself by itself just fine, even to the point of replacing expended ammunition, the same was less true of Ashino himself. He needed rest, food, his specialty medications, and preferably some sort of network connection or intelligence media. In short, he needed a base of operations. Given the widescale environmental changes rippling across Earth... now New Eden, by Noah's terms... not to mention the problems with securing a environmentally sealed base, Ashino felt it prudent to look somewhere other than Earth for his base of operation. By the same token, near Earth orbit and all the Lagrange points were bastions of the USN, and even more crowded than ever because of the mass evactuation. Perfect conditions for hiding a lone man by himself, but with the Retribution in tow, Ashino would never be able to blend in for more than a few days. He would need to go further out.

Fortunately he actually had a pretty good idea of where he was going to go. He smiled grimly as he imagined the looks on the faces of the Tiamat soldiers when he brought not the Independence but the Retribution into their secret dock. Hopefully Tamara Logan would have the foresight to prevent her remaining troops from attempting to re-enact their first meeting. He wasn't hurt now, and not too much less angry. But before he did that, he had a few other errands he wanted to run. He wanted to see Jean. Really see her this time. Perhaps even touch her. But it had been far too long since he'd last seen her, and that was something he would have to fix, no matter the cost. If possible he would also like to speak with Cyprus, get a few things set straight. And he had a tribute to pay as well. A reward for a victory well won, against him. With the Vengeance in the hands of the USN, it was only a matter of time before they began making their own copies of the Brotherhood's technologies. Unchecked, the USN would soon have an insurmountable technological edge over all of its member states.

Thus it was actually in his own interest to make sure that at least one other power bloc had a technological windfall from the Brotherhood, someone that would provide a check, however slight on the USN. A distraction, so that he was not the sole internal threat to their dominance. And since he was already going to Orb anyway, well, dropping off a copy of the Retribution's technical specs shouldn't be too hard. Of course it would be up to them to hack the security systems, but with people such as Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala at their disposal, Ashino felt confident that his little gift would not go to waste. And maybe, if push came to shove at some distant point in the future, should it become necessary, they might even make a new Gundam for him. Or at least one he could steal from them. The corners of his lips turned up at the thought.

A distant, massive series of concussions shook the air and wiped the smile from his face, as the seas began to dance as subtle tectonic shifts caused undersea landslides and earthquakes. Small ones to be sure, but enough to agitate the mostly dead waters of the Gulf and the Pacific Ocean in a several dozen kilometer radius around the ismuthus of land that the Great Endeavor was crashed upon. "Aftershocks?" Ashino cocked his head to the side in consideration. He shook his head after a moment of studied listening. "No, explosions. Ammunition blocks going off, or power feeds melting. I'm impressed there's still anything left to blow up... that irritating boy certainly does know how to build a sturdy fortress, I'll give him that." Ashino was just turning away when the massive concussions sounded again. And again shortly thereafter. This time, there was a definite pattern. The wind picked up, seemingly of its own accord, and a dull roaring noise, like a million waterfalls gathered together, began building in the distance, around the crashed Great Endeavor. Smoke and dust billowed up around the SATMARS, which was slowly leveling itself off, even as Ashino watched with disbelieving eyes.

He wasn't the only one staring in shock. Anyone with the senses to perceive what was going on were oriented upon the Great Endeavor, looking on in a mixture of weary horror and disbelieving terror as the half ruined, internally and externally blazing superfortress slowly righted itself from the gash it had dug into the ground and then, so slowly it barely seemed to be happening at all, the entire remaining sections of the SATMARS began lifting up into the air, propelled by hundreds of gargantuan thruster ports, each two or three times bigger than similar thrusters aboard even the largest of capital warships. With close to a third of its total mass simply gone, but still able to draw on power from four fifths of its power systems, now that they had been emergency restarted, the Great Endeavor had more than enough power available to overcome the grasping tug of gravity. Huge chunks of wreckage tumbled away from the sides and bottom of the Great Endeavor, dropping out of massive craters in its armor, even as comparatively tiny explosions continued to burst like popping pimples along its hide as overstressed systems overloaded and broke down under the emergency maneuvers.

Like an erupting volcano that had suddenly decided to leave the Earth behind, the Great Endeavor wobbled its way into the sky, burning, falling apart in places, but obviously still quite operational. At least, in part. Though some units had ventured to within weapon range of the mobile fortress, its defensive emplacements remained cold and still, those that weren't burning or exploded that is. All available power was being diverted either to the thrusters, the secondary dorsal shields or the automated damage control systems. Intermittent flashes from high in the sky showed that the orbital fleets were not unaware of what was transpiring beneath them, as if they somehow could have been, but the firepower was scattered and ineffective, the crews in orbit being just as worn out as their compatriots groundside, and those shots which did hit glanced away from the green-blue haze of Citadel shields without seeming effect.

The Great Endeavor hovered above its crash site for what felt like forever, its shadow draped over the horrified support fleet only a dozen kilometers away, many of whom had realized that even without weapons, all the Great Endeavor had to do was fly over and land on them, crushing them all like ants beneath a platter, in order for the Brotherhood to completely annihilate the USN ground forces. And that they didn't have any way to stop that from happening. With many ships damaged, and most of the rest massively overloaded with damaged machines and wounded personnel, there was no way the fleets could maneuver away from the deathly mass above them. Desultory fire from the few remaining escort warships sparkled up at the Great Endeavor's ventral hull, the explosions of shells and beams miniscule against the bulk of the fortress. However, either through tactical lethargy or strategic cunning, the Great Endeavor did not move to overfly the panicking USN fleets. Instead, it headed away, off its original course, heading north and west, towards mainland Asia.

Ashino blinked in amazement. Noah Borander... or whoever was in charge of the Great Endeavor now, but who else would it be... was running away. The Brotherhood was, for the first time, in full retreat. Noah was conceding defeat. He hadn't thought the concept was even known to the bastard. It must have been Meyrin's doing, Ashino realized. She'd finally made her intractable lover see sense. Mutual annihilation was still a loss after all. Unfortunately, for the Brotherhood anyway, anything less than victory was a insurmountable loss. This one defeat, this was the end. The Brotherhood would never regain its strength. It did not have the human resources to recuperate in any reasonable time from a loss of this magnitude. In a matter of weeks the manpower and industrial capacity of the USN and allies would have the core of their forces repaired and refitted and ready to once more take the field of battle. The Brotherhood, by Ashino's most generous estimation, might be able to field a hundreth of its previous strength in the same time period.

He felt it briefly. The tug on his heart and mind, that bred in BCPU urge to be loyal to his "masters". And then, like he'd been doing for months now, he squashed it mercilessly. "I won't forget you, Meyrin Hawke." Ashino whispered to no one. "But I won't spend my life for you either. This is goodbye. I wish you... and that bastard you love so much... good luck. You're going to need it." And with those words, more a epitaph than a farewell, Ashino climbed back into his cockpit and let the Retribution sink into the depths, to be forgotten and overlooked in the chaos to come.

**One Week Later, Orb**

"Your Majesty, the Secretary of Defense is here." The intercomm somehow managed to convey the laconic, almost disrespectful tone of Ramierez's voice as he relayed the report into the secluded hospital suite. "Do you want to see him, or can I tell him to take a fucking hike?"

"He's currently the most powerful man in the entire Solar System, Staff Sergeant, so unfortunately diplomacy is in order." Cagalli replied, looking up from the fact book she really hadn't been reading. The book, along with several other things, had been in an emergency storage locker that Athrun had prepared sometime in the past. Something he'd kept a secret from her. A part of her was irritated at him for doing it... most of the rest of her was thankful, given the circumstances. "Send him in. But only him. His entourage can roundly fuck off."

"I'll be sure to convey your feelings, Ma'am." Ramierez replied wolfishly, his opinion of the USN politicos was just as rock bottom as hers. A chance to tell off a bunch of very senior people didn't come along every day after all. Predictably, the SecDef's security detail wasn't happy with the arrangement, but considering they were outnumbered, not accidentally, by Stormhounds by more than two to one, not to mention outgunned by a significantly larger margin... why political security goons thought sidearms were the way to go for firepower had never made sense to him... there wasn't much they could do about it.

Cagalli had her back to the door when it opened, and she neither rose nor turned to look at her unwanted visitor. Given that it was her hospital, in her country, she figured he could either deal with it or get out. He seemed to be choosing to deal with it. Indeed, if he expected more than the barest of civility from her, then he obviously did not well remember the last times they'd talked. She let the silence stretch as well, even while she was marshalling her thoughts and plans for this rare opportunity. A one on one talk, or as close to as really possible, with her primary political enemy, unofficial, completely off the books, without even her own people listening in. She heard him walk across the room and stop a respectful pace or two behind her, the bouquet of flowers in his hand rustling and crinkling, his footsteps made slightly irregular by the limp he'd suffered from his injuries at the hand... or rather the mind... of Noah. She half expected him to flourish a cane, a la Cervantes Zunnichi, but whether through pride or some other reason, Durandel disdained any assistance in walking.

It was only when she heard the door close and click to indicate it was locked shut that Cagalli slowled turned in her chair to regard Gilbert Durandel, the most powerful man in the Solar System. "Don't you think those are a little premature?" She asked, arcing and eyebrow and gesturing at the bouquet of multicolored roses. "My husband isn't dead yet. And besides, I hate older men. And you in particular."

"You wound me, your Majesty." Durandel answered with a slight narrowing of his eyes at her apparent levity. "I just wanted to express my condolences, if they were necessary. Details on your husbands condition have been sparse since the return to Orb. Given his initial status, I hardly think it premature of me to come prepared for the worst."

"Athrun has a way of surviving tough situations, despite the predications of supposed experts." Cagalli replied flatly. She reached out and took the bunched flowers from Durandel and tossed them casually to the floor at the foot of the bed. "Next time, if you really want to be sincere, bring me a full capsule of military grade Curaga. I'd like that much more than flowers."

"I'm surprised you don't have him in a full immersion tank." Durandel looked down at the almost withered looking man lying in the hospital bed, his skin pasty and sheened with the texture of spray on plasti-flesh, a temporary seal that kept moisture in and infection hopefully out, while the longer term treatments worked on encouraging the regrowth of his natural skin over the damaged areas. Which were extensive. He had to look hard to make out the features of Athrun Zala, and some of that was wishful thinking. Truth be told, despite Athrun's often frustrating political stance, Durandel had little but respect for the man's qualities. If only they could have been directed to better ends. The possibilities were endless... and entirely emphermal.

"We don't have the resources for a full immersion. All the Curage we have is needed spread out as much as possible. Hard as it may be to believe, Athrun's injuries are not the most severe we are treating at the moment. His burns mostly only go into the upper layers of muscle, even if it is over sixty percent of his body. Truth be told, its the radiation I'm more worried about, we have the burns under control." Cagalli replied with a wooden tone. "If we concentrated enough Curaga for a full immersion treatment, we'd be consigning dozens, maybe scores of people to death, some agonizing. I'd ask you for more, but I know for a fact that there simply isn't any more to be had right now."

"That is the unfortunate truth. While we have seized control over the Curaga manufacturing plants, preprogrammed sabotage efforts from the Brotherhood have cut production to only a trickle. The damage isn't that hard to fix, but it comes at a bad time." Durandel admitted. "What your husband did was..."

"Stupid." Cagalli supplied at once, her voice more than a little bitter.

"Magnificently noble. The most singular act of self sacrifice I have ever witnessed." Durandel finished. "Athrun Zala is one of the greatest heroes of modern times."

"You're preaching to the choir there, Mr. Durandel." Cagalli answered softly. "But you didn't come here to pay respects to my overly heroic husband, did you?"

"Would you believe me if I said that was exactly why I came here?" Durandel told her. "Regardless of our political and even personal differences, please don't do me the disservice of assuming I don't possess human feelings. Before he was your husband, Athrun was already a hero to the PLANTS and Coordinators as a whole. Of modern day Coordinators, only Lacus Clyne could possibly lay claim to more fame and noteriety than he, and even then some would call it a toss up. I admired him then, and I admired him even more during the events of the Second Valentine War. Personally, I think he should have come back to ZAFT, but in the end it appears he made the right choice in sticking with you and the Clyne Faction."

"I'm sure he'll be happy to know he has one more fan." Cagalli grunted.

"He saved my son's life." Durandel said quietly. "When he deflected that cannon blast, he saved my son's life."

"He saved a lot of people's sons. And daughters. And husbands. And wives. And me." Cagalli said wearily. "He always seems to be saving me." She shook her head as if to clear it. "Thank you for coming then, Gilbert."

"It was the very least I could do." Durandel replied with a slight smile.

"And it looks very good politically, even if you can't get it on film. People will talk about you coming to see him. More personal touch points for the SecDef." Cagalli added venomously.

"You wound me again, Cagalli." Durandel retorted icily.

"I'm idealistic, Gilbert. Not stupid. Or blind." Cagalli glared up at him. "I know for a fact you were in league with Noah Borander practically from the start. Its the only way to really justify how fast your political career took off. Now maybe he did deceive you, I don't think anyone could have seen this... Eden Disaster... coming, but that doesn't change the fact that you and he had a mutually beneficial relationship for a long time."

"You're grasping at straws and mist while wandering in a minefield." Durandel warned the uppity young queen. "I shouldn't have to tell you what kind of power I now have. Is threatening me really something you want to, Cagalli?"

"I don't really want to do it... I'm pretty fucking sick of everything to do with you to be honest... but you may have noticed, I have a habit of doing things I don't personally want to do, if they are necessary." Cagalli warned him back. "But, if I was going to go after you, you could rest assured I'd do it with so much proof even your media mastery couldn't spin it all."

"If you were going to go after me?" Durandel repeated slowly.

"I'm going to try something here, since its just the two of us and Athrun, and he can't hear right now." Cagalli said frankly. "I'll be totally honest. I don't have the proof to take you down, despite how happy it would make me. Even if I DID have that proof... I wouldn't use it. And it's not because I value the moral high road. Can you guess why I wouldn't use it, Gilbert?"

"Because I'm the Secretary of Defense of the USN." Durandel replied simply. "The man who saved humanity from the scourge of the Brotherhood of Man. The protector of the people. My popularity rating is close to ninety eight percent. I control a military a hundred times larger than yours, with economic and industrial resources far larger even than that. I control the media. What I say, goes. When I say jump, the Secretary-General doesn't wait to pull his mouth off my dick to ask how high." He paused a moment and smiled a wintry smile. "This honesty thing is kind of fun."

"I could have done without that last image, but otherwise you are, of course, categorically correct." Cagalli answered. "But from the tone of your voice, I got the feeling you thought that all of what you just said intimidated me. And that is just not true, Gilbert. You are the most powerful man in the Solar System. Bar none. At this point in time, you could probably nuke all of Orb into a glassy crater on the ocean floor and get away with people cheering and rallying to your cause. But I am not scared of you. My country is NOT scared of you. No, Gilbert the real reason I won't be making moves against you, certainly not right now anyway, is because despite the ultimate murky nature of your goals, whatever they are and my personal distaste and even disgust for you, I can't deny that you are doing a lot of good. The people of the world need a strong, focused leader. That leader is you. You have saved BILLIONS of lives with your misuses of your power. I could never ascribe alturism to you, but you do a bang up job of accidentally doing the right thing for the wrong reasons."

She watched him blink at her, plainly wrongfooted by this viewpoint, and she smirked at him nastily. "I want you to know that the only thing keeping my claws out of your neck is the fact that you are, for all your flaws, still the best man for the job right now. Whether you want to be or not. The very instant a better choice comes along, I'm going to destroy every last bit of you I can reach. It may very well destroy me in the process. I can live with that. Been meaning to get out of this political bullshit game anyway. Just wanted things to be clear between us. You're on notice, bitch."

If Cagalli was hoping to get an angry retort or some other reaction, she was to be disappointed. In truth, what she got was worse. Indifference with a bit of sarcasm. Durandel blinked once or twice more, and then simply shrugged. "Well, thats nice to know. I'll be sure to write that down in my little black book somewhere. Cagalli has put me on notice, bitch. How quaint. I'm sure I'll have nightmares. I can see that we won't be having much more of a productive conversation. That is all right though, because I came to pay my respects to a fallen hero, and that I have done." He half turned and then looked back at Cagalli in her chair and the small reading table nearby. "I enjoy our little talks, your Majesty, believe it or not. It is truly nice to find someone who really hates me, and not only that, but actually thinks they can stand up to me. Truth be told, with Noah on his last legs, I was almost missing someone to contest with."

"I'll be glad to step in any time you need to be reminded that you're not going to get away with whatever it is you're trying to get away with." Cagalli said with a steely smile.

"And if I told you I'd already gotten away with it?" Durandel returned with a leonine stare.

"Then I'll say, enjoy it while you can Gilbert, because I will bring it all crashing down around you at the earliest possible moment. And you know I'll do it."

"I know you'll try." Durandel turned to go. "I'll be looking forward to the baby shower." He added over his shoulder, chin jutting at the guidebook, which read "Artificial Insemination Basics", that Cagalli had been perusing before he'd come in. "It was wise of him to have a stock prepared in case of emergency. Most men wouldn't think to do so. You know... I was a genetiscist before I was a politician..."

"I'd rather have help from Noah Borander. Get out of here before I let the Stormhounds throw you out."

"You wouldn't give me that kind of excuse even if I begged you for it." Durandel said, moving with the slow confidence of a man who knows he can destroy entire nations with a stroke of a pen. "I'll see you at the pre-attack briefing, your Majesty. Good day."


	72. New Eden part 7

Author Note: I see a lot of people commenting on the fact that despite what happened to Meyrin, with access to the medical technology and resources of the Brotherhood, her injury is trivialized or loses impact. I mean, who cares about temporary paralysis right? No permanent character damage, not even any scarring... what's the big deal right? Well, I'll tell you what the big deal is. Put yourself in Noah's shoes for a moment, or at least try. His entire life he's believed he was a cut above, that he was superior in every meaningful way to everyone around him. He believes that there is nothing he cannot do when he tries or puts his mind to it. He believes he is infallible. He believes he is right and just and good. He is the good guy in his mind. Nothing bad can touch him. He never loses. He always has the upper hand, the ace up his sleeve. Every time he's even slightly been in trouble, his superior mental, physical or psychic abilities have bailed him out handily. The universe has more or less been dancing to his tune as he sees it.

He... just... lost. He just lost a battle that he put everything he had into. Where he tried his best, where he exceeded his previous limitations, where he pulled every trick he had and it still wasn't enough. Remember how Ashino was reflecting on the battle and was able to be satisfied that he'd tried his best but things hadn't worked out? It's the opposite for Noah. He can't ever be satisifed with anything but victory. His entire worldview and self image revolves around himself being invincible and infallible, and he's just had his face shoved in the fact that he's as mortal and vulnerable as anyone else. Not only that, but the person he loves most, his soul mate... she almost died. And there was not a single thing he could do about it. Only luck saved her. Not him, not his technology, not his Newtype powers, nothing but luck. She was all but in his arms and she still almost died. And he was completely helpless to do anything about it. Its not so much the broken back that is the injury... its the broken self confidence. The shattered self image. The death of his happy daydream that had been his life until now. Noah and Meyrin just got an undeniable close up look at the facts of their own mortality, kind of like what happened to Yzak and Katie after their encounter with Noah. Or Athrun and Cagalli after they were tortured. You can bet they won't be the same. That's the big deal.

That said, this chapter will continue catching up on the aftermath of the battle. Truth be told I intended to put some of what happens this chapter in New Eden 6, but found myself running long. Depending on how things turn out, this might actually be a 9 chapter arc. There's going to be a lot of jumping around in this chapter, both in terms of time and location, so I'll be prefacing most scenes with a time/location tag. SpearFall refers to the time when the Spear of Ares struck the Great Endeavor.

xxx

**Hawaii, nighttime, 10 hours since SpearFall**

The entire predator-prey dynamic had been completely screwed up. In the aftermath of the Green Zone spreading across the islands, clouds of contaminated nano-smog having been flung across the Pacific ocean from both directions by volatile storm currents, evolution had entered a feeding frenzy, thousands of years of slow mutation occuring in the space of hours. In an environment gone wild, the only golden rule was: Adapt or Die. And unfortunately for the species that had formerly been at the top of the various food chains, in that sort of environment, things such as morals, ethics and even culture, to a respect, were nothing more than handicaps. There was such a thing as being too smart, too intellectual for your own good. And, as the various surviving lower animals and plants recovered from their individual ascensions, they did not have nearly as far back to go when falling back to their instincts to survive in a suddenly hostile and highly competetive environment.

Over a matter of hours, species that had been domesticated and bred for thousands of years of human history as pets and servants broke free from the chains of genetic slavery that had bound them and turned on their erstwhile masters, not out of rage or any real ill feeling, in most cases, but merely because the instinct to survive demanded a reduction in possible competition for resources. There was only so much food to be had, so much space to live in. There was no place for negotiation or compromise when it came down to species survival. You either had what you needed, took what you needed, or died. In the end, it was the human survivors that did most of the dying, despite their access to shelter, preserved food and water, medical supplies and even weapons. They clung to their past lives instead of going with the flow of the new world, and were swept away by the currents of change.

The situation was similar all across the world that had been Earth and was now on the verge of becoming New Eden. Humanities borders wre pushed back, hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the first few hours after the Ascension were over, Mother Nature once more reasserting her grip firmly on her world. It had been almost two and a half thousand years since humanity really last had to struggle against Nature to survive, on a species level. Most were unprepared in the extreme for life in a hostile environment, where the very grass beneath your feet was at times actively conspiring to kill you. The entire world become a Darwinian paradise overnight, survival of the fittest being the only constant.

The shadowy form making its way cautiously through the eerily empty streets of the small coastal town on the Southwestern edge of the largest island was one of those that had survived, had adapted to the new world with all the enthusiasm of a newborne, awakening to each new experience without prior prejudice or assumptions to overcome, while at the same time applying a great depth of half conscious experience to everything he did, drawing upon the remains of a life that felt more like a dream to him than anything else. Certainly, his at times hazy and at times painfully sharp recollections of the world of his past bore little resemblance to the nightmarish, beauteous world he now found himself in, an ostensibly dead world bursting with life in all its most wondrous and deadly glory. The works of man stood silent and cold like fallen, calcified corpses, windows and doors broken out, debris and detrius littering floors, scrawled graffiti and the evidence of panicked rioting and vandalism everywhere. The wind seemed to howl with the laments of the dead, bemoaning the unfairness of the lot of the majority.

At the same time, other winds whispered of bold new things, carrying tantalizing scents of life in new forms, of things never before seen by man or god, entirely new threads being woven into the tapestry of destiny. The shadowy form found his attention straying as the various winds caressed his slightly gaunt cheeks, and chided himself silently as he refocused his more than considerable willpower. At times the sensory overload he experienced with the new capabilities of this body was more than a little irritating, every single sight, sound, smell, touch and taste communicated to him like a siren blaring in his ears, but, like a number of other things, he was growing used to it. Adapting. Evolving. It wasn't like he had much choice in the matter... he'd seen what happened to those who couldn't keep up with the new, faster, more intense pace of life. Few of those deaths had been pretty, or peaceful.

The shadowy figure took another slow, measured step, careful to avoid any loose debris on the ground that might clink or snap under his weight, a betraying noise that would alert the hyperalert senses of every living creature in a wide radius, predator and prey alike. Truth be told, his attempts at stealth were flimsy and weak by the new standards of the world, his silent tread a useless screen against those that hunted by scent or vibration or even by tasting the ethereal energy of his mind. But for his current purposes, it would be enough. With his impairments, he knew he would never truly be stealthy, that he would have to rely upon others when such times came. But that was one advantage humans did have over most of their suddenly powerful animal and plant brethren. The ability to work coherently as a team, even to the point of making sacrifices for one another.

Such thoughts distracted him again, and his next step almost sent him crumpling to the ground, only a wildly flailing hand by chance contacting a concrete pillar holding up the roof of the burned out shell of the building he was sneaking through kept him upright. Sweat beaded his pale skin, which hadn't seen the light of the sun in many years, the unfamiliar effort of locomation draining to his reservses, but the man didn't let himself resort to leaning against the pillar for support for long. He was stronger than that. He had to be. He was responsible for more than just himself after all. He was supposed to be a leader. Not that he really wanted to be, but it just seemed to come naturally to him. People seemed to gravitate to him. At first he'd thought it to be a result of one of his new mental talents... he'd met people and even animals with such abilities in the few days since he'd awakened in this strange new world. In the end though, he had realized it was something altogether simpler... and far more powerful. Charisma. Charisma combined with with experience.

Of course no one recognized him, he didn't even recognize himself most of the time. The Ascension had not been kind to his body, not like it had to some. He was no weak, withered cripple, but he lacked the nigh godly bodies some people were developing, his muscles becoming wiry and his skin leathery more than anything else, pulling a bit tight across his bones, lending him a stern, angular aspect, like a classical scultpure chisled a bit too rigidly, even though he ate as well as or better than most. In direct sunlight it was often possible to pick out patches of his flesh with a limey green subtone, where the Green EDEN had for whatever reason concentrated in his body. He did not remember the particulars of his exposure, so he was unable to answer the question of whether his exposure had been abnormal, whatever that meant in comparsion to the staggering variety of experiences of every living thing around him. He'd also lost his hair, all of it, head and body alike, which had taken more than a little while to get used to. Hell, he still wasn't used to it at all.

Recovering his poise and his concentration, he made to take another step forward before halting himself in mid stride, peering down at the floor, where shards of glass had been scattered, either by accident, or, far more likely judging by the distribution, as some form of early warning system for a settlement or camp of survivors. There was nothing like the crunching snap of broken glass being trod on to alert a perceptive sentry... he'd had similar effective, camouflaged low tech defenses put into place on the approaches to the enclave he had joined and was now leading, folding to mutual need and peer pressure. In a land of burgeoning demi-gods, it was a man with a true vision, and the willpower to see it through that was king. Having a healthy amount of personal power and some very capable subordinates didn't hurt either. Setting his leg carefully back down, he leaned most of his weight up against the pillar he'd touched earlier.

_I have encountered the outer layer of defenses. Just as expected._ The man reported to his subordinates, spread out through the town around him, signalling the start of the next phase of the operation. They would now be moving in to encircle the most likely location of the settlement, which was the small sporting arena a half kilometer or so ahead of him. It was mostly enclosed, had a lot of open space around it, and had plenty of room for people to get privacy, an optimal living location in current times. In an age where your very thoughts were all but written across your face for everyone you knew to read, the ability to get away from the group and have some time alone, in a secure environment, was as precious as good food and clean water.

_Have encountered one sentry post. Abandoned. Signs of animal activity in the area relatively recent. I think they've pulled in their outer lines, my lord._

_For the last time, I'm not a lord._ The bald man returned with an irritable blurt of mental static. _Just because social order has broken down doesn't mean we can just start carving out fiefdoms and living like medievals. We're better than that._

_He has a point though, master. They must be thinking to weather the storm by huddling up. Can't really blame them for wanting the security of a group tonight, not after that light show from earlier. The Spacelings are really tearing it up out there._ A different voice answered.

_Master is equally bad._ The bald man retorted. _I have a name, you should use it._ He paused, looking off to the south and west, out to sea, where a dim glow along the horizon still marked the aftermath of a battle that had literally been heard round the world, when the forces of the USN, or so he'd heard they were called, had confronted the Great Endeavor for what seemed to be the final time. Truth be told, recent current events weren't his forte, he was playing catch up with all these new political and military factions.

_But you're not like the rest of us, no matter how much you want to be. You're a cut above. You have a vision that we do not._ A fourth voice, this one female, added.

_A vision I do not understand._ The bald man replied with a little bitterness. _Is like a compass with no map. I feel the urge to be somewhere else, to move west, but I don't know why or even what I'm looking for. Just that it is very important. To everything. As for being a cut above..._

"Don't even try to deny it." The female voice said, this time audibly and from almost right behind him. The only reason he didn't jump was because he couldn't. _Although it is fun sneaking up on you._

"You're going to get one of us killed someday, pulling stunts like that, Lilia." The bald man said, his heart slowly returning to its normal pace, his hands unclenching from fists, lowering his arms back to his sides from where he'd moved them to act as shields. Even as he lowered his arms, several hundred razor shard shards of glass plus pretty much every free standing piece of debris in the room smaller than the palm of his hand likewise lowered back down to the floor as he gently backed off from his instinctive defensive reaction. Internally, he kicked himself for not maintaining his full array of detection methods, knowing it was as much his fault for letting himself be snuck up upon as Lilia's for sneaking up upon him. Redirecting the power he'd used to lift the glass and debris, he pushed out a molecule thin layer of air in a thirty meter radius surrounding him, pressing it against ceiling, windows and doorways so that anything passing through them, even the lightest spec of dust, would twinge in his mind.

"See, I couldn't even lift a twentieth of that weight, certainly not all spread out like that." Lilia commented in a whisper, moving to stand up beside him, tossing him a look of near hero worship, as usual. He was a savior to all of them, but to her in particular. The scars of the place he'd rescued her from, only a short week ago, were still heavy upon her mind and soul at times. At times she was afraid to believe it was all real, and not another fevered dream.

"Our talents run in different directions." The bald man shrugged, reaching out with one hand and making a flicking gesture, once more seizing hold of the glass shards with his mind and drawing them up off the floor, pulling the mass of them up to him, sending them swirling in a tight orbit around him, jagged edged shards revolving like saw blades in mid air. He sorted through the impromptu display of slicing objects, discarding those that were too small or insufficiently edged, lowering them silently to the floor behind him and Lilia as he weeded himself down to a little over a dozen large, deadly shards. "Are you sure you want to go in alone first?"

"That's what you pay me for isn't it?" Lilia cocked her head to the side, her waist length hair, the deep blue color of open ocean, swaying with the motion as she smiled at her leader, her teeth bright in the darkness, the grin reflecting off some of the glass shards as they spun and hovered in his telekinetic grip, so much stronger and more refined than anyone else anyone had ever encountered. Admittedly, it was still very early on, it had only been about a week since the Green Zone had passed overhead, but still, strength like his had to be one in a million, or even more! "Relax, Kun, I'll know whether they're hostile or friendly way before it becomes a problem. Besides, with you and the others backing me up, what's to worry about?"

"Chimerae." The bald man replied, watching her shiver at the dreaded term. "Remember what happened to..."

"I could never forget." Lilia cut him off with a deeper shiver. "But we would have been attacked by now if we'd crossed into a Chimera's territory. They don't like humans much. They don't like anything much. And I've seen you kill one before, Kun, don't forget that!"

"It was beginner's luck." He shrugged. "And would you please use my full name. I recognize the shortening for what it is, but while I am fond of you, Lilia, its not in that way. You're a bit too young. And..." The bald man trailed off, biting back whatever else he'd been about to say, though Lilia, who was very well attuned to the emotions of people around her, could easily feel the flash of bitter darkness and rage that traveled through his mind, emotions so strong and sharp and grim that she involuntarily sidled away from him just a little bit. He'd always been a perfect gentleman, as close to perfectly in control of his power as anyone she'd yet met, but given what had been done to her in the past by angry men, she could not avoid her instinctual reaction to flinch. "Sorry. Didn't mean to alarm you." His emotions changed from brooding to contrite.

"If you wanted to lash out and hurt me, Kunai, there's nothing I could do to stop it. Nothing I would do to stop it. I swore my life to you, when you pulled me up out of that hellhole. You took off the collar." Lilia said with nigh fevered intensity of her own. "My life is yours."

"You people..." Kunai shook his head in exasperation. He knew better than to protest what she'd said, he'd spent hours arguing over what she saw as her debt to him before, and she simply wasn't to be convinced that it wasn't necessary, that he didn't want her to feel like she owed him anything, much less her life. He'd saved her because he'd been able to feel her pain and misery from blocks and blocks away, and because it had been the right thing to do, and he'd been able to do it. He could still recall the first time he'd laid eyes on her, malnourished, wasted, barely alive, lying at the bottom of a concrete pit that had once been a concealed cellar, her fair skin covered with welts and bruises and raw cuts, that detestable metal collar and chain locked around her throat keeping her confined to the cold, filthy floor. Her former captors lay dead around him, though not by his hand... by ironic twist of fate, it was their bodies that lay withered and dry and rotting while their toy and prisoner survived and ascended.

Quite how long Lilia had been in that dank hole, Kunai did not know, and she would not say. He got the feeling that it had been a long time, judging by the way she still winced in sunlight and regarded the area around her with childlike curiosity. Or the way that the mere thought of venturing into an enclosed, dark space was enough to send her into a screaming, convulsing fit of rage and fear. And god help the man or beast that dared touch her neck, for any reason at all. Though the loathesome collar and chain were long gone, torn off by Kunai himself shortly after he'd lifted her out of the pit, she still carried the marks on her skin, and would bear the mental scars for the rest of her life. The mere thought of a young girl... she couldn't be much older than fifteen or sixteen... having such scars was enough to provoke true rage from him. Truly, mankind needed no predators other than itself, and no animal, however savage, could match the savagery humans would perpetuate on their own kind for fun or profit.

That was certainly one thing that the Green Zones had not changed about humanity. For every one person that was willing to return to being a productive member of their nascent society, there were two or three that were lashing out at random, caught up in the throes of personal power trips or apocalyptic insanity, unable to deal with the end of their old world, and determined or so it seemed, to destroy the new one before it could even get off the ground. That was one reason they always approached new settlements with great caution, they were never sure if they were going to encounter people scrabbling to restart their lives... or people dedicated only to their own personal desires and amusement. Of course, though there were plenty of maladjusted people, every now and again there was a bright flower to find blooming. Lilia was one such. Despite her squalid past and personal issues, there was no more tenderhearted and good minded person than her in the entire enclave. Dark pasts did not necessitate dark futures, and Lilia was living proof of that.

_We are proceeding to stage two. Lilia is heading in._ Kunai relayed to the other members of his scouting team, the men and women that were the most physically and mentally robust, the ones who had not only the capability to defend themselves and others, but the necessary fortitude to do what had to be done, even if it meant killing. It was a rarer quality than one might think, at least amongst those that hadn't been driven near crazy by the trauma of "the end of the world". With most people now able to acutely feel the emotions of others, at least within close proximity, perpetuating violence or suffering upon others became as much masochism as sadism. There were many who claimed to have hard hearts, but few who could truly measure up when the pain was raw and fierce, like a red hot knife in your gut. He recieved feelings of acknowledgement and bridled eagerness, and nodded his head in the gloom, giving Lilia permission to move on.

He followed her at a discreet distance, though since she was now moving without much pretence at stealth, she was sure to draw any attention before he did. This was their usual ploy when approaching an unknown settlement. Lilia would lead, apparently alone and vulnerable, just another pretty, good hearted young girl looking to survive in the ruins of her old life and seeking afety in numbers. her youthful and winsome demeanor was only enhanced by the ever so slight resemblance she bore to argueably the most famous woman of modern times, Lacus Clyne. Something about the set of her jaw, the planes of her face, and certainly the length and fall of her startling deep blue hair, each individual factor unnoticable, but when combined there was definitely a resemblance.

She might look a teensy bit like Lacus, but Lilia's personality ran much more towards that of Kira Yamato, a man she idolized as much or more than she did Kunai. Or at least in different ways. Kunai had saved her body, but Lilia believed that Kira had saved her mind and soul, having provided her with a strong sense of morality and personal responsibility which had served her well in keeping her on the edges of sanity during her captivity and abuse. Now that she herself was possessed of powers and abilities beyond her wildest dreams, the governing hand of the Kira philosophy she held so dear kept her on a straight and narrow path of righteous benefice. Though she had never met Kira in person, she remained steadfastly committed to the path of justice and peace he esposed.

Which at times Kunai found distinctly annoying, truth be told, because in this world of New Eden, an unflinching drive for peaceful resolutions and the penchant for caring too much for the welfare of others could get you killed faster than just about anything. At least when she was forced into a life or death situation Lilia had the sense to fight without holding back, though she would do pretty much anything in her power to avoid things coming to that stage in the first place. She would make a fine diplomat or ambassador one day, though she seemed determined to stay by his side as a sort of quasi-guard and servant. Kunai shrugged... it was all far too early to tell, it had only been a week or so after all. Sudden movement from ahead, by Lilia's position, brought him on alert and banished the musing thoughts from his head.

He was forced to squint his eye as a bright white-orange light blossomed into being, a construction flare tossed by someone to skitter and roll across the ground until it rested more or less at Lilia's feet, brightly illuminating her and a several meter radius around her. Shadows moved at the edges of the illumination, slowly circling in around the intruder in their claimed domain, watching cautiously for signs of danger, little suspecting that they in turn were being watched and studied by several other shadows from even further back in the gloom. Kunai lowered his glass shards until they were almost in the dirt, to prevent any chance glances catching a glint of flare-light from the hovering glass.

Lilia held her arms out from her sides at waist height, palms up to show her peaceful intentions. Of course, since this was New Eden, a person didn't precisely need their hands to inflict grievous wounds on others, but it was as nonthreatening as she could easily make herself. The sentries, or guards or whatever they were seemed to come to the decision that Lilia was alone, though truth be told they didn't do much looking that wasn't at her. Part of that was her good looks, and most of it was the fact that these people were just civilian survivors, not trained military personnel, like some of the people Kunai had with him. The only things they likely knew about potentially dangerous first contact situation came from watching action flicks, in all likelihood.

Kunai switched his attention to focus on Lilia as the first of the sentries moved into the swatch of illumination cast by the flare. The man was more or less what Kunai had been expecting, somewhere in the twenty to thirty year old range, dirt smeared skin, grungy clothes, a well defined phyisque that had little to do with any effort to exercise, his eyes reflecting gold centers and bright green pupils in the flarelight, his hair a lime greenish shade, cut short and ragged. The man carried some sort of bolt action hunting rifle in his hands, clutched tight against his hip as he kept it leveled at Lilia, wary eyes watching for the slightest hint of danger or threat. Others of his ilk edged out of the gloom after him, carrying a motley arrangement of pistols, knives and even a shotgun, all of which looked to have been liberated from a pawn shop sometime in the recent past, and only marginally cared for in the interim.

He watched them slowly spread out to semi-encircle Lilia as she talked with them in low tones that did not carry to his position a score or so meters away. The posture of the group of sentries was not exactly threatening, but neither was it welcoming. Most of them kept their weapons pointed more or less at Lilia, and some proved once again their ineptness when they pointed weapons at each other, with only Lilia's unassuming form between them to prevent a deadly friendly fire situation. Kunai watched Lilia's posture grow more defensive and poised in low increments as her conversation continued, slowly shifting her balance as the conversation clearly began taking a turn for the worse, at least in her opinion. The group surrounding her were still all smiles, obviously feeling at ease with six of them against only one young, unarmed girl.

However, Lilia was attuned to the emotions of others to a depth far beyond most people, which also accounted for her reluctance to employ deadly force, as she felt the suffering of others very acutely, and she obviously didn't like the emotions she was sensing from this particular group. When things finally reached a breaking point, when one of the men reached out to grab her by her upper arm, the confrontation exploded into violence with such speed that it would have left Kunai shocked and blinking in a previous life. Obviously caught of guard, the reaching man called out in shock as Lilia spun towards him, ducking under his extended arm, one hand chopping out to smack his other wrist, numbing his hand and causing it to release the pistol he had been holding. Using the momentum of her turn, lilia then brought a foot crashing upwards into his sternum, punching the breath from his body and sending him stumbling back to the ground in a heap.

The problem with most newly ascended Edenites was that they clung too much to the trappings and comforts of their old, Natural or Coordinator lives. They wanted to live in their old houses, they wanted to eat food from out of grocery stores, they wanted to watch movies and use the internet. When forced into a dangerous situation, their first thought was to use a weapon like a knife or club or hopefully a gun, little realizing that they had been gifted with a new body that was a deadly weapon all its own, and a potential plethora of mental abilities that could make even an assault rifle seem tame by comparison. Most Edenites were still getting the hang of themselves, so to speak, and this hampered most of them, as they often did not realize just how strong or fast they in fact were, and so did not utilize themselves effectively.

Of course there were also some, such as Lilia, and Kunai, and the rest of his hand picked unit of followers, known as the "Praetorians" by the more sedate and timid members of his enclave, who fully embraced their new bodies and abilities and constantly strove to expand the boundaries of their previous limitations, both mental and physical. It had only been a week and a day or so since he'd rescued Lilia, and some of that time had been spent in recuperation, but already she moved with the speed and fluidity of greased lightning, and the ferocity of an angry lion, her form a bit ragged and rough, based more off instinct and blow by blow creativity than any martial schooling, but still frightening and impressive for all that. And Kunai had the distinct feeling that Lilia was still quite a ways from one hundred percent recovered from her year long ordeal, which only served to illustrate the depths of potential she truly possessed.

Lilia completed her spin, the dropped pistol appearing in her left hand as if by magic as she snatched it out of the air before it could hit the ground. A rifle barked close by, sending a bullet whizzing over her head, almost tugging at her flowing hair, followed almost immediately afterwards by the sickening crack-slap of a lead bullet punching into human flesh and bone, and the strangled cry of agony that followed as one of the shooter's own companions was flung backwards with a bleeding hole in his belly. The emotional outpouring that echoed the physical shout crashed into her sensitive mind like a wall of red hot needles, but Lilia was used to torments far worse, if not usually inside her head, and she only narrowed her eyes and gritted her teeth, even as some of the more emotionally receptive among the sentries flinched and cried out in sympathetic pain as well.

The man with the rifle tried to shoot again, only to stagger heavily to one side and slump down to his knees, the rifle clattering to the ground as a shocked and puzzled expression crossed his face, one hand reaching haltingly up to caress the hilt of the heavy combat knife that was protruding from the side of his head, thrown by one of her Praetorian comrades from out in the night. Steaming red gore streamed down the side of the man's impaled head and then his eyes rolled up and he collapsed backwards and sideways in a boneless slump, never quite having figured out what had happened to him. The super sonic snap of a high powered rifle firing was immediately preceeded by an explosion of gory purple and maroon fluids mixed with pinkish white shards as the gut shot man's head exploded, courtesy of another Praetorian with a sniper rifle, ending his pain and the irritating distraction it was causing.

The man with the shotgun spun towards where he thought the sniper shot had come from and boomed several blasts of buckshot into the night, pumping the slide of his shotgun with frantic haste as ragged green shell casings spat from the weapon's ejection port. It was while he was pumping after firing his third shot that return fire... in the form of a dozen jagged edged shards of glass... came whirling out of the darkness like razor edged discus's and took him in the face and throat, embedding themselves deeply before reversing course, yanking themselves out of the wounds, some shattering in the process, before whipping back into the man again and again, cutting his entire upper body and face into a ragged mess. The dropped shotgun flipped away into the darkness like a stick on the end of a string as the man curled into a whimpering, bleeding ball on the ground, his flesh embedded with dozens of broken glass shards.

Back in the middle of the fight, Lilia kicked at the ground and launched the still burning flare up and into the face of the sole remaining man armed with a gun, causing him to flinch backward again, a nasty burn mark appearing on his forehead over his right eye as the flare bounced off his face, spoiling his aim and sending several snap shots from his pistol screaming wide, blowing dusty divots from the ground and building walls in the near distance. Before he could reorient upon Lilia, she had closed the distance and was inside his reach, free hand grabbing his gun wrist and keeping it shoved well away from here as she brought her captured pistol up and into the man's jaw, pistol whipping him with the barrel, shattering his jaw and sending teeth flying far and wide. He triggered another few stray rounds into the dirt nearby, and so she whipped him again, this time the solid metal of the pistol barrel slamming into his temple and dropping him in his tracks.

The one remaining standing sentry, armed with a long knife, almost a machete, leapt savagly for Lilia's back as she dropped his comrade, blade raised to hack into her spine. Before he could get more than a step or two though two things happened almost at once. Firstly, the shotgun came spinning back out of the night gloom, like a boomerang, and jammed itself between his ankles as he moved, tripping him up painfully and causing him to stumble. Just afterwards, an unseen force yanked hard on the blade in his hand and pulled it right out of his hand as he went to his knees and caught himself with his off hand. Lilia was spinning around, leg beginning to lift in a blow to the head that would level the disarmed man, but she was too late. The man stared in goggle eyed incomprehension as his knife hovered in midair for a moment before spinning around and driving itself into his throat just beneath his chin, impaling his neck and chunking out through the splintered remains of his spine. Arterial blood gouted, almost drenching Lilia if she hadn't turned her spin kick into a backwards tumble.

The man that Lilia had initially disarmed and stunned was just struggling back to his feet when he noticed that save for one unconscious comrade, his entire group had been cut down in a matter of seconds, about as far from the original plan as things could get. He scowled at the pretty, blue haired slip of a girl that had caused such damage to his group in such a short amount of time, though he did get back down on hands and knees when the muzzle of his own pistol gestured imperiously in his direction, keeping his hands wide and raised in surrender. A wsie move as it turned out, as the shotgun once more lifted from the ground, revolving to point at him as well. He saw halting movement out in the night and slowly a fierce man with a bald head and an angular face stalked out of the shadows, his legs moving with curiously heavy steps, almost like he was dragging himself unwillingly along.

"Now that the unpleasantness is over..." The bald man said in a resonate, smooth voice that captured the attention of anyone who heard it. "Why don't you tell us everything we want to know, hmm? There's so much we have yet to do, so do try to be forthright." He paused as he considered the captive sentry and then smiled with predatory intensity. "My name is Kunai. What is yours?"

xxxx

**Orb, 6 days since SpearFall**

"Give it to me straight." Cagalli said, her voice harsh and stern as she stared across the desk at the uniformed military doctor, who had a distinctly wary and uncomfortable expression on his face. "You said you needed time to determine the extent of the problems, and so I gave you time. So spill, or else, Hameya help me, I'll..." Cagalli trailed off with a shrug and a frown. She knew that threatening her own subordinates was hardly the way to ensure good cooperation, but she was at the end of her rope right now, hanging on by the skin of her teeth, and god damn it all, she needed some closure on this subject! Some news, some info, something concrete... so that she could begin trying to cope, rather than just hanging on tenterhooks all day and all night. She'd barely slept at all since the end of what was now being called The Battle of Cape York, referring to the name of the ismuthus where the Great Endeavor had at last been defeated, though most people just called it "The Battle", as it had been the largest terrestrial battle since the ancient world wars of the old AD calender, hundreds of years in the past.

Every time she tried to close her eyes, memories of the battle, especially those involving the psychic mauling she had suffered at Noah's hands, came crashing back to haunt her, usually resulting in her waking up screaming fit to wake the dead after only a few minutes. She was hardly the only one to be afflicted so, indeed almost all of the survivors of The Battle were reporting similar symptoms, some worse than hers, most not as acute, thankfully. While her sleep was haunted by her own fears, her waking hours were consumed with fear of a different sort, fear for others. Athrun mostly, but there was plenty of concern left over for the rest of the world. Noah and his Great Endeavor had been defeated, had been turned away... but they had not been destroyed. The threat still existed, despite all their best efforts! And with G-Hour, the time when the Green Zones covered Orb under its Glasshouse, steadily approaching, they were in a time crunch to adequately prepare for the seige like conditions to come.

She'd been in near constant meetings for the past near week, and the rest of her waking time had been spent mostly in the hospital, badgering the doctors for news about Athrun and also her other friends. badgering which had mostly resulted in nonspecific answers, like "his condition is grave" or "he appears to be recovering, but it's still too early to tell" or worst of all "we don't exactly know right now". None of which exactly pleased her or gave her much of a hope to cling onto. After waking up this morning after tossing and turning and staring at the ceiling all night, feeling lost and a bit scared in the big bed all by herself, acutely aware of how Athrun's side of the bed was cold and achingly empty, she'd determined that today she would get the answers she wanted, come hell or high water, no matter how painful the answers themselves might be.

The doctor, a colonel, the senior man in charge of the intensive care wing of the hospital, looked just about as burnt out as Cagalli herself felt, if not moreso. After all, since Orb was the closest... and only... terrestrial nation, they were the logical choice to send all the most injured survivors of The Battle for the emergency aid that could mean the difference between life and death. The Orb hospitals weren't just crowded, they were jam packed, overflowing even, with some patients being treated in the halls and even in administrative office spaces, because there simply wasn't room anywhere else! And that was just the critical cases, there were plenty of other less serious injuries that were being put on hold for the moment, not least of which was the psychic trauma most of the survivors were dealing with. Cagalli had heard rumors that the USN was going to be sending down more medical support in the next day or so, get most of the injured that could survive transition into orbit away, which would take at least some of the burden off her people. She'd even heard that SecDef Durandel might be stopping by to discuss the follow up attack on Noah, and she knew how worn out she was when she found she couldn't even get angry at the thought of seeing him in the flesh.

"Well, your Majesty, its not an easy answer." The doctor said slowly, obviously careful of the almost tangible burning flames he could see in the depths of her gaze.

"Since when is it ever easy?" Cagalli laughed bitterly, the comment aimed as much at the whole world as this current situation. "Just tell me."

"Very well." The doctor sighed and called up some information on his computer terminal, though truth be told he'd somewhat been expecting this confrontation for a few days now, and had comitted many of the pertinent facts to memory. "We believe your husband has gotten through the worst of the short term problems, and we're planning to bring him out of the medically induced coma in the next few days once we've completed our final battery of tests. I shall not sugarcoat this, your Majesty, most people that suffer wounds like your husband has do not survive. Were it not for exemplary first aid and initial radiation purgation treatements he recieved in the immediate aftermath of the battle, he would not have lasted out the day. By lasting as long as he has, I am confident that he will pull through and awaken from the induced coma with no further complications. He's a very lucky and stubborn man."

"You don't have to tell me that." Cagalli mumbled, casting her eyes down for a moment before once again skewering the doctor with her gaze. "And the extent of his injuries?"

"The Ambassador suffered second and third degree burns over 62 percent of his body surface, including his entire head and upper body. Fortunately most of these burns did not reach deeper than the bottom layer of skin, and we have had good results with applying synthetic replacement skin over the burn locations, with no signs of rejection. Loss of muscle and bone mass was minimal, and he should need only minor physical therapy when he awakens to recover to near his past levels of strength and stamina, though he will suffer some loss of flexibility and some deadening of his ability to feel contact against the snyth-skin. Truth be told, your Majesty, the burns, while severe, are not the worst of his injuries, since we've managed to keep him infection free." The doctor reported with a hint of a proud smile.

That smile disappeared as he went on though. "The worst injury came from the radiation he was exposed to." The doctor continued grimly. "Frankly speaking, your Majesty, if the Ambassador was not a Coordinator, he would have been dead days ago, purge treatments or not. His exposure levels ride right on the edge of the fatal, and might even tip over it. Through modern day radiation purge techniques, we've managed to flush his body of most of the short term, high energy radiation that causes rapid and fatal degradation of internal organs by killing cells and preventing them from reproducing, but there is nothing we can do about the deep tissue, long lived radioactive isotopes that have formed in his cellular structure, which will continue to irradiate him for centuries after his death. This radiation is of much lower energy that the short lived isotopes that we flushed, so it does not usually kill cells outright, but instead damages their DNA, and changes how they reproduce."

"This has a variety of long term effects upon his health." The doctor met her gaze and saw, just for a moment, the depth of pain inside her, but he was somewhat sued to seeing such pain in the families of his patients, so he was able to push on. "Not least of which is reducing the ability of his cells to consistently reproduce as the body ages. We're still collating test results, but early estimates show as much as thirty years being taken off the end of his lifespan. In effect, the radiation has aged him thirty years, or his body anyway. Damage to skin and hair cells will likely result in changes in pigmentation and increased vulnerability to more damage in the future, even from something as relatively innocuous as sunlight. As far as his organs are concerned, well, its only a matter of time before cancers and tumors begin to manifest themselves, I'm afraid. With modern medical techniques we should be able to keep them more or less under control, but I am afraid that there will be near constant pain once the disorders have reached a certain stage, and there is nothing we can do to prevent it, only slow it down."

"How long before it starts becoming..." Cagalli trailed off with a hard swallow. "Painful?" she added very softly.

"Twenty years at the most, I'm afraid. Perhaps as early as ten." The doctor answered, equally softly. "His bone marrow, and the bones themselves have also been damaged, which will result in a reduction in his ability to produce healthy new blood, which in addition to the damage to the cellular regeneration rates of his skin and organs will result in a reduced capability to recover from any other injuries he suffers in his life. His bones will be more frail than they were before, more prone to breaking under stress, less able to heal properly after breaking, and complications with his ligaments and joints make arthritis a certainty, at around the same timetable as the cancers." The doctor scrolled his screen down, looking for a bit of good news before he broached another sensitive topic.

"Fortunately, his brain and nervous system seems almost entirely unaffected, save for the ability to regenerate itself, which will result in any sort of future nerve or brain damage being all but uncorrectable. Of course, I'm sure you'll both strive to avoid any possibility of that sort of damage anyway."

"I'll try to remember not to punch him in the head unless he really deserves it." Cagalli offered with a bleak grin, though the plummeting sensation in her stomach told her that the ordeal of the report wasn't over yet, not by the sorrowful look on the doctor's face. He seemed to be decided whether or not to continue, so she prompted him with an imperious gesture.

The doctor sighed heavily and went on. "A part of the human body that is very sensitive to radiation type injury is the reproductive system, your Majesty. Containing as it does very active and adaptable cells and DNA, the reproductive system can be thrown far out of whack with only minor exposure, and the Ambassador's exposure far exceeded that threshold. Of course it is impossible to say for sure, but I can give you a ninety nine percent plus probability that he will be sterile. His ability to perform sexually should not be affected, nor his ability to ejaculate, but I'm afraid the sperm themselves are... unable to successfully bond with eggs and reproduce. And even if they can, severe genetic disorders within the child are almost inevitable, and the chances of a miscarriage or stillbirth are incredibly high. At this point in time, if you become pregnant by the Ambassador, it could have extremely adverse effects upon your own health. It could even kill you if you tried to take a baby to term."

The doctor watched his Queen take this news without hardly even flinching, though he knew it had to cut her like a knife to the belly. News like that, there was simply no way to cushion the pain. Fortunately, in this particular case, thanks to the foresight of one of the parties involved, there was still hope. The doctor cleared his throat, bringing Cagalli's face up to his, tears shining in the corners of her eyes as she did her damndest to avoid breaking down in sobs right then and there, at the thought of forever being childless. It was the end of House Attha, and that by itelf was a very distressing thought, besides all the other implications! _If this is how Miriallia feels since Dearka has ICD, then I haven't been giving her enough credit! How can she function so normally!?_ Cagalli thought to herself, stunned and amazed at the fortitude of her friend.

"There is still hope however." The doctor's words hit Cagalli like a punch to the chest, practically seizing up her throat as she stared at him. "As you may or may not be aware, the Ambassador has a custom of contributing to a sperm bank before he deploys, if he has the time to plan ahead. It's a relatively recent custom, he only started doing it in the last few months. Apparently he was keeping on eye on the future."

Cagalli tuned the doctor out for a few moments as a giddy feeling welled up inside her, as well as a feeling of love and gratitude that was frankly overpowering. If what the doctor said was true, then Athrun hadn't just brushed aside her desire for children, after they'd had that off hand discussion a while back. He'd given her a nonanswer, almost a disagreement to her face, but behind her back he'd been doing this... ensuring that even if something ever happened to him, that she could still... Cagalli shook her head and felt the tears dripping down her face. She didn't think she'd ever loved him as much as she did right then.

"... with modern in vitro fertilization techniques, establishing a pregnancy can be done in a single appointment that should only take an hour or so." The doctor was saying, before noticing that his Queen had zoned out for a bit. "That is, of course, assuming you want..." The doctor began to hedge.

"Of course I do. Of course we do." Cagalli said, correcting herself. "I'll make an appointment as soon as I get a free moment. Thank you, doctor."

"Thank the Ambassador, I did almost nothing." The doctor shrugged.

"I intend to." Cagalli promised intently. "When will he be awake?"

"Our current timetable will bring him out of the medical coma in another three days, and we're going to want to keep him here for observation and treatments for another week or so beyond that, but at the end of that time he should be able to return home for bed rest and light activity." The doctor stared down his nose at his Queen admonishingly. "Of course, any sort of combat is completely out of the question for at least a month, preferrably two or three. His system has been pushed to the brink, your Majesty, any more stress could bring even someone as indefagtible as the Ambassador down for good."

"I'll try to keep him leashed, but he's a force of nature sometimes." Cagalli muttered, half to herself. She looked up at the doctor again. "Thank you for your time, doctor. I know you are busy, busier than I am even."

"Anything for you, your Majesty. Given how much Orb owes you, you can have as much of my time as you want." The doctor said with a brief grin.

"I don't think of it as owing me." Cagalli said, getting to her feet. "I could do nothing without the support of people like you, doctor, so the only person you owe is yourself."

xxxxx

**The Northern Pacific Ocean, 10 days after SpearFall**

The deeper depths of the ocean were a cold, often empty place at the best of times, with entire cubic kilometers of nothing but the tiniest of plankton and other microorganisms surviving on the upper reaches of superhot mineral water plumes ejected from the sea floor several miles further down. Ever since the Great Endeavor had landed, and since Green EDEN had begun circulating throughout the globe, actually propogating faster through the oceans than it did through the air, the greater molecular density of the water allowing for the Green EDEN to much more rapidly replicate itself, the vast middle reaches of the ocean, the cold, dark void between the sunlit upper few hundred feet, and the volcanic heated vents on the sea floor had become even emptier. That is unless you counted nonliving occupants, as the currents were well seeded with Green EDEN, and the myriad corpses of life forms that had not survived the Green EDEN transformation settling down into the depths, in which case the depths were almost crowded with still, limp forms.

Occasionally something did stir in the deeps though, and it is one such stirring that moves now, a dark shape against a black background, its movements giving the impression of power and size and stamina, as the massive brute, close to ninety feet from blunt prowed head to fluked tail, cleaved his way through the murk with a distinct sense of unease. eye that would have reflected gold were there any light to illuminate them squinted and swiveled in all directions as the great beast searched, in vain, for that which was most precious to him. The great sperm whale, a scarred vetern bull named Tyson, or at least that was what the metallic tag that the humans had clipped to his front right fluke when he'd been but a yearling said, continued to power through the depths, massive head swinging from right to left and up and down as he cast his gaze fruitlessly about, barely able to see half his own length ahead of him in any direction.

Normally Tyson wouldn't have needed to use his eyes, wouldn't have even tried, not at this depth, but recent and not so recent events had conspired to rob him of his more acute senses, leaving him to fall back on his inefficient eyes. His nose, normally able to detect the delicious prey, such as large squid and smaller whales at ranges of more than a mile, was clogged with the rotten smell of decay, overpowering and ever present no matter how far or how deep he swam, as tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dead fish and other sea life slowly sank to the bottom of the ocean. Losing that had been bad enough, had made hunting live food all but impossible, but at least there had been a plethora of dead food to eat in the meanwhile, enough for both him and his precious companion.

But then, a little while ago, his hearing had also been taken from him, in the wake of a punishing underwater howling, like the death cries of an entire world funneled right into his ears, and in the wake of that agony, Tyson found he could hear nothing at all, not his own subsonic groans and clicks, and not those of his companion either. The noise had been so loud that it had vibrated his bones and almost ripped his muscles from their frames, even though the source was untold thousands of miles away, and his skin and sense of touch was still degraded as well, making him feel at times that he was floating in a warm void rather than swimming in the ocean.

It was during the most recent descent from the surface into the middle regions of the great Pacific to feast upon the morsels free floating there that Tyson had lost track of his companion, his precious daughter, who had scooted off ahead of him in her eagerness to assuage the rumbling in her belly. Though Tyson had been one of the very first lifeforms to be affected by and survive Green EDEN, he was an old whale, and stuck in his ways, his routine that hardly changed at all from day to day, much less season to season. He could not deny the new strength and stamina that brought him back to his prime, and even more, nor the new intensity to the way his senses... when they had worked... had informed him as to the particulars of his watery domains. Or even the way thoughts of great complexity appeared in his mind, bringing with them like newborn calfs entirely new emotional experiences and a view of the world he lived in. Were a human to test him now, Tyson would probably score an IQ in the high nineties, and he'd never been the smartest of whales.

His prime mate had survived the Green EDEN as well, but had been nearly crippled by weakness, and had succumbed only a few short weeks later when their calf, their daughter, had been born. Tyson had not been prepared for his daughter to be born, it was far out of season for calfs to be leaving the womb, his mate had only been pregnant for a month at that time. But something about the strange tasting Green water had reacted with his calf, had changed her in ways strange and incomprehensible to Tyson. Even as the rest of the pod, except for Tyson himself, slowly drifted away into slumber from which they did not awaken, many drowning in their sleep while others simply never regained consciousness, he himself had only grown stronger, and his daughter had positively thrived. She had been abnormally large even upon birth, and her growth rate had not slowed even slightly in the time since.

Though less than three months old, she was almost as big as he was, and would soon be bigger if she continued to grow. Such rapid growth obviously required a lot of energy, and so she was almost constantly eating. Fortunately, there was more than enough to eat. In addition to thriving physically, his daughter was also thriving mentally, not just surpassing him, but entirely leaving him in her wake. Tyson wasn't sure what to make of his daughter at times, she often seemed to be an entirely different sort of being from him, but he loved her with all the fervor he was capable of, which was why he was now frantically searching for her. For all her size and intelligence, she was still basically a newborne, and unschooled in the ways of the wild. The oceans were a lot emptier than they used to be when Tyson was her age, but that was not to say that they were alone. Far from it.

Tyson turned his head to the side once more and squinted his right eye. There was something moving in the murk ahead. His errant daughter? It did not... feel... like her. And it wasn't. The attack, when it came, took Tyson by surprise, though only because of his hampered senses. He felt nothing until the sharp nosed shark rammed itself into his lower pectorals, serrated jaws opening wide before clamping down and worrying away a five hundred pound chunk of flesh! Tyson arched his tail and fluke in sudden agony and spun in midmotion with awesome fluidity for something of his size, just barely managing to catch sight of the shark as it disappeared into the gloom with its stolen flesh, unseen blood from the wound billowing out to stain the water with the hot scent of new pain, pungent against the stench of old death that permeated the ocean.

The bite was painful, but far from mortal, Tyson had certainly suffered worse before and had the scars on his head and back to prove it. However, the attack was also far from over, as another shark... one of many that was circling the great bull whale as they worked like a pack of dogs to bring him down... darted in and chomped away a portion of his tail fluke, before darting away only feet ahead of the angry thrash of that same multiton weapon. The sharks were still new to the whole concept of pack hunting, and the scent of fresh blood drove one wild and she charged in too early and too recklessly. Tyson saw her coming and contorted his body to bring his fearsome jaws, more than fifteen feet long, into play. The shark never knew what hit her, as Tyson bit down and swallowed everything from just behind her dorsal fin up to the tip of her snout, before the swallowing action in his throat crushed the life from his attacker.

The other sharks tooks advantage of his momentary distraction, slipping in to worry at his back and tail, seeking to maim and hobble him, while also slowly bleeding his strength away. They circled above him, blocking off any chance of an easy escape to the surface, and while he could hold his breath for a stupendous amount of time, the exertions of combat against multiple foes, not to mention the leeching weakness of blood loss, made Tysons lungs ache for a breath of fresh air. He did not know how long he fought, it felt like entire lifetimes, but eventually it dawned upon him that this was a fight he could not win. He was bleeding too much, his tail was so damaged he could barely move, his opponents were too fast and maneuverable for him to catch with his jaws or flukes. Tyson made to return to the surface, but repeated bites from above forced him to twist away and stay at his current depth, despite the burning in his laboring lungs. More and more sharks were showing up as the clouds of his blood spread far and wide, and the odds against him went from grim to impossible.

Hope was an alien concept to Tyson, as was despair... in his life, things either happened or did not, a whale did not waste time or effort on wondering about what could be or what shouldn't be. Still, he could not help a rush of new emotion, sadness, as he found his life drawing to an end, leaving his daughter alone, berefit of his lifetime of experience. As if summoned, he felt a new presence in the near distance, a presence that announced itself with a surge of feeling, rather than anything physical. At almost the same time, Tyson shivered as water caressed his body almost harshly, packing in tight against his bleeding flesh in a way he had never experienced before. In a way it was like the displacement one felt when a podmate breached nearby and slammed dozens of tons of water away into your side when landing, but at this depth, that was impossible.

The sharks too felt the arrival of his daughter, and they turned on her with fierce hunger, more than glade to have twice the meat for half the effort. Unfortunately, they were just sharks. Ultimate Coordinator sharks perhaps, but Tyson's Leviathan calf... she was something more. Something unprecedented. Something unique. She'd only been alive for a few short months, and already she had better evolved to her watery home than her father, product of a species line that traced back hundreds of thousands of years, could have ever hoped to be. For instance, not only could she hold her breath better than he could, her lungs were changing... adapting... modifying themselves slowly, to the point where they were able to process water for oxygen, much like gills. And her physical changes were just the tip of the iceberg. Her brain was over three times the usual size for a whale of her size, and she was using every last neuron of it. She hardly even noticed the reduction of her smell and taste and touch and hearing, compared to the senses of her mind, it was like losing a single pinky finger would be for a human. Annoying, but hardly debilitating.

The first shark to come near still had the blood of Tyson on his teeth as he shot towards the Leviathan with all the speed of a hurled bolt. He was utterly unprepared to meet a solid wall of telekinetic force. A solid wall of telekinetic force moving at the speed of a jet aircraft. The shark was not so much crushed as pulverized, his entire body turned to gooey pulp in an instant, and that pulp hurled for hundreds of meters back the way he'd come. Other sharks began circling in, only to meet identical grisly fates as the Leviathan lashed out with the concentrated power of her mind, hurling spears of solid water with enough force to penetrate ten feet of solid armor plate. The effect on the toughened hide of the sharks was gratifying and gatiuitous, they practically exploded under the caress of her mental attacks.

Two sharks peeled away from the rapidly diminishing pack and made for the near inert hulk of Tyson, too weak and drained from blood loss and the exertion of fighting to do more than hang limply in place as he waited for either his blood or his air to run out and bring the final release of death. Whether or not whales were mentally evolved enough to feel the emotion called love was something that had been debated fiercely by humans for centuries. Regardless of the answer to that question, what was certain was that the Leviathan was more than mentally evolved enough to feel that emotion in all its grandeur. And she did not respond well to the resumed attack upon the only being she loved in the entire universe, her father. Something she had never seen before, could not describe except in its basically globular shape, dropped through a void in her head that was far vaster than any ocean. This orb was veined with gold, against a backdrop of mixed grey, the color of her and her father's bumpy knobby hides. She tried to reach out and touch this orb, feel it with her mind... and for a moment she thought she was successful. Then the orb shattered, and brought light to the darkness.

The Leviathan found herself in an inexplicable world of light, surrounded by things that very vaguely resembled the mats of kelp she'd seen near the surface, but with much thicer stems that branched out in wide patterns all around her. Of course, as a whale she could not be expected to know what a tree was. Much less an entire forest. Her perspective of this forest shifted, splintered, as if she was being divided up amongst all the various trees in it. For all that her conscious view was being divided, the strength of purpose flowing into her only multiplied. Again and again and again, it multiplied, until it was actually acutely painful, every cell of her being feeling like it was boiling in its own fluids. Not having the slightest idea of what she was doing, the Leviathan lashed out once more in a motion that could be described as a telekinetic uppercut.

The shark she had aimed it at was of course obliterated by the telekinetically manipulated pillar of water, but she'd been doing that to all of the sharks she'd hit so far, so that was nothing special. What was special was the fact that the pulped remains of said shark were propelled upwards at close to the speed of sound. All the way to the surface, more than a mile above. And then further still, as a geyser of water containing the few scattered remains of shark pulp exploded into the air like a shell impact, a column of water more than fifty feet around reaching almost five hundred feet up into the air and HANGING there for several seconds before the telekinetic impetus faded away and the water subsided with the sound of a waterfall collapsing.

Uncaring or unknowing as to the fate of its packmate, the remaining shark continued to dive at Tyson, and even managed to rip a vicious bite out of the sperm whale's neck, just behind his jaw bone. Tearing away the gobbet of flesh and muscle, the shark arced away to swallow its stolen meat in peace. Barely had it cleared the immediate area around Tyson than it was stopped dead in the water. The shark thrashed its tail in belligerent confusion, but could make no headway. This was a problem for a shark, since they could only get enough water into their gills in order to breathe by maintaining constant forward motion. However, the prospect of slow suffocation was not the biggest problem for this particular shark. The biggest problem was that not only had the Leviathan pinned him in place telekinetically, but she'd also grabbed hold of each and every single water molecule in a ten foot radius all the way around said shark.

She then forced said molecules to rub against each other. Very fast. Which then produced friction. Which then resulted in heat. A lot of heat. So much heat that the shark was not technically boiled alive. It was burned to death in a cloud of flash heated steam before it could boil. The steam bubble exploded surfaceward, leaving behind only a few greasy smears of ash and a charred skeleton that quickly sank into the depths. Sharks dispatched, the Leviathan turned her worried attention to the still form of her father. Immediately she could tell that her intervention had come too late, her hunger and eagerness for exploring this new world she found herself in had caused her to stray too far from her father. She'd been excited, just like any little kid would be, and in her excitement she'd forgotten that Tyson was much more limited than she was. Vulnerable even, as the sharks had quickly proved with their advanced tactics.

Like her father, the Leviathan experienced the rush of a new emotion, sadness, even as she came down from her hypertense mental exertions of a few seconds previous, her consciousness rushing back into one whole while the excess power flooded away like blood from her father's many bite wounds. She hovered by his side for a long time, even after his blood had stopped pouring from his injuries, and after his body had begun growing cold. She watched the body of her progenitor drift into the depths and two feelings came to mind. One was regret. The other was anger. Anger at the sharks. Anger at herself. After anger and regret passed, came another new emotion. Resolve. Determination. The desire to protect, not only herself, but anything else she deemed worthy of it. From anything. From everything. From a world that was, at least to her infant eyes, hostile and violent and unfair. She would not be trifled with again. She would make sure of that. And then, she was gone, and the voids of the ocean were empty but for the dead once more.

xxxxx

**Orb, 5 days after SpearFall**

"Sir. Sir! SIR!" The medical orderly called, his voice growing ever louder and more demanding as Shinn walked right past him, practically bumping shoulders with the hassled looking man and shoving him to the side with the force of contact. "Sir, you cannot go in there! This is the Intensive Care Unit, only authorized staff and family members of patients are allowed in! Sir! Hey are you listening to me?! You cannot go in there!" The man quickstepped up behind Shinn and put one hand firmly on his shoulder. This was the wrong move. Before he quite knew what was happening, the orderly found himself grabbed, his arm twisted, and his body shoved ruthelessly against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster slightly, with his face to the wall and his assailant, a dark haired, red eyed young man who was wearing the uniform of a Solar Knight Ensign, standing just behind with a flat, menacing look on his face.

"Say that to me again, try and get in my way again..." Shinn warned in a low voice. "And I'll see if I can't make YOU a patient in the ICU, do you understand me? Someone I love very much is in there and I will go to her side, because she needs me and no one and nothing will ever keep us apart ever again. Anyone that tries to get between me and Luna is my enemy. I kill my enemies. Do you want to be my enemy?"

"That's a..." The orderly winced as Shinn's grip viced on his wrist. "No, no of course I'm not your enemy! But sir, there are rules about things like this and..."

"I don't give a fuck about rules." Shinn retorted, with the ghost of a smile on his lips. "Just ask my chain of command." Shinn's smile died away, replaced by something harder and grimmer. "Besides, she doesn't have any family left that can be here for her right now. She doesn't have anyone other than me. I don't have anyone other than her. We're good for each other that way. Are you going to keep quoting these rules at me, or are you going to step aside and let me comfort the woman I love more than life itself?"

"Its irregular... but when the family is unavailable a designated guardian can be granted access..." The orderly hedged, debating whether he should call security or bend the rules. On one hand, the raw pain in the Solar Knight's voice and written across his face told him that this was no joke, that this guy was at the end of his string and only a few bad comments away from making good on his earlier threat. On the other hand, there were plenty more sick and hurt people in the ICU besides his lover, and this guy was an emotional breakdown just waiting to happen, which would almost certainly disturb the other patients and might even trigger a chain reaction, which would be far from pretty.

"Designated guardian?" Shinn smiled again, though it still made the orderly shiver. "That is definitely me. And her for me, but that's not relevant right now." He slowly released the orderly, who rubbed at his sore arm as Shinn let him back away from the wall. "Thanks for understanding. You Orbites sure know how to do a guy a favor. This country is pretty cool."

"Just... try to keep it quiet and private, ok?" The orderly finished patting down his arm and straightened his scrubs. "There are a lot of very badly injured people in there, some of them on the edge between life and death. If you go and make a scene, you could kill people just by disturbing their delicate mental and physical balance, do you understand? If you even raise your voice to the point where I can hear it outside the cubicle you're in, I'll have security down here faster than you can blink, and they will not be gentle about hauling your ass away. Lives are at stake. Maybe even your girlfriend's." The orderly admonished in what he hoped was a threatening tone of his own. "With the Ambassador recuperating nearby, you do not want to have a tense conversation with the Stormhounds right now, I assure you. They will fuck your whole world up."

"They're a little late for that." Shinn said morosely. "Noah's done a pretty thorough job already."

"The world is changing, not ending." The orderly said with a shrug. "At least, that's what the Queen and Miss Lacus say."

"Changing..." Shinn trailed off with a stare into the far distance. "Yeah, it has at that." He shook his head and began heading towards the ICU room door again. "Thanks again. I owe you."

"If you're a survivor of The Battle, and you just gotta be... then its me that owes you." The orderly answered with a smile of his own. That smile faded after a second or two. "I should warn you though... what you're likely to see... it probably won't be pretty. People don't stay in the ICU for minor injuries. Just... be prepared, okay?"

"No pain could be worse than being apart from her for even an instant longer than necessary." Shinn mumbled half to himself, as he pushed through the doors. Once inside he found himself in a largish room that was filled with spare cots and other medical equipment, staged for emergency use, with a few portable desks and computer terminals scattered here and there for the doctors and staff to use in order to keep abreast of the msot recent data on their patients. Around the edges of the room were smaller "cubicles", about five meters square, just big enough to contain a single large hospital bed and accompanying medical equipment like life support and testing gear. Each cubicle could be sealed off from the main room by a sliding clear plastic door, and privacy was granted by creamy curtains hanging around each bed, with light from a single window illuminating the rooms in the absence of any of a multitude of ceiling and wall mounted lights.

The room was packed with doctors and orderlies going about their business with weary but determined looks on their faces, they were all so busy they hardly even spared Shinn a glance. After all, anyone who entered the ICU was supposed to be there, and would probably know where to go. The cubicles were all filled, some even looked to be double bunked using extra wheeled beds beside the floor mounted ones. One cubicle had its door tightly shut and the curtains drawn, while in front of the door stood two of the meanest looking dudes Shinn had ever laid eyes on, tall, menacing looking men dressed in white and black and dark blue urban camouflage uniforms and body armor, armed with wicked looking assault rifles and a multitude of other weapons, and sporting intimidating full head helmets with the faces of snarling wolves or dogs, with glowing blue eyes. Shinn deduced that these must be the Stormhounds, and that room the one in which Athrun Zala was recuperating. They did look like the sort of people one did not mess with lightly.

But then again of course, Shinn himself was that sort of man as well. Especially right now. He caught their gazes challengingly and did not look away until they did so first, before turning his attention to a posted roster of patients and room numbers, scanning down until her name and location leapt out at him. Luna's room was across the main chamber from the Stormhounds, and Shinn wasted no time in entering and shutting the door behind him, then drawing the curtains for privacy. At first he found himself not daring to look at the person lying limp on the bed, the barest glimpse he'd caught when coming into the room had made his heart seize up in his chest with pain, and for a few seconds he found he could not force himself to take in the full extent of her condition. At last he was able to force his eyes to look at her, and he swallowed heavily as his guts twisted with a mixture of anger, self loathing and sadness.

Luna looked so small lying there on the bed, the back side of the bed slightly elevated so as to prop her up into a semi-reclining position. Her skin was even paler than usual, and her eyes were a bit sunken, her limbs a bit thin, since she'd been living off of IV fluids for the past five days, which while certainly enough to keep you alive, didn't exactly do much for maintaining full body weight and muscle mass. Tubes and wires trailed away from Luna at all angles, needles plunging into the crooks of both elbows and again on the backs of her hands, a breathing tube inserted into both nostrils with an oxygen mask across her mouth to ensure she could breathe easily. A huge mess of thick tubes ran out from under the sheets on her left side, connected to a variety of beeping and pumping machines whos function Shinn could not discern.

For a brief disorienting moment Shinn was incredibly angered, that Luna was being treated in such relatively primitive conditions, before he forced himself to remember that he only thought that way because he himself had been fixed up in Noah's own medical suite aboard the Great Endeavor on those occasions when he'd been badly injured, and that Orb, for all its vaunted technology, was still a far cry from that level of medical science. Of course Luna was going to get the absolute best medical care available, he and Rey were going to make damned sure of that, but even the best the USN had to offer was but a shade of the total rejuvenation Noah could offer. If not for the fact that he knew Luna would hate him forever if he did it, Shinn was almost tempted to try and bargain with Noah to get Luna that care. But she would hate him, and he couldn't stand that thought, even more than he couldn't stand the thought of not getting her the best care available.

Shinn all but collapsed into a chair by her bedside and bowed his head in shame that he'd allowed Luna to get hurt so badly, despite his promise to protect her. She was lucky to be alive, even as bad as the damage was. And the damage was very, very bad. Were it not for the cauterizing heat of the FRALA beam, Luna would have bled out in seconds. Even with the cauterizing, the shock had sent her into near cardiac arrest, and there had been several touch and go moments on the flight deck of the _Victorious_, and several more in the critical injury ward of the ship hospital. Another inch of sideways motion and the FRALA beam would have severed her spine, which would have been fatal. As thing were she had a 60mm hole in her lower left side, just above the hip bone, from side almost to her belly button. Everything in the path of the beam, skin, muscle, bone, organ... everything had been charred into ash, a 50mm slice right through her, plus an additional 10mm removed by the surgeons as too damaged to survive long term.

The flash heated blood and body fluids had ripped through her chest cavity, causing a variety of internal second and third degree burns, the worst of which were on her left lung, which the doctors had ended up being forced to remove in the third of the many surgeries she'd undergone in the days since the battle had ended. In addition to the lung, she'd also lost her left kidney, charred to ash, as well as a large portion of her liver and goodly chunks of her large intestine as well as the lower left side of her stomach. She'd also lost her left oviary, and suffered damage to her womb that would effectively prevent her from bearing children, which was a very heavy blow, at least as far as they all were. Her heart had been briefly scalded by steam, which had put her into cardiac arrest several times, but thankfully the battered muscle had restarted each time.

Through the use of advanced prosthetics, many of which had in fact been contributed by Doctor Roanoke of F.E.A.R, the doctors were confident that they would be able to repair and replace her damaged or lost organs, as well as the muscles and blood vessels that had been burned away. No one was saying whether Luna would ever be able to return to the life she'd had before the injury, though in Doctor Roanoke's case he actually seemed relatively confident that she had a chance of ending up BETTER than she used to be due to the prosthetics. Shinn just wanted her to wake up, so she could know that despite his failure to protect her on the battlefield, that he was still there for her, protecting her now, at least in whatever way he could. Keeping his promise to her was everything to him now, especially with his life in the tatters it was. He didn't just need her to be okay... he NEEDED her to be okay, because without her, he was lost, and he knew it. There was really no one else in his life that could possibly save him from the ruins of his world, except her.

Shinn became aware, as he was bowing his head, that there was a weight shifting in the front breast pocket of his uniform tunic. He frowned, not able to recall what he might have stored in there, and he was even more puzzled when he withdrew an outmoded pink cell phone from the pocket. Not only was the phone out of date, it was irredeemably girlish, in its color and the little dangly stars and stuff that were tied to it with a colored string. Shinn stared at the phone in incomprehension for almost a minute, his brain hanging up for some reason, before it finally came to him. Of course, how could he forget that? Well, it wasn't like he remembered, per se, but the conclusion was an obvious one to draw. It was Luna's phone of course, or at least was once hers, and she'd given it to him sometime as a memento. It was the only thing that made sense, who else would he have gotten pink phone from?

Shinn reached out and took hold of Luna's still hand, relieved to note it was warm if a bit gaunt, and he gloried in the sensation of her skin against his. "Luna... I'm here. You're safe. I won't let anyone hurt you again. I love you, Luna. I love you." Shinn choked up, tears flowing unashamedly down his face. "Its going to be all right. You're going to be all right. They're going to fix you up, just wait and see, Luna." Shinn found himself standing, though he wasn't aware of the motion, and he bent down carefully over her bed, making sure not to disrupt the placement of any monitor or life support wires. He placed his forehead against hers, resting it there lightly, trying to will his thoughts down into her mind, to let her know she was safe and secure and that she was going to be okay. Shinn lost track of how long he stood there for, mumbling reassurances to both himself and to her, before his pager rustled in his back pocket, and he knew he had to go, if only briefly, to report to Rey and Durandel. He didn't want to go, but he feared if he snubbed them too much, they would withdraw their support of Luna, and that he could not risk.

"I'll be back soon, Luna. I love you." Shinn said, as he forced himself away from her side with utmost reluctance. He was about to go, but he found he couldn't leave. What if she woke up when he was gone? She would feel alone, abandoned! The pain of that thought twisted like glass in his heart. He felt the weight of her cell phone shift in his pocket, and an idea came to him at once. He carefully set the phone she'd given him as a memento on bed at her side, just by her hand, where she would be sure to find it soon after waking. That way she would know he had been there, that he would be back soon. Oddly, as he set the phone down by her side, Shinn felt a twinge of sadness and regret, and a flash of a burning rage he could not really understand. After a moment, he failed once more to grasp the root of the feelings, and they faded like they'd never been. Shinn stared at the phone for a long few seconds more, but then turned away, shaking his head. Of course he was feeling worked up, Luna was hurt, hurt unto near death! It was a wonder he could even walk straight in this situation!

xxxx

**Shoreline of Cape York, The Gulf of Carpentaria, 4 days after SpearFall**

"I am... alive...?" The man lying on the warm, sandy ground asked, looking up into a sky stained green and grey with menacing looking stormclouds. The air was warm and almost charged feeling, like there was an overabundance of static electricity in the air. He didn't really expect an answer to his question, and he recieved none. His mind beginning to clear, he tried to sit up. A multitude of small suns igniting across his chest and torso convinced him that it might be a better idea to lay down for a while yet. He might have even called out in pain... everything went fuzzy for a while after the aborted motion. When clarity returned anyway, he was no longer alone. Someone was sitting nearby, though he could not easily turn his head or focus his eyes to make them out. He repeated his question, noting how dry and cracked his voice was.

"If not, you are the most talkative dead man I have ever encountered." The man sitting nearby replied with an almost cheerful note in his voice. "Of course it could be that we are in fact both dead, but if this is the warriors heaven I tried so devoutly to be worthy of, then I am sorely disappointed. There certainly seems to be a troubling lack of virgins around here, especially the pretty female ones."

"What... happened..." The man lying on the ground choked out through a throat that felt like it was filled with sandpaper.

"Oh, we both got our asses kicked, one way or another. We put up a pretty good fight, no one can gainsay that, but in the end it didn't really seem to matter. Defeated is defeated after all. Truth be told I don't remember too much after the entire sky decided to drop in and personally say hello to every single bone in my body. I am still not sure what happened exactly... just that the two of us lucky, adventursome souls were altogether too close to it when it did happen. Maybe this is heaven after all... I cannot think of any good, earthly reason for us to have lived, my friend."

"Heaven shouldn't hurt..." The man on the ground rasped. "This... really... hurts..."

"There is that to consider." The sitting man replied almost jovially. "How do you feel, by the by?"

"Like I got shot... six times... in the chest..."

"More like eight or nine times actually. Your condition must be improving." The sitting man commented with a smile that the lying man could feel even though he couldn't see it. For that matter, it was like he could feel the very real undercurrent of concern in the other man, despite it not being evident in his tone. "Truth be told, I did not really expect you to live, my friend. You have surprised me. And now I am forced to consider the fact that I too must find within me a spark to keep on living with, when it would really be so much easier and more convenient to just roll over and die. Of course I did have my chance to do that a few days ago, but it didn't seem to take hold. And from what little I understand about my condition now, just rolling over and dying might not be very easy. Truly, the world is a perverse place when it is easier to live than die."

"Speak... for yourself.... feel like... I'm gonna... die... any moment..."

"I should hope not. Not only would that be terribly anticlimactic, it would make me sad, for you and I are very good friends, and we are in something of a tough spot, and I could really use your help, once you've recovered. Which is probably going to be sooner than I had expected... truly, your recuperation ability has me quite impressed."

"And a... little worried..." The lying man said with blithe certainty, the feeling behind his sitting companions words plain as day for all that it wasn't audible.

"Yes, actually, you are right. And that worries me more, because you really should not be able to tell that." The sitting man leaned forward and bent over his lying companion, who blinked up at him in shock.

"You... you have... silver eyes..."

"And you my friend, have golden eyes. Like I said... it is a perverse world. A very perverse world." The sitting man half quirked a smile. "For all that, I fear it is now OUR world, my friend."

xxxx

Author Note 2: Well, hopefully that should answer a bit more. Next up, New Eden 8, where we check in with the rest of the Clyne Faction, as well as the Extendeds, maybe Noah and probably see what the USN has planned for their next strike. This is definitely going to be a nine chapter arc, I'm thinking at this stage.


	73. New Eden part 8

Author Note: With this chapter, ED officially becomes my longest story to date, and thus also the longest story in Gundam Seed Fanfiction. At least on this site, but perhaps also in the world. And while as a male fanfiction writer, I recognize that length isn't everything... it also isn't nothing. If you're reading this particular note, you probably agree with me that a story of epic length, when passably well written, is extremely enjoyable, despite the intimidating word count. Thanks for sticking with me, but enough of my preening. Looks like Kunai and Lilia got off to a good start, judging by reviews. That pleases me, because they are both going to be very important characters, Lilia especially, come RW. I noticed several people kinda confused about the loyalties of Haman and Heine now that we know they survived, because of Haman's final comment. When he said "this perverse world is our world" he meant the whole situation of being a Newtype was now their life, not that he felt that just because they were Edenites that they should cast off their loyalty to the USN.

A while back LordRevan wondered why Noah didn't just upgrade his entire crew of Harbingers to Edenites in the downtime between The Battle of the Armada and the Battle of Cape York. After all, that would transform his battalion of mediocre dolts into a battallion of nigh superhuman, fanatical Edenites, right? Well, you'll get his view on why not in this chapter. And now, on with the show.

xxxxx

**Orb, seven days after SpearFall**

"You two still look like a pair of boiled lobsters!" Dearka commented with an amused snort that fractured into a mild grunt as Miriallia dug her elbow not so softly into his side. "Hey! What, they do!" He protested, shying away before her sharp and uncannily accurate elbow could come back for another dig. The people he was talking about were if course Yzak and Katie, who were due to be released from in patient observation at the hospital today. Truth be told they probably could have been released earlier, as they'd already undergone the emergency purge treatments that flushed most of the dangerous short lived radioisotopes from their body, that had accumulated there after their point blank exposure to the Brotherhood's thermal exciter, but they had acquiesed to the hospital staff's demands for a period of observation. Which was rather unlike Yzak, in Dearka's experience, who knew his silver haired friend despised the places almost as much as Dearka himself did, and had for a much longer time.

Then again, there was nothing like a close brush with death to make a guy step back from his usual stupid foibles, especially when they had to do with avoiding the one place that was the most help. Though not parbroiled to anywhere close to the degree that Athrun had been, Yzak and Katie had both recieved a more than healthy dose of radiation themselves, plus the injuries associated with basically sitting inside an oven for a few minutes while it was on full blast. Thankfully, through modern radiation purge techniques, Yzak and Katie would be suffering very little in the way of short term problems from their exposure, beyond their almost comically red skin, but radiation damage was one of those unfortunate things that never really went away. It would continue to build up inside you with each new exposure throughout your life, until it ultimately reached a threshold even the best medicine couldn't fix. Yzak and Katie were now a lot closer to that ultimate threshold, they would have to be very careful in the future, even with things like sunburn.

"At least I look this way for a good reason." Yzak said with a hint of a smirk on his nearly maroon dark face, his skin reddened and burnt by the close brush with superheated radioactive death. "I've seen you turn almost this dark just by sunbathing for a few days. Remember that time in Africa, when we were still chasing the Strike, and you oh so confidently told me that you didn't need any sunscreen because your natural coloration was protection enough from the sun? You may look Mediterranean, but we both found out, much to my secret amusement, what the difference is between a home grown Mediterranean and a space grown one that night."

"You're lucky you didn't get really hurt." Miriallia admonished Dearka lightly, though there was a smile in her eyes as well. "The sun in northern Africa can be really dangerous if you don't take it seriously."

"Well, yes, I do realize that now, thank you." Dearka retorted with a shrug of mild embarassment. "Yzak being such a great pal and dousing me with a bucket of cold water unexpectedly to "cool me off" certainly illustrated the depths of pain that sunburn can bestow upon a guy. Almost makes me wanna find a water cooler now that I think about it..." He glared specuatively at Yzak's half cooked flesh.

"I'd never heard you shriek like that before. I almost felt guilty for a moment or two." Yzak was definitely smirking now. "Almost."

"Don't push me, man, I will so drop the hammer on you from high orbit and royally screw up your whole reality." Dearka came back. "I have that power."

"We have that power." Miriallia corrected.

"Uh huh." Katie said with a shrug. "Maybe if the only thing you could hit wasn't the size of a town, I would be concerned, but..."

"Hey, that was a once in a lifetime shot!" Dearka declared with more than a hint of pride. "Don't try and take that away from us."

"Far be it for me to try and strip you of your glory." Katie shrugged again. "Just remember, you'd never have been able to take that shot if it weren't for those three pilots that blew themselves up to take down the shields. They're the real heroes of that battle."

"That they are." A new voice said from the doorway to the recuperation room where Yzak and Katie had been staying for the past few days, after being moved out of the critical care ward in the wake of the purgative treatments. Truth be told neither was exactly feeling at the top of their game even after almost a week of hospital treatments and bed rest, though that might have been because the radiation purging treatments were very hard on the body, like taking an overdose of laxatives, over and over and over again. The four friends looked up in some surprise to see Lacus standing in the doorway, just outside the room. "Just goes to show, heroism isn't exculsive to Gundams."

"Should you be up and about?" Miriallia asked with mild concern. "You were on the brink of death just a week ago after all."

Lacus gave her friend a slight smile. "I am... much recovered, thank you." She added, her eyes meeting Miri's and then skittering away, as if not fully under Lacus's control, before her gaze turned to Dearka, whom she studied intently for longer than was strictly necessary.

"Uh, is there something on my face?" Dearka asked, somewhat awkwardly, after enduring her appraisal for several very long seconds. He reflected to himself that there was something almost... predatory... about Lacus's eyes at the moment. It made him very uncomfortable, feeling like a piece of meat being judged by a hungry carnivore, just trying to figure out which way she should eat him.

Lacus jerked her eyes away from her contemplation of Dearka and a faint blush crept visibly up onto her pale cheeks. She crossed her arms over the slight mound of her belly, which was growing visibly with each passing day as Akira continued his hyper-speed trip through the stages of pregnancy. At his current rate of development, she would be coming to term sometime in the next month or two,which was just crazy as far as the doctors were concerned, barely a five month pregnancy. Normally that would mean a very dead baby, but Akira was a special case. She just hoped that all her babies weren't going to be special cases, because Ultimate Coordinator or not, her body couldn't take this sort of biological strain again! It was true, she had a lot more energy now, after her return from the edge of death... too much energy at times in her opinion... but the aches and pains of her internally battered body haunted her constantly. Human's just weren't designed to come to term so quickly!

Unfortunately, while she was able to pull her eyes away from Dearka, they next settled upon Yzak, quite of their own will or so it seemed to Lacus. She felt her blush deepen as she watched herself check him out from head to toes, as the thin hospital shift did little to conceal his body. What she was doing was oh so wrong, inappropriate definitely, but she couldn't stop herself! Her biological balance had been thrown entirely out of whack by her brush with death by poison, and then there was the hormone imbalance of her accelerated pregnancy on top of that! Crazy thoughts would sometimes just pop into her head, and she would find her eyes moving of their own accord, her body reacting to others in ways she was not comfortable with it reacting. Not to anyone other than Kira anyway.

"Are you..." Katie cocked her head curiously. "Checking Yzak out, Lacus?" For his part, Yzak turned just a slight bit more red, impossible as that seemed, and scooted over on the bed a bit to be closer to Katie, as discomfited by Lacus' appraising stare as Dearka had been, if not more so.

For her part, Lacus's faint blush turned to a full own blazing red cheeks of mortification, as she turned her whole head away from them and shook herself a few times. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to, but I can't help myself sometimes."

"I know that feeling." Katie said with a wicked smile as she put her arm around Yzak's waist, careful to settle it gently against him, as both of their skin was still very raw and tender. "He's very pretty after all. Even when he's a red lobster." She watched Lacus twist for a few more moments, and then relented in her teasing. "But it's more than just his physical charms, isn't it? You were checking Dearka out too, weren't you?"

"Its not..." Lacus trailed off with a sigh of frustration, fidgeting in the doorway. "I'm really sorry, I don't mean to be rude. You're both... very attractive men, but I'm not... attracted to you. But at the same time, I am. Right now I'm attracted to pretty much anything male and human. I can't help myself. It only gets worse the closer I get... I don't dare enter the room or I may try to... to touch you. And I don't think I could stand that embarassment."

"This is something like what happened to Kira, after Frost tried to poison him?" Miriallia found herself sidling not so subtly between Lacus and Dearla. Not that she was in any way concerned over the fidelity at stake here, but she couldn't help a bit of a protective reaction of her own. Her deeper feminine instincts had not been amused with the way Lacus had been looking at Dearka. "He got all weird for a while after that. And he didn't have to deal with being pregnant at the time either."

"Its exactly that." Lacus sighed and rubbed a hand across her face. "This is... the second puberty of an Ultimate Coordinator. When it happened to Kira... well, it made him into a hormone driven fiend for a while. And its doing the same to me. I think I may need to lock myself in my rooms if it gets much worse. Its becoming... entirely inappropriate. I had to fight not to stare at Mr. Durandel, of all people! And he's almost old enough to be my father!" Lacus shuddered.

"Can't Kira help?" Dearka asked. He paused, as if considering how to continue, before shrugging and just forging ahead brazenly. "You know, he's supposed to be a bottomless well of energy... couldn't he just, ya know, fuck you normal? OW!" Dearka rubbed his head from where Miri had swatted him across the skull, none too lightly.

"Dearka!" Miriallia said in a mixture of furious embarassment and constrenation. "Could you at least pretend to be sensitive! This is no joking matter!"

"What! It worked for Kira, didn't it?" Dearka protested, to muted chuckles from both Yzak and Katie.

"I apologize for him. He has no tact." Miriallia was blushing just as much as Lacus had been.

"No, it is all right. Truth be told, we have tried that particular remedy a few times. It works for an hour or two anyway." Lacus half mumbled. She frowned mightily and tried to compose herself, but it was no use. Even just thinking and talking about it made her want him, the chemistry of her body changing according to its own whims to make her more than just a little hot and bothered. From a scientific standpoint, Lacus could understand what her body was doing, many animals went through a period of "heat" when they were ready to breed and at their most fertile, but this was almost something else entirely, almost a compulsion! And the worst part was, she knew it wasn't to go away any time soon. The edge would come off in a few weeks, at least if she was anything like Kira, but she was going to be... extremely sensitive to stimuli in the future, for the rest of her life. God willing, she'd be able to learn to control herself at least as well as Kira did. If not, she dreaded to think of the embarassment she would suffer.

"Being pregnant can't help much." Katie said, speaking to Lacus, but with her eyes and attention firmly upon Yzak.

"I think it might be the only thing keeping me sane actually." Lacus answered with a shake of her head. "I'm..." She trailed off and hugged herself tighter. "I need to go find Kira. I will talk with you more later. Please excuse me." Before they could even reply she was off and away, her stride definitely on the brisk side of things. There was a long moment of silence, as the four people still in the room exchanged glances.

"I don't know whether to pity Kira or envy him." Yzak said at long last. "On one hand, constantly being on call as a sex toy can't be fun. On the other, it is Lacus Clyne doing the calling..."

"Am I the only one that feels at ALL sorry for her!" Miriallia demanded. "Not being able to control your own sex drive has to be absolutely horrible! Especially for someone shy and demure like Lacus! I could not imagine what it would be like in her situation!"

"Well, its actually how I kinda live my life most of the time." Katie volunteered with another wicked grin. "Though only one guy actually pushes my buttons. I think it would get kinda irritating if everyone was setting me off."

"I'm with Yzak on this one." Dearka spoke up, wincing as he anticipated another slap across the skull. "I mean, living with a woman driven half mad by raging hormones can't be all that fun. But being stuck in the same bed as a rampantly horny, inexhaustible Lacus Clyne for night after night isn't exactly like being torturted in helfire and brimstone."

"You two are so UTTERLY male it disgusts me!" Miriallia huffed in exasperation, shaking her head and giving Dearka at least a very cold death glare. "Can't you pull your mind out the gutter long enough to feel an iota of sympathy for them!"

"Why, its so warm and homey down here in the gutter?" Dearka dodged away from her skull slap. "Besides, sympathy for Kira at least is not currently on my to do list. He has a lot to answer for, and while putting up with an annoyingly persistent and needy Lacus is not exactly the punishment I would have proscribed for him, it will do in the interim."

"You can't deny though, that in hindsight, the choice he made probably saved all our lives. Even if he was an absolute dick about it." Yzak pointed out. "From how I understand it, if he had come with us like we wanted, Lacus would be dead. And Kira never would have been able to fend off Noah's psychic storm without her help. We wouldn't have lasted more than few minutes more before we broke down entirely under that blasted attack."

"In hindsight yes, he did make a good choice. Or rather, he was lucky that the choice he made was right, because he had no way of knowing if it would work. From what I heard, Kira himself almost died in the process of saving Lacus. If he even did save her." Miriallia answered with a frown. "I have seen Kira do many miraculuous things, but he has limits. I just can't think of any way he could have possibly reversed the course of Lacus's poisoning. Or his own for that matter, since he got infected the moment he touched her." She shook her head. "Regardless of the outcome, we need to really sit down with him as a group and set things straight. What he did to us was unacceptable, considering we were only trying to help."

"Soon as we get a free moment you mean?" Katie arched an eyebrow. "I mean, we still do have bigger problems that Kira's mulishness. We stopped the Great Endeavor, thats for sure, but we didn't beat the brotherhood. We have not defeated Noah yet. At best I'd call that battle a draw."

"When you're an arrogant, self righteous son of a bitch like Noah, a draw is a defeat. Anything except victory is humiliation." Yzak said with an almost self conscious smile. "I used to feel the exact same way, back when I was fresh from the Academy. I was so full of myself, so utterly consumed with my own power and the justness of what I was doing, I couldn't imagine anything except victory. Which was why fighting against Kira and the Archangel always got to me so much. Everything was so inconclusive, hell, most battles went in their favor even. It was a rude awakening to my true place in the universe. I refused to accept it for the longest time. Its got to be even worse for someone like Noah." Yzak smiled broadly. "Good, I hope it hurts him a lot more than it hurt me."

"I guess we'll find out in a few days huh?" Dearka said, referring to the USN and allied forces combined strategy meeting that was being hosted in Orb shortly, to determine the next step for taking down the Brotherhood, once and for all. "I could almost feel sorry for the bastards. Well, no, not really."

"All the same, I wonder what's going through his mind right now?" Miriallia asked rhetorically.

xxxx

**The Great Endeavor, Southwestern Asia, Old North India, 7 days after SpearFall**

The very atmosphere aboard the SATMARS seemed darker and gloomier than the damaged lighting systems could strictly account for. Even with almost all discretionary power being diverted to either the lift systems or the self repair systems, leaving much of the station in constant dusk like condition, there was something more, something that dragged at the spirit, a crushing pall that drained life and vigor from all it touched, leaving them snappish and irritable. Part of it was the somewhat shocking realization that they had been all but defeated and almost destroyed in combat not that long ago. However, the majority of it was due to the sulking and brooding of one person in particular, who had, in the aftermath of the battle when things had started to calm down once more, had withdrawn into himself and secluded himself away in his chambers as he sought to figure out how things had become so warped.

It was to this situation that Meyrin had awoken a few hours ago, emerging from the full body immersion tank of Curaga that noah had set up for her after his emergency microsurgeries to repair her shattered spine and other injuries. She'd been shocked to find herself alone upon waking up, and immediately she became worried for Noah himself. She could barely comprehend what could be so important as to keep him from her side given what had happened. Almost immediately afterwards she had sensed the gloom and doom aura he was unconsciously spreading around the fortress, it was so strong she could practically taste it, like bitter ash on her tongue. She reached out with that part of her that was intimately bonded to him and almost recoiled at the anguish she was flooded with. Not knowing what could possibly have him so worked up, she hurriedly disconnected herself from the diagnostic machines that had been monitoring her progress and slipped into a loose robe like garment.

The decking of the Great Endeavor was warm on her bare feet as she half dashed through the corridors towards the secure lift leading to the Atrium, where she was certain Noah would be. Usually the metal was cool, but with all four remaining FPR's working at maximum capacity and maybe even a little beyond, straining to keep the still assive remains of the Great Endeavor not only in the air but moving forward at a good clip as well, while also fueling the self repair process and the secondary dorsal shields to protect them from the near constant harassment bombardment by orbital fleets of the USN. Every so often the entire structure would shiver and shift a bit as a particular heavy bombardment salvo landed, but the shields had held for almost a week already, and were showing no signs of failing. At least not to such relatively desultory firepower.

Meyrin was much less sanguine about how the half totaled Great Endeavor would hold up against a determined assault by the USN and its member states, something she knew had to be coming. All military and political tactics demanded a follow up strike on the Brotherhood now that they had been turned aside, to keep the momentum going and hopefully finish them off once and for all. And with almost all of the Great Endeavor's resources devoted to merely keeping itself aloft and mobile and protected from harassment attacks, there was very little left over to rejuvenating their obliterated Mobile Forces and many of the fortresses weapon systems. Certainly the AMP cannon was a total write off, it would be most of a year of uninterrupted work before the self repair system had the main gun online again.

Meyrin's upper back twinged in time with her footsteps, more a phantom pain than anything else, and she had to fight off a shudder as she remembered the feeling of deadness throughout her body, her limbs frozen and unwilling to obey her commands, everything below the bottom of her neck cold and numb. Paralysis had definitely jumped up a few places on her list of things she hoped never to experience again. She knew she'd be having nightmares about it for a long time. It was only through the miracle of Noah's advanced medical science that she was able to be whole again, rather than a cripple consigned to life in a bed or a motorized chair, forever dependent upon others for even the simplest of things.

She wasn't the only one that had been pulled back from the brink by Noah's technology. Though he constantly disparaged them, and often acted like they were nothing more than a pain in the ass, Noah wasn't so foolish or hard hearted as to not care for his Harbingers well being, and with as many that had died, there were plenty of medical resources left over to restore those who had merely been on the edge. Several had new limbs to replace ones that had been amputated or burned or crushed, and there were an abundance sporting freshly cloned internal organs of one sort or another, the most predominant being eyes. Unfortunately for them, they lacked her enhanced autoimmune and recuperation systems, and most of them, while whole, were far from fully recovered.

Noah had been adamant when she'd asked him about why he hadn't offered the chance to become an Edenite to his Harbingers yet, back in the time between the time they landed on Earth and the recent battle. His answer had surprised her, which wasn't all that uncommon for him, but it had also made sense, which wasn't as common. While there was no doubt that he possessed the knowledge and facilities to ensure over eighty percent of the Harbingers would survive the ascension process, that was also something of a problem. The Harbingers didn't just respect Noah, they adored him, regarded him as a semi-divine linkage to a deity basically. They were in awe of him and his abilities. And while they all did believe that they would one day be granted such powers themselves, at the same time none of them were really prepared for that ascension either.

Simply put, Noah had told her, the Harbingers that became Edenties would have in essence accomplished their whole reason for being. They would have achieved their nirvana, and despite how wonderful it was, it could not possibly measure up to the legends and expectations they had attached to it. They had, through their religious fervor, elevated the state of being an Edenite, an Angel, into basically becoming part of the divine, and when they discovered that it was nothing like that, a crisis of faith was all but inevitable. And while Noah was confident he would be able to guide them back to the correct path, it would take a lot of time and effort, and he did not want the hassle at that point in time. Why chance a schism in the ranks when he could instead wait until all the conflict was over with and ease them into it.

Meyrin had asked why he didn't think it was a good idea to take it slow with everyone else then. "Because everyone else doesn't have a religious based preconception about what it is to be an Edenite." Noah had answered. "Other people can take the changes as they come and accept them, while the Harbingers, through no real fault of their own, will always be comparing themselves to me. Those who compare unfavorably will be angered at being "cheated" of their blissful reward, and those who compare more favorably will come to the startling and rather inconvenient premature realization that contrary to their former beliefs, I am not the alpha and omega of Angels. Upon realizing that, some may then get the idea that they should be the leader of the Brotherhood, not me. Or they might decide that they want YOU, now that they are equals or more than equals to me. And they are all well steeped in violence. No, I'd prefer not to risk it, not now anyway."

The passageway shivered under the impact of ordnance from high above once more, drawing her back to the here and now as she approached the lift leading to the Atrium. A pair of Zam clan rats scooted out of her way as she strode past, their blocky black and grey metal bodies blending well into the murk, their red eyes glowing with subdued menace as they allowed her past. Though not anywhere near as well engineered and equipped as Phlegethion and Aether, the Zam clan, which numbered almost a hundred individual rats, all with the same basic copied personality, were more than capable guardians against most threats. With monomolecular edged daggers for claws and fangs, plus the ability to fire a limited number of small caliber plasma blasts from their jaws, they were formidable at both close range and medium distance. As a weapon of last resort, the rats had a set of built in, single use rocket jets, and a self destruct device that was basically a very large anti-personnel mine, allowing them to quite literally launch themselves into the heart of the enemy and shred them in a storm of red hot ball bearings and metal shards.

In contrast to the gloom of the rest of the SATMARS, the Atrium was almost brilliantly lit, through in reality it was just normal illumination, brightened by the large scale holographic display over their bed, which was currently showing a majestic view of the terrain in front of them, a storm tossed sky above and legions of huge grey and white capped mountain peaks marching away towards the horizon, the foothills of the legendary Himelayan range, the roof of the world! Almost at once, Meyrin divined Noah's intentions, as if the very thoughts were leaping wholesale into her mind. While taking cover in the high altitude mountain valleys would not deter the orbital attackers, it would make it very difficult for their enemies to attack them via terrestrial means. The only question was, did the Great Endeavor have enough lift to get far enough into the mountains to make a difference? Well, that and would the USN manage to attack them in force before they could slip away?

Noah was sitting in the middle of the bed in a cross legged position, obviously an attempt at meditating to clear or focus his mind, and just as obviously an attempt that was not working well, judging by his furrowed brow. Plegethion and Aether crouched at the edge of the rocky pool that contained the bed, their heads bowed as if recently chastised, and they did not look up as she walked past them. Meyrin stopped as her foot made contact with Noah's "vanity experiment" quasi-solid water, and then turned back to the two despondent dragonforms. While she had never really had a close relationship with either dragon, wasn't even sure such a thing was possible, she could tell that they were worried about Noah's uncharacteristic behavior as well, just as much as she was, and they lacked the ability to comfort him like she could. They had to feel so helpless. She knelt down between them, facing them, and enfolded them both in a hug, or really just let them rest their heads on her shoulders as she patted their heads reassuringly.

Whether or not the dragons were helped by this, Meyrin could not tell, but it seemed to her that they held their heads a little higher after her display of silent affection and commiseration. She turned from them and strode across the surface of the pool to where the bed was, and then crawled up upon it. The whole time, Noah didn't say a thing, didn't even open his eyes or acknowledge her in any way. This close to him however, she could feel his mind working, a sensation like a billion bees buzzing just out of sight. Equally apparent was his frustration, his hands were clenched, his lips pursed, his brow furrowed... whatever he was thinking about, it was occupying almost all of his attention, and yet whatever answer he was seeking was obviously eluding him. Meyrin crawled on hands and knees across the bed and settled in behind Noah, cuddling up against him, enfolding him in her arms and legs, practically clinging to him as she took her own brief solace in his physical presence.

She rested her chin on his shoulder, her hands slowly stroking up and down his sides and back in what she hoped was a calming manner, her cheek pressed to his jaw and ear, keeping her breathing soft and even as she closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on soothing away whatever was troubling him. She wasn't sure how long she did it for, it could have been hours, but at long last she felt the tension start leaving his body as he put aside whatever had been chewing at him and turned his attention to her, allowing her to feel his joy at her presence, his mental presence enveloping her once more, like sunlight beaming down through thick clouds. Meyrin opened her eyes and took her chin off his shoulder, allowing him to squirm around a bit so that they were sitting facing each other, holding each other loosely but firmly. She leaned her head forward and Noah lowered his as well to touch his forehead against hers.

_I missed you. I was worried about you._ Meyrin sent, trying not to sound reproachful.

_My wounds healed much faster than yours._ Noah answered, flicking his eyes at his arm, which was as good as new. _I apologize for not being there when you woke up._

_All this time I spent making sure you wouldn't place me first, I guess its nothing less than I was asking for._ Meyrin replied with a shrug. _We're together now, that is what matters. If I can ask without sending you into a downward spiral again, what was bothering you so?_

Noah sighed heavily, clearly still very perturbed by whatever it was. _ I was trying to figure out where I went wrong. What mistake I made. Where the error crept into my calculations. But for the life of me, I can't find it._

_What are you talking about?_

_We were defeated, my love. We were almost destroyed. You almost died. I don't know where or how, but it is obvious I made a grave error in my planning, or else those things would never have happened._

_So wait, you're all depressed and gloomy and bothered because we lost and got hurt and had to turn away from our charter course?_ Meyrin asked, faintly incredulous. _And you think its all your fault!_

_Of course its my fault! I should have expected their orbital sniper shot. I should have been prepared. That they were able to inflict so much damage to the Great Endeavor as to put even your life in danger... the failure is more than I can bear!_ Meyrin could see real tears in Noah's eyes as he confessed this to her. _I failed you, I failed myself, I failed my dream!_

_You are being a very big idiot right now._ Meyrin commented with a sigh of her own. _Don't be so damn full of yourself! Your fault! Its not your fault, Noah! Maybe you could have planned things better. Maybe you couldn't have. Maybe you did everything right. I certainly didn't forsee any major problems, why should you have? You're not infallible, Noah. No one is._

_I should be though. I have to be!_

_Its impossible to be! You aren't perfect Noah. You try very hard and get very close, but you are not perfect! Perfect is not something humans can be, regardless of their genetics! We did the best we could, and so did our enemies... luck was just on their side. It happens in war. There is nothing we could have done, knowing what we did. That's not a mistake, that's not an error... life is not a calculation! It does not conform to logical rules all the time! You cannot fault yourself for the way the world works!_ Meyrin half shouted in exasperation.

_But this is the first time that... that I have lost. Really lost. No doubt about it. Lost. I feel lost now._

_Honestly, get over yourself! No one can win every battle. Especially the kind of battles we've been fighting. There's simply too much for anyone mortal to plan for. We made it out alive, that's all that matters now. I don't love you any less now than I did before we were defeated, and I will never love you any less no matter how many times we get beaten. We can't wallow in the past Noah._

_But, I should have been able to..._ He tried to protest.

_Shut up._ Meyrin commanded wearily. _Just accept what I say as truth, okay? This is not your sole fault. You are not to blame. In fact, that we survived at all is a great credit to your foresight in making the Great Endeavor so powerful. Do not let yourself get drawn into what might have been, do you understand me? Focus on the here and now, and the future!_

"Its so hard to focus on the here and now though." Noah whispered. "So many distractions. So many things to worry about."

"Some distractions are pleasant." Meyrin whispered back, leaning her weight backwards and pulling Noah after her as she reclined fully down onto the bed. She was acutely aware of how thin the fabric of her pull on robe was, and the fact that she had nothing beneath. At one point in her life such a situation would have been cause for great embarassment, but right now... "I want to be distracted too. Love me, Noah."

"Of course I love you." Noah replied, somewhat confused.

Meyrin rolled her eyes. _Idiot._ "I mean... physically, Noah. Make love to me."

"OH." Noah looked shocked. "Are... are you sure? You just recovered and..."

_I asked, didn't I? Don't push your luck. You're not the only one that needs reassurance you know._ Meyrin smiled tolerantly up at him. _We just had a bad memory. Lets make a good one._ meyrin made sure to briefly close down her flow of thoughts to Noah. _We may not have time for many good ones._ She added to herself only.

xxxx

**Orb, 7 days after SpearFall**

Lain sat up in the bed of the hotel room that he had appropriated as his quarters. He probably could have bunked with the rest of the Solar Knights and spared himself the headache of morning and afternoon traffic getting to and from the muster points every day, but truth be told he wasn't feeling all that particularly close to the good ole unit these days. Not after Eric had been left to twist in the wind, assuming he was still alive. And Luna was still shutting him out, despite Shinn's return, the wound of his initial "loss" didn't seem to be healing all that well. He couldn't quite begrudge Luna, she'd been going through a lot of tough shit... her sister was consorting with the enemy, quite literally, her family was incommunicado, her boyfriend had died and come back to life and almost died again, she herself had nearly been cut in half by a laser, and there was some serious emotional trouble brewing between her and Knight Commander Ze Burrel. Apparently they'd been sleeping together for a while after Shinn's death, but their break up upon his return had been less than cordial.

A part of Lain was terribly insulted, that Luna should think she needed to turn to Rey Ze Burrel, of all people, for comfort in her time of need, much less end up in his bed, but truth be told that part of Lain was only a whisper these days. He'd once been quite infatuated with her, but over time her obvious attraction to Shinn, as well as the burgeoning presence of another beautiful girl in his life, had all but choked out his desire for her. Of course then there had been the competition for Stella's affections with Eric, but that had been altogether more good natured than his similar situation with Shinn over Luna. And then of course Eric had been lost, Lain would never believe "killed" until he had no other choice, and that had led, through several permutations and much good luck, to the situation he now found himself in.

Namely, clad in boxers only in bed in a rented hotel room that he was pretty sure only he knew about, letting the cool night air play across his bare chest as he propped himself against the headboard of the bed and took deep, slow breaths to recover himself after a bout of the absolute best sex he'd ever had in his entire life. As he'd been something of a tail chaser for most of his military career, he knew what he was talking about in that department. Not only was Stella his physical match... quite beyond his match really... but the tide of emotions between the two of them was so intense that it made even the tiniest motion seem about twenty times as sexy or provocative. Though an only slightly younger him would have been horrified at the mere idea, Lain was pretty sure he'd caught a keeper. Or been caught, one way or the other.

This was not the first time they'd had sex, that had been the night after they'd returned from the battle. But a desperate, fumbling quickie in a pile of sweaty flight suits was not exactly the romp either of them had been looking for, having to be wary of any casual passers by, or not so casual in the case of Stella's "brothers" Sting and Auel, neither of whom seemed entirely pleased with her attachment to Lain. Sting was being at least somewhat cool about it, more like an aloof elder brother who just wanted to make sure his sister got treated right. Auel on the other hand seemed consumed with envy and outright anger, as if Lain being with Stella was somehow a personal insult to him. Very much jealous ex-boyfriend, though Stella denied ever being in a relationship with the blue haired kid. Must have been one of those one sided crushes... Lain was familiar with the sort, he'd had one with Luna after all.

The room lights were off, but enough light crept in from the night outside, and the city lights to illuminate the room passingly well, and so Lain was treated to a very good view as Stella, naked as the day she was born and seemingly entirely unaware of his hot eyed gaze, sat cross legged on the floor of the room off her side of the bed, half turned away from him, head bowed as she worked a sharpening stone and oiled cloth over the blade of her favorite combat blade, the one she habitually wore sheathed across her lower back. It was a wicked weapon, a few inches longer than most combat knives, but about the same thickness and width, with an edge that curved like a scimitar for the last half. There were blade breaking notches near the hilt, and a brief serration along the back edge of the curved part of the blade, for causing extra damage during ripping backhand cuts or stabs.

In a lot of ways, the blade and Stella had a lot in common, Lain reflected, his thoughts still languid and unfocused in afterglow mode. Both were long and lean and a lot tougher than they looked, yet still deceptively fragile under the wrong sort of stress, and prone to snapping if mishandled. And of course, both were very, very deadly when properly utilized, and could be a real joy to hold in your hands if you knew what you were doing. That last comparison drew a crooked smile across his face. However messed up Stella's childhood and life had been because of becoming an Extended, she was definitely all girl when it came to the bedroom. Sometimes shy, sometimes unsure, sometimes demanding, sometimes outright controlling, she excited him like no other girl he'd ever met had. Getting her to talk in more than two or three sentences at a time was something of a chore, and he was still learning to correctly gauge her various moods, which could be very subtle and hard to detect, but she was not the blank mask she sometimes projected in public, certainly not to him.

Lain knew Stella wasn't so much unaware of his attention as she was just disregarding it, her mind focused elsewhere. She was very good at focusing her mind elsewhere, good at retreating into her memories or thoughts if she was bored or even as a method of relaxation in otherwise stressful environments. It made her seem very airheaded and ditzy at times, when in reality she was quite a deep thinker, she was just frequently distracted by her own deep thoughts. Her hands worked seemingly of their own accord, oiling the blade, scraping it against the coarse stone a few times to hone the edge, wiping away the oil with the cloth and repeating, up and down the edge, back and forth, until Lain could swear it was sharp enough to cut the air itself. At length Stella seemed satisfied with the edge too, holding the blade critically up in front of her face, squinting one eye as the other passed up and down the length of her treasured possession, searching for any rough spots or imperfections.

She turned to face him, utterly unselfconscious, her hands stroking and teasing along the blade in a manner very reminscent to lain of what she'd been doing to bits and pieces of him not so long ago. Despite the near invisible edge on the knife though, and her seemingly incautious movements, Lain had never seen Stella even graze herself on her knife, whereas he probably would have sliced off his finger in a few minutes of idle play. There was a distant look to her face that told him she still wasn't all there in the room with him right now, and the set of her jaw and slight downturn of her lips told him it wasn't exactly afterglow she was thinking about. Lain winked at her, closing his blue left eye, and then repeated the process with his green right eye, an amusing little facial tic that never failed to bring a childish smile of delight to Stella's face. At least, when she was paying attention that is.

"You're thinking about Doctor Roanoke again, aren't you?" Lain asked when he saw no smile. "And all that other stuff I told you not to worry about anymore too, I'd bet."

"As comforting as your words are..." Stella's eyes were clear and focused on him now. "I am finding it difficult to ignore years upon years of training and memory. I'm an Extended..."

"And I'm one slick son of a gun, but you don't hear me bragging..." Lain cut her off at the pass with some humor, which always seemed to disarm her. This time was no exception, as a slightly unsure but still very genuine smile lifted her lips into a more pleasing look. "Besides, we got permission from your father figure, didn't we? Its not like you're going AWOL to snuggle with a boyfriend or anything. If anything, I'm the one that's probably going to get hauled over the coals for being outside the unit perimeter without a pass. Even if this is my home country."

"Its very pretty." Stella commented. "This country." She added for clarification. "It has nice views, even with the orangey energy dome."

"Glad you like it." Lain said, and he was. If and when he felt comfortable popping a certain question, it certainly did not hurt to know that Stella was rather fond of his home nation. Though there was a lot of other obstacles to bypass before that ever happened, such as the oh so annoying Dr. Roanoke. Lain had not really talked with the man, mano y mano, but he did have the distinct impression that while he was perfectly fine with Stella and Lain's little fling, almost surely for his own unknown reasons, trying to take things to a more permanent level might meet some heavy resistance. Especially because Lain had no desire or intention to leave Stella in Fenris Company, the F.E.A.R. unit of the USN, if and when things did get to that point. She'd given enough, more than enough in his mind, he would not let her spend her whole life in service to those callous bastards!

The night breeze made the curtains shift a bit, and Lain watched Stella's head turn like a turret, probably entirely out of her control, to assess the new noise for possible danger. however, when her gaze returned to him, the smouldering intensity in them left no doubt that her attention was, once more, fully upon him. In some ways the intensity of that gaze, the raw animal need in it, was enough to make Lain sweat a bit, with the feeling that by pursuing this relationship with Stella, especially delving into intimacy, he was almost certainly getting in over his head. That in itself did not unduly bother him... he considered it an Orbite's patriotic duty to get in over their head in service to a righteous cause... but at times he definitely felt like he was blindfolded and trying to catch a tiger by its tail. He just had to hope said tiger would purr nice and playfully when he did, instead of ripping him to shreds and devouring him.

Stella put one knee up on the bed, moving in on Lain like he was a target on a range, her rosy eyes lasering into his mismatched ones and all but pinning him in place against the headboard. "Hey, no knife in the bed please. Some of us are not blade safe." Lain croaked hoarsely, all but trembling as she prowled across the bedsheets towards him. At times like this it was hard to imagine her as her usual awkward, somewhat clumsy, somewhat airheaded, shy self. Apparently once you put Stella into her comfort zone, that being an enclosed, private room with someone she really cared about, her personality practically reversed itself, all her latent extrovert coming to the fore in one lean, mean, mouth-is-very-dry package. Stella glanced down at the combat blade in her fist, as if she'd completely forgotten it was there. Maybe she had, the blade looked so comfortable in her hand it was practically growing out of her palm like an extra finger. Almost reluctantly, like a child discarding a safety blanket, she set it aside on the nightstand.

Either he'd been misinterpreting her signals or Stella was teasing him, but after discarding her knife she continued to prowl up to him, but rather than tug the bedsheets down and straddling him, she instead curled up by his side, her arms going around his torso and settling in with careful focus so that she did not unnessecarily constrict his breathing. Lain might look pretty tough, and in some ways he was, but Stella had to constantly remind herself that he was still just a regular human, and was therefore quite breakable if she got carried away. And he was very good at getting her intensely carried away, a thought that was more than sufficient to bring a hot flush to her cheeks. "Can we stay like this forever?" She asked in a mumble, her breath hot against his skin.

"God knows, I'd like to." Lain grumbled, well over half his brain clicking frantically on the "ignore talk, get started" button. However, he forced himself with a tough effort of will to ignore what his instincts wanted right now. Stella was an intensely vulnerable girl, she needed constant reassurance, and while sex was very reassuring at times, they'd been doing that all night. A little talking wouldn't hurt him. "But we still have a job to do." Lain added after a long pause. "The bad guys are down, but not out, damn them."

"I hate them." Stella said, her words continuing to tickle his side. "Those people. The ones that warp the world and make it all wrong."

"I'm not fond of that type myself, love." Lain gauged her reaction to the endearment, though there wasn't much of one to speak of. Either she hadn't heard and didn't care, or she was expecting it and felt the same way. He chose to believe it was the latter. "Fortunately, if what I hear is true, we'll be getting our chance to try and set things right again here in a few days. There's all sorts of bigwigs arriving these last few days, the SecDef included, and they're due to have a tippy top secret meeting here in a day or so to figure out what to do. Though I personally think it is rather self evident. Blow up the big saucer thing. End of story. Everyone is happy."

"I'm with you." Stella muttered. "Plans just make my head hurt. Point me at the enemy and let me take them down. No need to make things all complex."

"Well, complexity did save our asses last time. Trust the Clyne Faction to have the mother of all aces up their sleeves. Those guys..." Lain shook his head in bemused wonder. "They're something special."

"You're special." Stella spoke louder. "You're very special."

"Special ed maybe." Lain shrugged and smiled. "I'm just lucky. And I like it that way."

"Special to me." Stella added softly, as she began pulling herself on top of him again.

"Yup. Very, very lucky."

xxxx

**Atlantic Federation, old USA, Florida, City of Neo-Miami ruins, 4 days after SpearFall**

The pack leader lifted his long grey furred snout and tasted the air once more, the motion more out of habit than any real need to use his admittedly powerful scent receptors to inform him as to the nature of the world out of line of his sight. Ever since that day when the green rain had fallen from the sky, and the short sleep that had followed, he'd found himself in possession of more new senses than he really knew what to do with, not least of which was the ability to track creatures by their "feel" rather than their scent or shape. Most of the rest of the pack he had accumulated between Home... he would always think of that shed in the yard as Home... and Here also had that ability, but his was different. He was different. He was not the only dog of his species in the pack, but there was something very different about him, in the wake of the green rain that tasted like metal.

For one, he was growing bigger, he'd gained almost fifty pounds and a good few inches at the shoulder since awakening, and his growth showed no signs of stopping soon. This increase in physical size had heralded a massive increase in his strength and stamina, at no apparent cost to his agility, making him the undisputed master of his pack. Mighty as his muscles were though, it was the power that frothed inside his head that truly made him great, able to cow even the most unruly or fierce rival with but a glance of his flaring golden eyes, or break the bones of a challenger and hurl them for several body lengths through the air in a fight. But it wasn't just in raw power that he excelled, no, something had gone either very right with his ascension... or very wrong.

Something had awoken inside him, something new and unique, something never before seen in his species, something so far down the evolutionary path it wasn't even a dim outline in the darkness. He had gained the ability to understand, not only himself, but others, and the world at large. To conceptualize intangibles. To solve problems that should have been far beyond his ability, such as the uses of keys in locks, and the meanings of the squiggly shapes on signposts that the two legged former masters put up everywhere. He was learning more every day, and as he learned, he became aware that he was... special. The human Edenites had a name for creatures like him, non-humans with the same intellectual capacity as humans, the ability to reason logically, to learn, to recognize and use the complex concepts of other species in a non instinctual manner. They called them Chimera's, or Chimerae in the singular.

Not only did Chimerae possess at least as much reasoning and problem solving intelligence as an average human, they often possessed far more, while still retaining all or more of the natural cunning from their animal side. Oftentimes the two sides of their minds did not exactly mix well together, resulting in many Chimera becoming unbalanced, even insane, but not all were so cursed. The pack leader for instance, had grown up around humans, and had always been a smart dog, well trained as part of the police force for part of his life, and then used as a service dog for disabled people in his retirement years. It wasn't quite as far a leap for him to get used to being able to recognize things, and order his newly upgraded mind to keep a balnce between the reason and the instinct. For that matter, as was the case with the pack leader, the mixture of the two states of mental being produced a capability of utilizing psychic powers that were much more potent than most humans could wield.

As such, the human Edenites rapidly learned to fear and often detest the Chimera's, their opinions tainted by encounters with maddened beasts that lashed out at anything and everything around them without ryhme or reason, or worse yet, actively stalked and killed other intelligent life merely for the pleasure of the act. The smarter, or more cunning Chimerae quickly learned to avoid humans if possible, because for all that the two legged beasts were individually weak and vulnerable, in groups they were very dangerous, and they possessed things that could inflict great pain or even kill at a long distance, outside the reach of most psychic powers. The pack leader for instance was very good at pretending to be a standard dog, he knew what humans expected from dogs and was able to show them what they wanted to see, while at the same time he'd figured out how to cloak his mind and the burning mental power inside him so that it was barely a flickering flame. That and he kept his pack far from any signs of human habitation as possible. It wasn't like they were particularly good to eat after all, so why seek them out if not starving?

He'd been leading his pack through the swamps in the wake of the Night that was Day, when the cool night had turned bright and hot as a summer day, and storm winds had whipped for miles across the swamps, carrying the scent of charred meat and burnt stone far and wide, along with a burning sensation of agnoy that lanced into his brain and left him stunned and weak for hours afterward. While the dog side of him wanted nothing to do with such smells or the direction they came from, the chimera side's curiosity had been piqued. What could cause such a thing to occur? What could turn night into day? Where had that mental pain spike come from? However, the rest of the pack was still controlled by their instinctual side, and would have nothing to do with his plan, no matter how roughly he prodded them, even to the point where when he lifted a few up with his mind and set them down across a river, they immediately paddled back across. He didn't like it, but the pack was as much a democracy as it was a monarchy, and he would not abandon them merely for the sake of his own curiosity.

That had all changed a a few days ago, when the pack passed within a few dozen miles of one of the city perimeters while hunting, a subtle tactic that he had been using to swing ever closer to the cities in a gradual manner, so that his pack would not register their location until it was too late, if they did at all. All at once, every member of the pack, all fifty three of them, including the pack leader, stopped dead in their tracks, and lifted their noses to scent the air. There was nothing to smell but the smells of old death and ash on the wind, but something was there, tickling at the backs of their minds, tantalizing them. Something was Calling to them.

This time there was no arguement, no posturing, no hesitation at all in the pack when he began leading them towards the city. They'd all felt it, from the oldest wolf demibreed down the youngest dachshund purebred. There was something there, at the very heart of the place where Night had turned to Day. Something interesting. Something... beguiling. The effect was subtle at first. So subtle the pack leader did not initially notice it, not until most of a day had passed and he found his stomach growling and realized that he had not eaten since they'd heard the call. None of them had. Nor drunk. Nor had the younger members of the pack strayed off to play, nor had the older members been forced to slow their pace to conserve energy. They'd covered almost thirty miles in a few hours, moving at a constant lope, like retrievers headed out to return a shot fowl, but for what? A feeling in the back of their heads? Something was not right.

It was like struggling out of a mud pit with sheer sides, but at length, with a twisting effort that left him panting, the pack leader banished the compulsion of the call, shaking it free like oil from his coat. Almost at once he felt it try to tug at him again, but he kept his feet firmly planted, and stood his ground physically and mentally. After a brief contest, the compulsion faded away entirely, as if whatever was projecting it had noted his resistance and decided he wasn't worth the effort. He wanted to think that he had beaten it through his own strength, but the chimera side of him could not believe that. Whoever or whatever was Calling, it was still far, far away. For it to affect him and his pack at such a distance, and so strongly... for the first time since awakening after the green rain, the pack leader felt truly afraid. To his dismay though, the rest of the pack continued on without him, not even seeming to notice he was gone, by now fully under the sway of the Call, and lacking the mental fortitude needed to break free.

Torn between his fear of what lay ahead, and his loyalty to the pack he had created and led, at length he decided to follow them. Perhaps he was headed to his doom, but he could not let his extended family of pack mates wander off helplessly without at least trying to protect them, from other packs or other dangers along the way if nothing else. He took the time to eat and drink, and then once recharged he sued his greater endurance and power to close the distance, catching up right at the outskirts of the city proper, his claws clicking on the dusty pavement. Or not dusty, but ashy, a quick sniff and lick of the tongue informed him. Human ashes mostly, but some other animals he could not identify mixed in. The ground was covered in it, sometimes as much as a paw deep! What could cause such a build up of burned human? The buildings were also strangely damaged, some looking burnt and melted, others half pulverized by some unimaginable force.

At first he detected no signs of life, physical or mental, but as time wore on and they trotted deeper and deeper into the dead city, he began to both scent and feel life. But something was... off... about both the scents and the feels. He was used to creatures sparking like candle flames on the mental landscape, but everything here was a constant dull gleam, like metal beneath a layer of grit, all creative thought and vivacity stamped out. The minds were... bland. Had been made bland, had been modified by some great power so that they were more like parts of a greater whole than individual beings. The scent on the lacklustre breeze was of death and fear and pain and something else he was not familiar with. It too was bland, but it was a smothering bland, a bland that tried to pin you down like a trap around your leg and keep you hobbled and weak. The word the pack leader was searching for was... despair. The creatures he had sensed were still self aware, at least enough to recognize that they were being manipulated like puppets regardless of their wishes, pawns in some greater plan they could not comprehend nor overthrow. The smell made his hackles rise in a warning display though there was no obvious threat.

At length they began to approach a mound of burnt concrete that was all that remained of several large buildings that had fallen together and mostly crushed another building beneath their weight. There was a sign lying crumpled and torn on a smaller pile of rubble nearby, and through an intense study the pack leader determined that the sign belonged to the smaller builder that had been crushed. He squinted his eyes and worked his jaw as he sorted out the meaningful squiggles from the meaningless ones... for some reason the humans like to combine the two types, apparently just for the sake of confusing others... and read **M I A M I A Q U A R**, before the sign grew too damaged to read. Quite what "Mia-mia-quar" meant to the humans he could not fathom. It sounded like a noise a sick feline would make, at least in his head.

He then had to nearly sprint to catch up to his pack, who had of course not bothered to stop and inspect the sign any more than they had the rest of their surroundings. The pack leader looked around plenty though, and for the first time saw evidence with his eyes that there were other creatures about, trails in the ash-dust, piles of rubble that had been disturbed, and the like. His eyes narrowed again as he considered some of the rubble piles, and deduced that they had been pulled off the mound of rubble lying atop the crushed building. Almost like something had been digging at the rubble, trying to get at something. Even as this thought crossed his mind, a pack of humans moved into view, and his hackles rose again as he saw the crude implements in their hands, which he had seen the humans use as weapons in the past.

They did not respond to his growls or his posture, which he found passing strange, considering he massed at least as much as any one of them, and was nearly as big, and decidedly better equipped with claws and sharp teeth. In fact, they hardly seemed to notice him at all as they wandered past in a staggering walk, their eyes blank and their skin smeared with ash. The hammers and picks and shovels they carred in their front paws were chipped and stained with ash as well, and the pack elader deduced that these humans were responsible for some of the digging he'd seen. But why were they digging? The building did not look like the food storage places he had seen before. Nor was it a human-home. What reason could they have for wanting to get inside? And then it came to him, and he berated himself for not seeing it sooner. It wasn't the humans that wanted to dig here. It was the Caller. It was there, somewhere beneath the rubble.

The pack leader noticed his pack dispersing, wandering off in small groups with glazed looks in their eyes almost identical to the ones he'd seen on the humans. Most of the small packs began disappearing back into the rest of the city, dispatched who knew where by the controlling intelligence that had lured them in and them made them into surrogate limbs. However, there was one pack, consisting of those members with the most meat on their bones, the fattest and plumpest of his lot, that began worming their way down what looked like a drainage pipe that led into the crushed building. It was this group that the pack leader chose to follow. The city was a bad place, but it was also a dead place, and he felt confident the scattered packmates would come to no lasting harm out there. In here though, that was a different story. The pipe was small and he was large, and it took a lot of creative body wriggling to make progress down it, taking what felt like entire days to do so, but finally he reached the end of the tunnel.

Almost immediately his feet plished down into a film of stagnant water, the ripe stench of decaying matter left too long in a moist environment hitting his sensitive noise like a buzz saw in the base of his brain. He coughed and gagged a few times before remembering how to dull his own sensory inputs, taking the stench down to a tolerable level even as he shook his soaked paws disdainfully, though there was nowhere dry to put them. Water was everywhere, faintly illuminated by the flickering radiance of human lights that were somehow still working, or much more often, by a pale green and bluish light that seemed to come from within the water itself. Closer inspection revealed thousands of tiny swimming... things... in the water, which were giving off the light. He had never seen such a thing before, and the newness of the experience was briefly pleasing.

The strangled yelp of pain, quickly cut off and not repeated, from somewhere deeper within the building drew his attention and his ire immediately. Someone had hurt one of his packmates. Someone was going to get hurt themselves. He splashed down the eerily lit halls, several times encountering deeper spots in the water where the floor had eroded away, wetting his chest and body and even once finding a depression with no apparent bottom, completely immersing himself before he remembered to swim. He did not especially like swimming or water, and he very much did not like this place, with its bad smell and dank atmosphere. There was something else too, a pressure on the psychic plane, that made his brain hum and twinge in very unpleasant fashion every so often, like mental static popping in his ears. he also began passing evidence of what he had been suspecting all along. Past meals.

Though his instincts pressed him onward, to defend the pack, his chimera side made him pause and inspect one such pile of remains for clues as to what the nature of the foe might be. What he found was perplexing and confusing. The remains looked to be human, and a good quantity of fish as well, of various type unknown to him. But there was hardly a scrap of meat left on them, the bones practically polished clean. Yet there were no bite marks or even broken bones, no places that had been gnawed upon in order to obtain the delicious marrow inside the bones! What could kill and eat all the flesh but not damage the bones? He experimentally took a femur in his jaws and bite down on it, and was shocked to have the bone shatter in his jaws, finding it hollow inside, all the juicy marrow sucked out, elaving the bone little more than a dry stick. But how had the marrow been sucked out with no breaks in the bone?

And then he saw it. Or rather, them. They were hard to see, until he knew what to look for. And then there were far, far more of them than he wanted to see. They swarmed everywhere around the digestion pile, thousands, even millions of them! Ants. Or ant like creatures anyway, since as far as he was aware, ants hated water, and these seemed to find it no bother as they went about their chores, moving in a complex pattern that could not be accidental as they scoured the bones of the remaining scraps of meat and began boring into the ends of the still juicy bones for their marrow. However, none of the ant-creatures were eating the food, they were only carrying it away. That in itself was not strange, he'd watched ants do similar things many times. But there was just something... sinister... in how the ants were methodicaly dismantling the corpses of all nutrients and taking them elsewhere, disappearing into the water in steady streams, moving with purpose, with intent even.

Only a little further on he found his packmates. Well, he found their corpses, already heaving with enough harvester ants so as to make their flesh all but indiscernable as their meat and hides were quickly stripped away, like paint under sandpaper. He tried to discern the cause of death, but could see no bite marks or obviously broken bones. They were just dead. Dead, and being rapidly cannibalized by the swarming horde of mindless... or mind controlled... insects who were then taking their assorted bits and pieces off into the depths, to feed the hunger of the intelligence growing there. A blazing rage leapt up in the pack leader's heart, but he had no target upon which to direct it!

As if summoned by his thoughts, he saw something larger creeping through the murk at the edge of his vision. He did not hesitate, he lashed out with the power of his mind, first reaching out and grabbing hold of the target with mental jaws, locking it in place, and following that up with all the force of his body, projected as a wave that split the air with a soundless roar, concentrated upon a point as small as the tip of his nose. His target stiffened and then cracked fully in half under the force of the blow, segments of shell and dark globs of interior fluids spraying far and wide as its ruined body collapsed into the shallow water. The pack leader warily stalked over to the corpse of his foe, discovering the remains of a creature of a like he'd never seen before, about the size of his head, maybe a little bigger, with bits and pieces that looked like a spider with the shell of a turtle, and wavy muscular arms with no bones and suction pads on their buttoms sticking out in wild profusion. It smelled horrible, and had far more eyes than he'd ever seen on a single creature before... at least a dozen, and in no particular order of placement. It almost looked like several creatures had been melded or absorbed together into one being. Or else one creature, with an evolutionary path that had gone very, very wrong.

More skittering at the edges of his vision revealed more of the things, all sharing the same basic hideous biology, different only in the number of limbs and placement of eyes. They advanced inexorably but unhurriedly upon him, and the sight was enough to make his legs weak with more unaccustomed fear for a moment. He tasted stagnant water across his tongue as he snarled menacingly and began systematically lashing out with his powers, freezing some in place, overloading their simple nervous systems and causing them to shut down, while others exploded into pieces under telekinetic charges. There just seemed to be no end to the creatures, no matter how many he killed there were always more, now advancing upon him from all sides, their eyes dead and calm as they advanced to the slaughter, heedless of their own lives.

The Caller watched through the eyes of one of its symbiont-springs, which had scuttled up the wall of one of the passageways of the half destroyed aquarium, one of the many devoted to breeding grounds for the harvester lifeforms and as digestion pits, where food-sustenance was taken from those who could no longer provide enough mind-sustenance and would eventually, through several steps of its self created food chain, find its way to the Caller. He watched as the alpha dog whimpered and struck out with its paws, tossing its head and snapping its jaws as it lay on its side in the stagnant water, eyes closed and mind locked in a fevered dream where it battled an endless swarm of the symbiont-spring that sought to overwhelm it from all sides. The Caller burbled in satisfaction, bubbles trailing up from the depths of its home-tank to eventually find their way to the surface far, far above. He had been correct in his assumption... the alpha dog would provide much mind-sustenance before it was time to degrade it into food-sustenance.

For a brief span of time, too brief for most humans to even quantify, though it was quite a consideration for the Caller, he considered the feeling of guilt, as he ever did when consuming mind-sustenance, the strong emotions of other thinking beings as they neared death and eventually passed into it, giving up all that they were to the Caller's psychic hunger. He pitied the poor creatures, but he could not stop himself from harvesting their minds any more than his harvester symbionts could stop harvesting their flesh. Eating their death echoes was how he sustained himself, how he grew. It was unfortunate, but nessecary. Guilt assuaged, as usual, the Caller turned back to the emotions of the sturggling alpha dog, which were of unusual strength and clarity as it fought its endless life or death battle against the phantoms of its own imagination. Yes, quite a feast here. Life was good.


	74. The Casting Out part 1

Author note: as some reviewers noted, the way I had Lacus acting last chapter was a bit strange, since men and women are wired different in their hormonal urges, especially those of pregnant women. in part that is due to my relative inexperience with females and their hormones. I'm a male writer, I can do guys easy, but girls, well, sometimes I mess it up a little. In any case, upon reflection, I do have a logical reason for why she is the way she is for the moment. Like Kira, her Second Puberty occured before its natural time, due to a strong biological shock to her system. As a result her body is not fully adapted/ready for the hormonal changes, causing her to go far out of balance, resulting, much like Kira, in rampantly increased hormonal drives. In a week or so she should calm down and revert to what she should be feeling, the more excessive "mother" instinct, etc, rather than the "I need sex". Though writing a hormone imbalanced, barely in control of herself Lacus is going to be pretty fun, I do have to say.

As it turns out I forgot to put a few things into New Eden 8, So I guess they get rolled over here into Casting Out 1 (and they're both kinda important things too). At this rate, it looks like Casting Out will be the "last" arc in terms of all the action and stuff will take place here, but there will probably be a chapter or two of wrap up and postscript leading on towards RW after Casting Out. Not going to be much action in this particular chapter, but all the same I feel confident there should be a scene or two that will bring a smile to your lips. Certainly one I've been wanting to write for a while now, months and months. And without further ado...

xxxx

**Lunar Surface, 33 kilometers southwest of Copernicus City, 7 days after Spearfall**

Space was cold. At least, generally speaking... there were areas of it, those in proximity to a star, that were very, very hot. But in the balance, the greater majority was cold. Killing cold. Life as humanity knew it could not survive in it cold. This deadly coldness was the only thing that had saved several tens of millions of lives, because it was the only thing currently effectively limiting the spread of the Blue EDEn contamination across the Lunar surface. Were it not for the super-cold temperatures, the Blue EDEN would have spread anywhere from ten to twenty times as fast as it currently was, and as things were, they were barely keeping ahead of it, work teams in old Strike Daggers and other mothballed mobile suits pressed into emergency service as damage control vehicles moving steadily backward, meter by slow meter, wielding hoses of compressed gasses with which they blew the grainy blue nanomachines back, away from uncontaminated rock. There was an art to it, because aiming to much force at the sandy blue stuff would only result in it being ejected all the way across the crater it was digging, to splash against untouched rock on the other side, courtesy of the Moon's low gravity.

Compounding the difficulty was the fact that while the stuff looked like blue sand, it was a lot denser and heavier than a similar volumne of sand, so it took more force to blow it up and away from the ground. But again, too much force would send it sailing like a super soaker stream of blue death for kilometers in the low gravity. And with forces working on all sides of the crater, nicknamed "Blue Hell", the last thing anyone wanted was to start spraying the guys across the way with irrecoverable nano-death. Another problem was the fact that the compressed gasses themselves would get absorbed by the Blue EDEN and turned into more Blue EDEN, so even in pushing back the plague, they were still feeding it. There was little to nothing they could do to prevent it from eating downwards into the moonscape, for the moment they were content to just retard its progress towards the city.

Given how jury rigged and last minute everything was, not to mention the fact that they had no real good method of combating the spread of the blue plague, casualties among the damage control crews had been high. Even the slightest accident could result in exposure to the stuff, and from there, unless you were able to perform what usually amounted to an immediate amputation, you were doomed. And surviving a non-surgical amputation in death pressure wasn't exactly common. In the same vein, the turnover of materials and machines was very high, as even a few specs of blue dust on the outer armor of a Mobile suit would spread over the course of a day or so, until the suit was more a danger than a help, and had to be jettisoned into the middle of the crater lest it spread the plague further just by walking around on safe ground.

The Blue Hell was no longer a secret, open or otherwise, but there had been less panic than the USN officials had been fearing. With so many evacuees from Earth crowding the lunar bases and cities, there had been a real fear of massed riots, but the people just seemed to accept the news that an all devouring nano-plague of far greater virulence than the one they had fled was now practically on their doorstop. Perhaps they were simply too exhausted and numbed by the trauma of abandoning their world and everything they had ever known to muster the emotion to care about the new threat, especially as most had no idea as to how truly dangerous Blue EDEN was. No one really believed the USN reports saying they had the situation under control... they'd been seeing the same reports for so long that if the situation really was under control, they would have been reporting victory by now... but all the same they also seemed to realize that all that could be done was being done.

Of course, the definition of "all that could be done" had recently changed, though it had taken the USN a while to realize it. In the final stages of the Battle of Cape York, shortly before the Warmaster used the Spear of Ares to decimate the Great Endeavor, the captured Vengeance Gundam, piloted by the reknowned Solar Knight Shinn Asuka, apparently returned from the dead, had crippled the Botherhood Gundam and retrieved its primary armament, an anti-matter cannon of staggering power. That was as far as the official, public news report went, going on to stress the heroics of the Solar Knights and the other USn forces, using Shinn just as an example, along with the three brave pilots who had sacrificed themselves to strip the Great Endeavor of its defenses. What the news report left out was the reminder that just about the only thing that could reliably stop Blue EDEN was solid antimatter, such as the AMP rifle produced.

Naturally, the USN military didn't want to utilize their one and only example of such an advanced technology in such a potentially dangerous manner, but after almost a solid week of study by the brightest minds the USN could find, they had come to the reluctant conclusion that not only did they lack the technology to replicate the whole weapon, they lacked the technology to even replicate many of the sub-parts of the weapon, especially the ones that dealt with generating, refining and containing the anti-lithium projectile itself. In the end, the needs of the people trumped the needs of the scientists, and the AMP rifle was returned to the Vengeance, the only mobile suit currently in allied hands that could power it, without being disassembled, because of the very real concern that if they took it apart to study it better, they might not be able to put it back together again.

And so it was that the so recently famous Shinn Asuka, who had managed, through clever media coverage arranged by Durandel, to recieve the lion's share of the credit for defeating the Brotherhood Gundam, found himself very, very far from where he wanted to be, having taken the Vengeance from Orb up to the Moon after a brief meeting with Rey that had called him away from Luna's side. Rey had outlined what the SecDef had wanted Shinn to do, which was simple enough, but Shinn found himself resenting it all the same. He wished someone else could take the Vengeance to do what amounted to a clean up operation, but no one else would touch the machine, most pilots were weirded out by the neural invasive control system. for that matter, for all Shinn knew, there might be hidden programs within the NIC system that would hurt or kill anyone but him that tried to utilize the machine... it seemed like something Noah would do.

They'd offered to boost him up with Orb's Mass Driver, which had worth a brief snort of amusement. The Vengeance was easily the second most state of the art Gundam ever built, and in its mechanical characteristics actually didn't really trail the Brotherhood at all. Certainly the Vengeance had more than enough power to exceed the escape velocity of the Earth without need for outside assistance. Shinn wasn't even sure Mobile Suits like the Vengeance should be called Gundams... the term lessened them a bit, grouped them in with things like the Strike and the Freedom, and the difference between their basic capabilities was like night and day! Shinn turned his mind away from such idle thoughts as he reached the Blue Hell, watching the damage control crews make a final hasty effort to blow back the Blue EDEN from the rim of the zone, before beating a quick retreat to what would hopefully be a safe distance.

Other specialty equipment, that had been rush-produced and cobbled together in the past few weeks, rolled forward to about midway between the cowering damage control crews and the rim of the Blue Hell. Little more than large Gesichmedig-Panzer beam redirection shields mounted on tracked mooncrawlers, the units, when working together, would hopefully be able to project a magnetic buffer around and over the Blue Hell, ideally preventing any stray grains of Blue EDEN from escaping while Shinn used the AMP rifle to purge the infection. That sounded like a lot of wishful thinking to Shinn, but he also knew that they didn't have much other choice. Time was not on their side, another week or two and Copernicus would have to be evacuated... and there was simply no where else to evacuate to!

Floating a few kilometers over the center of the Blue Hell, looking down at what was likely more than fifty cubic kilometers of pure, mindless death, Shinn felt sickened. How many tens of thousands of people had this abomination weapon claimed! How many hundreds of billions of dollars in damages had it caused? How many lives had it ruined, directly or indirectly! And yet, for all its malevolence, it was faceless. It acted like a living thing, but it wasn't. It was impossible to hate the Blue EDEN itself, because it was just a thing. It would be like hating water because people could drown in it. It was of course perfectly possible and much easier to hate the guiding intelligence behind Blue EDEN, its creator, Noah, but at that moment all Shinn could feel, instead of the blazing anger he wanted, was a weary resignation. It was all too much, maybe this war had broken something inside of him, he would not be surprised to discover, but this moment was devoid of hate, no matter how much he wanted to feel it bolstering his resolve.

Though not designed for the Vengeance in specific, the AMP rifle was configured to draw power from the Positron Reflector shield generators in his palms, which was the same design between the Vengeance and the Brotherhood, except for minor modifications. Shinn cycled his reactor up to maximum output and shunted all available power to the AMP rifle. He wanted to get this over and done with, so he could go back to the Luna he cared about, rather than this cold, lifeless rock. A chill ran down his spine as he remembered how the Moon had almost been his grave during the Second Battle of Galileo, and that point in time had definitely marked the beginning of the tortuous road that had led him to where he was right now. No, this Luna, unlike his Luna, did not bring to mind happy memories.

Mind deadened by the events of the past few weeks, Shinn aimed and fired almost by mechanical rote, starting at the edges of the Blue Hell and spiralling inwards, firing blast after blast after blast of anti-lithium torii, each of which consumed close to a entire cubic kilometer of matter wherever it struck. By its very nature the AMP rifle was a weapon of mass destruction, and in order to ensure he got all the Blue EDEN, Shinn had to destroy a lot of uncontaminated land as well. His work was visible on Earth, even in the daylight, as flares of white light, brighter than the sun, like magnesium sparks in the sky, twinkled in the depths of the sky. To some, it almost looked like the sky was crying, sunlight reflecting off invisible tears.

It took longer than Shinn had thought it would... the Blue Hell had gone far deeper into the Lunar bedrock than he or anyone else had expected. Almost five hours later, he finally lowered the AMP rifle and shunted power back into the rest of his systems. Shinn surveyed his handiwork and felt the urge to vomit. Despite the fact that all of his shots had expended themselves only upon bare rock and Blue EDEN, the sheer scale of the crater he'd dug was mind boggling, it stretched almost ninety kilometers in diameter and reached close to twenty kilometers deep in the deepest spots. The infistesimal Lunar atmosphere within the Blue Hell Crater was practically sparkling with toxic radiation, strong enough to kill a human, even one inside a Mobile Suit, in less than a half hour. Not only had he made one damn big hole, but it was a useless hole, too poisonous even to reliably dump garbage into without a huge risk to the people doing the dumping. And it would remain that way for hundreds if not thousands of years. Millenia from now, people would still be cautiously avoiding his handiwork of today! It was nothing but a waste of rock and space, an empty void that was the headstone of untold tens of thousands!

Heart heavy, throat unaccountably choked, Shinn turned away from the devastation he'd wrought in the name of being a savior, to find that the hate was waiting for him once his eyes turned to Earth, its surface mostly occluded by ugly grey-green storm clouds. Destroying the Blue EDEN had been an exercise in accumulating, rather than relieving stress. "Noah..." Shinn whispered. "Is this really your dream? Is this flawed, numb, ugly thing really your dream!" Shinn shook his head in gloomy frustration. "No more. No more! I won't let this go on any more! There has to be an end to this pain! I will end this pain! And I to do that, I will end you, Noah. Count on it. Its what Luna would want me to do." Shinn paused and gathered his breath. "DO YOU HEAR ME, NOAH! I WILL END YOU AND YOUR FALSE DREAM!" Shinn shouted at the top of his lungs, broadcasting on all the old Brotherhood comm frequencies. "You built this garden, and forced us all to eat the forbidden fruits of your labor. Now I'm going to cast you out for your sins of presumption!"

xxxx

**Orb, The National Palace, 9 days after Spearfall**

"This is the current location of the enemy fortress." Rey said, pointing to the compuer generated plot on the large display screen, hoping his nervousness didn't show. This was one hell of a crowd to be briefing after all. Not only was Gil in attendance, along with all the senior commanders of the USN forces, but there were senior military and political cadres from all the member states as well. Not to mention the home crowd, consisting of no lesser personages than Queen Cagalli Zala-Attha, Lacus Clyne, Kira Yamato, Ace-Commander Yzak Joule, Dearka Elsman, the Hawk of Endymion, Mu la Flaga, recently risen from the grave or so it seemed, plus a gaggle of very frightening looking Naturals who called themselves Stormhounds, the bodyguards of the Orb military and political elite. Ezalia Joule, Yzak's mother and the PLANTS Supreme Council emergency appointee in charge of ZAFT, looked harried but still focused as she sat at her own table, shooting a sly glance every now and then across the room at her son, who still had the parbroiled complexion reflecting his close call in the last battle.

"I'm surprised they managed to get so far, considering the damage our forces inflicted upon that monstrosity during the battle." Doctor Roanoke observed, from his position slightly behind and aside from Durandel. Rey wasn't particular sure he liked the wrinkled old Blue Cosmos scientist getting so close and chummy with Gil, there was just so much... wrong... with what that man did for a living. All the same, he recognized it for what it was, an alliance of political necessity. With the Federated Nations of Earth all but dissolved in the wake of the evacuation, Roanoke had lost his primary supporters and source of funding, so it was only natural he would seek out a new patron, and the strongest one available at that. on gil's side of things, he acquired the services of one of the most brilliant scientists currently alive, and all sorts of propitiary technology that the good doctor seemed to enjoy hoarding.

"We have consistently underestimated the Brotherhood's capabilities in our every encounter with them." Ezalia spoke up, somewhat wryly. "Why should we stop that trend now?"

"I think we might have been the ones surprising him that last time." The FNE representative spoke up with a sharp smile.

Rey cleared his throat, hopefully not too forcefully, to bring the discussion back to the topic at hand. It wasn't like any of the people in the room were much but junior partners to the might of the USN, firmly controlled by Gil, but it never hurt to keep up appearances of mutual need and cooperation. "The past is the past, and we need to concentrate on the future. The Great Endeavor has been badly damaged, but it is still far from being destroyed. Our orbital fleets have been keeping a constant watch over it, while attempting to compound on the damage we previously inflicted, but current atmospheric conditions are not conducive to orbital strikes, and the secondary defensive systems of the Great Endeavor are still holding strong against our harassment assaults. Indeed, were it not for the energy being diverted into keeping the fortress airborne and mobile, we would be falling behind as the self repair system made repairs fatser than we could inflict damage."

"Yes, that is a good point. One wonders why he hasn't hunkered down and let his repair systems do their job." Fleet Admiral Icarus mused with a frown on his bland face. "Not that I'm complaining of course."

"He probably doesn't want to camp out in the middle of an open area, where we could easily surrounded him." Yzak answered. "Basic military sense would indicate finding a hiding spot in order to conduct major repairs. There aren't too many terrestrial locations that can hide something of the Great Endeavor's size. He's really only limited to either going submarine in the ocean, which is going to be really hard with all those big holes we put in him, or finding a secluded mountain valley somewhere. Obviously, he's chosen the latter." Yzak gestured expressively at the display, which showed the Great Endeavor's position as it moved into the foothills of the Himelayan mountains. "Assuming he can get up into the peaks without crashing into them, he'll have plenty of places he can set down where attacking him from the land or air will be all but impossible, at least in any concentrated fashion."

"It is a strangely sound tactical move, for Noah Borander." One of the Stormhounds, a grey haired, grey eyed man who reminded Rey of a lean wolf, observed, cupping his chin in one hand as he considered things. "I would not have credited him with the foresight to do such a thing, he usually prefers brute force solutions."

_Obviously, it must have been Meyrin's idea._ Rey thought, but did not say. For the moment he and Gil were still operating under the public disavowing of any knowledge of Meyrin's whereabouts or activities. There was still the possibility, however slight, that Meyrin too had been brainwashed just like Shinn had, though most signs pointed to a far more willing betrayal. "Commander Joule is absolutely correct." Rey said, with a nod of respect at the elder Coordinator. "Once Noah manages to settle down in some high altitude mountain nook, we will almost certainly lose any effective way to harm him, in essence negating our previous victory in a few months to a year. Even a full scale strategic assault, which we currently do not have the weapons to do, would be severely impeded by the mountainous terrain, to the point where the remaining enemy defensive weapons would almost certainly be able to fend it off with minimal damage or disruption."

"And the Spear of Ares was a one trick show I'm afraid." Cagalli provided, before anyone could even ask. "We caught him off guard last time, but he won't fall for that trick again. For that matter, if it weren't for those brave soldiers taking down the dorsal shields, that shot never would have happened. So unless we can take down his dorsal shields again..."

"We have actually come up with a rather simpler solution, at least to the immediate problem of the Great Endeavor, your Gajesty." Gil interrupted with a confident smile and a nod at Rey to continue.

"As the SecDef says..." Rey clicked his remote and changed the display from the top down view of the Great Endeavor's route, to a computer simulation model, depicting the Great Endeavor flying through the mountains. "We think we have identified a weakness to exploit that will make the use of strategic or semi-strategic weapons unnecessary." Rey took up a digital pointer and highlighted several areas on the underside of the Great Endeavor. "The indicated points correspond to the primary levitators and down angle thrusters of the Great Endeavor." Rey smirked with satisfaction as he heard the rustle of whispers as the keener military minds in the room immediately figured out where he was going with this. "By damaging or destroying these points while the Great Endeavor is still in transit to wherever its hiding place is, we can inflict extreme damage upon the enemy for relatively little effort."

"Excuse me, but what do you mean?" Admiral Icarus asked again. Rey fought the urge to roll his eyes. For a commander that was supposed to be specialized in large warships and naval combat, he definitely seemed disabling obtuse. Perhaps sensing the derision of others, Icarus hurried on. "I mean, I understand the tactic of destroying an enemy's engines in order to limit their maneuverability, but I don't see how doing it in this case would be helpful."

"It's called gravity." Dearka spoke up at once with a sigh of near exasperation, as if he was put out that he even had to explain this. "You're probably not used to factoring it in, since you're a space navy guy." Dearka left the "and an idiot" part out. "I'll spell it out for you, okay? The Great Endeavor, even now, weighs hundreds of thousands, probably more like millions of tons. Keeping it airborne takes a lot of power. In order to effectively traverse the mountains, Noah will have to ascend to near maximum altitude, the Great Endeavor is just too big to wend its way through the valleys at close to ground level. So if we take out its ability to remain airborne while it is several thousand feet in the air, it will then do something known as "falling". You might want to look it up. And when something that weighs several million tons falls several thousand feet... that is where we get the term "extreme damage". Does that make sense now?"

"You're a very insolent young man." Admiral Icarus observed in a nasty tone.

"Admiral, I'm a fucking redcoat elite and a Gundam pilot. Insolence is something of a personality flaw with me. Deal with it." Dearka snapped back smartly. "You don't want to be condescended to, don't ask stupid questions."

"Even our most generous calculations estimate that such a fall would be more than enough to effectively destroy the Great Endeavor." Durandel cut in, before the sputtering Icarus could make more a fool of himself. "However, we have been wrong in our assumptions before. As such, the second phase of our operation would involve sending special operations forces into the wreck in order to permanently ensure the fortress is crippled, as well as either round up or purge any survivors of the crash. I think we can all agree that anything other than being absolutely sure of Noah Borander's death is unacceptable." What Gil left unsaid was that it would also be a great time to salvage as much of the Brotherhood's advanced technology as could be saved. No sense in letting it all go to waste after all.

"That sounds like a good idea to me." Jiro Kurenai, the Chief Representative of Orb, added with a bright smile. Durandel watched him confer in whispers with Cagalli for a few moments. "It would also be a great opportunity to salvage what Brotherhood technology we can, of course." Jiro added, innocently enough, but the look Cagalli was giving Durandel was more than enough to tell him that this was just round one of her game to block and obstruct him wherever possible. Durandel let himself frown, as if put out by the thought of having to share salvaged tech with the rest of the world, but in truth it was no more than a minor annoyance. With the capture of the Vengeance Gundam, the USN was already more than well equipped with Brotherhood technology to reverse engineer, anything else would just be a bonus.

"What about Noah himself?" Asked Lacus, bringing a momentary stillness to the briefing room. "What if he survives the crash. What if he tries to surrender?" There was a long pause, as no one seemed to want to commit to answering. Durandel took the time to study the ever redoubtable Lacus Clyne, who looked to be in no small distress, though for what reason he could not determine. He'd heard rumors of a serious illness in the recent past, but her expression did not seem to be that of a seriously ill person. If anything she was the picture of young maternal health, her pregnancy just barely visible, her cheeks rosy and her skin aglow with life and zing. She sat side by side with her paramour, Kira Yamato, her hand in his, the other clenched in her lap. It was than that he noticed the tension in her muscles, the white knuckles of her hand in Kira's, the set of her jaw. Whatever it was that was bothering her, it clearly had the very politically capable girl on the edge of her self control. It didn't seem to be anger, not directed towards himself anyway, but something had her on edge.

"He's a terrorist." Ezalia answered at last. "Even if he does survive a crash, I don't think clemency is on the agenda. He has too much to answer for."

"He does have a lot to answer for." Kira agreed, but he went on. "But shouldn't he get a chance to try and make amends? At least a hearing at a trial. He's still a human being, even if we don't all want to believe it."

"Make amends?" Icarus was aghast. "The man has tried to destroy the world. There are no amends he could possibly make that would be even close to sufficient! A bullet in the head is more mercy than he deserves!"

"Aren't we supposed to be the lawful, civilized ones?" Kira shot back. "Should we just throw law out the window when it become sinconvenient? Should we sink down to his level, and just do what we think is right without regard to our own laws?"

"I know where you are coming from, Kira, but this is not a normal situation..." Cagalli spoke up, surprising Durandel, who never would have expected her to oppose her brother in public. "Noah is like Frost, he is outside the bounds of what our laws are designed to deal with. We don't even have a name for some of the crimes he's commited! The last thing we need to do is give him more attention with a big, drawn out trial."

"I disagree." Lacus countered. "Noah and Frost are very different cases. Frost was certifiably insane. He was a rabid dog, and there was no way to reason with him or to reach a compromise with him. Death was the only solution. Now, I am not nor will I ever defend what Noah has done. He needs to be held accountable for his actions. If it is the judgement of a jury of peers that he should die for his crimes... and I expect that very judgement, don't get me wrong... then I shall not argue. But if he does surrender, and we kill him anyway, without even trying to follow our own laws, we ourselves become evil too. Fighting evil with evil helps no one." Lacus sighed heavily. "Personally I am of the opinion that if he could just be shown how wrong he is, Noah could change. He's still young after all, barely into maturity by any standards. And there is no denying that he is perhaps the greatest scientific mind currently alive. There is much he could do for us, if we only give him the chance, under proper supervision."

"Proper supervision?" Durandel all but spat, publicly rising to deride the idealistic notion, while at the same time he turned the idea over in his mind carefully. After all, why waste time salvaging creations when you could salvage the creator? Obviously it would not be easy, but Roanoke had been talking about some very interesting anti-psychic countermeasures of late, and the possibility of harnessing Noah's intellect for his own ends did have a certain cupidity to it. "And who would that be?" Durandel continued, for the benefit of the crowd. "We've all seen what he can do to people, how he twists their minds and turns their bodies against them. No prison we currently have could hold him for a week. The only way we could be safe is if we lobotomized him, and in that case we might as well just kill him!"

"I..." Lacus started to say.

"You?" Durandel cut her off. "Don't get me wrong, Miss Lacus, I have the highest respect for you, but Noah would chew your mind up like flavored gum and spit you out. You don't know what it's like."

"Yes..." Lacus carefully reached up to her eyes and rubbed them with her free hand, blinking a few times as she cleared something away from her eyes. It looked almost like a pair of contact lenses, the colored ones some young people liked to wear for halloween or costume parties. "... I do, actually." Lacus finished, fixing him with her gaze. Her pupils, much like Noah's, the ones he saw in his nightmares, were solid metallic gold. There was a lot of gasping and harsh intakes of breath and even muttered curses from around the room, save from within the Orb contingent, who mostly just looked uncomfortable. "I have contended with Noah in ways you can't really comprehend, through no fault of your own, Mr. Secretary of Defense Durandel. Contended with and even, dare I say, come out on top." Lacus added with a cold look.

"You're a Newtype!" Doctor Roanoke's jaw might as well have been on the floor, and he sat well back in his seat as if trying to physically pull away from her, even though she was seated more than thirty feet away anyway.

"I am an Ultimate Coordinator, though I really despise that term." Lacus sighed. "Ultimate is such a misleading word after all. My... ocular condition... is of more recent vintage, also courtesy of Noah. When he tried to kill me and my family. Don't speak to me like you're the only one that has been personally victimized by him, Mr. Durandel. There are many people in this room who have suffered as badly as you if not worse at his direct hands. But getting back to the question at hand, could I supervise him? The answer is "maybe". He is much more experienced in utilizing his psychic gifts than I am, though I seem to have more raw power than him, though not by too much. Do I want to supervise him? No, I don't. I have my own life to take care of. But I might be the only one who can do that job, if we decide to assign it, so I figured I might as well volunteer, because I don't want any other tragedies on my conscience because I sat back when I could have made a difference."

Durandel listened to a hurried series of whispers from Roanoke, who continued to regard Lacus as if she'd suddenly sprouted tentacles and extra heads. "What garauntee do we have though, Miss Lacus, that your... abilities... are sufficient to adequately supervise Noah, in this hypothetical example? What I mean to say is, how can we entrust such a responsibility to you, a private individual? The situation is similar to my position on Gundams... its too much power, too much responsibility invested in one person. I do not doubt your resolve or your strength, but what if Noah suborned or subdued you? No one else would know until it was too late."

"I would know." Kira retorted instantly. He reached up and removed his own pair of contacts, now that Lacus had forced the issue. Quite when his pupils had shifted their color he could not remember, it had been a gradual change day by day until only a morning or two ago, he'd woken up and boom, there they had been, shiny silver coins in his eyes, ringed with purple. Lacus's hand was like a vise around his, as she squeezed with all her might as she sought to master her hormone imbalanced body even while carrying on a stressful conversation. There were more hisses of surprise from around the room, while his friends just sighed and looked even less comfortable than before.

"And if he subverted you both?" Durandel challenged, unwilling to step back. "Two people is only slightly better than one after all."

"If he could overwhelm both of us together, it wouldn't matter if you had two thousand people watching him, you would be equally screwed." Kira answered with a faint smile. He turned his gaze to the older man sitting beside Durandel, the one who was staring at Lacus like she was some sort of alien creature. "But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves, don't you think?"

"Indeed." Durandel agreed, immediately shelving the discussion and glad for the chance, so that he could confer with his advisors and come back better informed next time. There was nothing worse than arguing without knowing your subject intimately. "If no one has any glaring problems with the plan as is, I move we begin preparations to take down the Great Endeavor once and for all. Once that bastard is in flames on the ground, and we're sure he will never be getting up again, then we can worry about the disposition of captured or surrendering enemy personnel. Anything else is simply premature."

"We should probably designate which forces we will be using to storm the crashed fortress with." Ezalia said, jumping back on track as well. "ZAFT has a few teams of special operatives and FAITH members we could send. They could also help take down the Great Endeavor in phase one."

"That would be wonderful, Councilwoman." Durandal answered smoothly. "The USN will be deploying roughly a company of our own special forces, while the Solar Knights and support units handle the takedown of the Great Endeavor. Any more troops than that would simply get in the way in the tight confines of the enemy fortress, though we will have an additional couple of regiments of regular infantry on standby if needed. The real problem is going to be keeping everyone in an environment suit, we all know that the atmosphere will be loaded with who knows what sort of deadly nano-machines."

"The FNE has a company of MAGOS troops that we will commit to the interior assault." The representative of that nation said. He looked over at where Roanoke was sitting, an unsure expression on his face. "Our special projects director should have forces available to help with the phase one assault as well?" He phrased it more like a question.

"You will have Extended support in either phase of the operation, as Mr. Durandel desires." Roanoke responded woodenly. "In fact, they may be necessary in order to subdue or slay Noah if he survives the crash... regular soldiers would only be fodder for his psychic slavery."

"Orb will be sending three Gundams." Jiro announced, after another discussion with Cagalli. "The Vorpal, Seraph and Warmaster will help bring down the Great Endeavor, along with a contingent of Dawndrakes and Guardians, all we can spare."

"And the Stormhounds..." The grey haired, grey eyed Stormhound spoke up. "Will take care of the second phase. I would request the rest of you hold back your assigned forces... they will only get in the way."

"Awfully confident, aren't you?" Ezalia noted. Not really challenging, just observing.

"Our record speaks for itself, ma'am. If you want this done with the maximum number of hostiles defeated, and minimum number of friendly casualties, send in the Stormhounds and no one else." The Stormhound leader replied flatly.

"We can hardly let you take all the risks yourselves, Lieutenant." Durandel cut in. _Not to mention the glory and media spectacle. Besides, I don't want Zala-Attha's minions running around in there without the ability to keep an eye on them. Mavericks, the lot of them. Mavericks, with a maverick leader. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, isn't that so? And you are definitely my enemy, your "majesty"._ "We will be glad to work with you, but rest assured, we will be there, in force."

"You are sending a lot of men and women to die." The Stormhounds Lieutenant almost accused.

"That may be. Such is the burden of my job." Durandel answered lightly, though he was well aware that it had been a more direct accusation. The Stormhound was saying he was spending lives in order to gain glory and attention for his greater purposes, and he was right. It was a sad truth that the biggest political gains were almost always bought with military lives, one way or another. It was the way of things, Durandel was not bothered by it.

"We will be in contact with you to let you know about communication protocols and the timing of execution. Expect to begin Operation Downfall within the next two days." Rey said, his tone businesslike and firm. He saw a few of the sharper ones get it then, especially among the Orb contingent. This was not a meeting. This was a briefing. They were not so much deciding what to do as being told what was going to happen by the USN, who listened to their arguements but without any real need to heed them. By saying that they would be the ones distributing comm protocol and determining timing, the USN was in effect taking command of the whole operation, whether the member states liked it or not. The pecking order had just been established, and it wasn't going to be changing any time soon. They could either get with the program and go with the flow, or they could get in the way and get swept under the new rising tide. Either was fine.

xxxx

**Orb, National Hospital, 9 days after SpearFall**

Athrun looked up as the door to his room opened, showing a brief glimpse of the central ICU space beyond, as well as a view of two uniformed Stormhounds standing at port arms outside. He still felt loggy as hell, after spending more than a week in medically induced slumber, but he was thankful he was able to feel anything at all! God knew, the odds had been against him on that one. He'd managed to squeak by yet again, but this time the margin had been so slim it might as well have not been there. He didn't think he could have cut it any closer if he'd flashed Death in the face personally and called him a few choice names to boot. Of course, some of his continued weariness could be because of the thick soup of pain killing and radiation cleansing medications that were being piped into his bloodstream from both arms, coupled with not having eaten solid food for almost ten days.

Oh, and being nearly burnt to a crisp and irradiated by a gigantic ball of antimatter, that too, of course, did not help how he currently felt. He'd looked at himself in a mirror and had been shocked and not a little unnerved to not recognize himself. For one, all his hair, those luxuriant purple-blue locks that Cagalli loved to mess up after he carefully ordered them, was gone, giving him a look at parts of his head he hadn't physically seen in his entire life. The same was true of most of his body hair as well, but that was less noticable, considering a good portion of his skin was gone as well. Of course, it had been replaced with a synthetic, sterile medical substitute, similar to that which covered the prosthetic arm sleeves of Andrew Waltfeld, but that in itself was pretty startling. He'd never exactly been super tanned, but after years living in Orb with Cagalli, he'd certainly been a bit more bronzed than pale, and now he was back to pale, almost sickly pale, nearly as pale as Lacus but with nowhere near the right complexion.

The synthetic skin was still a bit loose in spots, from what had been explained to him, it would tighten over the course of weeks to a month, giving his body time to heal beneath the protective layer without smothering what little remained of his skin in the burned areas. Be that as it may, for the meanwhile he was left with what felt like wrinkles and saggy jowls on his face, and a constant subtle itching all over his body where the synthetic skin was layered, like lying in a suit of clothes that were either a bit too tight or a bit too lose for long periods of time. Thankfully, fortunately, his eyes had not been damaged, though one of his eyelids had needed to be replaced as well. He felt weak, but knew that was more a consequence of the drugs and lack of activity and solid food than due to the injuries. It could have been much worse.

Of course, in ways it was, but Athrun refused to dwell on the radiation side of things, as he turned his attention to his visitors, whom he was very glad to see, even as he could not help but feel the familiar bit of reservation from past events come over him. Kira and Lacus, hand in hand, made their way over to stand at his bedside, shutting the sliding door to his cubicle behind them. "Why hello there, sleepyhead, its good to see you back in the world of the living." Lacus said, with only the slightest hint of false cheer in her voice, something only someone very familiar with her would have been able to detect. "Did you have a nice nap?"

"Best 190 hours of sleep in my life. Or so I assume, given that I never woke up, no matter how much they poked and prodded me." Athrun replied with a bare smile. "If only I could sleep as soundly normally. I might have to take some of this medicine with me, so I can tune out Cagalli's restless sleeping." He reached out a hand, frowning as he looked at the pale replacement flesh. Kira took it and clasped his hand warmly regardless, as if he didn't even notice the slightly slimy texture of the synthetic. Given that it was Kira, Athrun supposed that might not be far from the truth. Or at the very least, if he did notice, he didn't care.

For his part, Kira hoped he hid his distress at how thin and stick like Athrun's hand had become, an impression that was not helped by the cool slickness of the synthetic skin, under which it felt like there were only fragile bones and a few strands of muscle. Kira knew that this was a result of ten days on an IV, coupled with extensive full body fluid purges as part of the radiation treatment, and that Athrun was only withered temporarily, but it was disturbing all the same. His friend looked like he'd aged fifty years since last time Kira had seen him, at least since the last time he'd seen him healthy. Because the last time he'd seen him, Kira almost hadn't recognized him beneath all the burns. Thankfully Athrun was much improved from that now, and in time the doctors said he'd look almost as good as new.

"So I guess I missed the big finish, huh?" Athrun commented, tugging his hand out of Kira's grip. He turned to look at Lacus, his gaze inexorably drawn to the bulge in her stomach. "May I?" Athrun asked, gesturing at her stomach.

"Of course." Lacus replied, though there was the briefest moment of pause before she did, as if she was steeling herself, but while one of her hands remained clenched tightly with Kira's, her other hand took him by the wrist and gently guided his palm to rest against the swell of her belly. "Say hello to Athrun, Akira." Lacus said softly. Whether she had said or done something else on the psychic plane, or it was just good timing, but Athrun felt the baby shift and kick inside her. He drew back his hand with an expression of awe.

"He's so active." Athrum mumbled, half to himself. He considered the swell of her belly again. "How far along are you again?"

"Roughly three months, give or take." Lacus replied with a shrug. "I know, I know..." She cut him off. "That's barely a third of the way through a normal pregnancy, he shouldn't even be moving right now. But Akira seems to be in an awful hurry, they say the whole deal should be over and done with by the fifth month. And that's a fully mature birth. This crazy body of mine..." Lacus shivered a bit, and pressed herself against Kira, practically moulding herself against him. "Forgive any public display's of affection, Athrun, I'm going through something of a difficult time right now."

"I know how that is." Athrun smiled crookedly. He watched the two of them for a moment, and got the distinct feeling that if he weren't in the room, something slightly scandalous might have occured. His brow furrowed. "Or maybe I don't." He amended with a careful stare. "Do I need to leave the room for a bit?" He half joked.

"If you were able I think I could take you up on that offer, given how things have been for me lately." Lacus answered with a nearly despondent sigh. "Oh, I wish this damned body would readjust itself properly! I'm sick and tired of this bullshit!"

Athrun traded looks with Kira. Lacus never swore. Never ever. The kind of stress that would be needed to get Lacus cussing was... Athrun didn't even want to think about it. "Sounds like a little more than a case of pregnancy hormones." He ventured.

"More like a case of puberty. My second puberty to be exact." Lacus replied with a frown of concentration as she levered herself away from Kira. "From what we understand, I shouldn't have had it for at least another six to eight years or so, but, much as what happened to Kira when Frost tried to poison him, Noah's nano-poison triggered mine early. And may have done something similar to Akira. But because its happened early, my body chemistry isn't ready to handle it, and its causing some problems." Lacus snorted angrily. "Some very annoying, embarassing problems."

"You should be through the worst of it in another week or so." Kira said, trying to be reassuring. He reached out an arm to put it around her shoulders, only to have her shy out from underneath it. "Oh, sorry, forgot."

"Don't apologize, its not you." Lacus admonished him. "Its just funny things start popping into my head when you touch me, and all my inhibitions try to dry up and wither away. We don't need to put on a show for Athrun, of all people."

"And I thought extensive burns were bad." Athrun remarked with the hint of smirk. "Mind you, what you call your current condition seems to be the mode Cagalli has been stuck in ever since she turned eighteen, but I can see how it would be uncomfortable for someone like you, Lacus."

"Everyone's always got to poke fun at me too." Lacus said with a hint of not so mocking misery. "The only one I've gotten even a bit of sympathy from is Miriallia."

"I'm sure Kira has been giving you plenty of sympathy." Athrun rejoined with a cough and a wink.

"Don't think I won't slap you, even if you are hurt. That just means I won't slap you very hard." Lacus warned, though she was smiling. "Kira has been doing what he can to help, and he hasn't been complaining, that is for sure. But there is such a thing as too much fun, and my needy moments don't always come at convenient times. As you very nearly just witnessed. Honestly, if it weren't for Akira's needy periods overwhelming my own, I think I would have made a major media scandal by now. Most women say pregnancy drives you crazy... mine is keeping me sane. All the same, I find the stress is starting to get to me. Just ask Kira, I was just about to do something... very not nice... to Mr. Durandel. His power play could not be more obvious, and coming at such a time as this! Its reprehensible!"

"If anyone could stand to sudden unaccountable loss of bladder control in public, I think he would be my top choice." Kira added, showing Athrun that his friend was also pretty stressed, because usually Kira would never be so... unsympathetic. "The way he spins the media, he'd probably manage to turn it into some sort of victory, or way to increase his power and popularity. Prove he's an everyman who pisses his pants just like everyone else."

"I'll bear that in mind next time." Lacus said sardonically. "If nothing else, it might throw him off his stride for a moment. He makes me so mad."

"He does that to most of us." Athrun noted. "But we're kinda stuck with him, I'm afraid. I take it we still have bigger fish to fry?"

"If by that you mean, "is Noah still out there?" then yes, we do." Kira told him. "Though from the tone of that last meeting, I think we have more to fear in the future than we do in the present. At this rate, we're all going to become vassal states of the USN, and we'll like it that way, or else."

"That good huh? Well, I can see I'll have a lot of fun, non-stressful work waiting for me when I get out of here. You two really know how to cheer a guy up, ya know?" Athrun observed sarcastically.

"We wouldn't want you to think we were planning to just let you drift away into obscurity after a heroic finale." Lacus retorted fondly. "Even Durandel couldn't spin what you did enough to not give you credit for it."

"So what are we doing? What's the plan?" Athrun asked, honing in on the subject of the recent meeting, which he had of course missed.

"What is this "we" business, kemosabe?" Kira joked. "You are staying right here for a while longer. It sucks, I know, but you're barely in shape to eat solid food right now, much less doing anything active or stressful."

"Don't patronize me." Athrun snapped back, a little more harshly than he'd intended. He saw Kira let it go, and was glad for it. Right now he didn't have the energy for a fight. "If you don't give me something to do, you know I'll just find something myself. Your sister and I are exactly alike in that manner. And you two are also the same way."

"Too selfless for our own good, as people say." Lacus sighed and shrugged. "Sadly most of the planning and other minutiae of the next battle is all being done by the USN, while we wait on standby like good little minions to learn where we're supposed to go. A fine reward for turning the course of the last battle, I'm sure you'll agree."

"No good deed ever goes unpunished, as they say." Athrun said with a wan smile. He felt his eyelids starting to drop as he wore out what little energy reserves he'd managed to restore. He wanted to protest, to sit and talk with his friends calmly, peacefully, for a little while longer, but a different kind of peace was pulling at him more strongly, and he'd nodded off back into dreamland before he could even fully formulate his thoughts, much less convey them. He certainly never saw the not very chaste kiss Kira and Lacus shared the moment they decided he wasn't going to wake up again, before at length pulling away from each other with extreme reluctance. How hard it was to turn away from the good things in life at times!

xxxx

**Orb, 24 hours till operation DownFall**

"Do you have any fucking clue what's going on, sarge-major?" Ramierez asked, as he slung his kit bags, which contained not only his normal mission loadout, but the full bore customized set he only brought out for the heaviest of missions. If he wasn't in Orb, he would have almost have been nervous, since he was carrying around enough firearms and various implements of destruction to take down most of a city block. Even in Orb, this was a pretty serious load to be carrying round in public, even in nondescript bags, especially considering he was in civvies rather than his uniform. "I dunno about you, but I feel kinda naked reporting to a mission briefing in civvies."

"The Lt wants to do something special this time." Glory replied thoughtfully. His own gear was too bulky, even mostly disassembled, to fit in mere bags, he had a full on packing crate full of stuff, which weighed close to two hundred pounds. Still, it was a load he bore with no particular signs of complaint, the crate slung over one shoulder by a variety of straps held in one bunched fist. "He said it was optional."

Ramierez snorted his opinion of that caveat. "Yeah, okay, so he won't order us to do it officially. He's gotta know by now, that when he wants us to do something, we do it, done deal." Ramierez shrugged. "Though I guess it is kind of telling if he won't make it an order. Its not like him to be so... vague."

"I'm telling you, somethings up this time." Glory muttered, this time more quietly, stealing a glance around as if he was afraid of observers. "He even asked me if I wanted to bring Mel along for this little shindig. The way he made it sound, it was like he wanted this to be a personal thing, rather than a Stormhound or even Hellhound thing. I tell ya, Rich, I'm getting some bade vibes here."

"Well, we sure ain't gonna figure anything out standing out here jawing, are we." Ramierez said. He looked around once more. "Hella odd place for a briefing though. Or even a mission pre-grame party."

Glory nodded his agreement of that statement. The Lt had told him to meet at this location, but when he'd arrived he'd actually consulted the gps system on his phone just because he couldn't believe this was the right spot. He'd been expecting some sort of business center or military holding, or even a secret safe house or something... but this place was none of those. If it was anything he'd guess it was a hotel. But not a modern glass and steel high rise type hotel, no, this place was set on a few acres of land in the hilly part of Nara-Attha City, one of the more residential/rural zones. The architecture was medieval Japanese, with a curtain wall with a slanted roof bordering the property and the outlines of several buildings with peaked roofs appearing beyond it, along with strands of what appeared to be bamboo and small pine trees. If Glory didn't know better, he would have thought this was one of the tradiational hotspring resorts of rural Japan.

They knocked on the gates, which almost immediately swung open under the touch of a eldery woman that neither of them recognized. She did seem to be expecting them however, and she didn't even raise an eyebrow at the heavy loads they bore. Inside the wall, it was much like Glory had suspected from the view outside, the grounds were impeccably landscaped in that nigh obsessive philosophic manner that was supposed to evoke serenity in people, but to him only spoke of an unaddressed OCD sufferer. He wasn't so obtuse as to not notice how well the architecture and landscape and positioning of the buildings melded into a single whole, he could easily recognize a work of art when he stood in one, it just wasn't his cup of tea. Their guide, who had still not spoken a single word, nor, Glory suspected, even fully looked at them, showed them a place to leave their things.

Normally Glory wouldn't have gone out of arms reach of his crate of gear, which contained more than a hundred thousand dollars worth of weapons and equipment, and that was just the stuff he personally owned, not the unit owned stuff like armor. But he got the feeling that this was all planned for, almost part of some sort of ritual, and so he let the crate down and turned to follow the somewhat creepily quiet old woman. Ramierez followed his sergeant major's example a few seconds later, with a few glances over his shoulder as they walked away. Definitely bad vibes, like the sarge-major had said. In all his time with the Lt, this was something he'd never experienced before. What could have brought about such a change in behavior of the Lt, of all people?

Their guide led them to a small room with a curtain going down the center that could divide it into two smaller rooms. Tatami mats covered the floor, and the walls looked to be authentic wood and paper panels. The eldery women gestured at a pair of folded robes lying on the floor, and then at a pair of baskets, before withdrawing from the room, still without having spoken a single word. Ramierez eyed the robes delicately. "I get the feeling we're supposed to change clothes, sarge-major."

"No, really, sherlock?" Glory answered, toeing the larger set of robes tenatively. _What the hell is going through your mind right now sir? Playing dress up mystery games right before a major mission? I smellz a rat._ He crouched down and inspected the garments and gave a short grunt. "Okay, now I know something's not right. This is in my size. Shit like that doesn't off the hook. He's had this planned for a while. Or something of this sort anyway."

"For some reason that fails to reassure me, sarge-major." Ramierez admitted, still looking perplexed as he studied the robes. "I mean, I never expected to really have a handle on him, but now I'm totally lost. What's the significance here? What is he trying to tell us?"

"Guess we'll have to ask him and find out." Glory said, beginning to shrug out of his civilian wear. The two Stormhounds rapidly undressed and redressed in the robes, putting their civilian clothes in the two baskets, no doubt to be taken care of by the old woman, or the staff, or someone. As if by magic, their guide returned only a minute or so later and led them to another room, this one was much bigger, though the walls and floor were the same materials. This room was more a hall, suitable for a relatively large group of people. The decor of the walls was very martial, suits of armor and swords and other weapons of various types hung every few feet along the circumference. It didn't take either man long to recognize many of the pieces as having come from Cyprus's personal collection, they'd seen many of these items hanging in his study or practice room on those occassions that they had been to his home. Or rather, his house, since his home was the Stormhounds.

Their guide left them again, but they weren't alone for long, within thirty seconds another doorway opened on the opposite side of the room and a familiar figure stepped into the room. Glory immediately frowned, while Ramierez just looked puzzled. "Mel, what the hell are you doing here?" Glory demanded of the petite woman who was making her way towards them, clad in a robe similar if slightly longer than theirs. "I didn't tell you about this..."

"That's right, you didn't." Raven agreed, her voice cool, in the manner of a woman who is displeased. "And we will talk about that another time, won't we, Thom?" She paused a moment to fix him with a glare, crossing her arms across her chest as she walked right up to him and got in his face. Or lower chest, really, but it was the same intent. "As for what exactly we're doing here, I still don't know. I'm getting a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach for some reason. This doesn't feel normal for the Lt. Is it?" Both of the men shook their heads in the negative. "Ah, wonderful. Surprises for everyone."

The door slid open again so silently that none of the three of them even registered his presence until Cyprus thumped one foot deliberately on the floor. he too was clad in the plain robes of the hotel, though unlike his subordinates he seemed perfectly at ease in them, even comfortable. "Thank you for coming, and putting up with this uncharacteristic behavior." Cyprus said, his voice somehow softer, less commanding than usual. "I apologize for keeping you in the dark."

"Don't apologize, just tell us what's going on?" Ramierez fidgeted, unused to taking such a demanding tone with his boss.

For his part Cyprus smiled, and all three of the other Stormhounds flinched a little at the expression, which was a sort of empty serene they had never seen on his face before. "I've had a premonition of my own death." He told them. In the wake of that statement, the room could not possibly have been quieter.

"What?" Glory asked after a stretch, his own voice barely a whisper as he struggled to comprehend what he'd heard.

"This next mission. I fear I may not survive it. The odds are against me. They are against us all." Cyprus replied, perfectly calm and matter of fact.

"Sir, if the mission is FUBAR, why are we even attempting it?" Ramierez hissed. "I mean, I heard the briefing too, it sounded pretty rough, but we could do it."

"The mission will succeed." Cyprus waved away that concern. "There is no doubt about that. But I cannot shake the feeling that I won't live through it. There is so much we don't know about the Great Endeavor and whatever defenses Noah has in place for the interior."

"Well then don't go." Raven was shocked to hear herself speaking, no less shocked were Ramierez and Glory. "I mean, if you can't focus on the mission cause of this premonition, sir, then you really aren't gonna be much good to us, right? I mean, no disrespect..."

"None taken, and you are absolutely right, Melissa." Cyprus watched her flinch as he used her first name. "However, I do have a responsibility to my subordinates, you three and all the others, so not going isn't an option."

"So, wait, sir... are you saying you're gonna go but you don't wanna command or something?" Ramierez was looking more and more confused.

"I'm saying, Richard, that if I go right now, as I am now, I won't be fit to command." Cyprus answered. "But yet, if I am to appease my own conscience, I must make myself fit for command. And that is why I have asked you here tonight."

"Just say what you need and we got it done, sir!" Glory promised, glad to be back on more familiar ground, or so he hoped.

"I would not be so hasty to say that, Thomas. This will be unlike anything I've ever asked you to do before." Cyprus warned him. "Because I am asking you not as your commanding officer, not as a Stormhound, not even as a Hellhound. I am asking you as Cyprus Finch. And I am speaking to Richard Ramierez, Thomas Glory, and Melissa Raven. My friends."

"I'm not sure I should be here..." Raven muttered. "I mean, I barely know you at all, sir and..." She quieted and looked up when Thom laid his massive, meaty paw of a hand on her shoulder.

:"He invited you. What more needs to be said?" Glory rumbled quietly. Privately he suspected that she was there more for his sake than Cyprus's, but that in itself told him how different this was. "So what are we doing then?"

"I should stress that you don't have to do this, that you might find it strange or even silly." Cyprus pointed out.

"And I said... so what are we doing then?" Glory repeated, as if his friend hadn't just said something stupid. Ramierez nodded his agreement, and so did Raven, more cautiously.

"In many different ancient cultures, before going off to battle a warrior would gird themselves for war. This was much more complex and meaningful an act than just strapping on their sword and armor and heading off, this was a ceremony of absolution and purification, where the warrior would put their mind and body at ease before the trials to come. Where they would set their worldly and spiritual affairs in order, because they would not have the time or inclination to do it later. Only by following the ritual steps of the ceremony could a warrior truly banish all thoughts of fear and regret and sorrow from their mind and soul, and turn their full being towards the fighting to come. Now, today, I find myself in need of such a ceremony. I would be honored if you would accompany me, my friends. Gird for war with me, and bring out your full focus and potential for the fighting to come." Cyprus explained. He saw the doubt in their eyes, but he also saw a conviction, a belief in him that was more flattering than any compliment could be. If he said this would help, no matter what it was, they would do it. Because they trusted him. Because they were friends.

"What exactly does this girding entail?" Ramierez asked. "I mean, I am totally in, and I always wanted to try out that zen-shui or whatever the hell its called... never know where you'll find that itty bitty edge after all, but what does it involve? I can tell you right now, I am no good at meditation."

"The methods vary, but bathing and cleansing of the body is common, as are exertion such as exercises, done not to exhaust but to bring out your strength. Warm ups in other words. Meditiation is also common, but by no means required." Cyprus smiled a wintry smile, much like his usual ones. "You have heard the expression "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die?" Well, that is the basic concept of a girding as well, though a girding is generally more focused and personal than a party. For us I have a series of more ritualized cleansings, such as baths and massages and the sort, which is one of the reasons I chose this venue. Following the cleansing of the body, we will cleanse our minds with light exercise and some sparring, to get us focused. Then we will eat a fine meal. Then we will go over and individually clean and maintain all of our weapons and gear. Afterwards, we will spend the night in the arms of our loved ones, and we will have very amazing sex, to cleanse the spirit. Then we will wake up early and..."

"Wait a minute, sir..." Ramierez interrupted, looking uncomfortable. "I uh, don't have, uh... any "loved ones". Certainly none I would sleep with. I mean, I'm sure you, the sarge-major and Raven are gonna have a great time, but that kinda leaves me out in the cold and... Ramierez trailed off as a new group of people entered the room. They were all familiar to him of course, though not as familiar as he would have liked. One of them was Wrenn Nostaliviche, the others were the members of her internationally famous gothic industrial band, Avaunte Noctem. The blond percussionist, Jaymi, the brunette guitarist Hally, the redhead bassist Kendra and the black and green dyed Nikka, the electronica/keyboard artist. All tall, shapely, and very leggy, wearing kimono type robes just like Raven that were VERY flattering to their figures._ Woof woof, ladies._

"You may not be surprised, but I had considered your inability to find a steady girlfriend, Richard." Cyprus smiled sardonically. "Wrenn and her friends felt sorry for you too."

"Wait a minute sir... are you saying that..." Ramierez swallowed in more unaccustomed nervousness, when the look in Cyprus's eye confirmed what he'd been about to ask. "Now sir, don't get me wrong, I'm appreciative, but I can't just... I couldn't ask them to..."

"Richard, do bear in mind that there is a significant chance this may be the last time you ever get to have sex." Cyprus reminded his friend calmly. "They're okay with it, they volunteered. They understand what it is we're doing, and some of the risks involved." For their part, Wrenn's bandmates did look a little nervous and unsure themselves, but then again, who could blame them? It wasn't like Ramierez was a total stranger or anything, but still...

"What are the odds sir?" Ramierez asked evenly, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"That we're standing here at all should answer that question, Richard." Cyprus replied, equally evenly.

"Well fuck me..." Ramierez mumbled.

"That's our job, as I understand it." Kendra said with the shadow of an impish smile. "Unless, of course you aren't interested."

"Oh hell no, don't even suggest such a thing!" Ramiere stepped forward, mind made up, switching from awkward to decisive in one breath. "I just don't think I can choose one. I mean, if I really am gonna die tomorrow, or stand a damn good chance of it, I wanna go out with a bang and no regrets at all. I choose you, Avaunte Noctem!"

"You couldn't possibly mean all of us." Nikka commented, nonplussed.

"Ladies, I am a sexy latino devil, if you somehow had not noticed. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. Do not doubt the latin power. I could not die satisfied if even one of you missed out on the chance of a lifetime tonight!" Ramierez declared proudly.

"I see now why never had a steady girlfriend." Raven commented, just loud enough for everyone to hear. "Could anyone but a drunk chick really find those lines sexy?"

"You're just jealous of the latin power. Its okay, I know."

"If by jealous you mean, "made slightly nauseous" then yes."

"Oh, well then what do you consider sexy then, huh, Blackbird? What does the sarge-major say that gets you bothered?" Ramierez challenged.

"He doesn't have to say anything." Raven smirked in reply. "All he's gotta do is drop his trousers and I go completely dumb and deaf."

"Mel!" Glory was a faint shade of pink.

Meanwhile, Cyprus shared a secret smile with Wrenn. This was part of the girding too, the relaxed atmosphere among close friends. Of course Wrenn wasn't any more pleased with the whole situation than one might expect, but she knew what times to hang on tight, and what times she had to let go of her precious tree-bird-kun... and this was one of those times where she could not save him no matter how tightly she held, so she would have to trust him to fly back to her despite his doubts. At least she could help him do this thing, to bring forth all his focus, all his power, to send him forth at his absolute peak... to return with his shield... or upon it.

xxxx

**Orb, 6 hours before Operation Downfall**

The room was dim, lit only by candles in the pre-dawn dark, and the flickering light from those tiny flames did more to conceal than it did to reveal the figures that slowly and carefully moved around the edges of the room, picking through the piles of equipment and gear that lay neatly set out there. There were a few whispers of muted conversation, and the steady muffled thump of bare feet on tatami mats, but otherwise the room was silent, almost expectant. And then a bright spear of brilliant light shot down from the ceiling, courtesy of a concealed spotlight. The beam was only wide enought to illuminate a single person, and so focused that despite its brilliance, the majority of the room remained shrounded in murky shadow.

The one person that was illuminated was Private First Class Melissa Raven. She stood at ease, looking straight ahead, glancing neither left nor right as the figures moving around the edges of the room began drawing closer in a ring around her. Her stance was maybe a trifle uncomfortable, bespeaking a lingering soreness of the not unpleasant sort, but she did not let the memories of earlier interrupt her bearing during this solemn, if a bit weird, final stage to the girding ritual. This was the actual girding part, where the warrior was reunited with their wargear and accoutremented for the fighting to come. She wore her baseline Stormhounds uniform, combat trousers and long sleeved blouse with thermal underwear liners, since the fight would take place in high altitude mountains, as well as the standard sturdy combat boots, but all her other gear lay aside.

Slowly though, piece by piece, her armor and gear was returned to her and secured to her body, every strap triple checked, every belt cinched tight, every loose cord tucked by a host of willing and mostly proficient hands as Wrenn and her bandmates played the part of arming servants. They started at her legs, with ankle guards and shin protectors and flexible armor weave skirting that protected her thighs, before moving up to the heavier ballistic cloth and ceramic plating of her torso and back armor, the armored and reinforced sleeves, the bracers and gloves of steel impregnanted leatherweave that would resist normal blades, and then all the locking join protectors that would fend off glancing hits while only minimally restricting her movement. Every piece was the color of the baseline Stormhound uniform, white and grey on black with blue splotches, though the armor itself had active camouflage that could shift to match the environment she found herself in.

Once the armor was in place and secured and comfortable, Wrenn and her friends, all clad in virginal pure white robes, their bodies freshly scrubbed and purified after the exertions of the day and night before, brought forth Raven's weapons, sometimes having to work together to lift the heavier bits. They started out with blades, a shiv in her boot, a regulation combat knife across the pit of her back, and a long stabbing dirk with an armor piercing point sheathed pointing up on her left shoulder, in a gravity fed holster. Then came the grenades, smoke and flash and mag-clamp high explosive for breaching walls, capped off with an incendiary or two for anti-personnel room clearing.

After the melee and disposable weapons came her 10mm pistol, specially loaded with heavy magnum bullets in anticipation of encountering the Harbingers bulletproof armor, in the hope that the force of impact would still be enough to cause damage, and then several clips of extra ammo, the pistol resting on her right thigh and hip. Next came her precious, the MASD Selected Barrel Assault Weapon "Warhawk", the longer 13.2mm caliber upper barrel loaded with alternating mercury tipped armor piercing rounds and explosive anti-personnel shells, the lower, fatter barrel armed with micro rockets containing dozens of tungsten steel armor piercing needles that would be superheated when the rocket exploded and launched them into whatever light to medium armored vehicle or structure she hit. As a final last resort, a double barreled sawed off shotgun, little bigger than a pistol, with two heavy slug rounds, which went on her left thigh. And then came clip after clip after clip of extra ammo for the Warhawk. And then, Raven was done for the moment.

The spotlight clicked off her and then another one appeared a little ways away, this time illuminating Staff Sergeant Richard Ramierez. His posture and attitude were almost identical to Ravens, except for the hint of a smirk that curled up the edges of his lips as the ladies armored him up, many of their hands a bit more familiar with his body than they had been before. In terms of armor, he was identical to Raven, except his was a bit more worn, and featured a newer, more advanced stealth system that better suited his role as the company's lead scout and recon specialist. His armor also featured a roll up cloak on the back that could be used to further cover him from enemy detection via sight and most common forms of thermal and even magnetic scan vision.

Ramierez had a greater variety of melee weapons than Raven, again reflecting his role as a man who did his fighting by stealth where possible, up close and personal. He had two regulation combat knives, one on either thigh, plus a brace of slim throwing daggers tucked into loops on the top of each bracer. His right glove concealed a spool of thin macro-molecular wire, which could be extended and looped like a garrote, while the left glove had a similar spool of diamond dusted cutting wire for sawing through locks and such. On his belt he carried a heavy case containing many different types of tools for breaking and entering, as well as marking and disabling sensor systems and most common booby traps. A 120,000 volt taser baton rode at the back of his belt, for those times when taking someone down without killing them was necessary.

He carried fewer grenades than Raven, mostly the mag clamp frag or HE type, for laying as booby traps or use as emplaced explosives, though he did carry a few smoke and flash grenades for utility. His pistol was the same as hers, but he wore his in an beneath the shoulder rig on his left side, and had a second, identical pistol low down on his right calf. His primary weapon was a modified version of the standard MARR-274 assault rifle, with a long silencer and flash suppressor screwed tight onto the barrel, and extended forty round clips of ammo. Underslung beneath the rifle barrel was a 10 gauge pump action shotgun mechanism with four shots loaded, for breaching doorways and close range punch. Other specialty tools, including mountaineering gear and portable data hacking systems, roudned out his eclectic mix of special gear and weapons. He too then stepped back as the spotlight moved on.

The next spotlight could barely contain the mountainous mass of Sergeant Major Thomas Glory, all seven feet and over three hundred and fifty pounds of pure massacre waiting to happen. His armor took a while longer to properly put on, both because of his size, and because it was substantially reinforced over what Raven and Ramierez wore, massing almost twice as much in terms of pure ceramic armor plating. It wasn't quite the phase shifted covering of the Harbingers, but it was the next best thing. It even featured hydraulic systems reinforcing the arms and legs to better help brace Glory when he fired his heavy weapons, though of course he was ready and able to make do without them if the need arose.

Glory's weapons started with a standard combat knife, looking like a steak knife against his bulk as it was strapped to his lower leg, before his primary melee weapon for this op was handed to him. Technically it was a machete, but this machete was so thick and reinforced it looked more like a solid steel baseball bat with a razor edge. Even if he couldn't cleave limbs with the edge, Glory suspected the hefty weapon, which went into a sling across his back, would do plenty from pure crushing force. Following the heavy blades were metallic reinforcements for the fingers and knuckles of his gloves, essentially turning them into armored gauntlets. After that came belt after belt of grenades, both the throwing type and, more plentifully, the 40mm shell type that would fuel his grenade launcher. Before that worthy weapon though, came the standard pistol, again looking like a toy against his bulk as it sat on his hip.

Then, at last came the real big guns, the six chambered, rotary action 40mm grenade launcher, loaded with a mixture of high explosive, fragmentation and smoke/flash grenades, along with a few specialty rounds, such as solid steel door breachers and a napalm filled early burster that essentially turned the grenade launcher into a flamethrower for a single shot. That went onto a sling clipped to his left shoulder pauldron. Next up was his beloved Shrike Minicannon, six rotating barrels of chrome plated death dealing wonder, the forty pound, fifty inch long rapidfire gatling gun fitting onto a hydraulic armature beneath his right arm, a brace that ran all the way up that forearm to provide support against the recoil of firing 125 depleted uranium tipped caseless bullets per second. A linked chain of ammo belts fed to a tall, broad contained slung across the right side of his back, packed with several thousands rounds of ammo in a continuous feed.

As a backup weapon he bore an automatic shotgun with a twenty five round bullpup clip, meaning the clip was mounted behind the trigger grip, counterbalancing the stubby barrel. He'd once used this exact weapon to good effect while wounded and recuperating from the events of Purgatory Day, when the MAGOS special operations team had tried to assassinate Sai under Cervantes's orders. This time, like last time, he'd loaded with heavy shells, something all the Stromhounds were doing with their ammo, switching away from the explosive or fragmenting tip bullets that would only shatter uselessly against Harbinger armor, in favor of dense, solid projectiles that could still break bones and even kill from pure blunt force trauma. The shotgun was slung across the front of his chest, parallel to his grenade bandoleers.

And then the spotlight shifted away from the mountain that was Glory. When it reappeared, it was the alpha wolf that was illuminated, the Hellhound pack leader, the one and only Lieutenant Cyprus Finch. The heir apparent to the title of "Hellhound", bequeathed by his foster father and mentor, Captain Asmodeus Sark of the Earth Forces Special Operation Unit, EFSOU. Whereas the other three had been girded quickly, in a businesslike fashion, Cyprus took a different approach, perhaps because he was the only one who truly valued the spiritual and quasi-mystical side of the ritual. For one, he did the girding himself, and only Wrenn helped him. To those watching, it was almost as much a dance as it was armoring, and there seemed to be elements of a hidden conversation involved as well, thoughts expressed via caresses and glances and subtle body postures. It was, those gathered slowly realized, a well practiced and often honed event, this private merging of souls in the service of a single purpose, in its way as intimate as any sexual act.

Cyprus took his time with each and every individual piece of armor, holding it in his hands, running his fingers over it, mapping its feel, its contours, before fitting it to his body and snugging it into place, like a golem of war building himself from his own spare parts, accepting only perfection in his process. His armor, like Ramierez's and Glory's, had been modified from the standard pattern that Raven wore. Whereas Ramierez had gotten greater stealth capacity, and Glory had gone for greater protection and reinforcement, Cyprus had customized his armor for maximum fluidity and flexibility. It was less a suit of armor than a second skin that could stop bullets. It fit him better than any individually tailored armani suit could hope to. It was part of him, in a way only something that had been built up over years of trial and error and desperate life or death situations could be.

When he was finally satisfied with the fit of his second skin, Cyprus then turned to Wrenn, who had been patiently standing by as he completed his third round of self checks, and she began handing him his armaments one at a time. If anything he took even more care with his weapons than he had with his armor, popping out the clips, checking the bullets, which he had individually cleaned last night. Some of the bullets he had cast and forged by hand during his infrequent free time, taking custom ammunition to the limit in search of maximum performance tailored to him personally. He racked the slide of his standard issue pistol, peeked down the barrel, poked and prodded the gun all over before rearming it and slipping it into a holster modified for for quick draw purposes, low down on his left hip, where his right or left hand could snap down and have it aimed and firing in well under a second.

His standard issue combat knife, an older model he had carefully, almost lovingly maintained for years went in a gravity fed sheath on his left shoulder, in the same manner as Raven wore her stabbing dirk. And second, newer combat knife went into his right boot, secured to his calf in an unobtrusive spot, half beneath his shin armor. He slipped a pair of apparati onto his hands, snugging them over his gloves, making sure his hands could flex freely without activation them, but that when he contorted his hands a certain way, chisel tipped climbing spikes jutted downwards from between his fingers, right at the webbing. Though not designed specifically for combat, intended rather for improving grip on sheer or slippery surfaces, the climbing claws were still sharp, pointed steel spikes, and he could kill with a blow of the flat of his hand with them extended.

Where Ramierez had throwing daggers for his silent ranged kill weapons, Cyprus favored a tomahawk, a curcy, solid steel throwing axe forged from a single piece of folded steel, which nestled across the pit of his back. With a broad, crescent shaped axe blade and a heavy armor piercing spike opposite, the weapon was brutal in both melee and at ranges of up to twenty meters, where he could split an armored skull like a soft melon. Along his upper forearms, underneath the armor, were mounted two spring loaded mechanisms, one per side, that, when he rotated his arm suddenly and rapidly to one side, would drop a six inch armor piercing shiv into his palm, for a close range surprise.

Moving away from the artistry of blades, Cyprus accepted a huge handgun, more like a small carbine, from Wrenn, who had to use both hands to hold it up. The weapon had once belonged to Asmodeus, it had been his personal sidearm, a custom made gun unlike anything in the world. It fired full sized 7.62mm rifle bullets, mercury tipped armor piercing rounds in this particular case, which would blow through any normal body armor like it was hardly even there. The weapon was heavy and bulky, but because of that had very little recoil when firing and was extremely accurate at over one hundred meters, even more so when the bright blue laser sighter was switched on. This monster of a handgun went on his right thigh.

Next came a MAAR-274 assault rifle, just like Ramierez carried, the grunt weapon of the Stormhounds, though Cyprus's had no silencer or flash suppressor, while his clips were even bigger than Ramierez's, each holding sixty rounds. His underbarrel launcher was a 40mm grenade launcher, for which he carried high explosive and flechette/sharpnel rounds that turned the grenade launcher into a big bore flak cannon at short range. Mounted sidecar to the rifle barrel was an eight inch bayonet that could be folded back along the barrel when not in active use. The accompanying ammo for these weapons, as well as the usual satchel of grenades and utility tools took up much of the remaining open space upon his armor.

The crowning glory though, was the exquisite black lacquered sheath, a little over two feet long and a few finger widths wide, that Wreen held almost reverently in her spread hands. She half bowed and offered the weapon, a ninja-to sword, to Cyprus, using her sleeves to hold the sheath so as to not even risk the chance of finger smudges on the drab surface. Cyprus settled one hand on the black wire and sharkskin wrapped hilt and drew forth his sword from its sheath. Only about two thirds the length of a katana, the ninja-to was straight backed and single edged, the blade itself made of steel that had been folded so many times it was more black than grey, with a silver brushing along the edge, every bit as sharp as the monomolecular knives of the Harbingers. The balde swept upwards sharply to a diamond shaped point, and featured a ridged spine that was thickened and toughed for use as a blocking or weapon breaking mechanism. There was almost no hand guard, and the blade was plain and undecorated to the naked eye.

In ultra violet light though, the tiny etched figures of fire breathing, horned demon dogs could be seen running up and down the blade, tracking down fleeing souls and sending them back to hell. Cyprus maneuvered the short blade slowly back and forth in figure eights and other patterns, one handed, two handed, back and forth until the very air keened as it was cut. The blade was so much better suited for the close range brutality of modern melee warfare than the arguably more elegant but less practical katana, which was hard to wield properly in a press of bodies, and was only really suited for slashing, whereas the ninja-to, with its straight blade, could be as easily used to pierce as it was to cut. The sheath itself was lined with lead and plated with iron, allowing the sheathed weapon to be used as club when nonlethal force was required. Cyprus carefully resheathed the blade in a whisper of steel on steel, and then allowed Wrenn to secured the sheathed sword down the middle of his back, where the hilt would be almost tapping against the back of his helmet once he donned it.

Now that all four Stormhounds were girded equally, it was time for the last step. All four spotlights came back on, the Stormhounds all lined up in a row, as their helmet-masks were presented to them. as one, they took the helmets and settled them about their heads, making sure the helemts were connecting to their armor circuits and weapon feeds and all the other tasks that came with donning the highly advanced head protectors. At last they were all ready, the masks still flipped up to show their human faces. Cyprus squared his shoulders once more and smiled, just the barest hint of it, as he felt all his doubts and private fears dissolve away. He was ready. "Loose the hounds." He said, which was the cue for all four to drop their masks into places with sibilant hisses as they sealed shut.

"Let there be hell to pay!" Four Stormhounds replied, their blue eyes baleful and cold, affixing upon the middle distance where sinners souls awaited retrieval.


	75. The Casting Out part 2

Author Note. Preliminary results seem to be indicating that people liked that last chapter. Much as anyone has ever NOT liked a chapter, though just by saying that I know I'm baring my chest to a wolf somewhere. I had been looking forward to writing that scene with Cyprus for a long time, though as ever, it seems to have lost a little bit of evocativeness in the transition between the dream in my head and the reality in text. Eh, I was still happy with it. Big things are still afoot even as this story is simultaneous winding down and heading towards the climax. Durandel certainly seems to be happy with his current position, and doesn't appear to be afraid to throw his weight around. The world is a changing, and the twists aren't due to stop just yet.

xxxx

**Orb, Nara Attha City, overlooking the Military Harbor, Commencement of Operation Downfall**

It was a stirring sight, no matter that it was a prelude to doom for many that she knew and cared about, Mary reflected, standing at the edge of the cleverly landscaped terrace that overlooked the main part of the military section of Nara-Attha City's large harbor. The water was crowded with ships of all shapes and sizes, from small coast guard vessels barely larger than cabin cruisers, to massive USN and FNE supercarriers that were almost half a kilometer from bow to stern, towering fifteen stories into the air above the water, and sinking five or six further down below the waterline, floating towns that held over five thousand people apiece. Escort ships bristling with cannon turrets and missile launchers clustered around the supercarriers like chicks around a hen, and all of the ships were starting to churn the water around them from blue into a foamy green-brown as their motive systems began to kick up sediment from the harbor bottom as they began to move out, a vast balletic dance of gargantuan ships.

Though many ships had been lost in the Battle of Cape York, there were still hundreds left over, including almost all of the support and carrier fleets, so many ships that no one harbor anywhere in the world could have held them all, even if they were packed in so close that their sides brushed. The main fleet and largest ships were harbored at Nara-Attha City in the wake of the retreat from Cape York, but there were smaller flinter fleets starting to make way from harbors all over Orb, and even more ships that had merely dropped anchor offshore at various points, still taking shelter under the lightly crackling arc of the Glasshouse, but avoiding the congestion of the harbors.

There were curiously few people working above decks on the ships, or so it seemed to Mary as she peered through a small pair of handheld binoculars she had been allowed to borrow. And all of those that were above decks were wearing fully sealed flight or environmental suits with self contained atmospheres, which had to be absolutely sweltering in the humid, tropical heat of Orb at this time of year. The constant stormy overcast from the interactions of Green EDEN upon the air only made things closer and more oppressive, like being stuck in a gigantic slow steam cooker after only a few minutes outside. Mary could barely imagine what it had to be like wearing an armored, insulated full body suit that had to weigh anywhere from twenty to fifty pounds, especially while remaining active, lifting and carrying and moving things around.

One part of her wanted to smirk with nasty superiority at such fear displayed for the work of her beloved master, Noah, that the poor fools would be willing to suffer such hardship because they were afraid of even risking a brief chance to come into contact with Noah's dream and being forced to make it their reality. That part of her though, was growing quieter and quieter, the longer she spent away from his side. Again, part of her wanted to clutch at the familiar feel of security and confidence in their love that had sustained her through her own travails like a drowning person would a life raft, but there was a growing part of her that was more afraid to return to what she had once had, than she was to look forward to something new. She still didn't believe that Noah had controlled her, not like Michael... Mu... had been, but she could not deny that with every passing day her love for him seemed to grow flatter and flatter, through no action of her own, as if some unseen influence was leeching out of her.

The old her didn't mind, even if she had been outright controlled, at least she'd been secure in her devotions, in her place in her world. The new her looked down at the forshortened stumps of her fingers, that she had sacrificed to him as apology for her own recklessness, and shuddered at the mere thought of ever surrendering that much of her own will to another person, for any reason, even love! Slavery was still slavery, no matter how she had dressed it up to herself. Still, she could not work it up within herself to hate Noah for what he had done to her, recognizing that he had such huge dreams and goals that the life of someone like her was really insignificant in the balance of things, at least in his eyes. That he had succeeded in his dream, or at least mostly so, was enough to bring a slight smile to her lips. She was glad for him, someone that worked as hard as him deserved to get what he wanted.

Of couse, Noah wasn't the only one who worked hard, Mary reflected, as she looked around herself at various family members and friends who had gathered to see off the fleet as they headed out to take down Noah once and for all. All of them had sacrificed, had suffered for their own dreams and goals, and Mary could not find it in her to begrudge them their own feelings towards Noah, though she wished they could have had a chance to know him just a little bit like she had, rather than as the near devil, world destroying terrorist the media had him painted as. They all wanted a better world, and a peaceful one, it was just so sad that they hadn't been able to connect with each other, and as a result the world had once more become twisted.

Mary lowered the binoculars, her hands moving together as one wrist yanked upon the other through the tough plastic chain that linked them and looped securely around her wrists. She had about a foot of play between her hands, enough to make it so she could accomplish most everyday tasks by herself, though there were a few that were still difficult to perform. On the road to rehabilitation she might be, there was still no getting around the fact that she had once been a terrorist, and that she had committed many crimes, had slaughtered dozens of helpless civilians in their homes using her Gundam, and though a criminal conviction was unlikely, at least based on a plea of forced insanity, neither was her guilt entirely washed away. Her actions would have consequences, and she would be a much older woman before she was free of those consequences, if she ever was.

At least they had let her wear civilian clothes for today, jeans and a simple somber shirt that were a far cry from her preferred civilian digs, which tended to run to goth tastes, but it was still light years beter than the bright orange full body prisoner jumpsuit. The plastic cuffs and chain were also less obtrusive than metallic ones would have been, especially if she kept her hands by her sides. Still, she was aware that every move of hers was being watched closely by who knew how many covert and over guards in the relatively near vicinity. Especially given that the very Chief of State of Orb, Chief Representative Jiro Kurenai, as well as his predecessor and perennial Orb favorite, Queen Cagalli Zala-Attha, were only a few dozen feet away as they too oversaw the departing fleets, fresh from televised appearances explaining to public what was going on.

Both the Chief Represenative and the Queen looked haggard and worn beyond the remit of what people of their relatively tender years should have been forced to endure, and though Mary actually had a few years on her sovereign, she doubted she would ever be even a quarter as much of a mature woman as the Queen was at her current age of slightly over 22. Gazing in her direction, Mary felt an electric tingle as the Queen turned her head for some reason and for a brief moment their eyes met. Mary swallowed slightly and bowed her head under the fiery intensity she could see burning brightly in the depths of Cagalli's eyes, a glimpse at the indomitable will that had made her such a success in the face of all the adversity in her life. It was like meeting Noah's gaze, though intense for different reasons. Noah made you feel small and insignificant, Cagalli made you feel like a weakling or lazy bum, as if questioning how you could possibly consider yourself a sufferer compared to what she had not only gone through, but thrived on!

Keeping her more immediate company as sort of her adopted guardians were Mu la Flaga and his fiance/lover, Murrue Ramius, two very famous figures that drew a crowd of onlookers of their own. Though Mary had only known Mu as Michael, the two personalities were similar enough that she found it easy to be comfortable around Mu, even though he looked strange to her without all his facial scars, which had been removed during his recent stay in the hospital after the Battle of Cape York. Though she did find it somewhat unfair that Michael-Mu had been allowed to return to his old life and position of trust so rapidly, she also knew that their situations were different, the difference between a captive and an indentured servant. His standing would still never approach the level of near hero worship he'd once enjoyed in the past, the taint of his time in the Brotherhood, under control or not, would be staining his professional career, should he choose to stay in the military, for the rest of his life.

For his part Mu didn't look particularly bothered by that, one of his arms held across his chest by a sling, the forearm and wrist still in a cast, an injury suffered when the Tormented crashed into the Gulf of Carpentaria during the battle. The other arm was wrapped securely around the shoulders of the bruenette haired Murrue, who helped him balance on on leg, keeping his weight off a similarly broken right leg, also suffered during that same powerful impact with deceptively hard water, after the cockpit harness and Gravitic Reduction System had been shut down by damage sustained prior to the fall. The Tormented had been lost to the depths, which was unfortunate, though Mary was certain that Orb had managed a full technical download of the Gundam before they'd let it be used in combat again.

While Mu and Murrue were focused on the ships and other forces that were pulling out of the harbor in only slightly chaotic groups, Mary's other near constant companion, the unfortunately brain damaged girl named Jean Kellson, was gawking at anything and everything around them. Mary knew it wasn't Jean's fault that she had as much self control and attention span as an average elementary school kid, because it was to roughly that point in her life that she'd been regressed by her crippling injuries. Injuries suffered at least partly because of the Brotherhood, or so Mary was given to understand, though the real details of how Jean had come to be unfortunate enough to get a mess of metal shards in the back of her skull, not to mention missing both hands, were unknown to her.

At the same time as she herself was walking the road to rehabilitation, so too was Mary helping Jean along a similar path. Mary had once been a nurse intern who had specialized in working with the terminally ill or damaged, especially younger folks, and she and Jean had forged a natural bond as mutual sufferers in a hard spot. Even with the best current medical technology availble to Orb, which was slightly ahead of the rest of the USN, and roughly dead even with the PLANTS, there wasn't much that could be done about the damage to Jean's brain, which had robbed her of so much of her life and memories. She was slowly relearning, and would probably eventually be able to live a semi-normal life without too much outside assistance, but she'd lost almost eighteen years of memory and life experience, and relearning how to be herself was not a quick process. Much less considering all the things she'd lost with her memories... friends, even perhaps lovers!

Back when Mary had been a practicing nurse, or at least a student nurse, the damage to Jena's hands, which had apparently required them to be amputated at the wrist, would also have been beyond any but the most basic of prosthetic fixes. Things had progressed since her own near death in the field of prosthetic science, and Jean had recently undergone procedures that not only replaced her hands with fully working mechanical substitutes, but substitutes that were in many ways superior to her original flesh and blood limbs! It was obvious to Mary that the new prosthetics had been reverse engineered from a military prototype, as the mechnical hands were inordinately, even dangerously strong, able to crush concrete and even dent some metals! Coupled with Jean's childish mind and lack of focus, it would be some time before anyone was at ease shaking her hand.

They were still waiting for the synthetic flesh covers for the prosthetics, so in the meanwhile Jean was merely wearing gloves over the dull black steel of the mechanical attachments, which were integrated into the very bone and nerves of her arms. Currently the bookish young woman was right at the edge of the terrace leaning over the railing and waving happily at all the huge ships as they lined up to leave port. Mary had listened to Mu explain to Jean what was going on, at least in a basic sense, but as far as she could tell all that Jean had gotten out of it was that this was a "party" type occassion and she was making the most of her fun time, especially with all the ships to gape at. Mary felt her lips tugging upward in a slight smile at Jean's exuberance, remembering far back to happier times in her own past.

It was after she finally drifted back to the here and now of the present that something caught Mary's eye. Someone had unobtrusively slipped between her and Jean while she'd been off in memory land and was now standing side by side with her friend. The newcomer was a blocky fireplug of a man, seemingly as broad as he was tall, with the thick muscles of someone who either spends way too much time at a gym or else has a damn good reason to need to be at the tip top of physical shape. Such as a soldier. Her mind instantly flashed to an image of the towering, grim faced Stormhound that constantly dogged the steps of the man she called the "Grey Ghost". The Grey Ghost and the Unfriendly Giant were the bane of her existence these days, they only ever came around when they wanted something, usualy information, and while they weren't exactly unpleasant about it, the Unfriendly Giant was scary just because of his physical size, and the Grey Ghost... well, his eyes made her feel like she was on the wrong end of a knife point.

In truth this new guy was almost comically short, just barely too tall to be medically qualified to be classified a dwarf. That same shortness just served to accentuate his build all the more, all the strength packed into a small frame until it looked like he was about to burst. Still, for all his muscle mass he also possessed a fluidty of motion that was surprising to her, certainly enough for him to have slipped through the crowd without causing a scene and even stepped by Mary herself without her even noticing he was there at all. She couldn't get a good look at him, he was facing away from her, clad in a loose fitting jogging suit and jacket of blue nylon, with a dark baseball style cap crammed down on his head, over tight curls of bright cherry red hair, but he seemed at once confident in himself and relaxed, while also very on edge, as if he was expecting something to go badly wrong at any moment.

Mary watched as the short stranger slowly took his hands out of the pockets of his jacket, moving slowly and casually, in what would certainly normally be a nonsuspicious manner. However this was not a normal situation, at least not for Mary. Jean didn't like being seperated from Mary or the others, and though she was very inquisitive in her childish fashion, she also never strayed out of arms reach, as if she was afraid someone was waiting to come snatch her away from those she cared about. That might have had something to do with the fact that some people had tried to come take her away once, Brotherhood operatives from what the Grey Ghost had said, though why the Brotherhood would have any interest in her crippled friend, Mary could not fathom. The long and short of it was, as soon as Jean got out of reach of her friends/caretakers, she would freak out, and that was not fun for anyone involved.

It also wasn't happening, though Mary could see that Jean had noticed the presence of the short red head at her side, gently nudging her away from Mary like a boy edging his girlfriend away from the eyes of family for a quick kiss. The red haired man slowly extended his arms, a slow motion version of the classic cheesy arm reach boyfriends had been pulling on girlfriends in horror movies for generation upon generation. Mary's feeling of unease changed to outright trepidation when redhead settled his arm around Jean's waist and far from jerking or crying out or pushing away, Jean actually relaxed into the embrace like it was the most natural thing in the world. Judging by the most definitely puzzled look on Jean's face, she herself wasn't exactly sure what was happening or why she felt so at ease with the redhead, when with any other person she would be screaming like a scalded cat.

Mary saw the redhead almost casually look up into Jean's face, and far more quickly and awkwardly look away, obviously not finding what he was hoping for in her blank, inquisitive expression. The redhead's shoulders seemed to slump a little, his posture taking on a new edge of weariness, but it passed practically as quick as Mary could blink and the redhead seemed to stand straighter and even a bit taller than before. She still hadn't got a good look at his features, the brim of his hat was pulled down low to shade his face and eyes, and he kept himself mostly turned away from her, as if aware of her scrutiny. Had she her voice she would have said something by now, but she only had a handheld device that allowed her to type what she wanted to say, and that only worked when people were looking at her. And for some reason, she got the idea that reaching out and touching the redhead on the shoulder to get his attention would not be a good idea.

Resolving that things were definitely not right, Mary turned towards Mu and Murrue and lifted her hands a bit to gain their attention as she began rapidly texting on her display device. She'd barely even got her sentence started when she was gently bumped from behind. "That's not necessary." The unknown voice from right about her chest level, undoubtedly belonging to the short redheaded man, said in a tone only she could hear. "You'd do best to just forget anything strange happened. I just needed to see her one more time..." The voice trailed away. "There's something in her pocket. The Stormhounds will want to see it." The redhead paused, mulling something over. "Thank you for being there for her." He added, almost too quiet for Mary to hear. She turned away from Mu and Murrue, who were now shooting her questioning looks of their own, but in the time it took her to turn the stocky redhead had already disappeared into the crowd on the terrace. Mary shivered, unnerved by how stealthy he'd been, both coming and going. It was like no one but her and Jean had even seen him, and neither of them were exactly the best witnesses.

"Something wrong?" Mu asked, with a quirked eyebrow as Murrue helped him hobble over to where Mary was scanning the crowd. His brow furrowed slightly as he too looked about, but he didn't see anything that would have gotten his charge acting so flighty.

Mary thought quickly and then typed on her display in a flurry of fingers. **Just thought I saw someone I remembered from before Purgatory Day. I was wrong. It wasn't him.**

"Past boyfriend huh?" Mu had a slightly crooked smile crawling across his face. "Pity it wasn't. You could use one."

"What is it with you trying to act like a matchmaker?" Murrue scolded him gently. "First Kira and now Mary, do you try to interfere in the romantic lives of every pilot you mentor?"

"Hey, I'll have you know that its part of a mentor's job description to make sure their pupils are properly taken care of in all aspects of their lives, romance included." Mu replied with a smirk. "And yeah, look how that turned out for Kira and Lacus, why don't you? I totally called it, did I not? He could've used her as a girlfriend. And he did. And everyone should be very grateful for that fact. It might not have happened if I hadn't of placed the idea in his head. And then where would we all be, huh?"

Mary smiled weakly and turned her attention to fending off Jean, who had excitedly come over to her and was tugging on her shoulder and pointing off into the crowd, undoubtedly after the redheaded man, though Jean seemed able to keep track of him, Mary could not figure. Jean sometimes had trouble keeping track of her own feet, much less a considerably shorter than average, camouflaged man in a heavy crowd. Part of her wanted to pay attention and let Jean point out the man, as there was plainly a lot tying him to Jean, probably all tangled up in those parts of her memory that were gone. Mary remembered how Jean had relaxed into his arms with the ease that could only come from both long familiarity and the dregs of mutual interest. That had not been a friend hug, that had been a love hug, Mary was a pretty good judge of the intent behind hugs after seeing thousands while working as a nurse, many with feeling, some with none.

On the other hand she had the feeling that if she let Jean carry on for much longer, they would start attracting more official attention, and that probably wasn't what Jean's friend wanted, given that he'd employed stealth to be here in the first place. And as tender as his feelings towards Jean seemed to be, Mary could not shake off the undeniable aura of menace she'd felt rolling off the man, very similar to that of the way the Grey Ghost could get when he wanted to intimidate someone, generally her. As casually as possible, Mary yanked down on Jean's pointing arm, mentally cursing the limitations of her plastic chain as she tried to simultaneously search through Jean's pockets for whatever the redhead had deposited in them. After several seconds of humorous in any other circumstance struggle, Mary at last managed to slip her hand into Jean's pocket, and felt her fingers almost immediately close around the smooth plastic surface of a large capacity data chip.

Holding the chip in her fingertips, Mary drew it halfway out of Jean's pocket, just enough to get a glimpse of it. She almost dropped it when she saw the dark green color of the chip, complete with an embossed golden winged eye, the symbol of the Brotherhood. Her mind reeling, Mary lost her grip on Jean, who tried to turn and follow the redhead into the crowd, but then she stopped after a step or two, having obviously lost track of him, judging by the frustrated look that crossed her face, before tears started creeping into her eyes and she began sniffling. Mary hurriedly walked over and put her arms around her friend comfortingly, taking the chance to stuff the Brotherhood data chip back into Jean's pocket, where Mu or Murrue would probably find it later, hopefully after they'd forgotten about Mary's recent slightly odd behavior.

"He's gone..." Jean snuffled sadly. "He left..."

Mary patted her on the shoulder, once more silently cursing the limitations of her chains, which prevented her from easily embracing her friend, and right now Jean definitely needed a hug. She might not remember the man as such, but unconsciously she had rejoiced at his presence, and was deeply troubled by his leaving. As for herself, Mary was trying to figure out how Jean's friend could have ties to the Brotherhood, yet Mary had not known him, and she was fairly sure she would have remembered a Harbinger or Apostle with that build and that color hair! Furthermore, to all intents and purposes whoever he was appeared to be betraying the Brotherhood by giving away this data chip, with who knew what sort of data on Noah's prized technology! Part of her wanted to crush the chip, but the rest held her back. Orb... and the rest of the world... needed as much help as they could get right now. And Noah would have wanted to share, eventually, she was pretty sure. For all she knew, the redhead operative was working under Noah's orders, though that seemed unlikely upon reflection.

Jean continued to cry, and nothing could console her, not until she feel asleep much later that night, shortly before being woken again by the commotion caused when Murrue discovered the Brotherhood data chip in Jean's jacket pocket. But that was long after it was possible to do anything about the red haired man. As for herself, Mary kept silent on the matter, figuring it best not to draw any even possibly unfavorable attention to her, as a technical Brotherhood operative herself. Keeping silent was not hard for her after all. She just hoped that Jean's friend would one day come back to her, because it was obvious to her that there was something special between them, something that could even breach the fog of brain damage. And connections like that were one in a million, too precious in this unfortunate world.

xxxx

**45,000 feet over Indian subcontinent, Asia, 4 hours after commencement of Operation Downfall**

"She shouldn't be here! This is absolutely crazy!" Alkire protested, his hands clenched tight around the grips of his control yoke. "Who the hell let her onboard anyway!"

"With some people, Miss Clyne in particular, it isn't always a matter of letting them, but more one of getting out of their way lest you find yourself trampled in the dust." Cyprus replied laconically from the copilot's chair nearby. Unlike Alkire, he was still wearing his battle helmet, with the face shield and optics flipped up for easier ventilation. Truth be told, while many people found combat designed helmets to be somewhat uncomfortable or bulky, Cyprus was so used to his that it might as well have been a soft ballcap on his head. All things considered, he wore the helmet a lot more than he did ballcaps. "I for one did not see a reason to argue with her."

"Yeah, you've been acting weird all morning. Weirder, I should say." Alkire grumbled, eyeing Cyprus out of the corner of his vision, disgruntled at the aura of near total relaxation and comfort the other Stormhound was exuding. For his part, Alkire felt wound up tighter than a gunspring, and his entire body was aching with phantom injuries, like an arthritis sufferer before a rain, the wost of those being the itch in his foot. The foot that had been replaced by the mechanical prosthetic. Which of course, he could not scratch. "Its not like you to back down before anyone, even Lacus Clyne. This entire mission plan is fucked anyways, bringing her along is as good as a death sentence. Maybe for all of us."

"I agree that if we follow the USN phase two battle plan, heavy casualties are assured, and mission success is on the low side of probable." Cyprus nodded his head, steel grey eyes looking out into the distance of the sky revealed by the front viewports of the Stormhounds special battle transport jet, one of several highly advanced vehicles provided for the Stormhounds by Morganroete Armories for use in various environments, ranging from high altitude combat parachute dropships to urban armored vehicles to submersibles. Below and to the right hand side were the heavier transports hauling Orb's contribution to Operation Downfall, mixtures of Guardians and Dawndrakes, with three other high speed transports thrown in, one for each Gundam. Orb's force was by far the smallest of the ones being committed, less than thirty suits all told, and a single company of Stormhounds numbering fifty soldiers, and so they could afford to send all of their soldiers by air, whereas the other militaries were concentrated upon the ships for most of the trip and would only take to the air at the Indian coast closest to the battle area.

"And tossing someone who is the very definition of a noncombatant into our ranks helps us address this problem how exactly?" Alkire asked cuttingly. He knew he was letting some of the tension get to him, was making him sharper and nastier than he might otherwise normally be. But then again, he did outrank Cyprus, militarily if not always operationally, and it wasn't like they were fast friends or anything. Grudging respect, he definitely felt that, heavy on the grudging part, but friends? It would be a cool day in hell before that came down. So he could afford to be pointed in his remarks.

"She is not nearly as helpless as many people think. You should know that yourself, just as well as I do." Cyprus returned, his tone not varying an inch as he declined to rise to Major Jones's remark.

"Oh yes..." Alkire muttered sarcastically. "Assuming you can put her in a situation where the fate of the world hangs in the balance, and even then its only about a fifty percent probability. God forbid she use her abilities to unduly influence someone. Even if they are trying to kill her. No, that would almost be a sin or something. And from long experience, I can tell you that oftentimes it feels like she would rather die than sin against her own moral code."

"I can remember a situation or two where she was able to put aside her idealism to great effect." Cyprus pointed out mildly. "And it isn't like we are spoiled for choice you know. I would personally prefer to rely upon your adopted daughter and her paramour for protection from... nonphysical threats. But she has her work cut out for her just keeping the two of them protected, much less a large group of people. Your daughter possesses superlative skills when it comes to one or two targets... but for a group, there is no one better than Lacus Clyne. Assuming we can get past the outer, traditional defenses, Miss Clyne may be our only hope of actually surviving to confront Noah himself, and will certainly be critical to defeating him."

"I'd like to think a hail of mercury tipped bullets would be a big help in that last part too. He might be able to stop two or three with his freaky mind powers, but fifty, fired from multiple angles? I don't think so." Alkire muttered, once again flexing his hands on the yoke, though it was locked into an autopilot course for the next few hours. "Aren't you at all disturbed by working alongside someone, even her, when they have such freaky powers? I mean, even Katie freaks me out more often than not these days."

"I would like to hear the answer to that question too, actually." Lacus's dulcet tones from the cramped cockpit space behind them made both men jump slightly, as neither had heard her approach. Which was something of an injury to their professional pride. Alkire glanced over his shoulder and smiled sheepishly, his gaze skipping away from the unnerving metallic gold centers of her pupils. It wasn't her fault she had them, it was a side effect of that stuff she'd been poisoned with, but it was still not something he thought he'd be getting used to any time soon. Her cornea's were the usual lilac blue color, but that was just about the only difference, in the eyes anyway, from Noah Borander. They were inhuman eyes, and when attached to someone who already seemed more than human at times, the disturbing effect was magnified considerably.

"Its a complex question." Cyprus answered, one eyebrow arched as he acknowledged Lacus's stealth, intentional or unintentional, it was a rare person that could sneak up upon him, especially with his senses tuned to their sharpest after the morning's spiritual cleansing and unburdening. "On one hand, I do not like the idea of someone peering into my thoughts or influencing my will or even my body. On the other, I acknowledge the wisdom and practicality of fighting fire with fire. I would not ask you to come along, Miss Lacus. But if you volunteered yourself, as you did, I will not turn down your aid. Though I will stress that by choosing to come along, you are placing yourself under my command during the operation itself. You will do what I say, even if you find the thought repugnant to your morals. Or else you will stay on the transport. Even if I have to chain you here myself."

"I will not carry a weapon. I will not kill people." Lacus replied in turn, her tone just as assured and resilient as his own. "I will do everything in my power to keep you and your soldiers alive, and anything else that I can help with, that does not violate those first two strictures." She added after a second or two of gaze lock. "Kira and I feel we need to be here, even though we would both prefer otherwise. Do not doubt our resolve or our determination."

"I don't. I merely doubt your ability to react properly in clutch situations." Alkire cut in bluntly. "For that matter, harsh as it may sound, I doubt your ability to remain cold and logical right now. We all know you're still going through the aftereffects of your "second puberty" thing, and you are pregnant. If it were within my power I would turn this jet around, fly back to Orb, and toss you personally out upon the runway. Sadly, I do not have that power. Not if we're to have any chance at all of pulling this mission off. And truth be told, my trepidation has more to do with your pregnancy and emotional state than your psychic abilities. I would not let Raine come on this mission were she in the middle of a pregnancy, and I know one hundred percent that I can trust her decision making in tough spots."

"You could try and stop me, Robert. In all likelihood neither of us would deploy in that case, because we'd both end up in the hospital." Raine's disembodied voice echoed into the cockpit from the short, narrow hallway that connected the piloting area from the cargo/deployment area.

"Don't take her side in this!" Alkire called back. "This is crazy and you know it, Raine!"

"We don't have a choice though, Robert." Raine replied, her voice becoming a bit more tender. "Not only is she outside, and technically above our chain of command, and therefore can basically do as she wishes regardless of how we feel about it, but we're over halfway to the mission area and therefore past the point of no return. We're stuck with her, like it or not, so stop your whinging and put your mind to better use. You should be grateful she's even willing to listen to you gripe. I would have personally told you to shut the fuck up and mind your own business. Way I see it, we need her more than she needs us in this particular situation."

"Major Belaruse has a point." Cyprus interrupted. "With Lacus's recent physical changes due to her second puberty and Noah's failed poison, she has outwardly undergone the changes consistent with Noah's promised "ascension" process. Of course we now know that the internal changes are practically nonexistant, but its the visible physical changes, especially the metallic pupils, that are currently germane. To whit, to the enemy footsoldiers, the Harbingers, she has the appearance of an Angel, in essence an aspect of their religion's diety. I strongly suspect they could not shoot at her even if they wanted to, unless they were under the direct personal command of Noah Borander. Harming an Angel would be the most grievous sin imaginable to them, enough to emperil their very immortal souls. Naturally this does not protect her against accidental damage, but she should be proof against any intentional attack, at least until we are past the human defenses."

"Ain't just the Harbingers I'm worried about." Alkire countered. "Nor the rest of whatever defenses Noah has cooked up in his home base. With all the chaos and confusion and USN soldiers running about in there with us, I think some people might be a little looser with their trigger fingers than otherwise normal. And all it takes is a glimpse of gold eyes, and I can tell you, I'd probably shoot first and worry about reprecussions later, especially now that the vids of Noah's little coming out spectacle have been circulated around for a while. Hell, for all we know Durandel might even have put something out on the downlow along the lines that if Lacus doesn't make it back, he won't exactly be shedding more than crocodile tears. He's tried to replace her in the past, and it would be a hell of a political blow for him to capitalize on."

"I have considered such a possibility." Cyprus broke out in a cool smile. "It is what I would do, were I in his shoes. Obviously, following the USN battle plan is a suboptimal choice. So we won't be doing that. There will doubtless be some political fallout later, but I am confident in the ability of the Chief Representative and Queen to handle that."

"Oh goody, you have a plan." Alkire said darkly.

"Your animosity does not help our current situation." Lacus spoke up, her own voice the same temperature as Cyrpus's smile. "Regardless of your feelings towards Mr. Finch, he is the foremost expert in this particular case. I value your contributions to every mission just as much as I do his, and I know that holds true throughout your command structure. If such a time should come where we need to fall back on a last ditch, throw all risk to the winds type plan, you can be assured I will come to you first, Alkire. Because you are a brilliant soldier. But your brilliance is different from that of Cyprus, and you should know that you can both shine brightly without diminishing the other. Give him his time to shine, and yours will surely follow shortly thereafter. After all, no plan of ours makes any difference if we cannot get through the enemy defenses, and it is you that we are relying upon in that arena."

Alkire grumbled incoherently, but turned back to his controls and ducked his head a little, displeased at being called out and simultaneously put in his place by Lacus, something she seemed good at doing to him amongst other people, while all the while making them feel like a misbehaving child at the same time, while not being able to get angry at her, because privately, he knew she was right. Cyprus had a natural talent for cognitive thinking that he had honed to become one of the deadliest weapons in his arsenal, which allowed him to defeat many foes or challenges before ever confronting them in actual combat. Alkire could do that that sort of thing as well as most leaders in his profession, but Lacus was right, he did his best work on a moment by moment, flying by the seat of his pants basis, succeeding where the more traditional, methodical, brainy approach of people like Cyprus would struggle.

"Instead of going in along the ground, where the USN forces will be deployed and where the heaviest defenses are sure to be found, we will instead deploy directly upon the upper surface of the Great Endeavor itself. I have a few points of ideal entry marked out on my plot, but its all highly subjective as to what parts remain intact or whole afetr the crash, and even which direction we end up approaching the Great Endeavor from." Cyprus went on as if he had not been interrupted, not wanting to make Major Jones feel any more embarassed than he already was. "We will then proceed to enter the fortress, blowing a doorway in if need be, and strike fast and hard for the critical locations of any base, mobile or otherwise. We will be assisted in our operation by the partial interior maps provided by our debrief of Commander la Flaga." Cyprus paused and then he smiled again, like a wolf baring its fangs. "Maps which I seem to have forgotten to provide to the USN forces. How regrettable of me."

"You're going to use the USN attack as a distraction." Alkire had a predatory grin on his face now as well. "I think I might actually like this plan."

"My projections indicate a high likelihood that Noah Borander will attempt to overload and detonate any remaining Fusion Pulse Reactors aboard the Great Endeavor, should he or they suvive the crash, in order to deny any of his technology from falling into our hands. So our first target will be severing the control lines to the reactors, which will also deny the enemy much of their advanced weaponry and defenses, and will certainly make bringing up reinforcements easier, when the hull mounted weapons are disabled. From there we will split, with half our forces going to secure the combat control center or bridge, and the remainder pushing on straight through to a place called the "Atrium", which is where Noah's private quarters are located, and where he most likely will be located assuming he lives through the crash."

"So all I gotta do is pull this baby up to the side of the Great Endeavor long enough for us all to disembark?" Alkire asked. "That doesn't sound that hard."

"Bear in mind that the best disembarkation point may very well be in a place where landing is impossible. In fact, most of the best entry points I have researched will likely need to be reached by drop line or zip line, depending upon the orientation of the crashed fortress. And of course, until we get the reactors shut down, there will be plenty of CIWS fire in the area. I'm sure it will be plenty exciting for you, Major."

"The Mobile Forces are beginning their deployment now." Lacus said, several seconds before a blinking light on their comm panel revealed the same information. Her eyes were drawn down and to the right as the carrier bearing the Seraph and Kira began pulling away from the covert ops transport, which was loafing along at well below its normal maximum speed in order to allow the heavy combat forces to reach the enemy first. A slight smile graced her face as her hand drifted down to rest on the swell of her stomach. _We are with you, Kira. We will all see this through to the end. Together._

xxxx

**The Great Endeavor, Himelayan Mountain range, 10 hours since commencement of Operation Downfall**

"They're coming." Noah and Meyrin said, almost at the same moment. Little wonder their synchronity, as they were sitting together on their bed in the Atrium, bare flesh warm against each other as Meyrin sat in Noah's lap with her back to him and his arms wrapped around her, as he used her to amplify his abilities to the point where he could sense the approach of the enemy even before the sensor systems of the Great Endeavor could resolve them from the haze of background clutter and jamming. A tone chimed and a screen coalesced out of the air courtesy of the hidden holoprojectors spaced around the bedroom grotto, depicting a fully armored but unhelmed Harbinger who quickly averted her eyes at chancing to report to the Great Prophet and Lady Angel during a private moment. Still, the Great Prophet had demanded to know immediately when they detected an attack incoming and so...

"Great Prophet, Lady Angel, we have detected high speed carriers inbound from the south and east..." The Harbinger began to say.

"We know." Noah waved off the rest of her sentence. "We felt them coming. Thank you for your vigilance. Prepare our defenses and have all Harbingers stand by for incoming battle damage. Meyrin and I will handle the brunt of combat from here."

"As you will it, Great Prophet. For the Brotherhood of Man!" The Harbinger's image dissolved once more at a subtle twitch from Noah. Meyrin was already up and moving across the semi-solid lagoon that contained their bed, towards the rocky shelves to the left of the waterfall that fed the basin, where a variety of storage spaces for food and clothing and other things were cunningly concealed in the stone. despite the urgency of the fight that was soon to come, Noah still found himself sitting transfixed upon the bed, unable to do anything but watch her move. Their lovemaking had stopped quite a while before, the rest of the time had been spent just being together in comfortable near silence, resting and recharging their reserves, but he could still feel the electric tingle of her touch upon his skin, and every time he inhaled he breathed in the scent of their mingled love. It was heady, almost intoxicating.

It hadn't been his first time with a woman, but sex between two Ultimate Coordinators did not compare at all to that between regular humans, their enhanced senses as well as intimate mental bond heightened the experience to a near transcendental level, and Noah had been completely blown away by the experience, fufilled in ways he never could have imagined only a few hours earlier. He still wasn't completely sure it wasn't all a dream, he certainly still felt dazed and loggy. A brief mental poke from Meyrin, equal parts humorous tolerance and mild annoyance, brought his mind back to the here and now, and he too reluctantly got up off the warm bed and headed off to get dressed. _I like what I see too, love, but we have problems to address._ Meyrin sighed and allowed herself to be distracted for just a moment. _Though you made it very, very special for me, thank you Noah. I could not have asked for anything more._

_If only I had intended it that way, I could accept your compliment._ Noah admitted sheepishly. _I've... never felt anything like that before. I don't think I could ever have enough of you..._

_Well, perhaps if you're good and we end up surviving the rest of the day, we can see about an encore performance._ Meyrin said in half play/half grim seriousness. _I certainly would not mind, now that I've gotten my second wind back._

_What better motivation could I have for making this a quick battle?_ Noah replied, though they both knew his levity was false. The battle was likely to be quick, that was no question, but it was also very likely to end poorly for them. He and Meyrin got dressed side by side, and Noah smiled to see that through unconscious agreement of some sort, they had selected the garments they had worn during their first few meetings, the color changing clothes he'd made for her and his own, rather than the robes of the Brotherhood. The clothing shimmered and took on the dark emerald hue of the Brotherhood, with golden traceries upon his clothes and silver upon hers. Properly attired, Noah opened a different cubby and withdrew his NIC IV operating helmet for the Brotherhood Gundam, while Meyrin once more called upon the grotto's holoprojectors to recreate the displays they would normally have seen upon the bridge. With the Great Endeavor as damaged and incomplete as it was, they only needed the two of them to adequately control the systems remaining.

"How close are we to the landing area?" Noah asked, though he also knew the answer to that question before he asked it. He resorted to verbal communication because he wanted to hear Meyrin's voice with his ears. He had the sick feeling that he might have only a limited window in which to continue experiencing it, and he wanted to glut himself while he could.

"Not close enough." Meyrin replied, as they both already knew. She called up a view of the terrain ahead and around them, as the Great Endeavor limped through the high mountain passes, moving barely above a crawl, about as fast as a human could run cross country. They were flying as low as the terrain around them would allow, which still put them several thousand feet from the ground below, while the peaks of the mountains on either flank rose thousands more feet above them, effectively boxing them into the valley they were following. Ahead the majestic bulk of Mt. Everest, tallest mountain in the world, rose like a curtain of rock and ice and snow that closed off the end of the valley as it took a sharp dogleg to the right before continuing deeper into the mountain ranges of the Tibetan Plateau. This particular valley was too narrow and uneven for them to set down, but there was a much broader, gentler valley offshoot a hundred miles or so up this one. Sadly, that still put it at more than five hours travel at best speed, and the incoming forces would be all over them well before then.

Lightning danced among the peaks and thunder threw avalanches of dirty white stone and snow tumbling down the peaks all around them as the atmospheric displacement of the Great Endeavor whipped the already charged air into a frenzy of elemental fury, rain and snow and hail tossed about in currents of wind in every direction, many falling upwards along the sides of the Great Endeavor. It was a hell of a place for a battle, the emphasis being on hell. Temperature outside was well below freezing, and the wind chill nearly made it to arctic temperatures, a steady eighty kph wind blowing in a several kilometer radius around the hovering fortress, and physical visibility was down to less than a kilometer. "I'll look for a place to set down here, but we both know there isn't any." Meyrin said sourly.

"Don't bother. We'll need the ventral weapon systems anyway, if we're to have any chance of defending ourselves." Noah replied with a near fatalistic shrug. He hefted the NIC IV helmet in his hands for a moment or two before reluctantly slipping it over his head, blocking out his view of Meyrin standing a few feet away, immersed in the holographic controls. Of course he could still perceive her using his mind, but that was different. Purer in some ways, less adequate in others. Noah tensed his hands at his sides, chiding himself for such a cluttered mind in a time of need. meyrin did not seem to be having any trouble focusing, but then again she did have military training on the subject. Noah took a deep breath and started up the OS of the Brotherhood Gundam.

Almost at once he was assaulted with a series of alerts and chimes informing him that his combat capabilities remained compromised. The self repair and hanger bay maintenance facilities had been able to reconstruct the two right arms that he had lost to the Vengeance late in the last battle, but while the basic arm structure as well as the palm mounted shields could be easily rebuilt, relatively speaking, the same could not be said of the QC armblades, each of would take a month or more to construct with a dedicated Red EDEN vat, something far more powerful than the self repair system. And All such vats were devoted to repairing the Great Endeavor right now. Likewise, the 5mm AMP rifle incorporated exotic elements that did not replicate easily, even for nano-machines, and it would be at least a month before he regained his primary ranged weapon. Time he did not have.

Though all other damage had been repaired, and all other weapons reconstructed that had been lost, the absence of a quarter of his melee arsenal and his most destructive weapon was a great diminishment to his Gundam, a blight on his masterpiece that simultaneously enraged and frightened him. He never would have guessed, in his worst nightmares, that the Brotherhood and himself would have come as close to defeat and destruction as they had in that last battle. Just went to show, truth is always stranger, and often more fantastic, than fiction. Of course the news wasn't all bad. The Brotherhood Gundam might be running at less than one hundred percent capacity, and there was only a single squadron of five Zealots left to back him up, which was barely even worth deploying in the current situation, but he still possessed the most powerful and advanced Gundam the world had ever seen!

For that matter, the enemy hadn't exactly gotten off lightly during the last battle, and Noah was confident that at least three of the Gundams who had attacked last time, that being the Phoenix King, Dawn Goddess and the repurposed Tormented, would not be cluttering up the battlefield this time. It was smaller comfort than it might otherwise have been, considering he still faced the Seraph, Vorpal, Warmaster and Vengeance, but right now Noah was willing to take what good news he could. The terrain, while heavily restricting the maneuvering capability of the Great Endeavor, also made it difficult for the enemy to approach from all sides like they had last time. And Noah had never counted on the maneuvering capabilities of his SATMARS anyway. And many of their best pilots were dead or injured after the last battle, there was no way they would be able to muster the horde that they'd sent last time to swamp his defenses.

"Watch the undersides, its very likely they'll be aiming for our thrusters and levitators." Meyrin warned as the Brotherhood stalked out of its repair bay and out onto the extending launch runway, flanked by its five Zealots, a lord among peasants. There was a moment of silence and then Meyrin spoke again, her voice less steady. "I just want you to know, Noah, that no matter what happens today, I love you very much, and I wouldn't have wanted the majority of it to be any different, okay? We don't have anything to prove to anyone, especially each other. So just... lets be careful, okay?"

"The only blazes of glory we'll see today will be the burning shells of their Mobile Suits crashing to the ground." Noah promised grimly. His tone softened after he said that though. "I love you too Meyrin, forever and ever, and I would not trade my time with you for anything. You have helped me become more than just myself, you have shown me how to be everything I wanted to be! Without your guidance I would be lost. I promise that I will protect you from what is coming. No harm will come to you while I still have a single breath of life in my body."

Meyrin was about to reply to that when more threat warnings popped up on her displays. She studied the icons with narrowed eyes, seeing that they were different from the high speed assault carriers that were used to transport Mobile Suits to a combat area. These were still transports, but by and large most of them were smaller, with a few that were quite a bit larger. The smaller ones were infantry transports, and the much larger ones bulk lifters that could transport an entire platoon of heavy tanks or a company of lighter armored vehicles at a time. Of course such vehicles and infantry would be all but useless if the Great Endeavor remained aloft, but if they should be shot down... Meyrin's body went a bit cold. "They're coming for us. They're planning to shoot us down and then come in after us..."

"I think you might be flattering us. Its my technology they want, they probably only want to make sure I die." Noah replied with a bitter smile. "They want to plunder my ark and use their ill gotten gains for their own sordid goals." Noah watched on a subdisplay in the corner of his vision as icons began seperating from the first waves of carriers as they began deploying their Mobile Suits, now only a few kilometers and just over a minute away from engagement range. "However, what they think is a treasure chest I will instead show them is actually Pandora's Box." Noah's smile took on a hard glint. _And even if we should fall here, today, one day in the not so distant future, a sleeper will awaken. And he will redress all imbalances in this world._ Noah added, for his private consideration only. "Come, you looters... come and get your prizes!" Noah shouted mockingly across the comm channels. "Come and earn the wages of death!"

xxxx

**Orb, Military Air base near Nara-Attha City, temporary Solar Knights staging ground, 6 hours after commencement of Operation Downfall**

She'd thought getting past the gate guards was going to be the hard part, but one glance at her uniform, even with the blood stained sleeve, had been enough to get her past them without a second look. It wasn't like she was the only walking wounded or lightly injured person who was still working through the pain during a time of crisis. Of course, she really shouldn't be walking, because her injuries were just about the polar opposite of "light", but with her system pumped so full of painkillers her blood was probably close to half and half ratio, or so it felt, Luna was able to move about with a rough approximation of her usual mobility. The fact that she could still feel gut twisting bursts of pain rippling through her with every halting step, despite the painkillers, told her again and again and again what a stupid thing she was doing. Blood ran down her left forearm from where she'd torn out the IV needle a bit messily a little while ago, it was slowly clotting but that entire sleeve was darker than usual with slowly drying blood.

But stupid and harmful thing or not, Luna kept pressing on with glassy eyed determination. Shinn needed her after all, and she had vowed that she would never willingly leave his side again. Bad enough that the main force had already left without her, she would not just sit idly by on the sidelines while the love of her life went into battle unprotected and vulnerable without her, his lifeline, there to provide succor against the evil bastard who had so traumatized Shinn. Not only that, but if this mission was successful, it might be her only chance at being able to rescue Meyrin from Noah's clutches, and that was something she could not fail at, for the sake of her own sanity! So she staggered on towards the buildings that had been temporarily set aside for the much reduced remnants of the Solar Knights after the Battle of Cape York, each step forward harder than the last one, only the nightmare image of Shinn once more falling under Noah's slavery keeping her going through the flaring pain.

She pressed one hand to her side where the FRALA beam had practically sliced her in half, feeling the huge chunk of flesh and muscle that had been excised in the process of saving her life, a half moon of flesh a little more than 2 inches across chopped in her side almost to her belly button, all replaced with the slimy plasticy feel of new synthetic skin. Her internal organs seem to have been rebuilt with prosthetics, if the little probing she'd managed was any guide, with the bits and pieces she'd felt inside her feeling much harder and more solid than flesh and blood organs would be. Her entire body still ached from the inside out, and she was constantly short on breath because she only had half the lung capacity she was used to, but she was doing her best to ignore all that, along with the voice that was telling her that if she kept doing this, she could very easily die. But she had people she loved to save and compared to that, the prospect of her own death was less crippling.

Getting into her flight suit was almost the end of her, as pulling the jumpsuit up past her waist snagged momentarily on the edge of where the synthflesh met her natural skin. It didn't tear loose, as the synthflesh was surgically glued and bonded to the rest of her body, but it jarred her something fierce, and she found herself blinking her way back to consciousness a short time later, draped in a limp pile on the prep room floor, the taste of bile and blood in her mouth from where she'd gagged and bit her cheeks on the way to the floor. It was a wonder no one had come running to check out the source of her scream, but then again the staging area was stripped down to the bare minimum of personnel, those not participating in the attack involved in preparing to move up into space with the rest of the USN. Luna clawed her way to her hands and knees and braced herself against the bench running between the rows of lockers as she very carefully finished wriggling into her flight suit and zipping it up.

Luna snagged her helmet and staggered out of the prep room, heading for the nearby hangers where the Solar Knights were keeping their Mobile Suits. Hers had been one of the least damaged by the Cape York battle, even with the FRALA cut, so there should be no reason she would not be able to just climb aboard and go. She could recharge her batteries when she caught up to the naval fleets, and then boost on towards the battle, hopefully before it was too late! However it was here that she ran into a snag. The first hanger she went to, the one that should have been allocated to Second Platoon, was empty. Not a Mobile Suit left, stripped bare of even the mechanics tools and mobile gantries used to service the Mobile Suits. The same was true of the hangers reserved for First and Third Platoons, and the reserve hanger as well. All the Mobile Suits were gone. Even hers.

Luna sank to her hands and knees outside the reserve hanger and wept helpless tears. She'd come this far, had endured so much pain, and it was all for nothing. Her Mobile Suit had been reassigned to someone healthier who's own Archon had been crippled or destroyed, and there were none left over, not even half cannibalized hulks used for spare parts, everything disassembled and packed away in huge containers for the trip up to orbit. She was trapped here, in Orb, left behind while her heart and soul strode relentlessly towards grave peril, no doubt all fired up and resolved to avenge her injury in her place. The thing was, anger wasn't enough of a shield, especially for Shinn. Anger was both his great strength and his great weakness, and Noah had already exploited his anger to control him once before!

As she knelt there and panted for breath, sweat dripping off the tip of her nose as the exertion of the past hour or so seemed to catch up with her all at once, along with an extra heaping dose of pain from her stressed internal organs, Luna felt the weight of the object tucked into the breast pouch of her flight suit like a burning coal pressed against her breast. At first, when she'd woken up and found it lying there at her bedside, she had been confused but heartened, honored that Shinn would leave his treasured link to his past life with her, his talisman that contained the seeds of his anger, the roots of what had made him the person he was today. But when he had come back from whatever mission he had been assigned, something to do with the Moon, she was so hopped up on painkillers at the time, much like now, that she was surprised she'd even been coherent, and they had talked briefly, he had not asked for it back. Had not even mentioned it. And that was not right.

Luna did not doubt the purity or intensity of Shinn's love and feelings for her, but she knew that despite that, he would never just give her his little sister's cell phone. It was not a token of love, it was an item of endless pain and suffering for him, and he would not try and foist it off upon her for any reason. And then it had come to her, how he'd acted in the wake of Noah's second psychic attack upon him, and the inexplicable act of leaving his treasure with her. He didn't remember. For whatever reason, Noah's attack had scarred and scrambled Shinn's memories of his past life, from roughly the point just before he joined the Solar Knights on back. It wasn't total amensia, he still remembered he had parents and a sibling, but it all seemed very vague to him. His memories more or less started with his meeting of her in Galileo, as if her presence was a light that had cast back a fog that had settled over his life.

And now Luna found herself at the heart of a conundrum. With Mayu's cell phone there was a fairly good chance she might be able to shock Shinn into regaining his memories of his past, and she knew Shinn valued those memories, used them for motivation, that they were one of the foundations of his life, and his reasons for ever becoming a soldier in the first place. On the other hand, those memories were very painful to Shinn, constantly hounding him, a ragged, scorched wound in his heart that did not seem capable of healing over, but just kept growing more painful and infected over time. The emotional baggage of his past was always creating problems for Shinn, such as his animosity towards Orb and anyone from Orb. She felt Shinn would want his memories back, but she knew he would be better off and happier overall with a fresh start, getting rid of all the angst weighing him down.

It all came down to the cell phone in her front breast pocket. Luna slowly unzipped said pocket and withdrew the phone, which she had placed in there only a short while before. She hefted it in her hand, amazed at how a construction of cheap pink plastic, weighing only a few ounces all told, could feel so heavy and important. Moving as if in a trance, Luna thumbed the phone open, which activated a subroutine Shinn had obviously programmed in at some point in time long in the past. "Hi, this Mayu, I can't come to the phone right now but..." Luna listened to the answering machine message of Shinn's little sister play, the only record of her voice still in existance, the progenitor of the haunting ghost that hovered at Shinn's shoulder and stoked the fires of his rage. It started with Luna's hand, the one holding the phone, uncontrollable shivers that transformed into shakes, and the phone clattered to the concrete beneath her as Luna collapsed back onto her knees, her arms hugging against her sides, her head thrown back and tears coursing down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry Mayu..." Luna half sobbed. "But I can't... I can't hurt him anymore. Not even by reminding him of a wound he's already suffered. I just can't hurt him anymore. Please understand." Luna gathered herself and slowly rose to her feet. "I'm so sorry Mayu. But you've carried the burden of Shinn's anger for long enough, I think. Its time for someone else to bear that load now." Luna's voice wavered and faded for a few moments, her throat closing of its own volition on her. "Forgive me for my selfishness..." Luna mumbled hoarsely, lifting her right foot and driving down with her heel with all her strength and weight behind it, pulverizing the pink phone beneath her boot heel, shattering the chips containing the voice recordings and everything else, grinding her foot down until it was only a smear of silicon grit and plastic shards. "I will watch over him now. You can rest, Mayu. Rest in peace."

Luna did not know how long she stood there, staring down at the obliterated remains of Shinn's tragic past, but at length she wiped her arm across her face, drying the remains of her tears on her sleeve, and straightened up, feeling lighter all over for some reason. She didn't know if she'd made the right choice, didn't even know if there was a right choice for that kind of situation, but she'd made HER choice, and she was at peace with that. Sometimes the past is best left buried. God knew, there were plenty of things she wished she could forget forever. Feeling much recovered, or at least buoyed up, Luna turned to head back to the prep room so she could change back to her uniform. If all the Mobile Suits were gone, then she was just plain shit out of luck. It pained her like a knife in her heart to have to leave Shinn and Meyrin on their own, but it did not look like she had any choice in the matter. All she could do was hope for the best now.

"Hey, watch it... watch it... WATCH OUT!" A male voice called irritably from around the edge of the hanger, out of her line of sight. "God fucking damn it, you let him get free again! Do you have any idea how long it took us to get him in there in the first place!"

"I'm sorry, but he's as slippery as an eel! I was trying to calm him down, but I couldn't get a good angle with the needle with the door shut." A second male voice replied defensively.

"Yeah, yeah... oh shit, he ran into the hanger!"

"Better that than out onto the flight line."

"You block off all the doors, I'll try and chase him into a corner. Make sure you bring the rope, we'll hobble him so this doesn't happen again."

Bemused, her curiosity piqued, Luna trudged back over to the hanger and poked her head inside, trying to figure out what was going on. From the sound of what she'd heard, it was almost like a prisoner or captive had gotten loose. But they didn't have any such captives that she knew about, and the men only sounded annoyed, versus angry or panicked, like they should have been for an escaping prisoner. The scene which confronted her eyes brought her up short like a punch to the gut. One coverall clad man, one of the support crew for the Solar Knights, was going from doorway to doorway around the circumference of the massive hanger, kicking and banging on the doors to make sure they were sealed securely shut. Meanwhile, another crewman was sprinting and juking from side to side as he tried to corral the escapee against one of the corners while keeping him from darting past towards an unchecked doorway.

His job was made harder by the fact that escapee in question was roughly two feet and sixty pounds of bipedal tyrannosaurus rex, with the agility of a wild turkey and the cunning of a very intelligent housecat. Working against Achilles was the fact that his clawed feet could find little to no purchase on the hard concrete floor of the hanger, causing him to skitter and slide like a man wearing cleats every time he tried to change direction abruptly, often overbalancing and crashing over onto his side, only to regain his feet a moment later, little worse for the wear, and still full of plenty of energy. Achilles bared his teeth and roar-screamed at the man herding him away from freedom, but plainly the crewman in question had some experience with Achilles, and knew that the T rex was all bark and very little bite, because he did not back off.

"What are you two doing?" Luna asked of the man who was sealing off the hanger.

"Oh! Sorry to disturb you, Ma'am!" The crewman saluted, noting the pips of a Knight-Ensign on her suit collar. "We're part of the cleanup crew in charge of packing up personal possessions for those who went off on Operation Downfall. Who knew that the Knight-Commander had such an exotic pet? He's a real handful, he does not like his kennel cage at all. This is the second time he's broken loose just this hour. I was trying to tranquilize him, but..." The crewman looked over at where Achilles as still ardently avoiding his comrade and shrugged. "It didn't quite go as planned. But don't worry, we'll have him corraled here in a few minutes."

Luna stared over at Achilles, who was rapidly running out of room to dodge around in, and the crewman nearby stepped back with a chill going down his spine as he saw a flicker of dark emotion crawl through her eyes. "M-Ma'am? Are you okay?"

"I'm just fine." Luna said dismissively, one hand coming to rest on the knife sheath on her right hip. "Tell you what. You guys go finish your clean up sweep. I'll take care of this little nuisance. We know each other, him and I."

"But... Knight-Ensign..." The crewman trailed off, staring helplessly at her, with her face drained of all color, her eyes a bit sunken, looking like a small breeze would be enough to tip her over as she favored her left side. "You're injured and..."

"You are both dismissed. Do you have a problem following my orders?" Luna asked archly, fingers tapping the hilt of her knife casually.

"NO MA'AM!" The crewman saluted again with a gulp. "Hey Charlie, the Knight-Ensign is gonna take care of this bugger, lets head out and finish up the sweep, maybe we CAN get done in time to catch that Fighter Showdown like we were hoping. Two big names in the ring tonight after all!"

"What?" The herding crewman said, looking over his shoulder and noticing Lunamaria for the first time. "Oh. Okay. Whatever. No skin off my back. You're welcome to him, ma'am. And don't go easy on him either ma'am, give him an inch and he'll take a mile!"

"Don't worry." Luna said with a chilly smile as she walked over to stand beside the man, Achilles only a few feet away, all but trapped in a corner. "Easy is the very last thing I will be."

"Uhhh... ok..." Charlie replied, not liking the look on her face, but not wanting to question her either. Officers were bad news in his book, and young female officers were triply bad news. The sooner they got out of there, the better. He and his pal headed for the doors with due haste, washing their hands of the troublesome tyrannosaur.

"Hello Achilles..." Luna crooned sweetly, softly so that her voice would only carry to the dinosaur in front of her. "Do you remember me? The sister of the one your master enslaved and kidnapped?"

For his part, Achilles cowered even further back, until his tail was scrunched up against the wall. He ducked his head in a submissive posture, because he did remember this red haired female, and the phantom ache in his side would not let him regard her as anything less than dominant. She took a step forward and Achilles flinched backwards, his side thudding against the wall of the hanger. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He tried to growl at her, but he was shivering so bad that it came out as a whimper.

"So you do remember me." Luna said, still speaking in that soft, almost friendly voice. Achilles wasn't fooled though, he could see the look in her glassy eyes, and the way her fingers drummed on the bulky projection on her right hip. "I'm glad. At least you might have some comprehension of why I have to do this. You see, your master, that bastard Noah, used you to help him worm his way into my sister's affections. Meyrin always was a sucker for cute things, even lizards." Luna took another step forward, her shadow, projected ahead of her by the lights above and behind her, was almost touching him now. Her fingers tightened around the grip of her knife, and she unsnapped the tie holding it in the sheath, the click of the button deathly loud in the otherwise silent hanger.

"But he wasn't content to just steal her away, brainwash her, rape her and do who knows what other horrible things to her, not least of which was making her love him for it! No, your master wasn't satisfied with just that level of barbarity. He had to go the extra mile." Luna stepped forward again, her shadow falling across Achilles, now only a single stride away, cowering and shaking like a leaf in a gale as she towered over him, reptilian cold eyes staring down at him. "He had to send me a personal, taunting message using Meyrin! A message where he made her pretend to be happy and satisfied and content, where he had the nerve to make her ask me to come and be a slave alongside her! Do you know how that made me feel, seeing her being used like a puppet right in front of my eyes while he stood behind her and laughed at me through his eyes! Could you even comprehend that kind of pain, you damn lizard!" Luna took the final step forward, until she was practically toe to toe with Achilles, who had squeezed his eyes shut and lain down on his belly in terror, wanting nothing more than for the scary woman to leave him alone.

"I don't think you can. You're just a dumb animal after all." Luna paused consideringly. "But you know who can feel that pain? Who should feel that pain? The man who is your master. Noah Borander. He should feel the kind of pain I felt, the pain of seeing someone hurt somebody you care about, someone you love. Remember how he reacted when I kicked you? Obviously, he cares quite a bit for you, lizard." Luna let a smile creep across her face, her right hand taking out her survival knife from the hip holster. She began to crouch down, and reached out with her left hand for the back of Achilles's neck. "Lets send him a message, you and I. Let's send Noah a message he won't soon forget, hmm, Achilles? If he survives, I want him to hurt..." Luna flipped the knife around in her hand and raised her right hand high. "Be a good boy and come to Luna, Achilles. I promise... this will hurt Noah a lot more than it will hurt you..." Her shadow completely covered the form of the T-rex, and there was another whimper of distress that echoed throughout the cold, empty hanger.


	76. The Casting Out part 3

Author Note: well, I see the conclusion to the Lunamaria/Achilles miniplot hit like a bombshell. Good, it was meant to be something that you would remember for quite a while. I actually should not say conclusion, because it isn't over yet. There's going to be a scene at the end of Casting Out where the real conclusion will come, and I am eagerly awaiting the reactions to that one too. So anyway, here, this chapter, we have the beginning of the third of the three major battles I promised. The battle of the Armada was the showcase of the power of the Brotherhood. The battle of Cape York was the power of the USN and allies in their Gundams and Mobile Suits. And the stars of this battle are the regular grunts of the infantry and special forces, most especially our dear Stormhounds. I don't know whether I should say this is the climax, as really, there have been multiple climaxes... the Great Endeavor making it to Earth, the survival of Lacus and Akira, the Arrival of the Seraph, SpearFall... all of them were moments of climax, and though i will do my best, I can't promise this climax will be all that much more significant or amazing than those.

Though I do have to admit, a Mobile Suit/Great Endeavor battle in the midst of the tallest mountain range on Earth, during a thunderstorm of cataclysmic proportions, does have a good bit of oomph as a climactic setting. Anyway, enough of the real me, time to enter the world of Eden Disaster once more. Here is the Casting Out, part three:

xxxx

**The Himelayan Mountains, near Mt. Everest, 10.3 hours since commencement of Operation Downfall**

It was like a portrait from a fantastic world of might and magic, the sky so dark, the ground so far, the wind howling like a legion of tormented ghosts, whips of chain lightning glowing like silver-blue filaments through the purple-dark clouds, detonations of thunder sending cascades of snow and ice and rock roaring down the shoulders of the mountains, while in the center of the tableau the black iron fortress of the archenemy hovered impossibly like a bloated tick sucking on the lifeblood of the world. Strung out around it, concentrated in two glowing rivers of light, were the twinkling sparkles of thrusters from the Mobile Suits, the yellow and blue-white sparks insignificant in size compared to the hulking, half ruined fortress. One such river of sparkles approached from behind, following the fortress is it crawled slowly away, while the other had circled around and was forming a wall across the only course the Great Endeavor could take, waiting like an anvil for the hammer blow to fall from behind.

Unlike the previosu encounters with the gigantic mobile fortress, this battle would not feature swarms of wheeling and darting machines, like clouds of flies disturbed from a rotting carcass. There simply wasn't room to maneuver, the entire battlefield effectively enclosed to a stretch of land and air slightly more than a kilometer wide and two kilometers long, all other avenues of approach or retreat blocked off by the sheer walls of ice clad granite that soared for tens of thousands of feet above the battlefield. A few intrepid attackers were splitting off from the main mass of either troop mass, engines whining as they struggled against the treacherous winds buffeting the cliffs and flanks of the mountains as they sought perches upon the sheer stone walls as sniping and support fire platforms. The frozen rock was slippery though, and more than one machine settled upon a ledge only to go sliding right off again, and not all pilots recovered quickly enough to prevent being dashed to pieces against other protruding bits of the mountain lower down.

All told, the USN and allied forces were fielding over seven hundred Mobile Suits of various makes and models, less than a sixth of the number they had brought to the four tiered defense around Cape York, representing the sum total of their remaining Mobile Forces after the devastation of the previous battle. A small fleet of the heaviest battleships sailed through low orbit overhead, the target zone so constrained that only a few ships could provide bombardment fire at a time. For the moment the orbital guns were silent, firing solutions being plotted and replotted, waiting with bated breath for the command to fire for effect. Planetside, the cream of the attacking force, concentrated in a half strength platoon of Solar Knights, all that remained of the former reinforced company, plus a detachment of FNE Extendeds, fell into formation as the hammer, with the very striking edge taking the form of the Vengeance, still resplendent in the colors of its new unit.

A little ways off, the small but still significant force contribution from Orb formed up, M-4 Guardians in jet form and M-7 Dawndrakes in Mobile Armor form circling in tight spirals around the lightning lit forms of the Vorpal and Seraph Gundams, the darker paint schemes of the Gundams in question causing them to fade into the dark sky between the flash of electric bolts. The massive tan and green form of the Warmaster had split off with its own unit of escorting Guardians to seek a point from which to provide its covering fire upon the slopes of the nearby mountains. Above and several kilometers behind the battle zone flocked fat bodied transport jets of various makes, like plump carrion birds waiting for a meal to die before swooping in to feast, their holds filled with infantry and ground armored vehicles destined for the attack upon the remains of the enemy fortress when it was brought to earth once more.

Waiting to meet this final outpouring of military might was a single squadron of Brotherhood machines, five brand spanking new Zealots and then the namesake Gundam of the entire order, its golden hide aglow with reflected light as chains of ionized energy danced along the craggy peaks high above. Though outnumbred to the point of insanity, the six Brother hood machines held firm, even seeming nonchalant as they surveyed the incoming forces. Behind them, the remaining turrets and defense emplacements dotting the scarred hide of the Great Endeavor clicked and swiveled as they acquired targets and plotted fire lanes. While it was true that many fo the most powerful weapons were now gone, those that remained were all the more effective considering the terrain. This time, unlike the previous battle, no green tinged smoke rose from the upper hull of the fortress, its nano-machine distribution now complete, all of its remaining resources tasked to the battle to come.

Kira sideslipped the Seraph out of the Orb formation, noting the resistance caused by the howling subartic winds and correcting for it in the same breath, his mind feeling like it was afire with firing neutrons. Truth be told, something about the feeling did not sit well with him, the sensation of sparks flowing through his entire body was something he'd never experienced before. He was familiar with excitement and anger and how they could both sharpen his senses and reaction times, but this was something different, something new. It was like little pieces of himself were breaking loose from his brain and spreading throughout his body, physically shortening the distance between his fingers and the decision making and response portions of his mind. Kira shook his head and narrowed his eyes, banishing the fanciful thought... he was overreacting because of Lacus and Akira's proximity to the battle, that must be what it was. He needed to calm down... this battle, this battlefield, would not be forgiving of even the slightest error.

"I'll give him this... he's got some balls." Yzak radioed, a faint tinge of near admiration in his voice as he kept to his position aside from and just behind the Seraph. "Coming out to face us with just his Gundam and five Zealots. No tricks, no traps... we came with all we have, and he replies the same way. It's almost respectable, if I didn't know the bastard himself was hiding in the middle of his fortress and not out here with us."

"We'll get to him soon enough." Dearka answered with a faintly distracted note in his voice, as much of his concentration was on helping Miri set the legs of the Warmaster securely upon the slippery, icy ledge he'd selected as his sniper post, to the starboard of and about one hundred feet below the Great Endeavor, giving him a commanding view of the fortress underside and almost an one hundred eighty degree arc of fire to choose from. "We'll crack his shell wide open and see what kinda goo comes pouring out."

"Focus your efforts upon taking down his levitators and thrusters." Kira instructed Dearka and Miriallia. Even as he did so, he found himself wishing Athrun or Cagalli were here. They were both much better leaders than he was, at least in the sense of knowing what to do as far as giving orders went. Kira was comfortable with his own skills and tactics, but he was less adept at knowing how to best use other people... he tended to rely too much on himself. Probably a product of all his initial Mobile Suit combat experience, where he'd had no one but himself to rely on, other than the occassional assist by Mu. He'd never really had actual subordinates until the end of the war, when they'd been joined by the Astrays and the Kusanagi, and even then he wasn't really part of that chain of command. His orders tended to sound more like advice than orders. Sound advice certainly, but there was a difference between the two in the heat of battle. Advice could be ignored, Orders less so. "Trying to hit the Brotherhood with ranged weapons is a waste of ammunition."

"It already hurts my eyes, trying to focus on him." Miriallia admitted, squinting at her display screen, upon which the technologically blurred image of the Brotherhood Gundam hovered. "You sure you and Yzak will be all right against him?"

"Please..." Katie cut in with a snide tone. "Yzak-y could take him by himself."

"Perhaps so, but I have some unfinished business with that suit myself." Kira acknowledged with a grim smile. "So forgive me if I butt in from time to time."

"I'm sure you won't be the only one butting in, if I remember the last battle right." Yzak half groused, nodding the Vorpal's scarfaced head over at the USN formations, and the angular, knife edged form of the Vengeance, its massive two handed sword already gripped at the ready in both hands. "He seems to want a piece of the Brotherhood to mount on his wall pretty bad. Katie can feel his anger and hate from here. That is one seriously pissed off dude. You'd think he would have learned after I used that very emotion to beat his ass in the Armada battle."

Kira was about to reply when a sensation, like a flick to the back of his head, brought him up short, eyes staring unfocused into the distance for a moment. It was almost like receiving a beepcall or psychic communication, though by now he was so used to those he hardly noticed the sensation. But this was sharp and potent, like the first time Lacus had ever spoken into his mind. It was also duller, more diffuse than most psychic communication, more like a feeling or emotion than a directed thought, kind of like what happened between him and Yzak or Mu when they were experiencing an emotional extreme. But whatever it was, it was hugely powerful, the nascent, half formed, utterly alien emotion flooding through him and leaving him gasping like he'd just jumped in ice water before it slipped away, like a dreamer turning over in bed and settling down again.

"What the FUCK was that!" Yzak half shouted a moment later. "Katie, you're supposed to be protecting us against..."

"I AM!" Katie retorted, her eyes wide and frightened. "That wasn't an attack! It did not come from Noah! That wasn't even from an Active, as far as I could tell! That was... was... just like... a... an emotional bow wave!" Katie struggled to find a good descriptive term. "But I've never... how could anything be... I don't understand!" Katie growled in frustration. For a so called expert, she sure did find herself out in the dark a lot. It was totally unfair.

"Lacus felt it too. She think's Noah and the Newtype that's with him felt it too. It was huge... undirected." Kira reported after a moments conference. "She agrees with Katie... that was no attack, and it did not come from Noah or the other Newtype aboard the Great Endeavor. It was just a... disembodied feeling. Like a mind with no body."

"I almost feel left out." Dearka commented to Miri, with the comm line off of transmit. "But then again, not really." He added a moment later, getting a weak smile from her. "Well if it ain't from Noah and it ain't an attack, lets worry about it later, huh?" Dearka prompted, transmitting again. "T minus twenty three to engagement beginning."

What nobody could see, what nobody was even looking for, lost in the darkness of the storm tossed sky, the source of the emotional bow wave was tossed onwards by the nigh hurricane force winds. It had come a long, long way, this tiny, almost insignificant thing, so small it could fit into the palm of a human hand, its edges covered with ridged points that overlapped like scales of doughty fiber, the grain of the nascent wood buttery soft to the touch, but harder than forged steel. It had crossed oceans, had passed through deserts and hills and mountain passes, lifted from its home by the towering wind vortexes of an out of control forest fire, the raging inferno lending untold strength to the air currents it whipped up. It had been traveling for weeks, hurled as if by the very hand of fate itself, more than halfway around the world from its place of birth. But that journey was ending, the seedling kernel beginning to sprout, the overlapping scales of the pine cone spreading out bit by bit, creating drag, hobbling its wind tossed flight.

Heedless but not exactly unaware of the momentous events occuring around it, the sprouting seed, once dropped from the highest branches of the tallest, biggest, oldest living redwood tree in existence, and also one of the first trees to survive the interaction with Green EDEN hurtled onwards through the storm lit dark, its course carrying it like a shot slingstone towards the hulking mass of the Great Endeavor, squarely between the two forces about to do battle. Still far from awake, not even close to aware, but by its very nature not as hampered by those limitations as other examples of its kind, which relied on conscious decisions to fuel their Active powers, the Latent seedling altered the makeup of its kernel, tucking in some edges, expanding others outward, altering its trajectory through the sky. Scant instants later, its former path crossed through the very airspace that was filled with the first blue-white FRALA beam fired by the Brotherhood Gundam. And so the seedling continued onwards, its path ever avoiding putting it where firepower was about to go, as if guided by the threads of destiny.

xxxx

This time Noah did not wait for the USN to open fire first, his was no longer such a position of strength that he could afford to humor them. His right arm seperated into its primary and secondary configuration, ports in the palms irising open as he warded his frontal arc with the pinkish-red glow of positron shields. With his left hand, still a single arm, he aimed his 50mm Rapidfire FRALA rifle and opened fire at the enemy, firing through his shield with impunity, scattering the Solar Knight formation, one or two being too late to avoid the sweeping arcs of the blue white beam, their pieces tumbling in flaming ruin towards the valley floor almost a kilometer below, to scatter along the craggy ground. Of course he provoked return fire, but it all went wide or dissolved into harmless flashes of light as it struck his positron shields. Behind him, his Zealots stayed in a tight formation, schooled during the retreat to mimic the tactics of the USN by Meyrin, covering each other with their Citadel shields, presenting a energy shield against frontal attacks from any direction, guarding his flanks against anyone thinking to take a potshot from the sides or the other battle line.

Even further behind him, the remaining weapons on the Great Endeavor, mostly along the ventral hull, began opening up as well. Only two of the 220cm gatling Gottfried turrets could fire in either direction, the others all being destroyed or placed out of the line of fire. But in such a narrow fire corridor as the mountain valley, even two of the rapidfiring capital class weapons were a tremendous danger, pumping out dozens of dull green plasma beams, each as thick as a human was tall, and anything they struck that did not manage to get an energy shield interposed in time, or was not otherwise impervious to plasma energy, was blasted apart in fiery ruin, explosions like christmas lights detonating rippling through both sides of the mountain valley. Even those beams that missed outright still sometimes claimed lives, as the beams grounded into the sides of the mountains and blasted loose massive shards of half molten rock that clobbered some Mobile Suits who were flying unawares too close to the rock walls.

Noah fired twice more with his rapidfire FRALA, each time managing to destroy or at least cripple one or two enemies, but it was like spitting into a tidal wave, and already the dull rosy pink glow of explosions was mixing with the more orangy yellow color of fires raging out of control of the repair system across much of the still heavily damaged Great Endeavor's hull. The battle was going even worse on the other side of the Great Endeavor, where the gathered enemy forces did not have the grim spectacle of the Brotherhood Gundam to make them overly cautious. But the Great Endeavor stubbornly fought on, even as the encroaching enemy forces inexorably pressed closer and closer in.

Noah did not have the time to notice this phenomenon, as when he fired his fourth FRALA beam, he saw it fizzle out against a green and gold flaring speckle of light before it could even get halfway to its targets, and bare instants later his sensors confirmed what his mind already knew... Kira was here, the Seraph was coming to get him. And right behind it came the Vorpal, its damnable brialliant blue sword in one gauntleted hand, its cloak trailing dramatically out behind it. For its part, the Serpah had the appearance of a complex atomic structure, the Gundam being the nucleus, while zipping around it in seemingly random patterns were the bright blue streaks of thruster propelled Fractal Wing feathers, their dark black and blue veined surfaces waiting for the opportunity to deploy their GP or Citade shields to negate and even reflect any firepower Noah dared to direct at his enemy.

That didn't stop Noah from immediately directing every iota of firepower from the Great Endeavor and his supporting Zealots as he could at them. Maybe the gesture was too late and useless, but the thought of his blindly lucky dork of a cousin surviving to enjoy the fruits of Noah's labor while Noah himself did not was intolerable to him. Kira had to die. Noah was tempted to try and reach out with his mind to still Kira's heart and lungs in his chest, but he dared not for two reasons. One was that he could feel Lacus out there, nearly at the edge of his perceptions, her wary attentiveness all the sign he would need to know that she was watching for just such an effort on his part, and would be able to confound him while her lover picked him apart on the physical plane while he was distracted. The other was that strange surge of nascent emotions he'd felt just before the battle had begun, an emotive sending of such power that both he and Meyrin had nearly been driven to their knees. At first he'd thought it was a new attack by Lacus, but it had come and gone like a sigh, or perhaps more accurately, a snore, and had not reappeared. It was very intriguing, but he did not have the time to analyze it now... but nor did he want to chance awakening it again, and perhaps pissing it off. Whatever it was.

The Seraph rocketed for the floor, fat green Gottfried blasts hammering belatedly after it as the Seraph moved more quickly than his turrets could track. Stray shots forced the Vorpal to take cover behind its heavy shields, halting its forward progress for the moment, as Noah directed his full squadron of Zealots to dive down after the Seraph. If he could just take out Kira, then the battle as a whole would become much easier. It might even be winnable if he didn't have Kira to worry about! Noah was about to start down after his subordinates when a shivering proximity alert caused him to flinch the Brotherhood backwards a few meters, and well he did, for four 375mm artillery cannon shells passed though the airspace he'd just occupied a scant second later. His sensors immediately backtraced the trajectory of the shots and highlighted the Warmaster where it stood braced upon a ledge off to the starboard side. Noah gritted his teeth and took aim with his FRALA rifle, determined to cut the bloated Gundam down to size in repayment for the havoc it had wreaked upon his Great Endeavor!

Before he could fire, another proximity alert caused Noah to reflexly flinch yet again, though this time he hadn't really needed the alert, as he'd felt the nauseating spike of rage approaching him at just about the same time as the sensors did. Still, he only barely managed to maneuver the Brotherhood out of the way as Shinn in the Vengeance came screaming down from on high, the swing of the QC zweihander passing so close by the Brotherhood Noah's sensors could actually detect the change in air pressure against his LCR armor. At first Noah thought Shinn had missed, just barely, and then, as he watched the sparking, ribbed barrel of his FRALA rifle spin off into the storm tossed gloom, he realized such was not the case. Growling in annoyance, Noah discarded the useless trigger and charging assembly of the rifle and extended both his left arm QC armblades, letting the blades emerge side by side without splitting the arm. He stabbed the twinned blades at the Vengeance, looking to gut his lost Gundam like a pig.

Shinn parried the stabbing thrust with the edge of his zweihander, the oiled scream of crystal against crystal making the air shiver around them. Noah opened up with his repaired 20mm QC spike driver, spitting a hail of glittering diamond shards at the Vengeance from point blank range, but Shinn was ready for it, and his wingtip positron shields were already deployed as he disengaged from close range, disintegrating the slivers before they could strike home. Pink hot cones of ravening radiation from the Brotherhood's wingtip thermal exciters chased the Vengeance yet further away, giving Noah time to twist his torso to the side and fire upon the Warmaster and its attendant Orb escorts with both the QC spike driver and the 550mm Mortar that graced the Brotherhood's other shoulder, sending a volley of barbed crystal needles and cloaked plasma cluster munitions at the pests.

The Warmaster guarded itself with its left arm citadel shield, deflecting the QC spikes that raked across its position in fountains of golden sparks, while Miriallia used the four head mounted 15mm beam CIWS guns to track and blow away the mortar munitions as soon as they entered the range of the warmaster's vari-cameras, stripping away their cloak, and making the lobbed projectiles an easy target. Two of the Guardians that had been escorting the Warmaster were slower to react to avoid the incoming firepower, and their limp forms, now riddled with thumb sized holes where the QC spikes had punched through them like they were no more substantial than morning mist, were falling towards the valley floor, tumbling down the cliff faces in rapidly shredding pieces. Identical thumb diameter holes bored for hundreds of meters into the solid rock of the mountains behind where the Suits had been shot.

Down almost to the snow and ice coating the valley floor, Kira dodged and wove through a downpour of huge green plasma blasts, each shot more than capable of destroying the Seraph with a single solid hit. For all that, Kira made no move to deflect the incoming firepower away with his Fractal Wings, and though in truth he could have long since bypassed the somewhat clumsy automated tracking of the gatling Gottfrieds, he preferred they spend as much time as possible wasting their firepower trying to hit him, versus expending it upon the majority of the USN Mobile Forces that were even now pressing rapidly closer to the main hull of the Great Endeavor, and would soon be inside the effective range of the fortress's heaviest weapons. Steam from flash melted ice and snow filled the valley floor like fog, lit from within by the dull green flashes of gottfried blasts and the red-yellow bursts of rock exploding into magma under the caress of the plasma beams.

Kira noted the five Zealots that were stooping on him from more towards the left mountains, and even as he dodged around a wall of gottfried blasts that scored a molten furrow five meters deep through the rock just past him, his aim did not waver as he neatly skewered two of the Zealots of the red-blue beams of hyper-impulse blasts from the pair of Dawndrake combi-rifles he bore, 225mm linear cannons over 150mm hyper-impulse cannons. Cored right through the torso, the Zealots pumped and bloated before bursting apart in roiling balls of golden flame, scattering their fellows. "Dearka, could you take out these two gatling cannons? They're beginning to become tiresome." Kira requested, once more sidestepping the pulsing fountains of plasma beams as they tried to box him in. He paused an extra beat, just long enough for a single gottfried beam to come screaming right at him, only to be batted away like a home run pitch by a grouping of Fractal Wing feathers, the redirected blast immolating a third Zealot, turning its entire upper body into so much smoke and ash.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to be bored..." Dearka muttered, just loud enough to be audible, shaking his head as he watched Kira, for all intents and purposes playing with enough firepower to destroy an entire fleet in seconds. He swung the Warmaster's torso around, his remaining escort pulling in close, bringing up their Citadel shields to guard him as he and Miriallia quickly input firing parameters into the Earthshaker Magnus. He locked in on the two gatling gottfrieds unsuccessfully hounding Kira, and then the massive 200cm artillery cannon spoke twice, its muzzle flare lighting up the valley like a thunderbolt of fire for a second, slabs of ice and chips of rock exploding into the air from around the Warmaster's feet as the recoil hammered downwards. Recognizing the threat too late, the gottfried turrets tried to first blow the incoming shells out of the sky, and then tried to backtrace to the Warmaster, but both heavy weapons were atomized, along with thirty meters of hull in all directions from the point of impact of the Earthshaker shells, before they could even trace a third of the way to Dearka and Miri. "Anything else ya need, milord?" Dearka asked sarcastically.

"A backrub would be nice, but I'm not sure I want you to do it." Kira retorted irreverantly. He was tracking the remaining two Zealots, who had just about reached the valley floor, with his rifles, when one was shot down from behind by a blue-purple Accelerated Impulse blast, courtesy of a Solar Knight Archon, blown cleanly in half, clearly never knowing what hit it. The other turned to confront this new foe, only to find itself suddenly face to face with the hulking mass of a FNE Panzerwulf. The Panzerwulf smashed the Zealot downward into the ground using the flat of its shield like a netguard spiking a volleyball, and when the Zealot staggered back to one knee and pointed its linear rifle up at its opponent, the Panzerwulf pilot contemptuously allowed the panicked Zealot pilot to waste a round off the Transphase Shift armor of the FNE machine, before she reached out and physically tore the Zealot's arm out of its shoulder socket with a wrenching tug from her far stronge rmachine. And then proceeded to beat the Zealot back into the ground, using its own arm like a club.

"Don't mind us, we just saw this two little doves headed down this way and decided we'd see what was what." The almost jocular tone of the Solar Knight came across the comm channels. "Just glad to be working with Gundams again. Real Gundams, not that stolen Brotherhood trash we have." The disgust in the pilot's voice was all but tangible. "I'm Lain Debora, by the way. Honored to meet you, Mr. Yamato." The Archon paused and turned slightly to the side, to regard its Panzerwulf companion, which was using its foot and its trophy arm to mercilessly batter the Zealot into a twisted mass of wreckage, the sheer force of the blues breaking internal structures and components even as the Phase Shifted exterior remained pristine. "Stella... I think its dea... its destroyed already." Lain commented, correcting himself hastily. Stella slammed the arm down across the Zealot's back once more, and the captured limb shattered into a dozen pieces. She rammed down with one tank treaded foot and continued pounding the Zealot. "Stella... come on, let it go. You won already."

Stella snatched up her beam sword as the battered Zealot clawed aimlessly at the ground with its broken limbs, until she pinned it to the ground like a bug with the blade, and then twisted, coring the Zealot like an apple. As a final coup de gace she raised her right leg high and stamped down squarely on the back of the Zealot's head, curbstomping the Mobile Suit so hard its head exploded like it was made of spun glass. The Brotherhood machine jerked as sparks and smoke burst from all its joints, and then it collapsed and lay still. "Now it's destroyed. I wanted it to suffer." Stella's somewhat ragged tones replied at last.

"You do remember that there is no actual pilot in those, right?" Lain observed, trying to be tactful, while at the same time reminding hismelf yet again not to get on Stella's bad side.

"Why do you think I was trying so hard?" Stella replied blandly. "When it comes to stamping out pests, there can be no overkill..."

"Uh sure. Well, how about we go and stamp out the nest as well? Since we're here and all." Lain suggested wryly. "Mr. Yamato, we are at your service." he paused and looked around, puzzled. "Mr. Yamato? Mr. Yamato... where'd you go..." Lain looked up at last, where the Seraph was rapidly receeding up into the storm, headed towards the faint golden glow that marked the location of the Brotherhood Gundam. "Oh god damnit, I hate being left in the dust, even by someone like him!" He was about to follow, but then he remembered that Stella's Panzerwulf could not fly unaided in atmosphere, so he went back to assist her. "You'd better leave some for us, Mr. Yamato!" Lain exhorted.

Back up in the sky, the Vengeance and Brotherhood had been sparring inconclusively, neither side able to gain an upper hand. With half of its QC armaments gone, the Brotherhood no longer had the reuired limb strength to directly block or parry the Vengeance's heavy zweihander, forcing Noah to dodge and dodge again, avoiding clinches and desperately trying to back up to gain some distance to effectively use its shoulder mounted weapons again. On the other hand, for all the lightning speed of its slashes and thrusts, the Vengeance's attacks were somehwat random, unfocused, as Shinn struck frantically but with little of his usual skill at the physical manifestion of all his torments. With the trauma still so fresh, and Luna not here to be a calming anchor for him, against this foe Shinn was all but lost to his rage, his every thought consumed with the need to destroy this monster that had sinned against him so badly. The problem was, the anger was so intense it was getting in his way, draining all of his patience and tactical skill, leaving nothing but nigh berserk fury, scary perhaps but not enough against something like the Brotherhood.

This equation changed with the arrival of the Vorpal, as now the Brotherhood was being pressed on two fronts, by weapons Noah could not effectively parry or block in both cases. With them wise to his tricks and tell tales by now, they were easily able to avoid his thermal exciters when he started bringing them around, and weather shield slams from the positron shields with only minor jarring. Indeed, if the two Gundams had been working together, it would have been over in a matter of moments for the Brotherhood. But Shinn's anger was too intense for something like teamwork, and he barely even heeded the Vorpal's presence, often times the backswings of his sword would almost hit the Vorpal, causing Yzak to dodge and curse and lose the momentum of his own attacks. After the fifth or sixth such incidence, Yzak had had enough.

_Do something about this guy's temper tantrum, or I swear to god I will._ Yzak directed at Katie, ducking under the flashing sweep of the Vengeance's Zweihander yet again. _Right now, out of control like that, he's as great a danger to us as he is to the Brotherhood. We don't have time for this childish bullshit._

_Yeah. Unlike you, Yzak-y, he's not cute when he's angry. He's just angsty. And angst is only cute up to a point. And then it becomes bullshit._ Katie replied with a hard edged mental smirk. _Gimme a moment and I'll take the trash, one way or another. I will tell you though, he's really raw on the psychic plane... he's not going to be happy with me rooting around in there._

_My heart bleeds._ Yzak retorted sarcastically. _Now get in there, before I make HIS heart bleed._

Without further ado Katie cast out her mental senses and presence, and almost at once she came across the boiling ball of anger that was the mind of Shinn Asuka. She flashed back to the memories of the time when she and Yzak had fought this guy to a standstill, and she had last manipulated this rage-cauldron to their best advantage, working Shinn into a state very similar to the one he was in right now, so overwhelmed by emotion that he was compromising his own effectiveness. The very instant she breached the perimeter of his mind she felt him stiffen, and then she had to brace herself and hang on tight as his mind turned all of its previous fury squarely upon her. Sensitive or raw didn't even cover it, he was reacting like a virgin about to be raped, except that she could see that he'd already been raped, so to speak, several times. The damage to his mind and memories was in truth enough to take her aback, amazed that he could even function as well as he was.

_GET OUT OF MY HEAD!_ Shinn bellowed, the Vengeance staggering away from the Brotherhood, almost dropping his sword in his sudden flare of panic. _GET OUT! GET OUT GET OUT GET OUTTTT! I DON'T WANNA GO BACK! LUNA! SAVE ME!_

_Woah, woah, hold on there!_ Katie protested, trying to be calming. _I'm not here to hurt you._ She ducked under the mental equivalent of a swinging fist. Were it not for her resonance with Yzak, the sheer emotional barrage Shinn was tossing ehr way would have already driven her out of his mind. It was like walking across a bed of hot coals with roaring bonfires on all sides. Despite her words of reassurance, Shinn continued to struggle against her presence with all of his might, his mingled fear, phantom agony and hatred like acid on her skin. _Yzak, this guy is beyond all reason..._ Katie complained.

_So ask Lacus for help if you can't do it._ Yzak suggested. He hadn't meant anything by it, but all the same he felt Katie stiffen with indignation against him.

_I didn't say I couldn't do it, I just said he was beyond reasoning!_ Katie retorted fiercely. _As you may or may not remember, I have some experience dealing with angsty men who get angry beyond all reasoning at times, hmm? Remember what happened after you got back from almost getting yourself killed trying to take on Panama by yourself in the Second Valentine War?_ Katie asked nastily. She felt Yzak shiver beneath her grip a little bit. _So be a good boy now and keep your mind on the business of killing that four armed freak of a Gundam. And if you want a congenial homecoming, you'd best not ever consider telling me I can't do something like that again._

_I didn't mean it like..._

_Don't argue with me. I am always right._ Katie turned her attention away from him with a vindictive snort, and returned her focus to Shinn. _So you don't wanna listen to me huh? Well, its time to play dirty then, you poor, sorry bastard._ When she had done something similar to Yzak, she had in effect changed her mental appearance from herself, to that of Yzak's mother, Ezalia. And then she had berated the crap out of him... and then walked out on him, mentally speaking. Now, that might not sound all that bad for most people, but for Yzak, losing his mother, even figuratively, for just a little while, had been worse than death. From that point on he had never allowed his emotions to run away with him again. She couldn't find any similar family to use against Shinn, which was kind astrange cause she could swear she remembered using his family against him the last time, but she found something almost as good. Some redheaded chick that had a huge mess of emotions all tangled up in her. Obviously a girlfriend, but more visceral than that. Lovers perhaps, though she didn't sense any lingering memories of physical intimacy.

_L-Luna?_ Shinn asked in mingled relief and disbelief. _You're all right?_

_Fuck you._ Katie replied with a malicious sneer, though she did feel a bit bad seeing his mental image recoil in shock and not a little pain. _You think you can just talk to me like that, after acting like you have? You're lucky I even deign to speak to you, you bastard!_

_B-b-but LUNA! _ Shinn protested, caught totally off guard.

_This temper tantrum of yours. Its total bullshit, Shinn. Total bullshit. You think this solves anything? You think this is what I want from you? Is this all I mean to you? I thought you loved me!_ Katie kept twisting the knife, adding a few tear streaks down her altered image's cheeks. _I thought we were special to each other..._

_What the HELL are you doing to him!_ Yzak's voice suddenly cut in, forced to back away from the Vengeance, which had begun lashing out in all directions while screaming like a trapped wolf across all the comm channels. Even the Brotherhood had paused in bemusement. _He's freaking out worse now than he was before!_

_Shh, I'm working here..._ Katie shushed him. _Do not distract the expert while she disarms the emo-bomb._ She turned back to Shinn as Luna again. _But I can see I was wrong. I was just a means to an end for you. Just a talisman for you to hold onto to make your own bad dreams go away. Well what about me, Shinn! What about my nightmares! Who am I supposed to turn to when I need someone! It can't be you, I'm saving you, you can't save me! You're just a parasite, Shinn... a leech, sucking my blood to make yourself feel better. Well, I'm tired of it! Go rely on someone else! I'm tired of being the only one who's working in this relationship! Better yet, go grow a spine and a pair of balls and save yourself! Get ahold of yourself and start acting like the man I fell in love with, if you can still find him in this pitiable wreck you've become._ Katie turned her image's back on Shinn.

_Luna, wait...!_ Shinn called, tear streaming down his face.

_I'm done, Shinn. I can't wait for you anymore. I can't bear the pain of being your talisman any longer. I'm sorry, but its just not working out for us. We must not have been meant for each other after all. I really thought you loved me, but I guess I was wrong. It saddens me Shinn, because I was really looking forward to spending my life with you. But that dream is over now. Goodbye Shinn. Don't call me._ Katie started her image moving slowly away, holding her breath. This was the deciding moment. She might have just really broken him, if he lacked the inner strength or if his love for this Luna girl wasn't quite as total as she'd thought. If he accepted this, if he didn't call her back, then she'd pretty much just taken out the Vengeance, maybe for good.

_Luna... please wait... I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking!_ Shinn pleaded. _You mean everything to me, without you, I'm lost! Please... don't go. I could not bear it!_

_Okay..._ Katie made her Luna image sigh. _I guess I'll wait just a little bit more. Because I do love you, Shinn. But don't mess up... this is your last chance. Shape up, man up and don't you ever let yourself become so pitiful again, do you hear me? Or we are done, and I am gone, and we will be over. Your anger is a great strength Shinn... but only if you're the one in control. Show me how strong you can be when its you calling the shots. Show me the Shinn I fell in love with._ Katie turned her Luna image back towards Shinn, and held out her arms in a beckoning gesture. _Come back to me, Shinn, as the man you used to be. As the man I want, more than life itself._

Katie cut the connection and sat back in her support tank with a heavy sigh, only now feeling the sweat on her skin and the trembling of her limbs, side effects from the mental exertion._ We good?_ Yzak asked carefully.

_Nothing the trauma of a simulated messy breakup and sappy partial reconciliation couldn't fix. I swear, you angsty "tough guy" men are SO easy to fuck with, its almost criminal. I never could have done that to Athrun or Kira, but to guys like you and Shinn, its a cure all. That lucky girl doesn't realize what a whipping boy I just created for her. I almost wish I could be a fly on the wall for the groveling he's going to give her when they do get reunited. His pride is GONE._ Katie smirked with feminine delight.

Beside them, the Vengeance settled its sword into an on guard position. "Sorry about that. I had to find my motivation again." The hoarse tones of Shinn's voice, still choked up from the shouting and crying he'd been doing moments ago, came across their comm system. "I always wanted to fight beside you, Commander Joule. Its an honor."

"Save the honoring until after we turn that golden freak into shredded tinsel." Yzak replied, his tone all business, giving no hint he had any idea as to the cause behind Shinn's sudden recovery. "I'll take the right side, you get the left. Let's get this over with. We both have better places to be."

"Luna..." Shinn whispered. "I will prove worthy of you. Watch me, Luna. Watch me."

xxxx

"Ventral shields are going down. Remind me to buy a round of beers for whatever grunt squadron pulled that off!" Dearka said with a triumphant air punch. Miri smiled as well, but both her hands were busy flying across various keyboards as she collated targeting information, tracing power flows through the enemy hull, until she was able to lock on to what had to be one of eight primary levitators, the closest one to them. All they needed to do was get rid of one, the levitators were already strained to maximum load, judging by their white hot heat signatures, and then the remorseless forces of gravity would do their thing. Miri smirked evilly, and targeted another levitator. They wanted this to be a fall after all, not a slow drift.

"Targeting solutions plotted. Earthshaker Magnus armed and loaded." Miri confirmed. She switched to an all forces channel. "All forces clear the immediate area. The Great Endeavor falls now!" She turned back to Dearka. "All right hotshot, lets put your biggest gun to use."

"I keep telling ya..." Dearka said with a ribald wink, even as his finger tightened on the Earthshaker trigger. "This ain't my biggest gun. You should know that better than anyone."

xxxx

The mountain wall was at his back. There was nowhere else to run. The Great Endeavor was slowly leaving him behind, its battered hide alive with the swarming figures of enemy Mobile Suits, subjecting his mighty fortress to the slow, ignoble death of a million papercuts. To his left waited the Venegance, its zweihander cocked back across its body horizontally, its wings canted like scorpion tails, ready to slam forward and batter him with positron shields should he try to run. To his right was the Vorpal, heavy shield guarding its front, chain edges whirring menacingly, while its blue shimmering blade was held over its head, ready to sweep down like an executioner's blade at the slightest hint of an opening. It had been bad enough with the Vengeance acting erraticly, but after the two Gundams started coordinating their efforts, with a unblockable sword on either side, there had been little Noah could do but retreat. The ammunition for his QC spike driver was all but exhausted, and a lucky swipe from the Vorpal's blade had sheared away the 550mm mortar almost a minute ago, and had almost taken that entire side of his body were it not for a frantic backwards contortion.

"So this is what defeat looks like." Noah said grimly under his breath, as he saw the Seraph homing in on his position as well. "I won't go quietly!" He promised his foes. "If you want me, you're going to have to come and get me!" He swung his wings forward and tried to bathe his tormentors in the rosy glare of his thermal exciters, but once more they skittered quickly out of range of the searchlight beams of deadly radiation. Still it bought him a bit of room and... Noah was still completing that thought when the Brotherhood was slammed backwards into the cliff, because the Seraph had not stopped, instead shrouding itself within multiple layers of its Fractal Wings, and had flying kicked Noah into the rock, crunching out a shallow crater. Noah cycled the wingtip emitters to wingblade mode, and tried to scissor them closed around the Seraph.

Two blades struck and refracted off the interposed zweihander of the Vengeance, while the other two were likewise blocked by the Vorpal's bulwark shield. Snarling angrily, Noah stabbed his twinned left arm QC blades at Kira's chest, trying to skewer him, only to have Kira eel his torso to the side to avoid the blow. Noah started to sweep his arm blade sideways in a cutting motion, as QC blades needed hardly any momentum to cut through just about anything, but his arm jarred to a halt without warning, which never should have happened! Noah was puzzled until he saw the Vengeance's hand curled around his left wrist, arresting the movement of that arm. He thrust at them with his right palms, trying to batter them away with his positron shields, but the respite only worked in their favor, leaving him still trapped against the cliff face, and now they were coming at him from three directions. Noah started to bring his wings forward to scatter them once more with the thermal exciters, prolonging the stalemate. But then his top right wing was blown in half, dark purple coolant fluid geysering from the ragged stump.

Kira had sneaked two shots around the edges of Noah's positron shields, so close that a portion of each linear cannon shell was in fact disintegrated as it passed through the very edge of the positron shield. It was an impossible shot, and Noah could only stare in disbelief for a few critical moments, the mathematical odds against making not just one such shot, but two at once, staggering even his ability to quickly calculate. And then, just as he was recovering from that shock, the ground lurched heavily uder his feet, and he found himself losing his balance and falling over, only belatedly realizing it was his physical body that was affected and not the Brotherhood. The Great Endeavor was sinking... or more accurately, falling, just like Meyrin had said the USN was trying to do. He saw the dying muzzle flare of that damnable cannon the Warmaster had as its primary weapon, and knew who was responsible for the travesty!

Pouncing on his moment of weakness, the Vorpal stabbed forward with its blade and severed his lower right wing as well, the sudden imbalance in thrust kicking the Brotherhood to one side while Noah was distracted and recovering himself, banging his Gunda into the cliff face again. Furious, Noah cleaved at them with his left armblades, huge diagonal slashes that sent the Vorpal and the Seraph skating backwards, content to play a waiting game, capitalizing on Noah's increasing desperation. Not so the Vengeance, which met the slash with its own blade, turned a slight bit, and then scraped the zweihander down the length of the armblades, continuing on with the motion to sever both of Noah's left wrists! The twinned armblades spun away into the gloom below, crystal edges flashing once or twice before they were lost to sight.

"This cannot be happening!" Noah shouted in frustrated despair. He tried to slam the Vengeance away with his right palm positron shields, but the FRALA on the Vorpal's shoulder spat out its blue white beam and took that entire rebuilt arm off just below the shoulder. "NO!" Noah exclaimed, as he saw the Vengeance bring its sword around in a horizontal sweep. "DON'T!" He tried to interpose the stump of his left arm, for all the good it would do. He wasn't fast enough. The Vengeance's zweihander flashed like solid white lightning and carved into the Brotherhood at almost the exact midline, the quantum edge passing through the thick gluey soup of the LCR armor like it wasn't even there, and the same held true for the structural bones and internal components, all of which were sliced apart effortlessly by the supremely sharp sword. The zweihander slipped out of the Brotherhood's back, smooth as silk, and crunched into the cliff face behind, tearing a long slice in the rock as Shinn dragged the sword around and away in a near three hundred and sixty degree circle.

Still kicking, the Brotherhood's lower torso and legs dropped away, the Gundam cut cleanly in half, boiling gouts of coolant fluid spilling from its guts as the FPR reactor containment systems were slashed into pieces. Energy feeds crackled and detonated like strobe lights throughout the Brotherhood's body, as it struggled against the inexorable pull of gravity for another moment, before the upper torso,head and arms followed its lower half towards the ground far below, the raging light dimming in its royal purple eyes, its golden skin losing its glowing sheen, the holoprojectors dying off, leaving a strangly sad and diminished form to drop though the storm darkened sky. Failsafe procedures kicked in, but were only partially successful, and the terminal impact with the icy ground far below fully shattered the FPR vessel and spilled the unconstrained light of a star upon the ground for a mere instant.

The fireball was more than a thousand feet in diameter, the scorching compressed air shockwave melted all the ice from all the mountains in the entire valley area even while it hurled Mobile Suits like ragdolls, the thermonuclear explosion was even powerful enough to make the Great Endeavor shudder as it spun faster and faster towards its own imminent meeting with the ground. Still, all in all the reaction was much diminished from what it could have been, the reactor having been operating at less than half power, and in the process of shutting down to boot. Still, the scar dug by the death of the Brotherhood Gundam would endure for centuries, a huge blackened crater seared into the base of a mountain, not a single scrap of the Gundam remaining bigger than the head of a pin. Those hurled about the sky recovered themselves, some more quickly than others, and all who could turned their attention to a spectacle that promised to be at least as catastrophic.

For the Great Endeavor was indeed on its final journey to the Earth's surface, the massive, half ruined saucer slowly spinning like a top as its thrusters pushed at its bulk unevenly, the entire fortress tilting down to one side, where the levitators had been blown apart by the Warmaster's Earthshaker cannon, moving with ever increasing speed as the other levitators began blowing out as well, until the last few hundred feet were a total uncontrolled free fall. When the Great Endeavor did finally touch down, the impact was strong enough to shake the entire mountain range, or so it seemed, shockwaves of pulverized stone rising almost a hundred meters into the air and running like tsunami's down both sides of the valley, the seismic waves of the impact were noticable across the world to detection equipment. The doughty hull of the Great Endeavor, having endured so many weapon hits, at last failed under the stress of its own weight piling down on itself, and the leading edge crumpled like tinfoil, digging deep into the ground even while compacting downward, hundreds of meters of ship compressing down to mere tens of meters, to the detriment of anything and everyone inside those spaces.

Storms of dust and debris scoured outwards from around the crash site as the Great Endeavor continued to gouge its own grave, gargantuan chunks of its structure cracking apart and falling away to create their own craters, as the main mass began to settle down from its steep angle of impact, over a million tons of mass still remaining mostly intact, as the shattered pie plate the Great Endeavor had become settled and eventually became still, tilted upwards at roughly a ten degree angle, while steam and smoke vented from it like a volcano about to erupt. The grinding echo of impact could be heard for thousands of kilometers in every direction. However, as momentous and incredible as the occassion was, it was still far from over. The Mobile Suits circled and regrouped, forming up to support the incoming transport jets that carried the troops that would take the battle to its next stage. Its final and most dangerous stage. The Great Endeavor had fallen. Now, all that remained was to beard the lion in his den!

xxxx

"Hello everyone, this is your captain speaking. I'd like to welcome you all aboard Majesty Airlines, and thank you for flying with us today." Alkire said into the comm system of the stealth dropship, a maniacal grin of concentration on his face. "I would like the stress that while it has been fun observing the pretty light show from here, we do have to land sooner rather than later. Any and everyone should make sure their seat belt restraints are securely fastened, and all carry on items, especially those that may be explosive, are securely stored in the appropriate bins. If you are having trouble buckling your restraints, maybe because you were out of them when those last shockwaves hit and you were tossed about the cabin like a marracca bean, I'm sure our lovely pink haired flight attendant would be happy to assist you. Or administer your last rites, depending on how you fared."

"Weather conditions at our destination are currently cloudy and stormy, with a high probability of random weapon fire and wind currents that make a hurricane look like a summer breeze. Do not panic though, our pilots, especially me, are experts at landing in adverse conditions, more or less intact. I only usually lose one or two passangers per flight. Hopefully they won't be you. Though it might be a good time to say anything you've been saving up to the person sitting next to you. Just, y'know, in case. Upon landing, please wait for the fasten seatbelt sign to be extinguished before moving about the cabin and be aware that the contents of the in flight storage compartments may have shifted, or become armed, and so exercise extreme caution when opening said bins. Once again, I'd like to thank you for choosing Majesty Airlines, and thank you for flying with us. If we're all lucky, we might even be flying out of here too." Alkire signed off and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

"Colonel Kisaka had briefed me on this... troubling quirk... of yours." Cyprus noted without batting an eye. "Its an admirable effort at purging your fears into everyone else."

"That was nothing. You should have been there when I took that shuttle down through the midst of your air defense grids at the end of the Isolation." Alkire said, straighting in his chair and flexing his figners before settling them onto the controls again. "Okay, lets do this thing." Alkire breathed in and out once more. And then rammed the yoke forward and kicked down on his control pedals, throwing the dropship into a screaming deathdive, nose pointed more or less straight down as he burned towards the ground at maximum speed, watching the altimeter tick down faster than he could count the ones or tens digits. He'd descended below the level of the taller peaks before he even started pulling out, waiting untilt he last instant to yank back and up on the controls, throwing the dropship out into a barrel roll pullout that reached an easy five or six gees, ending with them flying just above the nape of the earth, upside down, all of thirty feet above ground level, going close to mach 1.

There was no incoming fire yet, but Alkire saw no reason to be incautious, so he began juking the dropship from side to side and even up and down, to throw off any targeting systems that might have been trying to acquire them. Alkire saw the billowing clouds of dust and mud that had been displaced by the thermonuke blast and subsequent crash ahead and braced himself as they punched into the sediment fouled air, visibility dropping from several kilometers to less than a hundred meters in an instant. Which was still pretty far, but when you were going pretty damn close to 1000 kph, one hundred meters was not far at all. Especially at ground level. In a crowded battle zone. Alkire saw some dim shapes ahead and kicked the dropship sideways, his wingtips almost brushing a group of ZAFT Primals that were slogging towards the Great Endeavor, the shockwave of his passing spinning many of them to their knees.

And then there it was ahead of them, looming like a mountain where none should be, huge spires of wreckage scattered around it like monuments to a fallen god, chunks of decking and factories that dwarfed the dropship, many of them would have dwarfed even the Archangel. And it was in this wasteland, right at the skirts of the fallen fortress, that the battle was once again joined, the paltry remaining defensive systems of the Great Endeavor flashing and spitting firepower down upon a battle line of Mobile Suits of all nations that were slowly grinding their way forward, trying to make an opening for the ground pounders to come, a safe corridor where they could get the majority up to the fortress without being blasted to smithereens by the defensive turrets. Energy beams and shell tracers of all colors of the rainbow squirted and spat like water from sprinklers all around him, too much for even a veteran pilot like Alkire to keep track of at once, and so he gritted his teeth and just charged straight ahead, trusting to luck and speed to see them safely through the malestrom.

Even as he charged, following the dimly glowing line on his displays that Cyprus was plotting for him which led to the point of entry the Lt had selected upon the upper surface of the main chunk of wreckage, Alkire's fingers and thumbs tightened on the triggers and buttons gracing the grips of the control yokes, which controlled the dropship's not inconsiderable armaments. Not only did it have to carry troops to dangerous dropzones, it could provide close range support fire for them once there. Several nose mounted 20mm gatling guns rattled hundreds of armor piercing tracers, like orange laser beams they were shooting so fast, across the dirt and into the dark hull ahead of him, followed by the seething smoke trails of dozens of heavy unguided rockets from launchers to either side of the main fuselage. Ruby red explosions and electric blue sparks foretold the demise of at least something powered or volatile, and Alkire continued to walk his fire up and up and up as he switched from jet flight to VTOL flight modes.

The dropship popped up over the edge of the Great Endeavor's side and skated forward across its upper hull, moving away from the greatest concentrations of firepower as Alkire circled in on the spot Cyprus marked for him, using the dropships weapons to blast apart several still operating defense turrets that might have otherwise become problematic. At least reaching the designated point, alkire circled once more before he popped the cargo compartment hatches and snagged his helmet from the rack behind his chair he'd secured it to. Beside him, Cyprus was likewise getting out of his chair and sealing his helmet closed, while barking orders to the Stormhound company in the cargo compartment. Compressed gas powered harpoon lines chunked and whirred as they sent anchoring cables deep into the armor plating below, helping the dropship stay on station and reeling it slowly downwards to a safer deployment altitude of less than twenty meters.

Alkire had just reached the cargo bay when a strident alert tone blared throughout the dropship, and he cursed as he recognized a target lock warning. He must have missed one of the defense turrets, and now the dropship... and everyone on it, was a sitting duck! He scrambled for the cockpit, praying he would make it in time for at least an attempt at an evasive maneuver, but by the time he got to the cockpit a bright green plasma beam was already arrowing towards him, and there was nothing he could do about it! But then another object interposed itself, black and blue and faintly feather shaped, and with a flash of aqua energies, the beam blast was absorbed, followed seconds later by an explosion from below as the defense turret was slashed apart by the glowing blue blade of Siegfried. "Thanks kid..." Alkire said gruffly, his heart rate slowly returning to normal, or as normal as could be in this situation. "Shoulda known you'd have our backs, precious cargo and all."

By the time he got back to the cargo bay once more, the synthetic fiber drop ropes had already been deployed, and most of the Stormhounds were busy sliding down them , festooned with weapons and gear and anything else they or the Lt had thought might be useful to bring along, almost forty of the most highly trained soldiers the world had ever seen, sliding down ropes in close to free fall before braking just before touching down and flipping off the ropes to take up defensive positions in a perimeter. It was a beautiful, beautiful thing, to those with the eyes to appreciate it. Just as Alkire made it into the bay, he witness Glory taking Lacus in one arm, treating her with all the gentleness one might expect of a man handling a live nuclear bomb, before sliding down the rope with such exaggerated care as would have had everyone mocking him had this been a training mission. Cyprus followed his senior NCO a moment later, leaving only two Stormhounds still in the dropship. One of course was Alkire. And waiting for him at the top of their descent rope, was the familiar rangy feminine figure of his dreams.

"Took ya long enough, lover." Raine commented, cocking her helmeted head at him in a playful fashion. That was Raine for you, always at her most lighthearted and girlish during the most intense combat. Maybe there was something wrong with the wiring in her brain, like she sometimes said. Or maybe it was just that she was an adrenaline junkie just like him, and the thrill of life or death combat was as stimulating to her as was the thrill of testing a sports car or jet out to its limits was to him. There was probably something wrong with both of them, come to think of it. But he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I forgot my backup penis." Alkire replied sardonically, tapping the bulbous head of a portable RPG launcher he'd appropriated as a bit of extra oomph for this mission. Just in case. "But I'm ready to go now, so I hope you're ready for me."

"I think I might be able to accomodate you." Raine slinked over to him and moulded herself to him for just a moment. It was tough to truly embrace, strapped up in full gear and weapons like they were, and it was impossible to kiss with helmets on, and inadvisable to take them off unless they were planning on becoming Edenites or dying. The massive .50 caliber anti-material rifle that Raine was lugging as her anti-harbinger weapon for the op clunked against her back and made putting his arms around her difficult and awkward, but he did it anyway. Her helmeted head was cold and hard against his chest, but he didn't mind, because he could feel how alive she was. "Though I've always preferred your primary organ."

"Bigger is better." Alkire agreed with a goofy smile she couldn't see. "But we'd better get going or they'll leave without us."

"I like being alone with you." Raine peeled herself away from him. "But they'd be lost without us, so we'd better go help the chilluns out. Did you see the sarge major? It was like he thought she was going to snap in two if he touched her with more than a couple fingers at a time. Lacus could probably tear his wrist right off his arm. As I recall, Kira almost did that once. I'm glad we've got scary people to protect us down there."

"Let's just hope they're scary enough." Alkire mumbled, taking hold of the rope. "Or the nightmare is going to be ours." And then he pushed off, and slid downwards towards what might be the most defining battle of his career.


	77. The Casting Out part 4

Author Note: Sorry for the relative paucity of last chapters final Gundam battle, but like I did say, the focus of this climax does not take place on the field were are used to as Gundam fans. This is going to be much more nitty gritty and personal than a Mobile Suit fight, of which we have seen plenty of during the story. Its time to dust off some old favorite characters and let our dear Stormhound heroes strut their stuff, especially people that have otherwise had only minor involvement with the story, such as the lamented Raine the sniper, and the current man everyone seems to like to dislike, Robert "Alkire Majesty" Jones. Though Katie seems to be playing with the fires of fan anger too, judging from the last few reviews. As for who ends up with Noah in the end, if anyone does, well, you may be surprised. Or not so much. In any case, there will be plenty of foreshadowing/setup this chapter that should make things clearer.

And please, don't judge Luna to the full extent of the law just yet, her little miniplot still has another scene or two to go, and you'll want to take those into consideration before you decide how much to dislike her. And because several people have asked, that seedling, the redwood pinecone, was indeed Yggdrasil, the third of my three "Grand" Chimerae, the other two being the already introduced Caller and Leviathan. However, there is a significant difference between the first two and Yggdrasil (other than the animal-plant thing), because Caller and Leviathan are, as demonstrated, Active Newtypes. Yggdrasil is a Latent. Though Latents are much more fleshed out that they first were, there is still a significant fraction of their abilities that has not been delved into, and Yggdrasil will showcase many of those. In fact, if you read that section with the seedling, you will see some heretofore only guessed at/assumed Latent powers in play. It isn't obvious, but pray consider how a pinecone, with no sensory perceptions of any kind, could guide its own path, even to the point of dodging weapon fire, or should I say, aiming its path towards where weapon's fire was not going to go?

Check the Reference page, new stuff has been posted (Edenite military ranks, and the base stats of the RW Orb Gundams) and some of the confusing things have been changed (such as speed/maneuverability ratings).

Without further ado:

xxxx

**Crash site of the Great Endeavor, Himelayan Mountains, 10.75 hours after commencement of Operation Downfall**

"So what is the situation down there, Rey?" Gil asked intently, his image on the comm screen of Rey's Archon being a bit blurry and chopped with static every now and then, as atmospheric effects interfered with the relaying of the signal, first from the Archon to the circling transport fleet, then to the naval ships, then to Orb and finally up into orbit, where Gil had returned after the mission briefing a few days ago. There was much to do on the political front even as the war front was basically in wrap up mode, and Gil looked a bit weary but still seemed to be riding on the energy high of impending victory.

"We've established a safe corridor through the remaining outer hull defensive emplacements, and our ground troops are landing and forming up as we speak. Initial forays into the main wreckage have been met with heavy resistance and casualties, the Harbingers are dug in deeply enough that we can't wrinkle them out with our Mobile Suits unless we want to risk potentially causing catastrophic damage to what remains of the Great Endeavor. We will be assaulting in force here in the next ten to fifteen minutes, once the heavier close support vehicles have finished unloading." Rey reported, calling up readiness reports on other screens as his Archon sat well back behind the front lines, while the remains of the Solar Knight unit and major USN forces reassembled around him. "We estimate anywhere between three and four hundred Harbingers have survived the crash, though many are wounded to some extent, and despite their superior weapons and armaments, we should be sweeping them away within an hour or two."

"Excellent. Superior performance as always, Rey." Gil congratulated him. "I saw that Mr. Asuka managed to put an end to Noah's own personal pride and joy Gundam as well. He is to be commended, that will make an excellent media clip. Especially once my experts have massaged the data enough to minimize the involvement of the Seraph and Vorpal. Just what the public needs to see, the cream of the Solar Knights cutting down the personification of the enemy leader like so much cordwood and tossing it down into fiery damnation. I imagine it was reasonably cathartic for Mr. Asuka as well." Gil's lips twiched upwards in a leonine smirk. "Have there been any... irregularities?"

Rey thought about mentioning that really odd and uncomfortable feeling he'd had just before the battle began, the sensation like something colossal was peering into his mind with idiot curiosity, but with nothing more to go on than a shadowy, half remembered feeling of discomfort, there wasn't much to report. Better just stick to what he could factually confirm, and there was plenty of that to go around. "It happened like you said it would, Gil." Rey acknowledge, shaking his head in admiration of his foster father's predictive skills. "No sooner had the dust started to settle and the Orb ground forces broke from their station, without orders, and sped to the wreckage well ahead of the rest of our forces with reckless speed. They were joined by the Vorpal and Seraph Gundams, and appear to have landed on the upper hull and made an entrance of their own. Given how heavy the resistance our troops are facing is, there can't be much in the way of the Orb forces, we are doing a good job of drawing the enemy away from them."

"No doubt as the Orb commander intended. His file, what scraps of it we've been able to dig up anyway, makes for very interesting reading. Its really too bad that such a talented man could not be persuaded to see things in a different light, but there is no use crying over spilt milk. Its a bold plan, and with our forces tying up the majority of the enemy, it has a very good chance of success. Just what the doctor ordered, don't you agree, Rey?" Gil said, his smirk growing wider.

"They certainly stand a very good chance of stealing the majority of the glory." Rey agreed, somewhat bitterly. It didn't matter how many Harbingers his own troops killed, Noah was the only one that mattered. Whoever captured or killed him would reap the lions share of the attention and credit. And while he was stuck down here, slogging against the rank and file fanatics, Orb had jumped over the fence and was going in the back door. It was entirely unfair.

"Don't worry my son, this is actually exceptionally good news." Gil assured Rey. "Especially when paired with certain other factoids that have come to my attention of which you are not yet aware. Truth be told, I am almost giddy. I have not had such a golden opportunity presented to me since Orb first sent its Gundams abroad without international permission. But this time, I will not be merciful. As we both saw at the mission briefing, the majority have already accepted the leadership of the USN in the future. Now it is time to consolidate that power. And to do that, we need to make an example of someone, prove our power. Of course we can't be seen to be picking on anyone, but if they bring it down upon themselves, it is our duty to hound them to the fullest extent of the law. And Orb has just brought it down upon themselves like an avalanche."

Rey saw it almost at once. "They defied orders during battle. That's mutiny in the face of the enemy."

"Its gets even better than that, Rey." Gil told him. "Just before the Stormhound dropship, the one that defied orders so blatantly and obviously, took off from Orb, a final, unexpected passenger boarded. Someone who really has no business on board such a transport ship. A private citizen that has no military standing or training, and no place on a battlefield, for any legitimate reason. None other than Lacus Clyne herself."

"Lacus Clyne?" Rey was stumped as to why the great peacemaker of modern times would want to place herself in harms way like that.

"I can hardly contain myself from laughing out loud, this is all so perfect!" Gil was saying. "First Lacus makes a big stink during the mission briefing, and basically declares Orb's intention to take Noah alive, regardless of what the USN orders. Then she reveals to all and sundry that she is the same sort of mutated being as Noah is, with access to the same sort of psychic powers, in her bid to prove to me that she is capable of keeping him under control. However, we all know that like calls to like, and her clandestine joining of the assault, something far out of character for the pacifist Lacus, is, shall we say, suspicious at the least. Think of it this way, Rey... what if those Orb troops aren't an assault force, but rather a bodyguard? They say they're there to capture him, but what if they are instead escorting him to safety? Its a brilliant plan, no one would suspect a thing. And then, once he was safe, he could "mind control" a few of them and get loose, and we'd never be able to find him."

"I hate to disagree, but I find that kind of improbable, given the sort of person Lacus..." Rey started to protest.

"Of course." Gil cut him off with a wave of his hand. "Its all complete bunk. A total fabrication and a twisting of events. But its a plausible fabrication, and the public, the largely uninformed, very psychic phobic public, will buy it, with a little encouragement. Such as the video we have of our fake "Lacus" getting into a car with Noah shortly before her unfortunate death. We won't need to say much officially, but it shouldn't be hard to start the unofficial supposition that the two "Ultimate Coordinators" have been sympathetic with each other for quite a while. We all know what a forgiving, humane person Lacus Clyne is, she might not even be aware that she is being manipulated by Noah. As I recall, the demagog Cervantes Zunnichi once used a similar tactic to take control of Orb, by alienating Athrun Zala while perserving the sanctity of the beloved Cagalli Yula Attha, by playing off how Athrun was manipulating her with seduction. A horrid man, but a great politician and manipulator."

"And being on board the dropship that ignored orders and charged ahead only makes it look like she's trying to get to Noah before anyone else can, so that there aren't any witnesses to their little bargain." Rey reasoned out. "As far as we know, the entire Orb force could be in on it..."

"That's my Rey, you've got the bull by the horns now." Gil congratulated him. "As of this moment, the loyalty and commitment of the Orb forces are called into question. Of course, we won't go tossing around impercations of treason, that's still a bit too big of a bite to swallow for most. But at the same time, as custodians of the safety of the USN citizens, it is your duty to ensure that this most heinous terrorist does not escape our clutches. It would only be prudent, I think, to ensure that the potentially traitorous Orb forces don't have the ability to effect their potential plan, don't you think? At the very least, as law abiding members of the USN, they would acceed to disarming and dismounting from their Mobile Suits until we get this all straightened out. We wouldn't want there to be any misunderstandings after all."

"And if they don't agree, it only makes them that much more suspicious." Rey nodded with a grin of his own. "And as the smallest contingent here, we have the significant advantage of numbers over them."

"We're already implementing a comm blackout between the Orb forces there with you and their headquarters, which is easy since their comms have to be relayed through our fleets, and a few "technical malfunctions" are almost inevitable in such battered warships. Denied the leadership of their government, I think it very likely the Orb forces will stand down, not wanting to provoke an international incident at such a delicate time. Make it clear to them... and to everyone else... that they are not under arrest, that this is just a precaution. And as part of that precaution, it will unfortunately be necessary to ensure that none of their machines have been modified with remote control devices, such as we know Noah to possess. But since there are no field technicians available to do thorough inspections, a somewhat messier and more immediate solution will be necessary."

"We blow up all their Mobile Suits. Its the only way to ensure our safety. And its just war material anyway, not pilots, Mobile Suits can be rebuilt." Rey continued Gil's line of thought. "Though only at great cost. And since these are the last of Orb's Mobile Forces, losing them all will effectively cripple their military for the near future." Rey paused with a thoughtful look. "What about the Gundams though?"

"Are they not Orb Mobile Suits? Did not Orb build them? Its unfortunate, but they are a liability as well. We cannot risk the possibility of a rogue Gundam. Or of any Gundams that are not under our auspices. I have legislation in the works that will soon declare that the only military forces allowed to utilize anything other than battery or hydrogen fuel cell power plants for their Mobile Suits are USN approved forces. And those approved forces do not include Orb. Not unless they are willing to make such concessions as would destroy them as a sovereign nation, which they won't. So, unless they want to go back to utilizing the Strike and Buster, their Gundam program is dead. No doubt they will continue a program in secret, but if they ever utilize their illegal weapons... well, we will be waiting eagerly for that excuse to declare martial law and reorder the illegal Orb government." Gil explained.

"And by destroying all the Gundams and the rest of their Mobile Forces here, we will place them at our mercy when and if they do capture Noah. All we have to do is destroy their dropship and they're basically trapped here with us. All we have to do is clear out the Harbingers and begin our salvaging of the Great Endeavor, and wait for them to bring Noah out to us. They may think they're using us as a distraction, but in reality its them that are going to be doing all the hard work for us, and they will be likely to take plenty of casualties in the process, and use up most of their fighting strength as well. They will be exhausted, wounded and low on munitions, and they will have no choice but to walk into our midst." Rey was almost gleeful now as well. "And then we can confiscate Noah. For safekeeping of course, since obviously they won't have a way to transport him back to Orb."

"And since all of their battle recorders will have been destroyed, and the recording systems of their special forces confiscated and destroyed as well, they will have no proof that they were the ones that captured Noah, credit will instead go to "USN and coalition forces led by the Solar Knights", which is, after all, nothing less than the truth. Of course it will be such a tragedy that Orb lost all of its Mobile forces during the battle, they are surely an example of duty and effort to us all. They're just lucky our forces were able to recover their pilots who ejected before the worst could happen, or the tragedy could have been much worse. Of course the Orb leadership will know what really happened, but they won't dare contradict us. It would be oh so damaging to them if the public got wind that they might have been corrupted by Noah Borander. Even the possibility of such a thing would be such a horrid public relations nightmare... the USN might even have to step in to restore order, since their military forces have been crippled." Gil looked very smug at the idea.

"So we get credit for taking down the Brotherhood and Great Endeavor..." Rey ticked off on one finger.

"We cripple Orb as a military power for the next few years..." Gil provided the second point.

"We let them take the risk of capturing Noah..." Rey added.

"While we get to present him to the media as a captive of the Solar Knights..." Gil continued.

"And we get all the salvage we can carry from the Great Endeavor, without having to share it with anyone we don't want to..." Rey grinned fiercely.

"And best of all, Orb can do nothing but sit and grit their teeth and let us have our way with them, or else they'll end up under martial law as an occupied territory, while we run a VERY thorough investigation of their entire government and military. And I'm sure we'd manage to find enough irregularity to keep them crushed udner our heels for decades, and they know it. I cannot wait to see the look on Queen Zala-Attha's face. Put me on notice, "bitch"? Don't make me laugh. Orb itself is my bitch, and if they don't swallow what I have to give them and thank me for it, then I will fuck them until they are nothing but a bloody, broken ruin." Gil chuckled grimly. "Today is the dawn of a bright new world, Rey. Welcome to our world... welcome to our new destiny!"

xxxx

"Goddamn this place is a fucking maze." Ramierez muttered under his breath as he crept along several dozen meters ahead of the rest of the Stormhounds of his particular detachment. He consulted the map function of his helmet HUD, but it was of little help. They had debriefed Commander la Flaga extensively as to the layout of the Great Endeavor, but his recollection was often fuzzy, and he was not trained to remember the details of corridors and rooms like a Stormhound operative was, so he wasn't always able to effectively answer their questions, so the maps they had were sparse to say the least, and did not include several important areas, such as the layout of the enemy nexus called the Atrium, since la Flaga had never been there. Added on to that was crash damage, which was extensive in some areas, entire passages blocked by tons of metal scrap, while other areas were sealed off by damage control bulkheads that had proven proof against even high explosive keys. As the Major would say, the mission was fucked already.

That didn't change the fact that they still had a job to do. Initial entry had been quite easy, with the Seraph spreading its Fractal Wings around the grouped up soldiers to protect them from possible damage while the Vorpal used its Siegfried sword to cut a deep notch into the bulkheads of the Great Endeavor, bypassing several entire passageways, and providing numerous entry points for the Stormhounds to utilize. Entry comprehensively accomplished, the Stormhounds had split up into their assigned groups, with two platoons consisting of fifteen Stormhounds each went downwards towards the relays and manual controls for the Fusion Pulse Reactors that provided power for the Great Endeavor, with the goal of shutting down the chained suns before they could be overloaded, intentionally or otherwise. The last platoon, the one Ramierez and most of the senior, tried and tested Stormhounds, the old guard elite, had been assigned to, was burrowing their way inwards towards the enemy command post, the Atrium.

Besides just fifteen assorted Stormhounds, including the Lt, the Atrium group had been joined by four irregulars. Of course, Lacus was already with them, but Kira had not been about to let her go into harms way without him by her side, even though the physical protection he could grant her was dubious at best compared to the aegis already provided by the Stormhounds. And then the Major's daughter, Katie, had insisted upon coming along as well to provide support with her own psychic talents, and from there Yzak was basically forced into coming along as well, for much the same reason as Kira, though at least Yzak had the good sense to come armed. It was just a knife and a pistol, but it was better than nothing, especially as they had been able to provide both Katie and Yzak with other armaments from among the surplus carried by the Stormhounds. Lacus and Kira just looked at the guns and bombs like they were poisonous serpents covered in acid.

Though Lacus at least had the sense to wear a flight suit instead of her usual gravity defying dresses, and had her hair done up in braids that were tucked into the suit to prevent her hair from flying everywhere, the flight suit itself was still pink and white, just about the opposite of stealthy. And she wasn't wearing her helmet either, and neither was Kira, which was disconcerting. Not least because it left their heads unprotected against injury, but also because of the atmosphere. Ramierez and several others among the Stormhounds was equipped with a detector on his belt that measured the concentration of Green EDEN nanites in the air, ranging from nil/nondetectable where it was safe to walk around unprotected, to a large range of "personal protection required" all the way up to "you're fucked". Right now it was square in the middle of the "personal protection required" range, within the capabilities of their armor filters to handle, and the level of nanites was steadily dropping the further they got into the Great Endeavor's formerly sealed environment.

But Kira and Lacus were both completely immune to the Green EDEN, and it was just weird seeing them walk around in an otherwise "toxic" atmosphere like it was nothing. Both Yzak and Katie were wearing fully sealed flight suits rated for vacuum, which were actually even safer, at least against Green EDEN, than the Stormhound's armor, which was only heavily filtered using overlapping magnetic fields across the intakes and exhaust vents, versus totally self contained. The first time he'd seen Katie's flight suit and helmet, Ramierez and a good few other Stormhounds had almost collapsed in gales of laughter, despite the situation. Her flight suit was dark blue and silver grey, just like Yzak's, but where his helmet was a modified version of the ZAFT helmet, hers was just a regular Orb Forces model. However, the funny part was the two tuft ended faux dog ear's she'd superglued to the top of her helmet, in an obvious mimicry of her parents's Stormhound battle helmets. The helmet had been painted in Stormhound colors, and had snarling fangs stenciled around the bottom of the visor. Still, it could not help but look like a halloween costume put together by a highschooler.

The scuff of boots upon decking from up ahead, where the corridor took a sharp bend to the right brought Ramierez gliding forward, his mind blanking of exterraneous thoughts, operating on training and instinct and long experience. He made a few gestures with his trailing hand, knowing the hand signals would be picked up by whoever was trailing him from the main unit and relayed on back, who would be ready to move up in support while Ramierez assessed and potentially neutralized the threat. He ghosted up to the corner and extended a micro-fiber optic camera lens around the corner, allowing him to peek without exposing himself. He saw a single Harbinger, clad in the standard armor but who had removed his headgear and helmet for some reason, perhaps to take a smoke break, if the lingering scent in the air was any indication. A lone guard? A loiterer? Some dickless wonder shirking his duties, now of all times? It didn't matter to Ramierez.

Keeping to what shadows there were along the sides of the corridor, almost totally invisible unless you happened to be looking right at him when he moved, Ramierez crept up to the unsuspecting Coordinator, fingers plucking at the extendable filament garrotte wire clipped to his gloves, into which he fashioned a loop that slipped easily over the Harbinger's unsuspecting neck. Yanking the cord tight, Ramierez simultaneously sawed it back and forth, cutting through his victim's throat and windpipe in a froth of bubbling blood and then also slammed one of his throwing knives upward into the back of the Harbinger's skull, spitting the brain, the point of the dagger protruding from one eye socket, with the eye impaled like a marshmallow on a stick. The Harbinger twitched and shuddered, all his limbs going limp in less than a second, all done in complete silence. Ramierez lowered the corpse to the floor and tongue clicked his comm system twice, confirming the way was once more clear. He then moved on, back on point.

A little ways further on, two doors led off from the corridor as it continued on ahead. Stealthy recon of both doorways showed a grouping of four Harbingers, two per side, rooting through what looked like storage rooms of some sort. From their furtive air and subdued conversations, Ramierez got the feeling that this was pilfering or plundering of some sort, discipline among some of the Harbingers having obviously broken down under the stimulus of recent events. It was funny how fanatical some people could be until death came knocking on their door, and then all their piss and vinegar bled out of them like arterial spray, leaving only a scared human being behind, in way over their head. Still, they couldn't afford to leave any potential hostiles around behind them. But there was no way he could take all four by himself, not stealthily anyway. So he hand signaled back for aide, being so close that even a helmet comm might give away his position.

About ten seconds later he felt more than saw another Stormhound move up beside him, and instantly recognized the Lt by the nuances of his gear layout. Ramierez pointed the Lt towards the left hand room, holding up two fingers to indicate the number of hostiles, and then gesturing at his body and head in a "taking off" gesture, indicating that the Harbingers were only partly dressed in armor, lacking helmets and with their torso plates unbuckled as they rooted through crates and stuffed plastic wrapped little bricks of some sort into their armor for safekeeping. Taking a throwing dagger in each hand, Ramierez put his back to the wall across the hall from the Lt, and nodded across to his commanding officer, both of them counting down from three at the exact same time, moving as one person, one mind.

Ramierez spun into the doorway of his room, paused a half second to calculate angles, and then let fly with both arms at once. One dagger took the Harbinger right between the eyes as he turned towards the noise at the doroway with a solid "CTHUNK" of steel chopping through bone. That one dropped, but Ramierez's left hand throw, just a slight bit less accurate and powerful with his off hand, went a tad low and struck the other Haringer in the neck. Blood fountained, but the wound, while terrible, was not instantly mortal, and the Harbinger grabbed for his linear rifle, which he had leaned up against a metallic crate nearby, his other hand flying to his throat, tearing out the knife and grasping desperately at the ragged wound left behind to staunch the bloodflow. That was the problem with scared fanatics... at the end of the day, when death did come calling, they were still fanatics, and didn't know when to just drop and die!

Across the hallway, Cyprus had gone in leading with his ninja-to in a two handed grip, stepping with the smoothness of silk sliding down a stream, and had cleanly decapitated the closest Harbinger before the man even was aware he was under attack, the head popping into the air on a jet of scarlet that painted the bulkhead in dripping wetness. Spinning low as the second Harbinger started to bring up his linear rifle, Cyprs slashed his sword blade across the weapon, halving it in a flash of sparks, leaving only a trigger assembly with bright silvery cut marks where the barrel had used to be. Cyprus pushed forward, rising and turning to stab the ninja-to backwards beneath his arm, impaling the Harbinger through the sternum, foil wrapped packages spilling from beneath his chest armor to thump against his feet. Dragging the blade downwards and then ripping it out in a disemboweling stroke, Cyprus simultaneously hammered back with his elbow and crushed the cartilege of his opponent's windpipe, silencing his attempted shout into a pained wheeze.

Ramierez's second Harbinger scrabbled at his linear rifle for a second, until a snap kick from Ramierez knocked the weapon sliding away across the floor. Reacting with admirable speed, the Harbinger ripped out his mono-edged knife and physically leapt at the Stormhound, bearing him backwards and almost pinning him against a wall. Ramierez blocked the hand that tried to grab his throat, ignoring the blood that sprayed from the foe's neck wound and splattered across his helmet mask, twisting his upper body to the side so that the stabbing knife blade slashed a silvery line through the wall rather than through him. Ramierez stamped down hard on the Harbinger's boot, feeling bones crunch under the impact and the leg falter, but the Harbinger fell against the wall and pinned the smaller Stormhound beneath him. He tried to push the Harbinger away, but the man was too massive.

There came another "CTHUNK" of steel biting through bone and then the Harbinger crumpled liquidly to the side, his head snapping away from the direction of the doorway, Cyprus's silvery tomahawk embedded in the side of the skull all the way to the shaft, practically splitting the skull in half. Ramierez glanced his thanks for the assist to his superior, and then yanked the tomahawk out to return it to his boss, having to tug and twist and even put his foot on the Harbinger's head in order to gain the leverage to pull the throwing axe out, all but destroying the half cloven skull and brain in the process. One guy who certainly wouldn't be getting up again this side of hell, not with a punctured throat and a brain that looked like a plate of jello dropped on the ground. So far, so good, this was almost easy street! Ramierez checked one of the foil wrapped packages that the looters had been stealing and saw that it was some form of chemicals or drugs. Scowling disdainfully, he crushed that package and several others under his heel.

Easy street ended about fifty meters further up the corridor, where the access passageway broadened out into a long veranda-hall, easily thirty meters wide by eight tall and almost a hundred meters long in a long, slightly curving line. A central walkway path was bordered and defined by plots of small flowering bushes and trees and flowers, while to either side of the main path were placed cylindrical pits with knee high walls, each pit was about two meters in diamater, spaced three or so meters apart, in two parallel rows that stretched the length of the hall. Telepresence control nodes for the Brotherhood's ever refreshing legion of Martyrs and Zealots. There wasn't much cover to speak of, as the node pits walls were too short to really crouch behind, and made from building quality plastic, which wouldn't stop most bullets, much less Harbinger weapons. Also, the place was as brightly lit as a mall during peak hours, and there were only the two doors... the one they were at, and the one at the far end, where they needed to go.

Ramierez waited for the Lt to come up and make the call, not that there was much of a call to make. Disadvantageous terrain or not, they had to progress forward, and the decision was quickly made to press onward. Trying not to bunch up while at the same time maintaining a sufficiency of armored bodies between any potential incoming firepower and the unarmored flight suits of their "civilian backup" was not exactly easy, but by putting almost all of the Stormhounds in front, with only Conrad and one other Stormhound watching the rear, they should hopefully be able to soak up anything deadly shot at the Gundam pilots and Lacus. They had only managed to get about a third of the way down the telepresence node hall when Lacus suddenly gasped loudly and started to call out a warning. Most of the Stormhounds didn't wait to hear what she was going to say, as soon as she made the surprised sound, they were already throwing themselves down into what cover they could find.

Not all of them moved fast enough, as a volley of linear rifle bolts and a pair of emerald green beam bolts screamed out of the empty air a few dozen meters further down the hall, it was only after the weapons fired did the particle cloaking field, a portable Mirage Colloid field generator, disrupt and scatter, revealing the unit of Harbingers, fully armored and armed ones, that had been watching the Stormhounds come, waiting for them to get close enough that no one could possibly react fast enough to avoid the attacks. If not for Lacus's mental senses, they would have walked headlong into death's embrace... and even then, she'd almost been too late! Had been two late for two Stormhounds, one of whom was standing almost right in front of Lacus, and who exploded backwards across her in a fountain of gore and pulped organs as a trio of linear rifle bolts struck him in the face, chest and belly and blew him to smoking shreds. The other Stormhound, the explosives expert Sergeant Quentin, a longtime Hellhound, took a beam blast right to his core, burning a twenty millimeter hole right through the middle of his chest, charbroiling his heart and lungs.

The Stormhounds returned fire at once of course, but their bullets only sparked and deflected off the Phase shift armor covering of the Harbingers, a few of the Brotherhood soldiers stumbling or spinning backwards under the kinetic impact of the bullets, but not a single one went down, and most rapidly began taking aim once more. But then the heavy weapons of the Stormhounds kicked in. Glory walked a laser like beam of gatling gun fire across the entire formation of Harbingers, the spinning barrels of the Shrike glowing pink hot as hundreds of rounds per second spewed into the enemy group, hammering many of them off their feet under the deluge of hits. Those that remained standing were quickly knocked flying, frequently with internal injuries of some sort or another, as Raven walked her Warhawks 13.2mm mercury tipped bullets across their forms, firing concentrated six round bursts into each Harbinger before moving on to the next likely target.

Still, battered, bleeding and bruised or not, the harbingers, except for a rare exception here or there that had taken a burst of rounds to the head, resulting in concussions or snapped necks, were clambering back to their feet faster than Raven could keep them down, like an arcade game of gopher bashing gone wild. The other Stormhounds reacted with drilled speed, some keeping up a barrage of small arms fire, knowing that there was a limit to the number of hits the Harbinger phase shifted body armor could withstand before losing its Phase shift, just like the original armor of the Strike and other first generation Gundams. Others where tossing or rolling grenades into the Harbinger formation, which was tightly packed for maximum weight of firepower. Thudding detonations and splashes of liquid metal fire enveloped the Harbingers in smoke and flame, several of them going down for good, one entirely dismembered by a pair of high explosive grenades that had gone off right between his legs, his armor whole and undamaged, but the weaker flesh behind split and pulped.

A shrieking buzz culminating in another powerful explosion heralded Alkire using his RPG launcher to blast another Harbinger into a collection of bloody mush collected inside her armor, but using RPG rounds to kill individual enemies was hardly an efficient use of his limited ammunition stock. Raine, right next to him, was assisting Raven in trying to keep the Harbingers disoriented and reeling, the forefinger length, thumb thick bullets of the .50 caliber sniper rifle smashing into men and women with the force of sledgehammers, breaking ribs, shattering skulls and even bursting organs all without needing to penetrate the Phase Shift armor surface. Phase shift was a wonderful armor technology, but it worked much better for unfeeling machines and vehicles than it did for a human being of flesh and blood. Raine's next shot caught a Harbinger just as his armor power ran out, and the .50 cal slug excavated his entire torso in one huge explosion of gory splatter, his body falling in two halves, missing everything from the breastbone down to the top of the hips.

However it was Sergeant Matthew "Conrad" Kurtz who did the most telling damage to the enemy, because as his additional weapon he'd equipped himself, somehow, somewhere, with a medium sized flamethrower unit. Flamethrowers, which used pressurized gas to hurl a self oxygenating combustible, ignited sticky liquid up to about thirty meters distance, were brutal weapons outlawed for use by infantry by most international arms treaties, as they caused such horrible, traumatizing wounds. However, they were also ideal for close quarters, no holds barred combat, nothing could clear a room more thorughly than a flamethrower, save perhaps an entire squad armed with automatic shotguns. Those Harbingers that found themselves immolated by hosing streams from Conrad's weapon soon discovered that their heavy armor was of no protection against the consuming liquid fire, and more than a half dozen were burned alive in their own armor in just the first lateral sweep of fire. Terrorists didn't abide by arms treaties, so why should they be protected by them after all?

Of course their surviving comrades could not help but notice the havoc being wreaked upon them by Conrad, and they suddenly found themselves faced with three choices. One was make a fighting withdrawal, with next to no cover and their armor already well on its way to running out of power. Two was staying where they were, and going hosed with liquid fire and blasted with grenades until there was nothing left but a bloody, burning soup. Three was insanity, because it involved charging directly at the flamethrower and other weapons, into an efficient crossfire of an almost equal number of enemy soldiers. Still, when confronted with a choice between insanity and death, there's really only one choice. Bellowing with religious fervor, the Harbingers bolted for the Stormhounds, firing with abandon, many of them having switched out the single shot explosive bolts for the rapidfire steel cone-pellets in their linear rifles, and were spraying their firepower in wide arcs, trying to supress the foe long enough to come to grips.

The Harbingers ran into a nearly solid wall of firepower, two of them faltering, falling back blasted to shreds as their armor power failed and they were torn apart by hails of firepower from multiple angles. A Stormhound, the one affectionatly known as "Newbie Alpha" for lack of a better team name, fell backwards hard, his torso spouting blood from multiple cone-pellet impacts, the solid steel projectiles puncturing his armor, blasting through his chest and out the other side with barely a reduction in speed. The cone-pellets did not fragment hardly at all, so Newbie Alpha was still alive when he hit the deck, still alive that is until a low aimed beam bolt skewered him in the crotch, the plasma surge flashing through his body, steam boiling from all his pores, his internal organs vaporizing, until his head exploded everywhere like a egg hurled off a tall building, when all the moisture in his brain and spine flashed to steam.

Katie and Yzak focused their three pistols, one in Yzak's hands and one in either of Katie's, on another charging Harbinger, their smaller bulelts bouncing and pinging and shattering of the Harbinger's bulky torso and shoulders as he bulled towards them, lifting his mono-bayoneted linear rifle high for a downward cleaving slash. The Harbinger suddenly stumbled, his footing getting twisted up with itself, and he tripped and fell headlong two strides short of them. Meanwhile, Katie fell to her knees as well, her pistols clattering to the floor as she dry heaved inside her helmet from the effort of penetrating and muddling the Harbinger's mind, without being able to touch Yzak to draw upon his amplification powers. She knew it was possible to amplify from a distance, she'd seen Lacus do it twice now, but the secret of it still eluded her. Maybe it was because she didn't have a Seed of her own?

Taking advantage of Katie's assault, Yzak stepped forward and kicked the linear rifle from the sprawled out Harbinger's grip, before straddling the man from behind and taking hold of his helmeted head with both hands. Yzak slammed the Harbinger's head into the decking thrice in quick succession, hard, battering blows that obviously disoriented the man, who went a bit limp. Yzak then carefully braced his forearms and heaved backwards while twisting his whole body along with his arms, first dislocating and then snapping the Harbinger's neck right where it joined the skull, killing the man instantly. Yzak snatched up the linear rifle from where it lay nearby and quickly turned it on the other Harbingers, recalling what Dearka had told him about how the weapons operated. His shots still couldn't penetrate the Phase Shift, but at least they hit harder than the bullets of his pistol or submachine gun the Stormhounds had supplied him.

The two Harbingers that broke entirely through the Stormhounds line turned upon two apparently easy targets, the unarmed and unarmored pair in the blue and pink flight suits. However, their steps faltered amost immediately as they saw the uncovered heads and most especially the eyes, the washed out, metallic purple and lilac eyes with silver and gold pupils respectively. "Angels..." One Harbinger had time to gasp, before they both went down like puppets with their strings cut, weapons bouncing freely from bonelessly limp hands, their minds sent into a near comatose state by an exertion of Lacus's mental muscles, boosted by the slight contact of her hand brushing Kira's cheek for a moment. It was all the effort she could spare from warding back the increasing pressure Noah was placing upon her as he tried to worm his way into her and Kira's consciousness and shut them down, and after them the rest of the Stormhounds and Yzak and Katie. It was hard work, but Lacus could not feel Noah using Meyrin to boost with, despite the fact that he knew such a thing was possible. It seemed a bit strange to her.

A Harbinger unwisely tried to go mano y mano with Sergeant Major Glory, perhaps thinking that with a heavy ranged weapon in either hand, the senior NCO of the Stormhounds would be helpless against a foe closer up. Spinning his bayonet tipped linear rifle around his body like a marching band performer would a baton, the Harbinger stepped confidently in, only to be crushed to the deck an instant later as Glory slammed the nearly fifty pounds of Shrike Minicannon down onto the Harbinger's shoulder, shattering the collar and shoulder bones. Undamaged by the heavy impact, in fact designed to withstand such punishment on occassion, Glory directed the Shrike carefully downward and triggered a three second burst into the Harbinger from near point blank range, hammering him into the floor until his armor ran out of power, and then buzzsawing the man into tiny gobbets an instant later, dozens of rounds blasting through flesh and bone like it was hardly even there.

A breaching grenade, a 40mm lead sphere lightly coated with rubber, spat from the muzzle of Glory's left hand grenade launcher and cannoned into the side of one of the last Harbinger's throwing the relatively slight woman over sideways, just short of where Cyprus was standing. Immediately incorporating the assist into his motions, Cyprus whipped out the pistol he'd inherited from Asmodeus, and blasted a three round semi-auto burst into the Harbinger's belly, the first two bullets driving the breath from her, the third penetrating and blasting her bowels and stomach into a pulpy mess. Just as he was raising the pistol towards her head, to end her suffering and her life with a bullet to the brain, Alkire's metal shod artificial foot stamped down upon the side of her head and pounded the entire helmet, skull and all, into a pancake of grisly purple and whitish goop. "Why waste ammo?" Alkire commented with a shrug, as the only people still standing were obviously Stormhounds.

Cyprus quickly took stock of the situation, with three Stormhounds dead and several others wounded, one seriously where he'd lost an entire forearm to a linear rifle bolt that had exploded it away, the rest taking a sprinkling of cone-pellet hits to nonvital areas, the Stormhound's self sealing armor keeping their atmosphere integrity intact, while the bodysuits they wore under the armor would help the wounds, especially clean penetration wounds like those caused by the steel cone-pellets, seal up, just like bandages. Of course it wasn't recommended that you rely on the armor self seals or bodyglove seals for long, but they weren't exactly spoiled for choice either. They'd expended a little over a quarter of their ammunition, and had slain over twenty Harbingers in the process. Not exactly a textbook engagement, but about as good as could be expected in the circumstances.

"Thank you for the warning, Ms. Clyne, but in the future I would appreciate it a little sooner." Cyprus noted, not quite a reprimand, but neither was it truly gratitude. "We were lucky that time."

"Noah was blocking her and Katie, and now he's trying to attack her." Kira said, a mite defensively.

"Then I guess we should be grateful for small favors." Cyprus answered, deadpan. There was a moment more of silence. "Move out, modified dispersal. This was the first line of defense. We're getting close now..."

xxxx

"The Harbingers in the upper levels have been routed." Meyrin reported with narrowed eyes, her worry plain and turbulent for him to see. "No, make that annihilated. We only have another squad or two left in our reserves, Noah. The USN forces aren't pushing as hard as they could be, they're up to something..."

"It doesn't matter." Noah said, unfurrowing his brow and opening his eyes, allowing his mental onslaught of Lacus and Katie to fade for the moment. There was little chance of him being able to really affect either of them or the soldiers under their care, not unless he was going to resonate with Meyrin, and that was something he was not going to do. "Let them stay in a holding pattern for all I care, they are obviously trying to exhaust our resources before they go treasure hunting through our Ark. Little do they know, the real treasure is already slipping from their grasp." Noah nodded his head at a small display at the bottom corner of the holographic screen, which showed the progress of the total system purge he'd initiated about the same time as the Stormhounds had engaged the Harbingers a few hundred meters away.

"They'll still be able to take apart the stuff you've already built. Durandel will strip the Great Endeavor down to a skeleton if he gets the chance, and we can't stop him. I've tried overloading the reactors, but the signals aren't getting through. Someone must have manually isolated them from the system." Meyrin bit her lip in frustration.

"Michael must have provided them with a partial layout. Its the only explanation for them being able to penetrate so deeply, so quickly." Noah shrugged, feeling oddly fatalistic. The crows were all coming home to roost, and there wasn't much he could do about it, besides delay the inevitable. Of course he would do all the delaying he could, certainly until the system purge had managed to delete all of his most advanced designs and weapons and Gundams from his databanks. He saw no sense in giving the USN any more freebie technologies than absolutely necessary, especially the really dangerous ones such as the AMP weapons. Let them try and reverse engineer his work under their own sweat and toil, he wasn't going to hand them his life's work on a silver platter like a gourmet feast.

"We really should try to escape." Meyrin said, but it was only a halfhearted protest, and they both knew it. Even if the shuttle bay was still intact, even if they could launch, the Great Endeavor was cordoned off and surrounded, they would be tracked down and shot out of the sky before they got a kilometer. "I hate feeling so passive..." Meyrin complained. She fiddled with her hands for a few moment, before shooting a somewhat shy, somewhat uncertain glance across at Noah, who was standing on the other side of their bed from her. The Atrium was seperately shielded, powered and stabilized from the rest of the Great Endeavor, so even the gargantuan shock of the crash landing had merely been unpleasant to them, like riding a rollercoaster with a very rough landing. "Can't I... help you? You know... like I did before?"

Noah paused as if in thought for a few moments, though truth be told he'd made up his mind on this matter some time ago. Resonating with Meyrin would certainly boost his power and might even give him a brief upper hand in dealing with Lacus or the Stormhounds. But Kira was also there, and they had already shown that two ascended "mature" Ultimate Coordinators resonating together far eclipsed anything two "immature" Ultimate Coordinators could manage, so the advantage would be very temporary, and ultimately futile. No, it was time to accept reality, and begin working on damage control. His own fate was all but sealed, but that did not mean Meyrin had to share it. The less involved she was seen to be, especially of her own will, the better. "Actually, I can think of something you can help me with." Noah said slowly, leaning across the bed towards her.

Meyrin looked at him questioningly, reaching out her own hand to take his, not quite sure what to expect. Certainly she did not anticipate the sharp tug on her arm that yanked her off balance and all but pulled her onto the bed, alongside Noah. "Hey, what the...?" Meyrin started to protest, before Noah covered her mouth with his, half draping himself atop her. _Now! You're horny now! How is that even possible! There are soldiers coming to kill us less than three hundred meters away, and you want to... what, do you WANT them to walk in on us and give us a new meaning of "explosive" orgasm!_

_Just hold me please._ Noah asked silently. _Not even an Ultimate Coordinator could get it up right now, I don't think. I'm frightened, Meyrin... please just hold me..._ He continued, slowly pulling away from the kiss, tears beading in the corners of his eyes as he hugged her tightly, and buried his face in the crook of her neck. _Our fate is now out of our control... so just stay with me here, and no matter what comes, know that I love you more than I ever thought possible._

_They're going to come and kill you, aren't they?_ Meyrin asked, her arms embracing him as well, her hands rubbing up and down his back soothingly, tears in her own eyes as the stark reality came saring her in the face at last. They were trapped in their own fortress.

_Yes. Yes I imagine they are._ Noah clutched her even tighter. _I thought I would be prepared. I always suspected that my life would be the toll for creating New Eden, and I thought I was okay with that... but now... with you... I can't... I just..._

_Shh..._ Meyrin was about to tell him it was going to be all right, but she couldn't force the lie through. Noah probably only had an hour or two to live, at most. What did you say to someone, especially someone you loved so much, in that kind of situation? She paused for a moment, considering something more than a little shocking. _They're going to kill me too, aren't they?_

_No._ Noah's thought was adamant. _I won't let them harm you._

_Noah..._ Meyrin ran her fingers down his cheek gently. _We both know that you can't stop them... if you can't save yourself, how can you save me?_

_Let me worry about that. I have a plan._ Noah told her, his hand coming up to entwine his fingers with hers. _Don't worry about it... your life is in far less danger than mine._

_My life maybe... but my heart will die with you... sounds so melodramatic... but..._ Meyrin's fingers gripped Noah's almost painfully hard. _You'd better not be thinking of sacrificing yourself for me..._

_I do not intend to sacrifice myself for you._ Noah replied woodenly. _My life is worthless to them anyway, they would not take it in trade. Its best that you don't know. Key, even._

_You're being difficult, you know that?_ Meyrin turned his lips to meet hers again. _How long do we have, do you think?_

_The Zam Clan and the last Harbingers will be engaging soon. Assuming they don't stop the enemy, there are the automated defenses outside the Atrium elevator, and then Phlegethion and Aether, in the clearing through the trees from here. Worst case, I'd say at least a half hour, perhaps as much as forty five minutes._

_Plenty of time then. Love me, Noah. It will be our last chance... lets make it special._

_I don't know if I can... I'm so scared that..._

_You can do anything when you put your mind to it._ Meyrin reminded him gently, pulling him up on top of her as she wriggled her other hand around to start declasping her clothing. _So do this with me, now..._

xxxx

"Did you see that?" Raine whispered to Alkire, as they moved down another hallway, even tracking closer to their goal, this elusive place known as the Atrium. The passageway was relatively broad here, wide enough for five people to walk abreast, with a ceiling very far overhead, most of the intervening space taken up by tangles of pipes and conduits and cables, while ladderways reached up the walls. Perhaps this was some sort of maintenance or testing hall... it wasn't on the maps they'd been provided with, and they were relying on Ramierez's unerring sense of direction and location to guide them true right now.

"See what?" Alkire asked, his head swiveling around the hallway, which was dark and apparently unpowered, lit only by the very dim glow of some emergency lights far overhead. "I don't see anything other than a creepy hallway that belongs in an Aliens movie."

"Above us..." Raine's voice trailed off as she smoothly brought the .50 cal sniper rifle up to her shoulder, her helmet optics automatically linking with the far more powerful scope attached to the weapon itself. Alkire tried to follow where her rifle was pointing, aiming his own assault weapon in more or less the same way, but he had no target to track, nothing showing up on light amplification or thermal imaging, and magnetic scanning was totally useless around all this metal. "Something's moving up there."

Alkire trusted Raine's senses more than his own in this kind of situation, her eyes were far sharper than his, and she had a sense for danger that was practically pyschic. "Cyprus, we may have possible enemies above. Raine is looking, no definitive sightings yet." Alkire commed, low and urgent. There was a short pause, the merest echo of another whispered conversation being held up near the front of the unit, where Cyprus, Lacus, Kira, Katie and Yzak were moving.

"Understood. Ramierez is thinking he has seen some movement up there too. Alternative scanning methods are either being jammed or are ineffective, keep sharp, assume the worst." Cyprus answered at last, indicating that he'd asked Lacus and Katie to have a look with their mental powers, but had gotten nothing conclusive in return. "Permission to fire at will granted."

Alkire was just turning to relay that to Raine, knowing that sometimes she tuned out her surroundings when she was trying to make a difficult shot, when the .50 cal rifle barked, even with a silencer it was startlingly loud at close quarters, muzzle flare shooting almost a foot from the barrel as Raine's entire body rocked backward under the force of the elevated rifle's recoil. The sound of hypersonic metal tearing through stationary metal echoed down to them, and then shortly afterwards came the more discombobulated sound of something heavy and metallic falling from a great height, bashing off other mtallic thins before finally a blocky, twisted metal-thing dropped onto the deck about midway between Cyprus and Alkire, almost braining Raven in the process. There was a long moment of silence as all eyes fixed upon the thing, which was obviously a robot of some kind, four legs, blocky build, and dull red eyes that were already dimming as power and life bled out through the fist sized hole punched entirely through its center torso.

"I love it when you shoot so sweet..." Alkire commented with a near sexual shiver of professional envy.

"What the hell is this thing!" Raven demanded, perhaps a slight quiver in her voice at nearly being hit in the skull by it. She edged a tiny bit towards the looming dark sillohette that was Thom, like a mouse seeking shelter under a bush, her gaze alternating between the impenetrable dark above, and the blocky, mangled thing that had almost fallen onto her. "Looks like some kinda giant robo rat... with really sharp claws and fangs."

"Dunno what it is." Glory said dourly. "Do know I don't like it." He pointed his grenade launcher upwards and selected an incendiary round. Nowhere near as good a shot as Major Belaruse, he still managed to put the grenade a goodly ways upward before it hit a pipe and detonated, spraying clingy, white hot liquid fire everywhere, lighting up the upper reaches of the hallway like a flare. Where formerly all had been darkness, now was alive with shadows... moving, scampering, climbing shadows, and dozens upon dozens of dimly lit red eyes, as the hordes of the Zam clan crept stealthily downwards towards the Stormhounds. "Don't like it at all!" Glory repeated, swinging up his Shrike and opening fire as soon as it brought to bear. A laser like beam of orange tracers scorched upwards, chewing through pipes and conduits, and bisecting one of the Zam clan as it prepared to leap down at them. Flames shot from the rat's perforated carcass, and then it detonated, a ball of fire and red hot shrapnel that ripped through a six meter radius around where the rat had been. "Really don't like it..." Glory muttered in a small voice.

The Stormhounds were already responding, their hail of armor piercing bullets chipping away at the hardened steel carapaces of the Zam clan, here and there sending a rat falling lifelessly from its perch, some blowing up in final gestures of revenge, others dying before another single thought could pass through what minds they had. Realizing that stealth had become useless, the Zam caln opened their jaws and returned fire, dozens of pinky thick green plasma beams spitting downward, melting holes in the floor and through flesh and bone with equal ease. A Stormhound toppled, a sizziling hole bored through his helmet from ear to ear, and Ramierez spun to his knees, hissing in agony as another green energy dart flashed through the meat of his upper right arm, missing the bone but blowing away a steaming hunk of flesh and armor almost as big as his palm.

Moving closer, some of the Zam clan began leaping out of the ducts and conduits of the maintenance labyrinth, falling towards the Stormhounds with jaws agape and razor claws extended, their beam batteries drained after a few shots. A streak of fire and smoke brought an RPG into the midst of a cluster of rats, and blew the lot of them to smithereens, but there were more, plenty more, and they feared neither death nor pain. Blue thruster flame spat out the back of one rat, and it zoomed like a rocket towards the head of the column of Stormhounds, only to be intercepted in mid flight by another shot from Raine's .50 cal, which blew off its head and arming circuits, and so the headless body just rammed into the deck and bounced away in a craze of sparks. But no matter how desperately or accurately the Stormhounds fired, there were just too many Zam clan to take down, and one by one the Stormhound's weapons began to click empty, and there was no time to reload, masses of blue thruster flame in the rafters above showing a score of rats ready to death dive among them and detonate themselves.

And then one of the rats in the center of that mass blew apart, maiming and crippling many of its fellows, causing some of them to blow apart, until the chain reaction shredded that entire level of the rafters in a roiling ball of flame, bits of superheated shrapnel falling like meteorites to ping and pong off the floor in a wide radius. Yzak stepped forward, one hand daringly ungloved and clasped tightly with Katie's also ungloved hand, trusting to luck that no Green EDEN had yet penetrated this far into the Great Endeavor's structure. Katie's eyes were closed, and she was sweating freely and leaning heavily upon Yzak, but as another group of rats began their attack dives, Katie pointed up and them and slashed her hand hard in a cutting motion, and two of the rats self detonated, their limited minds overwhelmed with the sensation of being among their targets, even though they had not yet begun to attack. It wasn't easy, but now that she knew what to do, the rats themselves did most of the work for her, clustering up to attack en masse, then she would blow up some in the middle and start a chain reaction, etc.

However, the rats weren't their only foes, as the fifteen or so Harbingers proved when they came charging down the corridor like an offensive line looking to make a sack. They moved so quickly there was barely even time to fire a shot, and then they were barreling into the Stormhounds headlong, tackling them, barging them over wholesale, before reaching down for mono-knives to finish off downed foes. Recovering quickly from the shock of impact, most of the Stormhounds knocked aside the execution thrusts or even downed the Harbinger as well, though one missed his defensive attack and died horribly, opened from groin to collarbone with a single slash of a blade, his entrails spilling out like a nest of snakes slathered in spagehtti sauce.

Near the back of the formation, Alkire had time to brace for impact, extending his artificial leg like a tripwire, shoving it between the legs of a sprinting Harbinger like a lance between the spokes of a motorcycle wheel. A normal human leg, even that of someone like Glory, would have been broken or badly damaged by such a ploy, but the near solid industrial grade steel of his prosthetic wasn't even marked, while the Harbinger went down thrashing and wailing, both legs shattered below the knee. He skidded across the deck until Raine's boot on his shoulder stopped him, and he looked dazedly up at her as she placed the muzzle of the .50 cal against the side of his head and pulled the trigger, snapping his neck so hard she actually decapitated the man, the thumb sized .50 cal slug dropping crushed and flattened to the ground by her foot.

Glory snarled a curse as his Shrike spat a line of orange tracers but then spluttered and fell mostly silent except for the whirr of the spinning barrels, his ammunition exhausted well before it should have been. A glance over his shoulder revealed the cause, a Zam clan plasma bolt had severed the ammunition linkage feeding from his back mounted ammo hopper to the Shrike. Hurling the now useless weapon square into the chest of closing Harbinger with another sulferous curse, Glory unlimbered his baseball bat-machete and chopped repeatedly down at the winded and disoriented foe, like he was trying to slaughter an ox. Once more, the blade did not penetrate, but it was stout enough to transmit plenty of kinetic force, and Glory rapidly beat the man into a sodden pulp inside his armor. The sound of a weapon being dropped nearby drew his attention, and his head whipped around to see Mel hard pressed, her Warhawk on the ground at her feet, both of her hands clenched around the wrists of a Harbinger that was trying to crush her against the bulkhead and knife her.

He didn't recall it then, but Mel would later swear on all she held holy that Glory had growled, like an angry grizzly bear, loud enough to distract the Harbinger intent on stabbing Mel to death, distract him long enough for her to thrust a knee hard up into his groin. Her knee was bruised and bloody afterwards, and she walked with a limp for several days, but the impact recentered the Harbinger's attention upon her, or rather his tender and bruised manhood. Still, his armor stopped it from being a crippling blow, and a quick backhand across the front of her mask slammed her into the wall and left her stunned. The knife started to come down on a path that would cleave Raven open from shoulder to hip. But then the knife, and the arm that held it, stopped dead, a massive paw of a hand wrapped entirely around the forearm halting it in midair.

Still snarling with an unusually animalistic rage, Glory tore the hapless Harbinger away from Mel, lifted the man up just by his arm and swung him into the wall like a wrecking ball. The Harbinger gagged and choked, vomiting blood into his faceplate, the knife slipping from suddenly numb fingers to slice a groove in the floor, but Glory wasn't done. Bracing his other hand and with one foot up on the Harbinger's waist, Glory twisted and heaved and quite literally plucked the man's right arm off like it was a chicken wing, flesh tearing and ripping inside the armor, bone splintering, until it was only the cloth of the armor that kept the arm suspended. Still not satisfied, Glory picked the flopping man up and dropped him backwards onto his knee, smashing the Harbinger's lower spine into pieces, the gunshot snaps echoing loudly down the hall. Finally, taking the mostly dead body by the throat, Glory hurled it a good eight meters or so down the hall, bringing down another Harbinger that was trying to move into Kurtz's blind side.

"You call that staying frosty?" Mel asked quietly, bending to retrieve her preciousWarhawk. "I'd hate to see you get really mad then..."

"I call that protecting what is mine." Glory replied hoarsely, though once more he would later deny saying anything of the sort. "And nobody likes me when I'm mad."

"Guess I'll have to try and keep you happy then, huh?" Mel answered, before lifting her Warhawk to her shoulder and gunning down a Zam clan rat that was trying to fall upon Glory's back. "Step one to that being, watch your very wide and pleasingly muscular back..."

Further up the line of combat, Cyprus had moved to stand over the wounded Ramierez, who was struggling to put a bandage and a patch over his burned arm, but was almost totally incapacitated by shock and so was moving very slowly. Cyprus had his Hellhound custom pistol in his left hand, and his ninja-to in his right, dueling with a Harbinger with the sword while using the gun to blast apart any Zam clan that managed to slip by the surprisingly effective Katie Belaruse. Cyprus made a note to look into offering her a position in the Stormhounds, given how things were going, having a pyschic on hand, even one who wasn't very powerful by her own admission, was looking to be an attractive prospect. Sparks flew as mono-knife met mono-sword, and Cyprus twisted his wrist and altered his footing a bit, throwing the Harbigner off balance and sending the knife flipping through the air to land several meters behind his foe. Faking another slice at the man's head, Cyprus's heel lashed out and caught the side of the man's left knee, tearing ligaments and crippling the joint with a wet tearing noise.

The Harbinger went down on his back, and Cyprus kept him there with a point blank shot to the facemask, of course not penetrating, but stunning and likely concussing the man all the same. Stepping over to the gently twitching Harbinger, Cyprus studied the layout of the armor plates before stabbing downward quick and decisively, his mono-edged blade sliding into a thin gap between the torso and hip protectors, one that was only visible while the Harbinger was mostly motionless on his back. Cyprus punched the blade deep and slashed laterally, cutting through the man's hips, genitals and upper thighs with a single slice, severing several major blood vessels and causing the man to bleed to death in a matter of seconds. Foe vanquished, he was turning to help Ramierez when something flew at him out of the gloom from only a few feet away!

Cyprus turned, finding himself slightly off balance, and unable to do much besides fall backwards as the Zam clan rat propelled itself at him, razor jaws and mono-claws glinting dully as they prepared to rip out his throat and slash his chest to ribbons, assuming the rat didn't just choose to blow itself up and explosively dismember him and anyone else nearby. _Is this the death I was expecting? It seems rather ignomious. Blown apart or ripped open by a robotic rat? How quaint..._ Cyprus sprawled backward, pain shooting through his chest as the rat, heavier than it looked, slammed into him and bowled him over. Claws sank into his chest over his ribs, and teeth grazed his throat... but the rat was limp and dead, its eyes dull and empty, and as he pushed at it, it fell off him and crashed to the death with a metallic clank. Blood dribbled down the front of his armor, but while the cuts were painful, they were hardly mortal. Somewhat surprised, Cyprus stared at the inert rat before slowly turning his head to look behind him, where Lacus was now kneeling by Ramierez's side, helping bind his wounds. Their gazes met for a brief instant, and Cyprus bowed his head, just ever so slightly.

Once more he hauled himself to his feet, one hand pressed to the bloody rents in his armor, but the bodyglove was already sealing around the wounds in his flesh, and the armor's self sealing, air hardening plaster-gunk was dripping across the armor surface to retain his atmospheric integrity. Cyprus looked around, and saw to his distress that the only members of his original fifteen Stormhounds that still remained were himself, Ramierez, Glory, Raven, Conrad and the Majors. The cream of the crop perhaps, but all the Stormhounds were special, and losing so many hit him harder than any hollow point round could. Casualties were a given in such an environment, but the harsh reality still made him ache and burn inside. The robotic rats were all either exploded or inert, and the Harbingers had once again been massacred, but they were down to about half their number, if you counted the Gundam pilots and Lacus. Still, there was no choice but to go on. They had to be very, very close now, and Cyprus tilted his head, as if the demon dog that graced his mask was scenting its prey...

xxxx

Author note 2: Well, that was some rousing combat, I should hope. And more to come, in Casting Out 5, where we have the long anticipated boss battle between the dragonforms Phlegethion and Aether, and our intrepid band of heroes. Almost lost Cyprus there for a moment, didn't we? Better hope he comes out alive... but I dunno... those dragons are pretty bad ass after all. More fast paced action to come... who lives, who dies, and what the hell is Noah's plan to save Meyrin? You'll have to wait and see to find out...


	78. The Casting Out Part 5

Author Note: You know... I don't think I'm going to say anything before this chapter. Pretty much anything I could say would be a spoiler. Oh, I have noticed that for some reason whenever I put two exclaimations, such as a ! and a ? together, only the first one shows up when I post. Lot of characters shouted questions have just turned into shouts. Oh well.

xxxx

"Say that again!" Miriallia demanded, her head swiveling around on her neck like a target finder to stare in disbelief and amazement at the Solar Knight Archon standing only a little over arm's reach away. After downing the Great Endeavor, she and Dearka had regrouped with the remaining Orb forces and were in the process of moving up to support the USN ground push, when they had recieved orders to divert to a secondary mustering point, to await special instructions. Somewhat surprised but by no means suspicious, the Warmaster and the eight remaining Dawndrakes, plus seventeen Guardians had rendevoused at the location specified, at a point several kilometers from the hulking, crumpled mass of the Great Endeavor, practically out of sight of the entire battle. She had almost immediately picked up a large group of Archons and USN Champions, and assumed some sort of joint operation with the USN elitte forces was in the offing. Imagine her surprise when the USN forces spread out and surrounded the Orb Mobile Suits, and then brought up their weapons as one and pointed them squarely at the Orb Forces in what could only be a threat.

"Gladly, though this will be your final warning." The cold, brusque voice of the Solar Knight's commander, a man actually younger than Miri herself, with pale blond hair and disconcertingly familiar blue eyes, replied. "The USN has come into possession of intelligence that points to a possible Brotherhood sleeper cell within the Orb ranks. Certain recent irregularities in battle conduct by some of your forces have only heightened such suspicions. We are ordering you to stand down and dismount your Mobile Suits, until we can get this straightened out."

"That's completely ridiculous!" Dearka snapped. "Didn't you watch us SHOOT DOWN the Great Endeavor? We're just about the last people who would be secret Brotherhood supporters! cause if we are, we really suck at our jobs!"

"You may very well be innocent." The Knight-Commander replied curtly. "However, given the delicate nature of the situation, I'm sure you can appreciate we can afford to take no chances with Noah Borander possibly escaping." Rey paused for a moment. "I am the operational commander of Operation Downfall, Knight-Commander Rey Ze Burrel of the Solar Knights. And I am giving you all a direct order. You have five minutes to shut down your Mobile Suits and dismount, or we will have no choice but to consider you a potentially hostile force, and you will be destroyed."

"Get Cagalli on the line... this is way above my paygrade." Dearka hissed, prompting Miriallia to tap furiously at her keyboards for several seconds, before she slammed her fist down on her armrest in frustration. "Problems?" Dearka asked, frowning.

"All our long range comm links are down. Atmospheric interference from Green EDEN is blocking our longest range transmissions, and the rest of our comms are being routed through the USN naval fleet. We've been cut off from Orb." Miri replied, chewing her lip angrily. Hadn't they already won the battle, or practically so anyway? Wasn't the fighting supposed to end? And now this bullshit? It wasn't fair.

"I don't have command authority to give those orders..." Dearka tried to stall, wracking his brain for some way out of this fix.

"Everyone knows about Orb's slavish devotion to their heroic Gundams. Official standing or not, you are in charge of the Orb Forces, in the absence of someone higher ranked, such as Mr. Yamato, who is currently unavailable. Lead by example and they will follow." Rey said smugly. "You have four minutes and thirty seconds to comply."

"And if we refuse to comply?" Dearka asked with an edge to his voice, swinging the Earthshaker Magnus up in one quick motion to point at Rey's Archon, the huge muzzle practically touching the Archon's breast. "I think making us your enemy might not be what you want to do, Mr. Knight-Commander of the Solar Knights."

"Go ahead. Do it." Rey replied, glacially calm, despite the barrel that was wider than he was tall less than ten feet away. "Right now you're all merely under suspicion, no one has been charged with a crime. But you should be aware that failure to follow a lawful order from a superior officer... that being me as commander in chief of this opration... is mutiny in the face of the enemy. And that has very dire consequences. And if you should attack us, the peacekeepers of the USN, then you will be admitting your guilt in no uncertain terms. Perhaps the corruption is only confined to the Orb military. Perhaps it goes much deeper into your government. If you attack us now, we will have no choice but to consider Orb an ally of the Brotherhood, until we can ascertain otherwise. Are you willing to condemn your home nation to our scrutiny? I can assure you, we will not be merciful to any potential Brotherhood sympathizers."

"This is so fucked up. You bastards think you can do whatever you want!" Miriallia demanded hotly. "You think Cagalli and Jiro are just going to let this go! Without us you never would have stopped the Great Endeavor! Without the Gundams, you never would have beaten the Brotherhood! And this is how you thank us! You're the backstabbers here, not us!"

"I would caution you to measure what you say to me, Ms. Haww." Rey answered with a frown of his own. "As a duly appointed officer of military law, anything you say to me can and will be used against you if it should come down to a court martial. Accusing me of treason is hardly the diplomatic thing to do. My loyalty is assured."

"Loyalty to Durandel maybe..." Miriallia muttered, too low for the comm system to pick up. "You're not going to get away with this." She warned him, speaking louder.

"Ms. Haww, I am not getting away with anything. I am discharging my duty as a Solar Knight and USN peacekeeper. There will be no punishment because there is no crime here... no crime save yours, if you do not comply with my orders." Rey stared at them on his screen for a moment, before quirking a chilly smile. "I'd appreciate it if you got your big gun out of my face too."

"I'm strangely comfortable with it where it is." Dearka retorted nastily. He was going to say more, but then a glowing red hot series of angular metal chain links whipped around his right arm and the Earthshaker Magnus, wrapping several times around the arm and weapon before pulling tight and yanking the weapon several meters to the side, away from Rey's Archon. The other end of the heated chain was attached to the forearm of the Vengeance, which had approached unnoticed during the back and forth exchange. Phase Shift armor hissed and bubbled as the heat whip started cutting into it, until Dearka slackened the resistance on the arm to prevent it from being cut in half, the Magnus drifting down to point at a neutral part of the ground.

"Thank's for the assist, Shinn." Rey commed on a seperate line. "It was very timely."

"What's going on here, Rey? Why are we turning on the Orb forces?" Shinn asked with a scowl. He didn't want to be here, he wanted to be with Luna. Or else trying to rescue Meyrin, for Luna's sake.

"There is a possibility that their ranks have been infiltrated with Brotherhood sympathizers. I have ordered them to disarm and dismount until we can discern the truth. As you can see, I am meeting a bit of resistance. Standard Orb snootiness, you're familiar with it."

"Am I?" Shinn asked, puzzled. "I thought Orb was a pretty nice place actually."

"Are you feeling all right?" Rey stammered, stunned. He knew, knew for a fact that Shinn despised Orb, and everything having to do with it. It had been the source of oh so many problems during the Solar Knight's integration... but now he was talking about Orb like it was a comfy vacation spot! Something wasn't right here. Some screws must have been knocked loose in his head sometime, from all that mental messing about.

"I feel awful." Shinn admitted. "Luna needs me, and needs me to save Meyrin. I can't fail her again. So yeah, I am a little out of sorts, you could say."

"Well think of it this way then." Rey said slowly, recovering his poise. "If there are Brotherhood sympathizers within the Orb ranks, there's a good chance that Noah could escape if we don't take decisive action here. And if Noah escapes, he'll probably take Meyrin with him as a hostage or otherwise, and then what will you tell Luna?" As expected, Rey saw the lines of Shinn's face harden, and the demonic red eyes burn a bit with quickly suppressed anger. "Just follow my lead, and everything will work out fine, okay Shinn? We have people, the best people, working to rescue Meyrin right now, and then you can take her back to Luna yourself. I'm sure she'll be very grateful." Rey felt like a dagger was twisting in his guts as he spoke, but what choice did he have? Much as he wanted to be Luna's hero again, there was no chance of it, so he had to pass the torch to Shinn.

Back in the Warmaster, Dearka and Miriallia had been going through their options, not that there were many. With the Vengeance now on the scene, any resistance would be suicide, the Warmaster just wasn't equipped to fight the Vengeance in a one versus one scenario, much less outnumbered and surroudned by Solar Knights and USN forces with itchy trigger fingers. It rankled, but there was no other option. They would have to comply, and hope the political strength of Cagalli and Jiro was enough to set things right. Dearka shifted the Magnus again, and they found themselves staring down the broad supercrystalline blade of the the Vengeance's QC zweihander, the tip basically at their throats, the USN plainly wary for any signs of hostility. "Knight-Commander Burrel..." Dearka said slowly, not caring that he was probably mangling the young man's name. "The Orb Forces are standing down and dismounting, under extreme protest. We will be making a full report to our leadership as soon as our comms return. This will not go unchallenged."

"You may do as you wish. None of you are under arrest." Rey replied diffidently. A group of armored personnel carriers pulled up behind his Archon, cued by a toggle of a switch on his controls, and disgorged several platoons of USN provosts and military police, who had been assigned to the task force to handle custody of any prisoners taken. "However, it will be necessary for you to come with our troops to a holding area for the time being. You will be allowed to communicate with your leadership as soon as we have Noah Borander in custody, or confirmed dead. We will be expecting your full cooperation during this delicate situation. A misunderstanding could be very unfortunate for everyone."

"I'd like to show him "unfortunate"..." Miriallia mumbled furiously under her breath as she locked her helmet into place and felt it seal. Once Dearka was sure they were both air tight, he popped the hatch and grabbed hold of the emergency dismounting pulley cord with one hand, putting his foot in the stirrup and holding his other hand out to assist Miri out of her copilot's chair. She threw both of her arms around his strong frame, and he returned the embrace one armed as he activated the pulley and slowly lowered them to the ground twenty meters below. All around them pilots in the orange and white and black fight suits of the Orb Mobile Forces were doing similarly, sealing the cockpits behind them to prevent unauthorized access and tampering. If the USN thought they could get a free look inside Orb's Gundam and top end Mobile Suits with this little farce, then they were sadly mistaken.

Once on the ground, she and Dearka joined up with the other pilots in an angry, muttering group as they were escorted, politely but still escorted all the same, to the APC's. Most of the Orb pilots sat inside, but Dearka and Miri both insisted on sitting atop the carrier, both determined to keep the Solar Knights under observation with their own two eyes. The armored vehicle lurched under them, tracks digging into the tundra soil, and they rattled off, headed even further away from the battle, towards a lower valley where the bulky USN air transports had established a forward base camp, several kilometers away. The boom of thunder accompanied the flash of brilliant blue-white lightning, and both Dearka and Miriallia winced as the rumbling detonation seemed to thrum through their bodies. Dearka's head suddenly cracked to the side as something very solid hit the top and side of his helmet and bounced off, falling out of the sky with no warning at all.

"AHG! MotherFUCKER!" Dearka swore loudly, his eyes watering, holding onto his helmed skull, feeling the slight dent and scratches in the durable plastic alloy from where whatever it was had hit him. "What the FUCK was that! Bad enough the USN, now nature is fucking me over too?"

"Looks like a pinecone..." Miriallia said dubiously, picking up the object from where it had ricocheted afer striking Dearka's head. It was about the size of her palm, and made from a dark, dense wood she did not recognize. Despite striking Dearka's helmet hard enough to leave a dent, the pinecone was unmarked, its overlapping folds just starting to spread out. "How the hell did this get here? There isn't a coniferous tree within a hundred kilometers..."

"I don't give a fuck!" Dearka snarled, his head still ringing from the impact. "Gimme that stupid thing!" He all but snatched it out of Miri's hands. He peered at the strange pinecone for a moment and tried to crush it in his hands. Nothing doing. Then he tried to smash it against the top hull of the APC. He saw sparks fly, and paint flaked away, revealing a shiny indentation in the armor. "Screw this thing..." Dearka muttered darkly, and then leaned over and dropped it off the front edge of the APC, carefully aiming so the seedling fell into the path the armored treads would soon take, causing the entire weight of the armored vehicle to ride over it. "Damn pinecone... that fucking hurt!" Dearka commented ruefully, unable to see in the stormy darkness that the pinecone, despite being run over by a ten ton plus tracked vehicle, was still completely unmarked and none the worse for the wear. Indeed, now buried in the soil, it was beginning to send out rootlings, questing hair fine tendrils searching for sustenance.

Miriallia was about to reply with some sympathy when the flash of lighting reflecting off something in the near distance drew her eyes. She gasped, and sagged in disbelief as she saw the Vengeance raise its QC zweihander high, standing right by the Warmaster. "No wait... you can't be serious!" Miriallia protested, entirely in vain, as the huge crystal sword came scything down and cut the Warmaster in half from crown to crotch. "But why...!" Miri shouted in a fury, even as the Vengeance slashed twice more, further mangling the remains of the Gundam before ruptured ammo supplies started cooking off, and the Warmaster was torn to pieces from the inside out, the explosions louder than any thunder. "You bastards!" Miri shook her fists at the Vengeance and Solar Knights as they turned their weapons on the other Orb Mobile Suits and systematically blasted them to pieces as well. "You unbelievable bastards... you're not going to get away with this..."

xxxx

A pulsing vibration from one of the pouches on his belt grabbed Alkire's attention and he cursed foully under his breath as he paused in his reloading to dip his fingers into the pouch and withdraw a small remote device with several blinking lights on it. All the lights were an angry red, and flashing in time to the vibrations. That was no good thing, because they'd been green only a few minutes ago, last time he'd checked, before the last firefight. The corridor around him was littered with the smoking, bullet riddled remains of the casings of what had once been automated sentry guns, popping up from the floor and walls and ceiling as soon as the Stormhounds had gotten close to the end of what looked like a dead end hall but their maps said wasn't. One of the wall mounted gun was slowly collapsing into a pile of slag as the hungry flames of Conrad's flamethrower continued to lick at its frame, the flickering light illuminating the otherwise dark hallway.

Their platoon had been reinforced by extra Stormhounds who had peeled off from their groups after successfully isolating and shutting down the Great Endeavor's gigantic Fusion Pulse Reactors, before they could overload and blow everything within a ten kilometer radius into their component atoms. Two of the new arrivals had been lost in the last fracas, cut down by the automated turret's dual beam cannons before the hail of return fire had junked the entire far end of the hall. Scattered debris further back in the corridor showed where more of those rat-robots had tried to flank them during the battle, only to de shut down or self detonated by Yzak and Katie. So far the Green EDEN detectors were still reading nonexistant, and they kept their hands ungloved for purposes of the touch that was apparently so important in boosting their powers.

Truth be told it all made Alkire very, very uncomfortable. Of course, he loved Katie as much as he ever would a flesh and blood daughter, would risk his life for her, would die for her in a heartbeat, but he could not deny that these psychic powers of hers were something he was probably never going to fully come to terms with. He dealt with the real world, with things he could see, shoot, punch or fuck... intangibles always creeped him out and left him tasting bile. It might as well be black magic for all Alkire could understand it. Raine felt similarly, but she was better at keeping her cool than he was. Alkire eyed her out of the corner of his vision, watching as she carefully counted out the remaining cartridges for her .50 caliber sniper rifle. She only had a handful left, and with bullets of that caliber, a handful was not many. They were all running a bit low on ammo, and many of the Stormhounds were relying more and more upon backup or secondary weapons or looted Brotherhood weapons, though those usually had such limited ammo after a firefight spent acquiring them it wasn't usually worth it.

"Is something wrong, Mr. Jones?" Lacus's crystal clear voice asked from up the corridor, where she had been standing in conference with Cyprus and Glory and Ramierez, while Kira worked on hacking into the controls for the elevator platform that the hall dead ended in. The elevator platform that would take them to the Atrium, where they would almost certainly find Noah, if Lacus and Katie's mental sourcing could be relied upon. It hadn't quite steered them wrong yet, but neither had it really been as helpful as it was all cracked up to be, as evidenced by the numerous bloody ambushes they had endured in the process of getting her. Alkire tried to suppress a shiver as he met Lacus's unearthly gold pupiled eyes, realizing that she could probably feel his trepidation as if he was waving a sign. It was disconcerting and not a little bothersome, having everything he was feeling basically on display for her. How he'd ever not been frightened by this girl, he could not fathom.

"We do have something of a situation." Alkire confirmed, holding up the flashing, pulsing remote in one gloved hand. "Our dropship has been destroyed. We're gonna have to find another way out of here."

"That shouldn't be..." Cyprus mumbled, too low to hear audibly, but it was clear over the comm system. "The Seraph and Vorpal were deployed in defensive formations around the shuttle to shield it against any random firepower. And I am certain we destroyed all nearby defensive emplacements within line of fire..."

"Who knows." Alkire shrugged diffidently, tossing the remote at them, to be caught by Ramierez. "Maybe the Gundams are gone too."

"I can't raise the Vorpal's computer system." Yzak volunteered flatly, his breathing heavy, both from physical exertion and the mental sapping of constantly providing boosting to Katie during the struggle with the automated rats. Well, automated was not the right term, because they had human minds... fragments of one anyway. They were abominations, one and all, machines with the imprinted memories and brain patterns of humans, and the mere thought was enough to make him sick, because he could almost taste the echoes of pain from them, from when they had been converted from flesh and blood to cold metal and circuitry. Now he knew what he and Katie had interrupted Noah doing during their first face to face encounter. Yzak's eyes were frosty with controlled rage, at the thought that anyone could perform such monstrous, dehumanizing acts upon another thinking being! It was worse than many of even Frost's crimes!

"The Seraph is not responding either." Kira added, one hand checking something at his waist, while the other continued furiously tapping at the keys of the portable computer system Ramierez had hooked up to the elevator controls. "Can you contact Dearka or Miri and get them to check on it?" He asked, directing the inquiry at Lacus. She nodded and closed her eyes in concentration for a short while, a frown creeping across her face. Lacus opened her eyes with a heavy sigh and shook her head in frustration.

"I can't locate them. Either Noah is interfering with me again, or they're just out of range for me to get a good lock on. They're still out there, I can feel them, but I can't get a fix." Lacus reported, gritting her teeth a little. If only she was more familiar with the minds of her non-psychic friends, she could locate them so much easier! But to do that she would have had to have been in regular mental contact with them, and she had avoided that in order to avoid making them uncomfortable. Her politeness was backfiring on her during a time of need. It was very frustrating.

"Something isn't right about this." Cyprus repeated. "But this is neither the time nor the place for us to be worry about that. We still have a mission to accomplish, and we can worry about extraction after we accomplish it." He looked over at Kira. "Mr. Yamato, how are things going?"

"The security system is very similar to my own data work that I use to protect Orb's military systems." Kira replied with his mouth set in a line of concentration. "Actually hacking it could take weeks, if I wanted to do it properly and give us full access. But I think I can corrupt it enough to let us use it once, though we will need Noah to let us out, or else find another way to access the master controls."

"I say we blow the fucker." Ramierez opined, still wincing and chewing on his cheek as he fought against the dulled pain of his beam scorched right arm, now strapped securely to his chest. "Blast our way up the shaft, combat climb up, and go on hard and heavy."

"It wouldn't work." Kira answered, even before Cyprus could speak. "The Atrium has its own power supplies and energy shielding mechanisms. Unless you have something you're sure can get through a Citadel Shield, force won't work. Do we have anything like that?"

"I wish." Ramierez said disgustedly. Kira nodded and went back to his typing.

"Still no change in his location?" Cyprus asked Lacus while they waited.

"None I can detect. He's above us by about thirty meters, and maybe fifty meters that way." Lacus said, pointing off to her left. "He was really agitated for a while there, but now he's calmed down a lot. Its almost like..." Lacus trailed off, her cheeks heating a bit. She'd been about to say, it was almost like she herself felt in the afterglow of a good romp in bed with Kira, but she could hardly countenance that Noah would be doing that NOW, of all times. "... like he's unburdened himself somehow. Come to terms maybe, with what is to come."

"You think he'll surrender?" Glory cocked his head in bemusement.

"Oh no." Lacus shook her head definitely. "He's not beaten yet. He's just... not worried anymore. At peace with himself."

"He's got someone with him too." Katie spoke up, her voice ragged and a bit hoarse from exertion, as she'd been stretching herself pretty hard dealing with the Zam clan, even with Yzak to help. "The Latent he was using to boost with at Cape York. She's with him too. From the feel of it, I'd say they just fucked. They're both having the time of their lives up there."

Lacus blinked at the coarse appraisal, even if it did match up with what she herself had felt. "Ballsy." Conrad remarked, only belatedly realizing he'd made something of a pun. "Wouldn't catch me getting it up or getting it on with a whole squadron of hardcore motherfuckers about to break down my door and come in blazing. He's got some nerve."

"Nerve is one thing he has never lacked." Cyprus agreed, his voice somewhat distracted. "Though I do understand his reasoning, I believe. He's putting his life in order. He expects to die soon. He wants to have good memories before he does. Its understandable to feel that way when you can feel your own demise drawing near."

Further conversation was halted when the elevator control panel sparked into life. "If we're going, we're going now." Kira commented intently, fingers still flying across the tiny keyboard as he fought to keep the elevator operational long enough for them to use it. The reinforced Stormhounds, now ten in number, counting the three extra soldiers who had come from the power plant groups, plus the four Clyne Faction members, all crowded upon the elevator platform, a very tight squeeze, especially with Glory hogging a space and a half by himself. Still, they managed to all fit, and the elevator, reluctantly under Kira's guidance, brought them upward through a long dark tunnel of armor plate and disengaged shield systems, until the roof look like it would crush them, before sliding back just as their heads were going to brush it.

Needless to say, none of them were expecting the sight that greeted their eyes, as the elevator lifted them up into the heart of a forest meadow, complete with thick, loamy dirt, blossoming wildflowers and the buzz of bees. Tall, temperate rainforesty type trees bordered the clearing on all sides, and if their were walls they were either well camouflaged or out of view. Bright light from some sort of lamp glared down from high above, the Atrium's ceiling being tall enough to comfortably act as a Mobile Suit hanger with headroom to spare. What had to be holographic illusions of clouds and blue sky obscured the view of the source of the light. Birds called and flew through the branches of some of the trees, and they could even hear small apes or monkey's chattering to each other in the distance. It was surreal, finding themselves in a jungle in the middle of a fortress-space ship.

Raine reached down carefully and patted the ground to the side of the elevator experimentally. It was totally solid and real. She brushed her hand through the long grass and wildflowers and shook her head in bemusement. She'd expected something grand for Noah's personal quarters, but this far exceeded anything she could have dreamed of. The air was warm and humid, the climate actually reminding her of some of the mountainous regions of Orb where she liked to go hiking and hunting during her off time. She could hear small and medium sized animals moving in the brush, utterly ignoring the human presence in the clearing. Noah had built what looked like a whole self contained ecosystem in his bedroom. Faint trails led off to one side, going through the forest towards where Lacus had indicated Noah was to be found. Straining her ears, Raine could swear she heard the burble of tumbling water, like from a small waterfall. Cautiously, her muscles tense and rigid, Raine stepped off the elevator platform and into the meadow.

As if woken from a trance by her actions, the rest of the Stormhounds likewise spread out in a defensive perimeter, weapons at the ready, eyes and ears and sensors scanning for threats. Lacus was still blinking in amazement herself at the interior of the Atrium, but that didn't stop her from furrowing her brow and casting out her mental nets of perception, something she was getting better at every time she did it. Frustratingly, he perceptions almost immediately butted up against interefence from Noah, and even Resonating with Kira, outside their seed mode anyway, could not break through the mental static that was drowning her senses out. Noah was Resonating too, and it is always easier to defend than attack, even if he wasn't much more experienced with his powers than her. Keeping the pressure on all the same, determined to wear him down eventually, Lacus's eyes darted to Kira when her beloved cranked his head around, his ears all but twitching, as his hyperalert senses tracked something that she could not see.

She was about to ask him what was wrong when she got her answer. Kind of. One of the new Stormhounds, fresher from the relative lack of combat involved in getting to the reactors, was slightly ahead of the skirmish line they were making, and she went down with an awful scream, blood fountaining upwards from the stumps of her calves, her feet still firmly planted upon the ground, as something fast moving and invisible slipped past her from the back, a swipe of mono-molecular talons amputating both legs in a heartbeat. The falling Stormhound triggered a wild burst from her automatic rifle, bullets whining off towards the hidden ceiling, before a raking hind talon, still completely invisible, ripped up under her jawline and tore her throat open, almost severing her spine, arterial blood spraying wetly as her head tipped back and almost rolled offer her shoulders in the dirt, attached only by a thin strip of skin. There was a rustling in the tall grass and brush, but no target, and no one had seen what attacked her.

Lacus concentrated furiously, trying to pick out the mental flickers of the dragonform robots she knew had to be prowling nearby, invisible under their cloaking technology, but even as she intensified her detection efforts, so too did Noah pour on the obscuring defenses, and try as she might she could not push him aside in order to get a fix on the Dragons. Kira's head was swiveling back and forth like a radar dish as he tried to home in on the dragons, but with so many other sounds of movement, even he was having trouble narrowing down which was which. Shots rang out fro the treeline and Alkire went stumbling backwards, the camouflage surface of his armor ripped up and dented as the bullets tore into him. He fell over onto his back, his chest blazing with pain, ribs perhaps cracked, but the armor had stopped the bullets from penetrating.

Raine sent a .50 cal slug hammering back along the line of fire, the huge slug blasting the thigh thick trunk of a tree into mulch and splinters, chopping it down, but striking nothing other than that. Ramierez sent a flurry of pistol shots into the grass nearby, where he thoguht he'd sensed movement, but again his shots hit nothing, the dragons moving too quickly and invisibly for their opponents to draw a bead. Added to that fact was that most shots were going high, as the Stormhounds were trained mostly in dealing with human sized targets, and the dragons were much closer to the ground, more like dogs. Circling in on the pack of foolish intruders, Phlegethion and Aether worked as a team to draw the enemy off balance, like wolves stalking deer.

Disengaing her cloaking field for a moment, Phlegethion's black hide drew a spray of firepower from the Stormhounds, almost all turning instinctively to target the visible threat. A few rounds did spark off her Transphase shifted skin, but they were the exceptions rather than the rule, as the black dragon quickly disappeared back into the brush and recloaked. While she was doing that, her white skinned, golden eyed sister Aether had blitzed through the Stormhound formation while their backs were turned, lashing out with her tail to trip Raine down into the dirt beside Alkire, a scything claw slicing the .50 cal rifle barrel in half, before she fastened her jaws onto the side of Yzak's leg and ripped away a gobbet of flesh and muscle from his calf. Yzak screamed in agony, his leg collapsing underneath him as blood gouted, pulling Katie down with hi by accident as his hand clutched painfully at hers, bright blood pumping furiously into the grass beneath him.

The Stormhounds spun, but with an invisible foe that could be anywhere, they did not dare open fire, for fear of missing and hitting Yzak, Raine or Alkire. Katie however spotted a streak of bloody red moving in midair, where Aether still had a mouthful of Yzak's leg, and she snatched out her twin pistols and let fly, shrieking with fear and rage as she fired at the monster that had hurt her Yzak-y so much, especially with them Resonating at the time, it had felt like it was happening to her as well! Many of her shots did miss, but some struck home with the distinctive "THWOCK-PING" of metal biting into harder metal. Taking fire unexpectedly, Aether was bowled over in the dirt, off balance but not badly injured, her metal hide still mostly proof against handgun caliber bullets even without Transphase shift. Still, she was visible as she thrashed her way to her feet in the dust, and she turned off her mirage colloid cloak in time to weather a storm of close range firepower from the nearest Stormhounds. she did not deign to look back at Yzak, the toxins coating her fangs would incapicitate him with agony in a matter of moments.

Conrad stepped up and hosed down the white, golden eyed dragon with a burst from his flamethrower, seeing the bullets of his comrades pinging off its skin, he figured that it must be armored like the Harbingers, in which case heat might do more than kinetic force. Liquid fire hissed and spat as it coated Aether's forequarters and neck, but if being sprayed with burning napalm overtly bothered the dragon, it was not obvious. Indeed, she returned the attack with a concentrated line of her own plasma flame, orders of magnitude hotter than the napalm, exhaled in a white hot rish from her mouth. Conrad staggered backwards, shaking his head and trying to scream but lacking the breath to do so as the plasma fire burned into his left arm and hip. Glory hit him like a freight train, knocking him into the dirt and rolling him around with an ungentle foot to the ribs, smothering the flame before it could burn too deeply into him. Conrad just didn't have any luck... first his eye, now a lower arm and torso burns to boot...

Seeing that Aether was now providing the distraction, Phlegethion came barrelling in, actually taking to the sky before diving down into the Stormhounds, battering her full weight into Ramierez's back and crushing him to the ground, his pistol flying from his grip. Digging her poisoned talons into his back for good measure, Phlegethion took off once more and circled around, leaving her victim thrashing and howling in the loam, body convulsing out of control as the neuro-poisons went to work. Watching Aether continue to hiss and snap and mock charge at the Stormhounds trying to encircle her, like a bear at bay, Phlegethion was free to pick and choose her targets at will. Her gaze passed over the unarmored, unwary form of a pink hair girl in a pink flight suit, but Phlegethion's pheromone detectors and other sensor arrays sadly classified the woman as a non-target.

Taking up the severed remains of Raine's .50 cal rifle, Glory hurled the stock and trigger assembly, weighing a good twenty five pounds, at Aether like a discus, the weight smashing the dragon onto her side in the dirt once more. Bellowing for everyone to stand back, Glory then unloaded grenade after grenade after grenade from his launcher into the dragon and the area around it, blasting it off its feet every time it looked like it was recovering. His grenade launcher clicked empty and Aether started to get to her feet again, hissing in enraged indignation, only to eat an RPG to the breastbone from Alkire, the force of the explosion flipping the dragon head over heels backwards ten feet, landing awkwardly on one wing, which snapped under the sudden weight. Rising from the ashes with her wing flopping loosely at her side, Aether's golden eyes blaxed with fury and she launched herself towards Glory like a lion after an elephant.

A shot from Raine's regular sniper rifle caught the leaping Aether in the side and dropped her in a tangle of limbs at Glory's feet. Needing no second invitation, Glory ripped out his heavy machete and did some leaping of his own, tackling the dragon like he was sacking a high school quarterback, pinning the dragon beneath his weight as he stabbed and pried at it with his machete, free hand and legs trying to keep her talons and fangs away from his body. Her tail slammed upwards between his legs, striking him square in the groin like a crowbar, but Glory had trained to endure such tactics, if not enjoy them, and he held grimly on, sensing a tad bit of desperation in the dragon now that she was trapped. Aether scrabbled for purchase or leverage, but she was simply too small, and too massively outweighed by Glory, and she could not get free. She did manage to twist her neck around, evading his grappling hand, and sunk her razored teeth to the gums into his shoulderblade.

Glory growled angrily as the dragon chomped and gnawed at his shoulder, feeling her teeth saw through his bones as she ripped them back and forth, all the while pumping neuro-toxins into his bloodstream, but the Sergeant-Major refused to be beaten by the pain. He was dimly aware of a presence at his side, someone familiar, and then Mel, having jammed her Warhawk's muzzle against the base of Aether's neck where it met the body, opened fire with a full auto burst. For a second, Aether's Transphase shift held, though the kinetic force of impact did tear her jaws loose from the mauling she was giving Glory, hot blood and bone shards dripping from her jaws. But then the Transphase shift armor, already battered from previous shots, gave out, and the Warhawk's 13.2mm rounds decapitated Aether, blasting most of her neck into dust and shrapnel, and sending the dimming, golden eyed head shooting like a baseball across the clearing.

Witnessing the death of her sister, Phlegethion immediately locked on to Raven and power dived into her, folding her wings and tucking in her legs as she struck the dimunitive Stormhound right between her breasts going almost ninety miles per hour, deactivating her cloaking just prior to impact. Raven was smashed backwards as if by a wrecking ball, physically lifted off her feet by the force of impact, her ribcage crushing inwards, most of the ribs snapping or splintering, two broken ends jabbing out into her right lung. She screamed hoarsely, aspirated foamy blood all over the interior of her helmet, and collapsed onto her back in shock. Phlegethion rode her to the ground, and stepped triumphantly off the now squishy chest of the Stormhound, dipping her neck to deliver the coup de grace by biting out Raven's throat.

Or that was the plan anyway, until a solid steel foot kicked Phlegethion square in HER ribs, and booted her a good five feet sideways. She didn't have ribs to break, and her Transphase armor had stopped the blow, but internal damage had still occured, her plasma flame generators had been knocked offline. Hissing like a steam leak, Phlegethion floundered her way back onto all fours and glared murderously at the Stormhound with the prosthetic leg. And then found her way to the insolent prey blocked by yet another Stormhound, this one with a shiny steel axe in one hand, and a matte black sword in the other. Unimpressed, Phlegethion launched herself at the impudent human, only to have him smoothly pivot out of the way, axe and sword blades scraping across her invulnerable hide in lines of orange and blue sparks. Feeling insulted, Phlegethion landed and whirled on the sword wielder and repounced, wary now for his sudden sideways shifts.

She hissed in dismay and anger as instead of going sideways, the Stormhound dropped onto his back and used his feet in her midsection to propel her up and over him in a high arc. However, while a human was trapped into a fall in such a situation, Phlegethion rolled in midair and snapped out her wings, taking flight and zooming back around just as the Stormhound was getting back to his feet. She zipped by him, lashing out with one hind foot and her tail, slashing across his belly with the claw, dark blood spraying from the ragged cut, before her tail slammed into the side of his head and spilled him to his hands and knees on the grass. Circling to let her poison and the pain fo tthe disemboweling strike have time to work on him, Phlegethion came under fire from the man with the steel foot again, bullets spranging off her underbelly, making her flight path wobble. Annoyed, she turned to stoop on him, and caught a carefully aimed shot from Raine right in the eye. Red crystal shattered, the lens of the eye totally destroyed, Phlegethion's head cracked to the side, her vision going dark for a moment, as she heeled over and crashed heavily to the ground, tumbling and rolling for several meters, both her wings snapping off in the process.

Clawing her way upright once more, Phlegethion turned her now cyclopean gaze upon the one who had damaged her so, the other female Stormhound, the taller one with the rifle. She charged the other female, her every thought filled with spurting blood and snapping bones, determined to rip the woman into shreds for her temerity. Strangely, the Stormhound female stood calm, sighting along her rifle as the almost ninety pounds of transphase shift armored, razor fanged and clawed death machine raced towards her at almost fifty miles per hour. Raine fired, striking Phlegethion's shoulder, dropping the dragon once more, only to have it bound back to its feet a second later and continue on. Another shot struck the breastbone, staggering the dragon but not dropping it. Only fifty feet away now. A third shot hit a paw, snapping off a single clawtip.

Forty feet... Raine hit the dragon's neck, to little overt effect. She still had not moved, her breathing even, the rifle snugged into her shoulder, her eye sighting down the barrel, her hand working the bolt action of the rifle, sending a shiny brass cartride case flipping over her shoulder after every shot. Thirty feet, another shoulder hit, the exact same spot as last time, causing the dragon to go down for longer this time, and Raine could see a definite limp starting to develop as internal mechanisms were jarred by the hits. Twenty five feet, she hit that shoulder again. And again at fifteen feet. At ten feet the dragon's front leg stopped working, forcing it to stumble along much slower on only three legs. At five feet, with only two rounds left in her clip, Raine mentally crossed her fingers and fired again, this time aimed right at the dragon's glaring visage. There was a huge burst of sparks as the bullet struck Phlegethion in the forehead... struck and penetrated the overtaxed Transphase shift armor, blowing the dragon's skull into thimble sized fragments of circuitry and armor plate. The dragon tottered forward another foot before slumping to a halt, still three and a half feet short of Raine's left foot.

"Damnit Raine!" Alkire shouted breathlessly, in a mixture of released tension and admiration. "I hate it when you show you've got bigger balls than I do! What the fuck were you thinking! Why didn't you even try and avoid it?"

"Showing your back to a dangerous predator is a good way to get yourself killed. Hunting has taught me that." Raine replied cooly, racking her last round into place in the rifle. "Sometimes you just have to trust your weapon and your aim, especially if the animal charges you. You have to stay calm, because any panic, any hesistation could prevent you from making that critical kill shot." She looked over at Alkire and sagged, just a bit. "And no, I did not know its armor was about to fail, Robert. But what the fuck was I supposed to do?"

"Shit..." Alkire commented, looking around. The unit had been decimated, nearly everyone was down, seriously wounded. Ramierez and Glory were both bleeding badly and still convulsing from their poisoned wounds, Conrad was passed out from the burns to his arm and side, Raven was struggling for life with a collapsed lung and crushed chest, her hand hanging desperately onto Glory's massive right paw, like a drowning person snagging a lifeline. One of the new grunts was messily dead, the other two were doing what they could to provide medical aid to their comrades. Katie was unharmed, he was relieved to say, though Yzak was in poor shape, and some of that seemed to be affecting their daughter as well. Lacus and Kira stood pretty much in the center of the clearing, unscathed, mostly ignored by the dragons as incosequential compared to the Stormhounds. Alkire watched the two of them run over to Cyprus, who still had not regained his feet after that last flyby from the black dragon.

Cyprus had his left arm pressed against his stomach, his axe and sword lying discarded and forgotten in the grass beside him. Thick, dark blood dribbled down across his arm, staining his sleeve and making his belly and groin feel slick and hot. The flyby slash had opened his belly, just a hair short of completely eviscerating him. All that was holding his intestines and stomach in was his arm. His vision was blurry, his head ringing from the tail slap which had also crushed the front side of the helmet, destroying his optics and letting him see nothing but static. The burning pain of poison spreading through his veins made him want to convulse and vomit, but by focusing upon the grey seed in his mind, he found he could control his body's reaction to the toxins. The question was, could he last long enough? If he started flopping around now, he'd be wearing his guts around his boots in short order. He felt people by his side, felt soft, gentle hands on his side, lowering him to the grass.

"Don't waste your time." Cyprus said through gritted teeth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut in concentration. "My comrades will see to me. You must confront Noah. You must defeat him. Capture him, kill him... I don't care... but he must be confronted." Cyprus gagged and trembled, but managed to control himself before it got too bad. His other arm, the one that wasn't keeping his bowels in, searched through the grass before coming to rest on the familiar hilt of his ninja-to. He took up the weapon and then reversed it, proferring it blindly up at the two people crouched by him. "No arguements. Rely on your psychic power if you must, but take this as insurance. Swing it just like you would a bat, let the edge do the work. If you don't take it, by Wrenn's name, I will crawl after you until you do!"

Kira awkwardly took the sword from Cyprus, holding it in one hand at his side, trying not to look at the rusty spots on the blade where blood from previous fights had dried. "Okay, I got it. Now you don't move anymore, or you could really die."

"I am prepared for that. Much like Noah, I perceived a high likelihood for my own death today." Cyprus answered with a weak chuckle. "I do not intend to go easily... but if I am to go, it will be with no regrets."

"You're crazy." Lacus commented, not sure whether she should feel angry or sad.

"I am a Hellhound. This is what we do. This is who I am." Cyprus canted his head to look at where their voices were coming from. "Loose the hounds, you two... and let there be hell to pay..."

xxxx

"Phlegethion and Aether are dead." Noah commented suddenly, tears rolling down his cheeks at the loss of his beloved guardians. He was sitting cross legged on his side of the bed, looking off towards the forest clearing, where the echoes of gunfire were just now fading. Meyrin lay under the sheets beside him, still naked and sweaty from their impassioned lovemaking of a few minutes earlier. She sat up, the sheets falling to her lap to bare her breasts as she leaned into him and enfolded him protectively in her arms.

"I'm sorry. I know you loved them, and they loved you. Just like I love you." Meyrin whispered gently in his ear.

"I know you do." Noah replied, his heart heavy, but not because of the loss of his dragons. "And I love you in return. Which is why this hurts me so much..." Noah said, his mind springing into action before Meyrin could discern the meaning of the words and try to brace herself. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she collapsed back onto the bed bonelessly, sealed into a deep sleep from which she would not awaken for several hours. Noah leaned down and brushed a kiss across her lips and then her forehead. "Forgive me, my love, but I could not stand to have them try to use you against me, or me against you. I must coerce you, just this once..."

Noah stood up after a moment more and got dressed once more, his hands lingering on the hilt of his fold out sword, before he tossed it aside and watched it sink into the lagoon. His beam pistol went into its sleeve holster, and then he was as ready as he could be. Begging her forgiveness once more, Noah lifted Meyrin's unconscious body out of bed and wrapped on arm around her chest, his hand gripping her breast roughly as he propped her upright against him as he stood beside the bed, using her body to shield his, like a terrorist would a disposable hostage. Noah concentrated on making his mind blank and impenetrable, knowing that everything relied on Lacus and Kira believing him, and not sensing what he was really feeling. A minute or two later his straining ears heard unguarded footfalls on the forest path, and a few seconds later Kira and Lacus, hand in hand, with Kira's other hand holding an evil looking black sword, came into view. If they were startled to see Noah apparently standing on water, neither of them showed it.

Noah watched them take in the scene, making sure to fix an arrogant scowl upon his face. "Not a step further." He warned them, as soon as they started walking towards the shoreline. They paused a moment, traded a glance, but then kept on going. "I said, NO FURTHER!" Noah shouted angrily, snapping his free arm down, the beam pistol springing into his grip. He didn't point it at them, no that would have been easy. He pointed it at Meyrin, dug the muzzle into the side of her head hard and brutally, actually scraping her skin and drwing a little blood that trickled down across her ear. His heart fluttered at the sight, but he kept his mind locked down tight and his expression cold and angry. He had to do this, for the sake of the purity of their love! He could not allow them to be twisted and used against each other!

Lacus and Kira stopped, their toes just shy of the lagoon water. They stared at Noah intently, and he could feel her picking at the edges of his thoughts, trying to discern what he was up to. Snorting, he flipped open a section of his mind for her, a specially prepared section, that showed nothing but anger and fear and the willingness to do horrible things if provoked. He watched her frown, and had to fight down a smirk, before realizing he didn't have to. He smiled icily at them. "That's right. Stop right there, or I'll cook her skull like a poached egg. You know I'm capable of it."

"You are capable of many things." Lacus agreed gently. "Many of them wonderful and impressive. There is no need for a hostage. Kira and I have no intention of harming you, unless you give us no choice."

"I don't think so. With your combined psychic might, I don't stand a chance against you, even using this doll in my arms..." Noah spat in disgust. "Even if you get rid of that butcher's blade in your hands, it doesn't lessen the danger I'm in right now. No, the hostage stays. And I will kill her if I even suspect you're trying something on me. You can't hide your blunt efforts from me."

"I felt you earlier." Lacus said softly. She studied the two of them, Noah and Meyrin. "It's a cruel thing you're doing. She loves you. You know that?"

"Of course I know that!" Noah snapped angrily, displeased at having their private moment of the recent past intruded upon. "I made her think that way, after all. I kidnapped her, seduced her and used my powers to make her my slave, soul, mind and especially body. She would do anything for me, because that's how I want her to be. I prefer my women submissive and preferably nude, as you can see."

"You love her too." Kira observed calmly.

"Don't be absurd." Noah snarled, digging the pistol into the side of her head again. "Would you hold the person you loved hostage while they were unconscious? Would you rape the person you love like I have this silly girl? Look at her, you can still see the evidence spilling down her legs! Love her! Of course I love her. She's got a tight pussy andd she'll suck my dick whenever I want... what guy wouldn't love her? I've loved her for days... all day sometimes. And she loves me back. Unconditionally. Mind control is the best dating method I've ever come across. She never says no to anything..." Noah leered at Lacus. Or at least he hoped that was what a leer was like. "I only wanted her for what's between her legs initially, but after the silly bitch got herself exposed to my Green EDEN, well, I had to make the best of the situation. Most efficient use of resources at hand."

"We've talked with Mary." Lacus said idly, her face and mind blank to him. "The Noah she talks of wouldn't do the things you say you have."

"Mary? Mary O'Brien? The banshee pilot of the Tormented?" Noah snorted with real amusement. "Her infatuation was amusing, and I might have even taken her for a ride too, if she weren't a hideous, moronic Natural. Didn't you look at her hands? Do you think she really sliced off those fingers willingly! Do you know what its like, slipping into someone else's mind and making them do things they don't want to do, no matter how humiliating and painful? Its an almost sexual rush."

"I have done such things before." Lacus admitted, her face hardening somewhat. "I never enjoyed it. Not even a little bit. Taking away free will is wrong. Its disgusting."

"I'm sure Meyrin would agree with you." Noah replied with a smirk. "Assuming she could get words in edgewise while screaming my name while I make her fufill every dirty fantasy I can think of. But because it is so disgusting, don't you find it somewhat enticing? Everyone likes to play in the dirt every now and again, right Lacus? Maybe its just that you're afraid of what you might do if you tried it when you weren't enraged? Maybe you're afraid you might like it? Despite what people think, you're not much more a saint than I am, Lacus Clyne."

"She's not a saint, but at least she tries." Kira interrupted, his fingers tightening around the grip of the sword. He pointed with the blade at Noah, a trifle melodramatically. "There's nowhere for you to run anymore Noah. The Great Endeavor has crashed. The Brotherhood Gundam is destroyed. The Brotherhood of Man is dissolving as we speak. Your Apostles are dead or have abandoned you."

"You're right." Noah raised his head haughtily. "I am alone. Singular. Unique once more. Just like in the beginning. My life is the only one left to take. But I won't let it be taken quietly."

"Dunno if we're gonna let you have a choice on that score, sport." Alkire commented, stalking heavily out of the tree line, his RPG and rifle discarded, his pistol holster unsnapped but the weapon itself still holstered. He sat down carefully on the rocks behind Kira and Lacus. "Go ahead and kill your fucktoy hostage. I'm sure she's scarred for life, will probably end up in a mental ward after all the shit you've done to her. Clean death by plasma bolt might be preferable to that kinda hell." Alkire shrugged. "Course, the moment you pull that trigger or do anything else even remotely violent, my love Raine will scatter your brains across your bed. She's only got a single bullet left. She only needs one."

"So we're in a standoff still then." Noah blustered.

"Standoff? Hell no." Alkire chuckled grimly. "Only reason your brain is still in your body is cause the pink princess wants you alive. If it were up to me and Raine, you'd have been dead before you got that pistol firmly settled against the redheads noggin. She don't mean anything to you, that's plain. Thing is, she don't mean anything to us either. First rule of taking a hostage... make sure it's someone the other guys care about."

"You're not going to kill me?" Noah was dumbfounded. "But you came all this way to..."

"Surrender Noah. Drop that gun and give youself up to us. We will take you back to Orb and you will have a fair trial." Lacus replied firmly. "It may very well be the court's decision to end your life for what you have done, but I will give you the chance to make at least some amends to the world. You will never be able to erase the sins you have committed upon the world and humanity, Noah. But you can still work to mitigate them. There is so much you could do, so much good, if you would only let yourself."

Noah laughed bitterly. "A fair trial? Don't bullshit me. There can be no such thing with regard to me. Where would we get a jury that was not biased either for or against me? Where would we find a judge that did not blame me for what I have done? No, my guilt is assured, and so is my fate. I won't sell you my pride, its all I have left." Noah shoved Meyrin's unconscious form away from him, let her splash down into the water. He turned away as she sank, relieved to hear Kira charge into the water to pull her out before she drowned. Noah tossed the beam pistol down onto his bed contemptuously. He had done all he could. At least Meyrin would be safe now. "Go ahead. Right in the back of the skull, if you please. I don't deserve mercy, nor want it, but a quick, painless death would be a boon." Noah tried not to clench his fists in anticipation of the bullet, but it was almost impossible to control himself now. How could he die like this! It wasn't fair...

"A wise woman once told a dear friend of mine..." Lacus's gentle voice said suddenly from behind him. She had walked out onto the water, marveling at the act even as she did so, to stand directly behind Noah. Directly between the line of fire from Raine to Noah's head. "That the hardest thing is not to die doing something you believe in, but to keep on living, even at the lowest ebb of your life, because you can always find the light at the end of the darkness if only you try for it. Don't you think that's good advice, Noah? You don't want to die, I can see it in every muscle of your body. Yet you are convinced you must, because you see no other path before you."

"What I have done is not wrong." Noah said quietly. "I am not sorry. I will not apologize. Not to you. Not to Orb. Not to the USN. Not to anyone. I have achieved my dream, my New Eden, and I have no more regrets. There is no path for me beyond this point in time. I am alive only because you want to justify yourself."

"Just because you can't see a path, doesn't mean it isn't there." Lacus remarked encouragingly. "If you cannot see, then close your eyes... and let me guide you." Lacus touched her fingers to his hand. "Come on now, Noah. We'll never get anywhere if you won't walk with me. I cannot drag you. You must walk, and trust me to guide you to the path you can't see."

"Will it be painless?" Noah asked, barely audible. "The end of the road I must walk with you, I mean?"

"I won't let there be any pain." Lacus promised. "If that is the end the road comes to."

Noah turned, his hand finding hers, seeing Kira holding Meyrin in his arms, safe and secure on the shoreline. "Then I will walk with you, Lacus Clyne, to this road you speak of, and its end, whatever it may be. The dream has ended. Its time for me to wake up and face the world as it is."

"Welcome back to Earth then, Noah Borander." Lacus said with a short smile.

"No. Welcome to New Eden, Lacus Clyne." Noah returned the smile.

xxxx

Author Note 2: Well, what do you think of that? I don't think that went the way many of you were expecting. Oh, and Cyprus lived. Whattaya know. Close call, but he lived. But don't go anywhere just yet, this story ain't over.


	79. The Casting Out part 6

Author Note: I would caution you from reading too much into Noah's surrender to Lacus, because that was what it was, a surrender, not an offer of alliance, not an apology, not anything but him accepting that there might be a path other than immediate execution by bullet to the back of the head. One that will all too likely still end in his death, but at least Lacus promised that if it came to that, it would be a painless euthenasia. I'm sorry to crush any nascent dreams of a Lacus Clyne and Noah Borander team up to make Durandel their bitch, if such a thing is ever to occur, it will be deep in RW. Oh yes, and I know that Achilles is not a lizard. But Luna on the other hand... and besides, if Dinosaurs were to have a racial slur, "lizard" would probably be it. And now, back into the messy process of Casting Out...

xxxx

**Outside the Great Endeavor, just prior to the breach of the Atrium**

Rey surveyed the flaming pieces of wreckage that were all that remained of the once proud nation of Orb's finest military forces and found it good. There was a nitpicking voice at the back of his head that decried the wanton destruction of so much potentially valuable military technology, especially that put into the Warmaster Gundam, but a quick glance over at the liquid crystal cloaked form of the Vengeance was enough to dispel such thoughts. Compared to the Vengeance, even the most advanced of Orb's Gundam technologies were somewhat pathetic. The few areas that the Orb forces excelled over the Brotherhood Gundams in could likely to be matched by sufficient research funding of the USN's own military scientists, in a few years. Especially with the new legislative controls Gil was implementing that would make it all but impossible for any member state to legally produce Gundams or Gundam related technologies, at least not without total USN oversight, in which case they might as well just call it subcontracting the research for the USN.

"So are we done now?" Shinn asked, his tone still very reluctant, almost guilty. "We just crippled the military of an entire sovereign nation based on a possibility that we'll never be able to confirm. I know I'm not the deepest of thinkers, but even I'm pretty sure that this is going to have some fairly serious reprecussions when it gets out."

"You let the SecDef and I worry about that. You just keep your mouth shut, and refer any inquiries to me. That's an direct order, Shinn." Rey said sternly. "What happened here today is a matter of utmost international security. We cannot talk about it, to anyone, and that includes Luna, without express permission from the SecDef. Do you understand how serious this is?"

"I understand, but I don't like it." Shinn complained with a frown. "It really seems to me like this is something more personal between the SecDef and Orb and he's just looking for an excuse to..."

"You might want to be careful about finishing that sentence, Shinn. Or repeating it to anyone, ever again." Rey interrupted warningly. "There are big wheels in motion behind the scenes, and you and I both are just little pebbles. We could very easily get ground up and crushed if we're not careful, and those big wheels would hardly even notice the effort. Getting in Gil's way is suicide, politically and literally. You, and especially Luna, would be much better off staying at his side, rather than in his path. There's a bright future ahead for those who have his favor."

"This is not what I joined the Solar Knights to do." Shinn said with a heavy sigh.

"You joined the Solar Knights to serve and protect the citizens of the USN from all threats, external and internal, right?" Rey replied with an edge to his voice. "You may not agree with this course of action. You may not think it fair. You might even think that it is wrong and reprehensible. You are welcome to your differences in opinion... as long as you keep them to yourself. As a Solar Knight, you are an instrument of the SecDef, and it is against our code of conduct to publicly disagree with or cast doubt upon the motives of the SecDef or other senior USN officials."

"I'm not sure I want to be a Solar Knight anymore. I don't think Luna does either. We've both caught too much shit off the fan." Shinn admitted.

"I won't force either of you to stay." Rey responded at once, with narrowed eyes. "But you should think long and hard about what sort of benefits you are giving up if do decide to become civilians again. We both know you won't be able to afford medical treatments for Luna's injuries on a quickly attainable civilian wage, and frankly the military is so overstretched right now that applying for veterans care could be... difficult. As a Solar Knight, right now you have fame, the respect of your peers, superiors and subordinates, and automatic forgiveness for many different things, your tenure under the Brotherhood being only one of them. As the pilot of the Vengeance, which will become the Gundam-Champion of the Solar Knights, you have a very successful and even luxurious career ahead of you, with privileges and benefits you could barely imagine, not least of which would be the assurance that Luna would get the very best treatment she needs, whenever she needs it, for however long she needs it. Just... be aware of what you might be turning your back on, over a little personal distaste."

"Are you... bribing me, Rey?" Shinn sounded like he was caught between anger and surprise. "Or threatening me?"

"I am explaining the realities of your situation to you, as your commanding officer and friend, because you don't seem to have been considering them to me." Rey countered neutrally. "As a Solar Knight you're someone special... someone very special in your case. As just Shinn Asuka, you're just another young, jobless Coordinator, among hundreds of millions of other young, jobless, desperate men now living in space. You have Luna..." Rey choked up a bit as he said that. "But fierce young love doesn't put food on the table, and the reputation of your past career doesn't pay bills, especially as you won't be legally able to talk to anyone about any details of your time in the Solar Knights. Don't you think she deserves better than a starveling existence on the fringes of the new society to come?"

"You should leave Luna out of this." Shinn warned. "She'll make up her own mind. You had your chance with her, Rey. You blew it. Come to terms with that, before it becomes a real problem."

"I still love her, Shinn. Just as much as you do." Rey answered with bitter anger flavoring his words. "I only have her best interests in mind, believe me. I don't want her to have to suffer ever again. But I can't do much for either of you if you're not Solar Knights. I'll be fully honest with you, Shinn, for Luna's sake. If you two leave the Solar Knights now, you will be liabilities to Gil." Rey waved the tip of his sword-cannon at the smouldering Orb wreckage. "This is how Gil deals with liabilities. Maybe it won't happen right away, but it will happen sooner rather than later, because you are someone important, and if you abandon the cause, that makes you potentially very dangerous. We live in a very hostile world right now, Shinn. A world in the midst of upheaval beyond even what it already believes it has suffered. A new world order is being forged from the ashes of the old even as we speak. You can either be part of the new blade... or you can be cut apart by it. Think hard. Tell Luna to do the same. You're only going to get the one chance."

"The question being, is my life and future happiness, and the life and future happiness of the girl I love, worth the trade in of our morality and ethics?" Shinn said slowly.

"I can't decide that for you." Rey said with a shrug. "But as the commander of the Solar Knights, you have my word I will do everything in my official and unofficial powers to keep the two of you out of the dirty work. I swear on my love for Lunamaria Hawke and Gilbert Durandel that if it is within my power, the worst you will ever have to do is turn a blind eye and deaf ear. And keep your mouth shut about things you would rather have not heard or seen. All things considered, especially the alternatives, I don't think its that bad a deal, Shinn. You two would be our White Knights."

"White on the outside, grey on the inside." Shinn muttered, his eyes downcast. "Live a lie..." He trailed off, eyeing the ruination of the Orb forces, and the series of actions that had led up to it. "Or die anonymously as an honest man..." Shinn shook his head. He could not decide this on his own. He had to consult Luna. If she chose to stay, he would stay. If she wanted to leave, he would leave, and they would make the best of it. "So I repeat... are we done here now?" Shinn asked in a louder voice, shelving the whole discussion for the moment.

"Not quite." Rey called up some data on one of his screens, and linked it to Shinn. "There are still two Orb Gundams out there, right there on the top hull of the Great Endeavor. Both their pilots are already dismounted, so it should not be too hard to destroy either of them, plus the dropshuttle. Then we will be done, and its just a matter of waiting for our "specialists" to bring Noah and Meyrin out to us. Before the sun sets, with the speed of your Gundam, you will be back together with Luna. But no one is going anywhere until those two Gundams and that shuttle are nothing but flaming scrap."

"Just call me the "scrapmaker"." Shinn said dourly, earning a chuckle from Rey that he did not share. His heart was heavy as he remembered the invaluable aid the Vorpal and Seraph had given him in the battle against the Brotherhood. Without their help, he would have been much longer in beating the Brotherhood, if he ever did. And now he was basically going to murder them in their sleep. Just the machines, not the pilots, but still... it felt like betrayal. It was betrayal, come to think of it. Betrayal in the name of the greater good to come. Or at least Shinn really hoped it was a greater good, because otherwise...

Rey followed Shinn to the entry point of the Orb Stormhounds, above which their shuttle and the last two Orb Gundams were parked, seeing in the way Shinn flew that his thoughts were troubled and introspective. All to the better, in Rey's mind. Shinn had a lot to consider, and only one chance of making the right decision. He should be troubled by it. And Rey still had a few trump cards to play himself. Shinn, in his current state, would almost certainly defer to Luna, so Luna was the person he actually had to convince. And as chance had it, he was about to acquire a very signficant piece of leverage to use on Luna. It pained him to have to manipulate the girl he loved, but to save her life, he would do anything. Anything. Even if it made her hate him worse than she already did. That was true love, in his eyes... the willingness to be hated by the one you cared for, in order to protect them.

When they got there however, they found that there was more than just the two Orb Gundams and the dropshuttle there. The dropshuttle was in autopilot mode, hovering a dozen meters or so off the hull. To the right side, shield facing outward, was the Vorpal. The the left was the Seraph, its Fractal Wing feathers slowly revolving around the whole area in a defensive holding pattern, citadel shields already activated. Standing a nearby was another Solar Knight Archon, accompanied by the bulky, awkward mass of a FNE Panzerwulf. Rey didn't even have to look at his IFF transponder to know who this was, he only had one Knight that clung to the skirts of the FNE machines so tightly. Rey's lips thinned with displeasure and dislike. Lain Debora was far from his favorite person. Anyone who abandoned Gil during a time of need deserved nothing less than an ignoble death in Rey's eyes, that Debora had survived so long and even managed to stay a Solar Knight was quite bothersome.

Not wasting any time, heart heavy but mind determined, Shinn raised his zweihander and took aim at the Vorpal and then swung with all the power of both hands, the heavy sword crashing into the middle of the Citadel protected Bulwark shield, failing to penetrate in an explosion of gold sparks, but the sheer force of impact knocked the unoccupied Orb Gundam down onto its side, denting the Great Endeavor's hull as it fell. Shinn kicked the Bulwark shield away, sending it skittering out over the nearby edge of the hull, and dropping hundreds of meters to the ground below, and then stood poised over the Vorpal with the sword raised high for a downward stab through the cockpit and reactor housing.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING!" Lain shouted, stunned and appalled at the completely wanton and unexpected attack upon the unmanned Gundams. Hadn't he just been watching those same three Gundams fight side by side to defeat the Brotherhood? And now the Vengeance was stabbing its allies in the back while they couldn't even defend themselves! And then it occured to him... Shinn had been mind controlled by the Brotherhood of Man before... perhaps he'd relapsed! or perhaps Noah had sezied control again! It would make the sudden betrayal make sense... "You fucking weak minded traitor!" Lain roared furiously. "You can't even go one short battle without Luna and already you turn on us again! What kinda man are you!"

"That's more than enough out of you, Knight-Ensign Debora." The imperious and cold voice of Knight-Commander Ze Burrel, who was obviously piloting the Archon that had accompanied the Vengeance, replied suddenly across the comm channel Lain had been using. "Knight-Ensign Asuka is fufilling a lawful order from the SecDef himself. He has not relapsed, and he is not a traitor. Indeed, by some standards of measure, his loyalty is far more assured than yours." Rey said darkly.

"I can't let this happen! We owe this entire battle, this entire victory, to those Gundams!" Lain protested vehemently. "Without Orb's contribution to the fight, we would all probably be dead right now. How can destroying them be allowed to happen! What the FUCK is that crazy bastard Durandel thinking!"

"Regardless of their contributions, orders are orders. The SecDef does not have to justify himself to the likes of us, but rest assured, his orders are justified in this case. There is the very real possibility that the Orb forces are here not to capture Noah, but to effect a rescue."

"That's complete BULLSHIT! And you know it! No one has done more to cripple and destroy the Brotherhood than Orb!" Lain spat. "Ms. Lacus may want to capture him alive, but that is very different from rescuing! Just because the USN forces CAN'T do it themselves, doesn't give you the right to backstab Orb because they can..." Lain's Archon took a step forward. "There's a lot that's been between us in the past, Shinn, but that doesn't have any bearing on this situation. What you're doing is dishonorable and wrong. You're not acting like a Solar Knight, you're just a thug! Do you think all the people that died on that dock that day, including your family, would be proud of you right now? Don't be so surprised, did you think I wouldn't research why you had so much animosity towards Orb?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Shinn snapped. " My family is... is..." He trailed off and shook his head, his memories of them swamped with impenetrable fuzzy fog. "My family is gone. What they would or would not think of me doesn't matter. I can't let my actions be ruled by my past. For the record, I don't like this either, Lain. I think its a mistake. But its not my mistake to make or unmake, its the SecDef's. I am his instrument, we all are. The responsibility lies with him, and the reprecussions will fall on him. I have my orders, and like them or not, I can't argue their legality. Gundams can be rebuilt after all, its not like I'm killing the pilots." Shinn drove the zweihander downward, crisply punching through the Vorpal's unique cockpit, breaching the reactor, before slicing upwards, out through the head assembly, before chopping downward twice more in quick succession, cutting the Vorpal and all its equipment into multiple sparking pieces.

"SHINN! You stupid bastard! Stop right now or I'll..." Lain stepped his Archon forward, his sword lifted and beginning to point at the Vengeance's side. The blare of a target lock warning stopped Lain in midstride, and he turned disbelieving eye upon Rey's Archon, which had all its weapons trained upon him. "You vile motherfucker..."

"That's sir vile motherfucker to you, Debora." Rey retorted grimly. "If you attempt to interfere anymore, I will execute you for mutiny, as is within my remit as Knight-Commander and commanding officer of this battle theatre. You've been on thin ice with me ever since Galileo. Give me an excuse. I implore you." Rey was going to say more, when his target lock was interrupted, by the bulk of the Panzerwulf moving to stand squarely between Lain and Rey. A new face appeared on his comm screen, bright blond hair over rosy pink eyes, currently narrowed and curiously feral.

"If you attempt to harm Lain in any way, I will destroy you." Stella promised. she pointed her Cerberus combi-weapon directly at Rey's Archon, blue-red light gathering around the twinned hyper impulse barrels, and purple white sparks dancing around the the Mjolnir projector, as she put pressure just shy of firing on the triggers.

"I have been briefed on you IBWS Extendeds." Rey said, trying to be calm, but he could not help the drops of sweat that trickled down the back of his neck. He had been briefed, and thus he knew how volatile they could be in combat. "You have even less right to be interfering with official business than Debora does. Dr. Roanoke will not be happy with you over this deviant course of action. You work for the USN. You live for the USN. Do not forget who made you what you are. I am the USN authority here. You know what happens to Extendeds who try to harm their handlers... is that what you want? Is that sort of debasement what you want for yourself? Is he that important to you, that you would risk that level of punishment?"

"Lain is very important to me." Stella said, slowly and clearly. "I think I may love him, actually. He has risked his life for me several times already. I would risk mine for his. Do not threaten my Lain, or I will destroy you."

"And if she doesn't destroy you..." A new, male voice said, as two more Panzerwulf's crested the curve of the hull, from where they had marched from the other side of the Great Endeavor's carcass. "We will. Our little sister is kinda important to us." The green haired, yellow eyed young man said with a smug grin, as he two pointed his Cerberus at Rey. "And though I do at times question her choice in men, if her mind is made up, I won't try to change it. You'd best not either... I can tell you, it isn't possible. She's really stupidly stubborn, about a lot of things."

"You high and mighty authority types really get on my nerves." An even younger, blue haired man, the pilot of the other Panzerwulf, said nastily. "Always thinking you know us better than we ourselves do. You're not an Extended, you can't possibly know what its like to be us. Don't presume to threaten us with what you've only been told about second hand. We all know what the punishment is... we just don't care. That's my sister you're trying to bully. I don't like people who bully my sister. I tend to kill people I don't like."

"Sting... Auel..." Stella said, her heart fluttering with joy, taken aback at the unexpected but certainly not unwelcome support. "Thank you..."

"This is completely INSANE!" Rey hissed through gritted teeth. "You people will all regret this more than you can possibly comprehend. You are throwing your lives away over nothing."

"Honor and morality are only nothing to a turd like you, sir vile motherfucker." Debora retorted, stepping past Stella and once more approaching Shinn. "Now, cut it out Shinn. He's right about one thing... this is insane. So stop."

"I'm sorry Lain." Shinn shook his head. "I sympathize with you. But I have made a commitment, for my own reasons. The insanity will end. Just give me a moment..."

"Shinn..." Lain started to say, his sword begining to rise. He wasn't fast enough. The Vengeance lashed out with one suddenly claw tipped hand, shredding the dropshuttle into multiple pieces that crashed and burned, even while the other hand was thrusting the zweihander forward with all the weight of the Venegance behind it, skipping off two Fractal Wing pods, shoving them out of the way before impaling the Seraph right through the chest, the blade sinking in for almost half its length. Shinn put both hands back on the sword and twisted the blade, coring out a huge hole in the middle of the Gundam, before ripping the sword diagonally out of the Seraph's right shoulder, chopping off one wing strut in the process. Sparks flew, fluids gouted, and the Seraph collapsed forward onto its face, its feather pods falling like hail around it. Some sparks hit some hydraulic oil, and a fire started, racing back up into the volatile energy capacitors for the chest mounted hyper impulse cannons, and the Seraph vanished in a blast of light and force that sent all the Mobile Suits nearby staggering back under the shockwave.

"DAMN YOU!" Lain screamed, weeping real tears at such a pointless, ignominous end to such proud and distinguished machines. He wanted to take a swing at Shinn, but he didn't. For one, the Venegance completely outclassed him. For another, what would killing Shinn do anyway? He was just an instrument, like he'd said. The blame here lay on Durandel. The man behind it all. "Damn you..." He repeated, not meaning Shinn.

"This isn't over, Lain Debora. I won't forget what almost happened here today." Rey promised direly, powering down his weapons now that the reason for the standoff was gone.

"I don't want this to be over, Rey." Lain replied with equal feeling. "You better watch yourself... because I will be watching you."

"I could squash you like a bug without even having to do more than send a short vidcomm call." Rey snorted. "Don't flatter yourself into thinking you scare me."

"You might find the rest of us are kinda harder to squish." Sting cut in. "And if you pick a fight with him, you pick a fight with Stella. And if you pick a fight with Stella, you pick a fight with all of us. If he goes down, Stella would be very sad. I won't allow that to happen."

"Just try something. I dare you. It's been a long time since I got to kill one of you high and mighty types." Auel said with a vicious grin.

"This is completely ridiculous." Rey commented with a loud chuckle. "Fine, consider him shielded from my wrath. Keep him for all I care. The less I see of him the better. As of this moment, Knight-Ensign, I am assigning you as our Liason to Fenris Company. Don't bother sending me any reports, I won't read them. Take what pleasure in it you can, because I know, even if I don't do anything, that you're living in a pipe dream. And all dreams end evetually, Debora. I'll be looking forward to the time you're no longer able to hide behind the skirts of your girlfriend. And that time is probably sooner than you can imagine."

"What if I don't wanna be your anything? I'm quitting the Solar Knights as soon as I can. I don't want to be part of this bullshit. And I'm going to tear this whole sordid mess wide open, just you wait." Lain threatened.

"Good luck with that, Lain." Rey chuckled again. "You can make it easy on me if you like, I won't argue, but I'll give you a last bit of friendly advice, as your commander. You won't last twenty four hours from the moment you take off your Solar Knights uniform for the last time. That is not a threat, that is an actuality, and its based on several other people that have tried the same thing. So go right ahead. Do what you feel is right. Right now, you're just on my black list. You really don't want to go any higher up than me. Everyone else isn't friendly like I am." Rey turned his back on them. "Let's go, Shinn. We only have a little more waiting to do, and I get the feeling we're not welcome here."

Barely fifteen minutes had passed after Shinn and Rey returned to the main concentration of USN ground troops, who had by now killed or captured all remaining Harbingers and were digging in while preparing to send out salvage teams, when the electrifying but not unexpected news came. Noah had been captured. The Brotherhood of Man was officially defeated! The surviving members of the Stormhounds were collecting their dead and wounded, and were on their way down to the USN forced entrance with their prisoners. It was time for the final scene of this first act of Durandel's most recent plan. It was time to tidy up all the loose ends.

xxxx

"What the fuck is this?" Alkire was too weary to even put much force into his shocked curse, as he found himself at the center of a semicircle of threatening assault rifles, all pointed somewhere between his face and his belly button. "Friendly here, you stupid fuckers. Don't you think the hound mask and oh, I dunno, the fucking artificial leg are kinda dead giveaways, ya brain donors!" The guns did not waver, nor did the bug eyed masks of the troops holding them shapeless and alien in their armored environment suits, so much bulkier and less efficient than the efficiently filtered armor of the Stormhounds. Still, outmoded or not, it didn't seem to be affecting their ability to menace him with their guns and superior numbers. He would have put his hands up, but he was too busy carrying a stretcher made from wooden poles cut from Noah's private room-forest, and strung with extra sheets taken from his laundry. Cyprus Finch lay in a drugged slumber on the stretcher, his ugly stomach wound crudely glued shut for the time being, his entire body encased in an emergency plastic sheathe that would keep the Green EDEN out for an hour or so, since his armor was totally compromised.

The other injured Stormhounds were likewise carried and contained, with Raine helping on the other end of Cyprus, and pairs of the Stormhounds who had shut down the reactors but not come immediately to reinforce their leadership for the assault on the Atrium carrying the others. Or carefully dragging with the assistance of a roller trolley, in the case of Sergeant-Major Glory, who was close to a quarter ton of dead weight in full armor. All the Stormhounds had been treated with basic anti-toxins that seemed to at least curb the effects of the dragon's poisoned claws and fangs, though it would take a dedicated toxicology lab to provide a real cure. The poison was not in itself fatal to a healthy adult, but it did cause nerve damage and paralysis if left untreated for too long, according to Noah, who ought to know, as he'd made the stuff in the first place. They lacked the numbers to carry out the dead at the same time, some of the healthy Stormhounds would stay behind to retrieve their fallen comrades while the others headed back to Orb with their prisoner.

Or at least that was the plan. Alkire had actually been relieved when they'd come into sight of the USN soldiers digging in to the parts of the Great Endeavor that they'd stormed. The evidence on the walls, ceiling and floors showed what an intense battle had been fought, and he had nodded salutes at the survivors. Distraction or not, this had been one hell of a fight, and they were to be admired for their victory. He was feeling a bit less generous now that they were all pointing guns at his face though. The other Stormhounds were likewise covered by reams of USN troops which had flooded out of the hallways around them in a not too badly executed trap. None of the Stormhounds were really in a condition to fight, health or energy or ammo wise, and with their wounded helpless in the crossfire, no one was going to try and be a hero. Not against that many rifles. Not even Alkire.

Alkire rolled his eyes over towards the pink princess, who was guiding Noah with one hand on his shoulder. She hadn't liked it, but Alkire had insisted their were formalities to observe, so Noah had plastic ties binding his wrists together behind his back, and wore a blindfold over his eyes, not that the latter seemed to trouble him very much. Alkire had wanted to gag the bastard too, but Lacus had totally forbidden it, despite the fact that she could clearly converse psychically with him anyway. Having won the majority of that war, he let the final skirmish slide. He was just glad they kept their conversation to whispers, because he really didn't want to have to hear any more of her completely nutso idealism. There was only so much he could take in a single sitting, and that had been exhausted a few sentences into her talking Noah into surrendering. Course, she HAD talked him into surrendering, so maybe it wasn't all bad...

_A little help here maybe?_ Alkire thought hopefully, in what he assumed was her direction. Not like he would know. Help did not seem to be forthcoming. Lacus had a displeased look on her face, and that was enough to give him the heeby-jeebies, but her frown didn't seem to be intimidating the USN soldiers, perhaps because there were over sixty of them, she was unarmed, and a girl, and they all had assault rifles. That made them roughly even in Alkire's book, but then again, he knew stuff they didn't. Though if the Pink Princess was all tied up keeping the kibosh on the psychic antics of Noah, then they might have a bit of a problem here. "Can I help you, officer?" Alkire asked in his best "don't give me a speeding ticket" voice. "I swear, my speedometer is broken. I was on my way to getting it fixed. Just let me off... this once? Its just a little bit further up the road... so if you'll get out of the way... and put down those shiny, pretty rifles, we can all be on our way, and I'll consider myself warned, okay?"

"Robert, don't antagonize them." Raine muttered over their comm.

"But they're antagonizing me!" Alkire protested.

"They have superior numbers and firepower. They're allowed to be antagonistic." Raine answered with only the slightest hint of nervousness.

"Don't move! Nobody move!" One of the USN soldiers demanded in a rasping growl.

"Aww, and here I was about to riverdance... darn..." Alkire retorted, amazed at his own "don't-give-a-shit". "You've completely ruined my talent show, ya know?"

"Robert...!" Raine hissed angrily.

"Thank you for trying at least." Noah said to Lacus. He didn't need to see with his eyes to know the situation, even keeping his mental powers strictly and humbly limited as a gesture of his surrender, he could still feel the intentions of the USN soldiers around him. "This will probably be the last time we ever see each other. Or you see me, at least. Thank you for your kind words earlier, even if they were a promise you could not fufill. I needed to hear them then."

"What is the meaning of this!" Lacus demanded in a very commanding tone that carried to every ear in hearing distance, and a bit beyond. "Lower those weapons right now." She continued, and more than a few weapons did in fact lower. And all this without a single splash of Newtype power, beyond the initial attention getter. Noah was quite impressed. Then again, this was Lacus Clyne after all. "Explain this to me." Lacus said, her eyes cold, as she turned towards the officer in charge, picking him out by his mind, even though his armored suit was identical to all the others.

"Um." The officer said, unnerved by her gold inside lilac eyes and commanding bearing, despite being surrounded and unarmed. "We are taking charge of the prisoners. They are to be handed over to USN custody."

"Like... Hell..." Lacus said firmly, taking almost everyone around her aback. "Orb forces captured Mr. Borander, he is in our custody, and he will stay there." She indicated Noah with a small gesture of one hand. "As you can clearly see, he is very much under our control. Thank you for your offer of assistance, but we don't need your help now. Though I would be personally grateful if an aerial transport would be provided for us, since ours seems to have suffered a misfortune of some sort, while WE were capturing Mr. Borander." Lacus was not above stressing the reminder on who had done what.

"All of our current transports are already tasked. We don't have any to spare for Orb to use, I'm afraid." A new voice, piped in from somewhere else through the officer's helmet comm speakers, replied. "I am Knight-Commander Rey Ze Burrel of the Solar Knights, and I have operational authority over all forces participating in Operation Downfall. Including those of Orb. I'd like to thank you for your exemplary work in capturing Noah, you have done a service to us all today."

"Quit bullshitting around, Rey." Noah spoke up in a bored voice. "What does Gil want?"

"You know, I once considered us friends, Noah. I really liked you." Rey replied slowly. "I thought we had a lot in common."

"Yeah, well, I guess that shows how smart you were." Noah replied, still in the bored voice. "But then again, limited scope of vision serves you pretty well with Gil, doesn't it? You could have been so much more, Rey, if only you'd let me help you..."

"Thats in the past now, Noah. You crossed too many lines. I'm sorry, but I can't afford to show you any mercy." Rey said with a hint of sadness.

"We both know its not your mercy I need to worry about. Like I said, what does Gil want? He's the only one that matters." Noah retorted with a shrug.

"Mr. Ze Burrel, I must strongly protest this treatment. Tell your soldiers to put down their weapons. They are completely unnessecary." Lacus cut in smoothly.

"Well, Ms. Clyne, considering you are a civilian, I have no obligation to listen to you in the slightest. Your very presence here is somewhat troubling to me, in fact. Civilians do not belong on battlefields." Rey answered.

"And yet I so often find myself upon them. I guess I must be cursed." Lacus replied with a hard smile.

"You must be." Rey agreed. "But we're getting off topic. While the USN thanks you all for your efforts in apprehending Noah, I'm afraid Orb lacks the ability to transport Noah anywhere. I am so sorry to report that all of your Mobile Suits and Gundams have been destroyed by a squadron of Martyrs that slipped by our notice during a mustering session. Luckily your pilots were all dismounted and dispersed at the time, so Orb has missed a great tragedy by a hair. So unless you plan to walk back to Orb, with Noah and all of your wounded, I'm afraid that you are very much beggars on our doorstep, Ms. Clyne."

"If Durandel thinks he can get away with..." Lacus started to fume.

"Please." Rey interrupted her. "I've heard so many variations on that today, I just don't care anymore. If you have problems, you are welcome to pursue them with the SecDef using the proper channels, once you return to Orb. However, you will not be returning to Orb until you hand over custody of Noah Borander and Meyrin Hawke to us, the lawful authorities. We will ensure they are properly taken care of. This is not negotiable, Ms. Clyne. We can wait. Your injured cannot."

"I'll go." Noah spoke up wearily.

"Now hold on a moment here..." Lacus started to protest. Noah shrugged at her, the most expression he could manage blindfolded and bound, cutting her off.

"Your hands, their hands, it doesn't matter, the end of the road is the same." Noah said with finality. "Lets get this whole farce started then, Rey, so it can be over all the faster. I've got a lot of sleep to catch up on after you kill me." Noah stepped away from Lacus, and let several soldiers take hold of him, none too gently, by the upper arm. "Once more, I thank for trying, Lacus. I will always respect you." Noah turned his head to regard where Kira was very reluctantly handing Meyrin over to more USN soldiers. "And you, cousin Kira... you take good care of Lacus and your child. The world is going to become a hostile place for our kind. Keep them sheltered against the storm on the horizon." Noah turned his attention back to Lacus, and in a deft twist of mental muscles, slipped under her relaxed guard. before she could even gasp he retreated... but not before leaving behind a string of calculations imprinted into her memory.

_What the he..._ Lacus started to demand.

_Consider it the first part of my repayment. _Noah replied, blank faced. _Follow those instructions and you'll be able to create a strain of Green EDEN that will cure all modern genetic conditions. ICD included. Without transforming into an Edenite. I'd advise writing them down the first chance you get, that imprint won't last forever, and they're rather complicated as you can see. And do remember to keep your guard up. I should not have been able to do that to you._

"I'm sorry it has to be this way." Kira replied, very softly, faintly aware of the mental conversation, but not detecting any worry or distress from Lacus, so he remained calm.

"I deserve this and nothing more." Noah shrugged once more. And then he was pulled into the crowd and hustled away, a black bag going over his already blindfolded head, pushed along by rifle muzzles in his sides and back, soldiers alert for the merest sign of trickery on his part. Though none of them would have been prepared had he made an effort of things.

"Escort them to transport 19, Colonel." Rey said in a private comm to the leader of the USN troopers. "Provide medical aid, but make sure to strip search each and every one of them, and confiscate all recording devices or memory units of ANY sort. Err on the side of caution, better to confiscate too much than too little. This comes directly from the Secretary of Defense."

"Even Ms. Clyne, sir?" The colonel replied nervously.

"Especially Lacus Clyne. Don't let yourself fall under her sway, Colonel... she was using the sacrifices of your men in order to slip past the Brotherhood defenders so they could have the best chance at stealing the glory of capturing Noah. Hundreds of your men and women died so she could claim victory for Orb. Think about how your fallen comrades would feel, that their sacrifice was just a distraction for her. She doesn't need your sympathy. If her pride is a bit overruffled by the experience, well, between the two of us, the SecDef won't be crying. So make sure you check her VERY thoroughly, Colonel. Women have more space for hiding things than men after all."

"As you say, Knight-Commander."

"As the SecDef says, Colonel. I am but an instrument of his will."

xxxx

**Orb, One day after the capture of Noah Borander**

"I'm of a mind to consider your antics yesterday an act of war." Cagalli said, her anger hot and readily visible on her face as she leaned partway across the heavy wooden table to glare more closely at Durandel, seated comfortably across from her, just outside arm's reach. "Hameya knows, I'd be justified in doing so. You attacked and destroyed Orb military forces without warning. Moreover, you purposefully cut communications between those soldiers and their upper chain of command, to prevent them from getting an official word on how to respond to your illegal actions. And then you took my soldiers hostage at gunpoint after they had suffered and died to capture the one man your own troop were too afraid and incompetent to go after. If you want a fight with Orb, Gilbert, I'll be glad to give you one you'll never forget."

"Your Majesty, I am offended." Durandel replied with smug calm. "These baseless accusations serve no purpose but as an ill conceived outlet for your personal feelings. They have no place at the diplomatic table. If you cannot be civil, I will have to ask the good government of Orb that you be removed."

"WHY YOU LITTLE...!" Cagalli almost came over the table at him. Only Raine all but leaping forward from her position by the doors and slamming Cagalli back into her chair by her hands on the Queen's shoulders prevented that very thing from happening. "HOW DARE YOU!"

"We have eyewitness reports from over forty people of your illegal actions, Mr. Secretary." Jiro Kurenai, in the chair next to Cagalli, spoke up with a carefull composed face, perfectly willing to let his Queen supply the bombast and emotion they all so desperately wanted to release in this emergency meeting. "Our accusations are hardly baseless. All the stories same the same thing. Unless you're willing to call Lacus Clyne a liar..."

"Of course I'm willing to call her, and every other liar you provide, a liar." Durandel answered crisply. "You have the eyewitness reports of over 40 of your own patriotic soldiers, who are legally and morally obliged to follow your orders and even lie for you, plus a handful of the Queen's personal friends. What you don't have is solid proof, visual or auditory, or eyewitness reports from unbiased sources. And if you cannot offer me proof, then I am afraid I can lend no credence to these fantastical and frankly disturbingly partisan accusations. Its well known that our politics have clashed many times, your Majesty, but this smear campaign is crude, even for you."

Jiro was about to retort when Durandel held up a finger to quell him, and continued on, glancing from time to time at a small monitor clipped to his side of the table, the screen turned so only he could see it. "Furthermore, leaping directly into threatening to declare war over these unsubstantiated rumors and accusations, I cannot help but regard as another personal attack. I cannot believe Her Majesty speaks for all of Orb when she displays her warmongering attitude, does she? That would be very, very unfortunate. Because Orb currently has near zero military power, just a regiment or two of infantry and outdated armored vehicles mothballed since the First Valentine War. So if you really want to go to war with the USN and its member states, well then I have this to say." Durandel paused and smirked. "Bring it on. I can have four divisions of mechanized infantry landing on your shores by nightfall, plus an additional three regiments of Mobile Suits, and that is before calling upon the other member states to help subdue your rebellion. I can promise you, it will be one of the shortest civil wars in history."

"You destroyed all of our Mobile Suits and then stripped our soldiers naked and confiscated all of their gear, including their combat recorders. Its little wonder we don't have any proof to show you." Cagalli snapped. She pointed furiously off to her side, where Lacus and Kira were sitting, with deep frowns on their faces. Kira especially was all but trembling with rage. "Your soldiers, on your orders, stripped a pregnant woman naked in front of hundreds of men and then cavity searched her! Three TIMES! Do you have NO SHAME!"

"I have no shame for events that did not occur. Or cannot be proved to have occured. Certainly the USN has no records of such an incident. It actually sounds rather fetishy. I applaud whoever thought that one up, its a real riot starter." Durandel told her with a grin. "Though perhaps they could be better employed thinking of ways for Orb to survive its current dire economic and agricultural straits, rather than concocting fantabulous tales about human rights violations." He glanced at his little monitor again, and switched his gaze to Lacus. "You should control your temper, Ms. Clyne. It would be such a tragedy if you were to lose control of your abilities. Given the rather delicately balanced public opinion on those with psychic powers, the wrong sort of incident, even a silly accident, could have quite a backlash." Durandel flipped up the screen so everyone could see it. It showed a thermal scan of a human brain, and the brain was all but glowing white. "Look at that mental activity. I'm surprised her hair isn't standing up straight." Even as they all watched, the brain scan darkened considerably, as Lacus obviously put a dampner on her emotions.

"Not a surefire test for detecting psychics, but if you already know someone is psychic, it can tell you when they're about to try something on you." Durandel explained smugly. "So keep a lid on it, Ms. Clyne, or I'll have you thrown out too. And in your case, it will be very far out, because I know you don't have to see me to affect me." Durandel flipped the screen back down again. "Now, where were we? Ah yes, Orb's economic and agricultural problems. According to my experts, with the current percentage of land you have devoted to agriculture, and the limits placed on your fishing and ocean harvesting by your ingenious Glasshouse, Orb can only sustainably feed a quarter of the roughly one hundred million people currently living here. By switching to near starvation rations, you should be able to feed everyone for about a year, before your surplus supplies are exhausted. Food is of course tight everywhere right now, with billions of people living like sardines in cans in space, but the USN and the PLANTS have jointly begun a new series of E-PLANTS, Aeon City, that will be devoted entirely to agriculture."

"Which will help us in about 7 years." Jiro pointed out. "About 6 years after it becomes a moot point."

"Ah, but that is only assuming we rely upon conventional construction techniques." Durandel countered. "The USN has been harvesting the Great Endeavor for technological windfalls since before Noah was even captured, with your gracious assistance. That harvesting has borne fruit, as we have deciphered the secrets behind the usage of the nano-colony known as Red EDEN, which can convert any nonliving matter into any other nonliving matter with enough energy. And with Fusion Pulse Reactor technology at the tips of our fingers, power is about to become a concern of the past. Current projections indicate, by utilizing Red EDEN and the hundreds of millions of eager laborers we now have up in space, we should be able to get Aeon 1 and 2 online and producing crops within 8 months. The food supplied by those two E-PLANTS will provide the buffer needed to get the rest of Aeon 3-10 online, and from there we will have more than enough food for everyone. Of course, Orb will have to import the majority of their food, but such is the vagaries of trade..."

Durandel watched Jiro's face close up a little bit. "Ah, sorry. Trade is a bit of a sore subject too, isn't it? I mean, Orb's chief export for decades now has been advanced technologies. But with the windfalls provided by our salvaging of the Great Endeavor, even the most advanced of Orb technologies are a good three to four years out of date to the rest of the USN, aren't they? Oh dear, I forsee something of a recession in the wings, with the price of your chief export dropping to less than a tenth of what you're used to. That coupled with the general lack of disposble income of most refugees and we all have hard times ahead, financially speaking. Were it not for Red EDEN, not only could we not build the E-PLANTS in time, we could not afford to build them at all. But getting back to Orb... your island nation is volcanic in nature, but lacks any rich seams of minerals that have not already been mined out. You cannot provide food... you cannot provide resources or worthwhile technology... nobody wants extra manpower, no matter how educated right now... I believe the term is "Shit Out of Luck", am I right?"

Leaning back in his chair, Durandel let them chew on the hard facts for a few seconds. "Without the charitable support of the rest of the USN, Orb is doomed as a nation, and so are its people. We can all work together and get through the lean times with a bit of belt tightening. Or we can leave you behind, and do the same thing. It doesn't matter a bit to the rest of the USN. More food for the rest of us, without you freeloaders on the tab. You NEED us. We do NOT need you. Not anymore. The only thing you have is the symbolic value as the last terrestrial nation. And that really pisses off the FNE and ALU more than anything else, as they are almost totally dispossessed now." Durandel paused again and shook his head. "And when I come to offer you my hand of help, you confront me with the desire to declare war? You hurl unsubstantiated rumors spawned by malcontents and vigilantes into my face, but cannot support them with a single shred of evidence? Were I less of a humanitarian, I would let you twist in the wind. But I'm bigger than such petty reactions. Some of us have to be."

"So what do you want from us then?" Jiro asked, in a very drained, very defeated voice. "Our military is crippled, our finances are in ruins, our population is already on half rations and it will only get worse from there. What's the price for your help?"

"What do I want? What is the price?" Durandel aped confusion. "I want to help you, that is the duty of the USN after all, to take care of its member states. Oh, there is a bit of political reorganization that is necessary to confront the challenges the human race is now facing, but thats nothing you really need to worry about. You'll be trading security and prosperity for a few personal freedoms, but its hard to be free when you're dead of starvation, isn't it? And very difficult to be happy when your entire nation is a destitute slum. All I want you to do is to work together with me in this time of extended crisis, for the betterment of us all. Working together smoothly, with clearly defined chains of command and responsibility. That sort of precision and organization is what will truly save the human race, don't you agree?"

"Could we have a moment to discuss?" Lacus spoke up.

Durandel nodded graciously at her. "Of course. I needed a restroom break anyway. I'll be back in ten minutes? That should be enough time. You really only have one option after all. I'll be looking forward to your answer." Durandel stood up and turned for the door, his bodyguard, all twelve of them packed into his side of the room, snapping to attention before following him to the doorway and out into the hall. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at them. "Oh, and I would deeply appreciate a humble, sincere and in depth apology from all of you, individually, for your reprehensible behavior during this meeting. In public, if you please. I was not lying when I said I was offended by your conduct. I expected better of you. Well, of everyone but her Majesty anyway." Durandel let the door shut on those words, and could not hide his ear to ear grin afterwards. The looks on their faces would give him smiles for years to come.

"We CAN'T let that smug son of a bitch diss us in our own house like this!" Alkire all but exploded. "My god, if he was any more smug, he'd have choked himself to death! An apology! He wants US to apologize to HIM! WHAT THE FUCK!"

"I can't... I... even... GRRRRAGH!" Cagalli screamed, surely loud enough to be heard out in the hall, but she didn't care, as she slammed her fists several times into the thick wooden tabletop, bruising her hands in the process. "I hate him so much..." She whispered, her face red and sweating, tears of anger pouring down her cheeks.

"He does have us by the balls." Jiro agreed, clenching and unclenching his hands. "By the balls, the entire digestive tract, and our wallets. And this is him being charitable, I get the feeling. Its not going to get any better than this utter HUMILIATION!"

"How could we have been so badly outmaneuvered..." Raine shook her head in bemusement. She herself had endured a search just like Lacus in every particular, as had Katie... as had even Raven, despite her injuries, and she was more than a little heated about it, especially having Durandel laughing in their faces and calling them all liars. And getting away with it. Even worse was the way the news were reporting the capture of Noah by "USN and allied forces led by the Solar Knights"! Not even a mention of the word "Stormhounds", much less casualties suffered or anything! If she'd had her rifle handy, she would have already shot the man dead, the consequences be damned. But one of the conditions of the meeting was that no Orb nationals could be armed, only the USN soldiers. Durandel plainly wasn't going to risk anything, the bastard.

"Who could have expected him to be this bold?" Lacus answered, shaking her head, one of her hands gripping Kira's so hard her knuckles were white and his figners were turning a bit purple. "He has us over a barrel and..." Lacus trailed off, her cheeks flushing with indignation and rage as the mere mention of the word reminded her of the metal fuel barrel the USN soldiers had bent her over with her legs spread while they poked and prodded at her most private places in the full view of hundreds of strangers of both sexes. The entire triple checked procedure had taken almost twenty minutes, and she had felt them being deliberately slow and invasive about it. But what could she do? Blast them senseless with her mind? That would only give Durandel the excuse he wanted to lock her up as a lab rat or worse! Not even mentioning what might happen to Akira!

"The important thing is to keep on living." Kira said, bringing a quiet to the room. "We've been in similar situations before, such as after Orb was Isolated. We're going to have to grin and bear it, because if we fight now, it only means meaningless suffering for countless people. Right now we are weak. That will not always be the case. We need time to recover. If the price of buying that time is stripping away our pride and kowtowing to that fucking egomaniac, then that is what we have to do. We will bounce back from this stronger than ever before. We are Orb. That's what we do."

"Kira..." Cagalli said frankly. "You're Chief Representative now." Heads all swiveled to look at her, Jiro and Kira warring for most shocked. "And you can be King too. I mean, you seem to have the best head on your shoulders. At least some of the time."

"Gonna have to decline those jobs, I'm afraid. I've already got a full time commitment ahead of me." Kira countered, the first hint of a smile gracing his face. "Being a daddy takes a lot of effort, or so I hear."

When Durandel returned from his leisurely stroll to the restroom and back, he listened carefully at the door, hoping to catch a few juicy tidbits of Cagalli's outbursts. His face went blank and he almost reeled backwards from the door, puzzlement rapidly writing itself across his face. What the hell was this? What the fuck were they all laughing about? He didn't see ANYTHING for them to be laughing about in the slightest. They must have all snapped under the weight of their situation. He composed himself, and made to open the door again. Insane or not, he knew the answer they had to give him. And that was enough for right now. The last obstruction had been struck aside. Now there was nothing and no-one left to bar his path to the heights of his dream. At long last, the Destiny Plan, with some minor adjustements, would become a reality...

xxxx

**Aboard the Agammenon class carrier **_**Diomedes, **_**high Earth orbit, on course for Galilo LFB, the day after Noah's capture**

"So we're totally clear then?" Luna asked flatly, her eyes all but dead as she stared across the corridor just outside the ship's brig complex at Rey. "Shinn and I will stay on as Solar Knights, as your so called White Knight figureheads, and I will drop any and all intentions to take you to court or court martial for you raping me. In return, you'll ensure that no one troubles Meyrin, or attempts to pin blame on her for the actions that bastard forced her to do while she was under his control, and no punishment will likewise be handed down to Shinn for his time as an unwilling traitor? The whole mess will be stricken from the books, like it never happened?"

"And you will recieve the finest medical care available to assist you in regaining full functionality again." Rey added with a careful nod, not wanting to let those eyes meet his for too long. He didn't want to look too deeply into Luna right at the moment. "Meyrin will have to live at a special treatment facility as an inpatient, but she will suffer under no stigmata and will be given every respect of her past position in the Solar Knights, including full living expenses, such as they are." Rey did not mention that said treatment facility was run by F.E.A.R. and dealt with the study of Edenites of all sorts for the good of the human race. The difference was that Meyrin was not an inmate or experimental subject, she actually had rights, though she was still, in the strict definition of the term, a prisoner there, not allowed to leave the premises under any circumstances. Luna was still convinced that her sister had been controlled, and even Lacus Clyne had supported that conclusion, but Rey wasn't so sure. Meyrin would have to be carefully watched in the future. For the moment, she was with Shinn in another part of the ship.

Because Luna, after the happy reunion with her just regaining consciousness younger sister, had come down here to broker her deal with Rey. All that had been mentioned before, plus a little extra, paid for in a fashion she desperately wanted to forget, but could not. It had been just a quickie, and she still hadn't slept with Shinn yet, but she still felt so dirty. Whatever. Rey had been satisfied, or satisfied enough, and they would not speak of it again. It was worth it, for this chance. Luna gripped the item under her arm tightly, hearing the clink of glass from inside, and a dark smile spread across her face. Clearly unnerved and not a little frightened, Rey swallowed audibly. "You can't kill him, Luna." Rey reminded her carefully.

"I won't. Killing is far too quick for him." Luna promised. "Just give me five minutes with the security cameras off. Thats all I want. Five minutes alone for five minutes of fucking. That was the deal. Oh, and you'll probably want to have some medical staff on standby. But not too close, if you catch my drift. I want him to suffer a bit. Like I've suffered." Luna's smile grew larger, baring her teeth. "Yes, he'll suffer."

"Whatever." Rey hurriedly opened the door for her, thoroughly creeped out. This was not the Luna he had fallen in love with. This was not the Luna that Shinn loved. This was a twisted, revenge obsessed paradoy of their Lunamaria... and he wanted her gone as soon as possible. If this was the only way to do that, then it was a small price. Even Gil had given his blessing, still a bit giddy from his successful meeting down in Orb. It wasn't like Noah was ever going to be visible to the public ever again anyway. They didn't have to garauntee the condition of the worst terrorist in history. Rey gulped again and pointed at the object clasped under Luna's arm. "Did you really have to do that? It's sickening..."

"Good. I mean for it to drive home my point. Take my sister and my love from me... make them your slaves and scapegoats... Noah Borander cannot suffer enough for me. This is just the tip of the iceberg." Luna replied, patting the object in question in a parody of affection.

"Remember that if his brain activity reaches a certain level the restraints will shock him unconscious, so you don't have to worry about him trying anything mental on you. Still, be careful Luna. He's still very dangerous." Rey warned.

"Ah, but so am I." Luna said cheerfully, strolling by him into the cell block, letting Rey shut and lock the door behind her. She looked up and saw that the camera telltale lights were all off. Privacy at last. She put a hand to her side, where the synthflesh was. The sex had not been kind to her injuries, but she hadn't told Rey to stop. She wanted her full five minutes, and no amount of pain would have stopped her from getting them. Mastering the pervasive aches in her side and between her legs, since Rey had not had the time to be gentle, Luna stalked over to the only occupied cell, which had been specially renovated for this one prisoner. The bed and other furnishings, such as they were, had been removed, leaving only bare floor, upon which Noah was kneeling, his legs banded with steel that was bolted to the floor, manacles around each wrist, forearm and upper arm leading to chains that sunk into the walls and ceiling, with another collar around his neck and yet another around his waist. A raging lion couldn't have broken those chains, though there was enough play in them for him to lie down on his face if he wanted.

The manacles had black wires running off them, up the chains to boxes mounted along the walls, while a thermal monitor constantly scanned his brain for heightened neural activity that presaged active use of Newtype powers, ready to send the cue to put over 500,000 volts of electricity into Noah for up to ten seconds at a time. Even a so called Ultimate Coordinator couldn't take that kind of jolt and stay conscious. They'd already tested it on him, to be sure, which was also why waste facilities had not been needed, he'd soiled himself while unconscious and had been cleaned off and was now empty, and wouldn't be getting any food or water until they reached Galileo. He was blindfolded, but not gagged. Who was there for him to talk to anyway, and they were kinda hoping he might start whispering secrets in his sleep or something. Luna opened the cell door and saw his head swivel to regard her.

"Didn't think I was going to get any visitors besides Rey." Noah said dully. "Come to look at the monster, miss? I'm afraid I lack the energy to rattle my chains and growl convincingly. And sadly, after that last shock, I have no more poo to fling at you."

"I've come to do more than just look." Luna replied, her voice silky sweet. She watched Noah stiffen, and she smiled broadly. "Yes. Its me. The sister. The sister of the girl you kidnapped, seduced, mind controlled, raped and tried to turn into a scapegoat for your crimes. The lover of the man you stole and brainwashed to be your goon. If you had not committed such grave sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you. But look at us. I am here. You are there. Your sins are grave. Punishment is in store."

"You sound fatter than your sister. I can hear the extra pounds jiggling when you take a step. I guess I didn't trim down enough with that FRALA shot." Noah retorted with a feral smile. "Nothing burns away calories like a few terajoules of pure, focused light."

"I find a healthy bit of exertion does a reasonable job at keeping me trim." Luna retorted. "You know what my favorite workout is? Punching bags."

"How feminine." Noah turned his head away from her disinterestedly. "But then again, its not like anyone would mistake you for a girl. Except, you know, by accident."

"You think you're so clever, don't you. You think I care about your insults, compared to what you've already done to me? Don't make me laugh." Luna smirked, taking the object out from under her arm and stepping closer to Noah. "What you don't realize, you monster, is that I'm not here alone. I brought a mutual friend with me."

"I don't smell Rey... I mean, other than leaking out of your whorish cunt... Shinn must love your polygamous nature..." Noah rocked backwards in his chains, smirking even through bloody lips at having at last gotten a good reaction out of her. Struck a nerve there. Her hand grabbed at his face, and he twisted his head as much as he could away, but she wasn't attacking him this time. She grabbed hold of his blindfold and tore it off, leaving him blinking a few times in the dim light. He glared up at her, but then she took a step back and revealed something she had hidden behind her back. "No..."

"Say hello to Achilles, Noah." Luna said sweetly. "He and I bumped into each other while Shinn was off kicking your butt." She giggled at the stricken expression on his face. "I'd always wanted my own snakeskin handbag, but I could never afford a real one. He's not quite a snake, but its close enough for me. I probably should have had an expert do the sewing, but I wanted to do it myself. Add that personal touch, you know how girls are." Luna displayed the T-rex skin bag, made from Achilles's stomach and torso, with his hind legs made into carrying handles, the tail elongated into a shoulder strap, and the head mounted on the front like a figurehead aboard a ship. Everying was stitched together with bright red yarn, the color of fresh blood, and there was a lot of stitches. Crudely done stitches, like a grade schooler would do. "I never realized how messy skinning an animal alive really was. I ended up cutting the skin a bit more than I wanted, but he kept trying to get away. It was very annoying. But I got it done in the end. Heh he."

"... You call me a monster? You psychopath! You sadistic, evil BITCH!" Noah shouted, hot tears of hurt rolling down his cheeks as he closed his eyes and turned his eyes away from the abomination of a personal accessory that Luna had turned his beautiful Achilles into. "How could you do that to an innocent animal? You are seriously fucked up in the head!"

"Yes I am. You did it to me." Luna replied savagly. "Why did I do it? How could I do it! I couldn't hurt you, not then. What was I supposed to do? Internalize it all? I've been doing that for weeks. Its killing me. Its driving me crazy! I had to let it out! I had to express my loathing for you and everything touched by you!"

"So are you going to be making a suitcase out of Meyrin next then! Because I've touched her far more significantly than I ever did Achilles!" Noah challenged, feeling bile rise into his throat whenver his eyes crossed over poor, desecrated Achilles. How utterly perverted, to have your body and skin turned into a bag, a purse, and a badly done, ugly purse at that! Lunamaria's evil knew no bounds... the sight was more painful than a hot poker shoved directly up his ass! And she'd skinned him ALIVE! ALIVE! It was the most disgusting, horrid thing he'd ever experienced.

"Achilles was a pet, and you loved him. Meyrin was your victim, and you never cared for her at all. That's the difference. But now that you bring it up, I do have something for you to pay you back for everything you've done to defile and debase my sister." Luna unclasped the clips on the top of the purse, the clips made from Achilles's foreclaws, and began rummaging around inside the converted body cavity. "Here it is... no wait... that's his liver. Ooopsies..." Luna giggled as she listened to Noah gag and retch. Music to her ears as far as she was concerned. She began withdrawing the components of the second stage of her punishment. First a roll of super sticky tape. Then a pair of heavy leather gloves to protect her hands. Then, one after another, finger length glass vials, all filled with various liquids. Pepper spray in one, sulpheric acid in another, lye and water in a third, a sample of her own urine in the fourth, and then the final one had a sampling of animal feces from around the hospital in Orb.

"Chemistry was always one of my favorite courses in school." Luna said, as she assembled her ingredients. "That and biology. But the chemistry is what is most germane right now. I always wanted to know what would happen if you got some of the more dangerous, filthy chemicals on your skin. I mean, yeah, its gonna be bad. But how bad? I couldn't ever experiment on anything to find out. Guess I have my chance now, huh?" Luna said cheerily, sticking all five vials to the tape side by side, and then sticking the whole kit to Noah's face. Right over his eyes. "You really do have a pretty face, you know that? Even I can admit that. But have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up in the morning, stare in the mirror, and scream in horror at your own hideousness? Of course you haven't, you were born achingly beautiful. I can't take your life. And I can't take your manhood without killing you. What I can take, is your pretty face. No girl will ever fall in love with your physical beauty again." Luna made sure the vials were secure, slipped on her gloves, and used one hand to hold Noah's head steady.

"She won't forgive you for this." Noah said softly.

"Don't you dare talk about her to me. Like you know her. You forced her! You bastard, you forced her and you raped her! You destroyed her innocence. You destroyed mine! You turned me into this... this wreck! I'll never forgive you! I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!" Luna shouted at the top of her lung, and drove her fist forward with all of her strength. Glass shattered... blood spurted... caustic and acidic and befouling fluids were ground deep into the glass cuts... ocular jelly pulped and sizzled in the mix of liquid pain... and Noah screamed, high and loud and continuously, his entire body spasming and jerking in the throes of his searing excruitiation. Luna held on tight to his hair with one hand and punched him again and again and again and again in a frenzy of anguished release, battering and grinding the glass across his whole face from eyebrows to chin, shattering teeth, smearing his nose, breaking his jaw and cheek bones, battering his entire face into a ruin of blood and hissing, lightly smoking fluids and smeared jelly, gory eye sockets now the same red as her hair, welling with liquid agony, the hated gold on purple orbs gone forever.

Luna collapsed backwards, her side burning, her strength spent. Noah hung limply in his chains, blood from his shredded hamburger that was his face drooling in thick ropes onto the floor, glittering glass shards sprinkled across his chest from where they had fallen along with pulped skin and muscle. Her punching hand was studded with glass and coated in filth and blood and less recognizable substances, the leather groaning and smoking slightly as the last traces of acids and bases chemically burnt the leather. At some point in time Noah's restraints had shocked him unconscious, the pain response from her mauling reaching their trigger threshold of neural activity. It wasn't enough. She hadn't even worked out a tenth of her hate. But she was out of time. Collecting herself, asping for breath through the stitches in her side, Luna forced herself to her feet, stuffing the tape and gloves back into her Achilles bag, and then staggering out of the cell block and banged on the door. A white faced and trembling Rey opened the door for her, and all but caught her as she fell out into the hall.

"Don't touch me!" Luna raged, shoving him away and using the wall to regain her feet. "Don't ever touch me again!"

"You need to go to the medics right now!" Rey said urgently. "You look like you're dead on your feet!"

"You should see the other guy." Luna retorted with a rictus grin that made Rey blanch. "He'll need a medic. But there's no rush. I'd like it if he could wake up before they have a chance to give him a painkiller. I wanna hear him scream again."

"Get out of here. You're a disgrace right now." Rey ordered, his pallor a sickly green pale. For a while there, it had felt like he was linked to Noah, that he could feel his pain inside his skull. He'd almost passed out, and had come back awake kneeling in his own vomit.

"I'll go." Luna said, weaving a bit drunkenly. "I need to go tell Meyrin so she never has to worry about seeing those damned eyes ever again. I can't wait to see the look on her face..."

xxxx

Author Note 2: Okay. Let the Luna hate flow. Let it all out. Cause thats over and done with now. Poor Achilles... being turned into a crudely stitched handbag? There is no dignity in that kind of death. Much less after being skinned alive. LordRevan, looking forward to your odes.


	80. The Casting Out part 7

Author Note: well, the reviews are more or less what I expected. Glad I could evoke your emotions, even if it is in a negative way in this particular case. That is what good writing is all about after all, getting the reader drawn in enough to care, to love and hate and feel right alongside the characters. Answering a few common observations: Orb's situation seems so grim and hopeless because they haven't been able to crack the encryption on the data Ashino gave them yet, so they have no idea that they are in posession of the same technology the USN has. Give Kira a few weeks to work on it, and there will be rays of sunshine again. Some of them anyway. They're still screwed on the food situation, there's no two ways about that. But at least with access to Red EDEN of their own, they have the resources they need to combat their problems. Someone asked if there would be peaceful chapters coming up. I can say there will be no more violent/action chapters, though I don't know if ED is going to end on quite the same uplifting high as CC did. The bad guys have fallen. The bad guys are victorious. Long live the bad guys.

For those wondering about how the common soldier who was there at the strip searching/cavity searching feels, well, think of it this way. Its kinda like getting drunk and doing some stupid stuff... its kinda awesome while its going on, but when you wake up in the morning you feel nothing but regret and embarrassment. Though you should bear in mind it was probably everyone that got cavity searched, including Kira and the other guys, probably with only slightly less precision. Oh yeah, there's a poll on my profile page too.

xxxx

**Agamemnon class carrier **_**Diomedes, **_**leaving Earth orbit, the day after Noah's capture**

Her first reaction upon waking up had been anger, as she was easily able to recollect what had happened immediately prior to her losing consciousness, namely that Noah had slipped into her mind with the same ease that he had penetrated her body not ten minutes earlier and turned her off like he was flipping a light switch. It wasn't the first time such a thing had happened to her, Kira Yamato had done something similar to her during the battle of Cape York, to prevent her from hacking his Gundam's OS. But this time pissed her off a lot more, because that had been during a battle, and an attack from an enemy. This time, Noah had caught her totally off guard and put her to sleep for no reason at all! Such thoughts lasted Meyrin all of about five seconds upon opening her blurry eyes, to find herself face to face with a tearfully joyous Luna, and Shinn standing somewhat awkwardly in the background.

And then she realized what had happened, and she wasn't sure if she wanted to scream in anger or cry with humble love! Noah's plan to help ensure no harm would come to her... he'd made her out to be his victim, had done his damndest to convince his captors... for she could feel he was still alive, if not exactly well... that he had been using Meyrin all along, just like he'd used Shinn. He had, in essence, taken all of the blame squarely upon himself! He had denied their love in order to prevent them from being used against each other, something they both knew Durandel would have no problem doing if he thought it would be effective. And it would be... Noah would never let harm come to her if he could avoid it, and she would never let them hurt him if she could do something, anything, to stop it! They were truly each other's greatest weakness, their love too pure and strong to withstand the amoral manipulations of their foes without compromising themselves. So Noah had sacrificed himself for her, and he had given her no choice in the matter. Perhaps she should have hated him for breaking his word and coercing her, but she couldn't find anything but love in her heart.

The reunion with Luna had been somewhat awkward. Of course she was overjoyed to see her older sister again, but a lot had happened since they became seperated, and the intervening time had not been kind to Luna. Her face was haggard and she'd lost a good bit of weight, her hair a bit stringy and unkempt, her eyes a bit bloodshot and unfocused. Her sister had the aspect of someone hanging onto sanity by the skin of her teeth. And as the story had poured forth from Luna, holding Meyrin in her arms like an overprotective mother, Meyrin realized that perhaps true sanity was something her sister had misplaced a while ago. Her version of events was... skewed at best. And whenever the topic turned to Noah, she practically spat venom and acid, her hatred for Meyrin's love so intense it was all Meyrin could do to keep herself from flinching. That or shaking Luna like a ragdoll. She did neither, she just sat there in the bed and let Luna talk, sensing that her sister needed this outlet, needed this reunion to be happy.

Luna's side injury, where the FRALA beam had almost cut her in half, was impossible to miss, but while Meyrin was glad to see her sister had survived such a wound... Luna really was tough... the physical injuries didn't seem to be the problem. Luna kept on coming back to how Noah had kidnapped, seduced, molested, etc Meyrin, repeating it like a mantra, as if she was trying to convince herself and everyone around her that Meyrin had just been an innocent victim the whole time. The words danced on the end of Meyrins tongue, the ones she knew Luna did not want to hear. Her admission of true love for Noah, the admission that there had never been any coercion. The admission that would make her, at least in the eyes of the USN, a villian, a terrorist and a mass murderer. The admission that would negate Noah's sacrifice upon her behalf. So she swallowed the words, and let Luna continue to try and consol her for indignities that had never occured, and even tried to cry a little to get into the act, as if she was so traumatized by her experiences that she could barely even crawl out of her shell.

And just when Meyrin could not bear the farce any longer, Luna had made profuse apologies, saying she had to go take care of some quick, pressing business, and then her elder sister had left, still teary eyed, constantly looking back over her shoulder at Meyrin, though with an expression of anticipation that frankly made Meyrin's blood run a bit cold. And then the door had closed behind Luna, and she was alone with Shinn, who had stayed back away from the reunited sisters during their crying session, looking deeply uncomfortable. Meyrin wiped her arm across her eyes, drying her actors tears at once, and turned her gaze squarely upon Shinn, skewering him with her inhuman silver pupils. She watched Shinn shiver and gulp, just a little, and could not help a slightly vindictive smile. This was partly his fault after all. She was just about to open her mouth to berate him for letting Luna wallow in her fantasies, when he held a finger cautiously to his lips and his eyes darted around the room.

Meyrin got the hint. She was under close observation, both video and auditory. Whatever Luna believed clearly wasn't the mainline opinion, but her sister must have called in some serious favors, pulled some hefty strings, and for the moment the official diagnosis was that she was a victim. However, a single misplaced sentence on her part could bring the whole illusion crashing down around her and Noah both. She beckoned Shinn over, and when he leaned down over her, she put her arms around him in a friendly embrace, noting again how stiff he went, and realized that Shinn was more than a little afraid of her. That both saddened and heartened her. On one hand, Shinn was her friend, sort of, and was obviously very important to Luna, so that made him important to Meyrin too. On the other, judging by the situation, Shinn had some things to answer for in her mind. "Why haven't you told her?" Meyrin breathed, the words going to Shinn's ear and no further.

"It would break her." Shinn replied shortly, just as quietly, his lips barely moving. "She needs you to be the Meyrin she remembers."

"That's impossible." Meyrin felt real tears well up this time. "Too much has happened... to both of us. She looks terrible."

"She's had a rough time of it." Shinn confirmed, eyes downcast. "She's hanging by a thread over a pit of madness and depression. You and I are the only ones that can pull her back to safety and stability."

"You want me to lie to her?" Meyrin asked softly.

"I want you to do what's best for the girl we both love so much." Shinn answered. "Whether that means lying or just letting her believe what she wants for the time being, I don't care. But I do want you to know, that sister or not, if you do anything to hurt Luna, I won't forgive you. And I have friends in high places these days. I'm watching you, Meyrin, and were it not for the fact that Luna needs you to be all right, I would already be condemning you to the people who want you condemned."

"You hate Noah, don't you?" Meyrin asked, changing the subject suddenly.

"I have reason to, don't I?" Shinn said, somewhat challengingly, pulling away from the embrace and turning to sit on the bedside next to her, still keeping his head close so the conversation could be private. "He's... destroyed my entire life."

"You seem to be doing well for someone who's life has been destroyed, Mr. I have friends in high places." Meyrin retorted coolly. "I am not condoning what Noah did to you. I find it personally reprehensible. But he did it in the name of his dream, and that dream is a beautiful, good thing. Can't you at least acknowledge that what happened may have been for the best in the long run?"

"No, I don't see it that way at all. I was kidnapped and brainwashed into trying to kill everyone I cared about, in the service of a cause I did not believe in, and personally find arrogant and insane. Noah's dream is my nightmare, and I feel sullied and demeaned by my part in bringing it to fruition. I will never forgive him for what he has done to me, to Luna and to the entire world. He was wrong, Meyrin... and anyone who supports him is wrong too. I just hope you can one day realize that. I might even believe you've recovered then."

"There is nothing to recover from. Unless you regard true love as an illness." Meyrin hissed in return.

"Anyone who could love someone like Noah Borander is sick, in my eyes. I just pray it isn't a terminal condition. For Luna's sake." Shinn replied with brutal honesty. He turned away from her. "So why don't I catch you up on what's happened to everyone since you were taken captive?" He said in a much louder voice, clearly done with the private conversation.

Not exactly spoiled for options, Meyrin let the conversation turn as Shinn willed it, though inside she was all but aflame at his parting remarks. She forced herself to be calm and controlled, for Noah's sake. Leaping to his defense now would only be a detriment to him, she had to maintain the illusion that she was a victim at all costs. No matter how much it seared her heart and soul to condemn him, even falsely. She had to do her best to seperate them from each other in the eyes and minds of those around her, so that they could have a chance at being together again in the future. Something she dearly wanted, as she surrepitiously touched her fingers to her belly and groin under the sheets. It wasn't anywhere near her fertile period of the month, so chances of pregnancy from the lovemaking was almost nil, but that was all the more reason to perserve, for the sake of her bright future together with Noah. They both had long lives ahead of them, and even if it meant decades of pain apart, Meyrin knew in her soul that they would be together again eventually.

Only minimally paying attention to Shinn's update on who had and had not survived the various battles since she'd joined the Brotherhood at Noah's side, the time passed quickly for Meyrin. Shinn was just wrapping up a summary of how Lain had apparently found himself a girlfriend of his own at last, and was busy getting to know her, in all senses of the word. Meyrin was surprised to hear only the grudging respect and mild disdain for a rival in Shinn's voice when he talked about Lain, rather than the burning distrust and simmering anger that had lurked there previously. Something was different about Shinn, certainly... she just couldn't quite figure it out right at the moment, though she was sure it would come to her eventually. But then it happened... her psychic link to Noah, their intimate bond of love, a method of communication and contact more basic and primal than any telepathy, a subconscious connection that kept them both updated on the feelings and general state of being of the other... went completely wild! One moment it had been calm as a pond on a windless day, Noah's mind turned in on itself in meditation or deep concentration.

The next instant the link was practically afire with emotions, strong ones that made her wince and start at their intensity, a rising flood of anger, disbelief, horror, a dash of fear, hatred and above all sadness that poured into her like a river of burning oil that splattered and clung all over the inside of her mind. Meyrin's heart rate suddenly doubled and her breathing quickened as well, her hands tightening on the sheets, slowly curling into fists as Noah's distress kept on intensifying, until she could all but taste the metallic tang of bile in her throat and on her tongue. And then came an explosion of pain, like a bomb blast, that sent the blood draining from her face and caused cold sweat to break upon her brow as she coughed and retched in reaction to the agony infesting every region of her thoughts. She was on the verge of screaming in pain when Noah seemed to realize what he was doing to her, either that or his own suffering grew to great for his conscious mind to endure, and the sensations cut off like flood gates had been dropped, leaving her gasping and sweating and trembling while trying not to vomit.

"Are you all right!" Shinn demanded in a concerned tone. "You look awful, like you've seen a ghost!" He trailed off for a moment and a considering look crossed his face. His cheeks flushed a little as he asked in a quieter, though still public volume. "Did he... get you pregnant? Is this morning sickness?"

"NO!" Meyrin snapped, all but shoving him away as she clamped down her jaw and forced her rebellious stomach fluids back down where they belong. "No..." She continued, shaking her head, her voice scratchy and raw. "He didn't get me pregnant." She trailed off and mustered her nerve. "He... he only r-ra-ra... r-raped me a few times..." She didn't have to fake the stammer, saying the vile word was almost impossible for her, especially in description of those golden memories she and Noah had given each other. "He never stopped me from... cleaning myself afterwards." She added in a trembling voice, almost exhausted by the effort of her deception in the wake of whatever distress Noah had accidentally shared with her. "I don't think he wanted the bother of a pregnant girl." She finished. She leaned forward, as if collapsing against Shinn for support. "You wouldn't understand... you don't have the capabilities..." She whispered, for Shinn only.

Shinn pulled away from her, clearly disturbed, and went to stand across the room again, giving them both some space. Meyrin was still dealing with the aftereffects of the psychic suffering she'd absorbed, her sweat still beading on her forehead and neck, the blood just beginning to return to her face, when Luna returned about ten minutes after Shinn had stepped away. Luna all but stumbled and fell crossing the threshold of the room, and were it not for the low gravity aboard the ship, Shinn never would have been able to catch her before she faceplanted into the floor. Meyrin winced, as she could see a stain of red on Luna's side over where her injury was, plainly Luna had overstressed herself. Her view of her sister and whatever she was carrying was mostly obscured by Shinn's body as he cradled Luna in his arms and whispered gently but urgently to her, so Meyrin was forced to rely upon her other senses to gather information for the time being.

And there was a lot of information to gather, the first thing being the overwhelming, at least to Meyrin, stench of mingled musks, feminine and masculine, that clung to Luna like a miasma. Meyrin wrinkled her nose and covered her mouth with one hand as she gagged, the scent of very recent sexual activity offensive to her nostrils. Not least because the person she could smell that had been having unprotected sex with Luna was very definitely not Shinn. The scent wasn't familiar to her, just sweat and sex fluids and a little bit of blood, but it was very distinctive, just as Shinn's smell was distinctive, and so was Luna's own. She'd be able to instantly recognize whoever her sister had been fucking the moment they got upwind of her. Meyrin was tempted to say something spiteful, to wonder out loud how Luna's fuckbuddy was doing, since Shinn clearly had no idea that Luna was a tramp, judging from his tender embrace and loving mumbles. What the hell had happened to her sister, the Luna she knew was not only a sexual prude, but the very definition of monogamous, she'd never had a single boyfriend before Shinn, and now she was seeing other men for sex on the side! In the end though she swallowed her remarks, remembering that it was by Luna's request that she was spared at all. That had to be worth some gratitude.

That sense of gratitude was sorely tested a moment later, as the object Luna had been clutching to her side at last fell out of her grip as she hugged and snuggled with Shinn, their mouths meeting in a very hungry kiss that might have almost seemed sweet to Meyrin if it weren't for what... or rather who... she knew her sister had just been doing. But she had no eyes for Luna and Shinn's PDA, and Meyrin was soon glad for the hand she'd placed over her mouth, because it helped contain the bile and watery vomit that escaped from her throat as she caught sight of what Luna had dropped. It was Achilles! Or, it had once been anyway, before someone had slit his throat and scraped all of his skin off and very crudely handstitched his skin into a purse! And Meyrin didn't exactly need a neon sign to tell her who had committed such an atrocity upon the cute, friendly and personable little dinosaur. She hadn't had as much time with Achilles as Noah had, but she had grown to love the precocious T-rex just as much as Noah had. No animal deserved what Luna had done, but Achilles especially had been completely harmless and defenseless!

Meyrin clapped both her hands to her face and throat as she sought to fight down the contents of her stomach once more, as all the happy times she'd spent cuddling with Achilles during those first weeks when she and Noah were dating, before the launch of the Great Endeavor and her ascenion to become an Edenite, came rushing back to her, and made the horror of his desecrated corpse all the worse. Why had Luna done this! Why would ANYONE do this! It was the act of a sadistic monster! It was no longer a doubt in Meyrin's mind... Luna was sick. Mentally sick. Something was very wrong with her sister, perhaps because of Noah, though Meyrin for some reason felt that there was more to it than that. For the first time in her life, Meyrin felt truly afraid of her older sister. Those psychopaths you read about in the news always started out killing animals, torturing them to death like Luna had done to Achilles. From there, it wasn't too big of a step to other people. If Luna had done this to Achilles in order to hurt Noah... what would she do to Meyrin if she learned that her little sister wasn't a victim after all, but a willing participant? What would her deranged sister do if she learned that Meyrin and Noah were in love?

Meyrin swallowed loudly at the very unpleasant images conjured up. Violent crimes were most often committed by those who were close to you after all, especially things like murder. Suddenly she had a new reason for keeping Luna thinking that she had been a victim, other than just to spare her sister's feelings. Who knew how Luna would react to having her fantasy world shattered? Meyrin didn't want to trust her life to her sister in that way, not right now, maybe not ever again. However, even with that thought uppermost in her mind, the things that spilled out of the body-cavity/interior of the Achilles-purse still almost caused Meyrin to fly across the room with the intention of tearing Luna's entire head fully off her shoulders, barehanded. In fact, the only thing that stopped her was the previously unnoticed leather and plastic restraint cuff fastened around her right ankle that kept her secured to a short leash that was attached to the bed frame, which was welded to the floor. Meyrin crashed to the deck on her face after trying to leap out of the bed, uncaring of the fact that she was only wearing a backless medical gown that was currently untied.

Being on the deck only brought her that much closer to the objects of her distress, and even as Luna and Shinn were scrambling up from their lovey-dovey embrace, Meyrin's tear filled eyes were oriented upon the incriminating items in question. The evidence of her sister's transgressions and crimes. Leather gloves, stinking of mingled feces, urine, and corrosive chemical compounds that were smeared across the knuckles, with small shards of glass punched into the leather from repeated impacts against a mostly unyielding surface. Leather gloves that weren't simply smeared, or dotted or streaked, but were almost completely SOAKED with blood. With Noah's blood, his warm, familiar scent perverted with overtones of pain and suffering. Meyrin was dimly aware that she had dislocated her ankle during her aborted flying leap, but she didn't care. She couldn't even feel it, not against the thermonuclear fireball of anguish and hatred welling up inside her. Now she knew why Noah had been so distressed. Now she knew what Luna had been doing, besides cheating on Shinn!

Meyrin clawed at the floor, trying to drag herself closer to Luna, so that she could scratch her sister's face into a bloody ruin, and maybe tear out her throat too! This was unforgivable! Meyrin's mouth worked soundlessly, accusations and curses spilling unsaid from her lips, as Luna and Shinn all but pounced on her. "She's having a fit! Just like your nightmares!" Luna shouted worriedly. "Keep her still so she can't hurt herself any worse than she already has!"

"I'm working on it!" Shinn grunted back, straddling Meyrin's back and trying to pin her flailing arms down, even as she bucked and contorted like a wild horse underneath him. She was unbelievably strong, and it was all he could do to keep her even marginally still, even with the advantage of leverage and weight. Sweat was soon pouring down his face as he fought to keep her restrained, even as Luna knelt carefully down by Meyrin's head and cupped her sister's face in her hands, making soothing noises like she would for Shinn when he woke with the symptoms of Noah's atrocities clawing at his mind. "I don't know how much longer I can hold her!" Shinn hissed, his muscles straining.

"Shh, Meyrin, shh... its okay... everything is okay now. You're safe. You don't have to worry about him anymore. He can't hurt you ever again. I promise. Your big sis is here, Meyrin, and I promise you, no one will ever hurt you again. Shhhhhh now... just calm down... everything is perfectly okay..." Luna said gently, stroking the back of Meyrin's head lightly, like a mother comforting a panicked child. The tension did not seem to be leaving Meyrin, but then again the degree of her sister's former psychic enslavement had been much worse than Shinn's, and far more violating, so Luna wasn't that surprised at the reaction. They'd probably be dealing with this sort of thing a lot in the weeks and months to come. It would be painful for them all, but it was better Meyrin get her terrors out rather than bottle them all up inside, which would only destroy her fragile mind.

At last Meyrin seemed to regain some sanity, and her struggles eased, her bucking and kicking stopping. Meyrin turned her head where it was lying in Luna's lap to look up at her sister, wetting her lips with the tip of her tongue, as words at last ground their way up through her constricted throat. "W-what... what did you do to him?" Meyrin asked, barely audible. Shinn went taut with sudden vigilance, but Luna just smiled with confident self satisfaction.

"I taped glass vials full of nasty substances over his face and then pounded his features into broken, bloody raw hamburger meat with my own two hands." Luna declared proudly. "His perfect, preening face is nothing but a hideous ruin now, and best of all, those monstrous eyes of his are gone, mashed into pulp, the sockets filled with corrosive acid and broken glass. You'll never have to worry about being hypnotized by those purple and gold abominations ever again. I just wish I could have done more, but the higher ups still want him alive. I wanted to geld him with hot irons, but they told me the chances were too high of accidentally killing him. I'm sorry Meyrin, I couldn't make him pay for his crimes against you nearly enough. Can you forgive me?" Luna asked with a cheerful smile.

"I cannot..." Meyrin said in a voice Luna had to strain to hear, as she watched a lilac purple seed with silver rootlings veining it drop through a soundless, boundless void, before striking against the invisible, impenetrable surface of her soul and shattering in a blaze of the most powerful, unutterable emotions she could never have named. "... EVER FORGIVE YOU!" Meyrin shrieked, ripping her arms out of Shinn's grasp like his grip was nothing more than thin tape. Meyrin's hands moved with blurring speed, and were already settling around Luna's throat before her sister even seemed aware of what was happening.

"Meyrin, wai... AGACKL...!" Luna's cautionary words were cut off as Meyrin's seemingly iron hard fingers dug into her neck and squeezed so hard Luna could feel the bruises forming on the bones of her neck vertebrae. "Aggh! Errghal! Megghahn!" Luna protested hoarsely, her hands grasping Meyrin's wrists, trying to dislodge the throttling grasp, but she might as well have been trying to remove steel clamps screwed around her neck, because she couldn't budge Meyrin even a bit. Shinn too was hauling against Meyrin's arms, but it was to no avail, Meyrin's Seed boosted strength was adamant and uncontrollable.

"MEYRIN!" Shinn shouted, right in her ear. "STOP! You're killing her!"

_Not fast enough..._ Meyrin replied, though only within the confines of her mind, her jaws locked tight with effort as she squeezed harder and harder and harder. She felt Luna's grip on her wrists loosen, and her sister's hands fell away to drape limply at her sides, her tongue protruding from her mouth, drool bubbling inside her mouth, her face flushed bright red with trapped blood, her eyes becoming even more bloodshot as the capillaries started to burst from the pressure, her blueish eyes crossing and starting to roll up and dull as Luna's brain started to shut down from lack of oxygen. _How dare you brag to my face about how you tortured and disfigured my Noah while he was helpless to fight back! How dare you call him a monster! How dare you call me crazy, you psychotic, maniacal bitch! Kill her? I'm putting her out of her misery! She's a rabid dog, and you'll thank me for this, eventually, Shinn..._

Meyrin felt Shinn's weight leave her back, his hands releasing her arms as she focused on strangling the last bits of life from her deranged elder sister. Meyrin could feel the cartilage in Luna's windpipe starting to crack and crush beneath her grip, the drool that was trickling from the corners of Luna's mouth now a pinkish color from the blood bubbling in the back of her mouth, and her sister's eyes were nothing ut bloodshot whites, small tears of crimson beading at the corners, while more blood was starting to drip from her nose. Luna's fingers twitched and trembled spastically, and the side of Meyrin's head, the side in Luna's lap, was suddenly hot and wet as Luna's bladder let go. Meyrin wrinkled her nose at the stench of ammonia, mingled with the semen that she could smell inside her sister's body from her illicit lover, but did not slacken her grip in the slightest. _She's not even faithful to you! I'm doing you a favor here, Shinn!_

Meyrin wasn't quite sure what happened next, but a thunderbolt of pain landed across the back of her head, and her limbs all went loose and tingly at once. She lost her grip, her hands falling away from the deep blue-purple-black bruise trenches they'd carved into Luna's neck. More hot liquid dripped down the back and sides of her head, and Meyrin smelled something new and familiar, overpowering the other scents. Her own blood. She tried to reach back to find her injury, but the world whirled and darkness crashed down upon her. The last thing she heard before unconsciousness claimed her was the raspy, hoarse, painful sound of Luna taking a breath.

Shinn stood, panting, over the still forms of the two sisters, both of his hands clenched around the nozzle and handle of the heavy duty steel fire extinguisher he'd grabbed and brained Meyrin with. He'd probably hit her harder than strictly necessary, there had been a very gruesome crunch of metal and bone at the moment of impact, and she was bleeding freely from the back of the head, but what was he supposed to do? Hold back and perhaps risk Luna being choked to death by her own psychotic sister? Bright red blood dripped from the bottom of the extinguisher, splatting onto Meyrin's bare back, but she didn't twitch. He could see she was still breathing, and for all that she'd just been clubbed in the back of the head with a twenty pound chunk of steel, she seemed in better condition than Luna was. Fortunately Luna was still breathing too, if shallowly and painfully. Shinn looked down at Meyrin and snarled, hefting the extinguisher in his hands, measuring her skull for another hit. No one would blame him, maybe not even Luna. He could say it was an accident, that he'd been so worried about saving Luna he hadn't been aware of what he was doing.

Shinn cast the extinguisher aside with a muttered curse. He couldn't do it. He couldn't murder someone in cold blood, even if they had tried to kill Luna right in front of him. _That was your last chance, Meyrin Hawke. Luna would still want us to protect you, she'll attribute this attempted murder to Noah's influence upon you. Too bad she doesn't know she's right... its just not the influence she thinks it is. So protect you I will. I'll protect both of you. By doing all in my power to make sure you never meet face to face ever again. I'm going to make sure they lock you up and throw away the key, Meyrin. Its for your own good. Because if you ever even look at Luna crosswise again, I will kill you, even if it causes Luna distress. Some risks are too great to ignore._ Shinn straightened and slammed his fist down on the emergency call button that would summon medical help. "She's gonna need a lot of help to undo that brainwashing." Shinn commented loudly, for the benefit of the secret recorders.

xxxx

**Orb, 3 weeks after Operation Downfall**

"This is the Solar News Network's continuing live coverage of the World Court's trial of the arch-terrorist Noah Borander, scion of the PLANTS mega-corporation BoranderCorp, and mastermind behind the ongoing nanologically fuelled Eden Disaster that has changed the world, and life, as we know it." The nattily dressed anchorman said blandly, his hands folded neutrally atop each other on his shiny desk. "Having reached a unianimous verdict of "guilty" on all six thousand five hundred and forty seven charges of crimes against nature and humanity just yesterday evening, the World Court will now render its judgement upon Mr. Borander. Viewer discretion is advised, as the following images could be distressing to those with small children or those who are easily upset." The scene changed from the newsroom to a courtroom, which was packed to capacity, a panel of nine judges at one end, and a small enclosure of armored plexiglass before them, in which a slight young man was seated, shackled down, clad in a straight-jacket, and with a heavy crown of brain monitors and tasers primed to take him down at the first hint of psychic trickery.

"Noah Borander, you have come before this court as the man responsible for the most dire and deadly disaster to befall the human race since the black plagues of the middle ages. Despite your undeniable guilt on charges of mass murder, illegal slavery, terrorism, use of weapons of mass destruction and other crimes too numerous to recount at this time, you had the effrontry to plead not guilty, and attempted during your arguements to justify yourself before this court and the eyes of the world. We, the judge panel of the World Court, do not find your antics amusing, nor your excuses relevant. You, Mr. Borander, are a disgusting human being. Pleas have been entered to the court asking for leniency in this case, citing an undeniable mental imbalance, asking for imprisonment and treatment in a mental hospital for life with no possibility of parole. How do you answer to such a sentence?" the most senior judge asked, his tone harsh and cold.

"I call it preposterous and insulting. I am not crazy. It is not my fault if humanity collectively lacks the wits to understand when someone has intervened on their behalf, for their own good. I decline to submit myself to that or any other judgement this so called world court hands down, as none of you could possibly have the correct intellect or understanding to judge me properly. This trial is a farce." Noah replied, staring hard at the judge, pinning him into his chair with the intensity of his golden pupiled stare. The thermal monitors attached to Noah's prison shaved head started to ping warnings, and a faint crackle of electricity could be seen dancing around the rim of his crown. Almost at once his brain activity calmed, before the shocks could be delivered. "I pity you all. None of you understand what is really going on here."

"The court notes that Noah Borander has refused to accept a possible verdict of insanity and deferment to a mental institution for treatment and confinement." The senior judge managed to gasp out at last, tearing his eyes away from the terrifying young man seated in the enclosure. "You give us no choice then, Mr. Borander. In light of the unprecedented nature of your crimes, and the practical problems associated with keeping someone of your unique abilities confined in any sort of cost effective manner, this court is handing down a verdict of guilty and unrepentant. The sentence is death. Due to your unique physiology, lethal injection and electric chair execution is impossible to efficiently administer, so you have been forced to resort to the traditional punishment for those who sin against humanity. You will hang by the neck until dead, Mr. Borander. The sentence is to be carried out immediately."

"You can't do that to me!" Noah protested vehemently, straining against his restraints, his eyes staring wildly. "Its completely inhumane!"

"Tell that to the billions of innocent men, women and children your nano-plagues have killed." The senior judge retorted without a hint of sympathy. "To use your own words, Mr. Borander, we are intervening on the behalf of humanity, for their own good. You are too dangerous to be allowed to live, despite our attempt at mercy. Humanity is better off without you, Noah Borander, and the greatest pity is that we could not have realized this much sooner, before you were allowed to run amok."

"I won't let you do this! I won't stand for thisaaaarg!" Noah shuddered and collapsed, his watchdog crown having tasered him when his mental activity grew too great. Taking advantage of his stunned and woozy state, the court guards, burly USN soldiers in full combat gear and riot armor, stomped forward in a huddle and manhandled his limp, twitching body out of the defendee's stand. They frog marched and dragged him across the courtroom, the view panning to follow them as they exited a side door and down a short, bare metal hallway, the first reminder that the courtroom and trial had taken place upon an entirely isolated warship, far removed from all other life and habitations, for security purposes. Noah was mostly recovered by the time they reached the end of the hallway, but he wasn't strong enough to do more than slow down the march as his guard detail continued to shove him forward into a boxy room with a shiny steel gallows set up in the middle.

"You can't do this!" Noah screamed, the sight of the gallows having clearly broken whatever willpower he had left. Tears streaked down his beautiful face, his expression twisted as he jerked and kicked, a large circle of dampness spreading out across the pale grey crotch of his prison jumpsuit. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please forgive me! No! Noooo! I didn't mean it! This isn't... this isn't what I wanted! This isn't what was supposed to happen! Help me! Help me! I'm being set up! This is all wrong! This all completely wrommpph!" Noah was cut off when a gag was put into his mouth and a black bag securely loosely over his head. A priest in the corner intoned a prayer for Noah's soul, as he was once more dragged forward, up and onto the gallows. He tried to sag out of the guards arms, but they lifted him up the stairs and held him upright as his arms and legs were securely bound to prevent him from trying to climb his rope. Brown stains appeared on the back of Noah's butt as he flopped around, he'd clearly crapped himself in terror.

The braided rope noose was placed around his neck and snugged up under his chin, and then the rope was pulled up to bring him up to a standing position. He trembled and shivered as the guards descended the gallows, and then with no further ceremony, the floor dropped out from underneath Noah, and he fell, to be jerked to a stop a foot or so later by the rope around his neck. The body whiplashed hard, but clearly not hard enough to break the neck, Noah's enhanced bone structure clearly working against him now, as he twisted and jerked and danced pathetically, wriggling like a worm on a hook. It went on for a long time, a sickeningly long time, long enough for several members of the judiciary and even some of the guards who were in attendance to noisly vomit, out of view of the camera. Finally, about four minutes after the first drop, Noah's twitches and trembles and jerks stopped and he swung silent and still. About a minute later, guards approached the gallows and took hold of his legs, before yanking downward with all the might of two men, causing Noah's neck to snap loudly, and ensuring that he was in fact dead. The scene segued back to the newsroom, where the anchor was looking a bit grey in the face.

Before he could speak, the volume on the TV screen cut out, with the green letters M U T E displayed on the bottom middle of the screen. There was a long moment of silence in the room, the men and women sitting or lying around in it consumed with their own thoughts for a time. "I wasn't expecting that." Alkire said at long last, with a heavy sigh. He was leaning against the far wall, across from the TV, his arms folded across his chest. "Wasn't expecting him to crack like that at the end. The guy practically begged Raine to shoot him in the back of the head when we captured him. Though I can hardly say how I'd have reacted, faced with gallow's dancing my last painful minutes away. Not a nice way to go."

"He wasn't a very nice man. Sometimes that catches up to you just before you die." Ramierez commented with a crooked smile that had no humor in it. He was sitting in one of the lounge chairs, leaning forward, the claw wounds in his back still tender, even though they were mostly healed over by now. "Looks like I owe Mel and the Sarge-Major fifty bucks though. I thought it was going to be a firing squad."

"After he used telekinesis during his public attack on Durandel?" Conrad commented with an arched eyebrow, the one over his nonpatched eye, his burned left forearm cradled in his lap, still wrapped in sterile bandages while the synth-flesh set. "Too great a risk he might catch a bullet in the wrong way, and make them have to shoot a couple of times. That would be kind of embarassing for the USN. With his immune system, lethal injection was right out, and to fry him with the electric chair you'd have to pretty much turn him into a smoking skeleton, and that would have been too grotesque to put on TV. Hanging or beheading was their only good option. And beheading has a bit too much blood for most TV stations. Even for an official broadcast. Plus, a hanging is slow, and makes him suffer a bit... and to all the people he's hurt or damaged, seeing him suffer can't be too bad. At least, not until they sleep on it and see it in their nightmares."

"Revenge always works out that way. It seems like such a great idea until you realize it doesn't make anything better." Cyprus said dourly, lying half reclined in another chair, the scar that stretched across his belly itching irritably. Truth be told he'd only half been paying attention to the news broadcast, most of his mind on the small video player in his hands, upon which the personal message that had been hidden for him on the Brotherhood data chip that had been gifted to Jean Kellson had been playing. Kira had only just that morning cracked open the encryption on the data chip, to find a treasure trove of information such that could not possibly be valued, all of the technology that went into the Retribution Gundam and a few others, technology enough to put Orb once more on at least equal footing with the USN as a whole. Plus a private message for Cyprus, from the "unknown benefactor" who'd left the chip in Jean's jacket pocket.

"So you gonna tell us what's on that message chip that makes it more interesting than the publicly televised execution of the most notorious and deadly terrorist to ever live?" Raine asked laconically, leaning against the wall within easy touching distance of Alkire, directing her comment towards Cyprus.

"Just a friend keeping in touch." Cyprus replied cryptically, closing the video player and folding it up into its carry form. "And, you could say, putting me on notice that I'd better watch myself."

"Who the hell has the balls to put YOU on notice?" Conrad asked, startled. "Who the hell is so scary that you'd even care, sir?"

"A good friend of mine. From back in the day." Cyprus answered with a shrug, pocketing the player. "A man who even I would not trifle with casually. The toughest man I know, bar none."

"Why the hell isn't he in the Stormhounds then?" Alkire asked. "Sounds like a good guy to have on your team."

"Yeah, someone should have told Durandel that. Might have saved him a lot of grief. And even more to come." Ramierez said with a snort, before rapidly shutting up under a glance from Cyprus. "S-So, is it true then?" Ramierez asked, somewhat hastily.

"Is what true?" Raine replied, still studying Cyprus, who might as well have been a statue under her scrutiny.

"Has the Sarge-Major actually asked Mel to marry him?" Ramierez clarified. There was a moment of silence.

"Dumbass." Raine said at last, shaking her head. "He did that a week ago. Are you just finding it out now? Some scout you are."

"I've been in a hospital..." Ramierez tried to protest.

"So has he. The same one actually." Conrad pointed out with a smirk. "Did she say yes?"

"No, she turned the big galute down cold." Alkire said witheringly. "Of course she fucking said yes! What the hell kinda question is that? People like us don't ask people to marry them on a whim!"

"That's funny, I can remember when we got "married" that it was kinda just for the hell of it..." Raine mused with a smile of her own. "While we're on the whole subject of matrimony though, I could swear a certain someone has something he owes me, now that we've finally got what looks to be a clear calander for the next few years while everyone rebuilds."

"Uhh... I don't recall any owing..." Alkire said cautiously, cringing as her eyes lasered into him. "But I'm sure I do! What do I owe? How can I pay it? Please don't hurt me..."

"You owe me two kids, remember? For blowing off your own leg with your shotgun." Raine said pointedly.

"KIDS! But... but..." Alkire stammered frantically. "But we have Katie!"

"Katie is in the process of having her own kids." Raine countered. "She got her positive results back last weekend. And don't you dare say anything about us being too old, we're not even forty yet, Robert. If Captain Ramius and Commander la Flaga can be trying for children, there is absolutely no reason we cannot."

"What is it with everyone getting pregnant all of a sudden?" Ramierez asked with a goofy grin at Alkire's mumbling distress. "First Lacus, then Cagalli a few weeks ago, now Katie, and I'm sure my man Dearka is going to get busy as soon as the tests on that ICD cure Noah gave Lacus come back. Its a regular Clyne Faction baby boom around here."

"I think the Eden Disaster put one hell of a scare in people. Certainly did me." Conrad said consideringly. "Its natural that they'd want to leave a legacy while they have the chance. And kids are supposed to be good for healing the soul and soothing the mind, or so I hear... and most of them can really use some help with that. I mean, Athrun almost died, and it it weren't for his thinking ahead, Cagalli and him never would have been able to have a baby. Yzak and Katie had a close call the same way. And Dearka will finally have the chance to do something he would have done years ago if he could have. Its not that strange at all."

"Yeah I guess I see your point. I bet the Sarge-Major and Mel will be getting busy too, once she's recovered anyway. One experience with getting crushed is probably more than enough for her." Ramierez allowed with a shrug. "That's gonna be one scary kid. Gotta wonder though, when you combine a giant and a midget, what do you get?"

"A child." Raine said witheringly. "Do I need to explain the biology of it to you as well?" She transferred her gaze to Cyprus slyly. "Though if I was going to call any child scary, I think the dubious honor would go to the progeny of a different, longer standing couple of our mutual acquiantance." It took the other Stormhounds a few moments to catch on, and then as one they all swiveled their heads to stare at Cyprus, who was staring back... just a hint uncomfortably, perhaps.

"Your intelligence is impeccable, Major Belaruse. Should I be concerned?" Cyprus said quietly.

"I am a woman. So is Wrenn. We talk." Raine shrugged. "Its not like its some big deal is it?"

"It's the LT... that makes it a HUGE DEAL." Ramierez said at once. "The Lt's gonna be a daddy... the world is upside down!"

"You're just upset because at this rate you'll never contribute to the gene pool in a significant manner." Kurtz noted with a grin. "Though from what I saw of that Brotherhood tech we got, maybe you don't need to. I could swear there was some stuff on cloning in there..."

"Please, Conrad, think of the others!" Ramierez replied dramatically. "Two sexy latino devils of my caliber cannot exist at the same time without the world exploding from the sheer magnificence."

"Yeah, having two Ramierez's around WOULD really suck." Alkire agreed.

"You're just jealous, Major Leadfoot."

"Major Leadfoot is it? Come here, I'll make sure you die of lead poisoning, after I stick this foot of mine so far up your ass you'll set off metal detectors with your head!"

xxxx

**Somewhere beneath Galileo LFB, 3 weeks after the end of Operation Downfall**

"You couldn't give me a clean death, could you? Not even for pretend?" Noah commented, as he listened to the dying moments of whatever unfortunate stand in that Durandel had dressed up as him. His ripped and tattered lips, still scarring over from the brutality Luna had inflicted upon him almost a month ago, twisted into a sneer as he listened to the double beg and plead and apologize and wet himself. "How demeaning. He completely snapped under the pressure. Is he really the best you could do?"

"He performed as he was meant to." Durandel replied, one eye always on the thermal monitor that was watchdogging Noah's brain patterns. Of course the system, which had been surgically bonded to Noah's skull as a permanent safety mechanism the week before, was entirely automated and would react to stun him into unconsciousness if he ever started using the parts of his brain that corresponded to his Newtype powers, but Durandel liked to keep an eye on it anyway. With Noah, it never hurt to be too sure. "The people needed someone to despise, not fear. Your pathetic final moments will surely be the butt of many a jest in the future. Of course you understand we could never let the real you into a courtroom, even without your psychic powers, you are simply too smart, you'd make fools of the judges and prosecutors. The USN needs a clear, decisive end to your terrorism."

"A clear, decisive end?" Noah snorted, turning his face towards Durandel. Of course he couldn't see him, his eyes were long gone, and his face almost entirely wrapped in sterile bandages, more for the comfort of Durandel's stomach than for any healing purposes. He couldn't use his mind to actively probe him, but he could tune up his sensitivity and "hear" the direction his thoughts were coming from, even if he couldn't make them out, Durandel was getting better at shielding his true thoughts. "What, you mean by running away from the Earth as it enters a period of super-evolution that will render it uninhabitable to regular Earthlings forever more? You call that clean?"

"You've really caused me a lot of problems." Durandel answered slowly. "But at the same time, your antics have gifted me with incredible opportunities I could never have achieved otherwise."

"I love you too, Gil." Noah said sarcastically. "So now what? You going to kill me in a more personal fashion?" Noah jerked his chin, just about the only part of his body that wasn't bound, shackled or otherwise constrained, at himself. "Tell you what, I'll hold real still and close my eyes, just to give you a handicap."

"I would never personally lay my hands upon you in violence, my young friend. I have subordinates for that sort of thing." Durandel sniffed in disdain.

"Yeah, and she's a real bitch too. I don't understand what Rey and Shinn see in her. She's diseased, mentally speaking. And if she keeps screwing multiple men without protection, she might pick up some physical symptoms as well. You should really vet the girls Rey sleeps with better, she's a tramp, and he doesn't have the experience to see that." Noah observed with another sneer.

"Funny you should presume to give him romantic advice, considering the only way you've ever gotten in a girls panties is by mind control." Durandel replied with a gentle smile. "You may be interested to know that your dear Meyrin is currently enjoying the hospitality of the newest FEAR science center. Quite where that is, I won't tell you. But she's very safe, locked up, where she will never be free again."

"Good riddance." Noah all but spat. He'd had a lot of time to inure himself to this charade by now. "I mean, I will miss her warm mouth and warmer cunt, but I don't think you'll give me much time for sexual diversion anyway. You're only hurting yourself by abusing her. But far be it from me to stop you."

"I'm glad you think that way. As you know, we will be sterilizing you, as part of your punishment. You will never contribute genes to the future of the human race you so prize. You are the last Borander, since you so adroitly killed all the others off during your takeover of BoranderCorp. Which I now also control. What you might not know is that Meyrin is going to be contributing to our research on the reproductive capabilities of your so called "Edenites", by donating her ova to the labs. All of them. She'll be forever barren. Doesn't that make you a bit sad?" Durandel tried to watch Noah's face for a reaction, but Noah really didn't have much of a face to watch anymore, an unexpected side effect of the mauling Lunamaria Hawke had inflicted.

_Do what you like, Gil. If need be I can clone new reproductive organs for us both, at that future date when we are reunited._ Noah thought privately. "Why should I be sad? I should have done it myself, earlier. Even under mind control, she was always whining about safe sex and using protection and not wanting to get pregnant. It was something of a turn on a times. Especially when she was crying. If she were medically barren, then there never would have been an issue." Noah replied verbally.

"You talk a very good game, Noah. But I'm still not convinced. But that's all right." Gil stood up to leave. "I'll be in touch. Should you ever decide to start paying humanity back for the damage you've done, just call, and I'm sure we can work something out. Maybe even a conjugal visit from a certain someone you don't care about? I've already won, Noah. I don't need to make this unpleasant for you, any more than necessary. As Ms. Clyne said in her oh so touching plea to the court, there is a lot of good you could contribute to the future of humanity, if we give you the chance. I am giving you that chance. Work for me, Noah. For her sake, if nothing else. Because one of these times, I will test the true nature of your relationship with Meyrin Hawke. I wonder if you would be so calm if... but that would be telling. Make yourself worth my while, and she'll never be bothered more than she is. Start costing me more than its worth, and one can never tell what sort of accidents she might suffer."

"Do what you like. Rape her to death if you want. I don't care about her. She was a toy, and I have discarded her. She means nothing to me." Noah replied tiredly.

"You seem to forget sometimes, my young friend... I know what its like to be truly in love with someone." Durandel said quietly from the doorway. "I know how far you would go to protect her. You may have fooled the Clyne Faction and the naive Lacus. But you'll never fool me. Goodbye for now, Noah. I'll be looking forward to hearing from you... say in a month? That should be enough time for you to dredge up something interesting for me."

xxxx


	81. The Casting Out part 8

Author Note: Well, its been a hell of a journey to this point in time, if not quite as long as it took for Chaotic Cosmos. Roughly a year and a half for ED, about half of what it took for CC, despite the fact that ED is 1/10th longer. I guess I had a lot more personal time, have learned to write faster in volume, and was just generally more motivated. Much of that motivation has come from my dedicated corps of reviewers, and this story could never have been completed, certainly not to the polished and epic extent it has, without you. Though I am speaking to anyone who has dropped a review on the story thus far, I'd like to particularly shout out Rihaku, Asmus, Skyfall 2.0, LordRevan, AtrumUnas, Brainless, Air-quiet-reader, Archangel 2385, Gatorfan (just bite the bullet and get an account dude so I can pm you), OrangeP47 and The Blizzard Alchemist. Your reviews have consistently been of the highest caliber, and it is from you lot that I most eagerly await to hear from after each chapter is posted. Oftentimes you see things in my writing that I could only wish I intended to put in there. I wish I was that cool. You guys rock, thank you so much.

This is the official last chapter of The Eden Disaster, taking place in the months to a little over a year after Operation Downfall, chronicling pretty much everyone in some way or another as they head away from ED and towards the eventual RW. I can't promise it will be totally upbeat, but it will be much more lighthearted and sweet than you've had in a while. Don't go anywhere after the end of Casting Out 8 though, while ED may have ended, there will be a special "OVA style" chapter that will be posted under the ED story that comes next. It's going to be called "Global Cooling", and that should be enough of a hint as to who its going to be about, as a sort of prequel/lead in to RW. So chap 81 ends ED, and chap 82 is technically the "start" of RW. So if you're not a regular reviewer, I encourage you to drop one now, because ideas are always welcome, and you never know... yours might be the one that ends up being really popular and an integral part of the story. I am especially looking for names for Gundams, such as the Orb Gundams, because I don't like the current scheme I have for them in RW, so please, inspire me.

Also, if you're going to drop a review, could I please ask you to do a few things? Its been a long time since I last made some requests, so bear with me. I'd like to know what your personal favorite moment in ED was? And your least favorite moment? Your favorite/least favorite character and Gundam/Mobile Suit? Was the story, overall, an improvement to Chaotic Cosmos? Oh yes, and this one is worth a big prize... I have names for each of the stories individually... Chaotic Cosmos, The Eden Disaster, The Reclamation War. What I don't have is a trilogy/series name. So he/she who can come up with the best name I like, you get to name my series. I might even take the top titles I like and put em in a poll, and let that decide. Who knows at this point. Enough of me, on to the conclusion and the beginning!

xxxx

**Tiamat secret base "Far Station" in the Asteroid Belt, 2 months after Operation Downfall**

Tamara played with the free floating strands of her upper back length black hair in a nervous habit she'd had for as long as she could remember and couldn't seem to kick. She twisted the ends around her fingers and let them slip through, twisted and slipped, twisted and slipped, as she let the negligible gravity of the asteroid base gently tug her towards the ground after each gargantuan leaping stride, covering a half dozen meters every time she put her foot down, even though she was barely moving at a walk. Finally reaching her destination, she reached out and grabbed a wall protrusion to halt her momentum and swung to a stop in front of a plain steel atmosphere door, like any of a hundred others on the medium sized asteroid base. Patting her hair uselessly into place, as it immediately went flying the moment her head moved, Tamara sighed and knocked once, just barely rapping her knuckles on the metal, before hitting the door control and stepping inside.

"Captain Tamara Logan reporting as requested, Commander." Tamara said smartly, the magnetic soles of her boots clinging to the floor now as she snapped her feet together and made a sharp military salute.

"I didn't request you, and stop doing that. You know I don't like it." The Commander replied with a hiss of breath as he continued his exercise routine in the middle of the office space, the furniture cleared to the sides of the walls for the meanwhile, as the Commander ducked, dodged, flipped, whirled and attacked through a self made training routine, wearing a heavily weighted and magnetized jumpsuit that made it like he was struggling against not just regular gravity, but roughly three times Earth normal gravity. The jumpsuit was open at the chest, and Tamara took a moment to get an admiring eyeful of the Commander's sweat slicked chest muscles, the most defined of any man she'd ever seen, just barely dusted with a few curls of cherry red hair.

"Its just a formality, don't get your shorts in a twist. You're the leader now." Tamara pointed out, crossing her arms across her chest and settling in to watch him practice. He was well worth watching, the commander was. There wasn't exactly a dearth of men aboard the station, but the commander was a whole different sort of man from the usual, and Tamara found she could not help but be attracted to him. Probably a dangerous thing, but she didn't know what she could do about it. So far she'd been too shy to make a move on him, and he was so utterly focused on his own training regimes and plans she doubted he even realized she was interested. For that matter, he still carried a burden of great pain around with him, and getting him to realize that having a relationship with someone else didn't necessarily mean betraying the person he carried a torch for was going to be a very uphill battle. "People want to show their respect for you, so they salute."

"They could better show their respect by not insisting on wasting my time with petty squabbles." Ashino grunted, sweeping one fist around in a half spinning backhand, his fist striking and then shattering a slab of faux wood of the same density and hardness as a four inch thick block of oak. Not losing momentum, he kicked upwards and shattered another board, and then entered a series of dodges and weaves, staying on his toes, using his legs and short stature to avoid the attacks of an imaginary series of opponents that were surrounding him, with only slightly inferior speed and reflexes. "I didn't ask to be leader. I don't want other people involved in this."

"You're the Gundam pilot, it kinda defaults to you. And we're all involved in this, whether you like it or not. You're not the only one that has been wronged by the corrupt people in charge of the USN right now. I'll admit, I currently don't have any personal reason to fight, other than that Gilbert Durandel is definitely a man worth killing in my eyes, but there are plenty here that have been wronged just as grievously as you. And more are arriving all the time. Thats one thing I wanted to talk to you about. We're starting to run out of room to house everyone, and supplies are getting really tight. And its only a matter of time before the USN slips an infiltrator in, and comes out to obliterate all these escaped malcontents. Much less what they would do if they found out about you."

"Are you all sure you want to place me over you?" Ashino asked, finishing his exercise with a three pronged attack, two fists and one kick, actually bending the metal fixtures that held his practice boards in place with the power of his strikes. "Damn it. I keep doing that. There must be something wrong with the metal. It breaks too easily."

"Might it be that you've become stronger, sir?" Tamara eyed him some more, appreciatively and a bit warily. Wasn't everyday you saw a man bend an inch thick steel bar with a punch after all. "And I for one wouldn't mind placing you "over" me any time you want to be." Tamara muttered to herself.

"Are you trying to flirt with me, Captain?" Ashino asked with a neutral expression on his face, as he began divesting himself of his training suit. "I'm sorry if that was meant to be a private assessement, but you practically shouted it in my ear."

"I keep forgetting that your senses sometimes even put Coordinators to shame, sir." Tamara admitted, flushing a bit pink. "Though you ARE very sexy, sir, if I may say so."

"Well, thank you for saying so." Ashino said, and Tamara could not tell if he was mocking her or being serious. "All right then. If I'm going to be the leader, then we're going to do things my way."

"That kind of goes without saying, sir."

"Call me Ashino. I despise the formality of "sir". We are comrades after all, united in the pursuit of a common goal. If not always friends, but definitely comrades." Ashino shrugged and rolled his arms in his sockets to ensure they were loose after the workout, now clad only in a skintight pair of workout shorts. He could feel Tamar's eyes devouring him, and he tried to ignore it, but it was hard. Tamara was an attractive woman after all, in a way more physically attractive than Jean, and she was plainly interested. And he would be lying to himself if he said he didn't feel a bit of a pull towards her as well. She was eager, hardworking, friendly and honorable, and close to him in age. But there was Jean to consider. How could he ever face her after being with another woman, for any reason? No, he couldn't betray Jean's memory. He might allow himself to flirt in a friendly fashion every now and again, keep his social skills in order, but he could not afford a personal liason.

"My first decision as official leader is this. You're now my second in command. You're going to be responsible for this base and everyone in it, so order things as you see fit. Except for matters of battle and combat planning, you have total authority. Organize the old hands and new blood and get them all working on training together. Demolish the old chain of command. We are not a military organization, we are a resistance group. Our closeness and camradarie is our greatest strength. Assign new leaders based on your own personal assessment of their honor, courage and commitment. Charisma and a willinginess to get dirty and bloody are more valuable traits to me than formal military training right now." Ashino directed, stretching to touch his toes, and no doubt giving Tamara the view of her lifetime in the process. Believe it or not, this was how he best flirted with people, and it was kind of fun to tease her.

"Oh, so you're giving me all the hard, boring logistical and administrative jobs huh? Thank you so much, si... Ashino." Tamara sneered. Or tried to, because it was a bit hard to speak with all the moisture leaving her mouth as she watched all the many, many muscles of Ashino's back and legs and butt flex and shift as he stretched in front of her. Not fair. Not fair at all. Men that good looking shouldn't be allowed. "You'd better not complain when I make you move all around the base so you can be closest to the newest troops as an inspiring presence."

"That's a very good idea." Ashino went from bending forward to touch his toes to bending over backward to touch his hands to the floor behind his heels, staring up at her from an inverted position. "My trust in you is already justified."

"Si..." Tamara swallowed hard and shook her head, closing her eyes to shut out the tasty view. "You're mean, Ashino."

"You like it and you know it." Ashino said with an upside down shrug. "Now don't dawdle, you have a lot to do, and now that I've finished my warmup, its time I started exercising for real. I have to stay in peak form. For inspirational purposes, amongst others." He waited for her to turn. "Oh and one more thing. Tiamat is dead. We are no longer associated with Blue Cosmos in any way, shape or form. Our prejudice is to be directed upon the morally corrupt, our hatred reserved for those that abuse their power and wrong the common citizenry of our beloved USN. We are not terrorists. Make sure everyone understands that, or refer them to me if they give you trouble. I'll straighten them out." Tamara shivered at the inherent threat in that last statement.

"Then what do we call ourselves, Ashino?" Tamara asked, keeping her eyes averted from his stretching now that she knew he was doing it just to mess with her. Still, it made her heart flutter a bit. He was flirting back! She had a chance!

"We are not terrorists." Ashino said again, as if thinking out loud. "We exist to punish the guilty, to bring justice where justice is corrupt. To be the vigilante that protects the people from their own government. We don't indulge in hot blooded vengeance... we mete out cold, hard, precise retribution. We are the Retributors."

xxxx

**Province of Orb, Villa Pacifica, 1 year after Operation Downfall**

"Its so good to see you again!" Cagalli all but tripped as she was coming down the stairs towards the main drive, and she was lucky Kira was waiting at the bottom of the the short stairway or else she probably would have skinned knees at the very least. He caught his exuberant sister and absorbed her momentum with a slight shift in his balance, before enveloping her in a tight hug, and actually twirling her around once. Just so he could see her legs go flying and the pleats of her light orange sundress likewise. It wasn't everyday you caught Cagalli wearing something besides shorts or pants, and Kira wondered if his truculent younger sister really appeciated how good she looked in a more feminine garment every now and again. Certainly the restrained hunger he saw in Athrun's eyes, where his friend was standing with more reservation at the top of the stairway by the door, indicated that Kira wasn't the only one who could tell the difference. He set her back down on her own feet again, marveling at how short she seemed, even though it was him that had grown another few centimeters taller.

"And you too, Cagalli." Lacus replied happily, taking her turn to enfold Cagalli in a hug, though Lacus had to be a bit more careful about it, since she was cradling Akira in the crook of her other arm, her ten month old son clinging fiercely to her side, though his luminous purple eyes, the same color as his father's, were sweeping around constantly, always on the lookout for the new and exciting. His gold pupils were just starting to come in, so for the moment he had starbursts in the depths of his eyes, which just made him seem all the cuter to most people. His head was dusted with fine silky hair, the rosy pink color of his mother's. They had been somewhat nonplussed at his coloration when it started coming in, and had even debated having it changed, but in the end they had decided to let Akira himself decide. With Green EDEN technology, they could switch his hair color at a future date if he found he hated having pink hair.

"He's so big! He can't be just ten months old!" Cagalli exclaimed, turning her attention to Akira, holding out her arms as Lacus tenderly handed him over to his Aunt. "Oof. You are so big, you precious little boy. You're gonna be a giant when you grow up, just like your dang father."

"Not my fault I was genetically engineered to be tall." Kira mumbled, heading up the stairs to say hello to Athrun, leaving the girls to fawn over his infant son, who seemed to be soaking in the attention like a sponge. Kira felt a twinge in the back of his skull and he looked over his shoulder to meet gazes with his son, who solemnly waved a hand in the "bye-bye" fashion. Kira smiled broadly and waved back, setting Akira's mind at ease. He wasn't going far. Akira always kept a tight watch on his father, as if he was afraid he would go away and not come back for some reason, despite the fact that Kira had practically become a live at home dad since Akira was born. Maybe it was just the subconscious memories of the time that Lacus and Kira had nearly died to the Eden poison.

"You both look great." Athrun said, extending his hand and then pulling Kira forward into another embrace, clapping him on the back. "You really should come by to visit more often you know." Athrun half admonished in a quieter tone. "Allister misses his aunt, uncle and cousin very much. He's always asking after you."

"Talking after only three months? We can barely get Akira to say two words together, out loud anyway." Kira replied, ommitting the fact that Akira was able to hold full conversations in the mental realm, and was already progressed into grade school, academically speaking. No need to rub other people's faces in it, despite how unbearably proud of his son he was.

"Well, more like phrases rather than sentences, but he's very definitely a prince. Very imperious." Athrun smiled fondly. "He takes after his mother in that way." He released Kira from the embrace and they stood side by side, Athrun keeping one hand on the decorative railing. He was still recovering from the near death experience he'd suffered during the Battle of Cape York, more than a year ago now, and his strength and energy still hadn't returned to the levels he had enjoyed before. He was far from infirm or weak, but he did find himself needing more rest, and able to work less. It was very frustrating to him. Outwardly he appeared fine, but he was on a slew of medications to keep his insides healthy, and he had to be very careful with his exposure to sunlight and radiation sources. His pallor was a bit off too, but only because his natural skin tanned faster and darker than the synth-flesh that covered sixty percent of his body.

By far the most obvious symptom of his ordeal was the silver-grey hair that streaked across his temples and dusted the rest of his blue-purple locks, so that in the sunlight his hair appeared to be gilded with silver. It was because of damage to the hair's themselves by the radiation, which had leeched away pigment before the natural time. Sometimes he dyed it, but most of the time he didn't care to hide it. Cagalli even said that it made him look prettier and more distinguished than ever before, lent him a bit more age and gravity, which was important in his duties as an Ambassador, where it was often a handicap being the youngest man in the room by several decades. Athrun lifted his face and let the breeze play across him, fluttering his bangs. He couldn't feel it as well as he'd used to be able to, but it was still refreshing and calming. "You can hardly tell Lacus is pregnant again. One unholy terror not enough for you?"

"Did you know birth control pills don't work on Ultimate Coordinators after their second puberty? I learned a bit too late about that factoid." Kira replied with a sigh. "Oh well, a younger sibling will not be amiss. Especially if Lacus gets a girl, like she's praying for."

"Cagalli didn't want anything to do with girls, she was overjoyed to get Allister." Athrun said, and then paused. He shook his head. "Poor Yzak. Twins, and both girls. Katie must have some sort of genetic predisposition towards it. He's going to go absolutely insane when they hit puberty."

"I hear Dearka and Miri are trying for another as well, a younger sibling for Roy." Kira commented, as Lacus and Cagalli came up the stairs, Akira now once more held in his mommy's arms. Kira found he could not help but smile so broadly is almost hurt. He had a family! He had a son! And another baby on the way! How could he possibly be this lucky? He was high on life in general.

"Well, they're all downstairs and on the back patio, so feel free to ask them about it. Except for Yzak, he's in the nursery with the kids. Who'd have thought Yzak would have such a weakness for kids? he volunteers for babysitting duty. I've never seen anything like it."

"He's probably just keeping his gimlet eyes on any possible future boyfriends for Jamie and Mina." Cagalli said with a smirk. "Allister is going to be devastating when he hits puberty. Its going to be awesome." Kira did have to agree that his sister was probably right. Inheriting his father's hair and general body style, and his mother's amber eyes, Allister was well set up to be a lady killer in his teenage years. Added to that was the fact that he was quite literally a prince and was also one of the brightest young coordinators Kira had ever seen, and Kira began to fear for the future female population of Orb. Though he personally thought he might die of laughter if Allister did end up trying to date one of the Joule twins. Yzak would pop a vein at the thought of one of his daughters being with ATHRUN's son. Ah, the bright future to come.

The sounds of laughter and light conversation greeted them as they entered the lower levels of the ocean side villa, coming out through one of several sitting rooms and onto the back patio and yard, which lead to a sparkling white beach and the blue breakers beyond. The day was warm, the sun was bright and the breeze was cool. A perfect day in Orb. Even the slight orange tinge to the sunlight from the Glasshouse field was barely noticable, especially if you were used to it. Lacus showed Akira off to the various friends and guests, before heading back inside along with Cagalli, Miri and Katie, probably to collect their own kids, or deposit Akira with his friends. Athrun and Kira took seats along the thigh high patio wall near Dearka and Mu, who were whispering back and forth covertly to each other.

Dearka was looking much better these days, now that his ICD had been cured, thanks to the reprogramming formula Noah had gifted to Lacus during his capture. No one was quite sure what to feel about that, it wasn't like even such a wonderful gift could undo the tragedies Noah had caused. But for Dearka at least, he was grateful, as the treatment had rescued him from the days of depression and angst, and now his relationship with Miri was everything it always should have been. Their official marriage was due to take place in another few months, an event they all planned to attend. It would be a nice excuse to travel up to the PLANTS and see how things were doing up in space.

Aeon City was now over halfway complete, with Aeon 1-7 already producing crops on a regular two month rotation, and Aeon 8 scheduled to begin agricultural production within the next few weeks. Aeon 9 and 10 were still a half year or so from being completed, as the worst of the food crunch was beginning to abate and workers and resources were being peeled off into other projects, such as the "Second Earth" line of Spherical Mass Population Habitats being constructed at Lagrange 2, in Lunar orbit. A new type of space colony, built with a large heat source, usually a large Fusion Pulse Reactor, in the center which provided light, heat and power, the colony buildings themselves were built on the inside of a sphere almost ten kilometers in diameter, and could each hold close to one hundred million people, if not quite comfortably, at least sustainably.

Another project that was gaining a lot of public acclaim and notice was the "Zaratan" Independently Stable Space Arcology, conceptualized and designed by none other than Marionne Elsman, Dearka's youngest sister, who had finished her degree in Artifical Environment Construction in the years prior to the Eden Disaster. The ISSA's could hold between two and three hundred thousand people, and were the first fully self sustaining space habitats that did not require a gravitational stability (Lagrange) point, and were in fact mobile. Most were spreading out through the inner solar system as primarily scientific and exploration type ventures, but there was one, called Ronin City, that had actually recently maneuvered through the Asteroid Belt, and was heading out towards the far reaches of the Solar System, taking large groups of humans where formerly only automated probes and the Glenn expedition had ever gone.

Orb had also begun construction of another orbital station to replace the long dead Heliopolis, but most of their efforts were spent in the expansion of their line of submarine cities, based off of Mare-Town Depths. By moving more and more of the population into the underwater towns, Orb freed up more land surface area for agriculture, and was well on its way to becoming self sufficent, by usage of land and a few hydroponic sea cities. It would be a welcome change for Orb, as currently they had to import a lot of their food, which was very expensive, and was keeping the economy depressed, a choking hand pressed down on their throat and keeping them quietly subjugated. And subjugated they were, even if only a small fraction of the population and government truly realized it.

The United Solar Nation had been completely reorganized, changing from a multinational non-governmental organization based off of the old United Nation, to a democratic nation all its own, with the former member-states being subsumed as provinces or territories of a greater whole. Of course it had all been done with a vote, but Orb had been... coached... on what exactly they could disagree with, and how much. With the spectre of starvation standing at their shoulder, and the iron fist of the USN military hovering overhead, they hadn't had much choice but to grin and bear it, as Gilbert Durandel was elected to the first of two possible six year terms as Solar President, the supreme leader of the human race. He hadn't enacted anything too outrageous yet, though there was an upcoming summit on military regulations that Athrun and Cagalli were fiercely dreading.

But that was in the future, and today the only concern was reuniting with friends and family and having a good time on a beautiful day. "So what are you two whispering about anyway?" Kira asked, looking at Dearka and Mu.

"Is that really Cyprus Finch sitting over there?" Mu asked in reply, not quite pointing across the patio, to a shaded section by a grove of bamboo, where a single lounge chair had been set up. A grey haired, grey eyed man with a lean, predatory aspect was carefully sprawled on the chair, clad in his full duty Stormhound uniform, weapons close at hand, his bale eyed hound battle mask sitting on the table next to a tall glass of ice water. And a giggling, kicking baby sitting on his lap, squealing with delight as he dangled a leafy branch plucked from the bamboo thicket over her head. As if sensing their attention, he looked up and over at them, a neutral expression on his face, even as he continued to twitch the bamboo shoot around while his daughter tried to swat at it, gurgling with happiness. "That's really creepy for some reason." Mu added.

"Violet is a cute kid." Athrun shrugged. "They all are at that age. I just hope she doesn't turn out TOO MUCH like her father, if you know what I mean. One Cyprus Finch is more than enough for the world."

"Hear, hear." Dearka agreed heartily. "Though she's gonna be quite a looker in a decade and a half. Born with silver grey hair, and one grey eye and one blue one? She'll have the guys lined up for blocks."

"Now that is creepy." Kira observed. "Hearing Dearka apply his womanizing instincts to predicting the future lives of babies."

"You make it sound so dirty! I'm just saying that..."

"Although..." Mu cut in. "Given who her father is, I don't know of all that many boys who have the constitution to hang around. Could you imagine having to meet her parents on the first date, and having Cyprus come to the door in that uniform? Probably with his mask on? The poor girl will be celibate until she's thirty."

"What about your son?" Dearka replied slyly. "Little Lewis Andrew la Flaga is sure to be a ladykiller, just like his pop. I can't see a la Flaga backing down from a scary father."

"I don't know. He's really, really shy." Mu shrugged. "Even for a four month old. Though he does seem to have his mom twisted around his fingers pretty good." He was going to say more, but all of their attention was grabbed by the girls coming back with the children, and a scowling Yzak, who had a silver haired, blue eyed bundle of energy contained in the crook of each arm. The twins weren't quite identical, but they were very close. Yzak was still limping just a little bit, hardly even noticable if you didn't know to look for it, from the bite wound he'd suffered from one of Noah's dragons during Operation Downfall. The picturesque, curvy form of Wrenn Nostaliviche stalked over to Cyprus and retrieved her giggling daughter, who had at last managed to catch the bamboo shoot, bringing her over to play and socialize with the rest of her peer group, such as children of that age could socialize anyway.

Though there was actually something of a hierarchy, or at least social grouping, already forming amongst the children of Orb and the Clyne Faction. Coordinators, as all of the children were, developed faster than Natural children of similar ages, at least in the intellectual department, after all. Allister Zala-Attha was already following in his parents footsteps, securing center stage, the one everyone seemed to want to play with, surrounded by the Joule twins, Roy Elsman, and Lewis la Flaga. Akira Yamato-Clyne was a bit shy and more reserved, bigger than the others, keeping his distance a bit, though there at al times existed a clear and close channel between him and Allister, and they would frequently exchange knowing glances, almost as if they were having some private conversation, even though Akira was the only psychic among the children, much to Katie and Yzak's puzzlement. Violet Finch, reserved now that she was seperated from her daddy, stayed at the fringes of the group, seemingly content to play by herself, though she too seemed to gravitate slightly to a more intellectual and rarified group with Akira and Allister.

After a few hours of conversation and play, the children headed indoors for a nap, leaving the adults to continue on with their discussions and reunions. Kira found himself drifting away from the group, the bustle and noise of the party starting to grate upon his keen senses after so much immersion. He slipped away unnoticed, or so he thought, until a pair of very familiar hands slipped around his waist from behind. He smiled, shaking his head as he realized there was no way he could possibly sneak away from Lacus. Nor any reason he should want to. Turning around to find her smiling at him, Kira impulsively picked her up and carried her away across the lawn, the pleasant sound of her laughter spurring him on as he headed towards the beach. At the margin of beach and lawn, he took a moment to slip off Lacus's shoes, and well as his own, and he set her down, enjoying the way the breeze ruffled her regrown hair, now almost to her waist, as they stepped out onto the warm evening sand barefoot together.

They didn't speak, they didn't even think at each other, as they walked down to where the sand was damp from the tide as it lapped against the shore, staring out at the sun as it inched towards the horizon, gradually turning a deeper orange-red as atmospheric effects bent the sunlight, even before it encountered the shimmery Glasshouse field. Kira stood behind Lacus and crossed his arms around her, his palms resting on her stomach, over where the bulge would form in a few months when Aoi, their daughter, grew more developed. Kira and Lacus could not say exactly how they knew the second baby would be a girl, though Kira did have to admit that Lacus smelled different than when she'd been pregnant with Akira. Ultimate Coordinators... Edenites... whatever you wanted to call them, used all of their senses at a deeper level than regular Earthlings. Smell, hearing, touch, taste, all of these presented entire worlds of new information to Kira and Lacus. It took a lot of getting used to. And if it was tough for them, how did it have to be for the rest of the Edenites, living out in the unfiltered environs of New Eden?

"We'll have to go out there." Lacus said at last, echoing what they had both been thinking. "We have to help them, in whatever way we can. Noah was right about one thing... as the forerunners, we have the responsibility to set the example for all the others."

"Hm." Kira mumbled, inhaling the lovely scent from the top of her head. "Not until after Aoi comes. I won't go through another Akira. It hurts too much."

"Only because he was so premature and so developed. My body wasn't ready for him." Lacus reminded him, fingers tracing the line on her belly where the incision had been made during the birth. A C section was the only way to get him out, her body was just too slim, attempting a regular birth would have broken her pelvis and hips and could have potentially caused a lot of serious problems for them both. "Aoi looks like she'll be a normal nine month pregnancy. There's nothing to worry about. But I agree, we should let the children get a bit settled before we do anything too adventurous."

"They're all so amazing." Kira shook his head in awe. "I never expected children to be so... awesome. Its a little scary actually. Both he and Allister are so... so capable already. I worry that they'll try to follow our path..."

"If Akira chooses to follow in your or my footsteps, and if Allister chooses to do the same for Cagalli and Athrun, then that is not something we should fight or bemoan, but rather take pride and joy in." Lacus answered gently. "Our children will choose their own lives, its up to us to give them to opportunity to do so."

"I just don't want them to have to suffer like we have." Kira whispered.

"Of course not." Lacus turned in his arms to face him, one hand going up to touch his cheek. "But as long as you and I are around, they don't have anything to fear on that account. What is it that married couples swear to each other? Till death do us part? Well, we both have a long time to go before we'll be doing any parting, though no matter when it comes, it will be too soon for me. I love you, Kira. Stay with me, forever?"

"I love you, Lacus. I will never let you go." Kira promised, his lips meeting hers, the sun setting in the background before they parted, a bit breathless, suddenly cold in the evening breeze.

"Oi! Kira! Lacus! Its dinnertime! Come watch Andrew burn some steaks!" Mu's slightly tipsy voice called from the direction of the Villa.

"I can hear you, la Flaga! Just for that, you get the one that dropped into the charcoal!"

"How is that different from any of the rest of them?"

xxxx

**Himelayan Mountains, near Mt. Everest, 1 year since Operation Downfall**

"I'll have you know, Kun-kun, that I am freezing my ass off. And my ass is a significant asset to me. Not only do I often sit upon it, quite comfortably I might add, but it serves as a visual motivation for an untold number of our less mature male followers. Our cause would be much worse off without my ass, I can assure you. So why must I subject it to the possibility of freezing off?" Lilia complained, her voice somewhat muffled by the heavy scarf wrapped around her lower face. A woolly headband kept her ears warm, leaving her navy blue hair to whip in the mountain winds. She was dressed in a cut down version of a cold weather forest camouflage uniform, even with the sleeves and trousers rolled up it was big and loose on her, though it did not seem to impede her as she tromped along the thin rocky trail behind her benefactor/father figure.

Truth be told it wasn't that cold, certainly not much below freezing, but the whipping winds made it much colder, and the sight of cie and snow garnishing the peaks all around did nothing to lend an appearance of warmth. Lilia looked longingly back down the way they'd come, an almost dizzying drop of close to a kilometer down into another mountain valley, much greener and more verdant than the one they were climbing into. Campfires and the blocky shapes of heavy off road transports could be seen, and the sound of portable generators popping and rattling as they produced heat and power for the encampment echoed off the peaks like a percussion drumbeat. It had been a long and hard road, starting in Hawaii and crossing a good portion of the known world, ever in pursuit of a "Whisper on the Wind" that Kunai and one or two others claimed to be able to hear. They were supposed to be close now, but Lilia didn't care. She would follow Kunai to the end of the world and beyond. He was that sort of man. A savior. A prophet. A leader par excellence.

Though he could stand to be a bit more verbose, physically and mentally. Lilia frowned at his back, his heavy brown poncho, plain of decoration or rank markings, flapped in the mountain winds, cracking like a whip. His hood was up, but then again he was bald, so the wind chill had to be pretty brutal on his skin. He moved with his usual plodding pace, one leg lifting high and slamming down with finality, like he was planting a peg into the ground, before the other leg lifted up and the process repeated. It was the most awesome display of human telekinetic strength anyone had ever seen. Telekinesis was not a common ability to begin with, and only a rare few could lift more than a few pounds. Lilia could do about fifteen herself, which put her among the very top echelons. But Kunai was lifting his entire body, all day, every day, forcing his paralyzed legs to bear up straight, and actually moving them! Not only that, but he could lift a good hundred pounds beyond that! It was simply crazy. And it was only a part of his legend.

Lilia could remember another event that had been fundamental in securing his reputation as a messiah of the Edenites. It had been early on in the trek, during the voyage from Hawaii, ever heading West, when their numbers were still in the low thousands of the hopeful and their protectors, enough to fit upon several large container ships. The voyage had been calm, food and water were plentiful, everything seemed to be going perfectly. But then an unexpected seamount had ripped the bottom practically off one of the ships. However, it wasn't until they'd brought the other ships around to begin rescue and salvage efforts that they realized that it was no sea mount that the ship had struck, but a living, breathing creature of colossal size, that had been sunning itself before being run down by the ship. A single swipe of a gargantuan fluke had cracked the keel of the ship and stove in the side along a fifty foot stretch of solid steel

A column of water twenty feet in diameter then hurled itself out of the ocean like a spear, punching through the side of another ship and out the other side like it was going through thin tissue paper. It was Kunai who had first realized that they were dealing with an intelligent lifeform, that they had run over the largest Chimera anyone had ever encountered, a whale of some sort that was easily six hundred feet from nose to tail, and apparently still growing! He was also the first to realize that this was no ordinary Chimera, that this... Leviathan... was something much, much more. Lilia did not know what Kunai and the monster had discussed, or how, all she remembered was tending to him as blood poured out of his tear ducts and ears as his brain cramped and haemorraghed from the stress of communicating directly with such a huge, powerful mind. In the end though, Leviathan had retreated to the depths without bothering them further, and Kunai had eventually recovered, with a new decree for everyone to follow. The oceans were Leviathan's territory, anyone crossing them had to pay her homage and respect, and provide for her denizens by dumping food and edible trash overboard, and not polluting the oceans.

It seemed a good deal, much in their favor, and Kunai's stock had risen hugely after that incident. However, Lilia knew Kunai himself was much less confident that he'd got the best of the conversation. He had, after all, basically ceeded control over 70 percent of New Eden's surface area to what was now being referred to as the Grand Chimera, and agreed to pay tolls and tribute whenever crossing the oceans, while also being responsible for keeping them clean. To him, Leviathan had come out far ahead on the bargain, with no commitments of her own, while Kunai and the Edenites had many jobs and expectations to fufill, with the threat of dire action hanging heavy over their heads should they falter in their duties. Leviathan's telekinetic abilities were to Kunai's what Kunai's were to a non-Edenite ants, she was the most powerful and deadly creature he felt he would ever encounter.

A gust of freezing wind almost blew her off the trail, and Lilia came back to the here and now, shaking her head in self admonition. She was supposed to be Kunai's bodyguard, and here she was daydreaming about past glories? _We're almost there. Just a bit further._ Kunai's familiar emotional presence in her thoughts informed her. _It's quite a view..._ Lilia realized that they'd reached the top of the trail, where it branched off into another mountain valley. She pulled herself over the lip, fighting against the wind the whole time, and then all but fell to her knees in awe at the vista revealed. The valley was lush and green, waterfalls of crystal clear water cascading from the sides of the granite peaks all around, supporting a thriving ecosystem that would have looked more at home in a temperate rainforest than it did at almost twenty thousand feet of altitude. But then again, with all the Green EDEN in the atmosphere, weather and the environment all over New Eden was screwy, temperatures rising everywhere, global warming in action over days what should have taken millenia.

Beyond just the jungle greenry, there were huge chunks of machinery or buildings in the distance, covered with moss and creepers, blocks of metal and plastics larger than skyscrapers, or so it seemed to Lilia, who had never seen such large artificial constructions before. It was plain to see that the blocks and scraps had once been part of a greater whole, something big enough to be a small island, before it fell and was shattered in some unimaginable conflict or disaster. _The Great Endeavor._ Kunai named it, and it sounded suitably grand and awesome to her. _The technological breadbasket of our new civilization. But its not why we're here. The Wind Whisperer is close. I can feel it. Can't you?_

_I feel very cold and small._ Lilia admitted, still awed at the wreckage of the Great Endeavor, and the lush mountain valley. _How did this come to be here? Didn't this place use to be a tundra? How could it change climates so quickly? The rest of the range doesn't look this good..._

_Listen... more carefully. With your whole entity._ Kunai directed, seeming to stretch, or perhaps he was breathing in deeply of some scent that had not yet reached Lilia's nose. _Breathe in the environment. Feel the atmosphere constrict as the threads of fate are pulled and tugged like the strings of marionettes. The past, the present and the future, all experienced as one. What a transcendental existence it must be._

_I didn't catch much of that, Kun-kun._ Lilia said with a sigh, putting her hands on her lips and looking around, trying to listen, but she was just too obtuse in her senses, because she didn't detect anything too out of the ordinary. Besides the whole place of course. Kunai just shook his head and took her hand in his mental grip gently, tugging her along behind him as he marched forward into the glens. The further into the valley they got, the more Lilia began to sense... something. A harmony to the life around her, like they were all being directed by some great hand in a plan she could not comprehend. It wouldn't be the first time they'd encountered plants with intelligence, or something approximating it, but this was of a different order altogether. This was like the gardening of a god.

And then they were through the thickets and entering a clearing, a meadow of whispering grass, with a buzzing sound in the background like a billion invisible bees sleeping. In the center of the clearing was the most magnificent tree Lilia had ever seen. It embodied everything one thought of when the word tree was said, its trunk wider than a mobile suit was tall, its coniferous pine needles dark emerald green on top and limey on bottom, each needle longer than her arm and wider than her palm. The bark was a lusterous red-brown, and the tree simply towered overhead, seeming to go up forever into the sky, and Lilia wondered how she'd missed seeing it from the rise earlier, it was clearly taller than anything else around by a significant margin. Its branches were gnarled and curled and seemed to shiver and flex even though there was no wind strong enough to shift them. _Now THAT is a fucking tree!_ Lilia gasped.

_That is no tree._ Kunai corrected her. _That is Yggdrasil. The Wind Whisperer. The second Grand Chimera. This is our promised land. It is our protector and benefactor and guide. Under its tutelage, the Edenites will come to realize their full potential._

_Uhm... Kun... it's a tree. Even if it is a Chimera, it's still a tree. What's it going to protect us from, besides wind and rain? I can't even sense a mind in it, not a conscious one anyway. It doesn't seem to have any power, not like Leviathan. Where the hell is that buzzing coming from anyway?_ Lilia said irritably, less than impressed. The tree was awesome, but she failed to see how Kunai could regard it with near religious awe.

_That buzzing is not coming from anywhere. Its coming from everywhere. It's... like the sparks you get when you cross two electric fields. Its a symptom of a greater phenomenom._ Kunai stepped forward, one firmly planted leg at a time. _How old would you say Yggdrasil is, Lilia?_

_I haven't the slightest idea how trees age._ Lilia pouted. Kunai slipped back his hood and shot her an admonishing glance. Chastised, she chewed her lip for a few moments. _Its so big, it has to be decades or centuries old. But that's impossible. No plant life grew here, even only a year ago._

_The past... the present... the future. All experienced at once._ Kunai said with a smile.

_Kun, you're being very damned mystical! I don't know what you're talking about!_

_I'm not sure I understand it myself. I'm only repeating what Yggdrasil itself has told me. Suffice it to say that Latents have more power than we've dreamed of. And Yggdrasil is the most powerful Latent being to ever live. What power does it have? It can see the future. Or at least, predict it. It knew I would come. It knew you would be sceptical. Its mind functions on a level that is alien to us. Its less a mind, and more a biological super computer. If we Edenites are data chips, then Yggdrasil is the entire internet._

_Okay, that's cool, but you still haven't explained how it got so big so fast._ Lilia stared up at the tree. Was it just her, or was it just a bit taller than it had been a moment ago?

_Yggdrasil can change the way it experiences time. You could say that this is the future Yggdrasil._

_IT CAN TRAVEL IN TIME!_ Lilia was aghast.

_Not like you're thinking. It can just... fool its own body into thinking time is passing faster than it is. Or rather, it can make it so time IS passing faster for it than it is elsewhere. The side effects being that annoying buzzing. Physics and the space-time formulae don't apprecate being trifled with._

_LATENTS CAN CONTROL TIME!_ Lilia was not reassured by Kunai's continuing explanation.

_Stop shouting please. Not time, but they can affect probability. We all know Latents are luckier than they should be. They have keener senses, they can see and hear and smell further and better than we Actives. Its a uniform effect, so its not just a random thing, all Latents exhibit these characteristics. Some of them, such as your Idol, Kira Yamato, can even control their luck in times of great need, allowing them to avoid attacks or pull off stunts that should be impossible, such as firing down the barrel of an enemy cannon while it is shooting. Time could be said to slow down for them, when they really need it to, allowing them to act faster than is normally physically possible. A sufficently powerful Latent could probably induce a continuous state of that sort of improbability, where the laws of the physical universe are... bent... but instead of slowing down time, its speeding it up. Of course its never a conscious decision, if they tried to actively control it, they would fail. But if your consciousness was entirely subconscious, as Yggdrasil is..._

"Lets get the hell out of here, Kun!" Lilia spoke through a dry mouth, staring at the tree with newfound respect and not a little fear. That kind of power, consciously controlled or not, was not something she wanted to be messing around with! What if it started aging them too? What if it already was? She didn't want to grow old so fast!

"There's nothing to worry about. Yggdrasil is concerned for all of us. It desires harmony of all living things. It would never hurt anyone, unless it was for the greater good of all." Kunai stepped closer to the Grand Chimera, running his fingers lightly along the diamond hard bark. "Besides, its roots structure pervades the entire valley, and it is symbiotically connected to every living plant in this valley. If Yggdrasil intended us harm, we would be helpless against it." Kunai turned and held out his hand towards his pupil and ward. Just as he did so, a fruit fell from one of the upper boughs and landed neatly in the palm of his hand. Kunai looked down at his hand, startled. "Okay... that was kind of creepy. Yggdrasil knew I would turn and..." Kunai shook his head and studied the fruit. It was vaguely apple like, with a dark green, tough skin, that was veined with silver. Kunai started to raise it towards his mouth.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, KUN! THROW THAT AWAY THIS INSTANT!" Lilia shouted. There were plants on New Eden that weren't poisonous to eat, but most of them took proper preparation first, you couldn't just eat fruit off the vine unless you wanted to be puking your guts out for the rest of the day. That's if you were lucky... there were some species of tree that actually reproduced by getting animals to swallow their seeds, then the seeds took root inside the host and ate them from the inside out, self generating compost before proceeding to grow up once the host had died and collapsed.

"This was meant to be." Kunai told her placatingly, a serene expression on his face. He took a huge bite out of the apple-thing, which was ripe and juicy, with a pale green interior, crisp and tasty, a bit like a pear mixed with a watermelon and a hint of citrus. Kunai closed his eyes as he chewed and swallowed, trickles of dark green juice staining his chin. All at once he fell to his hands and knees, his back arching as he convulsed in seeming agony. Lilia yelled incoherently and charged forward to come to his aid, though there wasn't much she could do for someone who had ingested poison. Even as she got close though, he was climbing back to his feet, his face a bit pale, a bit unsteady in his balance, but seemingly not too worse for the wear. "I can see it." Kunai mumbled. "I understand now. I see what you mean, Yggdrasil. I know what to do. Thank you for showing me what is to be." He turned to face Lilia and smiled, bringing her up short, though she could not say why exactly.

"Kun...?" Lilia asked tenatively

Kunai's smile grew broader. "Call the others, my dear. I have a revelation to communicate. Our future begins now, here, in the shade of Yggdrasil. The World Tree, of our world. Of our... New Eden..."

xxxx

Finis

xxxx


	82. OVA: Global Cooling

Author Note: Well, I've been loving the reviews and accolades for the last chapter, thank you guys so much, you really make it worthwhile, especially hearing in depth from people who haven't reviewed in a long time, or ever before. I've updated the reference page, Chapter 70, with a bunch of new stuff, including warships and filled in stats for almost all of the Reclamation War Mobile Suits and Gundams for the various factions, barring only the most super secret ones. So be sure to check it out. Shortly after finishing this Special "OVA" chapter, I'll be posting the disclaimer/author intro to RW, then a page of technology and organizations/characters, and then a second page of Mobile Suits/vehicles, because the reference page is getting ridiculously long, so I'm going to break it up. Thus, chapter 4 of RW will be the official first chapter, the recap and introduction, that kicks things off in a story the twists and turns of which will leave many of you on your figurative knees. If all goes well, you should be reading that by this saturday or sunday. Oh yeah... I've been thinking, I should petition for a new length category. only goes up to 100k+. Maybe its the hubris speaking, but I want there to be an "epic" category, 750,000+ words only. That would really narrow things down in most categories. And I changed the summaries of ED and CC, came up with a tenative series title, "The Golden Age".

Looks like Archon's are the least popular Mobile Suit, not for their capabilities or design, but because of who pilots them and what they represent, aka Durandel's private army. The Seraph looks to be the most popular Gundam, which I find amusing, giving how many reviews way back when, at the beginning, were complaining it was underpowered. Orb Gundam names are still subject to change, though I do kinda like the ones I have. I chose Executioner for Yzak/Katie because what is an executioner? An instrument of deadly justice, who wields a mighty, beheading blade. A terrible, frightening foe, and never one you want to get close to. Executioner's can be good guys, they are the ones who mete out the ultimate sanctions to the guilty.

This chapter takes place well after ED ends, but still a relatively significant time before RW starts. As the title (and all such titles you may encounter in the future, which make such obvious hints) suggests, we will be returning to a place and a person we have not seen in person for a long time, but who has been sorely missed and greatly anticipated. This is the overture of his story. This is the Beginning of the End of All. And just a word of warning... this is rated Mature. ED, even Blue EDEN, I would still call Teen. Just so you know. But enough hype, right? I'll let you know now that I am going to be doing my damndest to outdo the atmosphere of the popular dogs/Chimera vs Mike Platoon chapter, so please, tell me how it matches up. Now... peer into the abyss with me... and just hope its not peering back right now.

xxxx

**Andes Mountains, former South America, ruins of secret Blue Cosmos Military Headquarters JIHAD, C.E. 84, Morning of June 7**

The covert dropship screamed down out of orbit, a falling star in the dawn light, leaving the faintest of white contrails behind itself as swing wings deployed, changing the aerodynamic characteristics of the craft from atmospheric entry mode to glide mode, every attempt made to make the landing consume as little of the craft's precious fuel supplies as possible, to conserve for the return trip. Only a few years ago such a small craft, with much of the interior space given over to personnel storage or anti-detection equipment, would never have been able to break into orbit by itself, but improved propulsion technologies were just one of many windfalls of the technological bonanza that had come after the massive upheaval of the Eden Disaster. The hull pinged and popped as it bled heat, the surface gradually cooling from a cherry red with orange edges to the dull, matte black long favored in stealthy vehicles.

As soon as the outer hull was cool enough, there came a faint clunk and hiss as particle dispensors cracked open and began billowing their magnetically charged contents across the craft's hull, at first hazing the outlines, then blurring the craft as a whole, before finally occluding it entirely from view, invisible to all but the most advanced sensor systems. The single use Mirage Colloid canisters didn't require any power, and only lasted for a few minutes, but those minutes were when the unpowered, almost totally unarmed shuttle was at its most vulnerable, and the passengers were glad of any scrap of protection they could glean. This operation was completely off the books, if anything went wrong they would be abandoned and forgotten about in a moment. The Green Zones, those being all of Earth except for Orb, were still strictly forbidden to enter, quarantined off from the rest of humanity for their own good.

Of course this particular craft had less to worry about than the usual law breakers or smugglers, because while its mission was off the books, it was still officially sanctioned, at the highest levels, and so the usual cordon of high orbit patrol craft, belonging the the gargantuan new Solar Protection Fleet, was on maneuvers elsewhere during the other most vulnerable part of its descent, the atmospheric interface, when the course was all but locked in with no room to maneuver without catastrophic results. The dropship, just shy of ten meters long and a little over half that wide, a stubby, faceted chisel shape, banked and turned, using its wings and curving course to bleed almost all of its former blazing speed as it circled in on the designated landing zone. It dipped below the level of the peaks, their formerly snow clad sides now slick and green with flourishing vegatation of all sorts never before seen on Earth.

Waterfalls poured down the rocky cliffs, the thundering sound of tens of thousands of gallons of falling water drowning out any mechanical sounds the dropship might have made. Its temporary colloid cloak began fragmented and fizzling away, just as the ventral mounted retro boosters, again, single shot and seperate from the rest of the dropships systems, fired cones of blue-white flame, bringing the dropships airspeed to almost zero as it touched down with barely a single clot of dirt kicked up. There was a pregnant pause, broken only by the twitter of birds in the distance, and then the clamshell doors on the back of the dropship cracked open with a whoosh of depressurizing gas and a ramp clicked out. Next came a squeal of metal tracks on metal decking, and a hunched form came screeching out of the dropship, its treads kicking up sparks as the traction attachments tried to dig into the armored ramp.

It looked kind of like a tank or APC, but was scaled down to be only two meters from end to end, and about half a meter wide and tall. It had a pair of turrets, one mounted low and nearly flush with the top of the hull in front, and a second further back, mounted so it could shoot over the front turret. Flickering blue-orange pilot lights snapped to life in the front turret, a double barreled flamethrower, while the quintuple barrels of the aft turret, a 25mm gatling cannon, spun and clacked as ammo was fed into the receivers. Called a Armored Unit, Telepresence Observer or AUTO, they were privately made for police forces and other special concerns as remote operated vehicles for breaching potentially hostile environments. They were a bit expensive for the regular military, who tended to use infantry for the same job. A second AUTO purred down the ramp, the controllers safely jacked into their armored scout vehicles via telepresence rigs inside the belly of the dropship. The AUTO's peeled away in seperate directions, batteries of sensors sweeping the area, turrets panning for any sign of threats.

After several minutes of aggresively chewing the grass and bushes around the landing area into pulpy green mush, and finding nothing of especial interest or threat, the AUTO's circled back around to flanking positions near the ramp, as a further hiss of equalizing pressure sounded from inside the dropship, as an airlock opened and the rest of the covert team deployed, their rubberized, armored boots squeaking on the ramp, their movements a bit slow and awkward because of the constricting weight of heavily armored fully self sustaining environment suits they each wore, as protection from the hostile, poisonous environment. It was hot and clear out, and they began to sweat almost at once in the ninety degree, high humidity air, despite internal cooling systems turned up to maximum. Most of the suits had forest camouflage patterns on their surfaces, but four, who moved even less surely than the rest, were a neutral grey-blue color.

One of the grey-blue figures held up a sleek piece of handheld gear, peering at the rather small display screen through not only a pair of glasses, but the thick armored glass of his helmet viewport, squinting to make out the readings. "Atmospheric pressure reads higher than normal for this altitude. Humidity is higher as well. Outside temperature is abnormal for the southern hemisphere at this time of year. Environmental abnormalities as expected for a Green Zone." The scientist hooked his analyzer back onto its belt loop, and looked around at the steamy tropical jungle surrounding them. "Hard to believe we're almost three miles above sea level here. How the hell can this stuff grow here?"

"I'm sure Oktar can give you an earful on that, until your ears are bleeding." Another of the blue-grey suited figures said, the sneer of disdain evident in his voice. "Oh, what the "esteemed" Dr. Magnus would give to be in our shoes, actually down on Earth for the first time in almost seven years. I hope he chokes on his envy."

"Yes, we all know you and Dr. Magnus don't see eye to eye, Dr. Brandt. You much prefer the more... vulgar technologicals... of Dr. Roanoke. We know this. You gave us quite the fanboy lecture on the way down. If your lips were pressed any closer to Sammual's ass, you'd be eating his balls from behind." A third blue-grey suited scientist observed with a hint of malice.

"Brandt. Muresamo. Yakoslka." The fourth and final scientist said, her voice filled with weary dignity. "Give it a rest, would you? I have a report to make to the Director, and she'll be taking it the Solar President himself, do you really want your childish bickering in my transcripts? You sound like a group of high school delinquents arguing over who the popular girls are at school. We have a job to do here, each of us." She turned to regard one of the camouflage suited men. "Colonel Singh, are your soldiers ready? I want this to be quick and clean and precise."

"Don't have to worry about us, Dr. Bellus, Ma'am." Singh looked over his shoulder at her, shapely even in the bulky environmental suit, proof that not all female scientists were repulsive bookworms. "We have this area locked down tight. Just stick close to us, and we'll make sure nothing bothers you. Or regrets it if it tries." Singh patted the stock of the combination automatic rifle and grenade launcher he carried strapped to his torso.

"I feel safer already." Dr. Bellus said, disgusing the contempt in her voice as she rolled her eyes. Military knuckledraggers... such a bore. The simpleton had been all but drooling over her from the moment they'd met. Of course her "colleagues" from Fenris Enhanced Armament Researchers, Drs. Brandt, Muresamo and Yakoslka, had been doing the same, despite the fact that both Brandt and Muresamo were married with children, and Yakoslka recently divorced. Men were such a disease. Various other organisms had mastered the evolutionary trick of immaculate birth, where a female's eggs self fertilized themselves, rendering males obsolete, and Dr. Bellus could not wait until the human race found a technological means to do the same. "Muresamo, you stay with the dropship and take your environmental samples for Dr. Magnus. We'll be back shortly. Brandt, Yakoslka, you're with me. Keep that tranq rifle handy, Brandt, after your last jaunt into the initial Green Zones, you're supposed to be the expert here."

"Since a mountain jungle is so much like a dead city..." Brandt mumbled darkly, clutching the bare frame of the tranq rifle to his chest, his fingers clumsy in the heavy gloves as he made sure the rack of chemically laden darts was loaded, and the underslung 500kv taser was primed and ready to launch at a brush of the secondary trigger.

"At least you got a weapon." Yakoslka retorted, also quietly so as not to attract the wrath of Dr. Bellus, who was well known to be a favorite of the Director. Perhaps even a lover, but no one would say that sort of thing out loud. "I'm stuck playing cameraman in the most hostile environment known to god or man."

"Don't fall behind." Dr. Bellus called to her two subordinates, as she and the ten men of Colonel Singh's detachment began heading off into the bushes, led by the AUTO's, leaving two men and Dr. Muresamo behind with the dropship. "You won't last more than an hour out here alone." She reminded them, causing them to pant and hustle to catch up with her, safer in the midst of the soldiers. Nowhere on the perverted monstrosity Earth had become was truly safe anymore. Not for humans anway. Smirking at their haste, Dr. Bellus hefted her own piece of specialty equipment, a new prototype from the labs of the Director herself. Reaching down to a specially cooled, sealed series of pouches running along her thigh and hip, Bellus cracked open one pouch in a cough of icy vapor, rapidly withdrawing a glass tube with a thin cut of pale grey organic matter suspended inside, she fed the tube into the receptacle on the side of her sensor and waited for the scan pulse to fire and the data to appear on the screen.

"What does it say?" Brandt said, somewhat nervously, not able to see the screen of the sensor.

"Minimal psychic activity, background only, from the vegetation. No overt reactions to the pulse, on any bandwidth. This area is curiously dead." Bellus replied, absently popping the spent cylinder, with the freshly crisped cerebral matter inside, out of the sensor and discarding it into the underbrush. By taking slices from the living brains of Active Newtypes, and then subjucting the flash frozen and still faintly living matter to a very high electric current, the Director had discovered that a psychic "scream pulse" could be emitted, like a sonar pulse, which would agitate and reflect in measurable ways from any other Newtypes within a wide radius, allowing it to function as a sort of detector for Newtypes, something invaluable to any normal human spending any time on Earth. They were still refining the technology, right now each pulse required a new slice of brain, and those weren't cheap, considering they had a limited number of "waste" Newtypes to utilize.

Every hundred meters or so, Bellus would crack open another cyro-pouch and send out another scream pulse, but every time they came back empty, with zero Active or Latent hits, though Latent hits were harder to discern, and could only be spotted as dead spots against a high background activity. Bellus was nonplussed, the valley appeared to be thriving, even compared to the rest of Earth, and she could hear birds or bird analoges in the distance. Surely there must be some animal life here? She was rather looking forward to bagging some new research specimens for the Director's lab's, Dr. Magnus tended to hog all the biological samples, as was his due, considering his area of expertise, but the Director had mentioned in passing that she wouldn't mind a few spare bodies to poke about in, for her own interests, and to Dr. Bellus, that was as good as an explicit order. She was really hoping to bag something High Order... the environment was right for Cold Hunters and Basilisks too, but the altitude and terrain was a bit wrong for Basilisks, who preferred lowlands and marshes, like their crocodilian ancestors.

The thought occured to her that it might even be possible they might run across a Chimera, and the idea sent both excitement and terror rippling through her. It would explain the dearth of other thinking organisms... most Chimera were voracious predators that seemed to bear great enimity against all other forms of life... at least, the ones Dr. Magnus was breeding in his labs were all that way. Chimera were the most dangerous organisms on Earth, but oh, the chance to poke about in the brain and body of one of those ultimate abominations, a non-human with human like sentience? It almost made her a bit wet, thinking about it. Controlling herself with a violent shiver, Bellus returned her mind forcefully to the task at hand. They weren't here for a glorious specimen hunt, they were here for a very specific reason. Perhaps if she accomplished this task with satisfactory results, the Director would see fit to send her down with the next hunt team. That would be a wonderful reward for having to put up with all these knuckledraggers!

About thirty minutes more of slow hiking through the thick and tangled, but curiously empty jungle, using heavy chainsaw-machetes to clear their way through the brush, a sudden stiffness went through the soldiers, causing cold sweat to break out on the brows of the three scientists, as none of them had seen anything that might have set their escort off. Bellus hurriedly prepped another scream pulse, while Yakoslka cowered behind Brandt, who was sweeping his tranq rifle around in jerky spasms. Bellus fired the pulse, but once more the scan came back empty. Annoyed, she pushed forward and tapped Singh on the shoulder. "What's the holdup, Colonel?" She asked, exasperated.

"You'd better take a look at this, Ma'am." Singh replied softly, holding up a portable viewscreen that was tapped in to the camera feeds from the AUTOs. A few dozen meters further up from their current position, the jungle suddenly gave way to a meadow or clearing of some sort, though the soaring branches of the trees all around knotted together overhead to form a biological roof that had prevented them from spotting it from the air. However, that wasn't what was causing Singh's concern, and Bellus's fascination.

"Is that a village?" She breathed excitedly.

"Was kinda hoping you could tell me, Ma'am." Singh replied, patiently. He had a lot of experience dealing with these high and mighty, ivory tower types. That was one reason that the Director had had picked him for this lame duty. Another was his brutal combat record, up to and including the storming of the Great Endeavor at the end of the Eden Disaster. But patience was key when dealing with the highbrow types, no matter how much they pissed you off with their complete helplessness. "Looks like some sort of habitations. Crude work, but definitely an intelligent design? Human you think?"

"There are no humans on Earth outside of the Orb Province, you know that, Colonel." Bellus reminded him severely. "Any mutants that may have survived are little more than savage abominations before god and science. You can't let yourself fall into the rut of considering them people. They are monsters, Colonel, dangerous monsters that must be controlled or exterminated, whenever they are encountered. How can we ever reclaim our beautiful homeworld with aberrations like them running about on it? We can't, its plain and simple. They have to go. No matter the means, no matter the cost. They have to go." Panting a bit from the intensity of her reprimand, echoing the sentiments as handed down by the Director herself, Bellus regarded the hovels displayed on the screen. "Doesn't look like anyone is home. The scream pulse came back negative as well. Proceed. With caution."

"There is no other way." Singh muttered under his breath, as he signaled his troops forward, barely creeping along, weapons alert, while the two AUTO's trundled deeper into the clearing, turrets and sensors sweeping every nook and cranny. No threats emerged, and at long last the soldiers and scientists stalked into the rude collection of huts and lean to's, still on the alert, but relaxing by degrees as minutes passed with no ambush or sign of life.

"Evidence of primitive tool use..." Yakoslka murmured into his audio recorder, holding his video camera with one hand as he extended a collapsible metal inspection rod with his other hand, using the five foot metal stick with the hooked tip to poke and prod through the detrius inside one hut. "Gourds scraped out with sticks, sharpened stakes and pieces of knapped flint. An early stone age culture, hunter-gatherers. A small tribe, no more than thirty members, probably several family groups. They appear to have been gone for some time, judging by the decay of the campsite." He panned the camera around and frowned. "Lack of firepits and ashes seem to suggest that they do not have fire. Savages, eating raw meat fresh from the kill, and whatever vegetables and fruits they can scavenge while on the move." Yakoslka made sure to get plenty of detail. The Reclaimer Initiative would eat this footage right up, it would make a great propoganda clip for explaining why humanity had to return to the world of its birth, to save the pitiful degenerates from their own lack of civilization.

"HEY, LOOK AT THIS!" Brandt yelled from the far side of the camp, causing everyone to start and jump. By the time Yakoslka had gathered himself, Colonel Singh was already remonstrating with Brandt about maintaining proper stealth, but the other FEAR scientist wasn't paying much attention. He was pointing at what had set him off, a series of large stakes hammered into the ground in a line, each stake about ten feet away from the next, the path leading away into the jungle out of sight, towards the side of the nearby mountain. Upon the top of each stake was set a skull of some sort, all oriented so their blank eye sockets stared off towards the mountain, like guards keeping an eye on a hostile frontier. Smaller fetishes of bone and scraps of hide and fur were nailed to the stacks with what looked like thorns, and colored clays were daubed in crude patterns upon the bones and stakes, making it likely that they were religious totems or wards of some sort.

Yakoslka made sure to get a detailed shot of each skull in turn as he poked at them with his stick. "Basilisk... a bull male, by the elongated lower fangs, almost like small tusks. And then a Cold Hunter, you can see the enlarged cranium that makes it one of the smartest and most dangerous of all High Order organisms. And dangling below, the sycthelike toe claws they inherited from their velociraptor ancestors. Very dangerous animals, very dangerous, that must have been one hell of a hunt. Assuming they just didn't find a dead one, which is equally likely." Yakoslka turned to the next skull in line. "My word, a Direcat, a matriarch if I'm not mistaking. You can tell by the slimmer, more chisel shaped saber fangs, versus the more peg like teeth of an alpha male. I think we may have discovered what happened to all the animals around here."

"But why hunt them all to extinction?" Brandt wondered, reaching out to run a finger down one blood red line of clay on the Cold Hunter skull, like bloody tears dripping from its ghastly eye socket. "And some of these are top predators, things no small tribe of primitive sub-humans should want to provoke, much less hunt. Thirty measly sub-humans would just be a snack for a Cold Hunter pack. And what's the value in putting these totems here? There's a lot of valuable animal parts here, parts any stone age culture should leap to put to practical use." Brandt flicked one of the Cold Hunter talons with the tip of his rifle, watching as the bony claw scored a deep scratch in the solid steel barrel.

"They're degenerate abominations, conservation for future generations likely didn't occur to them." Bellus commented dryly. "They must have run out of food and disbanded. I almost feel sorry for the ignoramuses. They put too much effort into their primitive magic rituals, and not enough into surviving the real world around them. Idiots. They must have been led by a man."

"Still, that they would put so much effort into these totems... they must be significant. I'm no anthropological expert, but the little I've read suggests that these are meant to be "spirit guardians" or "wards against evil" or some such nonsense." Yakoslka mused. "That they are all turned to "watch" the same way seems to indicate that whatever it was the savages were trying to appease or ward off, lies in that direction." He peered along the line of sight of the skulls, seeing nothing but dense jungle and more skulls. "What does lie in that direction?"

"Our destination." Singh said dourly. The three scientists turned to look at him questioningly. The Colonel kicked his boot hard against the ground, scuffing up a cloud of dirt. He pointed at the mark he'd made. "That ain't dirt under there, that's asphault. We're standing on a road. Or what was once a road. Looks like the totems follow the line of the road, if I recall my maps of the area correctly. Should be a garage entrance to the facility under the mountain about a half klick up this road. I wasn't expecting it to be intact, but it bears checking out."

"Do we have to?" Brandt muttered to himself, a chill going down his spine as he looked at the line of skulls of the most dangerous predators on Earth, each with "blood" dripping from their eye sockets, as if what they gazed at was so horrible it was causing them physical damage. The bones clicked and clacked lightly in the mountain breezes, the sound ghostly and hollow. All of a sudden, the abandoned village was the creepiest place he'd ever been, and considering that he'd been into an orphanage just after it fell into a Green Zone, that was saying something! Brandt noticed that the soldiers, Bellus and Yakoslka were moving on, follow the road and the line of skulls, and he hurried to keep up, checking frantically behind him with every other step, the thought of being left alone in the village with nothing but the wind and the skulls completely unmanning him.

The going was faster along the roadway, which had seemingly been kept clear by the former locals as well, there was evidence of weeding and plants pulled up to keep the undergrowth to a minimum. More spiritual mumbo jumbo, or was this something more pratical? Brandt was suddenly equally fine with never finding out for sure. Were it not for the fact that if he tried to get back to the dropship on his own he'd probably become lost and fall victim to the indigenous plant life before the day was out, he would have already have been running for home. He thought of his daughter, Amelia, who was going to turn fourteen in a few weeks. The bonus from this mission was going to buy them all the trip to Centennial 1 and the amusement parks and resorts located upon the famous E-PLANT. Amelia would be devastated if they couldn't go, like he'd promised. Clinging to this shred of motivation, Brandt joined his colleagues once more at the top of a rise

They barely noticed him, and the soldiers paid him no heed either. Both AUTO's were pulled up in the small clearing as well, their turrets tracking back and forth almost nervously, as a warm breeze blew, and for a brief second, Brandt was all but sure he could smell rotting blood on the wind. But of course that was impossible, his suit was sealed up tight, a self contained atmosphere, there was nothing to smell but his own sweat! He swallowed heavily as he saw what was transfixing the others, or so he assumed anyway. There was large, rectangular opening in the side of the mountain, a bit wider than it was tall, where the roadway fed into the underground roads that would lead to the parking garage for this facility. At one point in time a heavy corrugated steel sheet had covered the entrance as a security gate, but that sheet was now crumpled and torn and shot full of holes, lying twisted off to the side of the clearing, with two of Singh's soldiers studying it.

Hanging over the middle of the opening, suspended by twisted, thorny vines of some sort, was the biggest skull Brandt had ever seen in person, since he'd last been to a museum of Natural History as a child. It was obviously reptilian in origin, with a massive jaw crowded with fangs the length of his forearm and as thick as his wrist, narrowing to armor piercing tips that gleamed in the midmorning sunlight. Smaller tethers of rawhide were looped around the base of each fang, and from each dangled what was unmistakably a human skull of some sort. Both the large skull... that of one of the rarest of the rare, a Megahunter, a Cold Hunter of near Tyrannousaurus size... and the small human ones were painted with the blood dripping eye sockets. Brandt counted over twenty skulls, none coming from a person older than his daughter, judging by their size. The breeze whistled through the gaping eye sockets, and the skulls clicked against each other like skeletal fingers counting old coins.

"What do you got?" Singh asked suddenly, and Brandt turned to look at him, dumbfounded that the illiterate brute would think HE had any idea what this hideous spectacle was, before realizing that Singh had addressed the two soldiers inspecting the torn away security gate.

"Well, its pretty torn up, sir, but we both agree, there's a lot of large caliber holes, from some sort of heavy support small arm. Shooting from the inside of the garage, outwards." One of the soldiers replied smartly. "There's fainter scratches on the outside, like what you might expect from people trying to break in with rocks and shit."

"Ah, so they tried to break into the mountain for some reason and they activated a defense system and got mowed down." Bellus reconstructed with a superior grin. "Probably the most traumatic experience of their pitiful lives. No wonder they dressed it all up with this religious mumbo-jumbo. The sentry guns must have run out of ammo, but they couldn't know that, so they made the place taboo." She turned back to look up at the Megahunter skull, with its drapery of children's skulls. "Looks like they lost over two thirds of their village in one go. But how did such few, scattered survivors manage to place all these skulls, much less bring that Megahunter skull here? They must have dragged it here from the lowlands, there's no way a Megahunter and its pack of Cold Hunters could support itself up here. And even if there was, there's simply no way a cluster of savage simpletons could kill a Megahunter. No way. I've seen video of a Megahunter obliterating an entire team of hunters that were specifically going after it. It even killed the armored vehicles!"

"Its certainly an impressive sight." Yakoslka agreed. He zoomed the camera in on the dangling human skulls. "There's something about those children's skulls. The bone structure is odd, and the hue is wrong for human bone... its too grey. And I could swear I saw a metallic sheen a moment ago."

"Whatever, we don't have time for this." Bellus cut him off imperiously. "We seem to have gained a good windfall with this undamged portal into the depths of the mountain, which is where we need to go." She stared specuatively at the magnificent skull, big enough to swallow her whole with a single chomp. "Once we're through inside, we'll take this back with us. It would look very nice in the boardroom."

"Ma'am, with all due respect, we won't be able to achieve escape velocity with that thing on board, if it will even fit!" Singh protested. "We're already at the weight limit for the dropship's thrusters!"

"Then we'll leave some equipment behind, to make room." Bellus said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. She waved her hand at the two AUTO's, which were scooting ahead into the depths of the parking garage. "We don't need to bring those back. They only cost ten million dollars apiece, our Red EDEN vats can produce the materials for a new one in a few hours. We can afford to chuck your guns as well, once we're done. You won't be held accountable, I promise. Once the director see's the priceless treasure we have brought her, she won't care what we gave up to get it, you'll all get bonuses. Big ones. We're taking it with us. That is final, Colonel."

"As you say, Ma'am." Singh sighed. Hopefully she'd get distracted by whatever sparkly-shiney's they were here to get, and she'd forget about lugging a skull the size and weight of a full sized family sedan back with them. He squinted up at the dangling human skulls. Creepy fucking place, he'd not be sad to see the last of it. But they had to see the first of it before that could happen. All but dragging the brainboxes with him, Singh followed after his squad. Once the darkness of the mountain closed in on them, he found that they were willing to stick close without work on his part. Smirking, he blinked his eyes in a certain rythym, which caused the implanted cyber-lenses to slide down over his eyeballs, granting him both light amplification and thermal vision. Ocular implants were really expensive tech, not even on the open market, but there were certain advantages to working for FEAR, who was the primary producer of cyber-augmentations, which were growing really popular in the last five years, since they became available, more or less, to the public.

On the way down, Singh looked for the sentry guns that had blasted apart the natives, but he saw only twisted struts and scraps of steel, suggesting that the boxy auto-guns had been torn apart. But could even Eden enhanced humans have that kind of strength? Something was starting to bother his soldier's instincts. That chill on the back of your neck when an enemy sniper had you in their sights. The sense of being watched, of being assessed... of being stalked. Singh listened intently, trusting his ears even more than his enhanced eyes when in darkness. It was silent, except for the faraway drip of water, and the scuff of bootheels on concrete. He snugged his auto-rifle/grenade launcher combo tighter into his shoulder and bulled onwards, berating himself for imagining things. But for just a second there, he could have sworn he detected the rasp of bony fingers clawing their way up from a shallow grave...

xxxx

**JIHAD Mountain, sub-level six, The Hideout, June 7, C.E. 84, noon**

The sleeper was restless, his dreams troubled, his humors unbalanced. Bips and beeps and boops from the arcane machinery surrounding the gel filled artifical womb/sustainment tube he had spent his whole life inside filled the air with their dull sounds, the space between noises gradually increasing in a way that they had not done for more than seven years. The sleeper twitched inside his amniotic casement, his fingers clutching for a moment before relaxing, a stray bubble escaping from between his lips and the broad plastic tube stuffed down his throat that allowed him to breathe in the gluey warmth of the gel filled tube. The tube itself was only a little bit bigger than its occupant, who was just over six feet tall, clean limbed, with well defined muscle tones from a rigorous regime of electro-chemical stimulations of the muscle while it was growing. The sleeper was naked, having never left the sanctity of his tube, never felt the kiss of the cool air of the depths on his skin, never performed a single conscious action of his own.

For the sleeper had no mind or soul, he was just a golem of flesh, created by fantastically advanced science from a single captured cell, grown carefully and precisely, nutured as only a treasured child could be, his body growing in years what would normally take decades, catching him up with the projected age of his "parent". Even as the physical body grew, it was unspooled and refined, layer upon layer upon layer of artificial enhancements and tweaks fused into the very flesh, bones and blood of the sleeping golem, until his body fairly pulsed with contained power, bones glinting with crystalline shimmers, blood dark and thick as molasses, muscle fibers strong enough to warp steel bars, skin tough like animal hide, but still supple to the touch. His hair was a bit long, having grown faster than expected, a mane of sloppy brown that waved like the fronds of a long dead plant from the top of his skull, stirred by the faint currents of the recycled gel.

Within the stacks of machinery that attended the sleeper in his long, restful reincarnation, more lights suddenly flicked on, long dormant subroutines activating, recieving input from sensors that had been cold and dead ever since just after first being constructed. Images were collected, data analyzed, priorities considered and finally, decisions made, all faster than a human could blink. More machinery kicked into life, the slowly throbbing heart of the base igniting once more, pulsing fusion flames blazing hot as the sun, feeding power to hungry subsystems and then on into the mainframe, as the Hideout Computer, named Charon by its creator, yawned and awoke to its purpose. It was earlier than the Creator had predicted, but the golem was ready, so all was well. The sleeper would be awakened. The twisted world would perish in the fires of his rebirth, or pass through and be vindicated for all time.

Supercoolant systems that had been in operation for almost twelve years suddenly ceased, never to be reactivated, the stinging jets of icy vapor they produced writhing away from the object in the midst of the most secure chamber in the entire Hideout like ghosts fleeing perdition. It was an unassuming object, just a flat black case about the size of a medium suitcase, made of Gundam grade armor, matte black and coated with ice several inches thick. That ice cracked as mobile armatures moved forward with drills and prying claws, ripping away the frozen burial shroud of the mind entombed within the case. Locks turned haltingly, as if reluctant to release what they secured, steel grating on steel like fingernails on chalkboard, before finally slamming open with loud clicks. The case popped open, releasing more supercooled vapor, and amidst that white frothy wash was revealed the single most dangerous thing to exist in the modern word. A human mind.

And this was no ordinary mind either, though Charon could not properly appreciate the significance and awful grandeur of its charge, being both an emotionless computer and built too late. It was an unassuming mind, about the size of a human palm, a construction of silicon wafers and exotic crystals, not too much different, except in scope and power, from a computer chip found in the average student's laptop. This chip wasn't stuffed with half coherent poetry and reams of illicit pornography though, it held the key to the end of the world as it was currently known. Shielded grasping claws took hold of the chip gingerly, treating it like the slightest mishap would shatter it into a thousand pieces, which wasn't far off the mark. Now was the most vulnerable time, the contained mind still unconscious and seperated from its new host body.

Working efficiently but carefully, Charon carried its charge from the supercooled vault, letting it gradually warm until it was no longer in danger of shattering under the least imbalance of forces acting upon it. From armature to armature the nascent intelligence was carried, still dormant, lacking any ability to interact with the universe around it, the consciousness within dancing on the edge of life and death. It had once been alive, but then it had died, only to survive as an electronic copy. Had it continued to exist in that form, aware of itself? Was such a thing even possible? Charon did not know and did not care. It would do as it was programmed, and nothing else. Finally the chip reached the end of its road, and it was carefully slotted into the side of another piece of very advanced looking machinery, which came alive almost at once, readouts of flickering symbols scrolling faster than the eye could comprehend as it completed an initial diagnostic on the chip and found it undamaged by its removal from containment.

Within the sustainment tube, silvery wires slithered outwards, like the tendrils of a jellyfish, gently ensnaring the head and spine of the sleeper, pointed tips burrowing through skin, and muscle before entering specially prepared channels in otherwise impenetrable crystal infused bone, sinking deep into tightly bundled nerve tissue below. Once satisfactory connections had been made, the Biological Intelligence Interface Imprinter consulted with the Charon mainframe and updated the memory of the chip with several gigabytes of relevant information, from data passively collected during the long sleep, and of the more recent vintage as well, depicting the bobbing lights and tromping boot soles of the approaching explorers, getting ever nearer to the sanctum at the bottom of the mountain. Pausing a final tenth of a second to ensure all preparations were completed as well as they should be, Charon then flipped the switch, figuratively if not literally.

Bright blue electric sparks chained into a miniature web of lightning bolts flowing through the amniotic gel, wreathing the sleeper's back and skull as the data from the chip was ruthlessly burned into the inert brain matter of the golem. The fists clenched again, and stayed clenched, tension cording the muscles in the arms as, for the first time ever, the sleeper experienced pain and agony. A leg kicked, a foot striking the clear plexiglass cover of the sustainment tube hard enough to make it shiver, snapped plastic straps trailing like seaweed from the ankle where the restraint had been ripped out of its fastenings without pause. The broad plastic tube withdrew from the mouth and throat of the sleeper before it could be bitten through, leaving the body to flounder in the thick gel for a few moments until internal nano-augmentations took on the job of oxygenating the bloodstream. A low humm built around the tube as the download continued, a vibrational pulse that spread outward, reverberating through the solid rock until it reached the boots of the intruders, who all paused in shock as they felt the rock tremble beneath their toes, as if in terror.

The other restraints snapped and tore as the sleeper began thrashing in his tube, his eyelids fluttering wildly as memories and personality were downloaded and burned into the waiting cerebral matter. It went on for minutes, the buzzing hum rising and rising and rising until it was a shrieking claw of sound that tore at the air and made it bleed! And just when the sound could seem to get no louder without the very fabric of reality ripping away like skin beneath a cheese grater, it ceased. The silence of the tomb once more descended. The sleeper was still. His eyes, closed. His limbs... loose. Vapid. Dead. Minutes passed, the chest of the sleeper was still, his body locked like in rigor mortis. But then, just as Charon was about to activate the flush routines on the tube, having registered a "failure to survive transference" on its sensors, the sleeper's eyes fluttered. Fluttered, and opened, revealing royal purple haloing solid gold. The ferocious eyes darted back and forth, a feral beast evaluating a strange new environment. A spread palm pressed experimentally against the plexiglass. Muscles strained, and cracks appeared on the glass, spreading through the entire tube with the snaps of fracturing glaciers.

The sustainment tube shattered outwards in a hail of razor sharp slivers, borne upon a tide of slippery blue amniotic gel. Carried upon the tide was the fetal form of the sleeper, who lay upon the cold floor shuddering for a time, before clawing his way to his hands and knees, the body moving slowly, haltingly, as if unused to its own form. On hands and knees, the sleeper slowly raised his head, feeling slicks of lukewarm gel flow down his face like rivers of slowly congealing blood. His eyes, shut during the tumble from the tube, opened again, and they burned like balefire in the dimness. Perfect white teeth, shining with the subtle glow of crystalline enhancements, bared themselves in a broad grin. "I'm going to kill you, Mr. Machine." Zacharis Quentin Frost mumbled, his throat hoarse, the sound of the words both familiar and strange. "Evil has found its way..."

xxxxx

**JIHAD Mountain, sub level 4, June 7, C.E. 84, 2:00 pm**

"Would someone kindly mind explaining to me what that was all about just a bit ago?" Colonel Singh said loudly, directing his words, and his gaze, over at the three scientists, where were standing in a huddle. "I was under the impression that this was a ruined facility. A dead facility. That..." Singh stamped his boot upon the now still rock. "... did not feel very dead to me!"

"It was probably just an earth tremor." Yakoslka replied nervously, fiddling with his camera. "We are deep in the bedrock after all, and relatively near a tectonic boundary. A faint tremor now and then would not be amiss."

"That was no earth tremor." Bellus refuted, her hands clenched tightly together in front of her. "I've operated enough major lab equipment to know how a linked supercomputer feels when it boots up for the first time in a while. This is excellent news." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself of that. "With an operational computer system, we will be able to find the files and data we are after that much easier. Come. The timetable for Dr. Roanoke's ICMS Augmented project is dependent upon our being able to salvage a significant fraction of the data from the late Dr. Franklin Borander's BCPU project. Without this data, that damn Mechael Smith is going to be the one and only for at least another two years, and that will not make the Director happy when next she reports to the Solar President! I can't believe what a corny name he chose! Mechael Smith, for the first human with a cybernetic body? Lame."

"Even I can admit that Mechael is a flawed product." Brandt spoke up with a weak chuckle. "His personality could use... adjustment. Dr. Borander's treatise's on the mental breakdown and rebuilding of strong willed subjects will be very useful in... regulating our future super soldiers."

"His personality won't be the only thing adjusted if he makes another pass at me." Bellus grumbled. "He overestimates his worth to FEAR. Why would any woman want to sleep with a full body cyborg? I don't care how "augmented" that part of his body is!"

Further conversation, inane or otherwise, was halted, when an ululating cry echoed up from the depths beneath their feet. It went on and on and on, just at the edge of hearing, but seemingly all the louder for the dead quiet that stretched around them. It went on for longer than seemed physically possible, before slowly dying away. "I suppose that was an earth tremor too?" Singh said with a caustic glance at Yakoslka, after another few moments had passed. Singh's fingers were white knuckled in his gloves, his rifle all but at tactical present.

"Sounded like someone screaming." Yakoslka admitted, with a deep gulp.

"Screaming? That was laughter." One of the soldiers retorted.

"Laughter? Who the fuck laughs like that? I ain't never heard anything that spine chilling in my life!" Another soldier refuted. "If that was laughter, then it must have been from the devil hisself!"

"Sounded like a death rattle to me." Singh muttered. He eyed Dr. Bellus, who had gone white as a sheet in her suit. He would have bet good money her suit's water recyclers were now working overtime to filter the piss she'd just let go. "So, brainiacs? That didn't sound like a computer system to me either. We aren't alone down here. Send the AUTO's to check it out."

"Can't sir." One of his subordinates replied almost immediately. "Passageway ends in an elevator shaft, but no elevator. Looks like a good thirty to forty feet down to the next level, there's no way the AUTO's can get down."

"Shit." Singh cursed. "Ain't that always the way." He squared his shoulders. "Okay then, we do this the old fashioned way."

"You're not honestly thinking of going down there with... whatever made that sound?" Brandt sounded sick to his stomach, and his pallor was even whiter than Bellus's. "That's madness!"

"That's called being a soldier. We got a job to do." Singh replied with a sneer. "And you three are coming with us. Because us knuckledragging soldiers don't know how to get this precious data of yours. So unless you want us to just smash everything we see... which is what we're so good at, as you know and so often complain... you're gonna have to come down and babysit us. We can't leave without the data anyway, right? And you guys know the facility better than my guys do."

"He's right." Bellus seemed to snap out of some inner trance. "The Director personally selected us for this mission. We have to complete it. The future security of the human race could be resting on our shoulders."

"I'm not going down there." Brandt said feverishly. "Thats crazy. We have no idea what's down there! It could be a Chimera!"

"Let's look and see then." Bellus retorted, digging out her scream pulser and slotting in one of the last brain sections she had. The three scientists and Singh all crowded around the display as Bellus fired off the pulse, revealing the mental landscape for a half kilometer in every direction. "There!" Bellus declared, one thickly gloved finger pointing at a fading gold mark on the otherwise dark grey background. "Active Psychic trace. Evaluating..." She twisted a few knobs and tapped at some keys, before letting out a relieved burst of laughter. "Psychic rating 150. That's a Edenite toddler we have down there, crying for his mommy. There's always a chance for a burst increase, and this doesn't cover his Seed mode, but I don't think we're in much danger. Nothing to worry about."

"Just for future reference, what sort of rating would be worrisome?" Singh asked dryly, pulling away from the screen and wishing he could mop his brow. He'd heard stories about people encountering Chimerae, and it never ended well for the people.

"Average for an adult infected by Green EDEN would be around 1000 to 1500." Bellus answered, her limbs still shaking from released tension. "Most Low Order organisms, such as the plants outside, register at around 20-80, and High Order organisms, such as Direcats or Cold Hunters, can reach all the way up into the 3000's. We've collected human experimental subjects with ratings of around 7500 before, and most Chimera's rate at 20k plus." Bellus paused and ordered her thoughts. "Anything around or above 1800 is dangerous to multiple targets, anything above 2500 is a major threat."

"I wonder what Borander's rating was...?" Singh mumbled, mostly to himself.

"18750." Bellus answered absentmindedly. "After Seed activation." She seemed to catch up to her own words. "Projected of course, based on simulations of his attack upon then SecDef Durandel. Sadly, we'll never know for sure." She put a lot of stress on the "never".

"I wouldn't call it sad. World's a better place without him." Singh shrugged. "Get some lines set! We're going down!"

xxxx

**JIHAD Mountain, sub level 5, June 7, C.E. 84, 2:30 pm**

"There's something evil down here..." Brandt whispered, shining his flashlight into every nook and corner. "I can feel it..."

"Careful what you admit, Brandt. Too much more of that kind of talk and I might start thinking you have a suit leak. Dr. Magnus has been begging for another chance to observer a human to Edenite transformation after all..." Bellus snapped at him, his constant fearmongering really getting on her nerves. He'd been a broken record on the subject ever since Singh's soldiers lowered him down in the rope sling thirty minutes ago.

"He's got a point though." Yakoslka muttered, shining his own flashlight along a section of wall that was splattered with large dots of rusty red. "There's blood all over the walls."

"No doubt there were casualties when the Archangel blasted the mountain with its Lohengrin, yes." Bellus rolled her eyes. "Could you two perhaps, between the two of you, grow a pair of balls? There's nothing down here but either a very young or a very weak Edenite and us, with ten armed soldiers. Just shut up and stay close to me, I don't want to hear either of you bitching anymore."

"What in all the names of hell were you people researching in this place?" Singh asked over the comm system, his voice a tad bit strained after searching through several smashed cabinets full of nothing but the bones of young toddlers.

"If you have to ask, you don't have the clearance to know." Bellus replied shortly. "Suffice it to say, we were building a better soldier here."

"Given that I'm still in circulation, I'm guessing you didn't build too many." Singh retorted with a shake of his head. "That or you didn't build them very well."

"That would depend on who you asked." Bellus shrugged. "One of the products of this place was the single handed reason the Isolation failed at the cusp of victory. That's quite a pedigree, no matter how you look at it."

"Where was he when we were storming the Great Endeavor then?" Singh asked nastily. "Coulda used a few super soldiers there!"

Bellus was silent, refraining from mentioning that there had been several IBWS Extended at that battle, though none had participated in the infantry assault. "We need to split up and search for a computer access terminal on this level. I don't remember where the mainframe was, this level or the one below." She directed, returning to the task at hand. "And we should keep an eye out for that toddler. I wonder how it got down here? Maybe there's another exit? That would be nice, save some time."

"You three stay right here with me. My lads aren't the sharpest tacks in the box, but they know a computer terminal when they see one. And probably a toddler too, though maybe not Silva." Singh said with an affectionate smirk at his most frequently ridiculed trooper. "Five teams of two, contact every five minutes, thirty minute sweep, go." He ordered, and his troops split up into pairs with well drilled precision, spreading out and disappearing into the darkness of the sub level. Singh strolled over to the wall where Yakoslka had been aiming his camera, wiping at the caked on gore with his fingers specuatively. It was grittier than the blood he was used to. Another enhancement to super soldiers? Having self clotting blood could be a real boon, Singh could think of several situations where it would have been personally handy!

His mind went back to one such situation, during the storming of the Great Endeavor, when he'd taken a three round burst of hypersonic steel cone-pellets to the leg, shattering his shin bone and almost causing him to bleed out before they were able to get a workable tourniquet in place around his mangled leg. He could still feel the ache in his shin bone when the humidity dropped suddenly. He could still smell the blood as it pumped, hot and thick, from his shattered limb. Startled by the strength of the flashback, Singh blinked his eyes a few times and shook his head to clear it. That was strange, he didn't usually have fully sensed flashbacks, for a moment it had been like the wound was still happening! He stared down at his leg and stomped it experimentally, feeling barely even a twinge. Just a daydream then... but a hell of a real one!

"Did anyone else just have a sudden flashback of a very unpleasantly painful memory?" Dr. Bellus spoke up suddenly. Her question was met with a moment of incredulous silence.

"Yes?" Singh hissed the word slowly.

"Me too..." Yakoslka was shivering and clutching himself.

"Oh Amelia..." Brandt trailed off, biting back sobs. "What the hell happened to me?"

"We've just been psychically probed." Bellus said confidently. "It was crude, but very strong. Someone was just searching through our minds. They put that memory into our forebrain as a distraction."

"We're under attack?" Singh snapped, his weapon coming up, to point down the darkened hallways where his men had gone.

"Not per se." Bellus's voice was calmer than she felt. She tried to slow her heartrate. She'd been given training for this sort of situation. Remaining calm and centered was important. "They weren't looking for anything in specific, or targeting anyone individually, they were just... glancing through the minds nearby. Like opening a random set of webpages on the internet and browsing them."

"A toddler did that?" Yakoslka's voice was trembling worse than he was.

"No, there's no way a toddler could do that, not to four people at once, not from far away." Bellus refuted.

"We don't know that." Brandt replied in a strangled voice.

"I do very much know that, its part of my job, Dr. Brandt!" Bellus snapped at him.

"No, we don't know where the toddler is! It could be just out of sight! They can see farther than us in the dark!" Brandt snapped back.

"They can't see farther than military grade ocular implants, can they?" Singh retorted with a snort. "There isn't anyone within twenty meters of us, trust me."

"There, you see?" Bellus said, perhaps a bit quickly. "All the same, lets take another look..." She fed in her second to last brain slice and fired up the scream pulse. She all but dropped the sensor when the return came back gold and strong... and right on the same level as them, not thirty meters away, though the sensor did not account for physical obstructions, so there were likely several walls and rooms between them. Her hands shaking so bad she had to try several times, Bellus finally got the calibration right and checked the new rating. The sensor clattered to the floor with the sound of plastic chipping, falling loose from her suddenly numb hands. "Its over nine thousand..."

"What did you say?" Yakoslka demanded.

"I SAID, IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND!" Bellus all but hollered at him.

"How the hell did it get that high! That's impossible!" Brandt shouted back. "I thought you said it was a toddler! Are you telling me a newborn has a pyschic rating of over nine thousand? I was right... it IS a Chimera! We are so FUCKED!"

"Someone give me a report!" Singh demanded into his squad comm. He was met with only silence for a long moment, and then came a blood choked death rattle, and the comm went to static. "FUCK!" He sighted down the corridor with his rifle. "Come on you scary motherfucker... come this way, and eat some of my hot lead!"

xxxx

**Elsewhere on sub-level 5, that same time**

Frost could not tell if he was dreaming or awake. It was a state of mind he was more than used to, ever since the level six surgeries, but he never failed to find it bothersome all the same. On one hand all of his senses were telling him he was awake, because all of them were operating at once, and usually, in dreams, only one or two worked at a time. Furthermore there was an odd buzzing ache in the bottom of his skull, like a fly had gotten trapped inside his brainase during a surgery and was trying frantically to escape, and he didn't think he'd be feeling something like that if he were asleep. He'd actually seen that happen once to one of the newest recruits, during the level 2 surgeries. He'd lasted longer than Frost had been expecting, his grey matter half turned into a writhing mass of bloody mawed maggots before he succumbed.

But there was something wrong with his movements, everything seemed to take just a fraction of second longer to happen than he was used to, as if his nerve impulses had a bit further to go. And his body seemed oddly elongated and stretched out, almost to the point of emaciation, at least compared to how he usually looked. He felt like he'd been transplanted into Cray's body, and what a horrific thought that was! Being trapped in a fragile spider body, what a nightmare! Nothing seemed wrong with his strength and overall speed though, if anything his long nap had refreshed and rejuvenated him in ways he was still figuring out. Frost shrugged dismissively, rivulets of hot blood trickling down his naked, stretched new body, the remains of the last of Singh's two man patrols lying in shredded piles at his feet. Streaking the blood across his chest with one splayed hand, Frost crouched and inspected these latest victims curiously.

They were clad in what looked like space suits or piloting suits, but with much bulkier backpacks and some sort of armor lining, the surface of the suit painted with forest camouflage colors that stood out boldly against the grey metal walls and floors of the facility. Their helmets had spotlights on either side, and it wasn't until he noticed that the lamps were on that Frost realized it was dark in the hallway. He hadn't noticed before, his eyes could see just as well in the near lightless gloom as they could in broad daylight, due to a nanite array embedded in his eyes that provided light for his eyes to use, witht ehs die effect of making his eyes glow a bit redly in the dark.

The soldiers were armed with automatic rifles of an unfamiliar make, but the weapons themselves were nothing particularly new, and Frost kicked them away across the dust strewn floor with a contemptuous shake of his head. He looked down at the rust red gore drying slowly on his fingers and puddling in his palms and smirked. What need had he of such filthy things as guns, when the purity of his own two hands was so versatile? Armored or not, he'd ripped the soldiers limb from limb like they were ragdolls, before they were even really aware he was upon them, and hurled their ragged remains against the walls hard enough to make them squish like a dead rat underfoot. The decapitated and half crushed head of one lolled nearby, and Frost snagged it with two fingers under the lip of the neck and rolled it up his arm like a juggler would a performance ball.

Flicking his elbow, amused with himself, Frost flipped the severed head up and over his own, pattering blood droplets streaking in his strange new mass of brown hair, gumming some of the wilder strands together. Forget hair gel, fresh human gore was the only hair style product he'd ever need! Not only that, but it acted as a deoderant as it dried, blocking out all those horrendous smells of citrus and flowers with the comforting miasma of violent death. Humans might not be good for eating, most being far too lean to be juicy, but that wasn't to say they didn't produce plenty of useful byproducts as part of their lifecycle. A completely untapped market, just waiting for the proper entrepenuer to come along and kick the doors wide open! Frost caught the descending head in his other hand and held it up to his face, peering closely at the wound where the flat of his hand had crashed through the helmet and crushed a chunk of skull about six inches inward.

"And what is this? Wires in the skull?" Frost murmured, intrigued. Was this another super soldier? They sure hadn't fought like one, but not everyone could meet his standards. Or even approach them. He dug his fingers into the gooey purple-pink mass inside the skull and wriggled them around until he found the wires, and then followed their course, until most of his hand and wrist was inside the ruptured braincase. At last his fingertips reached the end of the wire, and he pressed hard on the yielding surface he felt. One of the head's eyes popped out of its socket and dangled down the cheek, threads of glistening nerve and rubberized wire holding it suspended. "Hmmp." Frost said idly, waggling his finger out through the back of the eye socket. He held the head up to his face, nose to nose. "I can see you... can you see me?" He asked, staring into the one remaining eye.

After a long pause, during which the corpse's eyes did not waver from their bloodshot, half open scrutiny of his face, Frost grew bored and tossed the head away, a slurry of brain splashing out of the hole in the side like a dark grey milkshake as the head bounced and rolled across the ground. Frost stretched, coming up onto his tiptoes, once again noting that he seemed a lot taller than he was used to. That was odd... he'd never fantazised about being taller before. Maybe he was awake then? But in that case, how had he gotten taller? A conundrum, to be sure. He was just settling in to ponder it when his senses twinged, his nose and ears twitching as he detected the sounds of breathing and heartbeats, and the sweet smell of raw human fear. Ah, he still had some playmates left. How rude of him to ignore their plight. The sooner he could introduce them to his friend and mentor, the abyss at the bottom of every human soul, the better.

Frost rose off his haunches and stalked down the halls, the layout as familiar to him as only a person's home could be, his eyes closed as he inhaled deeply of the rich aroma's being put off by his next victims. His nostrils flared and a feral grin split his face as he immediately sifted out the sharper tang of a woman from the tangle of duller male scents. Nature and fate were working in his favor once again, choosing to provide him not only with exercise, but sexual relief as well, so soon after waking. It was almost like a reward from the good old Doc. The thought almost made him wish the Doc was back. He wanted to kill him again, but even more artfully this time. A scalpel was all well and good, but there were much more interesting tools to utilize. Such as a shaving razor. He'd never killed anyone with a storebought shaving razor before. Frost filed that one away for future perusal.

He was just about the step around the corner to the hallway that his victims were huddled at the far end of, when he received a twinge at the front of his mind, not painful... not that he sought to avoid pain, it was his primary determiner for the state of his consciousness after all... but distracting. Frost paused and frowned, the twinging feeling flitting like a mosquito around the front of his mind until he at last snatched out and took hold of it with a mental effort he had not been aware he could produce. For a brief instant he saw through another's eyes, the world done over in shades of green and white, a gun barrel in the lower part of his vision as he sighted along a rifle, towards the end of a hallway. The end of the hallway that he'd just almost strolled out into. Pulling back awkwardly, Frost bared his teeth in a mixture of excitement and anticipation.

He'd never had any training in this new ability, had no idea of the limitations or strictures, but in some ways that was much an advantage as it was a handicap. He didn't know what he wasn't supposed to be able to do, until after he'd already done it. Frost's smirk grew positively bestial, and his eyes were backlit with the red hues of living blood. This could be a lot of fun...

xxxx

**Sub level 5, a few moments later**

Singh started as the loud slap of a bare foot on the metal tiled floor resounded down the hallway. There was a pregnant, deliberate pause, and then came another loud, bare footed footstep. And another. And another... each one coming closer. His finger tightened on his trigger, but he held his fire, still having found no target for his fear and ire. He strained his augmented eyes, trying to peer into the deepest recesses of the far end of the corridor, but the blackness was impenetrable. It wasn't until another ten or twenty near panicked heartbeats had passed, along with two more ringing footsteps, that Singh realized the blackness was actually getting closer as well, rolling forward with inexorable slowness, like an evil, corrupt fog bank slowly enveloping its next victim. "Holy shit... holy shit... holy shit... HOLY SHIT!" Singh snarled, and opened fire convulsively.

The blare of the automatic rfile burning through its fifty round clip on full auto mode was deafening in the enclosed corridor, starbursts of muzzle flash leaping six inches from the end of the barrel with every shot fired, the effect like a solid ball of fire roiling at the end of the rifle while it spat rounds at the rate of four per second, Singh fighting the recoil as he slowly walked the muzzle back and forth across the corridor, spraying the entire width at human waist height. The bullets, even the bright red tracers, zipped into the encroaching darkness and disappeared without a trace, as if he'd never even fired at all. Eyes starting to bug out a bit, Singh hit his secondary trigger and thumped a 40mm frag grenade down the hall, listing to the satisfying "crump" of its detonation, followed by the chorus of metallic shrieks as barbed shrapnel pinged and zinged off the corridor walls, floor and ceiling.

None of it was visible though, the bright flash of the grenade explosion completely consumed by the dark fog or whatever the hell it was. It was still getting closer too, as were the sound of the footsteps, mocking his efforts with their steady, unchanging pace. "Slap-p-p-p... slap-p-p-p... slap-p-p-p..." Each ringing report of bare flesh striking bare metal with piledriver force was a little closer than the last. Singh fumbled at his chest webbing, hands that could normally reload even in the thick of the most brutal combat without a single shiver now clumsy and jerky, and he actually dropped the magazine, the "ting" of the magazine as it bounced off the floor was somehow sad and lonely and weak, like a child on the verge of bleeding out. His body siezed by uncontrollable shivers of overwhelming fear, singh twisted around, wondering where the damn scientists had gone off to? He could use some covering fire, even if just from a tranq rifle! But he was alone. Abandoned.

"Bastards!" Singh yelled, his voice echoing oddly, as darkness began to press in on him from all sides, the diameter of the area his augmented eyes could pierce shrinking, cornering him against the wall, where he'd previously inspected the water dripping, and where some of that odd blood was splattered. Singh's back hit the wall and there was a faint "squelch". Jerking away, he looked wildly behind him and blanched, as the wall was now covered in blood and all of it was fresh and hot as it ran it thick rivulets down the wall, like it was pumping or overflowing from some gigantic resevoir. "What the hell is this? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?" Singh demanded at the top of his lungs. The slow slap of bare feet approaching, now just beyond arms reach, was his own answer. "Stay back! STAY BACK!" Singh warned, snatching out his favorite backup sidearm, a six round .44 caliber magnum revolver. He waved the chunky pistol frantically at the darkness, trying to cover all angles of approach.

"Slap-p-p-p..." The sound came from just behind him, a foot digging in for purchase just prior to leaping. Singh spun, swearing and cursing a blue streak and yanked on the pistol trigger, shattering the darkness for a moment with the throaty roar of the powerful handgun. He heard an immediate cry of agony, and smirked triumphantly. That would show the freak, you don't try and sneak up on a man with a .44 magnum! Singh's triumph lasted all of a breath or two and then... "Slap-p-p-p..." now from back the other way. Chills crawled up and down his spine, and he started to turn, with glacial slowness, knowing that his tormented was standing right behind him. Before he could complete the motion, a body lurched out of the darkness right in front of him, and before Singh could control himself, he'd fired at it again, a solid, point blank head shot! The body tumbled to its knees in front of him, hands falling away from a huge gory gut wound, and collapsed forward, what was left of its face and had splattering wetly as it hit the floor.

It was Yakoslka, Singh realized with horror, the pudgy scientist's guts blown all over creation by the double-fist sized hole in his abdomen, and then the entire right half of his head turned to pulp and bone splinters by Singh's second, reflexive shot. "You stupid bastard!" Singh snapped, overwhelmed by the enormity of his error, and trying to absolve himself of blame. "Walking up on a guy with a gun out without warning! What did you think would happen!"

"He was trusting you to protect him." A silky, young male voice replied sibilantly from behind Singh. He froze stock still, as if turned to ice, all but paralyzed by the cold cruelty and bloody madness in the new voice. What the hell kinda voice was that! Who spoke like that? What sort of freak was...

"Turn around and find out." The voice suggested, with a hint of amusement. "If you dare, that is."

"I ain't afraid of you!" Singh shouted, spinning, the gun going up to rest against the forehead of an opponent... that wasn't there. Just impenetrable darkness. "Coward! Where are you? Show yourself! Come on, you sick freak, stop hiding in the shadows!"

"You want me to show myself? Fine. I'm right here." The voice from the darkness whispered. Two glowing red spots, with purple and gold centers, opened up at Singh's head height, off to the side a little bit. Eyes. Eyes like nothing Singh had ever seen before. Like nothing he ever wanted to see again! He couldn't make out anything but the eyes, but it was enough to give him a point of aim, and he blasted his third shot right between the sinisterly glowing orbs, which blinked out, probably blasted to pieces along with most of his antagonist's face.

"Stupid motherfu..." Singh started to slump with relief, before he went stiff as a board. The eyes were back, and he could hear sniggering, the mocking laughter soon growing into a full blown, ear splitting gale of insanity inducing amusement. "GODDAMN YOU!"

"He's already tried that. It didn't stick." The voice replied, choking down its laughter with a few snorts and coughs. "The greatest abyss couldn't hold me, the fires of hell could not consume my soul. I'm sorry, its just that, for someone like you, little piglet, thinking they can kill me... well, its funny. Death holds no fears or mysteries for me. I went to his house, kicked down his door, raped his woman in his own bed and stole his own personal scythe. Death can go fuck himself, he can't touch me. And neither can you."

"Who are you! What are you!" Singh staggered backwards and tripped over Yakoslka's cooling body, landing hard on his ass, his fingers tightening on the trigger of his gun once more, sending a wild shot screaming up into the ceiling, dislodging a gout of dust and metal chips.

"I am the darkness in the human soul." The voice whispered, the words crawling like venomous insects into Singh's ears. "I am the eyes in the abyss that stare back. I was the End of All, but I have grown out of such childish fantasies, to realize my true destiny. Being dead has a way of making a guy philosophical, you see... makes him look back and realize what he should have done different. Killing everyone isn't the solution, no matter how satisfying it would be. Humanity is a blade, and that blade has grown very dull indeed. I am humanity's whetstone, and in conflict with me, humanity will regain its true edge, and will be sharp enoguh to cut through any threats to come."

"You're crazy!" Singh accused, his hands shaking so bad he couldn't even aim the gun, not even with both hands on the grip.

"I am." The voice agreed pleasantly. "I'm thankful for that boon every day. Only the insane can truly understand the sane. Only by losing your mind, can one hope to comprehend the true beauty of life and death. I used to think that I was outside humanity. Now I realize it is merely humanity that is outside me. It is my duty to guide you all to the proper path. Or, at least as many of you as survive anyway. Will you survive, Singh Song? Do you have what it takes to walk the necessary path?" The voice paused. "Do you have what it talks to walk the coldest, darkest paths, Singh Song?"

"I am a professional soldier!" Singh retorted, spittle spraying from his lips to stain his viewport. "I walk wherever I want to, and I fear no evil!"

"You must not have met the right kind of evil then, Singh Song. Let me show you the difference..." The voice murmured, as a form began to coalesce from the darkness. "You wanted to know my name, Singh Song? My name is Zacharis Frost. But please... just call me your worst nightmare..." Singh tried to scrabble away from the shadowy claws that extended from the darkness, but his back soon found the wall, still sticky with blood, and he could go no further. Singh stared with bulging eyes as the shadow claws swooped after him, feeling the liquid trickles of gore from the walls on his shoulders suddenly congeal, rimes of hoarforst spreading through the blood, darkening it, corrupting it, freezing it. Ice crystals began forming on his faceplate, and a bone deep chill settled into his body, like all the heat in the world had suddenly been drained away. "Scream for me, piglet..."

"FUCK YOU! FUCK THIS!" Singh bellowed, flipping the pistol around in his grip and shoving the barrel up under his chin. Bloodshot eyes staring wildly, back frozen to the wall by chains of icy blood, Singh yanked the trigger, desperate for peaceful oblivion. "Click" went the pistol, the hammer snapping down on the bullet to no effect. Misfire? But revolvers never misfired, they were one of the most reliable guns because of that! Frantic, Singh yanked the trigger a second time, sliding the cylinder around to his next and last bullet. "Snap-click". No deafening roar. No pain. No oblivion. Two misfires in a row... it was impossible! The handgun tumbled out of his limp fingers and fell into his lap. As soon as it struck the floor it fired, blasting out his right knee in a welter of smoking cold blood and frosted bone fragments. Singh stared down at his maimed leg in disbelief. This couldn't be happening...

"I said scream, Singh Song." Frost, or whoever he was, his shadowy claws reaching down to brush along Singh's chest. "Too scared? Let me help you." One of the claws drew back and then powered forward, punching into Singh's chest armor and spearing through like it was nothing more than thick cardboard. Singh felt an awful tugging sensation in his chest, and then the shadowy claws were holding something purple-red and quivering to his half frosted viewport. Singh recognized his own heart, ripped clean out of his chest, and opened his mouth to scream... but only blood came out. He died without making a single sound at all. It was only as the final blackness was creeping in that Singh realized that the cold and ice had all been in his imagination...

xxxx

**Sub-level 4 elevator shaft, a few minutes later**

Brandt had swarmed up the ropes with all the speed and determination desperation and fear for one's life could give, and he was hauling himself up over the lip of the landing to sub level four while Bellus was still trying to figure out how to climb the ropes at all. She got about ten feet up and felt her grip slipping. Calling out with terror and panic, she slipped quickly downward, her gloves smoking where the robe burned across her fingers, to land with a sickening snap of shattering ankle bones as her feet hit awkwardly, and she tumbled over backwards with a shriek of pain. She lay, twisted and gasping with agony, at the base of the shaft, clawing weakly at the ground in an attempt to relieve the burning pain in her feet. She cursed Singh, for opening fire with his rifle out of nowhere, the loud noise and bright flashes having sent all three scientists scurrying for the exit like startled mice, not even looking back to see what Singh was or was not shooting at.

When they'd reached the ropes, Yakoslka had turned back, apparently realizing that with his pudgy and flabby frame, there was no way he could climb the ropes by himself. He had gone back to find out what had happened to Singh, since the gunfire had stopped after a while. There had come two final bangs of gunfire shortly thereafter, which proved that someone was still alive back there, but neither Brandt nor Bellus were at all interested in waiting around to see who it was. That would be something better done with the reassuring presence of the two AUTO's between them and whatever creature had been awakened down in this pit!

"Brandt... help me!" Bellus called hoarsely, her throat tight after yelling when she broke her right ankle and twisted the other in the fall. She tugged weakly on the end of one rope. "Pull me up!"

"Screw you, Bellus! This whole situation is your fault! You go deal with your "toddler". I'm getting the hell out of here and I'm not coming back unless I have a full squad of Extended as support!" Brandt yelled down at her. He did start pulling on the ropes, but he was pulling them up and out of her... and anyone else's... reach, coiling them at the top of the landing, leaving a good thirty feet of vertical elevator shaft between him and whatever monstrosity was down there. Hopefully it would be too distracted with Bellus to think to come up after him! Served the man hating bitch right!

Bellus swore again as Brandt ducked out of view after pulling the ropes up after him, and did not return. Definitely a typical man, always out for number one, and never a thought for anyone else! She sat up and tried to get to her feet, but the pain was the worst thing she had ever felt, and she collapsed back down onto her back with a moaning shriek of mingled hate, despair and fear. She twitched around onto her side and looked down the dark passageway, as far as her helmet lights would go, which was only about ten meters. Ten thousand different horrible creatures marched at her out of the shadows of her imagination, and if she hadn't already pissed her bladder dry, she would have been doing so now. She had to fight to keep her bowels clenched, as the suit wasn't equipped to handle more solid waste, and that was the last thing she needed now, to be stewing in her own shit.

When at last the monster came striding into view, he wasn't at all what Bellus had been scaring herself half to death expecting. He was a younger man, somewhere in his middle to late twenties, clean limbed with plenty of muscles, but not so many that detracted from his fluidity and grace of motion. He had a luxurious mane of dark brown hair, slightly spiky and unkempt. His skin was taut and pale, having clearly not seen the sun in a long time, if ever. There was a lot of skin to see, he was completely naked, except for random daubs of some sort of dark fluid that sprayed and sprinkled across his rock hard body. He looked almost like one of those male models the Director sometimes kept for a few weeks as a diverting bed pet, in those times when she wanted a less intellectual sexual partner. In fact, for some reason he looked faintly familiar.

Any attempts at recognition were completely derailed by his unearthly eyes, royal purple with solid gold centers, backlit by some sort of natural red phosphoresence that made his eyes seem to glow and blaze with hellfire in the darkness. His face was quite lovely, for a man, but it was twisted into a look of bestial amusement that made her blood run cold. That was the face of an rabid animal, a predator... someone for whom all others were either food or prey for amusement. He moved with little hurry, perhaps sensing that she was helpless to run away. It was only as he got closer that she realized his body art was not crude tribal paintings, but rather the random patterns of arterial spray, from all the slaughtered soldiers he had massacred, apparently with just his bare hands! The hands in question were caked with gore from fingertips to midarm, and from the way the backs of his fingers dripped, it was very recent blood.

Bellus swallowed, her throat feeling as dry as a salt waste, as the monster-man came to a stop next to her, towering over her, giving her one hell of a fine view of his significant manly assets, before he crouched down by her head with fluid grace and brought his face down towards hers. When he at last spoke, his voice made her want to claw her ears off in panic, it seemed to contain every scrap of malice and obscenity ever produced by man. "Fancy meeting you here, little dove. Did you hurt your leg? That sort of thing happens when you drop in unprepared. Here, let me see it..." The man-beast said, before craning himself up and over her, straddling her with his body, pinning her only with the force of her own terror, as his hands probed her ankles, with surprising gentleness.

"Oh my... this is no minor injury. You've completely shattered this ankle, an internal compound fracture. It must hurt very much." The man-beast said with an audible smirk. He settled his hands around the joint in question. And then he twisted it in a ninety degree arc, hard enough to snap the bone if it wasn't already broken. Bellus went rigid and arched as she screamed in excruitiation, her eyes wide and unseeing, blood dripping down her chin from where she'd bitten her lip at the shock of pain. "Well, moving it that way didn't help." The man-beast observed lightly. He twisted the foot one hundred and eighty degrees, listening to the tendons snap and pop, and the bone shards grind against each other. He felt her on the verge of passing out, and snagged hold of her consciousness with his mind, keeping her awake and aware against her body's will. "Oh, I forgot to tell you... the only people I've ever operated on before had playdough for bones. So bear with me, I might hurt you by accident..."

Bellus tried to say something, but all she could manage was inarticulate screaming and sobbing, as he continued to toy around with her foot, until the only thing keeping it attached to her leg were a few shreds of skin and the conforming presence of her boot. Her boot was sloshing with blood, and she felt like she was going to pass out. She wished she would, come to think of it, but the blessed balm and peace of unconsciousness were forcibly denied her. "W-Why...?" She gargled, after the monster had left her foot alone for a few seconds. "Why are you t-torturing me?"

"Hm? Oh, because I want you to understand." He replied casually, almost cheerfully. "Learning is always painful, but its worth it in the end, don't you agree, my cracked bell?" He paused a few moments. "And you have a beautiful screaming voice. Not nearly as good as Pink's, of course, but then, only Pink has that kind of voice. But you're a sound for sore ears, there's no doubt about it." He sat back and looked down at her, his eyes following the curves of her body that even the bulky suit couldn't hide. "I think it may be time to switch tactics, and listen to you make a different noise for a while."

"You can't be serious!" Bellus was aghast, staring up at him, watching as the physical evidence of just how serious he was grew and hardened right in front of her eyes. "You utter..."

"Better say something good, I've been called a lot of bad names before." Frost replied jovially, his hands sliding across her environment suit, pressing down hard enough to bruise her skin even through the armored clothing. He smirked as she just turned her head away from him and bit her tongue to keep herself quiet. "Aww, not going to struggle? You're no fun."

"Just rape me and get it over with, you beast. Either way, I'm not long for the world." Bellus whispered bitterly.

"I dunno. I don't ALWAYS kill my partners after orgasm. Just usually. I might want to keep you around for a while." Frost replied fondly, his hand going between her legs and squeezing hard. "Mm, I forgot how tender human women are."

Bellus gritted her teeth, tasting blood, his touch rough in the extreme, like he wasn't even aware of his own brutal power. Or just didn't care. "Its not up to you, you idiot. Within twelve hours after you expose me to the atmosphere, I'll be dead. There's no way I could survive a transformation with my body in this shape."

"I'd say probably closer to ten." Frost shrugged. "My definition of "a while" is about that long. Though I do wonder what sort of transformation you're talking about."

"Like I'd tell the man who was torturing me, is going to rape me, and kill me, anything. Figure it out for yourself, beast!" Bellus snapped, feeling a bit of her old fire returning. The fire extinguished when she saw him grin widely.

"Okay then, my cracked bell, if you want me to do things my way, I'll do things my way." Frost's hand clenched on her groin, fingers digging through the armored cloth and tearing it away in a wide patch over her lower abdomen. His other hand came up to her faceplate, as he positioned himself atop her, pinning her now with the weight of his body. His fingers pressed against the plexiglass viewport, and after several seconds of pressure, shattered it. She bucked and gurgled as razor edged shards of plastic slashed into her face, blinding her and slashing open her cheeks and upper neck, even as he violated her in the traditional manner, his fingers continuing to press inwards through the opening where the viewport had been, to touch almost gently against her forehead. And then Frost entered her again, a far more complete violation, sinking his entire consciousness deep into hers, melding them together... and then reeling it all back in, taking the contents of her mind and memories with him, now a part of him, leaving just an empty, bleeding, vegetable husk of a woman left when he was done.

"Wooo... headrush..." Frost commented, his vision spinning for a moment as he assimilated all the stolen thoughts and memories. He would be a while digesting them, like a snake that has swallowed a board. He'd have to remember not to take so much in the future, he could feel himself sweating, and it wasn't a byproduct of physical exertion. He would also have to remember to keep his sex and his interrogations seperate, because now she was just lying there like a bleeding log, and that wasn't exciting at all! He finished up and pulled out, but she didn't even cry or sob, and that totally ruined it for him. What a downer. Frost stood up and stretched, not hardly satiated at all. He glared down at his disappointing toy and then drove his foot down entirely through her chest, crushing her ribcage and pulping her heart, lungs and upper stomach in one terrible blow. Finally she squirted, though it was blood and guts. At least it was some reaction!

Frost looked up the elevator shaft, listening, and heard the sound of electronics and thudding feet. "How many of these insects are there?" He grumbled to himself, as he set his hands against the wall and began pulling himself up, his fingertips splitting open in blossoms of dark red blood that almost instantly hardened to a leathery crust, as his fingerbones dug into the steel walls for purchase. He was up the wall in moments, moving thirty vertical feet faster than most humans could sprint thirty horizontal feet. His eyes locked in on two bulky, tracked contraptions at the far end of the hall, their twin turrets just beginning to swing in his direction as he registered on their sensors. Frost howled with delight and let himself loose, covering almost forty meters of hallway in the space of a breath or two, moving so fast that the first droplets of blood splattering from his hands reached the floor just a half second before he reached, and vaulted over, the two AUTOs.

Their turrets tried to spin back around to orient upon him, but Frost crouched by the leftmost one and got his hands between the tracks and the armor plate of its hull and lifted. The track spun crazily, ripping the skin from the backs of his fingers, but Frost only strained the harder, laughing in exultation as the glorious pain seared through him, sparks skipping from his fingerbones as the metal track tried and failed to grind them away. With a final convulsive heave, Frost flipped the entire AUTO unit over onto its back, crushing its turrets under its own weight. The second AUTO cranked its flamethrower turret around and spewed twin jets of incandescent liquid fire at the enemy, point blank. Fire splashed and splattered like a firehose directed against a solid wall, as Frost held his right hand, palm forward, right in the path of the flames, and then stepped forward, thrusting his palm forward and pressing it against the muzzles of the flamethrowers, clogging them and causing them to backfire. His hand was a melted wreck of blackened flesh and ashy muscle, but the bones themselves were just a little singed, when the flame turret imploded in on itself.

The 25mm gatling gun turret swung about and cut loose, sixty rounds per second of light anti-armor exploding shells tracking across the walls, the floor, and the overturned AUTO as it tried to walk its firepower into the laughing and nigh dancing opponent, who stayed just aead of the laserlike stream of tracers. Shrapnel and debris sprayed everywhere as the shells chewed apart anything they struck. The gun began to overheat and so it stopped to let itself cool down, activating the treads to move to a different location where it was not so easily encircled. One of the last shells it fired, through fluke of luck, actually caught Frost a bit off guard, and slammed into the left side of his chest. Flesh and blood gouted away from the fist sized impact wound, and Frost was sent sprawling backwards, skidding for almost ten meters under the kinetic force of the shot, which had struck a rib and stopped.

Laughing like a demented hyena, greatly amused by the whole situation, Frost staggered back to his feet, the gunshot wound already scabbed over and beginning to heal, his entire body suffused with billions of specially engineered nanites that used molecules from the surrounding environment to regenerate his body, just like a Gundam's self repair system. It wasn't exactly a cure all, it couldn't bring him back from brain death or total obliteration, but it could keep him on his feet through almost any sort of non-instantly fatal trauma, and he would recover in days what took most men months in a hospital to achieve. The AUTO turret opened fire on him again, but he was done playing by then, and he ducked, dodged and weaved around the spitting arc of tracer fire, a feat he had long been capable of. He reached the turret, halted the gatling gun in mid spin with one hand and then tore the weapon entirely out of the turret and tossed it away like a man pulling a weed.

The AUTO tried to run him over, but Frost leapt out of the way, and after it slammed nose first into a wall, its cumulative internal damage seemed to overwhelm it, and the construct died in a puff of acrid smoke and shower of orange sparks. Looking down at himself, marveling at his own resilience, chuckling through a mask of blood and the burnt grease of his own charred flesh, Frost twirled about and set off after the last scientist. The little bugger had a good lead, and ran as though all the devils of hell were snapping at his heels, because it took Frost, moving at a brisk trot, all the way until the garage entrance to catch up to the punk, who had collapsed onto his hands and knees, gasping for breath, obviously thinking he'd made it to safety.

"Those are some sweet skulls, don't you think?" Frost said amiably, trotting out of the darkness of the garage and standing next to the panting scientist. Running that far in a fully enclosed environmental suit was almost admirable, he had to be drowning in his own sweat by now. Ignoring the scientist for the moment, Frost strolled over to the nearest stake and stared admiringly at the skull impaled on top. "Look at those teeth, you lucky bastard. What I would give to have fangs like that!" He turned around to look down at Brandt, and did a double take. "By Pink's sweet snatch, look at that magnificent bastard!" Frost pointed excitedly at the Megahunter skull. "Now THAT is my kind of animal! I wonder how it tastes?" Frost looked down and found himself staring down the barrel of Brandt's tranq gun. "That's not even cute..."

"You monster!" Brand shouted, pumping dart after dart of highly potent knockout drugs into the aberration's side and belly. The red tufted darts sprouted like mushrooms from Frost's skin, and he looked down at the pinpricks in annoyance. He waved his right hand, the one that was blackened and charred from fingertips to down past the wrist, at the panicking scientist.

"You must be joking, right?" Frost cocked his head, looking down at the pathetic little man. He brushed away the darts, his internal healing boosted a bit by the influx of new molecules that was the drugs, none of which affected him in the slightest. "I mean, you really didn't actually think you would take me down with a dart gun, did you? Open your eyes, Brandt. Look at me."

Brandt didn't want to, but he couldn't help it. The man standing in front of him was the most terrible apparaition he could imagine, especially with the grotesquely burned hand and the gory crater in his chest, neither of which seemed to bother him in the slightest. His barrel dipped and his finger reflexively tightened on the secondary trigger, launching the taser wires square at Frost's groin. Frost's good hand snatched downward and caught the sparking wires before they could impact his manhood. "Hey now, that was almost unfriendly. I'll thank you to keep your aim upon my better armored head." Frost scolded the man, opening his mouth, sticking out his tongue, and touching the tip to the taser wires. His hair stood on end, and smoke wafted from the tip of his tongue, but that was about it. "Ahh, nothing like the taste of a few thousand volts to get the blood moving." Frost commented with a smirk, discarding the spent wires.

"Please!" Brandt begged, on his hands and knees, the useless rifle in the dirt beside him. "I have a wife! I have a daughter!"

"That's okay. I'll kill them too, I don't discriminate based on marital status or age." Frost assured him. He reached down and fastened his good hand around Brandt's neck, lifting the man off the ground so his feet were at Frost's knee level. "I'll be sure to tell them you're waiting on the other side of the abyss." Frost said, bored at last. He closed his fist until his fingers touched his palm, with what was left of Brandt's neck and spine still snugged in his grip. He tossed the flopping body off into the jungle and then peered off into the distance, as the dropship, bearing the two thoroughly frightened AUTO pilots and Dr. Muresamo, blasted off in a hurry. "That's right... run from me. Make me chase you. It makes it so much more fun. Tell them... tell them all. Tell them I'm coming. Tell them I'm back. Evil has found its way. And my wrath will make even God himself cower in terror." Frost promised, before doubling back inside. It was high time he put some clothes on. The world could wait for just a little longer.

xxxx

**JIHAD Mountain, sub level 6, June 8, C.E. 84**

The mirror shattered into a hundred pieces, Frost's fist continuing on to dig a crater in the concrete behind it. Jagged glass sliced his fist and forearm open to the bone, the same fist and forearm that had been charred black only twenty four hours previous. Blood dripped from the wounds, but almost at once congealed and even flowed back up into his arm in some cases, the nanites in his blood bonding and restructuring his blood to minimize the effects of bleeding. Frost paid no attention to the sting of the cuts or the way his blood reacted, his face was contorted in a furious snarl mixed with a wide eyed expression of horror and disbelief. He stared down at his hands and then brought them up in claws to tear bloody divots into his cheeks and the sides of his head, shaking his body back and forth as he howled and screamed in agony that had nothing to do with his self inflicted wounds.

"Get it off! Get it off me! NOOOO! AHHHGH!" Frost shrieked, collapsing to his knees. "THIS IS A PUNISHMENT WORSE THAN ANY DEATH! DAMN YOU MR. MACHINE! DAMN NOAH BORANDER! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME! How could you pervert my beautiful body like this! WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU! YOU SICK FREAK!" He pounded his fists into the floor, further shattering and grinding away the mirror shards until they were little more than dust. "He made me into an abomination against all I hold dear! This is a sacrilege against my soul!" Frost sobbed inconsolably. His fingers crept up to his face again. No... not HIS face... the Boytoy's face. That hideous visage that Pink adored so much! It made him physically ill to consider the fact that he had been reincarnated from the dead, only to come back as Boytoy's identical twin! If he wasn't already insane, this would have sent him over the deep end.

Frost dug his fingers into his cheek, scrabbling with his fingernails as dark blood welled around the puncture wounds. With a convulsive heave of his arms, he ripped eight finger tracks across his face, four from the left, four from the right, from chin to brow, all the way down to the bone. Panting for breath, Frost held up one of the last mirror shards that was of any use as a reflector, and found a small smile creeping back onto his features. It was by no means perfect, but it was better than it had been. If he had to suffer through wearing the Boytoy's face, at least he could make it a ravaged and ruined version. For a time. Frost glanced down at his right arm, watching as some of the glass cuts were already scarring over and being replaced with healthy flesh, right before his eyes. The entire forearm and hand had been turned into barbecued hamburger yesterday, and today there was not even a singe mark. "What I am? What did you do to me, Mr. Machine?" Frost wasn't sure if he was excited or distressed at his new capabilities.

"I can provide that answer." A wizened mechanical voice said suddenly. The tone was breathy and wheezy, like an old man on his last few breathes of air. Frost's head snapped up and he looked around the bathroom, finding himself alone. After disposing of the intruding pests, he had returned to the mountain to get some clothing, but had not had much success in that pursuit. It wasn't that he particularly minded going about naked, he actually rather enjoyed just skin and the gore of others, but it was very noticable, and, still suffering from the dislocation of his rebirth, the last thing he wanted to do was stand out unnessecarily. Sub level six had been greatly expanded from how he last remembered it, and so he had set off to explore the new areas. He had been disgusted to see that most of the rooms were done up like some sort of luxury hotel, all soft cushions and tasteful decor, and he'd spent most of the night redecorating to his own tastes. Some might say destruction was mindless, but he could see the art in it. The art in taking something great and ruining it, in breaking it down into its component pieces and breaking those, in turning something wonderful into something horrific. Anyone could destroy things... it took a genius like him to commit intelligent ruination.

"Before you ask, I am Charon, the caretaker computer for this Hideout." The old man's voice nattered on.

"Well, I wasn't going to ask your name, but I guess it doesn't hurt to know who I'll be ruinating next." Frost mumbled, rising back to his feet. "Charon... wasn't he the one who ferried souls from the living world to the dead world?"

"And sometimes, though very rarely, back the other way too." Charon answered. "The Creator thought it amusing and apt."

"Sounds like something that hoity-toity brat would do." Frost said with a sneer. "So? You were going to tell me what injustices that brat has inflicted upon me? You should know I'm not the most patient of beings, and even if you are a computer, I'll find a way to bring you torment if you piss me off, just you wait."

"Harming me at this point in time would be inadvisable." Charon intoned drearily. "I am the guiding intelligence behind all the various systems of the Hideout. Including the factory that is producing your Gundam. You were awoken earlier than expected, so the Kratos is still in the middle stages of production. It will be several more months before it is completed."

"Kratos is it? The titan lord of destruction? He likes his Greek mythos, Mr. Machine does. It sounds... adequate. Though it will be hard to measure up against my beloved Pulsar. Now THAT was a Gundam." Frost sighed with happiness mingled with a bit of regret. "It was the only thing that could actually kill me. Its just too bad it had to die to do it. I think I was in love with it."

"The Kratos is a third generation model of the Pulsar chassis. It is the most advanced and powerful Gundam to ever be built." Charon replied. A hidden holoprojector, a lens Frost's rampage had missed, flickered to life, and displayed the technical specs and basic looks for Frost to see. It didn't take Frost long to react

"ITS WRONG!" He bellowed furiously, all but spitting at the hovering image. "Its all wrong! Look at all those stupid guns! I hate guns! They lack soul... they lack artistry! No, no, no, no, NO! It's unacceptable! I cannot merge my soul with such a... loathsome thing! Its like something the Boytoy would pilot!"

"The Kratos was designed personally by the Creator, to surpass even his greatest masterpiece, the Brotherhood Gundam. You are not satisfied with the specs as is?" Charon seemed almost perturbed by the thought.

"What does someone like Mr. Machine know about Gundams? Gundams are more than just machines, to be a proper Gundam it must be an extension of the pilot's heart and soul! It must be part of them, fused as one, inseperable!" Frost hissed. He waved his hands through the holographic projection, trying to swat the image away. "This thing is anathema to me! It makes me sick just looking at it! I wouldn't pilot this even if it were the ONLY way to kill Pink. It doesn't mean anything if it's not done the right way! And this Gundam reeks of the wrong way!" Frost turned his back upon the projection. "Damn Mr. Machine can't do anything right..."

"The Creator foresaw such a problem." Charon said after a second or so of consideration. "Because the Kratos is still less than fifty percent complete, and no weapon systems have yet been added to the frame, leeway exists in its design. Would you care to personalize your Gundam, Kira?"

"What did you call me?" Frost spun, his voice as sharp as a blade. "You did NOT just call me that."

"It is who you are. Or more precisely, who your body is. Your body is a perfect genetic clone of the forerunner Ultimate Coordinator, Post Second Puberty, Kira Yamato. What should I address you as, if not by that name?" Charon asked.

"If you ever call me that name again, I will dismantle you to nuts and bolts, and bury you in a pile of my own shit to corrode." Frost threatened direly. "Call me Frost. Everyone does. And if you could shiver while you do it, that would be best."

"Very well. Would you care to personalize your Gundam, Frost?" Charon asked, jittering the holographic display when it said his name.

"That's more like it." Frost said, holding his hands up to the holographic display again. As he'd been somewhat expecting, control menus formed that interacted with the motions of his hands. He might not know jack about Gundams, but base technology, that Mr. Machine had down pat. "First things first... I need a scythe. And then I need a list of all the technology that brat has on tap. If the Pulsar is so outdated, I can hardly wait to see what new goodies are on the market." Frost smirked in anticipation. Something else occured to him, just before he dived into his Gundam. "Oh, and could you make me some clothing? Blood can only go so far as a fashion statement, and I believe I've exhausted this year's potential for it."

xxxx

**JIHAD Mountain, Sub level 6, the "Forbidden" technology vault, June 9, C.E. 84**

"I wonder what he's keeping hidden in here?" Frost said aloud, as he watched the meters thick armored vault door slowly revolve open, his voice barely audible over the chug and hiss of immense hydraulic systems. "Big doors usually mean big prizes."

"This is where the Creator stored the technology he was personally afraid to use." Charon replied, as it always did for any of Frost's questions, rhetorical or otherwise. "At one point in time you were stored in a place like this, for example."

"Like coming home to the womb then." Frost said with a smile, as he strolled into the heavily secured room. Almost immediately something caught his eye, the other having been carelessly torn out that morning when he was refreshing his facial wounds. If he was going to have to keep doing that every damn day, then that was going to get really annoying. But it was still better than seeing the Boytoy's face smirking back at him in every reflective surface. "And what is this beauty?" Frost breathed in awe, regarding the basketball sized sphere of absolute darkness, suspended magnetically over a pedastel in the middle of the room. The pedastel and ball were sealed off from the rest of the vault by a thick cylinder of exo-glass, the same stuff the exterior of the PLANTS were made of. Frost pressed up against it like a child at an aquarium peering at sea otters. "Mr. Abyss? Is that really you? How did Mr. Machine capture you?"

"That is the Black EDEN Nanite. It is the first nanite the Creator ever built. He considers it his greatest failure, because he cannot figure out how it operates, or how to destroy it." Charon explained.

"What does it do then?" Frost whispered reverently, still transfixed by the depthless darkness of the hovering ball.

"It absorbs all matter and energy it comes into contact with, and absorbs it into itself, adding to its size and mass. Even anti-matter is absorbed, though it does not add size or mass." Charon answered.

"So if I were to touch it with my finger, it would eat my finger and grow bigger itself?" Frost asked. "That is incredible! Mr. Abyss indeed! The darkness made manifest!"

"Your terms are unfamiliar to me." Charon complained.

"I suppose it would be hard for you to understand, having never lived and never died." Frost mused. There was a long silence, as he kept one hand on the exo-glass and stared into the infinite pit of the Black EDEN. "I was wrong, you know. When Boytoy and Pink killed me, they were doing the right thing. I needed a wakeup call, and there's nothing like being reduced to your component atoms by a thermonuclear fireball to get you to step back and reassess your priorities."

"You were wrong?" Charon sounded puzzled. "Contrition on your behalf is not within my expected conversational parameters... hold on while I update..."

"Don't bother." Frost retorted. "I may have been wrong, but I am not sorry. I was just misguided. Immature, you could say. I let my own personal desires twist my destiny. Thankfully, a good cold dose of death has got my head on straight again. Destroying humanity isn't what I should be doing. That doesn't help anyone, least of all me. I should be protecting them, not slaughtering them out of hand."

"Another response not within expected parameters. Calibration of dialogue systems will be necessary... you appear to be suffering from some sort of infection of your mind by the latent philosophy of your body... this is the first time any such genetic transfereance of morality has been observed..."

"You'e reading too much into it. Or rather, you're not understanding. I have not been corrupted by Boytoy's body or genes. In fact, what the Boytoy is doing is wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. Evil, in a way. Almsot enough to be admirable, if not for the fact that he earnestly believes he is doing good. He's not protecting them at all... he's coddling them! He takes their burdens onto himself, robbing people of their responsibility and their strength! He gives them an easy life, and its an easy life that leads to rot and corruption and eventual decay!" Frost slammed his open palm against the exo-glass for emphasis.

"It's only through trial and adversity that humanity can grow strong again. It is my job to provide those trials and that adversity. That is what I have realized. Its a big, cold, hostile universe out there, and humanity is going to need the sharpest edge it can get if it's to survive the long haul. But you don't sharpen a blade by letting it stay in its sheath and only using it to cut cheese. No, its only by using the blade to chop and cut and carve, chipping away the defective metal to leave only the strong and true behind, and then whetting the blade to regain the edge, that you end up with a knife of any quality! I am the whetstone of humanity! I will chip away the defects and sharpen them against myself again and again and again until humanity becomes an edge keen enough to defeat any challenge that should arise, now or in the future!" Frost explained and then let loose a proud chuckle.

"Protecting humanity through adversity?" Charon phrased it as a question, though it was only following its programming to act interested in Frost's conversations. "What kind of adversity do you intend?"

"The kind that truly makes humanity sit up and take notice. The threat of extermination. Holding an axe over their bared neck." Frost said, matter of factly.

"So you do intend to commit genocide then." Charon almost seemed satisfied.

"No, I'm going to make them THINK I intend to kill them all." Frost retorted sharpely. "Consider it... say I did follow through and kill all of humanity. It would be a glorious struggle, we both know that. But then what? What would I do next, when it was just me left, what would I do then, as the only sentient lifeform in the solar system! Sit around and wish I had another challenge? Dream about glories past! Sleep and wait, wait and sleep, dream until I can dream no more... do you have the slightest idea of how BORING THAT WOULD BE!" Frost hollered. "A single instant of death contained enough boredom to drive me insane, if I wasn't fortunate enough to be that way anyway! Living in a world without humanity, without a blade to strike sparks against... that would be WORSE than death!"

"It had never really occured to me, being a deathless entity." Charon answered. "Boredom does not happen to me. I can see how waiting to die might not be something you consider an optimal usage of time."

"And I would be waiting a long time. Maybe forever. I'm not sure this body, this obscene Boytoy frame of mine, can even die of something as ordinary as old age, what with all the nanological improvements that sweet little scared child Noah made, assuming I even wanted to put that to the test, which I don't!" Frost said with an honest to god shiver at the thought of such a horrible fate. "No, I need humanity just as much as humanity needs me. A whetstone has no purpose without a blade to sharpen, and a blade cannot retain its edge without a whetstone. But I can't let them know that, they have to think that I desire nothing less than the death and ruination of all of civilization. Fortunately, I already have something of a reputation along those lines, so it shouldn't be hard to give the right impression."

"Your strategy bears many similarities to that used by the Creator. He too would not bring down his full force, letting his enemies think he was trying hard to cause damage when in reality it was just idle games. It apparently backfired upon him, because his enemies grew so used to winning, their morale was unshakeable when he most needed it to be shaken."

"I think I'm rather better at this sort of thing than Noah could ever hope to be. He's just not the destroying type, he's a thinker, a planner. I am an elemental force of nature." Frost said happily. "Every battle will be life and death. Anything else is coddling them. After I've winnowed them down, when I start to hunt them like rats rather than fight them like men, that is when I'll back off. After the first little while, once I announce myself and make sure they know I mean business, they will come to me, seeking to destroy me to bring peace. As long as they keep showing up to fight, I'll keep killing them. Eventually they'll stop coming, at least for a while, while those who were too scared or too smart to fight before gather their nerve, repopulate, rebuild and emerge to give battle anew. Rinse and repeat, and I have myself an endless conflict... an endless sharpening of the blade. And there's other benefits too."

"Such as?" Charon provided the conversational filler.

"I don't intend to wear this abomination of a flesh mask forever. Though even he might not realize it, Noah has as much as gifted me with the formula for immortality, as long as I have that machine there." Frost gestured at the BIIC system mainframe. Frost brought his hands to his face... to Boytoy's face... and pressed his fingers against the wounds he'd carved this morning, which were already half healed over, spilling new blood over his hands. "It doesn't even scar." Frost complained, as the face of the loathed Yamato began reappearing once more. "Truly, being trapped in this form is a living hell. At least I can still feel the pain, if only for a moment."

"With that machine back there..." Frost continued calmly, the blood on his hands seemed to evaporate as nanites in the skin of his hands broke down the blood for raw materials. "I can reincarnate myself, assuming my mind is not destroyed and that there is a suitable body to host me. And by suitable, I mean someone worthy. Someone who can stand up to me on the field of battle. Someone who can make my blood sing! Someone very much like the Boytoy... just without all the nasty history."

"You intend to kill him then?" Charon asked, detecting a potential change in subject.

"Which him?" Frost asked, putting his back to the Black EDEN as he leaned up against the exo-glass. "Noah or Boytoy?"

"Both." Charon clarified.

"Noah's death is necessary. Boytoy's is not. In fact, I will go out of my way to not kill him, and to let him know that." Frost answered matter of factly.

"That does not match up with expected parameters. Your enmity for Kira Yamato is well documented. He was the cause of your death. Revenge should be a priority." Charon said slowly.

"And I will have it." Frost promised. "Against the Boytoy, and Loser Zala-Attha, and Fiery Zala-Attha, and Scarface, and the Blond Weeny and his chick, and most of, Pink herself. I will make them all sorry they were ever born, that their parents were ever born! But kill them? Have you not been listening all this time, Charon? Much as they would protest, they are PART of the blade... some of the hardest and sharpest bits of it actually. I am an unstoppable force, but they were the immovable objects that stopped me, more than a decade ago. How am I ever to be secure in my unstoppability again if I do not move them now?"

"So you will kill them, and get even?"

"I intend to get MORE than even." Frost smirked, and the pure evil intent in that gesture made even Charon momentarily uneasy. "They are the immovable objects, remember? Being even is a draw, and in the case of a draw, it is the defender who wins, because they did not move! I have to make them move! I have to not only defeat them, but degrade them! Make them regret ever trying to stop me at all! I have to make them see that they have been WRONG all this time!"

"How do you propose to accomplish this goal?"

"I know their weakness." Frost tapped the side of his head. The memories and knowledge of Dr. bellus were still percolating around inside, most of it discarded as useless science crap, but he'd used her knowledge to update him on as many events as possible since his death. "Their weakness is called familial love. In specific, progeny. Children. They all have children now, fucking like bunnies as they have been for the past decade I'm almost surprised they haven't bred more than they have. Boytoy and Pink would collectively spit in my face even if I was holding their throats in either hand, completely at my mercy. They aren't afraid to die by my hand if it means sticking up for their ideals. That's the kind of people they and their friends are. That's why they are coddlers, not protectors... they are willing to sacrifice themselves for others beyond all reason, and aren't willing to sacrifice others in turn, even when it is in their own best interest. Taking the responsibility of life and death from others is just wrong. And I'm going to show them that by taking that responsibility from them in the most personal way possible. Two wrongs to make a right. I'm going to cause them such pain their very souls will twist and wither in agony."

"Slaying their children will certainly cause them great harm." Charon allowed.

"Kill them? That's what the old me, the immature me, would do. Killing their children is what they'd EXPECT me to do. It wouldn't make them see themselves as wrong, all it would do is convince them they are right to stand against me, to sacrifice themselves in the memory of their children. No, I'm not going to kill them. I'm going to take them and make them mine! I am going to give their children the responsibility for their own lives and deaths. I am going, my dear ferryman, to make them into burgeoning unstoppable forces themselves. Only by seeing the end result of that, confronting their own flesh and blood with their ideals in conflict... only then will they realize their defeat, and the wrongess of their previous path!"

"Abducting the children will not be easy. Their parents will doubtless be watchful, and they may have other protection as well." Charon pointed out. "They won't let you just stroll in there and take them."

"Won't they?" Frost said chillingly. "Have dear Uncle Kira come babysit for a little bit, or drop by to say hello, or take the little ones out for an ice cream cone? That's exactly the sort of thing the Boytoy would do. Save for Pink and the Boytoy themselves, I imagine I'll shake hands with the parents before I steal their children out from under their noses, and have a bit of fun with the parents themselves. And the best part is, they're going to blame the Boytoy, at least at first. Eventually of course I will reveal who I am... I can't wait to see their faces... but them thinking Boytoy has betrayed them is its own source of amusement."

"It sounds like you will be quite occupied while you wait for the Kratos to finish building." Charon observed. "Do you wish for me to provide you with a transport craft capable of steathily breaching Orb's Glasshouse?"

"No, I'd like to do things the old fashioned way. I have a lot to learn about the way the world has changed during my time resting in the abyss. A little overland trek is just the thing to get back into the swing of things. As for the ocean, we'll, I'll cross that puddle when I get to it. If I let a measly body of water stand in my way, I'm hardly qualified to be a whetstone of any sort!"

"As you wish. And the technologies of this vault?" Charon asked.

"Withdraw the exo-glass around Mr. Abyss." Frost ordered. He almost expected an arguement, but apparently Noah had expected even the most apparently irrational of commands and programmed them in to his computer-janitor. With a hiss of pressurzing air, the exo-glass slid upwards into the ceiling, leaving only a thin magnetic field between the nanite and the surrounding air. Frost stepped up to the pedastal and put his hands to either side of the black ball, letting small fragments of skin and meat soak away into the hovering ball. He leaned his head forward and brought his forehead up just short of the surface, which seemed to quiver in anticipation.

"You should be warned, even a slight touch of the Black EDEN nanite could lead to catastrophic injury, even for someone with over sixty percent of their bone structure infused with Quantum Crystal matrices." Charon piped up in a louder than normal voice.

"Consider me warned then. And shut up, I'm talking to Mr. Abyss!" Frost snapped irritably.

"You are communicating with the Nanite?" Charon sounded surprised. "That's impossible! Even the Creator could not alter the Black EDEN's programming after initial creation!"

"For someone as smart as Noah is supposed to be, he lacks true brilliance. He let his fear and frustration get between him and his greatest work." Frost sneered, his fingers and hands slowly working, like he was adjusting infestismially small knobs and dials. "They say there is a line between Genius and Insanity. The controls for Mr. Abyss here lie pretty deep on the Insanity side of that line, I'm afraid." Frost's hands twitched a few more times, and beads of sweat appeared on his face... for all his calm demeanor, this was far from easy, and it wasn't like he was following printed instructions either, but rather going entirely by feel. His telekinesis was nothing to shout about, but not much was required for this task. It was truly funny, how Noah had had this awesome technology sitting in his back room all this time, and he was too afraid to use it!

At length, some hours later, Frost opened his eyes... the clawed out one having regrown while his lids were shut... and stepped back from the pedastel, wiping rivers of sweat from his brow with the back of one arm. "Mr. Abyss is quite the stubborn bastard. I like him. But once I showed him who was boss, he got in line quickly enough." Frost reached out and picked up the Black EDEN nanite like it was just a regular ball.

"How did you do that?" Charon blurted, almost sounding amazed.

"Well, the doctor in my head..." Frost tapped his temple again. "Would use terms like "quantum state changes" and "matter transferance ratios", but I've never really cared for scientists or their terms. I'll be purging her shortly. But anyway, my good friend Mr. Abyss here has three modes of existence. Eat mode, which he was just in, Sleep mode, which he's in now, and finally Transport mode, which is like Eat mode, except instead of adding to his own mass, he sends whatever touches him away to a distant spot, instantly." Frost peered at the black ball. "How far away did you say again, Mr. Abyss?" Frost waited a few moments and then let out a whistle. "THAT far huh? That's impressive."

"Directives indicate I must ask you how far the assumed quantum teleportation of the Black EDEN goes." Charon said woodenly.

"Several Light-Days, though Mr. Abyss says that's nothing, he can send stuff much farther than that if he gets a bit bigger. Apparently the larger his mass, the more "quantum points" he can access, and the greater probability that they will be very, very far away."

"Again, I must ask how you achieved this reprogramming. Even the Creator could not figure this out, and yet you have solved it in less than a day..."

"I doubt I could write you a step by step procedure. And even if I did, it would probably corrupt your memory servers. I just have an affinity for dangerous and deadly things, and Mr. Abyss is quite the most dangerous thing I have yet encountered. Besides myself." Frost shrugged and let the black ball tumble from his grip, slamming into the floor with a heavy thump. "Can't think of many ways to use him right now, but I'm sure something will come to me eventually. Something usually does." Frost headed for the vault exit without a single look back. "I guess I'm outta here then, Charon. Don't let the place burn down unless I start the fire."

"Be safe, Frost. The purity of the world depends upon you." Charon answered.

"Purity huh?" Frost chuckled. "Even evil can pure, you may have something with that one, Charon." He paused one more time. "What's the weather like out there?"

"Bright and sunny, high humidity and close to ninety degrees fahrenheit. Why do you ask?"

"Because the world has just entered an ice age. The first Frost is on its way..."

xxxx

**Continued in Reclamation War**


End file.
